I am the chief content officer of Forbes Media and editor of Forbes Magazine, and believe strongly that entrepreneurial capitalism and market-based thinking can solve the world's problems. This is my second stint at Forbes -- between 1991 and 1997, I was a reporter, a staff writer (five cover stories), associate editor and Washington bureau chief.
event at MIT that brought together more than 2,000 people interested in the future of AI, with few in the bustling crowd attracting more interest than“The whole AI is basically running on exponential time,” he said, awkwardly standing on the stage for this panel, until he was instructed to sit.
“The regular time feels logarithmic relative to AI.”Over the past week, he’s proven himself right, though not in the way he’d imagined: Perplexity represents the inflection point that our AI progress now faces. In case you’ve missed the brouhaha, here’s a quick summary: For most of this year, two of our best journalists,detailing the company’s ongoing testing in Silicon Valley suburb Menlo Park as well as the frontlines of Ukraine. The next day, Perplexity published its own “story,” utilizing a new tool they’ve developed that waseven an illustration from one of Forbes’ previous stories on Schmidt, other than a line at the bottom of every few paragraphs that mentioned “sources,” and a very small icon that looked to be the “F” from the Forbes logo – if you squinted. It also gave similar weight to a “second source” — which was just a summary of the Forbes story from another publication.using the same reporting — without any credit to Forbes, and that became a YouTube video that outranks all Forbes content on this topic within Google search. Perplexity had taken our work, without our permission, and republished it across multiple platforms — web, video, mobile — as though it were itself a media outlet. As we dug, we found a similar rip-off of a second story at Forbes. And other stolen scoops — all the information, negligible citation — from Bloomberg and CNBC.for what the company had done, Srinivas responded that this new “product feature” had some “rough edges.” And that was that: the story wasn’t removed, nor was there an apology, nor was the story corrected to provide more transparent attribution within the text. Just some thanks, as Srinivas said this incident would help make things better going forward for…Perplexity. AI loves to learn, after all. about what Perplexity does for the media sites it steals from. “Perplexity has been the #2 referral source for Forbes and the top referrer for other publishers,” he wrote on X — disingenuously. Referral traffic, which just means to the traffic that comes from links within stories, comprises maybe 3% of our total audience. It doesn’t cover, among other things, social media, aggregators or search. Factor all of that in, and Perplexity rates as our 54th biggest referral traffic source in terms of users — or 0.014%. Not exactly the savior of journalism Srinivas tried to position himself as — though maybe Forbes is saving him. Perplexity generated more readers from the one Schmidt story it plagiarized from Forbes than it sent to Forbes from any and every post for the entire month of May. In AI nowadays, that trade gets you a billion-dollar valuation. Why is all this important? It’s the perfect case study for this critical moment. AI is only as good as the people overseeing it. I’m an AI bull, and in the right hands, productivity and advances and prosperity await. But in the hands of the likes of Srinivas — who has the reputation as being great at the PhD tech stuff and less-than-great at the basic human stuff — amorality poses existential risk. So what can be done? A few people can make a difference. For instance, the $174 million that Perplexity has raised so far includes a check from Jeff Bezos, who himself has made a huge investment in the need for journalism through. How does Bezos square that with companies like Perplexity which steal reporting that subscribers pay for at other publications and then offer it for free in their ecosystem? Democracy does indeed die in darkness, and people like Bezos will help shape whether AI contributes to that death, or staves it off. That AI dilemma holds for pretty much all of us, in every aspect of society right now.Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kindContinuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejectedAttempts or tactics that put the site security at riskProtect your community.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Buffett's 2024 Investment Wisdom: Psychology Matters As Much As FinancialsI am the editor of three Forbes investment newsletters: Forbes Dividend Investor, Forbes Billionaire Investor and covered call writing advisory service, Forbes Premium Income Report. Prior to joining Forbes in 2001, I was a producer and reporter at CNN Financial News, focusing on stories about entrepreneurship.
Read more »
Biden Wants To Take Your CarSteve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media.
Read more »
How grief taught award-winning producer Jack Antonoff to be less cynicalJack Antonoff has seemingly cracked the code for producing hit albums, winning Grammys for his work with artists like Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. But for his own writing, he leans into the unknown.
Read more »
Why 96% of Agile Transformations Fail - Here's Why You Shouldn't BotherAfter years of research of software teams and working with a PhD-trained research team, a new Impact Engineering methodology cuts Agile project failures 6.5x.
Read more »
Economist explores why skyscrapers keep getting taller and why the world loves themRutgers-Newark professor Jason Barr, an authority on skyscrapers, examines them through the lens of an economist, not an expert on architecture.
Read more »
Gloria Allred: Alec Baldwin Making 'Cynical' PR Move With New ShowHigh-profile feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing the family of Halyna Hutchins, is slamming actor Alec Baldwin for launching a reality TV series about his family just a month before he stands trial for involuntary manslaughter in the death of the late cinematographer.
Read more »