“Generative AI systems like DALL-E and ChatGPT have been trained on copyrighted materials;”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
Generative AI systems such as DALL-E and ChatGPT were trained on copyrighted materials.
Assessment: Supported Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, Things are about to get a lot worse for Generative AI, paragraph 18.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-things-are-about-to-get-a-lot-worse-736dfd-a1
We recorded 9 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-29. The source may have been edited after 2023-12-29. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- Generative AI systems like DALL-E and ChatGPT
- have been trained
- on copyrighted materials
Our interpretation
- This concerns training completed before publication, including earlier versions of the named product families.
- The post specifies no beginning date for that historical training, so the target period has an open start and ends on December 29, 2023.
- Copyrighted materials includes licensed material. The claim does not require that the training was unauthorized or unlawful.
- Both named product families must be covered; evidence about an unrelated model alone would not suffice.
Counts as supported if: Company disclosures or reliable training records establish that copyrighted material was included in training DALL-E and models serving ChatGPT before the post.
Counts as contradicted if: Reliable records establish that a named product family was trained entirely without copyrighted material, for example solely on public-domain or otherwise unprotected data.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Supported
The dated evidence matches what the claim committed to, under the criteria frozen before grading.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
Before the post, OpenAI's CEO confirmed that licensed Shutterstock data had been used to train DALL-E, and OpenAI disclosed licensed content among ChatGPT's training sources. The contemporaneous CRS report also records OpenAI's acknowledged use of copyrighted datasets. Together, these records support the factual claim. Licensing does not remove copyright protection, so authorized use counts.
Limitations
- The records do not provide a complete inventory of training works or establish which material entered every model version.
- This assessment does not determine whether any training use infringed copyright.
Evidence (3 items)
Supports the claim: Shutterstock,
critical to the training
Why it matters here: The announcement confirms that licensed contributor imagery had already been used to train DALL-E by this date. Licensed copyrighted material satisfies the claim regardless of whether its use was authorized.
- Publisher
- Shutterstock
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
Supports the claim: OpenAI,
licensed content
Why it matters here: OpenAI identifies licensed content as an actual ChatGPT training source. Together with its acknowledged copyrighted-data practice, this supports inclusion of copyrighted content, although it does not identify individual works.
- Publisher
- OpenAI
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Congressional Research Service, mirrored by EveryCRSReport,
acknowledges
Why it matters here: The contemporaneous report corroborates OpenAI's acknowledged copyrighted-data practice. Its underlying admission concerns earlier systems, so it supplements rather than replaces the product-specific disclosures.
- Publisher
- Congressional Research Service, mirrored by EveryCRSReport
- Kind of source
- Secondary summary
- Describes events of
- Public from
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, Things are about to get a lot worse for Generative AI
Generative AI systems like DALL-E and ChatGPT have been trained on copyrighted materials;
- Where
- paragraph 18
- Published
- 2023-12-29
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-things-are-about-to-get-a-lot-worse-736dfd-a1: Current. Outcome: Supported. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment marcus-things-are-about-to-get-a-lot-worse-736dfd-a1.