Media against the machine
The media industry is among the first to face a real threat from the generative AI boom. News Corp and The New York Times are taking very different approaches to the problem.
News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson was at his quotable best this week, using rhyme rather than his usual alliteration to update the market on the Murdoch-controlled news publisher’s negotiations with artificial intelligence platforms.
“While certain other media companies prefer litigation, we prefer consultation,” he said on a quarterly earnings call with investors. “Courtship is preferable to courtrooms. We are wooing not suing”.
Thomson was making a not-so-subtle reference to the New York Times, which late last year dramatically sued Open AI, the Microsoft-backed company behind ChatGPT, for allegedly breaching its copyright.
As we have documented extensively at Capital Brief, all corners of the knowledge economy will eventually be impacted by generative AI. But just like with the internet before it, the media industry is one of the first really to be threatened by the technology. And America’s two biggest news publishers are taking markedly different approaches to dealing with that.
