OpenAI Inks Deals With Two More Publishers
Plus, 10 Years Since the "Transgender Tipping Point"
Hi all, Parker here.
On Wednesday, The Atlantic and Vox Media announced product and content partnerships with OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. The deals will allow OpenAI to train on the companies’ archives and give the companies access to some of OpenAI’s technology.
“Vox Media and OpenAI Form Strategic Content and Product Partnership” (Vox Media, 5/29/24)
Vox Media, the leader in modern media, today announced a broad-based strategic partnership with OpenAI in which Vox Media’s respected portfolio of properties including Vox, The Verge, Eater, New York Magazine, The Cut, Vulture, and SB Nation, will help inform ChatGPT’s 100 million users, receiving brand attribution and audience referrals. The two companies will also collaborate using OpenAI’s technology to develop innovative products for Vox Media’s consumers and advertising partners.
Through this partnership, ChatGPT and future products will draw upon the trusted journalism and expertise of Vox Media’s award-winning media properties. Additionally, OpenAI will enhance its technology with Vox Media’s archives, which contain a deep well of reliable and accountable information and journalism. This agreement recognizes the value of the company’s work and intellectual property, while opening it up to new audiences and better informing the public.
Since its founding in 2011, Vox Media has continuously developed and embraced new technologies that benefit its users across platforms; this new partnership will boost the company’s ability to innovate with generative AI. As part of the agreement, Vox Media will work with OpenAI, leveraging its technology to build audience-facing and internal applications and capabilities. OpenAI technology will help to support discovery of valuable recommendations and information for consumers from Vox Media’s brands. Among other uses, Vox Media will continue to enhance its affiliate commerce product, The Strategist Gift Scout, which acts as a super-charged search tool, matching shoppers with the perfect Strategist-endorsed gift using OpenAI tools.
“The Atlantic announces product and content partnership with OpenAI” (The Atlantic, 5/29/24)
Today The Atlantic is announcing a strategic content and product partnership with OpenAI, which positions The Atlantic as a premium news source within OpenAI. The Atlantic’s articles will be discoverable within OpenAI’s products, including ChatGPT, and as a partner, The Atlantic will help to shape how news is surfaced and presented in future real-time discovery products. Queries that surface The Atlantic will include attribution and a link to read the full article on theatlantic.com.
As part of this agreement, The Atlantic and OpenAI are also collaborating on product and tech: The Atlantic’s product team will have privileged access to OpenAI tech, give feedback, and share use-cases to shape and improve future news experiences in ChatGPT and other OpenAI products. The Atlantic is currently developing an experimental microsite, called Atlantic Labs, to figure out how AI can help in the development of new products and features to better serve its journalism and readers––and will pilot OpenAI’s and other emerging tech in this work. (The Labs site will not involve the editorial team; it is a sandbox for our product and technology team. Additionally, AI is not being used to create The Atlantic’s journalism.)
While The Atlantic’s announcement states that “AI is not being used to create The Atlantic’s journalism” (I’m not sure if the present tense is meaningful here), Vox’s announcement admits that this deal “will boost the company’s ability to innovate with generative AI” and that the company “will work with OpenAI, leveraging its technology to build audience-facing and internal applications and capabilities.”
What exactly does this mean in the long term? It’s hard to say. They’re far from the only organizations cutting deals with OpenAI and other AI companies. Just last week, Jessica Lessin wrote a thought-provoking piece for The Atlantic tearing into companies that made the decision to get in bed with OpenAI. It seems she wasn’t able to persuade the business side of the magazine.
Speaking of OpenAI…
On Thursday, OpenAI flagged bad actors from a handful of countries for using its technology for propaganda campaigns. Get ready for more of this… a lot more of this… in coming years.
“OpenAI finds Russian and Chinese groups used its tech for propaganda campaigns” (The Washington Post, Gerrit De Vynck, 5/30/24)
ChatGPT maker OpenAI said Thursday that it caught groups from Russia, China, Iran and Israel using its technology to try to influence political discourse around the world, highlighting concerns that generative artificial intelligence is making it easier for state actors to run covert propaganda campaigns as the 2024 presidential election nears.
OpenAI removed accounts associated with well-known propaganda operations in Russia, China and Iran; an Israeli political campaign firm; and a previously unknown group originating in Russia that the company’s researchers dubbed “Bad Grammar.” The groups used OpenAI’s tech to write posts, translate them into various languages and build software that helped them automatically post to social media.
In other news…
Writing at Xtra*, Jude Ellison S. Doyle has a really great piece about life for trans people 10 years after Time magazine’s “Transgender Tipping Point” cover. Doyle quoted several trans people for the story, including me. You should definitely check it out if you get the chance.
“10 years since the ‘transgender tipping point’” (Xtra*, Jude Ellison S. Doyle, 5/30/24)
Ten years ago yesterday, TIME magazine declared a “transgender tipping point.” “Almost one year after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans were free to marry the person they loved, no matter their sex,” wrote cis journalist Katy Steinmetz, “another civil rights movement is poised to challenge long-held cultural norms and beliefs. Transgender people—those who identify with a gender other than the sex they were ‘assigned at birth,’ to use the preferred phrase among trans activists—are emerging from the margins to fight for an equal place in society.”
The idea of a “trans tipping point” became ubiquitous. Even if you never read the article itself, the cover, featuring Laverne Cox—one of the first trans actors to receive mainstream recognition, and the first trans woman ever to appear on TIME’s cover—was everywhere. “For years after, academic and media writers alike would cite that story, or the paradigm shift it detailed, in our articles, often grounding it in our ledes,” says journalist Harron Walker. “I don’t really see that happen anymore. So, that’s one thing that’s changed between then and now: we don’t really cite the Trans Tipping Point anymore.”
This week at The Present Age…
What else I’m reading…
“Donald Trump found guilty on all counts in New York hush money trial” (The Washington Post, Mark Berman, Shayna Jacobs, Devlin Barrett, and Derek Hawkins, 5/30/24)
“What's my secret to success?” (
, W. Kamau Bell, 5/30/24)- , , 5/30/24)
“Oh, Whatever, Everything is Totally Great for Writers Right Now” (Terrible Minds, Chuck Wendig, 5/30/24)
“How Grievance Splintered American Sports” (The Washington Post, Jerry Brewer, 5/30/24)
“He Won’t Do Either. But Alito Needs to Resign, Not Just Recuse” (Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall, 5/30/24)
I'm an old non-trans man, so before the "tipping point" I mostly assumed that trans folks were doing okay, except, of course for trans sex workers and sex workers of color. In a long life, I must have encountered trans people who'd transitioned, and just walked right by them, assuming they were the gender they appeared to be. If I saw Laverne Cox in a grocery store, I'd think she was an attractive Black woman (as she is).
King of the Hill - conservatives considered a conservative show - mentioned trans folks in a couple of episodes, in a non-hostile way, as if they were regular parts of the fabric of fictional Arlen. In one episode, a drag queen is a very sympathetic character who helps low-esteem Peggy Hill feel more feminine. The drag character presents as a man when she's not performing, but his (her) Mom tells her she's as much a woman as anybody. This may reflect confusion on the writers' part about drag performers, or may mean that the man had not fully-transitioned. (Or it may mean I'm confused!) (I should also note that on the trans-acceptance side, even in this period of backlash, Bob's Burgers is very supportive, and has queer characters too.)
Then the backlash came. It was probably inevitable, just as increasing gay activism after Stonewall brought us Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell and other assorted bad people, Harvey Milk's murder and other bad stuff. Things got better for queer folk in subsequent decades, remarkably quickly compared to Black progress, but of course too slow for too many people.
Trump may have been the catalyst who started the current backlash, and in addition to anti-trans stuff, is also trying to undo progress on queer rights. Trump created an environment where all sorts of horrible people came out of the woodwork to join his politics of hate and cruelty. Some because they hate trans folks, others because they see hating trans folks as a way to bolster a movement that supports other goals as well, like anti-DEI crusades and Christian nationalism.
It is possible that greater acceptance is inevitable too, just as things got better for gays and lesbians. It will take too long, and a lot of people will be hurt, but at least we may go two steps forward/one step back and some of the current nemeses will fade from the scene, or shift their focus to hating on someone else. We can hope.
I'm certainly guilty of the "Moral arc of the universe yada yada" thing when it comes to trans rights. It just seemed self-evident to me that, just like with gay marriage, right-wingers would kick up a fuss for a time and then the whole thing would be forgotten once they figured out it was a loser for them, election-wise. But that's a lazy assumption and I'm sure extremely irritating to the people who are in it right now, enduring the constant attacks.