NY Times and Amazon: AI Content Deal
Okay, so get this: The New York Times, yeah, that big newspaper? They're letting Amazon, like, the everything store, use their stuff for AI things like Alexa. It's the first time they've ever done a deal like this for AI. Basically, Amazon gets to use articles from the Times, plus recipes from NYT Cooking and stuff from The Athletic, that sports site.
The Times said on Thursday that itâs a multi-year deal, but they didnât say how much money is involved. They did say though that Amazon will show summaries and short bits of their content in places like Alexa, and also use it to train Amazon's AI models. Pretty wild, right?
This deal is happening because AI companies are finding it tough to make their AI better because they've used up all the easy-to-find info out there. Also, a bunch of them, even the company that makes ChatGPT, are getting sued because people say they used their info without asking. Remember how The Times actually sued Microsoft and OpenAI last year? They said those guys used millions of their articles without permission to train those chatty AI bots. The Times even said they spent 4.4 million bucks in the first three months of this year just on their lawsuit costs. Ouch.
OpenAI, the company Sam Altman is in charge of, said last year they were looking to team up with folks to get access to info for training their AI. And yeah, they've signed deals with other places too, like the Financial Times, Business Insider's owner, some French and Spanish news companies, and even Time magazine. Reuters, another news place, also let Facebook's company, Meta, use their stuff for an AI chatbot last year. Seems like everyone is getting in on this AI action.
An analyst named Max Willens from Emarketer thinks this deal with Amazon is a cool chance for the Times to show off to people who don't already subscribe. The Times has been doing pretty well lately, by the way. They just won four Pulitzer Prizes, which is a big deal, and they got more online subscribers than they thought they would in the first part of the year. They said it was because of their bundled deals and also because there was a lot going on in the news that got people reading more. So, what do you think about all this?
