OpenAI faces lawsuit alleging personal data theft for ChatGPT training

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is now embroiled in a class action lawsuit, with anonymous individuals accusing the company of brazenly stealing "vast amounts" of personal information to fuel its artificial intelligence models in pursuit of profits.

The 157-page lawsuit, filed by the Clarkson Law Firm on behalf of the plaintiffs, alleges that OpenAI violated privacy laws by covertly scraping 300 billion words from the internet, including personal data, without consent.

The extensive lawsuit takes a strong stance against OpenAI's actions, going so far as to assert that the company's actions could lead to "civilisational collapse".

The plaintiffs, whose identities are shielded behind initials due to fear of repercussions, span various occupations and interests. They are seeking class action status and are claiming potential damages amounting to $3 billion, estimated to impact millions of individuals who have been harmed by OpenAI's practices.

The lawsuit outlines OpenAI's alleged data scraping practices, stating that the company unlawfully obtained personal information from various sources, such as books, articles, websites and posts, without proper consent. In doing so, OpenAI disregarded established protocols for the acquisition and use of personal data, effectively resorting to "theft," as per the plaintiffs' claims. This data was reportedly used to train OpenAI's popular chatbot programme, ChatGPT, and other generative AI applications, raising concerns about the invasion of privacy and potential misuse of sensitive information.

Microsoft Corp., which is set to invest a significant sum of approximately $13 billion in OpenAI, has also been named as a defendant in the lawsuit. The suit alleges that OpenAI's practices implicate not only its own operations but also its partnership with Microsoft.

Both OpenAI and Microsoft have yet to respond officially to the lawsuit.