OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has been sued for violating privacy laws in the 'AI Arms Race'

In a complaint seeking class action status, a group of anonymous people claimed that ChatGPT inventor OpenAI is taking "vast amounts" of personal information to train its artificial intelligence models in a careless pursuit of profits.

According to the 157-page complaint, OpenAI breached privacy rules by surreptitiously harvesting 300 billion words from the internet, including "books, articles, websites, and posts — including personal information obtained without consent." It uses broad rhetoric, accusing the firm of threatening "civilizational collapse."

The Clarkson Law Firm claimed in the action, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, that the plaintiffs are defined by their vocations or hobbies but named solely by initials out of fear of retaliation. They estimate that $3 billion (approximately Rs. 24,611 crore) in potential damages are due to a group of damaged persons numbering in the millions.

Taking a new approach: Theft

"Despite established protocols for the purchase and use of personal information, Defendants took a different approach: theft," the lawsuit claims. The company's popular chatbot programme ChatGPT and other products are trained on private information obtained without the consent of hundreds of millions of internet users, including children, according to the plaintiffs.

Microsoft was also listed as a defendant, with intentions to spend an estimated $13 billion (approximately Rs. 1,06,651 crore) in OpenAI.

An OpenAI spokesman did not immediately reply to a phone or email seeking comment on the case. A Microsoft spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email.

ChatGPT and other generative AI applications have attracted significant interest in the technology's promise, but they have also ignited a firestorm of concern about privacy and disinformation. The possibilities and hazards of AI are being debated in Congress, as the products raise concerns about the future of creative industries and the capacity to differentiate reality from fiction. In remarks on Capitol Hill last month, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman urged for AI regulation. However, the complaint focuses on how OpenAI obtained the guts of its products in the first place.

Scraping in secret

The action accuses OpenAI, which is at the vanguard of the booming business, of operating a massive covert web-scraping operation, in violation of terms of service agreements and state and federal privacy and property laws. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal anti-hacking act that has previously been used in scraping disputes, is one of the statutes referenced. In addition, the lawsuit alleges invasion of privacy, theft, unjust enrichment, and breaches of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

The plaintiffs argue that OpenAI improperly collects private information from users' interactions with its products and services that have integrated ChatGPT in order to win a "AI arms race." According to the suit, such linkages enable the firm to collect picture and location data from Snapchat, music choices from Spotify, financial information from Stripe, and private chats from Slack and Microsoft Teams.

In order to maximise profits, OpenAI abandoned its founding principle of improving artificial intelligence "in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole," the plaintiffs claim. According to the lawsuit, ChatGPT's income for 2023 is estimated to be $200 million.

While attempting to represent a large class of allegedly damaged persons and claiming monetary damages to be assessed at trial, the plaintiffs are also requesting that the court temporarily halt commercial access to and development of OpenAI's products.