OpenAI tightens its grip on news media with Vox Media and Atlantic partnerships – SiliconANGLE

If you can’t beat them, join them: That might be the right sentiment in light of today’s news that OpenAI has just signed licensing deals with two of the U.S.’s biggest media companies, Vox Media Inc. and The Atlantic.

Vox is the parent company of a number of popular media outlets, including the tech website The Verge, the news website Vox, the pop cultural website Vulture and the biweekly New York Magazine. The Atlantic, founded in 1857, is one of the oldest media companies in the U.S.

Both companies have chosen the route of partnerships rather than going in the direction of litigation against OpenAI for its use of publisher content to train its large language models, notably ChatGPT. OpenAI has been sued numerous times, but lately it has struck deals, including with the Wall Street Journal and The Daily Telegraph parent company News Corp.

The Financial Times and The Associated Press have also lately joined the bandwagon rather than watch their content being scraped to death by generative artificial intelligence companies. One of the first media companies to get on board rather than go against the grain was Axel Springer SE, the parent company of Politico and Insider.

The amount of money OpenAI has been putting on the table is related to how much publishing space the company operates with. News Corp. is a news behemoth, formally run by the controversial character Rupert Murdoch, whose properties also included Fox in the U.S., The Sun and The Times in the U.K. That deal was worth $250 billion. The Financial Times deal was reportedly worth $5 to $10 million. It’s not clear what OpenAI is paying Vox and The Atlantic.

In a press release, The Atlantic said that queries in OpenAI’s products will at least link back to the content from where the information was taken. The news outlet will also be given “privileged access to OpenAI tech,” so it might improve its own products.

“The Atlantic is currently developing an experimental microsite, called Atlantic Labs, to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers – and will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work,” the press release also explained.

Vox said it will also leverage OpenAI’s tech to improve its products while allowing OpenAI to scrape from its many daily news stories. “This agreement aligns with our goals of leveraging generative AI to innovate for our audiences and customers, protect and grow the value of our work and intellectual property, and boost productivity and discoverability to elevate the talent and creativity of our exceptional journalists and creators,” said Jim Bankoff, co-founder, chair and CEO of Vox Media.

Outside PR-speak, news media including The Atlantic have been vociferous in saying that generative AI is a wrecking ball for their business. A journalist at the outlet likened partnerships with the enemy to a Faustian bargain, while last week another Atlantic writer decried AI companies’ “theft” of their content while another Atlantic writer said such partnerships are a “huge mistake.”

Right now, it’s look like more media leaders are going to take AI companies up on an offer they couldn’t really refuse. It’s plainly obvious they didn’t want to do it, but they might as well get paid for it.

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