OpenAI looks to further strengthen ChatGPT's news offerings with the artificial intelligence giant's newest reported partnership with News Corp., the multinational firm that owns the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and other prominent news publications.
Both News Corp. and OpenAI withheld the commercial terms of the agreement, but News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal reportedly revealed that the transaction "may be" worth over $250 million over five years, including cash payments and credits for utilizing OpenAI's technology.
The deal will allow ChatGPT to gain access to news content from News Corp.-owned sites such as Barron's, the New York Post, MarketWatch, and the Wall Street Journal.
To improve its models, ChatGPT's inventor is also in the process of concluding content licensing contracts with media organizations, such as the Associated Press, the German Axel Springer Group (owner of tabloid Bild), the French daily Le Monde, and the Spanish conglomerate Prisa Media.
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Innovation Often Harms Journalism
The new deal comes as multiple lawsuits by prominent players from the journalism sector claim that Google's Gemini and ChatGPT, among other chatbots, were trained on text that was collected from the internet without authorization or payment.
This included news stories. As a result of the tools' straight answers to queries, concerns are growing that people will just rely on Big Tech chatbots for their information rather than hiring journalists to cover and produce stories.
For years, news companies have been battered by technological advances. News organizations have frequently benefited from the financial and readership explosion brought forth by new technologies like social media. However, those funds and readership frequently disappear when technology advances.
News publishers like BuzzFeed and Vice News experienced fast growth during the social media boom. However, their revenue plummeted when Facebook owner Meta displayed less content in its users' feeds.
Journalism and Google's AI Overviews
Recently, news publishers criticized a new AI feature introduced by Google at its I/O conference. Dubbed AI Overviews, the new feature will have AI search the internet and create its overview of a user's search query rather than offer website links that allow content monetization.
News/Media Alliance CEO Danielle Coffey allegedly told sources that the new feature would be bad for their business, giving news publishers even less motivation to click through so that they could monetize their material. As Google tried to further accommodate user expectations, Coffey allegedly told sources that the new feature would be bad for their business.
According to Coffey, the minimal traffic they already receive will be significantly decreased.
Furthermore, Coffey's group, representing over 2,000 news publishers, has adopted a strong stance against AI developers using journalism due to a dominating search engine consolidating its market dominance.
With a product that directly competes with news content and uses its content as fuel, they claim they must once again adhere to Google's restrictions. For Coffey, this is a "perverse twist on innovation."
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(Photo: Tech Times)
