Future Retirement Success
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks

Future Retirement Success

Business

Meta employees discussed buying Simon & Schuster to train AI models, report reveals

by April 10, 2024
April 10, 2024
Meta employees discussed buying Simon & Schuster to train AI models, report reveals

Recent revelations from internal meetings at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, have shed light on discussions among managers, lawyers, and engineers regarding the potential acquisition of Simon & Schuster to procure books for training the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

The recordings, shared with the New York Times by an employee of Meta, offer insights into deliberations on leveraging the renowned publishing house’s extensive catalog to enhance AI training, prompting ethical and legal considerations.

According to the recordings spanning March to April 2023, Meta personnel convened on a near-daily basis to explore avenues for acquiring additional data to train AI models. Discussions included the possibility of purchasing Simon & Schuster, with some participants contemplating paying $10 per book for licensing rights to new titles.

Simon & Schuster, a prominent player in the English-speaking publishing landscape and part of the esteemed “Big Five” alongside Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Macmillan, boasts a roster of distinguished authors such as Stephen King, Colleen Hoover, and Bob Woodward.

The prospect of Meta acquiring Simon & Schuster arose following Paramount Global’s announcement in March 2020 of its intent to divest the publishing house. Despite an aborted merger attempt with Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster was ultimately sold to private equity firm KKR in August 2023.

Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta’s vice president of generative AI, reportedly informed executives that the company had exhausted nearly all available English-language literary content on the internet for AI training purposes, prompting the search for new data sources.

Employees acknowledged using text sources without permission and contemplated expanding these practices despite potential legal ramifications. Concerns raised by a lawyer regarding the ethical implications of using copyrighted intellectual property were met with silence.

Additionally, discussions revealed Meta’s employment of contractors in Africa to aggregate summaries of copyrighted fiction and non-fiction texts, raising further ethical and legal questions regarding data collection practices.

Maria A Pallante, president of the Association of American Publishers, expressed skepticism about Simon & Schuster’s willingness to entertain such a sale, questioning Meta’s intentions and its potential impact on authors and contractual agreements.

In a related development, California federal judge Vince Chhabria dismissed a portion of a copyright lawsuit filed by comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors against Meta over the use of copyrighted books in training its AI system LLaMA. Chhabria cast doubt on claims that the AI models’ outputs significantly resembled the authors’ works, underscoring ongoing debates surrounding AI and intellectual property rights.

Read more:
Meta employees discussed buying Simon & Schuster to train AI models, report reveals

0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
previous post
King Charles Presented with New Banknotes Featuring His Image
next post
7.4 Million UK Consumers Struggle to Pay Bills, Financial Regulator Finds

You may also like

UK house sales hit four-year high as market...

May 28, 2025

Untapped Benefits Of Retargeting In Search Marketing Campaigns

March 18, 2024

Bookings Open for The Royal Ballet School’s 2025...

January 22, 2025

Fuel Ventures backs PlanningHub’s AI-powered solution to modernise...

February 17, 2025

UK Export Finance unveils extra support for SME...

November 23, 2023

UK ban on zero-hours contracts set to include...

March 4, 2025

Tory peer Lord Young, ‘Mr Entrepreneur of Whitehall’...

December 10, 2022

British companies are failing to keep up with...

November 4, 2022

Britain Set to Trial ‘Flying Taxis’ by 2026,...

March 18, 2024

Chancellor pledges 30 hours of childcare a week...

March 14, 2023

    Get free access to all of the retirement secrets and income strategies from our experts! or Join The Exclusive Subscription Today And Get the Premium Articles Acess for Free

    By opting in you agree to receive emails from us and our affiliates. Your information is secure and your privacy is protected.

    Recent Posts

    • What Is the Opportunity Cost of State AI Policy? A New Cato Policy Analysis Discusses

      June 10, 2025
    • ‘Blazing the trail for others’: easyJet founder Sir Stelios awards £300,000 to disabled entrepreneurs transforming care, baking and logistics

      June 10, 2025
    • Republicans challenge ‘irrelevant’ budget office as it critiques Trump’s ‘beautiful bill’

      June 10, 2025
    • Greta Thunberg deported from Israel after Gaza-bound ‘selfie yacht’ was seized

      June 10, 2025
    • Judge restricts DOGE access to federal databases, finding ‘breach of law and trust’

      June 10, 2025
    • GOP unveils new weapon to help slash billions in government waste as Republicans rally behind Trump’s plan

      June 10, 2025

    Categories

    • Business (8,175)
    • Investing (2,023)
    • Politics (15,584)
    • Stocks (3,138)
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Disclaimer: futureretirementsuccess.com, its managers, its employees, and assigns (collectively “The Company”) do not make any guarantee or warranty about what is advertised above. Information provided by this website is for research purposes only and should not be considered as personalized financial advice. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendation. Any investments recommended here should be taken into consideration only after consulting with your investment advisor and after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

    Copyright © 2025 futureretirementsuccess.com | All Rights Reserved