New York, October 6: ChatGPT is producing AI-generated New Yorker-style cartoons that carry the real signatures of more than 15 of the magazine's cartoonists, according to a Nieman Lab report.

The signatures include Brendan Loper's "BLOPER", Harry Bliss, Emily Flake, Pat Byrnes, George Booth and Liza Donnelly. The artists did not consent to the use.

OpenAI signed a licensing deal with Conde Nast, the New Yorker's parent company, in 2024. But the company was not permitted to train on cartoons. OpenAI added a guardrail message after being notified, the report said.

For artists, a signature authenticates work and gives it value. Cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein told Nieman Lab the output was "an uncanny simulacrum of an impression of a joke."

The finding raises fresh questions about AI training data and intellectual property. It follows court documents in the New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI that described AI training as large-scale labour theft.