The plot thickens… Famous authors are piling into copyright-infringement lawsuits against OpenAI. George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Elin Hilderbrand, and others sued the ChatGPT maker last week, accusing it of illegally using their books to train its bot. In July, Sarah Silverman and others sued OpenAI and Meta for the same reason. If authors win, OpenAI might have to pay damages and a licensing fee for copyrighted work. Artists have also brought suits against genAI companies. Not so coincidentally: OpenAI recently released an update to its image generator, DALL-E, which allows artists to opt out of having their work used in training.
It takes a village… Retailers are stocking up on help this holiday szn. Last week Target said it would hire 100K extra employees as it preps for more curbside orders and in-store returns. Amazon (the US’s #2 largest private employer after Walmart) is taking on 250K+ more workers (100K more than last year) and raising wages as it ramps up next-day deliveries. Still, holiday hiring is expected to be the lowest since 2008, and 76% of US adults say they plan to cut back on splurges (picture: fewer life-size reindeer statues, no bourbon eggnog).