The WGAE has filed an information request after Hearst and OpenAI struck a new content licensing partnership earlier this week.
The new deal will allow OpenAI to integrate Hearst’s newspaper and magazine content into it’s artificial intelligence products. It’ll provide ChatGPT’s users content from more than 40 newspapers and 20 magazine brands owned by Hearst.
WGAE executive director Sam Wheeler said he had “many concerns about Hearst’s partnership with OpenAI” in a statement and information request Thursday.
“I understand our goal is to increase our magazine’s reach and profits, but this partnership will cost us when it comes to editorial standards, environmental concerns, and audience trust,” Wheeler wrote in a statement. “As journalists, we are constantly striving to adjust and innovate in order to bring the best of ourselves to our work. But before we jump into bed with another failing tech startup, I implore you to ask yourself: Is a robot’s money worth more than the state of our profession?”
Some of the the questions raised were:
- “Will the profits generated by this partnership be shared at all with the workers whose work OpenAI needs in order to attempt to remain relevant? As you state in your email, OpenAI requires our creative inputs in order to grow. Since it is so dependent on our work, it would make sense for us to be compensated accordingly.”
- “What guarantees can you make that we are not simply training the very machines that will be used to make our jobs obsolete? What is in it for us to train a computer to be a journalist when we are already better journalists than said computer?”
- “How will our high quality editorial standards be safeguarded? OpenAI is known to water down context, make grammatical errors, and convey misinformation. What recourse will Hearst Magazines have if quality issues such as these arise? There is a great concern here that our association with OpenAI will endanger the trust and quality our audiences depend on.”
- “There are serious safety concerns with OpenAI’s data management and its lack of safety protocols. What safety protections are we prepared to make in the event of a total OpenAI technological collapse, which experts state could be within the year?”
Imprints like the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Runner’s World and Women’s Health will all be included in the new deal but the company’s business outside newspapers and magazines aren’t part of the deal. It was also stressed that appropriate citations and direct links will be available for acesse to the original sources.
“Our partnership with OpenAI will help us evolve the future of magazine content,” Hearst Magazines president Debi Chirichella said when the partnership was announced. “This collaboration ensures that our high-quality writing and expertise, cultural and historical context and attribution and credibility are promoted as OpenAI’s products evolve.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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