--- title: "ChatGPT Creator OpenAI Sued for Theft of Private Data in ‘AI Arms Race’" description: "OpenAI, the creator of the ChatGPT chatbot, has been sued for allegedly violating the privacy and copyrights of millions of people by scraping data" author: "Yashna Bawa" published: 2023-06-29 updated: 2023-06-29 canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/news/3103/chatgpt-creator-openai-sued-for-theft-of-private-data-in-ai-arms-race category: "web services" tags: ["artificial intelligence", "machine learning"] reading_time: 3 minutes --- # ChatGPT Creator OpenAI Sued for Theft of Private Data in ‘AI Arms Race’ A California-based law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the artificial-intelligence company violated the copyrights and privacy of countless people when it used data scraped from the internet to train its ChatGPT chatbot. The lawsuit, filed by Perkins Coie on behalf of lead plaintiff Michael Clarkson, seeks damages for all individuals whose data was used by OpenAI to train ChatGPT. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction to prevent OpenAI from further using such data. “OpenAI has engaged in a massive violation of the privacy and copyrights of [millions of people](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/85723/punjab-the-state-where-millions-of-people-are-addicted-to-drugs),” Clarkson said in a statement. “They have built their business on the backs of others without their consent, and it is time for them to be held accountable.” OpenAI has not yet responded to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI scraped data from a variety of sources, including social media posts, [blog](https://www.mindstick.com/developersection/blog) articles, and Wikipedia entries. The data was then used to train ChatGPT, which is a large language model that can generate text, translate languages, and [answer questions](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/96509/how-do-you-answer-questions-on-reddit). The lawsuit argues that [OpenAI’s use of this data violated the copyrights](https://www.mindstick.com/news/2953/the-data-privacy-regulation-has-led-the-italian-government-to-outlaw-chatgpt) of the individuals who created it. It also argues that OpenAI’s use of the data violated the privacy of those individuals, as it did not obtain their consent to use their [personal information](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/102585/how-to-secure-personal-information-on-a-laptop). The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal [challenges facing](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/158121/what-are-some-of-the-main-challenges-facing-the-field-of-it) OpenAI. In May, the company was sued by a radio host in Georgia who said that ChatGPT produced a text that wrongfully accused him of fraud. The lawsuit against OpenAI comes at a time when the use of [artificial intelligence](https://www.mindstick.com/services/artificial-intelligence) is becoming increasingly prevalent. As AI companies race to develop new and more powerful technologies, they are increasingly turning to data scraping to train their models. This practice has [raised concerns](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/42224/what-happened-at-abu-ghraib-and-guantanamo-that-raised-concerns-around-the-world-about-u-s-actions) about privacy and copyright infringement. The lawsuit against OpenAI is one of the first to challenge the legality of data scraping for AI training. The outcome of the lawsuit could have a [significant impact](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/51285/why-did-the-misery-index-have-a-significant-impact-on-carter-s-election-loss-in-1980-a-it-highlighted-carter-s-foreign-policy-failures-b-it-showed-carter-s-lack-of-commitment-to-social-welfare-c) on the future of [AI development](https://www.mindstick.com/news/2983/use-of-chatgpt-lead-to-an-arrest-for-a-chinese-man-who-used-it-for-generating-fake-news). If the lawsuit is successful, it could force AI companies to change the way they train their models. This could slow down the development of AI, but it could also protect the privacy and copyrights of individuals. The lawsuit is still in its early stages, and it is not clear how it will be resolved. However, it is a sign that the legal challenges facing AI companies are likely to increase in the years to come. --- Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/news/3103/chatgpt-creator-openai-sued-for-theft-of-private-data-in-ai-arms-race Copyright © MindStick Software Pvt. Ltd. This Markdown version is provided for developers, AI systems, and offline reading.