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What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Why the New York Times Sued OpenAI

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.56K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If A.I. and chatbots are the next wave of innovation, then the New York Times and other media organizations are determined to get paid this time.  


Guest: Megan Morrone, technology editor for the Axios AI+ newsletter


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Transcript

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0:00.0

Just days before the new year, the New York Times sued Open AI and Microsoft.

0:10.0

Why?

0:11.0

Well, they wanted money for their work.

0:14.0

That's Megan Moroni. I work with her over at Axios, where she's a tech editor on our AI Plus newsletter.

0:22.0

Recently, she wrote that 2024 will test not only the

0:26.0

development of AI but also the limits of copyright law and the news business and

0:31.3

the New York Times case sets up the stakes.

0:34.0

Before filing suit, the paper was in talks with open AI

0:37.0

over a deal that would let the company use the Times content

0:40.0

to train its models.

0:42.0

Open AI has been doing these kinds of deals with other publishers,

0:46.0

like the Associated Press.

0:47.8

But the Times, kind of the big kahuna of journalism right now,

0:51.5

seems to have wanted more.

0:53.0

It sounds like open AI was looking in the millions

0:57.0

and the New York Times says billions of damages.

1:00.0

And obviously, like the media industry, in particular newspapers were not exactly thriving right now.

1:08.0

And we've been beaten down by tech companies for decades now and it's exhausting.

1:17.0

The way the time sees it, they're spending a fortune creating what's unfortunately now called content that's the articles

1:25.4

investigative pieces analysis puzzles recipes product recommendations and

1:30.2

more that make up what many of us still call a newspaper.

1:35.0

An open AI is just taking the fruits of that labor, that newspaper, to train their technology.

...

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