Here’s Why OpenAI’s Deal With Hearst Should Scare Google

If AI really is the future of digital tech, it comes with a pretty awful side dish: AI data scraping. Popular large language model applications are so hungry for data that AI makers have frequently resorted to questionable methods when grabbing as much data as possible from wherever they can, regardless of any moral or legal implications. But in a surprising reversal of this trend, the Wall Street Journal reports that market leading AI brand OpenAI has signed a deal with giant publishing house Hearst, giving the AI maker access to the stable of over 20 magazine brands and 40 newspapers that Hearst owns—some of which are world-famous titles like Esquire and Cosmopolitan. The Journal notes that the terms of the deal aren’t disclosed. And why would they be? OpenAI is technically still a startup, albeit a giant one, and it doesn’t want to give away too many business secrets. We can speculate about the number of zeros after the dollar sign, of course, but the amount going into Hearst’s bank account almost doesn’t matter. That’s because it’s what this deal signifies that’s important. OpenAI will have access to millions of words, photos and other content from Hearst’s vast publishing archive. Hearst will see its content “surfaced” inside ChatGPT when users search for a relevant topic—with citations and direct links so that when a user clicks on a link, they’ll be taken to a Hearst site and thus could be shown ads, boosting revenues. OpenAI, by including this material inside its chatbot, helps keep ChatGPT useful and up to date for users, and thus boosts its revenues. Both companies use business jargon to describe this mutual gain, noting the deal will “enhance the utility and reach” of their offerings, the paper says. Interestingly, the Journal also quotes Hearst Newspapers President Jeff Johnson on the complicated topic of AI “theft” of journalistic IP—a tricky issue that has seen newspapers, notably the New York Times, sue the AI maker. Johnson explained how important it was that journalism by “professional journalists” remain at the forefront of AI products’ output. Is this simply a case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, sell it to ‘em?” There is a wrinkle here, and one that the Journal doesn’t investigate. The New York Times’ case, like several others against AI companies from newspapers, book authors and even record labels, rests on the fact that real human work is being used to train a very inhuman AI. Once it has the data, it can create all-but “cloned” output, mirroring the style and content of the training material. If an AI can, say, write pieces like a well-known newspaper journalist, isn’t that a threat to that person’s livelihood? Music A-listers recently penned an open letter decrying AI as a threat to human creativity, exploring a very similar hypothesis. Will giving OpenAI access to Hearst’s archive merely mean the next-gen ChatGPT system can sound like any Cosmo writer on any given topic? Will readers act on sex and fashion tips from a digital creator that has no experience of either? (And, if you think about it, does that even matter?) What this also means is that AI systems really might be the future of the online search experience. Why would users need to exit ChatGPT to find, say, the latest celebrity gossip when they could simply stay logged into the chatbot to read that stuff, contributing to OpenAI’s revenues. This is another shot across Google’s bows, a serious challenge to a search giant that’s kept a stranglehold on search for decades. BY KIT EATON @KITEATON