OpenAI’s ChatGPT will no longer carry out prompts that request that the chatbot mimic a particular author’s style.

As reported by Ars Technica, ChatGPT has begun rejecting requests to generate text in the style of living authors like Stephen King or dead authors like Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. Though the chatbot refused to directly comply, it did offer to write something “with the hallmarks of atmospheric, character-driven horror and small-town dread,” showing it could still imitate some elements of an author’s work.

Reddit users have already noticed the change, with some complaining that they had paid for a subscription and that it was ruining their book-writing process.

OpenAI hasn’t officially announced the change or explained the reasoning behind the move — but Anthropic’s recent copyright lawsuit settlement may well have pushed the artificial intelligence company to act now.

ChatGPT won’t write like Dickens any more

It’s throwing a spanner in literary works

AI-generated writing, whether people like it or not, isn’t just clogging up your LinkedIn or Amazon reviews; it’s wormed its way into the world of professional fiction.

Bestselling books have now been hit with accusations of being, at least in part, AI-generated, while prestigious literary magazines have been accused of publishing AI-generated stories. Many organizations, including the Authors Guild, are suing OpenAI (OpenClassAction), with famous authors like John Grisham and Game of Thrones writer George R.R. Martin alleging the AI giant is profiting off their copyrighted work.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, recently agreed to pay out $1.5 billion to a group of authors following a class-action lawsuit, which accused the company of using their work to train its chatbot. It was the largest copyright settlement in US history, and it’s likely this enormous lawsuit that’s prompting OpenAI to reconsider how its chatbot delivers literary advice.

These types of imitation mechanics were obviously being widely used. As Futurism highlights, one romance author accidentally revealed that they had asked a chatbot to rewrite a paragraph in the style of J. Bree, a popular author in their genre, in one of their books published earlier this year.

“I’ve rewritten the passage to align more with J. Bree’s style, which features more tension, gritty undertones, and raw emotional subtext beneath the supernatural elements,” read a passage from the book.

Claude and Gemini will still comply for now

According to users on Reddit, both Anthropic’s Claude and Google Gemini will still comply with users’ requests to create text in the style of living authors. When we tested it, both chatbots explained that they would follow copyright rules and wouldn’t produce verbatim text taken from the author’s work.

Redditors also recommended manually describing the style of the author you want to emulate, rather than giving a name, to work around the restriction.