AI chatbots can generate scripts or poems that mimic the writing styles of Quentin Tarantino and Rupi Kaur in mere seconds. In such situations, the original creators ought to receive compensation for their contributions to large language models — similar to Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) agreements for college athletes, as indicated by OpenAI CEO […]
AI chatbots can generate scripts or poems that mimic the writing styles of Quentin Tarantino and Rupi Kaur in mere seconds.
In such situations, the original creators ought to receive compensation for their contributions to large language models — similar to Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) agreements for college athletes, as indicated by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday.
“I believe we urgently need a new [standard] for compensating creators,” stated Altman, whose organization develops and operates the ChatGPT chatbot. “We need to explore new economic frameworks that allow creators to access additional income streams.”
Creating such an economic framework could prove challenging for numerous reasons — ranging from establishing equitable compensation systems to encouraging creatives to participate, as well as implementing safeguards against possible misuse. It remains uncertain if, or when, compensating individuals for their work’s contribution to AI models will become standard practice.
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OpenAI has faced scrutiny regarding this matter over recent years. Numerous newspaper publishers, including The New York Times, are actively litigating against it and Microsoft for copyright violations, due to the unauthorized usage of published articles.
Altman welcomes the challenge, stating: “A key passion of mine has consistently been finding ways to implement micropayments where, if you create a story in the style of [an author], they can voluntarily participate … and get compensated for it.”
He is not the only technology executive publicly addressing the topic of compensation for content creators. AI startup ProRata, for instance, is working on an answer engine that will distribute a portion of the company’s revenue to content creators whose work contributes to its outputs, as revealed by founder and CEO Bill Gross during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” in November.
“AI is formidable and relentless, yet it’s also inequitable,” said Gross. “Both creators and consumers warrant protection … Therefore, we devised an algorithm that analyzes the output of large language models and generative AI to assess the actual contribution each piece of content provides, on a percentage basis, and then [we’ll] allocate revenue accordingly.”
It remains uncertain how much ProRata would compensate individual creators — or how it might challenge more established answer engines like Perplexity or chatbots like ChatGPT — but it has already secured partnerships with publishers such as the Financial Times, The Atlantic, and Axel Springer. These three publishers have also formed agreements with OpenAI.
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