By Arpan Chaturvedi, Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – OpenAI has told an Indian court that any order to remove training data powering its ChatGPT service could be inconsistent with its legal obligations in the USA, based on a recent filing seen by Reuters.
The Microsoft-backed AI firm also said that it was not throughout the jurisdiction of Indian courts to listen to a copyright breach case brought by local news agency ANI as OpenAI had no presence within the country.
In essentially the most high-profile and closely-tracked lawsuit on AI use in India, ANI sued OpenAI in Delhi in November, accusing it of using the news agency’s published content without permission to coach ChatGPT.
OpenAI responded to the lawsuit, which can be searching for the deletion of ANI’s data already stored by ChatGPT, in an 86-page filing on the Delhi High Court dated Jan. 10 which has not previously been reported.
OpenAI and other firms have faced a wave of comparable lawsuits from outstanding copyright owners over alleged misuse of their work to coach AI models, including a case brought by the Latest York Times against OpenAI in the USA.
OpenAI has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying its AI systems make fair use of publicly available data.
During a November hearing, OpenAI told the Delhi court it might not use ANI’s content anymore however the news agency argued its published works were stored in ChatGPT’s memory and needs to be deleted.
Within the Jan. 10 submission, OpenAI said that it’s currently defending litigation in the USA in regards to the data on which its models have been trained, with laws there requiring it to preserve the information while hearings are pending.
OpenAI “is subsequently under a legal obligation, under the laws of the USA to preserve, and never delete, the said training data”, it said.
OpenAI didn’t reply to a request for comment.
In its submission, OpenAI also said the relief being claimed by ANI was not subject to the processes of Indian courts and was beyond their jurisdiction.
The corporate has “no office or everlasting establishment in India … the servers on which (ChatGPT) stores its training data are similarly situated outside of India”.
ANI, wherein Reuters holds a 26% interest, in a press release said that it believes the Delhi court has jurisdiction to come to a decision on the matter, and it might file an in depth response.
A Reuters spokesperson didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment however the agency in November said it was not involved in ANI’s business practices or operations.