Without a constant stream of high-quality, human-made information, artificial intelligence models become useless. That’s why journalists and other content creators have more leverage over the future than they might know.

Washington, DC – In a new article in The Washington Monthly, Dr. Courtney C. Radsch, Director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at Open Markets, argues that the survival of artificial intelligence hinges on high-quality, human-generated content and data, which means and that journalists, artists, content creators, and analysts, have more leverage to be fairly compensated for their work than they might realize. 

In order to evade the unfettered and likely illegal scraping of their websites, news publishers have put much of the best and most accurate information on the internet behind paywalls or fenced it off from AI crawlers. Tech companies have admitted their AI products won’t work without access to this kind of high-quality data and are lobbying to limit the privacy and contract rights for content creators while expanding the legal zone of “fair use” to include anything posted online. 

But as Radsch explains, none of these work-arounds will address the ultimate challenge: For AI innovation to be safe, accurate and successful, it needs high-quality, human-generated inputs. And in order for those inputs to continue to exist, creators need to be paid.

“Without a constant stream of high-quality, human-made information, artificial intelligence models become useless. That’s why journalists and other content creators have more leverage over the future than they might know,” Radsch writes.

To sustain AI advancements, Radsch proposes a fair compensation model for news publishers and content creators whose work is used in AI training, whether paid for with a tax on AI companies, collective bargaining agreements, or some combination of both. She also underscores the need for legislation to protect intellectual property rights, strengthen copyright laws, and enhance data transparency, aiming to avoid monopolistic data control by large tech companies. 

“Get this one right, and we could be on the cusp of a golden age in which knowledge and creativity flourish amid broad prosperity,” she writes. “But it will only work if we use smart policies to ensure an equitable partnership of human and artificial intelligence.”

Earlier this year, Radsch spoke to the urgent necessity of valuing the news in the AI age at the International Press Institute’s World Congress in Sarajevo. She has also expanded on policy solutions for preserving journalism in the AI era in other writing, including: “A Framework for Establishing Journalism’s Value in Artificial Intelligence Systems,” an expert brief published by the Open Markets Institute and in analyses for Brookings, Tech Policy Press and Nieman Reports.

Read her latest piece here.

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