Explosive Claim: NYT Accuses OpenAI of Hiding Evidence in Landmark AI Copyright Trial!

The New York Times and The Daily News have intensified their two-year-old lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the artificial intelligence firm has been dishonest about its capacity to search customer chat log data and training datasets for copyrighted works. This latest development marks an escalation in the legal battle, where OpenAI stands accused of violating copyright law by training its generative AI models on the Times’ content and subsequently reproducing that journalism in user outputs.

Throughout the duration of the case, OpenAI has consistently maintained that it lacked the technical capability to search its own extensive training corpus. Furthermore, the company argued that searching or producing its vast collection of ChatGPT conversations would impose significant technical burdens and raise critical user-privacy concerns, necessitating the retrieval, processing, and de-identification of logs.

However, an April court-ordered deposition introduced a new dimension to the proceedings. Vinnie Monaco, an OpenAI data privacy engineer, allegedly disclosed under oath that OpenAI had already conducted internal searches and evaluations of its training corpus specifically to identify copyrighted journalism works. Monaco's testimony further revealed that, even prior to the NYT filing its lawsuit, OpenAI had already accumulated a database comprising approximately 78 million de-identified ChatGPT conversations. This database was reportedly being used internally by the company to assess the extent of its infringement on others’ works.

Adding to these revelations, it was also alleged that OpenAI implemented a “Bloom” filter as part of a suite of tools called “Project Giraffe.” This system was designed to detect and record instances of regurgitation in AI outputs, and it was reportedly put into operation shortly after the lawsuit was initiated. These findings are considered particularly significant by the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs have also leveled serious accusations regarding the discovery process. They originally requested a sample of 120 million chat logs, which OpenAI negotiated down to 20 million. When OpenAI finally submitted this sample to the courts last December, the plaintiffs claimed it contained so many redactions that it was rendered “unusable,” a sentiment echoed by the court. Moreover, the NYT and The Daily News assert that OpenAI deleted billions of ChatGPT outputs after the lawsuit was filed, in direct violation of a court-ordered preservation order, and substituted millions of logs within the requested sample. “If OpenAI genuinely believed that copying our clients’ journalism was fair and legal, it wouldn’t have hid the truth about having done it,” stated Ian B. Crosby, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, highlighting the perception that OpenAI made it unnecessarily difficult to obtain information it had already collected.

Consequently, the New York Times and The Daily News are now petitioning the judge to sanction OpenAI for allegedly withholding evidence and obstructing the discovery process. They are requesting that the court prevent OpenAI from using the 20 million chat log sample as evidence, citing its unreliability. Furthermore, they ask the court to accept as fact that ChatGPT logs would have demonstrated substantial regurgitation and grounding of the plaintiffs’ content, to bar OpenAI from arguing that its provided chat logs do not show substantial regurgitation, and to compel OpenAI to cover the legal fees incurred while pursuing this evidence.

In response to these grave allegations, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri issued a statement denying the claims. Pusateri accused the Times of attempting to access private user conversations as their case weakens, stating, “As the Times’ case weakens and they’ve been forced to drop claims against us, they’re persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who have nothing to do with this case, including by making these blatantly false allegations.” He affirmed that OpenAI would continue to defend its users’ privacy and the “long-established principles of fair use.”