There has been a lot of talk and controversy about how generative AI services have allegedly taken content from news organizations to use for their training. Indeed, in December 2023, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, accusing both companies of training their services on their articles and content without permission.
While that lawsuit is still going through the court system, Microsoft and OpenAI have decided to team up to help fund a new program that's being organized by Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The goal is to help news organizations better use generative AI in their business.
In a Microsoft press release, the company states that it and OpenAI would each contribute $2.5 million in funding for the program, along with $2.5 million each for software credits. The first news organizations that will participate in this program will be Chicago Public Media, Newsday (Long Island, NY), The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Seattle Times.
All of them will get a funding grant that will allow them to hire an "AI fellow" for two years who will assist these outlets in putting in AI services for their businesses.
The grants will also include access to OpenAI and Microsoft Azure credits so those news organizations can create and launch AI tools designed to help with reporting local news. All of these organizations will collaborate with each other on these projects to share information on their efforts and also share them with more news businesses.
Each organization will have its own specific AI projects. For example, The Minnesota Star Tribune plans to develop AI-based summarization, along with analysis and content discovery for both its reports and for its readers. The Seattle Times will use AI to help its sales teams, while The Philadelphia Inquirer will create a conversational-based way to search its news archives.
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