ChatGPT Forges Cartoonists' Signatures On Fake New Yorker Cartoons
ChatGPT is generating fake New Yorker-style cartoons and signing them with the names of real cartoonists, according to a report by Nieman Lab. The story hit the front page of Hacker News with 320 points and over 170 comments [1][2].
The issue is straightforward: users ask ChatGPT to generate a New Yorker-style cartoon, and the model produces one with a signature that belongs to a real, working cartoonist. The cartoonist did not draw it. The cartoonist did not authorize it. Their name is on it anyway.
This is not a hypothetical. It is happening now, and it sits at the intersection of several live debates: copyright infringement, the right of publicity, the integrity of artistic attribution, and the question of whether an AI model trained on an artist's body of work can produce work that passes for theirs [1].
The New Yorker's cartoon style is distinctive and widely recognized. Its cartoonists have spent careers developing individual voices. When an AI model replicates both the style and the signature, it does two things at once: it dilutes the artist's brand, and it creates forged attributions that could fool readers into thinking a real cartoonist produced the work [1].
From a legal standpoint, this touches on several open questions. Is generating a cartoon "in the style of" a specific artist copyright infringement? The prevailing view is that style itself is not copyrightable, but adding a real artist's signature crosses a different line. It moves from pastiche into forgery. There are also right-of-publicity claims, which vary by jurisdiction but generally protect against unauthorized commercial use of a person's name or identity [1].
OpenAI has not yet publicly addressed this specific issue. The company's terms of use prohibit generating content that impersonates real people, but enforcement is inconsistent, and the gap between policy and practice is where these problems live [1].
For working cartoonists, this is not abstract. A fake cartoon with a real signature can circulate online, get attributed to the artist, and damage their reputation if the work is bad or offensive. The cartoonist has no way to prevent it, no way to track it, and no way to remove it. It is their name on something they did not make [1].
Sources:
[1] Nieman Lab - ChatGPT is adding real cartoonists' signatures to fake New Yorker cartoons
[2] Hacker News discussion (320 points, 170+ comments)