Journalist Javier Cabral wanted to test Google’s AI-powered, experimental search results. So he typed in a query about a topic he knew well: coffee from Long Beach bakery Gusto Bread.
In less than a second, Google’s AI summarized the bakery’s information into a few sentences and bullet points. But Cabral says the summary wasn’t original — it appeared to be taken from an article he wrote last year for the local food, community, and culture publication LA Taco, where he serves as editor-in-chief. For that earlier story, he spent at least five days working on a feature about the bakery, arriving at 4 a.m. to report on the baking process.
According to Cabral, the search giant’s AI tricked him.
“The average consumer who just wants to check it out, they’re probably not going to read it. [the article] “There’s nothing more,” Cabral said in an interview. “When you break it down like that, it’s a little bit upsetting.”
The emergence of AI is just the latest existential threat to news organizations like Cabral, which are struggling to survive amid a rapidly changing media and information environment.
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1. LA Taco editor Javier Cabral in the alley behind the Figueroa Theatre in Los Angeles in 2020. (Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times) 2. LA Taco’s Los Angeles office on June 26. (Zoe Cranfill/Los Angeles Times)
News media has struggled to attract subscribers and advertising revenue in the internet age. And social media platforms like Facebook, which publishers rely on to get their content to a wider audience, have largely turned away from news. Now, with the rise of AI thanks to companies like Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, publishers fear the disastrous consequences of digital programs that automatically pull information from their archives and feed it to audiences for free.
“There’s something fundamentally unfair about this,” said Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of the News/Media Alliance, which represents publications including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. “What’s going to happen is there’s going to be no business model for us in a scenario where they’re using our own work to compete with us, and that’s something we’re very concerned about.”
Tech companies leading AI development say their devices are not involved in copyright infringement and can direct traffic to publishers.
Google said in a statement that it designed its AI Summaries — summaries that appear when people enter a search query — to “provide a quick snapshot of relevant information from multiple web pages.” The company also provides links to those summaries so people can learn more.
AI and machine learning can provide useful tools for publishers when conducting research or making reader recommendations. But for many journalistic outlets, the AI revolution is yet another consequence of tech giants interceding between content producers and their consumers, and then taking the profits for themselves.
“For the last 20 years, big tech companies have dictated the business model of news by essentially mandating how news is distributed, whether through search or social media, and this has been pretty disastrous for most news organizations,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
LA Taco operates on a shoestring budget; its publishers don’t take salaries. The site makes most of its money through memberships, so if people are getting their information directly from Google instead of paying to read LA Taco articles, that’s a big deal. Above, a staff meeting at its Chinatown office.
(Zoe Cranfill/Los Angeles Times)
In response, news organizations have taken very different approaches. Several, including the Associated Press, the Financial Times and News Corp., owner of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, have signed licensing deals to let San Francisco-based OpenAI use their content in exchange for payment. Vox Media and the Atlantic have also struck deals with the company.
While others take their problems to court.
The New York Times in December sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies used its articles to train their digital assistants and shared paid story text with their users without compensation. The newspaper estimated that the actions resulted in billions of dollars in damages.
Separately, last month Forbes threatened legal action against AI startup Perplexity, alleging plagiarism. After receiving the letter from Forbes, Perplexity said it had changed the way it presented sources and adjusted the demand for its AI models.
The company said it has developed a revenue sharing program with publishers.
The New York Times said in its lawsuit that its fight against AI is now not just about getting paid for content; it is about protecting the future of the journalism profession.
“With less revenue, news organizations will have fewer journalists able to dedicate time and resources to important, in-depth stories, creating the risk that those stories will never get told,” the newspaper said in its lawsuit. “Less journalism will be produced, and the costs to society will be enormous.”
OpenAI said the New York Times lawsuit was baseless and could not provide examples the newspaper cited of ChatGPT regurgitating paid articles. The company said publishers have a way to opt out of having their sites used to train AI tools. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.
The Associated Press, the Financial Times and News Corp., owner of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, have signed licensing deals to allow San Francisco-based OpenAI to use their content in exchange for payment.
(Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)
“Microsoft and OpenAI are running the process completely backwards,” Davida Brook, a partner at the law firm Susman Godfrey, which represents the New York Times, said in a statement. “Neither The New York Times nor any other creator should have to opt out of having their work stolen.”
The legal battle is escalating. In April, eight publications owned by private equity firm Alden Global Capital also accused OpenAI and Microsoft of using and providing information from their stories without payment.
In some cases, OpenAI’s chatbot provided false information that was attributed to the publications, Frank Pine, executive editor for MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, said in a statement. For example, Pine said, OpenAI said the Mercury News recommended injecting disinfectant to treat COVID-19 and the Denver Post published a study showing that smoking could cure asthma. Neither publication made such claims.
“[W]“When they fail to provide the actual word-for-word reporting from our hardworking journalists, they falsely attribute false information to our news publication, which damages our credibility,” Pine said.
OpenAI said it was “not previously aware” of Alden’s concerns and that it is “actively engaged in constructive partnerships and conversations with news organizations around the world to explore opportunities, address concerns, and provide solutions.”
One such partnership is OpenAI’s recent deal with News Corp., which will allow the tech company’s devices to surface content from news outlets in response to user queries and access content from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and publications in the U.K. and Australia to train its AI models. The deal is worth more than $250 million over five years, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources. News Corp. and OpenAI declined to comment on the financial terms.
“This landmark agreement is not the end, but the beginning of a beautiful friendship in which we are together committed to creating and delivering insight and integrity instantly,” News Corp. chief executive Robert Thomson said in a statement.
“We are committed to growing the publisher and creator ecosystem by making it easier for people to discover their content through our tools,” OpenAI said in a statement.
While OpenAI has struck deals with a number of publishers, the tech industry argues that it should be able to train its AI models on content available online and provide relevant information under the “fair use” doctrine, which allows limited reproduction of content without permission from the copyright holder.
“As long as these companies don’t reproduce word for word what these news sites publish, we believe they have a legal right to offer this content to users,” said Chris MacKenzie, a spokesman for the Chamber of Progress, an industry group that represents companies including Google and Meta. “Ultimately, it’s important to remember that no one owns the copyright to facts.”
But media outlets including the New York Times have rejected fair use claims, arguing that in some cases the chatbots are actually reproducing their content, unfairly profiting from their own thoroughly researched and fact-checked work. The situation is even more difficult for smaller outlets like LA Taco, which cannot afford to sue OpenAI or develop their own AI platforms.
Located in Chinatown, LA, with four full-time and two part-time employees, LA Taco operates on a shoestring budget; its publishers don’t take salaries. The site makes most of its money through memberships, so if people are getting their information directly from Google instead of paying to read LA Taco articles, that’s a big deal.
Legislation is another potential way to address big tech’s encroachment on the journalism industry. The California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member, is sponsoring a state bill known as the California Journalism Preservation Act, which would require major digital advertising companies to pay news outlets for access to their stories, either through a pre-set fee or an amount set through arbitration. Most publishers would have to spend 70% of the money they receive on journalists’ salaries. Another bill being considered by lawmakers would tax big tech platforms for the data they collect from users and channel that money to news organizations by giving them tax breaks for hiring full-time journalists.
“The way out of this is some kind of regulation,” USC’s Kahn said. “Congress can’t do anything so these platforms are basically free to do what they want with very little consequence.”
This report was contributed by Times editorial library director Cary Schneider.
