Vox Media and The Atlantic have inked agreements with OpenAI to licence content for the chatbot ChatGPT. The businesses will work together on efforts related to product development as well.
Deals with News Corp, Dotdash Meredith, the Financial Times, and Reddit have all been previously reached by OpenAI. The Atlantic filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, claiming that the latter violated copyright by training AI systems on content from publishers.
The Atlantic’s agreement with OpenAI is viewed as a settlement without going to court because publishers are exchanging their reputation for money from businesses that undervalue them and are creating products that are meant to take their place. The deals’ financial details were kept a secret.
Citing ethical and environmental issues, Vox Media’s editorial unions, which are members of WGA East, have voiced their concerns regarding a strategic content and product relationship with OpenAI. Transparency and inclusion in partnership discussions are demands made by the unions.
The publisher, The Atlantic, will influence news presentation in real-time discovery tools and have its content discoverable via OpenAI’s products, such as ChatGPT. The company is creating an experimental microsite called Atlantic Labs to investigate the possibilities of AI in product development, and the product team at Atlantic will have exclusive access to OpenAI technology.
