NYT and Amazon Team Up for AI Content
Hey, so did you hear about this? The New York Times is letting Amazon use their news stories and stuff for their AI products, you know, like Alexa. This is a pretty big deal cause itâs the first time the Times has made a deal like this for this AI tech.
They say this agreement goes on for a few years, and guess what? Amazon gets to use articles from The Times, plus content from their NYT Cooking site and that sports website, The Athletic. The Times didn't say how much money they're getting out of it, though.
The Times mentioned that this means you'll see quick summaries and little bits of their content showing up in Amazon things, like Alexa. It's also gonna help Amazon train their own special AI models.
This is happening cause these AI companies are having a tough time making their fancy language models better. They've basically used up all the easy-to-find info out there. A bunch of them, including the folks behind ChatGPT, are even getting sued over how they use data.
Remember how The Times actually sued Microsoft and OpenAI last year? They said those companies used millions of their articles without asking to train those chatbot things that give people info. The Times even spent over $4 million on legal costs for that lawsuit in just the first few months of the year.
OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, said last year they were looking to team up with people to get access to different kinds of data to train their AI. Since then, they've made deals with the Financial Times, Business Insider's owner Axel Springer, France's Le Monde, Spain's Prisa Media, and even Time magazine. Reuters also made a deal with Meta Platforms last year to let them use their articles for their AI chatbot. Lots of deals happening!
An analyst named Max Willens from Emarketer thinks this deal with Amazon is a cool chance for the Times to get noticed by people who don't already subscribe. The Times actually won four Pulitzer Prizes recently, and they got more digital subscribers than they thought they would in the first part of the year. Sounds like things are going well for them right now, boosted by their package deals and all the news keeping people reading.
It makes you wonder, how do you think this partnership will change how we get our news through AI?
