People and companies spend significant time in creating unique innovations. Intellectual property laws can protect some what they have created and prevent others from using it without giving the creators and owners their due.
In recent years, other forms of innovation have put intellectual property at risk: namely artificial intelligence. Recently, AI models were analyzed to determine how extensive copyright infringement has become.
AI is using copyrighted text to a worrying degree
Patronus AI, a company that evaluates the technology behind AI, assessed how much copyrighted material was being used without attribution by various AI entities. With its CopyrightCatcher tool, the company looked at four top AI models. Researchers found that all models were using some form of copyrighted material. After the researchers put in prompts, the most prominent AI software, OpenAI’s GPT-4, returned copyrighted material nearly 50% of the time.
Researchers relied on books that had U.S. copyrights, selecting several recognizable authors and bestsellers. GPT-4 was the worst violator of copyrights, but all versions were replicating copyrighted material to some degree.
This is occurring as AI is in something of its infancy with the extent of how it will be used and what to means to copyright holders unknown. At the same time, the New York Times is embroiled in a lawsuit with OpenAI over copyrighted material being used to train AI systems.
People who write, take photos, craft code, take photographs and do anything else that involves innovation and creation are vulnerable to their copyrights being violated by AI. As the technology grows, it is difficult to know how far it will go and what it means to intellectual property of all kinds.
Being vigilant about intellectual property is key
While AI is a relatively new threat to intellectual property, there are always concerns about a person or company’s work being stolen. To make sure that there is adequate protection, it is imperative to be aware of how to gain a copyright, recognize when infringement has taken place, know what options are available to put a stop to it and be sufficiently compensated. This is true for AI and any other area in which infringement can and does take place.