The AI Giants vs. The Publishers
In the red corner, we have the AI giants – Google, OpenAI, and their ilk. In the blue corner, we have the publishers – The New York Times, News Corp, Axel Springer, and others. The bell rings, and the fight is on. The publishers are accusing the AI companies of using their content to train their AI models without permission. It’s a classic case of David and Goliath, only this time, David has a printing press and Goliath has a supercomputer.
The Concerns of the Publishers
IAC CEO Joey Levin, who’s leading the charge, warns that AI taking over the news media might be “more profound” than the fear of AI eliminating humans and taking control of the world. Now, that’s a statement. The publishers are worried about how AI will impact traffic to their websites from Google searches. The AI chatbots may simply scrape that data from their pages and serve it to the user without attribution or links. It’s like having a dinner party and someone else taking credit for your cooking. Not cool, right?
The Coalition Forms
This coalition of publishers comes hot on the heels of IAC Chairman Barry Diller’s warning of AI’s “catastrophic” impact on publishing. Meanwhile, the Associated Press seems to be playing both sides of the field. They’ve inked a deal with ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI to license an archive of news stories. It’s like they’re saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
The Legal Battles
Google, OpenAI, Meta, and other AI companies have been the target of multiple lawsuits over the past few months. Comedian Sarah Silverman joined two others to sue OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement. Google was hit with a similar class-action suit. It’s like a legal version of whack-a-mole.
The Role of the Government
The Biden administration is also stepping into the ring, trying to establish guardrails to regulate AI. Seven companies—Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Anthropic, and Inflection AI—have made “voluntary” commitments to help move toward safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology. But these commitments lack any details about compensating the sources of data being used to train these AI systems. It’s like promising to eat healthier but not mentioning anything about cutting out junk food.
The Takeaway
So, what’s the takeaway here? The battle lines are drawn, and the fight is just getting started. It’s a clash of titans, and the outcome could shape the future of AI and publishing. Stay tuned, folks. This is going to be interesting.
