In the technological world, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the most discussed and debatable area. Since the beginning, technological advancement and diversification have moved smoothly without any severe criticism, though true enough that some technologies were subjected to criticism. There was of course severe fear and alarming situation about technology at the end of last century when Y2K (fear of year 2000 computer glitz).

Apart from this, no technological advancement has faced any strong criticism and impediment at the beginning, as AI companies are now confronting. Nevertheless, AI companies have not only moved ahead at a faster speed defying all criticism, fear, threat and even regulatory action, but also well-positioned themselves in the business world during the last few years.

It is also believed that the world in the coming years will be dominated by AI technology.

Due to several reasons, the US regulators were initially reluctant to allow AI companies to go ahead. But AI has already created such strong dominance that the regulators have no other choice but to accept this super smart technology.

Developed countries, including the USA, usually put regulation first and then allow businesses to operate. But US regulators have mysteriously allowed two areas of business to massively grow prior to establishing appropriate regulation and these are cryptocurrency and AI.

These two areas of business have enormously grown compelling the regulation to sallow. During the last decade, the US economy was driven by FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) which have nowadays lost their control.

The US regulators have softened their stance towards AI largely believing that the inclusion of AI with FAANG will keep their economic engine running. This situation has undoubtedly paved the way for AI companies but does not necessarily ensure AI’s uninterrupted rollout. Obstacles and impediments are coming from different segments of which media is the strongest sector.

The most common allegation against AI companies is that they share content and big data that directly belong to other sources. Open AI’s practice of using information from the internet to build the large language model powering Chat GPT has already caused grave concern.

Indeed, Open AI was facing lawsuits for GitHub Copilot’s copyright infringement, although Open AI has refuted that claim. As reported in the local media, many visual artists have been filing lawsuits against other artificial intelligence companies over the same allegation.

A similar type of legal battle was initiated by some media companies which believed that their business was immensely disrupted by AI. They now believe that AI chatbots are built in part on their own content and their readership has been considerably taken away by AI companies; consequently, they deserve due compensation.

In order to avoid such a confrontational situation with the threat of a potential legal battle, Open AI has resorted to the strategy of building partnerships with the media industry.

In this context, the company has already made good headway by inviting a group of executives from the media industry to its headquarters. In general, media people find the tech industry very uncompromising and unappreciative but this time Open AI has taken a different approach while handling Western media by assuring them Open AI gives importance to journalism because it upholds democracy and freedom of speech.

It is reported in the US media that Open AI and Axel Springer have reached an agreement where the former is believed to have paid millions of dollars to the latter on condition of taking a kind of licensing authority for using the content over three years to experiment with Open AI’s models. Even, under this agreement, the tech giant will be able to concise news, articles and content from Axel Springer to directly link with current ChatGPT Apps.

Open AI has indicated that it will continue its efforts to normalise relationships and collaborate with the media industry. As a part of their efforts, they have already signalled to communicate with many other media giants, including CNN, Fox and Times. However, to what extent this cooperative move will continue producing the desired result has become a debatable issue because, last December, New York Times filed lawsuits against Open AI and Microsoft Corp alleging that their copyright infringement has been causing billions of dollars in loss and damages.

Confrontation with media and copyright litigation are going to be the new reality and challenge for AI companies in the coming years when they will actually roll out new products or services in full swing. Probably, these AI companies will have to set aside a considerable amount to meet legal costs for defending the onslaught of lawsuits.

Needless to say, facing lawsuits is not new for technology companies and indeed they got used to it. However, those lawsuits against technology companies were mostly filed by US federal regulators and this time, they are going to face legal battles from private sectors, including the media industry. It is apparent that such lawsuits against AI companies will not be able to prevent their forward move but may initially result in an onslaught of legal battles.

The writer is a certified Anti-money laundering specialist and banker based in Toronto, Canada.
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