International media block the AI ​​tool from accessing its content

A group of media outlets, notably The New York Times, CNN, Reuters and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, recently blocked a tool from OpenAI, which specializes in artificial intelligence software, limiting the company’s ability to access content from these companies. British newspaper The Guardian, today is Friday.

OpenAI has developed one of the best-known AI chatbots, ChatGPT, which uses a tool called GTBot to read web pages and improve its AI models.

The Verge first reported last Tuesday that The New York Times had blocked GTBot on its website. Before The Guardian discovered that CNN, Reuters, the Chicago Tribune and others were following the American newspaper’s example.

Language simulations and artificial intelligence like ChatGPT require large amounts of data to train their systems and answer user questions in human-like language. But the companies behind them are often secretive about the presence of copyrighted material in the datasets they collect.

The ban on GTBot can be found in publishers’ robots.txt files, which tell search engines and other companies’ tools which pages are allowed to visit.

Also, all the media houses that banned GTBot have banned a similar tool called CCBot used in AI projects.

CNN confirmed to The Guardian that it had recently banned GTBot, but did not comment on whether the brand plans to take further action over the use of its content in artificial intelligence systems.

A Reuters spokesperson said they continue to review the Robots.txt file and site terms and conditions. “As intellectual property is the lifeblood of our business model, it is imperative that we protect the copyright of the content we produce,” he said.

The New York Times recently updated its terms of service to clarify a ban on “copying our content for AI training and development,” according to a spokesperson.

Since August 3, the US newspaper’s website has expressly prohibited its content from “developing any program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning system or artificial intelligence models” without obtaining its permission.

Global media face decisions about whether to use artificial intelligence as part of news gathering, as well as how to handle content used by companies developing AI systems.

In early August, several media outlets, including AFP and Getty Images, signed an open letter calling for regulation of AI.

The signatories of the letter called for regulatory measures, in particular, “transparency” around artificial intelligence training methods and the need to obtain the consent of “intellectual property rights holders” before using content such as photos or magazine articles. Artificial intelligence training.