OpenAI & News Corp $250 Million Deal: AI's Growing Appetite for News 🗞️🤖

Welcome, humans.

OpenAI's $250 million deal with News Corp, giving AI access to prestigious publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Times, raises questions about the future of journalism in the age of artificial intelligence. 📈 But that's not all! A study reveals a startling trend: Men are twice as likely to use generative AI as women. Dive in with Cache Cookies for your weekly dose of groundbreaking tech news, cool apps, brain-boosting knowledge, the latest on AI, and the lowdown on AI's wild side.

What You Need to Know About AI this week

• News in the Age of AI 🗞️🤖 OpenAI’s Partnerships with Major Media Outlets

• The rapid global adoption of generative AI, including in Switzerland, but where are the women 🙋🏻‍♀️?

• Say hello 👋 to your new audio computer, IYO ONE, and enter a world you never knew existed!

OpenAI & News Corp $250 Million Deal: AI's Growing Appetite for News

OpenAI and News Corp. announced a "multi-year global partnership" last Wednesday, granting OpenAI access to current and archived articles from News Corp.'s outlets including The Wall Street Journal and The Times for both content and AI training data. This news, though groundbreaking, left me pondering its implications as I reached for my phone on Monday, May 27th, the first rays of sunlight barely illuminating my room. I asked ChatGPT for a quick news briefing, curious to see how this partnership might impact the information I receive. With the simple prompt: "Could you tell me the most important news of the last 24 hours in 30 seconds?" the response was a totally disappointing.

A summary of a summary, meticulously selected by an algorithm – is this the new reality of news consumption? The information wasn't accurate, raising concerns about the reliability of AI-curated news. Details on the Israel-Palestine conflict referenced an outdated article from Al Jazeera, while other information seemed to prioritize a single news source - Al Jazeera. While ChatGPT isn't intended to be a primary news source, it's clear that OpenAI is striving to change that.

This ambition is evident in OpenAI's aggressive pursuit of partnerships with major journalism outlets. Just weeks after securing a deal with the Financial Times to enhance ChatGPT with attributed content and develop new AI products, OpenAI announced its landmark agreement with News Corp. This deal, valued at over $250 million, and followed by a 7.1% increase in News Corp's A shares, grants OpenAI access to content from renowned publications like The Wall Street Journal and The Times, further solidifying its presence in the media landscape. Late last year, a similar partnership with Axel Springer brought publications like POLITICO, and European BILD and Die Welt into the fold, providing ChatGPT users with AI-driven summaries of global news content including otherwise paid content.

Where are the Cache 🦎 Cookies 🍪 ?

The role of journalism is to seek truth, inform, and empower readers through high-quality content. However, the rise of social media has transformed news consumption, leading to personalized feeds and potential echo chambers where users see only what aligns with their views, rather than seeking truth and objectivity. Now, with OpenAI's recent partnerships with major news outlets, we're on the brink of another significant shift. AI-curated news feeds might become the new norm, potentially further narrowing our perspectives and amplifying biases. Algorithms driven by engagement metrics could dictate the type of news we consume, prioritizing clickbait over in-depth reporting.

Beyond reshaping news consumption, the integration of AI is poised to revolutionize journalism itself. AI-powered tools could become indispensable for journalists, aiding in research, curation, and even the creation of content. Early signs of this transformation are already evident. Semafor, a new-look politics site, has launched "Signals," a product that curates coverage from around the web on major stories. While human reporters curate and summarize the final product, they leverage an AI-powered search tool called MISO to efficiently gather a broad range of sources, including those in multiple languages. This tool was developed in partnership with Microsoft, utilizing OpenAI's platform and Bing search engine.

While some, like Jessica Lessin in The Atlantic, warn that media companies are making a grave error by embracing AI, and others, like the New York Times, actively resist these changes through legal action, the technological shift towards AI integration seems inevitable.

📜 Weekly Quote    

Scarlett Johansson expressed her shock and anger after discovering that OpenAI's new ChatGPT voice product featured a voice strikingly similar to hers, which she had previously declined to lend to the project.

This incident raises questions not only about consent and artistic integrity but also about the broader implications of gender representation in AI. Historically, virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Cortana have often defaulted to female voices, perpetuating stereotypes of women as helpful and subservient. Even though modern generative AI tools don't have gendered names (e.g. Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Mistral), OpenAI's choice to use a "flirty" voice for ChatGPT 4.0 suggests these biases persist, raising questions about the subtle ways AI may reinforce harmful stereotypes.

🗓️ MONTHLY FOCUS: AI AND BUSINESS

The Rapid Global Adoption of Generative AI: What About Women?

According to Dimension Market Research, the global generative AI market is projected to experience exponential growth, surging from an estimated $14.9 billion in 2023 to a staggering $266 billion by 2032. This translates to an annual growth rate of 37.8% between 2024 and 2032, highlighting the rapid adoption of this technology across various industries worldwide.

But what exactly is generative AI?

Generative AI, a form of machine learning, creates new content like code, images, text, and videos in response to prompts. Since the emergence of Mid Journey and ChatGPT in 2022, its use has skyrocketed, with over a third of the US population adopting ChatGPT or Copilot in 2023 alone. This surge in popularity has made generative AI a strategic imperative for business leaders.

Primarily used for drafting text (9%), personalized marketing, document summarization, and image/video creation (8% each), generative AI is making significant inroads in the marketing and sales sectors.

Globally, 33% of organizations have already embraced this technology, with North America leading the way at a 40% adoption rate. Emerging markets are not far behind, indicating a growing global interest in harnessing the power of generative AI.

Generative AI is poised to revolutionize the business landscape, driving efficiency, revenue growth, and workforce optimization. Early adopters, both companies and countries, could reap substantial rewards, with a projected 0.6% increase in productivity translating into a significant economic boost.

And where does Switzerland stand in all of this?

The generative AI market in Switzerland is poised for significant growth, projected to surge from $0.65 billion in 2024 to $6.40 billion by 2030, boasting an average annual growth rate of 46.40%. This burgeoning market is reflected in the daily usage of generative AI by 61% of Swiss computer users.

However, a sense of caution prevails among Swiss business leaders, with only one in six CEOs integrating generative AI into their strategic plans, compared to double that globally. Many Swiss CEOs appear to favor a "fast follower" approach,observing the technology's development before fully embracing it.

A significant challenge for Swiss companies is the scarcity of generative AI skills, hindering the recruitment of qualified talent. This skills gap is even more pronounced among women, who are less likely to use AI tools than men (12% vs.21%). This trend is not unique to Switzerland, with a global disparity of 30% of women using AI tools compared to 70% of men.

In essence, men are currently twice as likely to harness the power of generative AI as women, a disparity that demands attention and action.

🏆 STAR OF THE WEEK 🏆

AI is revolutionizing our lives, both professionally and personally. Each week, Cache Cookies spotlights a groundbreaking innovation in the AI world, from AI avatars and apps to mind-blowing robots and gadgets shaping our future.

After years of smartphone innovation, get ready to dive into the next wave of AI-powered devices. The latest addition?Multi-microphone earbuds that act as your hands-free audio assistant. These earbuds can do it all: provide directions,create shopping lists, translate conversations on the fly, answer emails, play your favorite tunes, and even customize your audio environment by filtering out unwanted noise. Check out the demo to see them in action!

These AI-powered earbuds are poised to revolutionize the way we communicate, breaking down barriers and making interactions seamless. With real-time translation, navigating foreign countries, collaborating with international colleagues, or studying abroad becomes a breeze. The ability to isolate a single voice in a noisy environment is a game-changer, enhancing communication in various settings and truly making the world a smaller place.

However, these innovations also raise concerns. What happens when you're being listened to without your knowledge? What happens to the data these earbuds collect? Is there a risk of missing an isolated sound, like your baby crying? And while the ability to isolate specific voices is enticing, could it lead to ignoring important sounds or conversations? Could constant assistance make us overly reliant on technology, potentially hindering our own abilities?

Despite these concerns, the startup Iyo One, backed by investors like Alphabet, is forging ahead. They've raised $21 million to develop these AI-powered earbuds and plan to open their platform to third-party developers, including Spotify and voice assistants like Google's Siri and Amazon's Alexa. With a planned release date of Christmas 2024, these earbuds could soon be shaping the way we interact with the world around us.

Opportunités d’emploi

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