(1 Jun 2026) “AI models are made with four basic ingredients.
The first is talent – the people who design the algorithms. The second is what tech companies call “compute.” That’s the infrastructure behind AI, like chips and data centers. The third is energy, the electricity required to fuel these power-hungry products. The fourth is what tech companies call “data.” The word itself seems almost designed to make creative and expressive work sound trivial, a ubiquitous commodity. But “data” is often used, among other things, as a synonym for books, movies, music and journalism – what might more accurately be called “copyrighted content.”
Talent, compute, energy and data are all essential to the success of AI and, therefore, to the success of the tech giants.
The first three are paid for because – of course they are. No tech CEO would dare suggest forcing the most talented engineers to work for free. To the contrary, they regularly offer pay packages worth tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars. Nor would they consider stealing chips from a Nvidia factory or illegally tapping a power line. Investors consider the potential financial rewards of AI to be so great that they are embracing losses that run into the hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centers and power plants.
In contrast, AI companies take “data” without consent or compensation. Their explanations for the theft keep shifting. They say innovation requires it. They insist they’re just taking facts, which no one can own. They complain that deals take too long and cost too much. They claim the “fair use” doctrine allows them to take content for free anyway. Sometimes they even invoke national security – they warn that if AI companies are forced to pay, America will lose the technology race to China.”
The New York Times publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, offered the opening remarks at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille, titled ‘AI, journalism and the uncertain future of the public square’.
