Headlines

Copyright concerns create need for a fair alternative in AI sector 

The growth of AI has already sparked transformation in multiple industries, but the pace of uptake has also led to concerns around data ownership, privacy and copyright infringement. Because AI is centralised with the most powerful models controlled by corporations, content creators have largely been sidelined. There’s an opportunity for decentralised AI projects like that proposed by the ASI Alliance to offer an alternative way of AI model development.

Source: Copyright concerns create need for a fair alternative in AI sector – AI News

CMA to investigate Google search dominance and impact on news publishers

The UK’s competition watchdog has launched an investigation into Google‘s search services, beginning a process that may ultimately see the tech giant regulated under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. The CMA said the investigation “will assess Google’s position in search and search advertising services and how this impacts consumers and businesses including advertisers, news publishers, and rival search engines.

Source: CMA to investigate Google search dominance and impact on news publishers

Tech companies are turning to ‘synthetic data’ to train AI models – but there’s a hidden cost

A primary concerns is that AI models can “collapse” when they rely too much on synthetic data. This means they start generating so many “hallucinations” – a response that contains false information – and decline so much in quality and performance that they are unusable. For example, AI models already struggle with spelling some words correctly. If this mistake-riddled data is used to train other models, then they too are bound to replicate the errors.

Source: Tech companies are turning to ‘synthetic data’ to train AI models – but there’s a hidden cost

Reuters Institute: Publishers Pivot To Video Amid Search Disruption

As social media referral traffic from platforms like Facebook and X continues to decline—67% and 50%drops over the past two years—publishers are increasingly turning to Google Discover. The Reuters Institute notes that Discover grew by 12% year over year, and many publishers now rely on it as their primary referral source. Its personalized recommendations have made it a focus for publishers looking to replace lost traffic from other platforms.

Source: Reuters Institute: Publishers Pivot To Video Amid Search Disruption

Music Industry Funding Data Provides Insights As 2025 Ramps Up

The music industry funding landscape delivered several key trends during 2024. First, 2024’s music industry funding would have decreased substantially from 2023 if not for a few massive capital disclosures on the catalog side. Hipgnosis led the pack with its almost $1.5 billion asset backed securitization, followed by an over $1 billion funding confirmation from Iconic Artists Group and then an $850 million ABS from Concord.

Source: Music Industry Funding Data Provides Insights As 2025 Ramps Up

AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funds Valuing It at $60 Billion

Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a deal that would value it at $60 billion, more than triple its valuation from a year ago. The funding round is being led by the venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, people familiar with the matter said. The $60 billion valuation includes the money Anthropic plans to raise in the round.

Source: AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funds Valuing It at $60 Billion

Google unveils an AI-powered TV that summarizes the news for you at CES 2025

Google unveiled the latest version of its TV operating system at CES 2025 on Monday. It uses the company’s Gemini AI assistant to summarize the biggest news of the day for you. By asking Gemini to play your “News Brief,” the AI assistant will scrape news stories from across the internet and headlines posted by trusted news channels, and will produce a brief summary to catch you up on the day’s events.

Source: Google unveils an AI-powered TV that summarizes the news for you at CES 2025

The Shutterstock-Getty Images Merger: A Bold Move in a Shifting Landscape 

The stock photo industry has been gasping for air, struggling to adapt to a market that continues to be extremely challenging. Over the past two decades, licensing prices for rights-managed (RM) images have plummeted by 20–50%, while royalty-free (RF) prices have dropped even more sharply, by 50–80%. The rise of microstock and subscription models has driven licensing fees as low as $0.27 per image.

Source: The Shutterstock-Getty Images Merger: A Bold Move in a Shifting Landscape – Kaptur

The Cultural Impact of AI Generated Content

As much as it may be alarming that advertising really does work on us, consider that with advertising the subconscious or subtle effects are being designed and intentionally driven by ad creators. In the case of generative AI, a great deal of what goes into creating the content, no matter what its purpose, is based on an algorithm and human actors are less in control of what that model generates.

Source: The Cultural Impact of AI Generated Content: Part 2

Is ‘AI slop’ breaking the internet?

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has deleted a host of fake social media profiles generated by artificial intelligence after a backlash against what Gizmodo called an invasion of “AI-powered slop.” The AI avatars managed by the platform include “Liv”, who “posts photos of children that do not exist, and “Jade”, who posts photos of her non-existent vinyl collection. “The AI apocalypse is here and it’s far stupider and more depressing than we were promised.”

Source: Is ‘AI slop’ breaking the internet?

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