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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman backs Reddit’s resolve to save the site’s corporations without an AI deal.
Last week, 404 Media discovered that search engines other than Google were no longer in Reddit’s recent posts directory. In fact, Reddit has updated its bot exclusion protocol (text logging) to prevent bots from removing the site. The dossier reads, “Reddit believes in an open internet, but not in the misuse of public content. “Since the news broke, OpenAI announced SearchGPT, which can demonstrate the recent effects of Reddit.
The update came a year after Reddit began its efforts to end free scraping, which Huffman initially touted as an attempt to prevent AI companies from making money from Reddit content. This effort also led to Reddit starting to charge for APIs. access (the maximum value led to the closure of many third-party Reddit apps).
In an interview with The Verge today, Huffman supported the tweaks that led to Google temporarily becoming the only search engine capable of displaying recent Reddit discussions. Reddit and Google signed an AI education deal worth $60 million a year in February. It’s unclear exactly how much Reddit costs. The agreement with OpenAI has value. Huffman said:
Without those agreements, we have no say or wisdom over how our knowledge is displayed and what it is used for, which now puts us in a position to block others who are not willing to conform to how we use it. knowledge to be used or not.
According to The Verge, Huffman claimed that Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity negotiated. All three companies commented for Huffman’s interview.
“[It’s been] painful to block those companies,” Huffman told The Verge.
A user familiar with the matter in the past told Ars that Microsoft refused to reach a settlement that respected Reddit’s knowledge privacy rules. Speaking to The Verge, Huffman claimed that Microsoft has in the past used Reddit’s knowledge for AI education and Bing effect summaries, but he did not tell this to Reddit. He also claimed that Reddit data was “sold through the Bing API to other search engines,” according to The Verge.
A Microsoft spokesperson told me last week that “Microsoft adheres to the popular robots. txt file and we respect the rules provided that content on its pages does not need to be used with our generative AI models. ” But as The Verge noted, Jordi Ribas, Microsoft’s vice president of studies and artificial intelligence, spoke to .
Huffman also referred to a June interview with CNBC in which Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, said, “I think in terms of content that’s already on the open internet, the social contract for that content since the ’90s is this. It is a fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate it, reproduce it. It’s free software, so to speak. This is what Suleyman agreed, adding that his comment was not referring to certain types of internet content, such as news agencies.
“Microsoft, Anthropic and Perplexity act as if all the content is free for them. That’s their genuine position,” Huffman said.
Reddit has not disclosed how much cash is needed for deals that would wipe out Microsoft, Perplexity, Anthropic or smaller companies. Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told Ars last week that Reddit talks “to search engines” and that Reddit is “open to working with partners. “, big and small. “
Reddit is most likely aiming for big contracts when it comes to AI, which it sees as a vital component of its business. Colin Hayhurst, CEO of search engine Mojeek, told Ars last week that Reddit had not responded to his Mojeek-related emails. blocking until the 404 Media report is published.
Reddit’s efforts to find new sources of profit as it tries to find success for the first time have been plagued with obstacles, adding to a huge outcry from users in reaction to changes to Reddit’s API rules. The company is looking to close deals at a time when publishers, the music industry and many others are grappling with the legality of artificial intelligence robots and trying to set a precedent. Reddit’s reliance on free, user-generated content further complicates the debate.
Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica’s parent company Condé Nast, is a shareholder in Reddit.
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