Editor's note: opinions and thoughts are the author's own and not those of Afrotech™.
The New York Times signed a multi-year agreement with Amazon last month, licensed its content to Amazon's artificial intelligence model.
Amazon has access to New York Times content, including NYT Cuisine and its sports publication The Athletic.
Amazon's AI services, such as Alexa, create real-time summaries and short excerpts. Like other news publishers, New York Times sees licensing agreements as a viable way to generate profits as AI companies try to suck up copyrighted content to train chatbots.
Attitudes towards AI use, particularly regarding news organizations, are polarized. Other publishers, such as the Washington Post, Associated Press, and Axios, have also signed deals with AI companies to obtain licenses for their content. A few years ago, AI companies were using copyrighted materials without permission. Media companies Ziff Davis and The New York Times sued Openai and Microsoft in 2023, alleging intellectual theft.
The Times' decision to do business with an AI company feels like it's separate from the original idea of AI. The biggest difference is that this publication is paid for intellectual property. The majority of lawsuits against Openai and other AI companies stem from allegations that the source of information is not properly trusted.
There are several reasons to be wary about AI, including its environmental impact, the possibility of spreading misinformation, and the possibility of changing the way we work. However, artificial intelligence will not disappear anytime soon. It's better for news organizations to be compensated for their work than allow AI companies to continue cutting content for free. It creates a chain of accountability and forces these companies to pay.
When consumers use AI to ask questions, the chatbot provides users with answers fed from various news articles, making it less likely that users scroll through the publisher's website to find the answer. This licensing agreement balances the scale between artificial intelligence and news publishers, struggling with increasing traffic and ensuring profit reductions.
More artists and publishers need to be aware of this. Openai, Meta, Microsoft and others are resistant to effective AI laws because they don't want to compensate people for their intellectual property. These transactions can be the first step for artists who request their own transactions, not only protecting their art, but also to ensure that these companies do not accumulate all the profits they have gained from their work.
You can't make AI training free with content. If AI companies want to use our work, they need to pay us for it.
