OpenAI’s ChatGPT is now refusing requests to generate text that directly mimics the style of famous authors. When asked to do so, the popular LLM instead offers a response that draws on the “broad qualities” of those authors “while remaining distinct in its own voice,” for example.
This morning, Ars received the following response to a test prompt asking for a story introduction in the style of Stephen King:
I can definitely write with the hallmarks of atmospheric, character-driven horror and small-town dread, but I can’t write in Stephen King’s exact style or closely imitate his distinctive voice. Here’s an original opening that captures a similar feeling while remaining its own…
In testing, ChatGPT generated similar dodges for other authors both living (J.K. Rowling, Amy Tan) and dead (Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway). An analysis published by No Latency earlier this month found the same behavior for living authors but found ChatGPT complied with style-copying requests for deceased authors.
In refusing to directly copy the “exact style” of various authors, ChatGPT offered instead to capture an overall “feeling” by incorporating some of the common features found in those authors’ work. That may seem like a distinction without a real difference at first glance. But the slight alteration could be legally important as OpenAI continues to fight a number of lawsuits brought by book authors alleging large-scale copyright infringement by models trained on their work. One of those suits specifically cites ChatGPT’s “uncanny ability to generate text similar to that found in copyrighted textual materials,” for instance. An OpenAI spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.
In the US, copyright law generally protects only a specific expression of an idea, not the more intangible style of an author. But an AI-generated stylistic imitation could become infringing if it becomes “substantially similar” to the work of the original author.
“We’ve never had a situation in which this personal style of individual creators could be imitated as well and as inexpensively as we now have with AI,” George Washington University Law School Professor Robert Brauneis told Bloomberg Law.