TECH NEWS – Through this action, the U.S. government has essentially acknowledged that it is hostile towards the press if it permits large language models (LLMs) to be trained using this data.

The Trump administration recently took a firm stand in support of OpenAI, opposing the New York Times’ position that training models using copyrighted text violates copyright law. The U.S. government filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in which it asserts the following:

“The United States has a strong interest in this court rejecting any argument that training LLMs on copyrighted texts violates copyright law. This administration will never allow our nation to be at a disadvantage relative to our foreign adversaries based on an incorrect understanding of copyright law.”

In 2023, the Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the AI lab and Microsoft (OpenAI’s largest backer at the time) of using millions of its articles to train LLMs without permission. This case is one of many filed against OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta in which plaintiffs have argued against the misuse of copyrighted material.

This is the first time the U.S. government has explicitly taken a position on the matter. The government argues that training an AI model falls under the concept of fair use of copyrighted material. It also states that a leading role in the field of artificial intelligence is a matter of critical national security. Although the Trump administration’s brief is merely advisory in nature, it could play an important role in shaping the final outcome, especially given the determination with which the administration appears to be raising the national security issue.

Furthermore, if the administration holds this position now, it is unlikely to change it later. After all, it’s no coincidence that data centers are springing up by the thousands.

Source: WCCFTech, Thomson Reuters