Benzinga - by Shanthi Rexaline, Benzinga Editor.
The New York Times Co (NYSE:NYT) has filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), alleging the unauthorized use of copyrighted content by AI.
Venture capitalist and SPAC sponsor Chamath Palihapitiya, along with Gene Munster from Deepwater Asset Management, shared insights on the implications of this development.
What Happened: “The interesting thing about this NYT/OpenAI lawsuit is the counterfactual,” Palihapitiya wrote on X. “If Apple is, indeed, writing substantial checks to media companies to license their content for training models, the impact of this and other lawsuits against AI companies training on non-public data will be swift and meaningful.”
He added, “A very clever move by Apple if this lawsuit goes the way of NYT.”
Kolin Koehl, an AI executive, echoed the sentiment, stating that if Apple’s actions set a precedent, it could bring about significant changes in how AI companies operate.
Palihapitiya also issued a warning for large-language model companies lacking proprietary data. “If you are a model without proprietary training data, you will have a very difficult time,” he said.
Context: Apple has been negotiating with major news and publishers in recent weeks to obtain permission to use their material to develop its generative AI systems, NYT reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The tech giant is looking to spend at least $50 million to license archived news content and has contacted companies such as Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue and The New Yorker, Comcast Corporation's (NASDAQ:CMCSA) NBC News, and IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC), which owns People, The Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens.
Additionally, Apple’s News Partner Program allows publishers working with Apple News to avail a 15% commission on qualifying in-app purchase subscriptions.
Munster’s Take: Munster weighed in on the lawsuit, anticipating it may reach the Supreme Court due to the critical nature of AI training. He identified companies like Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Elon Musk-owned X as potential beneficiaries, citing the microblogging site’s possession of 500 million proprietary tweets.
Munster also pointed out that Alphabet, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) can leverage YouTube and search content to strengthen its large-language model, Gemini.
“That’s where they all end up stronger,” he added.
However, Munster does not see any impact on the pace of development of AI. “It may slow by months, but not years,” he said.
”And effectively I think we still are well positioned for what’s going to be a massive bull market that’s going to be driven by AI across tech in the next three to five years,” Munster said. “And so this is a headline, this is worth talking about. This is important [for] fair use. But it doesn’t change what that end trajectory is,” he added.
Munster sees a lot of relationships being forged between publishers and the companies that train on it. ”Even tens of hundreds of millions of dollars of annual licensing fees which I would expect it to be isn’t going to matter in the long term when you look at what the type of value that these companies are are trying to generate,” he said.
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