Salesforce Faces Lawsuit from Authors Over Alleged Use of Their Books for AI Training

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Two novelists claim their books were used without permission to train Salesforce’s AI.

Salesforce is facing a lawsuit after two authors, Molly Tanzer and Jennifer Gilmore, accused the cloud computing giant of using their books to train its AI models without obtaining proper permission. The lawsuit claims that Salesforce infringed on copyright laws by incorporating their novels into the xGen AI models to process language.

In their legal complaint, Tanzer and Gilmore assert that their works, along with thousands of others, were unlawfully utilized to train Salesforce's AI software. The lawsuit highlights the growing legal battle between content creators and tech companies. Authors, news outlets, and other intellectual property holders continue to challenge the way AI companies use their copyrighted material for training purposes.

Joseph Saveri, the attorney representing the authors, emphasized the need for transparency in AI development, stating,

“It’s important that companies that use copyrighted material for AI products are transparent. It’s also only fair that our clients are fairly compensated when this happens.”

This adds to the list of legal actions taken against tech giants such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms for allegedly misusing copyrighted content in AI training. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has previously criticized AI companies for utilizing "stolen" data to build their AI models, suggesting that compensating content creators for their work would be "very easy to do." Salesforce has yet to issue a public comment regarding the lawsuit.