ChatGPT is pretty well versed in Glorantha

[simonh]

On 4/20/2023 at 7:09 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Watch out for ChatGPT’s EULA.

If Chaosium decided to sue ChatGPT for copyright infringement, or libel, or anything else, based on you posting something that ChatGPT produced, then you agreed in the EULA to indemnify and defend them. That means they can hand you the legal bill and the fine for the lawsuit.

I actually think that's pretty reasonable when it comes to widely publishing material generated by ChatGPT. You can't generally sue a tool maker for work someone did using their tool. In the case of the fake Michael Schumacher interview his family sued the magazine that published the fake interview, not the AI company (which was not OpenAI) who's chat bot generated the text. They sued not for the act of generating the text, but for the act of publishing that in a magazine.

However that does not mean it's ok for any LLM to generate infringing text and provide that to users, even if the users don't publish it. In the fake Schumacher interview case the output was published twice. Once by the AI company when they provided it to the journalist, and then by the magazine to their readers. I think it may be possible to sue the AI company for the act of publishing that interview to the journalist, and responsibility for that act could not be avoided by something like the ChatGPT EULA. The damages would be a lot less, because the harm to Schumacher's family is much lower, but it's still harm and it's still IMHO potentially actionable.

It goes back to my comparison of ChatGPT to a computer game. If I log on to ChatGPT and use it to play Runequest in Glorantha, or generate RQ scenarios for me to use with my gaming group, it doesn't matter whether I publish that or not, they're still offering what IMHO amounts to a service that is infringing Chaosium's rights. Again the EULA would not be relevant.

In a way this is a shame because these things are incredibly powerful and useful tools, I hope there is a way to keep them available and useful to people. I've enjoyed playing with them and it would be a shame if they got massively locked down and limited. It's just that in practice I think they're a legal minefield.

Edited April 23, 2023 by simonh

[PhilHibbs]

On 4/23/2023 at 5:19 PM, simonh said:

I actually think that's pretty reasonable when it comes to widely publishing material generated by ChatGPT. You can't generally sue a tool maker for work someone did using their tool...  the EULA would not be relevant.

True, but having agreed to "indemnify and defend" OpenAI is then something that the user has to fight in court. It doesn't stop the rightsholder from suing, of course, but it does drag the user in with a potentially huge legal bill to fight their way out of.