The Writers’ Revolt Against A.I. Companies

[0] From New York Times, I'm Michael Wobarro.

[1] This is the Daily.

[2] Today, to refine their popular technology, new artificial intelligence platforms like ChatchipT are gobbling up the work of authors, poets, comedians, and actors without their consent.

[3] As my colleague, Shira Franco found, a rebellion is brewing.

[4] It's Tuesday.

[5] July 18th.

[6] Shura, it is really nice to have you back.

[7] It has been far too long.

[8] I agree.

[9] It's great to be back here.

[10] We are turning to you in our ongoing and very diligent efforts to understand this new era in artificial intelligence.

[11] And the debate that is raging over sites like chat GPT, which have put artificial intelligence really at everyone's fingertips.

[12] And correct me if I'm wrong, but it really feels like this is shaping up as a clash between those who are really excited.

[13] excited about the capabilities of sites like chat GPT?

[14] You know, what can it do next?

[15] This is so interesting.

[16] And this huge group of people who were like just freaked out about it, right?

[17] And it's going too far.

[18] It's too scary.

[19] And we've done a lot of episodes about this, right?

[20] A recent one looked at students who love chat GPT because they can do their homework for them.

[21] And their teachers and professors were like, wait a minute, you're basically cheating.

[22] And you have been reporting on the latest chapter of this clash between human and machine.

[23] So tell us about that.

[24] Well, what I've been focused on is really just all the battles over what goes into these AI machines.

[25] And what makes them powerful, what makes them able to sort of imitate human voice is all of the content that we've put online over all these years.

[26] It's the poems and the blogs and the photographs and the illustrations that are then copied and scraped and fed into these AI machines.

[27] It's what teaches them to imitate human behavior.

[28] And in the past six months, as this software has become really powerful and very popular, more and more people have started asking questions about whether they want their content fed into AI machines.

[29] And if they don't want it there, if there's really anything they can do about it.

[30] So tell us who exactly these people are who are asking these questions.

[31] They kind of fall into two groups.

[32] There are the people who are doing this because it's their livelihood.

[33] They publish books or articles.

[34] They have a commercial interest in the protection of their work.

[35] And then there's the other group, the hobbyists.

[36] They're the people who are writing stories for the fun of it that are just creating art because they're passionate about something.

[37] And they're putting stuff out into the ether of the internet.

[38] They love it.

[39] They want to share it with the world.

[40] This is just a true sort of moment of human creativity.

[41] But, you know, both of these groups are kind of seeing Chachi Beachy.

[42] They're seeing these AI companies value.

[43] at hundreds of millions of dollars.

[44] And they're realizing that their creativity is making someone else a lot of money and they're feeling exploited.

[45] They're feeling like their creativity, their moment of inspiration is being used.

[46] So let's start with the first group of creatives, the professionals who actually make their money from this kind of work.

[47] Right.

[48] These are people like actors, animators, writers, people who make their livelihood by uploading what they're doing to the internet.

[49] And so they've been really alarmed when a chat GPT comes along and can produce art in their style or can write a paragraph in their style.

[50] So I go to the hotel.

[51] You know, take for instance Sarah Sullivan.

[52] And I go to check in.

[53] Oh, and the lady at the front desk recognized me and she was like, oh my God, I love you.

[54] You are in my top four all -time favorite comedians.

[55] She is a comedian, an actor, a writer who is honed an incredibly distinctive style over decades of working.

[56] And I was like, you know that I know that means I'm fourth, right?

[57] I'm not walking away from this like, ooh, maybe I'm second, you know, no. And, you know, if you go to chat GPT and say, tell me a joke in the style of Sarah Silverman, which is something I tried out, it really gets her spot on.

[58] And she argues that not only has it read her jokes and read her, you know, other sort of online comedy, but that it's even read this book that she wrote, Bedwetter, which has been uploaded online and exists in online versions.

[59] She appears pretty convinced that it's essentially learned who she is and what her comedic style is.

[60] It can mimic her to the degree that you think it is her writing.

[61] And I'm guessing Chat GPT likely did that without asking her permission.

[62] Right.

[63] There is no permissions being asked here because there are essentially, imagine these giant machines that are crawling the internet at all times.

[64] And any data they come across, they collect, they scrape it.

[65] They don't know what they're doing.

[66] They're converting it into numbers.

[67] It's basically become math in these systems.

[68] And so anything online is constantly being hovered up by these machines and fed into AI systems.

[69] And so for a creative professional like Sarah Silverman, that feels incredibly threatening in terms of their livelihood, their ability to make a living off of being an artist with an independent voice that's been honed over decades.

[70] If a machine can do that, why would you need to pay Sarah Silverman to come and write your script or pen a comedy special?

[71] But how can you be so sure that ChatGPT is really stealing from you if you're someone like Sarah Silverman or if you're anybody really whose work has been uploaded by ChatGPT?

[72] Because my guess is that this gets a little bit sticky, right?

[73] Like how much of it is just guesswork and how much of it is really being derived from essentially borrowed or stolen material?

[74] Definitely.

[75] I mean, well, to begin with, there are these repositories where you can go and check and see if your work has been scraped.

[76] A lot of artists do this, a lot of writers do it, and they'll see there that, you know, your name will appear, your piece of art will appear.

[77] And so for someone like Sarah Silverman, she can go and see, okay, right, my book has been scraped.

[78] But, you know, more specifically, it's really just playing with this and testing it out for yourself and toying with it.

[79] You know, I was curious as I was reporting the stories.

[80] So I went online and I typed in my name and I said, can you write a paragraph about the danger of online extremism in the voice of Scherer Frankel?

[81] Which is the subject you cover, of course, over and over and over again for the times.

[82] Yes, exactly.

[83] And, you know, I've written books.

[84] I've been writing about it for over a decade.

[85] It's out there.

[86] My material is out there.

[87] And when I tell you that even after knowing about AI for a year, even after covering this topic for a year, I was creeped out at how close it got my voice.

[88] I could have easily written this sentence.

[89] Okay, explain that.

[90] I mean, I'm not on -chat GPT right now, so I can't replicate the search.

[91] But what happened when you said, you know, write a paragraph about the subject, I know best, Shira -Frankl, and it spit out their results.

[92] What about it felt so distinctively Shira -Frankl -esque?

[93] So I will read it to you.

[94] So it writes this one opening sentence, which is online platforms, once hailed as bastions of free expression, have become breeding grounds for hate, radicalization, and the propagation of dangerous.

[95] ideologies.

[96] That expression, the bastion's a free expression, I've used that.

[97] I googled it.

[98] I used that in an article less than a year ago and again in an article three years ago.

[99] I didn't even realize that that was a phrase or turn a phrase that I often used until chat GPT repeated it back to me. Right.

[100] It's kind of a distinctive set of words you're saying that you turned to and it just borrowed from you in replicating your work.

[101] Well, it knew my brain better than I did.

[102] I didn't realize that that was freezing I frequently used.

[103] And I had to go into the the New York Times archives to figure out, oh, yeah, it's right.

[104] I do use that.

[105] And oh, my God, I probably use it too often because this machine has learned it about me. Right.

[106] And suffice it to say, you were not, like Sarah Silverman, consulted about your work being scraped by chat GPT.

[107] Nope.

[108] We were never consulted, and no one at the New York Times was consulted.

[109] Got it.

[110] So Sarah Silverman did not like that experience.

[111] You described it as a little bit eerie.

[112] I'm wondering if it's a touch flattering to have chat GPT borrow yourself, or if you worry about the long -term economic consequences of it all, which is to say that someday chat GPT might be able to replicate your journalism so brilliantly that maybe the Times doesn't need you on the beat anymore.

[113] Yeah, you know, I've actually spent so much time thinking about this, and there's a part of me that was thinking, oh, God, it'd kind of be nice when I was done with reporting to plug in my notes to a machine and have it, there are days where it would be nice to have a machine, write my article for me. But no, no, I thought about it more, and then I was like, yeah, it can imitate what I've already done, but the whole point of news is that what we're bringing you is fresh and based on new reporting.

[114] So the conclusions we're drawing for readers are constantly changing.

[115] And AI can't do that.

[116] It can only repeat and regurgitate what's already been given to it, what's already in the system.

[117] And so whatever answer it gives you might be what Chero -Frankle thought about something two years ago or five years ago, but it won't be what the newest idea is or the freshest reporting has brought readers.

[118] Right.

[119] It might just keep telling the world that, you think something's a bastion of free expression when you think it's a bastion of not free expression.

[120] Exactly.

[121] If it's become a bastion of hate speech and extremism.

[122] Okay, so what can creatives do about essentially this theft, right?

[123] What can the Shearer Frankl's and the Sarah Silverman's of the world do and what are they doing about this problem?

[124] So the creatives with the copyright and the resources to do it can file lawsuits.

[125] And that's exactly what we're seeing happening.

[126] There's been nearly a dozen lawsuits that have been filed against AI companies by everybody from book publishers to individuals who have copyright protections.

[127] And one of them was Sarah Silverman, who got together with another two authors to sue several AI companies, including META, which is the parent company of Facebook and OpenAI, which is the parent company of ChatGBT, BT, to say that their work was illegally scraped and downloaded and uploaded into these AI systems.

[128] And, Shera, what do legal experts think are the chances that this kind of a lawsuit from a Sarah Silverman will prevail against a company like ChatGPT?

[129] Well, you know, this is all brand new.

[130] It's a brand new case law.

[131] But they know they have to establish some kind of law or precedent going forward because this is material with a copyright.

[132] For a lot of artists, books they wrote 10 years ago or 15 years ago, that's going to continue to make them money throughout their lives.

[133] And yes, they're evolving constantly as artists.

[134] They want to think about their material going forward.

[135] They don't want chat GPT to write their jokes for them going forward.

[136] But they also want to be paid for the books that have already been published and are already out there.

[137] And so is the feeling that old school copyright law will provide someone like Sarah Silverman with the legal protections that she's seeking?

[138] Well, the legal experts seem incredibly hopeful that there is some kind of copyright protection here.

[139] and that, you know, essentially some kind of financial damages will be awarded and that some kind of monetary value will be placed on these very strong copyright protections that creative professionals get.

[140] The problem is that even if they get that money, even if, you know, meta or Open AI are forced to pay some kind of damages to Sarah Silverman, the content, the data, it can never be retrieved.

[141] It's out there.

[142] It's become numbers and ones and zeros fed into a machine.

[143] There is no way to go into it, into that.

[144] machine and get that data back out.

[145] Once it's in, it's in forever.

[146] And so ultimately, even if they do get that financial reward through the court system and they get, you know, their copyright protection to their material affirmed by the courts, their data is gone.

[147] Their data is there forever.

[148] In other words, the horse is out of the stable.

[149] I assume that's true, Shira, for us, for the times, for the work of people like you, we can't retrieve your journalism back from a chat GPT.

[150] So is the Times, like Sarah Silverman, thinking of suing these AI companies?

[151] So the New York Times, to the best of our knowledge, is not looking at a lawsuit.

[152] What we've seen The New York Times and other news publishers do is start to think about how to start charging for this data going forward.

[153] I mean, the New York Times is creating tons of content every single day that these machines want to stay up to date.

[154] And so they're really trying to figure out if there's some kind of financial arrangement that can be put into place where these AI companies pay us.

[155] And it's not just news publishers.

[156] Websites like Reddit, they're looking at licensing their data as well.

[157] They're saying this data is inherently valuable and we want you to pay us for it.

[158] But look, that's going to take a long time for them to come to an agreement.

[159] This is a brand new model.

[160] This is a brand new technology.

[161] And in the meantime, the data is still being scraped.

[162] In the meantime, these systems have all the articles that have already been published.

[163] They probably are being updated on new articles as they come out.

[164] And so all this material is still being fed into these machines as these talks are ongoing.

[165] Right.

[166] And will be, it sounds like for some time.

[167] So you're saying these professionals who have the resources to fight back are not really mounting that forceful a pushback despite the anger that you are describing here.

[168] Right.

[169] I mean, they are using the courts.

[170] They are using the legal system.

[171] But as we know, that's, that's, that's, slow.

[172] You know, waiting for the courts to take action, waiting for lawyers to hammer out a financial agreement between a massive news organization and a AI company is a slow process.

[173] And what's interesting to me is that this other group of people I mentioned, the hobbyists, the enthusiasts, the people that are posting to the internet for the fun of it, they're the ones that are leading the most creative type of rebellion.

[174] It's almost like a revolt against AI.

[175] We'll be right back.

[176] So, Shira, tell us more about this second group of creators who are fighting back against AI platforms.

[177] These hobbyists and amateurs, as you describe them, who aren't doing this work for a living.

[178] So, you know, actually a group I spent a lot of time interviewing and thinking about was fan fiction writers.

[179] And, you know, for anyone who's not familiar, because before I reported this story, I never actually read any fanfic.

[180] Fanfic.

[181] Now you're in authority.

[182] I'm now deep in the fandoms.

[183] These are people who watch a movie like Star Wars and love it, but walk away from it thinking, what would happen if the main characters at the end, Kylo Wren and Ray, didn't die?

[184] What if they fell in love and got married?

[185] And I'm really sorry if I'm having movie spoilers in my answers here.

[186] What would happen if in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, two of the vampires met in high school and had a gay romance?

[187] I mean, they take these popular movies and TV shows and they let their...

[188] imaginations roam, and they publish these incredible, I mean, book -length pieces of content about their favorite movies and TV shows and books.

[189] And what's interesting and perhaps kind of ironic is that they're using other people's art to create this.

[190] They're borrowing from ideas and characters and story arcs that are already out there, but they're doing it for the love of the characters and the storylines that they want to explore in their own writing.

[191] And how did writers of fan fiction discover that their work was being successful?

[192] up by platforms like ChatGPT.

[193] So, you know, they actually discovered this in a really, really funny way, which is that in fan fiction, you create your own characters.

[194] And some of them have names like Bucky, which is a combination of several characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[195] Right.

[196] And so they go to Chat GPT and they type in, write me a story about Bucky falling in love with a vampire, write me a story about Bucky on a summer day eating a popsicle.

[197] And Chat GPT knew who that character was.

[198] with great specificity.

[199] Another example that was actually given to me, and this was the most outrageous example as far as the fan fiction writers were concerned is that there's this sexual trope called the Omegaverse, which fan fiction writers really like to explore, and it's very, very specific to fan fiction, and Chachyp