Sam Altman floats revenue-sharing idea for creators amid IP theft concerns over ChatGPT’s image tool

ChatGPT's new image generator has been the talk of the town for a few weeks now, with the new tool being able to generate more nuanced and accurate images. 

While ChatGPT's new capabilities have been most famously used to light up the Ghibli-style image trend on social media, there has also been a sudden spike in concerns about the chatbot's copyright infringement, with critics complaining that OpenAI's tool is simply ripping off the original artists.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has addressed the copyright concerns around ChatGPT’s image generation, stating that the tool will not produce images in the style of living artists but can replicate the aesthetic of certain studios.

When asked by TED director Chris Anderson if ChatGPT was committing IP theft, Altman said, “I think the creative spirit of humanity is an incredibly important thing, and we want to build tools that lift that up, that make it so that new people can create better art, better content, write better novels that we all enjoy. I believe very deeply that humans will be at the center of that.”

Sam Altman hints at new revenue model for artists

Altman also hinted at the possibility of creating a new model that could pass some of the revenue earned by ChatGPT to the creatives.

“I also believe that we probably do need to figure out some sort of new model around the economics of creative output. People have been building on the creativity of others for a long time. People take inspiration for a long time. But as the access to creativity gets incredibly democratized, and people are building off of each other's ideas all the time. I think there are incredible new business models that we and others are excited to explore. Exactly what that's gonna look like, I'm not sure,” Altman added.

Pushed to answer if ChatGPT could eventually divide the exact amount of money that is paid to creators every time their art is utilised for creating images, Altman said, “I think it would be cool to figure out a new model where if you, say I want to do it in the name of this, this artist, and they opt-in, there's a revenue model there.”