NY Times Teams Up With Amazon for AI Content
So, get this: The New York Times and Amazon.com just teamed up! It's kind of a big deal cause the Times is letting Amazon use their news stories for things like Alexa, which is pretty wild. This is actually the first time the Times has done a deal like this just for AI stuff.
Apparently, this agreement is gonna last a few years. Amazon gets to use stuff from the main Times newspaper, plus content from NYT Cooking and even that sports website, The Athletic. They didn't say how much money is changing hands, which is typical, right? But the Times did say part of the deal means you'll see summaries and small bits of their stories popping up in Amazon things, and it'll also help train Amazon's AI models. Pretty interesting, huh?
It seems like this is happening because AI companies are finding it tricky to make their language models better now that they've used up all the easy-to-find info out there. Plus, a bunch of them, including the company behind ChatGPT, are getting sued because of how they used data. Remember how the Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI last year? They said those guys used tons of their articles without asking to train their chatbots. The Times even had to pay over $4 million in legal costs for that lawsuit just in the first few months of this year.
OpenAI did say last year they were trying to work with others to get access to more data for their AI training. And they've already signed deals with companies like the Financial Times, Business Insider's owner, and some French and Spanish newspapers. Even Time magazine is in on it! Reuters also licensed their articles to Meta Platforms not too long ago.
Someone who analyzes the market, Max Willens, thinks this Amazon deal is a good way for the Times to get in front of people who don't subscribe yet. Makes sense! The Times has been doing pretty well lately, winning a bunch of Pulitzer Prizes and getting more online subscribers than they thought they would in the first part of the year. That's probably because they have those bundled deals and, well, there's always a ton of news happening, which keeps people reading.
