By: Dr. Brett Crawford & Samantha Sonnet

February’s news continues to focus on AI and we want to highlight 3 key stories:  OpenAI’s watermark for Dall-E, OpenAI’s launch of text-to-video solution: Sora, and Reddit’s controversial AI licensing deal (with an added side note about their plan to go public as a company). The news is also reverberating with the data revealing Facebook’s loss of domination in the news space as Gen Z through Gen X are turning to Instagram and TikTok.  

Watermarks – the Future for AI transparency?

OpenAI announced it will be embedding watermarks in images created by Dall-E. This may (or may not) begin the process of returning a sense of trust to anything we see on the internet. Of course, many other image generators exist and not all will follow Dall-E’s path without laws requiring they do so (see the AI Executive Order ).  Thus, while OpenAI is beginning to present a more responsible front, we have a long way to go before we can actually believe anything we see.  

From Pictures to Video

OpenAI is very busy as a company as it attempts to stay ahead of the GenAI race. February also witnessed its release of a beta-version of Sora, a text-to-video tool. It, like many of its peers, is “not ready for prime time.”  Simple gifs or short scenes can work, perhaps, but as an article on Explainable noted:   “Hollywood is safe.” Furthermore, the article notes that whil  GenAI has a lot of things it can do –  the real question is what do we really NEED it to do? What is the business proposition? And, depending on what it was trained with, how long can it continue to harvest the internet for free?  As noted in the Explainable article, reverse image search uncovered how a few key creators might have overly influenced some of the ‘sample’ videos.  The fight for AI and artist compensation is only just beginning. 

Reddit’s New AI Licensing Deal

Reddit has entered a new licensing deal with an undisclosed major AI company, with the contract being valued at around $60 million annually, as it prepares for a potential public offering for the first time. The deal surpasses OpenAI's reported $5 million annual offers to news publishers for data. As stated by The Verge, “Until recently, most AI companies trained their data on the open web without seeking permission. But that’s proven to be legally questionable, leading companies to try to get data on firmer footing.” Apple is also pursuing similar multi-year deals with news companies, potentially worth over $50 million. Reddit previously threatened to block search crawlers from Google and Bing if unable to secure data deals with AI companies. Despite revenue growth, Reddit fell short of its $1 billion revenue target by $200 million in 2023, prompting advice to aim for a $5 billion valuation for its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), expected in March.  And, as all things Reddit, they are doing a new spin – allowing their top users and moderators the opportunity to buy stock on day one, an opportunity usually reserved for institutional investors and board members.

TikTok and Instagram as News Sources for Gen Z

Lucky for all of us, there were some interesting non-AI pieces of news this month. In the 20-teens, Facebook was noted as being a go-to source for news for many users, a habit that was manipulated with fake news during many elections.  This habit seems to be changing. Gen Z has been widely known to get their news from social media over the past decade, with X dominating for a long time as the prominent news source before the reign of Elon Musk. Now, it is TikTok’s and Instagram’s turn. According to AXIOS, “A 2023 Pew survey found that one-third of adults under 30 regularly scroll TikTok for news, up 255% since 2020.” On this same level, The NY Times even older generations are following this trend stating, “Many millennials and Gen X-ers, in an echo of how older generations used Facebook, have grown more comfortable reading news on Instagram and reposting posts and videos for friends on Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours.” In general, with the major distrust from popular news sources and the digital addiction of today’s society, social media has become more than a simple posting platform.

These articles and so much more can be read on the AMT Lab Flipboard.