Apple reportedly wants to train its A.I. on news articles. The company is in talks with publishers for using their content.

The New York Times reports that the Cupertino company is discussing deals with Vogue, The New Yorker, NBC News, People, The Daily Beast and Better Homes and Gardens. Not all of these publishers were keen on partnering with the tech giant, but that's mostly because of their bitter experiences with other Silicon Valley moguls. You may be aware that Google and Facebook have faced problems with news publishers, who demanded that the companies pay for accessing their content via their respective platforms. These deals didn't always end well.

Things have escalated this year, as several news publishers spoke out against A.I. companies, for using their data to train their chatbots, without compensating the publisher for the content. The New York Times, Reuters and The Washington Post installed blockers, to prevent the bots from accessing their sites. Several coders and artists have begun copyright lawsuits against A.I. chatbots for stealing their work without their permission.

Apple wants to use news articles to train its A.I.

Some publishers are worried about Apple's approach, and how the company could use their published content. People familiar with the matter say that publishing executives were concerned about Apple's terms, which could include access to archives of content. Apple has also reportedly not explained how its generative A.I. would apply to the news industry, as it could lead to a potential competitor, because of Apple's large user base and access to news on its devices.

The report says that some executives believed that partnering with Apple could be beneficial. If Apple manages to strike a deal with publishers, it could hit a treasure trove. It would allow legal access to news, to train its own A.I. language model, which in turn will provide the data to its users. This may also result in chatbots getting access to verified data, instead of fake news. Another advantage to this move is that Apple could potentially train its A.I. in real-time events, as and when they occur, as opposed to an outdated database. This may also be beneficial for news publishers, who wouldn't have to fear about losing their subscribers to the chatbot, as long as Apple compensates them for the data.

Apple already faces an uphill task as it preps its A.I. to go head on against its rivals. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat), and Google Bard have already become popular among users. It would be difficult for Apple to catch up, but the company's CEO, Tim Cook, had hinted at an analytics call last month, that Apple was working on something of its own, but declined to comment further on the topic.

According to the report by the NYT, Apple is willing to part with $50 Million for agreements with news publishers. That is quite a hefty price, but it's probably just pocket-change for the Trillion-Dollar company. It illustrates how big of an impact A.I. could have on our future. A recent report predicted that the A.I. industry could grow into a $1.3 trillion market by the year 2032. This could prove to be an important factor in the way users could engage with the chatbot, for example, to engage in conversations about the weather, sports, politics, financial news, etc.