The New York Times, joined by the New York Daily News and other US publishers, asked a federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday to sanction OpenAI for allegedly hiding and destroying evidence in their copyright lawsuit over ChatGPT training data.
The publishers say OpenAI told the court it lacked the tools to search its models and output logs for copyrighted material, while an OpenAI employee later testified the company had run exactly such searches even before the first suit was filed. The filing also accuses OpenAI of deleting or making unsearchable billions of ChatGPT conversations relevant to discovery.
Attorney Steven Lieberman, representing the publishers, said the motion "asks the court to punish OpenAI for hiding and destroying evidence." The Times has already spent over $28 million litigating against AI companies. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri denied the allegations, saying the publishers are "persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who have nothing to do with this case."