When we founded Causality Link in 2016, we had a unique idea about the long-lasting knowledge in written text that was being left on the table by others. To prove this idea, we needed content and were presented with a hard choice.
Rather than following others and “crawling the web” hoping we could surf the information highway toll-free, we opted to take a higher ground, and established one of our core principles: AI companies should compensate content creators. Without compensation, the quality and quantity of digital content will suffer – and AI’s ability to deliver trusted insights for real-time decision-making will be impaired.
Not everyone agrees, which is why content creators have threatened or taken legal action against several AI companies:
- One of the first waves happened last November and was pointed at Microsoft and Github for their Copilot solution
- In January, artists sued Stability AI Ltd, Midjouney Inc, and DeviantArt Inc for copyright infringement.
- In early February, Getty Images filed a similar suit.
- Just last week, News Corp’s Dow Jones specifically called out OpenAI for misuse of content during training
We wouldn’t be able to provide clients like Amundi Technology, Accuracy, and the European Commission with a diverse and global perspective if we didn’t pay for the rights to over eight thousand unique sources and their valuable work. Causality Link spends tens of thousands of dollars per month – more than we spend on cloud computing – for access to ten years and over 130 million pieces of fully licensed content. No data point our clients view is ever connected to anything but a piece of content we cite and have permission to use.
The future of AI in our industry depends on these sources surviving and thriving. Without them, our collective intelligence will wither and die because great content creators can only write, draw, or photograph for free for so long. Quality content deserves recognition and compensation, at every stage of testing, training, and deploying AI.
