An AI bot used their words. Now, authors are demanding compensation

Anthropic, the company behind the artificial intelligence chatbot known as Claude, has agreed to pay authors $1.5 billion in what would be the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history

But the company may still face a trial over whether it stole the author's works to train Claude

A federal judge lambasted the proposed settlement saying that authors may not understand the full implications of the agreement they struck with the Amazon-backed AI giant Anthropic

Straight Arrow News spoke about the case with Elucio Zafar of Creation Rights, a company that protects artists' intellectual property

The primary focus has always been uncompensated use. most artists want recognition. And from that recognition, they also want their royalties that

come around that as well. So licensing their work or selling their work or transferring that work to

a different auction house, for example. So I think that's the primary concern by nearly everybody

underneath the umbrella of the creative industries The class of authors accuse Anthropic of stealing their books to train Claude while the federal judge ruled in June that it is not illegal to take the books to use for training or educational purposes

what may not be legal is how Anthropic obtained the books, including from pirate websites

The case has broad implications for authors and other creators. This is people's work. This is people's art. This is people's licenses and royalties

This is what they work their life sometimes to make an impact in society

And that's what contributes to just like our cultural knowledge. And that's kind of being threatened now by AI companies, tech companies from Silicon Valley without actually compensating original authors

The judge said he is nowhere close to approving the settlement and had scheduled a hearing for September 25th

There are 40 similar lawsuits in the U.S. focused on AI and artists' rights

many of which also include artists asking for compensation. So the Anthropic case could set the tone as the courts usher in a new era of technology

artificial intelligence, and how artists' work can legally be used. For more on this story, go to san.com