Alec Radford, a notable figure in the development of OpenAI’s technologies, has received a subpoena in relation to a copyright lawsuit against the company. This information was disclosed through a court document filed on a Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Background on Alec Radford
Radford, who departed from OpenAI in late 2022 to focus on independent research, was instrumental as the lead author of the pivotal research paper detailing generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs). These models form the backbone of OpenAI’s leading products, particularly the chatbot platform, ChatGPT.
Details of the Copyright Case
The lawsuit, titled “re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation,” has been initiated by authors including Paul Tremblay, Sarah Silverman, and Michael Chabon. They accuse OpenAI of violating their copyrights by incorporating their works in the training of its AI models. Furthermore, the plaintiffs contend that ChatGPT has directly infringed on their original works by quoting them extensively without proper attribution.
Judicial Proceedings
In previous court rulings, two claims from the plaintiffs against OpenAI were dismissed, but the court allowed the direct infringement claim to progress. OpenAI argues that its use of copyrighted materials for training falls under the protections of fair use.
Additional Legal Challenges
Radford is not the sole high-profile individual being pursued in this case. Attorneys for the plaintiffs are also seeking depositions from Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, former OpenAI employees who founded another AI company, Anthropic. They have contested these efforts, claiming they are excessively demanding.
A U.S. magistrate judge recently mandated that Amodei must comply with extensive questioning regarding his contributions to OpenAI’s projects, specifically in connection with two copyright cases, including one instigated by the Authors Guild.