Camelot Newsletter

Piece of Cake

As artificial chatbots improve and grow in popularity so too does the pile of lawsuits and monetization attempts from traditional news media companies. Everyone wants their slice of cake whether it be from a big lawsuit payday or paid partnership. Traditional newspapers are a dying medium, and have been for some time. Now it seems they are making one more grab for some crumbs.

Eight prominent US daily newspapers, including the Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and others owned by Alden Global Capital, have joined the New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI, adding to the fight about what online data can be used to power artificial intelligence models.

Conversely, several news organizations, including Politico and the Financial Times, have partnered with OpenAI to feature excerpts of their news content in responses generated by ChatGPT.

Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and other AI firms argue that utilizing news articles publicly available on the web to train their AI algorithms constitutes fair use under copyright law. Fair use permits repurposing copyrighted material if significant alterations are made.

This all goes back to the question of what content can be used to train these foundational models, similar to a person reading books in a library, and what is a reproduction. I talk about my thoughts here in GPT Kingdom and the Residuals of Fire.

Nothing has been decided as of yet, so we will continue to keep a close eye on the rulings. The outcome of these lawsuits could fundamentally shift the way news companies are compensated for their work in the AI era and the manner in which ai models are able to be trained.

A penny for your thoughts 👛 The Camelot Newsletter is growing! I want to keep creating content that is interesting and useful to you.

In other news…

• China orders Apple to pull WhatsApp, Threads and two other popular messaging apps from the Chinese App Store citing “national security concerns.” The official response is that this is not in response to the Tik Tok ban passing the house last week but… hmm “The removal of the four apps suggests growing intolerance on the part of China's central government towards at least some foreign online messaging services that fall outside of its control. It also signals less leeway for Apple in China.”

• Yesterday, the judge in Trump’s hush money trial fined the former president $9,000 for contempt of court and threatened to jail him for repeatedly violating a gag order.

• Joshua Dean, the whistleblower who raised concerns about Boeing jets has died at the age of 45 from a sudden mysterious bacterial infection. This news comes weeks after another Boeing whistleblower died by suicide in Charleston, South Carolina. 🕵️ 

• Musk is going “absolutely hardcore” on Tesla staffing, stating that he intends to lay off 20% of the workforce. This comes on the tail of layoffs totaling about 10% or 14,000 employees earlier in April.

Turkeys and Angels

Every week brings new and exciting antics! Here I nominate one Turkey; a squawky or nefarious critter deserving of the “You are a Turkey” moniker. Because we must always bring balance to the force, an Angel will additionally be recognized for bringing laughter, love or all around goodness to the world.

This week’s Turkey: Public enemy #1: Kristi Noem
Kristi Noem describes killing an unruly puppy she “hated” in her new book. It was a grotesque and thinly veiled ploy to garner attention to her political campaign. I don’t care if you call it “farm life” it’s still murdering of an innocent animal. I am not a proponent of “cancelling” people but this woman needs a one way ticket to outer space.

This week’s Angel: Alejandra Rodriguez
A 60-year-old Argentinian woman is embracing a “new paradigm” in beauty — and is on track to compete for the title of Miss Universe!

“I am thrilled to be representing this new paradigm in beauty pageants because we are inaugurating a new stage in which women are not only physical beauty but another set of values,” Alejandra Rodríguez, 60, a lawyer and journalist said of her win. 👑 Yes queen!