Financial Support from Chatbot Technology
In the heart of Pasadena, California, Bill Gross, a pioneer in the digital world often referred to as the 'grandaddy of the internet,' found himself reflecting on the future of creative work in the digital age. Gross, now sixty-six, is best known for founding GoTo.com, the precursor to Google's keyword-based search engine advertising model.
Fast forward to late December 2023, Gross filed a patent for the technology that would become his latest company: ProRata. The innovative platform aims to address the concerns of publishers, particularly news outlets, by ensuring they are fairly compensated for the use of their content in AI-generated answers.
ProRata has partnered with over 700 publishers, including notable names such as Adweek, Popular Science, Cherry Road Media, DMG Media, Axel Springer, The Atlantic, Universal Music Group, Fortune, and The Financial Times. The partnership allows ProRata to utilize these publishers' archives for developing its AI technology.
The introduction of tools such as ChatGPT has led to a decline in the traditional search engine's relevance. Recognizing this shift, ProRata is designed to integrate with the dominant large language models to make a significant impact.
One of the key features of ProRata is its ability to analyze the entirety of an AI-generated answer and weigh how much of it came from various sources. This results in a breakdown of the percent of each answer that came from a given website or document, ensuring publishers are credited and compensated for their contributions.
ProRata operates a chatbot, called Gist Search, that compensates publishers when their content is surfaced, including Wikipedia. Half of the revenue generated by these targeted ads within the Gist Search interface goes back to ProRata, while the other half is distributed among the sources from which the answer drew.
The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, filed in late December 2023, could potentially compel companies to adopt a system like the one Gross has developed. The Atlantic's CEO, Nicholas Thompson, is intrigued by ProRata's idea and prefers it over the current system of compensation from large language model companies.
Gross envisions a future where publishers might band together to block the AI detectors that large language models rely on to harvest data. This could mark a significant shift in the current landscape of AI and publishing, potentially leading to a more equitable distribution of revenue and credit for the creators of the content.
As Gross continues his decade-long commitment to shifting people's views on protecting creative rights, ProRata represents a promising step towards a future where publishers are fairly compensated for their contributions to AI-generated content.
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