Top News Outlets Criticize OpenAI For Using Their Articles For Free To Train Its ChatGPT Software

It appears like the controversies surrounding OpenAI never cease to end.

Now, some of the world’s leading news outlets have started to criticize the company for using their articles for training its ChatGPT software. And that too, without offering any sort of financial compensation in return.

The news comes to us thanks to a report by Bloomberg. This showed how Wall Street journalists of the firm seemed furious and began raising their voices on the matter that’s awfully controversial.

Moreover, they feel that anyone that wishes to use content related to WSJ media for AI-related training needs adequate licensing rights from the likes of Dow Jones as revealed by Bloomberg today. And just for the record, they were very clear about how Dow Jones doesn’t have any sort of a deal in place at this moment in time with ChatGPT makers OpenAI.

Another statement expressed due concern and anger on the incident, adding how they feel this is just a blatant example of misusing journalists’ work in the most awful manner. And for this reason, they’re now overviewing the situation seriously to see what the next step could be.

The sudden arousal of concerns comes into play when a top journalist named Francesco Marconi put up a tweet through his account claiming content that belonged to them was utilized for training the AI-powered chatbot by OpenAI. Moreover, he even asked ChatGPT to provide a list of all the news outlets used for its training and that’s when he was dumbfounded to see the response had at least 20 different sources mentioned.

The software has been trained using a lot of data that range from huge names in the media industry which powers AI. But it’s just not clear if OpenAI has any set agreements in place with all of these publishing firms or not. As you may know, taking data without first asking for permission is definitely against the law as it goes against any publisher’s policy and terms of service.

For now, OpenAI is yet to comment on the matter. But news outlets claim they are not the first ones to ask queries on the subject regarding if the content is used without authority by AI systems.

Let’s not forget how in November last year, OpenAI, GitHub, and Microsoft Corp were issued lawsuits because one of their tools went by the name GitHub Copilot was copying content belonging to human creators. This was a clear violation of the licenses issued to them.
Then last month, another group of artists issued a case against AI producer Stability AI and DeviantArt Inc for installing and using so many copyrighted pictures without offering any form of compensation or even getting the consent of the respective artists involved.

CNN is also a part of the list who says that it’s wrong to use its content for training purposes of the viral software as it goes against its terms of service. Therefore, they do hope to reach out to the makers of ChatGPT for payment to license their respective content, as revealed by a person familiar with the matter. But since the case is a legal one, his name was not disclosed.

As you can see, the uprising of AI technology and chatbots is turning out to be a controversial affair in the world of media and publishing. Many top journalists fear that these sorts of advancements in the tech world may end up taking over their respective bread and butter.
Furthermore, other critics fear that the rise of AI is going to give rise to more misinformation. As it is, we’ve recently seen a few publications such as Men’s Journal and even CNET being left with no choice but to edit AI articles coupled with huge inaccuracies.


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