News Corp’s Michael Miller has launched the offensive to get paid for the content from which chatbots build their generative AI works.
In the group’s The Australian, Miller – who is executive chairman Australasia for News Corp Australia – says the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence “must be accompanied by appropriate compensation for the creators and copyright holders of the content on which the technology will increasingly rely”.
He says that while development of generative AI is widely seen as a game-changer for internet search, media companies should learn from their past complacency when dealing with the tech giants and their use of the original content of third parties.
“The rise of these new AI chatbots harks back to when tech giants such as Google and Meta built massive wealth and scale using others’ creativity and original content and monetising it without appropriate compensation to those creators or copyright holders,” he says.
Miller says creators deserved to be rewarded for the original work being used by AI engines “which are raiding the style and tone of not only journalists but (to name a few) musicians, authors, poets, historians, painters, filmmakers and photographers”. He accuses them of “feasting on their creativity”.
Miller also raises the issue of trust, and says AI engines “face a fundamental risk to their future success – convincing the public their information is trustworthy and credible” and says they will have to fairly compensate “those who provide the substance for their success”.
Media companies in Australia were backed by the country’s competition regulator with legislation which forced tech giants to negotiate compensation for the use of content, although Miller says “at the birth of the internet”, tech start-ups had effectively been “given a leave pass from regulation” to genuinely innovate.
“This time, things must be different,” he says.
Pictured: An article in The Australian is accompanied by this new photograph of Miller by Russell Millard.