OpenAI moves to block release of 20M ChatGPT logs in copyright case

Artificial intelligence giant OpenAI has asked a federal judge in New York to block an order requiring it to hand over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT conversations in a copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times and other media outlets.

In a court filing on Wednesday, the company called the request a sweeping intrusion into user privacy, saying that "99.99%" of the transcripts have no connection to the allegations of copyright infringement.

OpenAI's chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, said the demand for ChatGPT logs "disregards long-standing privacy protections" and "breaks with common-sense security practices."

"To be clear: anyone in the world who has used ChatGPT in the past three years must now face the possibility that their personal conversations will be handed over to The Times to sift through at will in a speculative fishing expedition," the filing said.

The news outlets argue the logs are needed to determine whether ChatGPT reproduced their copyrighted material and to counter OpenAI's claim that they "hacked" the chatbot to create evidence.

The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of training ChatGPT on copyrighted news articles without permission.

"Journalism has historically played a critical role in defending people's right to privacy throughout the world," Stuckey said. "However, this demand from the New York Times does not live up to that legacy, and we're asking the court to reject it," he added.