# Is quoting ChatGPT a copyright violation? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 13, 2023, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085 "2023-11-13T21:16:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/1 "2023-11-13T21:16:51Z")
There are occasionally posts that quote ChatGPT at length. Is this a copyright violation that should be noted by our local moderators? Or maybe trimmed down to a “fair use” length? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/2 "2023-11-13T22:50:51Z")
Nope. I’m pretty sure that so far courts have ruled that generated content feom AIs cannot be copywritten. That means you could have an AI create the best story or picture ever, and you can’t copyright it either. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/3 "2023-11-13T22:57:32Z")
FWIW, although I don’t know there should be a rule against it, I am decidedly not a fan of ChatGPT answers being brought up in contexts not specifically about AI, and would love it if people would do that less. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/4 "2023-11-13T23:01:12Z")
Yeah, I’ve seen that a couple of times here. For factual stuff, it definitely should not be relied upon, as Chat GPT is questionable when it comes to facts. For screwing around creative stuff (like “write a poem”), it’s okay, but a bit hackneyed. I think ChatGPT can be used as a decent springboard to explore factual answers, but needs to be vetted by a human and edited. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/5 "2023-11-13T23:01:40Z")
I’m an editor in several subjects on StackExchange, and there has been a huge dropoff in submitted content (at least in my areas) since ChatGPT came out. At first, some users tried to answer questions by submitting them to ChatGPT, but that was quickly banned. But the volume of regular questions and answers seems to have dropped anyway. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2023, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/6 "2023-11-14T12:39:37Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > That means you could have an AI create the best story or picture ever, and you can’t copyright it either. Can anyone prove that it was written by AI and not you ? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2023, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/7 "2023-11-14T12:57:39Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > copywritten Nitpick/pet peeve: copyrighted. However, some editors don’t approve of using the word as a verb, preferring a circumlocution like “protected by copyright.” I’m not _quite_ that pedantic. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/8 "2024-01-15T14:54:33Z")
I just asked a friend who runs an AI lab if an image generator could recognize its own work, and he said no. Didn’t ask about text though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/9 "2024-01-15T15:10:59Z")
There are AIs that are trained to recognize AI-generated text, but I think they’re distinct from the AIs that actually generate it. Probably a similar substrate, but they’re trained differently (and the training is the most important part). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/10 "2024-01-15T21:33:16Z")
I’m pretty sure that the problem of “detecting” the output of an AI – whether it’s text, images, or something else – is impossible in the general case. The only way the question is even meaningful is when it’s limited to detection of a **specific** AI. ChatGPT 3.5, for example, has a particular style that is recognizable in its more lengthy responses. But in the general case, there’s no such thing as a reliable “AI marker”. It’s analogous to how we can often identify a paragraph or two as the work of a particular author, but there’s no meaningful sense in which we can judge that something was – or was not – “written by a human”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/11 "2024-01-15T21:47:04Z")
I know AIs are “trained” by exposing them to words and images. The early ones (i.e. so last year) were trained on words that were at least two years old. Has any progress been made on real-time training so that at least answers can be kept up to date? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/12 "2024-01-15T21:57:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Nope. I’m pretty sure that so far courts have ruled that generated content feom AIs cannot be copywritten. Only humans can hold a copyright. Naruto v. Slater. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-quoting-chatgpt-a-copyright-violation/993085/13 "2024-01-15T21:57:23Z")
That is the idea behind generative adversarial network learning: > **[Generative adversarial network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network)** > > A generative adversarial network (GAN) is a class of machine learning frameworks and a prominent framework for approaching generative AI. The concept was initially developed by Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues in June 2014. In a GAN, two neural networks contest with each other in the form of a zero-sum game, where one agent's gain is another agent's loss. > Given a training set, this technique learns to generate new data with the same statistics as the training set. For example, a GAN trained o... that the generated outputs should not be distinguishable from the reference outputs.