Merriam-Webster, along with its parent company Encyclopedia Britannica, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the artificial intelligence company unlawfully used approximately 100,000 copyrighted articles, encyclopedia entries, and dictionary entries to train its ChatGPT model. The complaint, filed in court, asserts that OpenAI engaged in large-scale copying of protected material, utilized this content for AI training, and subsequently generated outputs that closely resemble the original source material, thereby infringing on copyright. The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT's responses sometimes include verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions of Merriam-Webster's content, potentially diverting users from the dictionary's website and also contributing to AI hallucinations or incomplete information. Merriam-Webster is seeking financial damages and a permanent injunction against OpenAI's alleged practices.