TLDR: While everyone is waiting for big AI companies to get sued, the real concern is how much of your business, brand, and future livelihood is built on the unstable foundation companies created while quietly passing all the risk onto you. One detail that is often overlooked in discussions about AI can be found in the terms of use for each tool. Generative AI service providers often delegate responsibility to the USER to not violate copyright law, presumably because they believe it frees themselves from any moral obligations or responsibility. Here's an example from OpenAI: "You may provide input to the Services (“Input”), and receive output from the Services based on the Input (“Output”). Input and Output are collectively “Content.” You are responsible for Content, including ensuring that it does not violate any applicable law or these Terms. You represent and warrant that you have all rights, licenses, and permissions needed to provide Input to our Services." At some point, USERS need to become more concerned about how they adopt these tools because they are the ones who can (and will) get sued. The companies already laid that out clearly, and acceptance is implied by your use of a tool. Generative AI tools can and do create derivative copies (which is protected by copyright law) of whatever data was used to train their models. This acknowledgement also appears in the terms of use: "Due to the nature of our Services and artificial intelligence generally, output may not be unique and other users may receive similar output from our Services." The "uniqueness" is not random coincidence. It occurs quite often when a model reproduces fragments of its underlying training dataset (which often includes copyright-protected works). What USERS need to start recognizing is that THEY are liable for what inputs are provided and how outputs are used within existing law. If you use AI-generated content that turns out to be an obvious derivative work (or an exact clone) then you are just opening yourself up to a lawsuit. It likely won't be big companies either, but they absolutely can. If you want to know more then you should read up on how arbitration works where you live (because you agreed to that too). The excuse I have heard a lot: "but everybody is doing it." I'm not a lawyer, but I'm willing to believe that this defense does not hold up well in any court system. Personally, I cannot blame a single person who would consider generative AI use as radioactive because of the inherent risks that have been placed on its USERS who unknowingly build things on such unstable ground. All other aspects aside, it's just extra risk that is 100% avoidable.