OpenAI has reportedly sent a letter to a European computer science student who runs the GPT4Free project on GitHub, demanding that he takes the project down within five days or face a lawsuit.
GPT4Free provides free access to the GPT4 and GPT3.5 models by funnelling the queries through sites like You.com, Quora, and CoCalc, and giving back the answers.
All of the sites GPT4Free uses pay OpenAI fees to use its large language models, and the scripts mean that those sites end up footing the bill for users’ queries without users ever visiting them.
However, the student believes he is not liable for what others do and OpenAI should not be targeting him for using other sites’ APIs, which are available unsecured on the open web. He advised all the sites that wrote to him that they should secure their APIs, but none of them has done so.
Despite the legal threat, the student plans to keep the repo up and has reportedly told OpenAI that – if they want it taken down – they should file a formal request with GitHub instead of with him.
The development of GPT-3 was a significant milestone in AI research and it is widely considered one of the most powerful language models ever created. The model is capable of producing coherent, human-like text in response to prompts and it has been used in a wide range of applications, including chatbots, language translation, and content creation.
OpenAI recently released GPT-4, which is expected to be even more powerful than GPT-3. However, to access GPT-4, users must either pay for ChatGPT Plus, access via OpenAI’s API, or find a service that has paid to incorporate GPT4 into their own solutions.
The GPT4Free GitHub project offered a fourth alternative to these options, but it is now under threat of legal action from OpenAI.
OpenAI’s decision to send a letter to the student who runs the GPT4Free project has raised questions about the company’s approach to intellectual property and its relationship with the broader AI research community.
Some have argued that OpenAI should be more open with its technology and make it more accessible to researchers and developers. However, others argue that OpenAI has the right to protect its intellectual property and that the GPT4Free project represents a violation of that property.
Regardless of the legal outcome of this case, it highlights the importance of securing APIs and ensuring that they are only used by authorised parties. Developers must take steps to secure their APIs and ensure that they are only used by intended parties.
(Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash)
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