Nick Gage talks with his longtime friend Nicholas Basbanes, left, in Gage's library, Wednesday, May 8, 2024, in Grafton, Mass. When the two authors and retired newspaper journalists found out that ChatGPT might be stealing and repurposing a lifetime of their work, they tapped a son-in-law to sue the companies behind the artificial intelligence chatbot.
“It's highway robbery,” Gage said in an interview in his office next to the 18th-century farmhouse where he lives in central Massachusetts. “If they can get it for nothing, why pay for it?” Gage said. “But it’s grossly unfair and very harmful to the written word.” The cases are still in the discovery stage and scheduled to drag into 2025. In the meantime, some who believe their professions are threatened by AI business practices have tried to secure private deals to get technology companies to pay a fee to license their archives. Others are fighting back.
Gage fled Greece as a 9-year-old, haunted by his mother's 1948 killing by firing squad during the country's civil war. He joined his father in Worcester, Massachusetts, not far from where he lives today. And with a teacher's nudge, he pursued writing and built a reputation as a determined investigative reporter digging into organized crime and political corruption for The New York Times and other newspapers.