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If you Google “guacamole,” there's a good chance you'll get a great result. Lisa BryanThe recipe, titled “Best Ever Guacamole (Fresh, Easy and Authentic),” calls for the classic melange of avocado, roma tomatoes, red peppers, garlic, onion, lime, jalapeño and sea salt.
That top spot on a popular search query is Brian's meal ticket. But he fears that artificial intelligence will soon take it away.
A former health care executive from Southern California, Brianne burned out on her career a decade ago and began posting recipes online for family and friends. She now runs a food and lifestyle blog called Downshiftology, where she advocates “taking life down a notch” and enjoying the simple pleasures. She employs a full-time social media manager, has 2.5 million YouTube followers and says her website reaches 130 million people a year.
Hers is a success story made possible in large part by Google search, which sends millions of people to her blog—with significant increases beyond the Super Bowl and Cinco de Mayo, when searches for guacamole peak. Is. But as Google shifts from traditional search results to answering user queries directly with AI, independent web publishers like Brian fear for their livelihoods.
Now the bloggers are taking their case to Congress.
On Wednesday, they're celebrating a “Day of the Free” lobbying push on Capitol Hill. The push is being orchestrated by a company called Reptio, which handles advertising and marketing for online publishers and helps them rank higher in search results — making it interested in beating AI. Is.
Bryan is among thousands of people who signed an open letter to Congress on behalf of Repteau's CEO. Michael Sanchez Emphasis on Google's “AI Review” review. Many of these creators will also meet with staff and legislators from their home states.
“This new product takes revenue and copyrighted content from publishers and creators without consent or compensation, competes directly with creators and gives nothing in return,” the letter argues. It calls on Congress to pressure tech companies to pay content creators when their work is used to train AI tools, and to pressure Google to increase its AI Answers will not reduce traffic to third party websites.
Raptive shared the open letter with the tech brief and an accompanying report — including the results of a survey of its clients about the importance of Google search to their businesses.
The group isn't pushing for specific legislation but will hold hearings with lawmakers and pressure the tech industry to do right by web creators.
While big media companies may be able to bring tech giants to the negotiating table, Sanchez said, Reptio's clients don't have that kind of power. Among the creatives meeting with lawmakers are a crochet and craft designer from Michigan, a personal blogger from Minnesota, and two brothers from Tennessee who run country music site Country Rebel.
Brian hasn't traveled to DC but said she's urging her audience to trust and follow individual creators on AI responses. “All my recipes are tasted and tested, and that's something a chatbot can't do,” she said.
Google claims that fears of AI responses disrupting the web economy are misplaced.
A Google spokesperson said the feature is intended to complement search results, not replace them Brianna Duff said. AI reviews only appear on specific searches, when Google's systems predict they might be particularly helpful — such as when a user wants a summary of information from different sources.
The company also states that sources cited in an AI review receive more traffic than those appearing in traditional search results. And the CEO Sundar Pichai told The Verge in May that Google recognizes the value of the web ecosystem, on which its AI answers depend.
Still, the feature stumbled out of the gate, as users posted viral screenshots of Google's AI suggesting that people eat rocks or put glue on their pizza. In response, the company has temporarily scaled back the number of searches that trigger AI responses while it tries to iron out the kinks. But some experts say the problem of low-quality responses may not be completely resolved anytime soon.
Web creators are the latest group to join a growing backlash against the unauthorized use of their work by tech firms to train chatbots, image generators and other creative AI tools.
Artists, writers and media organizations have filed lawsuits against OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and other AI companies, alleging copyright infringement. Others have licensing deals that allow firms to use their work for a fee. This week, a group of record labels sued a pair of AI music companies that use software to generate songs on demand based on user cues.
How the trials will play out is an open question. Tech firms argue that training AI systems on the published work of others without permission amounts to “fair use” under copyright law, because their software transforms the work into something new and original.
But they seem to be losing ground in the court of public opinion, and public statements from some tech executives aren't helping.
Meera Murthy, OpenAI's chief technology officer, drew criticism this week for a recent talk in which she said “some creative jobs will probably disappear” as AI tools replace them while assuring that These tools will help others be more creative. As for the jobs lost in the bargain, he added, “Maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place.”
Sources say US is investigating China Telecom and China Mobile for Internet, cloud threats (Reuters)
Brett Taylorco-founder and CEO of Sierra and chair of OpenAI, spoke with The Post's Elizabeth Duskin about the present and future of AI at the Post Live event The Futurist: The New Age of AI.
“[AI] May bubble a little. … There will probably be a lot of investment in sectors of the economy. [But] If we fast forward 30 years from now, my strong intuition is that the impact of this next generation of AI will probably live up to the hype over time.
– Brett Taylor, Chairman of OpenAI
OpenAI Delays Voice Assistant Launch Citing Security Testing (Geert de Vanck)
Self-driving car company Cruise appoints a new CEO (Trisha Thadani).
Waymo ends wait list and opens its Robotex to everyone in San Francisco (The Verge)
DeepMind found (Financial Times)
AI tools make it easy to clone someone's voice without permission (Evidence News)
Microsoft broke antitrust rules by bundling Teams with Office, EU says (by Kate Zakrzewski and Aaron Gregg)
Integrating MetaThreads more deeply with Fedoras (The Verge).
Reddit to update web standards to prevent automated website scraping (Reuters)
How WikiLeaks Changed the Internet, From Clinton's Emails to the Iraq War (via Joseph Mann)
What counts as micro-fraud? TikTok users are debating infidelity online. (via Tatum Hunter)
Now it's time to look at what AI can and can't do (by Shira Ovid).
How AI Simulates Restaurant Reviews (New York Times)
- The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m. on how to address America's cyber workforce gap.
- The House Committee on Small Business is holding a hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday on how the “censorship-industrial complex” affects small businesses.
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee holds a markup on bills including the American Privacy Rights Act and the Kids Online Safety Act at 10 a.m. Thursday.
- The American Bar Association hosts a Fireside Chat with FTC Chair Lena Khan on Thursday at 11 a.m.
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