George R.R. Martin Sues OpenAI For Copyright Infringement After Chatbot Mentions Incest

NEW YORK—Alleging “massive systemic theft” of his original work, bestselling fantasy author George R.R. Martin filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI this week after its artificial-intelligence interface ChatGPT mentioned incest. “I practically invented incest, and it is a theme at the heart of all my books,” said Martin, stating that any use of intrafamilial sexual relations in a creative setting was certain to violate the copyright he holds in his iconic A Song Of Ice And Fire series, which includes A Game Of Thrones and has sold more 90 million copies worldwide. “Obviously, this bot ingested my work—how else would it wind up using a word that encapsulates everything my books are about? I worked hard to write all those novels about incest, and I’m proud of the fact that when people think of incest, the first person who comes to mind is George R.R. Martin.” On Thursday, OpenAI filed a motion that called for the dismissal of the suit, claiming ChatCPT had not been trained on Martin’s novels but had instead recently ingested the entirety of PornHub.