OpenAI Says it can Augment Media

ChatGPT owner pretends it's good pals with journalism.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you enjoyed your break and got a chance to really dig into some festivities. The New York Times lawsuit saga with OpenAI continues.

OpenAI is claiming it will actually be a good for journalism and wanted to add value to the New York Times.

Our discussions with The New York Times had appeared to be progressing constructively through our last communication on December 19. The negotiations focused on a high-value partnership around real-time display with attribution in ChatGPT, in which The New York Times would gain a new way to connect with their existing and new readers, and our users would gain access to their reporting. We had explained to The New York Times that, like any single source, their content didn't meaningfully contribute to the training of our existing models and also wouldn't be sufficiently impactful for future training. Their lawsuit on December 27—which we learned about by reading The New York Times—came as a surprise and disappointment to us.

They claimed:

• Training is fair use, but we provide an opt-out

• "Regurgitation" is a rare bug we're driving to zero

• The New York Times is not telling the full story

The problem is, OpenAI is still an enigma.

Part of the reason I’m so skeptical of OpenAI is how deceptive they have been about being “open” or aiming for a general artificial intelligence that replaces ‘median humans’. It’s a company with leadership and PR that had many red flags.

“Regurgitation” is a rare bug that we are working to drive to zero

OpenAI even goes so far as to claim that regurgitation (without attribution) is a bug.

If we look at the big picture, OpenAI appears rather predatory to the future of News and Search. How long before the Ads roll out?

OpenAI in 2024 feels like Netscape of circa 1995. Its 1995 IPO ushered in the internet era, but by 1998 the browser pioneer was on the ropes.