Anthropic Triumphs in AI Copyright Hilarity: A High-Stakes Legal Drama Authored by Wordsmiths
“Anthropic Settles High-Profile AI Copyright Lawsuit Brought by Book Authors”
“Well, that certainly takes the fun out of rogue artificial intelligence. Anthropic, a startup that aims to improve the trustworthiness and robustness of AI, has settled a copyright lawsuit brought by six science fiction authors over a fanfiction-writing bot it developed. The settlement terms were not disclosed, but Anthropic says it will stop development of the AI sketchpad that, according to the lawsuit, was infringing on the authors’ rights to their characters and plots.”
Can one catch a break in the age of innovation? Apparently not before running into the good old boys of copyright suits. So much for a wild ride with an AI-powered fanfiction bot. Anthropic, the AI prodigy, must be feeling like Dr. Frankenstein who had to quit on his creature. But instead of villagers with pitchforks and torches, it’s science fiction authors wielding copyrights and lawsuits.
A quiet war was waged between science fiction authors (all six of them – feeling brave, were we?) and Anthropic, a startup with ambitions of making AI more reliable and easy to understand. The bone of contention? A fanfiction-writing bot – an AI sketchpad that dared to encroach on the sacred ‘characters’ and ‘plots’ of these authors. Dare it dream to spin tales worthy of Asimov or Herbert? Well, it seems we will never know, for the lawsuit has put an end to that wishful thinking.
The terms of the settlement remain undisclosed, – hush, hush, very Fight Club – but what is out for everyone to see is that poor Anthropic has had to halt the development of the bot. It’s a bit like telling Da Vinci to give up painting, but hey, no one said progress was a smooth sailing. And copyright lawyers undoubtedly need something to pay their mortgages.
We could argue about stifling creativity or about preserving an author’s rights, but at the end of the day, the big question we should be asking is: if an AI fanfiction bot dreams, does it dream of infringing copyrights?