On YesChat, customers can unleash their “inside cynic” with assist from a Larry David bot. Or “discover Jewish knowledge” with one other Larry David bot. Or workshop horror tales with a Stephen King bot. Or chat about criticism with Roger Ebert.

It’s unlikely that any of the celebrities whose names seem on these bots have something to do with them.

Final month, Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, sued the makers of YesChat, accusing them of hijacking his identify and status for a collection of bots on the location. Amongst them: Speak to Tony Robbins, Tony Robbins GPT, and Tony Robbins Español GPT.

Robbins alleges that the unauthorized bots ingested his seminars and different copyrighted content material, and are primarily reselling it beneath his identify, which he has trademarked. YesChat has numerous paid subscription tiers, starting from $8/month to $40/month, giving customers entry to 200,000 GPTs.

The lawsuit alleges that the bots are competing with Robbins’ personal, licensed AI clone, which is on the market on his web site for $99/month.

Brian Wolf, the legal professional who filed the case, stated it’s the primary such swimsuit that he’s conscious of.

“I don’t know that there’s been one other scenario the place a public determine or movie star has filed a declare in opposition to a GPT chatbot duplicate, the place they’ve created a chatbot to imitate the persona of a well-known particular person,” he stated.

YesChat didn’t reply to Wolf’s stop and desist letter. The businesses behind it — InnoLeap and Mira Muse — have additionally but to reply to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court docket in San Diego on June 26.

The swimsuit alleges federal trademark and false promoting claims, in addition to a violation of California’s proper of publicity legislation. The swimsuit seeks at the least $10 million in compensatory damages for unfair competitors, plus $2 million for every trademark violation, plus punitive damages for “willful and malicious misconduct.”

Different creators have filed quite a few lawsuits over the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials to coach AI fashions. AI corporations have had some success arguing that such coaching constitutes “honest use,” however Wolf says this case is completely different.

“These circumstances are completely different than this case, the place they’re mimicking and recreating a digital persona of a well-known particular person and promoting it as such,” stated Wolf, of Lavely & Singer. “We characterize innumerable celebrities and public figures, and we take a fairly aggressive method on behalf of these shoppers.”