Post

You sue their asses to oblivion. So sorry this happened to you.

In what way is this not forgery? Putting your name to it would seem to be critical - lawyer up…

That has to be illegal. You might have sold your work, but not your byline. I’m not a fan of lawfare, but I think and your peers should be able to sue the heck out of them.

I lean toward something legal if you can find a lawyer or publicly fund the effort, but whatever you do BE LOUD.

Some writers are suing. Could you do that, too?

Chat Gpt and other AI is not yo be trusted

Call. A. Lawyer! I am not one, but this looks like identity theft to me. They are stealing money from you even if it's not out of your bank account directly.

This is obviously misrepresentation of your work and illegal impersonation of your research. Ten million percent not legal.

😨

In conclusion, Robert E. Lee's south is a land of contrasts

I tried to imagine you writing the clause "has become increasingly more fraught," and felt split over whether to facepalm or giggle.

Waiting for this to happen to my work… let me know if you find out how to fight back

I hope you can sue the hell out of them. They are stealing your work and besmirching your reputation. They need to remove the article and issue an apology.

I suspect the weaponization of AI (within the Press, our agencies etc) is going to be legion; probably more than we'll be able to track.

At least it didn’t have you saying ‘myriad of ways’

Post an article online about how ChatGP stole your work and then misinterpreted it. Use lots of search words that would link it to this piece so it will then start saying “we lied in this article and stole the original authors work”.

@markwarner.bsky.social @kaine.senate.gov @mcclellan.house.gov

Some months ago, colleagues I had recently met sent me a "summary" of the main theses of my book, and Meta AI had managed to sum it up as the opposite of my real conclusions in said book 🤦🏽🤷🏽

This post is extremely misleading. You should remove it.

Holy shit

Genuinely consider suing, or at least consult with someone about it. Slam dunk defamation and I bet you could find lawyers who’d be champing at the bit to take it.

Hire an attorney

Do you belong to a union?

you asked it to tho, what exactly did you expect

Time to look at whether you can assert moral rights in your work

Get a good lawyer

"fraught and complicated"

Burn it to the ground?

@adamhdomby.bsky.social

This is offensive on a deeply human level and everyone responsible should be ashamed. They won't be, since they are obviously soulless lizard people, but they should be.

AI = the high cost of free websites.

a) Sue b) Sue c) Find the master plug for OpenAI and pull it, then (wearing safety gloves) jam a fork in the outlet and short circuit the whole building d) Raze the building to the ground e) Plant trees over its remains f) Sue

Sorry, but I don’t follow. Was it you or someone else who asked the AI to produce this? If not you then who? And if you then are you more upset that it was able to produce anything at all or that it didn’t do a better job?

Just so I’m clear: *you* entered the prompt into ChatGPT & generated the article? If so, it didn’t exist until you asked it to be born. *You* are the one who put your name on it, not AI. Can WaPo do it? Sure. But thousands of writers have been ringing alarm bells about this for a very long time.

This is America, you do what any good American would do. Get a lawyer and sue the fuck out of them.

Grateful you never said there were ‘very fine people on both sides.’

Sure the f*** out of WaPo & Bezos. That's where I'd start.

Sue rhe pants off them

OMG

Demand that your name be removed from this, insist on a written apology for having your work AI-fucked into your named (not) “voice” that isn’t buried in the last page of the paper, and then get an attorney and go after those twatwaffles, Gillian. Fuck them and the phallic rocket they rode in on.

Sue their fucking asses

I am genuinely so sorry, I'm hoping someone with more knowledge of intellectual property rights is gonna swoop in with something you can actually sink your teeth into ✊💔

OpenAI: "More bug than feature!"

Paging @marcelias.bsky.social….

BTW, plenty of lawyers on Bluesky to ask which type of attorney might be best suited for a case like this...

THIS IS WHAT ATTORNEYS EXIST FOR...get you a lawyer...

Please share the WaPo version vs your version!

📌

I'm so sorry, Gillian. For what it's worth, I can see a clear difference between your writing and the AI bullshit. It's night and day.

It's really remarkable how... convictionless AI writing feels. There's no energy to its "points," it's all made up of hedged bets and probabilities. A weirdly apt metaphor for a certain sector of our current political elite.

This is mortifying.

That's fucked up.

It's difficult to tell. The UI looks similar. When I tried it (apologies to Gillian Brockell). It's possible it's down to the version, but my version uses the suffix *"-style"*. It's possible this is a screengrab from the WP optimised LLM.

this is why I am trying to convince my colleagues and administration that there is no such thing as "ethical" AI.

You could sue, but you entered into a transaction with WaPo and were compensated, so there’s no question of ownership. Unless you had a “no derivative works” clause (unlikely), then you have no standing for a case against WaPo. You could try to argue impersonation or slander against OpenAI, but GL

Push whoever did this out a window.

Jesus christ, that is infuriating.

Nooooooooo omg

Great job calling it out.

Okay but you asked ChatGPT for this output. You created that piece. You published it online. This isn’t to strawman you, but it’s a really important distinction because HUMANS have to be responsible for AI. If someone did this to you, that would be a moment to feel livid. That didn’t happen.

tbh I live in Kilmar Abrego Garcia's district and would rather my representatives be focused on him right now.

That's fucking awful. Be public about it is a start. If you have the resources, sue the piss out of them.

You sue the fuck out of everyone involved at the Post. Everyone.

Libelous impersonation is insidious, the damages are pretty apparent!

Also, you sue everyone and everything, such as WaPo, Bezos, and anything direct or tangential to the AI. Also, call the Authors Guild in NY, which is working against this stuff. If I were to find my late husband’s name used like this, I think his celebrity registration under CA law might help me.

Isn’t this what Cease and Desist letters were made for?

Is it defamation? Publishing text on their site claiming to be written by you feels like it could harm your career.

Not a lawyer, but by appropriating your specific writing style and attaching your name to it, they've appropriated your personality and name, and usurped your right to control your own image (your writing style) and the use of your name and prior work. I'd 📲 a lawyer en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona...

the crime is identity theft and it’s not civil it is a criminal offense. After the felony conviction is when you sue for damages :)

What happens if you prompt something similar without a request for your style? Thinking that if they pull archive prompts what is the risk that they have your material in there? This is a risk for the journalists as well, they don’t want to plagiarise.

I think there is a defamation claim too based upon the image of you they are creating.

Writers are suing for the use of their work without their permission. Did your publication give them permission? If so, find an attorney who could sue the paper on your behalf and include other writers.

Labor. They are diluting your value as as a subject matter expert and making it harder for you to work.

Seems like the critical word here is "by" - because that's a complete falsehood. It is clearly NOT "by" you.

Sherman on Atlanta attorney.

The people telling you to sue seem to be confused by the way you framed this. They think it's a direct result of the WaPo deal or something that was actually published by WaPo. This is something ChatGPT could already do, that you asked it to do.

Not a lawyer myself, but I think you may want to talk to a few lawyers. Your local and state bar associations should have resources to connect you with attorneys, but usually you need to know what kind of lawyer you'd need. In lieu of any further insights, I'd personally start with a labor lawyer.

Sue both...and benoz for identity theft

Libel?

It's libel.

For defamation? I don't know. Not a lawyer. But I would be casting a wide net and reaching out for consultation and ideas. Especially about writings that offend your moral and professional sensibilities.

I notice Ken White follows you. Ask him, he’s a great lawyer.

...is what your contract said they can do with your work. So yeah, consult a lawyer about that, but even if this is a "legal" usage, thank you for speaking up and writers need to ban together to MAKE it an illegal usage (i.e., cannot sell work for AI training by default, without explicit permission)

WaPo made a deal with ChatGPT, so it is hard for it to then say it has nothing to do with what ChatGPT is doing with its work, and if WaPo itself posted this article you could very obviously sue, so whatever attorney you would get for that, I'd get for this. And a consultation is probably free.

Eventually, as search engines get fed by the same AI puking up content, nothing on the internet will be reliable. Words and images made by dumb machines will be signed and scattered among the legitimate works, and then the fake stuff will bury it.

Maybe slander? Since it's using your name on something you would never right? I'd contact the Author's Guild and the ACLU to start with.

ACLU maybe

@gtconway.bsky.social ~ thoughts?

I feel like I heard @karaswisher.bsky.social talking about this happening to her - maybe she has some perspective on what to do

It’s misusing your publicity rights: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_v....

I wonder if there is someone the the Electronic Frontier Foundation (@eff.org) you could talk to about this?

I think this is less lawsuit territory and more lobbing bricks territory.

My first guess would be false light invasion of privacy. Disclaimer: I'm a lawyer but this is me barking into my phone mid-run on the treadmill not legal advice. 🙂 I'd look for somebody with experience in defamation/invasion of privacy claims.

I think it falls under the umbrella similar to defamation - it is invasion of privacy (misappropriation or appropriation and/or false light). A first amendment lawyer should be a good option or a general practice tort litigator.

Or, imagine going to a WaPo employee and asking him what you asked ChatGPT. Will you sue him because he tried to - badly - imitate you, at you own request, on the argument that the WaPo management could ask him to do the same?

Mmm, it is akin to a painter, let's say XX, going to a counterfeiter and commission him to make a painting in his (XX) style and sign it as XX and give it only to him (XX). I do not see how XX could sue the counterfeiter? The ability to potentially commit a forgery is not a crime.

The Authors' Guild has been organizing a class-action suit against OpenAI and ChatGPT for unauthorized use—you didn't agree to have your work train generative AI. It's one thing for WaPo to use/reprint/repackage your work, but not this. This would be under copyright law/intellectual property.

Don’t sue, but request an opportunity to publish a response. Then, if denied, take it to another outlet until someone runs with it. Then WaPo gets to defend its actions…and look like the fraud they are.

It also seems to me it might be some form of defamation. The owners of ChatGPT put out something under your name which you never wrote.

I don't know where the laws are on this yet, but it definitely *feels* like Identity Theft.

Well, since it’s high stake $$$ you’re gonna loose, so: - just use chatgp as a lawyer - get atomized in court, but for cheap - say to the world: so you want to trust these IA? You get what you pay for

Well, for one, they’re impersonating you. That’s fraud.

I'm completely ignorant on this, but is this something where the WP Guild has a role to play?

“When to Consult a Copyright Attorney vs. a Human Rights Attorney: Copyright Disputes: If you are facing a copyright infringement claim or have a dispute over the ownership or use of your work, you should consult with a copyright attorney.”

Please ask a great copyright attorney.

You could have grounds to sue the developers of chatgpt for defamation too. They made a piece of software which claims you did something horrendous that you did not. How amenable a judge would be to that suit, relevant precedent, etc an attorney would have to say

Probably an intellectual property attorney. IP. And maybe an employment attorney as well.

Fuck chatgpt but the whole thread is extremely misleading and weird

Not to mention using the trust with the public you have built over your career as credence to their narrative.

Whoever it is, just don't let them get away with this. If they have done this to you, they have done it to others. Unite and sue them.

Most likely an attorney who knows publicity rights. “Personality rights, sometimes referred to as the right of publicity, are rights for an individual to control the commercial use of their identity, such as NAME, image, likeness, or other unequivocal identifiers.”

Both.

Intellectual property infringement, at the least.

This story/case might be relevant if nobody has sent it your way already: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kgydkr516o