News Corp chief Robert Thomson warned that artificial intelligence could trigger a new wave of job cuts in the media industry
One of Rupert Murdoch executives warned that AI threatens a “tsunami” of job losses and could crush readers under the weight of a “maggot-ridden mental pattern.”
News Corporation Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson said at a conference in San Francisco this week that the rapid growth of artificial intelligence is «epochal.»
Thomson said AI would lead to a «tsunami» of job losses. “From 2008 to 2020, 57% of news jobs were lost in the United States,” he said.
“We are facing a new wave, in this case a tsunami of potential job losses due to the impact of AI. And this is not just a loss of jobs, but also a loss of understanding. So it's important that all media companies understand this impact, but so do the big players in AI.»
While warnings of AI-related job losses aren't just about newsrooms, Thomson warned that there is a more serious social risk: that we will be inundated by a flood of “garbage” created by AI.
“People need to understand that AI is inherently retrospective. We are talking about rearranging existing content. And the danger is that it's trash inside and outside, and in this case it's trash everywhere,” Thomson said.
“Instead of elevating and improving, you may find that you have this ever-shrinking cycle of sanity surrounded by a reservoir of garbage. That instead of the insight that AI could potentially bring, it would essentially become a form of intelligence overrun by maggots.”
Concerns about technology are not new. Rupert Murdoch has spent much of the last decade and a half at war with Google, claiming the internet giant is stealing his content.
An Australian media mogul has called the search engine a «parasite» and a «kleptomaniac», accusing it of stealing material from a newspaper empire that includes The Times, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
Rupert Murdoch has been in conflict with Google over the tech giants' use of News Corp content for more than a decade. Photo: Victoria Jones/PA Wire
Murdoch briefly went so far as to block Google from including The Times in its search results. His company, News Corporation, filed a complaint with the European Commission, accusing Google of using its “dominant market position to stifle competition.”
His hard line has yielded results: Australia, where Murdoch has long-standing influence, has passed groundbreaking laws that will actually force Google and Facebook to pay for news in 2021.
After the standoff, Google backed down and struck deals. with dozens of retail outlets. Now countries around the world have followed suit, with News Corp and Google signing a multi-year partnership that includes «significant payouts» from the tech company.
While artificial intelligence is now a new threat, there is also an opportunity.
Thomson told shareholders last month that the move would allow the company to cut costs. He suggested this would be done in the back office, although the company's local Australian publications already use AI to write stories about weather and fuel prices.
Murdoch's most vocal critics would find it ironic that Thomson is complaining about this . AI is poisoning people's minds. But most will agree that he is right.
While chatbots like ChatGPT may appear to be all-knowing, at a fundamental level they are simply consuming and repackaging vast amounts of existing knowledge that they have already internalized. Creating that knowledge is another matter entirely.
Major news sites like the New York Times, Reuters and CNN have already begun blocking ChatGPT software, which scours the Internet for stories to devour.
Perhaps this is just the first step. The New York Times is reportedly considering legal action against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, as negotiations between the companies over a licensing agreement have failed.
In July, The Telegraph reported that DMGT, owner of the Daily Mail, was considering taking action against Google for using its online articles to train its ChatGPT rival, Bard.
News Corp, despite Murdoch's previous fiery rhetoric regarding Google, was less confrontational.
“Over time you will see a lot of litigation,” Thomson said. “Some media companies have already started these discussions. Personally, we are not interested in this at this stage. We are much more interested in negotiations and we have various negotiations going on.”
News organizations, including the Associated Press, have already entered into agreements with OpenAI.
However, Thomson is likely to agree to a lucrative deal. His criticism is not only that artificial intelligence companies collect vast amounts of copyrighted data, but also that they create biased content that corrodes society.
Woke chatbot
Thomson complained that he found artificial intelligence programs to be «confusing.» there… the left wing.»
In a separate speech, he added: “These companies really have a responsibility to recognize that responsibility, ultimately to their own products and, of course, to society.”
These comments may be directed at regulatory authorities.
The UK Intellectual Property Office, among others, is currently assessing how copyright laws apply to AI.
Murdoch's battle with search engines may have reached a truce. But a new one is just beginning.
Свежие комментарии