OpenAI announces $5 million partnership to support local news

OpenAI is teaming up with the American Journalism Project (AJP) to support local news, a significant move for AI and the future of media.

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced a $5 million partnership with AJP, a venture philanthropy that supports local news organizations. The partnership will fund an "AI studio" that will oversee applications of AI in local newsrooms, offer grants to local news organizations to explore the application of AI-powered tools, and $5 million worth of API credits for AJP and its portfolio of news organizations to use OpenAI's tools like GPT-4.

SEE ALSO:The FTC is investigating OpenAI for potential consumer harms

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OpenAI and its generative AI tools ChatGPT and DALL-E have raised concerns about proliferation of misinformation, copyright infringement of media, as well as reinforcing biases and use of personal data to train its models. Just last week, it was reported that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began an investigation of OpenAI, seeking to open up the black box of OpenAI's technologies and understand the inner workings of how its models are trained and developed.

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OpenAI has been publicly open to federal regulation, but behind the scenes, the company has lobbied for softer regulation. Some AI experts suggest OpenAI's cooperation with regulators is to ensure they have a say in how their business is regulated. The company's partnership with the Associated Press and now, AJP indicate OpenAI is proactively addressing potential copyright issues by getting out in front of criticisms that ChatGPT and similar applications disseminate content from media outlets outside the scope of fair use.

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Another way of looking at the partnership is that local news, by way of AJP, has an opportunity to influence the way OpenAI's transformative technology impacts media. "In these early days of generative AI, we have the opportunity to ensure that local news organizations, and their communities, are involved in shaping its implications. With this partnership, we aim to promote ways for AI to enhance — rather than imperil — journalism," said Sarabeth Berman, CEO of AJP in the announcement. Local news is a critical aspect of civic engagement, and combatting misinformation and biases, but often lacks the funding and resources to thrive, or even survive.

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OpenAI's media partnerships represent a new step into the rapidly-evolving frontier of AI's relationship with modern society. But what that step means is still uncertain.

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