At Senate AI hearing, news executives fight against “fair use” claims for AI training data

On Wednesday, news industry executives urged Congress for legal clarification that using journalism to train AI assistants like ChatGPT is not fair use, as claimed by companies such as OpenAI. Instead, they would prefer a licensing regime for AI training content that would force Big Tech companies to pay for content in a method similar to rights clearinghouses for music.

The plea for action came during a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled "Oversight of A.I.: The Future of Journalism," chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, with Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri also playing a large role in the proceedings. Last year, the pair of senators introduced a bipartisan framework for AI legislation and held a series of hearings on the impact of AI.

Blumenthal described the situation as an "existential crisis" for the news industry and cited social media as a cautionary tale for legislative inaction about AI. "We need to move more quickly than we did on social media and learn from our mistakes in the delay there," he said.