An artificial intelligence watchdog is accusing OpenAI of training its default ChatGPT model on copyrighted book content without permission.In a new paper published this week, the AI Disclosures Project alleges that OpenAI likely trained its GPT-4o model using nonpublic material from OReilly Media. The researchers used a legally obtained dataset of 34 copyrighted OReilly books and found that GPT-4o showed strong recognition of the companys paywalled content. By contrast, GPT-3.5 Turbo appeared more familiar with publicly accessible OReilly book samples.These results highlight the urgent need for increased corporate transparency regarding pre-training data sources as a means to develop formal licensing frameworks for AI content training, the authors wrote in the paper. Tim OReilly, one of the papers authors, is a cofounder and CEO of OReilly Media. An OpenAI spokesperson didnt immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment. Training data lies at the heart of all artificial intelligence models. Large language models (LLMs) require an incredible amount of information that it uses to guide back on when it churns out text or images for users.OpenAI has struck up some licensing deals to be able to train their models on certain content. But the company, which recently fundraised and is worth $300 billion, has also come under fire for sourcing certain content. The New York Times, for example, is leading a charge against OpenAI and minority owner Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement.The researchers acknowledged limitations in their study but argued that the issue is likely part of a broader systemic problem in how large language models are developed.Sustainable ecosystems need to be designed so that both creators and developers can benefit from generative AI, the authors wrote. Otherwise, model developers are likely to rapidly plateau in their progress, especially as newer content becomes produced less and less by humans.