NYT and Amazon AI Deal Explained
So, get this, The New York Times, you know, the big newspaper folks, just made a deal with Amazon. Yeah, Amazon, the one with Alexa and all that stuff.
Looks like the Times is letting Amazon use their articles and other content, like from NYT Cooking and The Athletic sports site for their AI projects. This is a first for the Times when it comes to AI deals.
They didn't say how much money is involved though. But they did say Amazon will be showing bits and pieces of Times stuff, like summaries, on things like Alexa. And they'll also use it to train their AI models.
This is happening 'cause AI companies are kinda running out of easy data to make their models better. And a bunch of them, even the folks who make ChatGPT, are getting sued for using data they maybe shouldn't have.
Remember how the Times actually sued Microsoft and OpenAI last year? They said those companies used tons of their articles without asking to train their chatbots. The Times even spent a bunch of money, like $4.4 million, on legal costs in the first few months of this year because of that lawsuit. Wild, right?
OpenAI said last year they were looking to team up to get access to different kinds of data for training their AI. Since then, they've made deals with other news places too, like the Financial Times, Business Insider, Le Monde in France, Prisa Media in Spain, and even Time magazine. Reuters also made a deal with Meta Platforms last year.
One analyst, Max Willens from Emarketer, thinks this deal with Amazon is a cool chance for the Times to get in front of people who don't subscribe yet. I mean, maybe seeing Times content on Alexa will make some folks curious, idk?
The Times has been doing pretty well lately, btw. 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. That's probably 'cause they have those bundle deals and there's just been a lot going on in the news, which makes more people want to read.
