Andrea Bartz Is One of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI

New York Times-bestselling author Andrea Bartz has become one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI, after successfully suing Anthropic for using her pirated books to train its AI chatbot Claude. Bartz, who was named first among the three plaintiffs along with Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson, describes the moment she discovered her works being used to generate her prose in seconds as a "gut punch."

After Anthropic was ruled to have violated copyright laws by downloading these books without permission, the company agreed to pay a record-breaking $1.5 billion in settlement. This payment would provide $3,000 to each author whose work was stolen, with authors potentially receiving compensation for every book they lost. While critics argue that the case did not address broader issues surrounding AI and copyright, Bartz considers her victory as "a crucial precedent" that sends a strong message to the tech industry.

She hopes this ruling will inspire other lawsuits to establish stronger legal precedents and serve as a morale boost for writers, emphasizing that "theft of this nature is illegal." Bartz's next novel, a "tech thriller," is slated for release in May 2027.