New York Times reporter sues Meta, Anthropic, Google and other companies for AI training

New York Times reporter, John Carreyrou, is suing tech giants and AI startups like Google, Anthropic, Meta platforms, xAI, and others for using copyrighted content for training AI models, as per a Reuters report. Carreyrou is famously known for exposing Silicon Valley blood-testing startup Theranos, and his novel Bad Blood highlights the investigation. 

The New York Times reporter, with 5 other writers, has filed the lawsuit in California federal court, accusing that “LLM companies should not be able to so easily extinguish thousands upon thousands of high-value claims at bargain-basement rates.” 

While other companies have been part of similar lawsuits, it’s the first time for Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, to be formally accused. The writers have filed the lawsuits individually instead of combining them into one large class-action case. This will allow defendants to negotiate with writers and resolve the claims.

Back in August, Anthropic settled a major copyright lawsuit by agreeing to pay $1.5 billion to a group of authors who accused the company of using millions of copyrighted books without permission. Although the class member received “a tiny fraction (just 2%) of the Copyright Act’s statutory ceiling of $150,000.”

Carreyrou is also criticising Anthropic, calling it an “original sin,” and saying that the $1.5 billion settlement was insufficient. He also said that the company should face greater consequences due to its methods for training its AI models. Now, we will have to wait until the court responds and see whether further legal action or stricter regulations follow.