ChatGPT and Murdoch: What does this suggest for journalism? | The Day-to-day Aus

News cor and open AI which is the tech company that created chat GPT have signed a multi-year Content deal News Corp of course is a multinational media and Publishing company founded by none other than ret Murdoch we are familiar we are familiar it owns several International several feels like an understatement many a plethora.

International and domestic titles including the Wall Street Journal the Australian news.com.au uh if we keep going we will be here all say but many many titles now under a new partnership news Corps content will be used to respond to chat gbt's user questions news cor CEO Robert Thompson said the deal will set new.

Standards for veracity for virtue and for Value in the digital age so this was really big news last week not just in media circles but in general news before we go any further into the deal can we just go back and explain exactly what open AI is it's chat gbt right it is so it was launched by Sam ultman who we have dedicated many a podcast to and.

Tesla owner Elon Musk who we have similarly dedicated many a podcast too it was launched in 2015 and the company's stated mission was to benefit Humanity as a whole as you said open AI is most known for launching the conversational chatbot chat GPT and that can generate things like essays and poems and travel itineries if you're me.

Going on your honeymoon that was crazy you told me last week that you asked chat gbt the best root for your honeymoon and it gave you I'm lazy and I don't have time chbt gives me everything and my chat gbt hack of the week has been if you upload a screenshot of a game into chat GPT it will give you the code to build that game I mean we're.

Talking here about terrifying we're talking here about really powerful software I mean amongst our friends most people are using it for things like writing speeches or holidays every wedding speech we have been to the dad has gotten up and made a joke about how GPT has ridden the wedding speech as with as with any new technology it's.

Working its way into our lives in weird ways but one thing it hasn't been able to do is give us reliable news content right yeah and I think that us journalists have been incredibly cocky about this you know everyone else is fearing for their jobs in the age of AI and yet joural haven't quite felt that in the same way because you know when.

You go onto the current free version of chat GPT and I went in and typed in tell me the latest about Julian Assange for example big news story uh it came back with I'm sorry for any confusion but I can't provide real-time updates or information on events occurring beyond my last training data in January 2022 and so that is going to this idea.

That AI tools inevitably need to be fed the information from somewhere and on a recurring basis and they need to be made smarter and that that needs to be a reflection of the kind of ever evolving nature of information if the last time this bot was taught about Julian Assange was in 2022 it's got a lot of learning to do yeah and so that's why this deal.

With News Corp is such a big deal because basically news cor has agreed to let open AI use its content to support chat gpt's responses and its learning and to enhance the knowledge of its database and systems so basically in your Julian Assange example it could scrape news corpse newspapers from all over the world and give you an answer in.

Real time y exactly and so News Corp on their behalf have said that it's sharing its resources to ensure the highest journalism standards exist across open ai's products which is interesting uh on open AI side the CEO Sam mman said the deal was a proud moment and he said it was setting the foundation for a future where AI deeply respects and I think.

That's an interesting word we're personifying AI here enhances and upholds the standards of world-class journalism okay so right now News Corp is saying open AI you can have access to a significant volume of information in real time what are they getting in return money got it uh we don't know the specifics of the agreement because.

That's not been made public by either News Corp or open AI yeah but News Corp would be getting a lot of money out of this and we had some News Corp Publications reporting on the deal that said could have been worth more than $250 million so around 380 million Australian dollar over the next 5 years so ultimately a whole new Revenue stream.

Yeah and we know that in Australia meta has ended its funding for news organizations including News Corp and that that would have left you know a gaping hole where those Millions had been coming in from meta and so it's interesting that newscorp has now kind of pivoted and is now getting that money from another Tech Giant which is open AI.

The new kid on the scene is News Corp the only News company to have signed a deal they're not um I mean I can confirm that the daily Oz hasn't been approached for a multi-million maybe spam maybe check it after this uh but no there have been other deals met so we know that Politico which is a political publication an international one uh the.

Associated Press and French newspaper lemond have also got agreements with open AI so there's Clearly Now a bit of a playbook for media companies that's emerging of go to the AI companies and do a deal but are there other ways but those are only with open AI That's one AI company just to be clear so are there other ways that news companies and AI.

Are beginning to work each other out hello I'm James and I produced the video you're watching if you're enjoying what you're watching we'd love it if you considered subscribing and checking us out on our other platforms it would really help in getting the word out about what we're doing here at TDA thanks very much and now back to the.

Deep dive I think it's a good question I think that this is the big conversation as media companies strategize you know we put our heads together in our Newsroom and figure out what we can do with AI this is happening in every single company around the world like you can just imagine the millions being ported into getting management.

Consultants in to come up with uh you know the next AI strategy heal or in you know information technology it's everywhere exactly and so obviously the News Corp deal is one way to work with AI companies and it's a fairly big step because as I said they're giving access to their content straight to these AI companies to make their machine learning.

Smarter uh but there are other companies taking smaller steps Sam here at TDA we have been looking into you know for example whether AI tools can make some video editing a bit quicker you know we film every single podcast that we do you can go watch this on YouTube if you're that way inclined um and you know we have two cameras and are there AI tools.

That can switch between those cameras automatically and that takes out a bit of the manual labor that goes into editing you know this 10-minute podcast for YouTube I mean that's a very small step but it's something that AI can do when I look to the rest of the industry I was looking around at how other media companies in Australia are dealing with.

It and I saw Channel 9 has recently started using a product called 9 Express and that's to reformat their TV scripts into digital stories interesting so Channel 9 houses of course a number of different companies underneath it and we have the print journalism there's the TV journalism and then there is the digital journalism and so in a disclaimer on.

Their website nine says n express makes things easier and quicker for our producers and journalists across television and digital they've then made really clear in a how it works section how they're actually using the AI so they say and I quote here a television script contains a number of technical terms and jargon so it can be used for a.

News report we take this originally created script which has been written by a television reporter and producer and then fact checked and input it into nine Express it is then reformatted to be used as a digital text story it is checked again by a producer before being published It Ends by saying that nine remains committed to using new.

Technologies in a transpar and responsible way and in that very detailed setting out of exactly how this process is working for nine I think you can start to identify some of the risks that are involved with AI and for the majority of this podcast we've talked about the opportunities that AI can present in newsrooms but the reality is.

As that nine disclaimer mentioned there are major ethical and moral issues that arise in the relationship have to be responsible exactly and we've seen some of those issues arise in other settings so if we look internationally at the end of last year year the New York Times launched legal action against open aai and against Microsoft which has invested.

Billions into open AI for using the New York Times as news content without permission so basically doing the news cop thing but without any of the money or the recognition got it in doing so the New York Times claimed AI generated content threatens the times's ability to provide journalism they claimed that open AI is taking materials from The New.

York Times to train the AI but they're not crediting or attributing that work to the newor York Times according to the times the AI chatbot seek to free ride on the times's massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment now the data in me would say that news G have gone to the table and.

Done a deal with open Ai and the New York Times have done things a slightly different way and brought a lawsuit that could inevitably end in a deal just kind of two two roads to the same destination but I think the bottom line here is that AI is going to be built into every industry on the planet and news is no different and this news cop deal is a.

Real big signal to the market from the biggest media company in the world that this new technology is is here this St exactly thanks for joining us on the daily o this morning hope you had a wonderful weekend and you're off to a good start to your Monday we'll be here every day this week so we'll see you again tomorrow morning until then have a.

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