Congress Wants Tech Companies to Pay Up for AI Training Data

Do AI corporations have to pay for the coaching knowledge that powers their generative AI programs? The query is hotly contested in Silicon Valley and in a wave of lawsuits levied in opposition to tech behemoths like Meta, Google, and OpenAI. In Washington, DC, although, there appears to be a rising consensus that the tech giants have to cough up.

At the moment, at a Senate listening to on AI’s affect on journalism, lawmakers from each side of the aisle agreed that OpenAI and others ought to pay media shops for utilizing their work in AI initiatives. “It’s not solely morally proper,” stated Richard Blumenthal, the Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privateness, Know-how, and the Legislation that held the listening to. “It’s legally required.”

Josh Hawley, a Republican working with Blumenthal on AI laws, agreed. “It shouldn’t be that simply because the largest corporations on this planet wish to gobble up your knowledge, they need to have the ability to do it,” he stated.

Media business leaders on the listening to in the present day described how AI corporations have been imperiling their business by utilizing their work with out compensation. Curtis LeGeyt, CEO of the Nationwide Affiliation of Broadcasters, Danielle Coffey, CEO of the Information Media Alliance, and Roger Lynch, CEO of Condé Nast, all spoke in favor of obligatory licensing. (WIRED is owned by Condé Nast.)

Coffey claimed that AI corporations “eviscerate the standard content material they feed upon,” and Lynch characterised coaching knowledge scraped with out permission as “stolen items.” Coffey and Lynch additionally each stated that they consider AI corporations are infringing on copyright underneath present legislation. They urged lawmakers to make clear that utilizing journalistic content material with out first brokering licensing agreements just isn’t protected by truthful use, a authorized doctrine that allows copyright violations underneath sure situations.

Widespread Floor

Senate hearings will be adversarial, however the temper in the present day was largely congenial. The lawmakers and media business insiders typically applauded every others’ statements. “If Congress might make clear that using our content material, or different writer content material, for the coaching and output of AI fashions just isn’t truthful use, then the free market will maintain the remainder,” Lynch stated at one level. “That appears eminently cheap to me,” Hawley replied.

Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis was the listening to’s solely discordant voice. He asserted that coaching on knowledge obtained with out fee is, certainly, truthful use, and spoke in opposition to obligatory licensing, arguing that it will injury the data ecosystem relatively than safeguard it. “I have to say that I’m offended to see publishers foyer for protectionist laws, buying and selling on the political capital earned by means of journalism,” he stated, jabbing at his fellow audio system. (Jarvis was additionally topic to the listening to’s solely actual contentious line of questioning, from Republican Marsha Blackburn, who needled Jarvis about whether or not AI is biased in opposition to conservatives and recited an AI-generated poem praising President Biden as proof.)

Exterior of the committee room, there may be much less settlement that obligatory licensing is critical. OpenAI and different AI corporations have argued that it’s not viable to license all coaching knowledge, and a few unbiased AI specialists agree.