SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Monday skewered a $1.5 billion settlement between artificial intelligence company Anthropic and authors who allege nearly half a million books had been illegally pirated to train chatbots, raising the specter that the case could still end up going to trial.

After spending nearly an hour mostly lambasting a settlement that he believes is full of pitfalls, U.S. District Judge William Alsup scheduled another hearing in San Francisco on September 25 to review whether his concerns had been addressed.

“We’ll see if I can hold my nose and approve it” then, Alsup said before adjourning Monday’s hearing.

Afterwards, the leader of a publishers group involved in the settlement called some of the judge’s revised timetable for approving the deal “troubling,” i

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