02-05-2025
Judge in Meta case warns AI could 'obliterate' market for original works
A sceptical federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday questioned Meta Platforms' argument that it can legally use copyrighted works without permission to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models.
In the first court hearing on a key question for the AI industry, US district judge Vince Chhabria grilled lawyers for both sides about Meta's request for a ruling that it made 'fair use' of books by Junot Diaz, comedian Sarah Silverman and others to train its Llama large language model.
'You have companies using copyright-protected material to create a product that is capable of producing an infinite number of competing products,' Chhabria told Meta's attorneys.
'You are dramatically changing, you might even say obliterating, the market for that person's work and you're saying you don't have to pay a licence to that person.
'I don't understand how that can be fair use.'
