Google wasted no time to mention this week’s Nobel Prizes to Geoffrey Hinton (formerly at Google) and Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind) in its more mundane motion for consolidation of the lawsuits brought by Leovy and Zhang against Google. Judge Eumi Lee presides over both cases and requested the parties to brief the issue of consolidation.
The Court should consolidate the Leovy and Zhang actions. Courts consolidate actions
when they “involve a common question of law or fact,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(a), and consolidation would “serve[] the interests of efficiency and judicial economy.” Ramirez v. HB USA Holdings, Inc., 2021 WL 840353, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 15, 2021). That standard is easily met here.
Both actions arise out of recent technological breakthroughs in generative artificial
intelligence (AI) models. These models are capable of creating new, original text, images, music, videos, and code, and serving as a companion that can help research, summarize, and synthesize information or brainstorm ideas. Just this week, two Nobel Prize Committees recognized the work of three Google-affiliated AI scientists that has already changed the world and promises to do more. In awarding the Nobel Prize in Physics to a former Google Vice President and Engineering Fellow for his earlier foundational work, the Committee for Physics recognized the transformational potential of AI to “tackle many of the challenges our society face[s]” and to
“enable breakthroughs toward building a sustainable society.” https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/09/advanced-physicsprize2024.pdf. To develop their transformational capabilities, generative AI models must be trained—generally through exposure to enormous amounts of data—so that they can learn how to use words, sounds, and images as the building blocks of creativity.