ChatGPT developer OpenAI has reportedly struck a deal with the Financial Times that allows it to use the newspaper’s journalism content as a means for training artificial intelligence systems.
The Financial Times will receive an undisclosed payment as part of the deal, according to a report by the Guardian.
The deal reportedly means that ChatGPT users will now encounter summaries and quotes from Financial Times journalism when asking the chatbot questions, and will also receive links to articles in certain responses. The Financial Times for leftist positions such as supporting globalism and fervently opposing Brexit.
FT Group CEO John Ridding said it’s “right” that AI companies pay publishers for their material.
“OpenAI understands the importance of transparency, attribution, and compensation — all essential for us,” Ridding said. “At the same time, it’s clearly in the interests of users that these products contain reliable sources.”
OpenAI has also reportedly signed similar contracts with Associated Press, the French newspaper Le Monde, Spanish media company PRISA, and German media company Axel Springer.
OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap claimed it was important for the AI developer to “represent quality journalism as these products take shape.”
“As with any transformative technology, there is potential for significant advancements and major challenges, but what’s never possible is turning back time,” Lightcap added.
Not every entity, however, feels respected by OpenAI, as the AI developer is facing multiple lawsuits.
The New York Times, for example, is suing the company and its largest investor Microsoft, claiming OpenAI used its journalism to train large language models without the newspaper’s permission.
Similarly, authors Jodi Picoult, John Grisham, and Game of Thrones writer George RR Martin are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement in the United States.
Visual media company Getty Images, meanwhile, is suing the company behind image generator Stable Diffusion in the United Kingdom over similar allegations.
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