Microsoft Sued by Authors for Using Pirated Books to Train its AI: Full Controversy in 5 Points

Microsoft is in soup, again. The tech giant this time is receiving flak and a lawsuit because a consortium of popular authors says the corporation trained its Megatron AI model on pirated(stolen) copies of their novels.

According to a report from Reuters, a group of writers, including Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird, essayist Jia Tolentino, and historian Daniel Okrent, have sued Microsoft in New York, saying the company violated copyright law. Here’s the full story broken down into 5 simple points to help you understand what’s happening.

1. A group of authors has accused Microsoft, saying that the tech giant used a secret hoard of almost 200,000 stolen books to make an AI that acts like actual authors without asking or paying them anything. 
2. The lawsuit says that Microsoft's AI doesn't merely quote or summarise; it learns how to write like the people it was trained on.  Think about the style, tone, and even the voice.  They say that the “computer model that is not only built on the work of thousands of creators and authors, but also built to generate a wide range of expression that mimics the syntax, voice, and themes of the copyrighted works on which it was trained.”
3. Authors want the court to stop Microsoft’s unauthorised access to their work and pay them up to $150,000 for each book that Microsoft used without permission.
4. If the court agrees with the authors, it might force big AI businesses to rethink how they train their models. 
5. Microsoft has not responded to the lawsuit yet.

This isn’t the first time an AI company has been accused of copyright infringement. Lawsuits are stacking up against OpenAI and Meta as artists, journalists, and writers fight back. Meta recently had a near escape after it was given a win by the US federal court. Meta was sued by a circle of famous authors, including names like Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, for using their books without permission to train its AI. This lawsuit was filed in 2023.

In the bigger picture, it all boils down to the question of whether tech companies can make AI capabilities worth billions of dollars using creative work they didn't pay for.  The answer might change the whole AI sector and define who really makes money off of creativity in the age of machines. 

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