### Mark Zuckerberg to Be Deposed in Authors' Lawsuit Accusing Meta of Copyright Infringement

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be questioned under oath as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman. The case involves allegations that Meta unlawfully used their content to train its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant.

On Tuesday, US District Judge Thomas Hixson dismissed Meta's attempt to prevent Zuckerberg from being deposed. The judge's decision was based on evidence showing that Zuckerberg is the main decision-maker in Meta's AI initiatives. Silverman, along with authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, initiated the class action lawsuit against Meta last year, accusing the tech giant of using content from their books, obtained through "shadow library" websites, to develop its AI language model, LLAMA, without obtaining proper consent or providing compensation.

This lawsuit is part of an increasing number of copyright disputes targeting AI chatbots and their training methods. In a similar move, the same group of authors also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chatbot ChatGPT last year.

Meta had argued that Zuckerberg did not possess unique information about the company's AI projects that couldn't be acquired from other employees. However, Judge Hixson ruled that Zuckerberg is the key policy maker for Meta's AI ventures, noting evidence of his direct involvement and supervision of the company's AI products.

The plaintiffs referenced an article from The New York Times published in April, which claimed that tech companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta had skirted copyright laws to gain an edge in the AI race. According to the article, upon the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, Zuckerberg spearheaded efforts to catch up and outdo the rival chatbot, urging Meta's executives and engineers to intensify development.

Although Meta acknowledged that its AI training data set included books from publicly available sources, the company did not reveal the specific origins. Both Meta and the plaintiffs' attorney have yet to comment on the court's latest ruling.

In a related development, another group of authors filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic in August, accusing it of using pirated copies of their works to train its chatbot Claude.