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OpenAI seems determined to keep its former co-founder’s computer off-limits. In a high-profile copyright lawsuit between OpenAI and book authors, lawyers have been reportedly clashing over which employee files should be subject to discovery.
This is in response to the Author’s Guild claiming OpenAI objected to including six current and former employees as “custodians,” including co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who may possess relevant evidence for the case.
In a letter filed Thursday in New York federal court and seen by Business Insider, the Author’s Guild stated that after several meetings, both parties agreed on 24 custodians but have reached a standstill over these six individuals.
Key Figures
Alongside Sutskever, the disputed list includes pre-training data lead Qiming Yuan, technical staff members Jong Wook Kim and Shantanu Jain, former research scientist Cullen O’Keefe, and former science communicator Andrew Mayne, who has publicly emphasized the value of books and opposes using them as training data for AI.
Lawyers for the Author’s Guild are asking the judge to compel OpenAI to add these disputed names as custodians in the discovery process.
Sutskever, who played a pivotal role in the attempted ouster of CEO Sam Altman in late 2023, departed OpenAI earlier this year amid the fallout. His exit followed internal turmoil and his eventual decision to pursue new ventures.
The Author’s Guild argued that Sutskever and the other five individuals hold documents critical to the case. However, OpenAI has not publicly detailed its reasons for opposing their inclusion.
All six exhibits attached to the Author’s Guild letter have been fully redacted at OpenAI’s request, citing the presence of proprietary source code and sensitive internal discussions about the training and testing of ChatGPT models.
The lawsuit is part of a broader legal battle against OpenAI. Plaintiffs, including authors such as George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Franzen, and David Baldacci, allege that OpenAI unlawfully used their books to train its AI models.
