Apple intends to establish partnerships with major news publishers in the United States to leverage news content in training the artificial intelligence models they are developing, according to a new report published in The New York Times.
According to the report, Apple’s team is seeking to make long-term agreements with leading media companies operating in the news publishing field, such as Condé Nast, NBC News, and IAC, which own several news platforms.
The proposed deals are estimated to be worth at least $50 million, through which Apple will obtain a license for the news articles archive. The newspaper reported that some publishers were not very enthusiastic about Apple’s offer, as they expressed reservations due to its “very broad” terms and its ambiguity regarding how generative artificial intelligence will be applied to the news.
Other publishing companies expressed optimism about the potential partnership with Apple, as the company requested to use their content instead of training generative artificial intelligence models on published news without permission, as other companies have done.
The New York Times announced that Apple’s executives were discussing how to obtain the necessary data to train generative artificial intelligence. The company decided to collaborate with news publishers as the best available solution at present.
Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta had launched their own generative artificial intelligence models, integrating them into their products after training on massive amounts of available online data such as books, articles, news, images, and other web pages. However, these companies are facing accusations of violating intellectual property rights, as well as the issue of inaccurate information provided.
