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The Courts AI

OpenAI Threatens Popular GitHub Project With Lawsuit Over API Use (tomshardware.com) 44

Posted by BeauHD from the cease-and-desist dept.
A GitHub project called GPT4free has received a letter from OpenAI demanding that the repo be shut down within five days or face a lawsuit. Tom's Hardware reports: Anyone can use ChatGPT for free, but if you want to use GPT4, the latest language model, you have to either pay for ChatGPT Plus, pay for access to OpenAI's API, or find another site that has incorporated GPT4 into its own free chatbot. There are sites that use OpenAI such as Forefront and You.com, but what if you want to make your own bot and don't want to pay for the API? A GitHub project called GPT4free allows you to get free access to the GPT4 and GPT3.5 models by funneling those queries through sites like You.com, Quora and CoCalc and giving you back the answers. The project is GitHub's most popular new repo, getting 14,000 stars this week.

Now, according to Xtekky, the European computer science student who runs the repo, OpenAI has sent a letter demanding that he take the whole thing down within five days or face a lawsuit. I interviewed Xtekky via Telegram, and he said he doesn't think OpenAI should be targeting him since he isn't connecting directly to the company's API, but is instead getting data from other sites that are paying for their own API licenses. If the owners of those sites have a problem with his scripts querying them, they should approach him directly, he posited. [...] Even if the original repo is taken down, there's a great chance that the code -- and this method of accessing GPT4 and GPT3.5 -- will be published elsewhere by members of the community. Even if GPT4Free had never existed anyone can find ways to use these sites' APIs if they continue to be unsecured. "Users are sharing and hosting this project everywhere," he said. "Deletion of my repo will be insignificant."
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OpenAI Threatens Popular GitHub Project With Lawsuit Over API Use More

OpenAI Threatens Popular GitHub Project With Lawsuit Over API Use

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  • Thanks! Cloned.

  • These fools have never met thee.

    Now they have ensured this repo will never die as long as they themselves exist and stay relevant.

  • Who is OpenAI to waive a finger? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joarD ( 10373588 ) on Monday May 01, 2023 @09:44PM (#63490310)
    So openAI can monetize and use other peopleâ(TM)s data for their models but then wants to lock the model from being open source and available and enforce a paywall?

    • Re: (Score:3, Troll)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yes, pretty much. And they may get away with what is essentially mass-scale intellectual theft for profit.

    • Re:Who is OpenAI to waive a finger? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:37AM (#63490508)

      Not only that, they're a registered 501(c)(3), a CHARITY, that manages to make billion dollar deals with Microsoft and other corporations on a weekly basis. By funneling it through Sam Altman's "OpenAI LP." Explain to me how that's legal and ethical. Scumbags.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Not only that, they're a registered 501(c)(3), a CHARITY, that manages to make billion dollar deals with Microsoft and other corporations on a weekly basis. By funneling it through Sam Altman's "OpenAI LP." Explain to me how that's legal and ethical. Scumbags

        501(c)(3) covers any one of public charities, private foundations, and private operating foundations.

        A 501c is allowed to "make billion dollar deals"
        They are only restricted in how those billions of dollars can be used in order for it to be tax exempt.
        They are also "restricted" in that these deals have to be publicly disclosed, both where they come from, and where that money goes.

        You may not consider their work "scientific research", but the IRS definition of it does.
        Similarly I'm not going to touch "ethica

      • Maybe take a look at their cost base? Microsoft created a purpose built extension of their Azure Cloud for $400 million dollar. That was just the building. Running it costs even more per year.

    • Re: Who is OpenAI to waive a finger? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bobknobber ( 10314401 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @01:48AM (#63490566)

      Raising a good point here. With LLMs becoming more common, how far will companies go to scrape and sell information for data sets? With LLMs that can draw, write, and even code to an extent being trained off of the literal internet, it is likely that data collection will become increasingly more invasive.

      More importantly, at what point does the public draw a redline in terms of what data can be collected, and through what methods? At first it was the small things like email addresses and phone numbers. Then it moved on to financial history and medical records. Now we are hitting creative outputs such as the arts and sciences used for training commercial products. Will they now start to aim for collecting our thoughts for their products?

      The issue is that it is virtually impossible for the average citizen to actively participate in society without putting their information and/or work online. Two-factor verification methods for phone numbers. Credit scores and social security numbers to use online banking systems. Medical history and financial status for health insurance claims. Online portfolios to attract clients and businesses. Some say if they wanted privacy they should not have posted their info online, but what can you do when having an online presence feels mandatory nowadays?

      And to think this probably could have been mitigated if we mandated opt-in data collection.

  • since they got Streisand effect they should call it Barb.

  • Scraping (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Monday May 01, 2023 @10:42PM (#63490366) Homepage

    Large Language Model that scraped content without permission from millions of sites is pissed off that users are scraping content from other websites which uses the content generated from said Large Language Model.

    Amazing!

    • Here's our API. We'll come back to you later as to why you can't use it. That's in the ToS.

      • The tool is abusing unsecured API calls on other websites. Ones that are paid for by those websites.

        People really shouldn't complain about theft when the tool is basically "reading at speed", then turn around and abuse unsecured API's that run up the cost for those websites.

    • Yep, they're doing (Gives to everybody) pretty much the inverse of what ChatGPT does (Takes from everybody).

      It's like when Superman took the mirror and Zod's eye ray shot back at him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by micheas ( 231635 )

      Are you sure that they ignored robots.txt?

      And if they didn't ignore robots.txt how is that scraping without permission?

    • This isn't scraping content already generated by the LLM. It's finding a way to have the LLM generate *your* content by working through other systems to hit the API. That costs somebody money.

      • If sites like Quora actually lose money from people posting content to manipulate GPT-4 integration into giving responses, perhaps the owners will learn to better respect and value their human contributors, instead of letting their sites enter into an obvious GIGO death spiral.

  • Users are sharing and hosting this project everywhere," he said. "Deletion of my repo will be insignificant."

    Don't be so proud of this DMCA you've created. The power to takedown a repo is insignificant compared to the OpenForce.

  • Is this the not-for-profit OpenAI doing this, or the hideous evil monster for-profit OpenAI it became?

    So you're rich now, guys.
    And fucking dispicable.
    It's your life.

    • Honestly I was willing to give OpenAI the benefit of the doubt until I learned about Sam Altmanâ(TM)s cryptocurrency scheme some years ago.
      A cryptocurrency scheme that scans retinas to verify if they are human. Most certainly collects it for totally not malevolent practices.

      Hell maybe this is his master plan with OpenAI. Make it so no one can tell who is and is not human online with LLMs, then push his crypto BS on the public as a solution to the problem he created.

  • AI is capital (Score:3, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:08AM (#63490472)
    remember that. Like land, oil, gold and rubies, AI is capital. The people who control that capital are going to have enormous amounts of money, and with it power. Power to tell the rest of us what to do.

    Oh, and let's not forget, the groundwork for all of this was laid in public Universities on the taxpayer dime. Your dime.

  • ... and counting

  • Where do I use ChatGPT for free? Last I checked, I still needed to give my phone number.

  • Change your name or your behaviour you hypocritical fucktards.

  • If they include GPL source code in their model dataset does the whole model have to be released under the GPL? Is it a derivative work? IANAL just thinking out loud.

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