The New York Times is considering taking legal action against OpenAI

⚡ Today’s Highlights

• 📰 News: The New York Times is considering taking legal action against OpenAI

• 💰 Funding: Elemental Cognition, Caden, Mercanis, The Contract Network, and SportsVisio

📰 Today's Top Stories

'New York Times' considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

(8 min read) (Source: NPR)

TLDR: The New York Times and OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, are in contentious discussions over a licensing deal. The newspaper is considering suing OpenAI over intellectual property concerns since ChatGPT can generate text based on the Times' original reporting.

• The emergence of generative AI tools in search engines is alarming publishers. With Microsoft's Bing powered by ChatGPT, there's a fear that readers might get information directly from AI tools instead of visiting the original publisher's site, which could reduce traffic and ad revenues for publishers like the Times.

• Generative AI models, including ChatGPT, use large volumes of internet data without explicit permission, which raises legal issues around copyright violations. OpenAI could face severe penalties, potentially up to $150,000 per infringement, if found guilty of willful copyright violations. Legal experts are focused on the challenges with AI and copyright laws, especially with determining if "fair use" applies.

The Big Picture: The Times isn't alone in considering legal action. Comedian Sarah Silverman has filed a class-action suit against OpenAI, and Getty Images is suing another AI company, Stability AI. The outcome of these lawsuits will set a significant precedent for the future use of AI in content generation and consumption.

Microsoft Plans AI Service With Databricks That Could Hurt OpenAI

(7 min read) (Source: The Information)

TLDR: Microsoft plans to introduce a new version of Databricks software, utilizing AI, through its Azure cloud-server unit. This software aids businesses in creating AI applications, enabling the development of AI models from scratch or repurposing open-source models, potentially avoiding licensing proprietary models from OpenAI.

• Databricks, a data analytics platform powered by AI, is at the center of Microsoft's strategy. This move aligns with Microsoft's broader efforts to integrate AI across its product range, including Azure, Microsoft 365, GitHub, and developer tools.

👀 More Reading

1. Is Data Justice key to Climate Justice? (University of Cambridge)

2. Here's how the Bloomberg Terminal is integrating AI to automate tasks for traders and analysts (Business Insider)

3. Deepfake detection tools must work with dark skin tones, experts warn (The Guardian)

4. AI threatens the billable hour revenue model (Axios)

5. Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals—and It’s Proving Difficult to Detect (WIRED)

6. The Future of Recycling Is Sorty McSortface (The Atlantic)

💰 Funding Alerts

1. Elemental Cognition is an AI startup led by David Ferrucci, the AI researcher behind IBM Watson, that develops AI systems that aim to have reasoning capabilities before generating responses. It raised $60M in equity funding.

• Elemental Cognition focuses on bringing reliable reasoning and transparency to the AI market and offers enterprise chatbot products, Cogent and Cora, for financial services, travel planning, and research automation.

• Round led by Breyer Capital (Jim Breyer), former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, Bridgewater Associates (Greg Jensen), and Redpoint Ventures (Geoff Yang).

• Funding will be used to support Elemental Cognition's efforts to develop AI systems with superior natural language understanding and reasoning capabilities.

2. Caden, a data intelligence company that empowers users to own, control, and profit from their personal data while also offering innovative enterprise products for competitive advantages, raised $15M in Series A funding.

• Caden's platform empowers users to take control of their personal data, monetizing it in privacy-centered ways. For enterprises, its data intelligence suite, CadenOS, provides insights into consumer behavior for various industries like financial services and AI.

• Round led by Nava Ventures with participation from AME Cloud Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, Montage Ventures, and others.

• Funding is for accelerating product development, enhancing market activation, and strengthening the company's team.

3. Mercanis, a procurement suite solution specializing in sourcing and supplier management that utilizes data insights and AI to enable businesses to make purchasing decisions and interact with service providers, raised $10M in seed funding.

• Mercanis empowers businesses to streamline their procurement processes using AI-powered solutions. Its focus on utilizing AI, including large language models, enhances contract analysis, sourcing, and supplier management.

• Round led by Singals.VC, DI Technology, and Speedinvest with participation from Dr. Ulrich Piepel, Dr. Marcell Vollmer, Mirko Novakovic (Instana), and Victor Jacobsson.

• Funding is for research and development of the AI-powered procurement platform, customer growth, and team expansion.

4. The Contract Network, a legal technology company that has developed the world's first AI-powered collaborative contracting platform, raised $8M in seed funding.

• Their platform transforms how stakeholders collaborate on legal contracts, speeding up the negotiation process and enhancing dealmaking efficiency.

• Round led by Tusk Venture Partners with participation from Andrew Sieja (Founder of Relativity), The Legal Tech Fund, Mayo Clinic, Toba Capital, and GC&H Investments (Cooley LLP).

• Funding is for further enhancing and scaling the AI-powered collaborative contracting platform.

5. SportsVisio, an AI-powered software company that brings image-based and deep learning to sports analytics, raised $3M in seed funding.

• SportsVisio's AI technology brings advanced analytics and real-time insights to amateur sports, enhancing player performance and coaching strategies.

• Round led by Sapphire Sport.

• Funding is for expanding the company's operations and reach, allowing more players, coaches, and teams to benefit from its augmented reality sports analytics platform.

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