News Corp’s Australian boss has called for artificial intelligence (AI) companies to pay for the news content used to train their products while invoking how Australia successfully muscled Meta (Facebook) and Google into signing lucrative publisher deals.
In an opinion piece published in The Australian on Sunday, News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller talked up the utility of AI for journalists before taking aim at OpenAI and other AI companies for building their products off the back of journalism.
“OpenAI has, for example, quickly established a business worth $US30bn ($44bn) by using the others’ original content and creativity without remuneration and attribution,” he wrote.
Generative AI products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are trained on corpuses of data so that a model can learn how to answer prompts. These training sets typically involve huge amounts of information scraped from the internet, including content produced by news publishers.
Miller drew a comparison with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Google, who were both cajoled into signing deals with Australian publishers to licence their content for use.
“Befittingly, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s digital platforms inquiry and introduction of the federal government’s News Media Bargaining Code, has recently led to collaborative partnerships with the tech giants that recognise the value of journalism,” he said.
The News Corp chief argued that AI companies should enter into similar agreements with news publishers.
“Similarly, creators deserve to be rewarded for their original work being used by AI engines which are raiding the style and tone of not only journalists but (to name a few) musicians, authors, poets, historians, painters, filmmakers and photographers. It is feasting on their creativity.”
Australia’s news media bargaining code paved the way for deals reportedly worth $200 million for local publishers (including Crikey’s owner Private Media). The legislation, passed by the Morrison government, threatened tech companies with “designation”, which would mean forced arbitration for their use of Australian publisher’s news content on their platforms. No platform has yet been designated but the spectre was enough to encourage deals with most major publishers (although many minor publishers have not been able to come to agreements). A review late last year found the legislation had mostly been a success.
Miller’s article echoed — and at times quoted — News Corp’s global chief executive officer Robert Thomson who spoke last month about the company’s discussions with an unnamed AI company about financial compensation. Miller previously had urged staff to experiment with ChatGPT and tasked an internal working group with exploring how the technology could be used within the company.
Other major US publishers are already discussing how to press AI companies for deals for using their work as they consider how tools like ChatGPT will cut into their existing models built around monetising traffic from search. Other publishers are taking steps to oppose inclusion. Late last year The Chaser put up new restrictions to stop their content being used to train AI.
Why did this article immediately make me think of a mosquito looking for yet another species of animal to suck the blood from?
Not to mention that News Corp couldn’t recognise intelligence – artificial or otherwise – even if it tripped over it.
As an autonomous, intelligent, educated, independent thinking free citizen of Australia, Graeski, no article can make you think anything. What you think is your business. It’s the result of how your brain processes information. Some call it your free will.
If you feel an irrestible urge to liken News Corp to a parasitic insect, that sounds like it’s just your opinion – the product of your brain’s processes. No article can make you think that way. In fact, you could think anything you like. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here, and think whatever you like.
I thought the substance of what News Corp’s Michael Miller said has merit. AI software has somehow stolen intellectual property from countless artists and authors without attribution, and I for one would like to see them compensated through ownership of the AI engines their works have been used to train.
What struck me as overreach was Miller’s urging that News Corp be included as a substantial artist deserving of compensation. In fact, News Corp has hidden its publications behind paywalls, which means its content hardly figures in “the huge amounts of information scraped from the internet” used to train AI. News Corp’s content is largely irrelevant to the corpus of information absorbed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Miller has been emboldened by News Corp’s past success partnering with the Morrison government to shake money out of Google and Meta’s pockets. He thinks he can do it again because he holds News Corp in such high esteem, and experience has left him none the wiser.
But AI isn’t going to pay fealty to News Corp, and the Morrison team has been relegated to the opposition benches.
The Albanese government is more likely to go into bat for struggling artists than for press barons, because it is a genuine left wing government founded upon a deep concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others and a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished.
Damn. Now I’m thinking ‘pontificating prick’.
Thank you for sharing that, Graeski.
I think science has already proven Free Will can be subverted by intentional exposure to propaganda .
Free will like any muscle must be exercised. Critical thinking also. As L Ron Hubbard said
60 per cent of the population require something to believe in it doesn’t matter what. That desire can be translated into money.
With luck and will from the programers it might be possible for AI to distinguish beteeen news and propaganda. Then the Newscorp people wont have to worry about AI using their original material.
No AI cannot think
This is the problem
We can look and say this doesn’t feel right then go against all logic to a correct answer
AI can’t
AI is going to source News Corp for information, you must be joking. With News Corp as a sole provider AI would write an essay on what a great success RoboDebt was. And no mention of a Royal Commission. Nor would there be anything about a high profile court case in the USA involving Dominion Voting Systems.
Then it has nothing to worry about.
where is morality , responsible sentient journalism and standards – we need an intergrity body for media and press freedom protection for all whistle blowers to boot ..Now – jackels are running the show to profit puppet masters mainly …
The ABC ransacked and cobbled including their online fare …democracy now!