Startup using blockchain to prevent copyright theft by AI is valued over $2 billion after fresh funding
Summary
San-Francisco-based startup Story said Wednesday that it raised $80 million of funding for a blockchain designed to prevent artificial intelligence makers like OpenAI from taking creators intellectual property without permission. This makes copyright holders IP "programmable," SY Lee, Storys co-founder and CEO, explained to CNBC, as it sets up rules for how their content can be used and the price to pay for reproducing or remixing their works. These models, which power many AI chatbots that are increasingly being used as an alternative to search, require huge amounts of training data to enable their systems to produce advanced and informative answers to user queries. Big tech companies like Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion into OpenAI and is reportedly entitled to a 49% stake in the firm, are "essentially stealing your IP for training purposes and actually capturing all the upside," Lee said. Lee added: "Theres a huge, amazing digital renaissance making everyone a creator or a studio, but at the same time, if no ones actually compensating and actually getting the IP monetized right, its a suicidal action for AI in the long term."