Many Mainstream Media Companies Reject the Presence of AI in Their Editors

Many major media companies have taken a stance against the use of artificial intelligence (AI) (photo: dock. pexels)

JAKARTA - Many major media companies have taken a stand against the use of artificial intelligence (AI), such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, in their editorials and denied permission for AI to scan their content on the web.

It was reported that several mainstream media companies, including CNN, The New York Times, and Reuters, have coded their platforms to prevent OpenAI's GPTBot web crawler from accessing their content.

This web crawler was released on August 8 with the aim of improving the future ChatGPT model by indexing content from various websites.

Additionally, reports from CNN claim that other media companies are doing the same, including Disney, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Axios, Insider, ABC News, and ESPN, among others. Major publishers such as Condé Nast and Vox Media are also taking steps against AI.

"I see a growing sense of urgency in tackling the use of, and abuse of, our content," Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of the News Media Alliance, told a CNN reporter that.

AI developers are already facing lawsuits for copyright infringement of materials used to train models. On July 12, Google was faced with a lawsuit regarding the then-new AI wiretapping privacy policy.

Previously, author Sarah Silverman and two others sued Meta and OpenAI for using their copyrighted work to train their systems without proper approval.

In April, the CEO of News Corp Australia spoke ahead that ChatGPT and similar AI systems should pay for the news consumed.

Forbidden or not? It's not just media companies that have been proactive in banning the use of AI chatbots in the workplace or banning systems from accessing content.

In May, tech giants Samsung and Apple both banned internal use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT out of concern that sensitive internal data would be accessed by those models.

Previously, a number of financial services companies, such as JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup, also banned internal use of generative AI tools.

On June 26, the United States House of Representatives banned its members from using all AI chatbots except ChatGPT Plus because they have "critical privacy features" that can protect sensitive data.

Media Embraces AI.

While many guard against the invasiveness of this technology, others have glanced at it — even dabbled in it.

Entertainment giant Netflix appears to be considering incorporating AI of some sort based on a July job advertisement offering high-paying AI roles.

Media site BuzzFeed recently closed its news division and laid off 180 staff, then announced in its Q1 earnings call it would "rely on AI."

One example of AI incorporation in the wrong media occurred in May, when an Irish daily newspaper had to apologize for accidentally publishing an AI-generated article. The paper claimed they were "fooled on purpose" into believing the guest writer was human; it turns out that the author is AI.

AI for Enterprise

A report conducted on August 28 also revealed that the concern permeates consumers as well, with almost three-quarters concerned about companies' unethical use of AI.

This comes soon after OpenAI released a version of its ChatGPT AI chatbot for businesses, which is four times as powerful as the consumer version. They claim that this business version is twice as fast as GPT-4, with enhanced privacy and security standards.

Prior to the release of the business-focused chatbot, an expert on blockchain and AI from IBM said the model had some "key risks" for business use. The risk relates mainly to the risk of sensitive internal data being exposed, which is a major concern for many companies that ban chatbots.