If I asked you what the native business model for content is, you'd probably say either advertising or subscriptions. But I am starting to think that AI is to content what search engines are to browsers. Money machines.
I was emailing with my friend Lock a few weeks ago and we were talking a bit about my 2024 predictions post. I made reference to the section in that post about AI and litigation and said:
maybe we will get a settlement that makes all the big AIs pay 2/3 of their revenue to content companies and writers and we will have the native revenue model for media!
I was only half joking.
When the Hollywood writers went on strike, I suggested to all of my writer friends that they should be happy to let AIs write films and TV shows as long as they get paid to sit home and do nothing under the premise that the AIs were trained on their work and so they are due royalties.
I was only half joking about that too.
In Chris Dixon’s book, Read Write Own, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, he said this:
Most current AI systems have no economic model for creators... in the long run, we are still going to need an economic covenant between AI systems and content providers. Al will always need new data to stay up to date. The world evolves: tastes change, new genres emerge, things get invented. There will be new subjects to describe and represent. The people who create content that feeds AI systems will need to be compensated.
I could not agree more.
The only question is how this will come to be.
I think web3 is sitting on the answer.
Tune in tomorrow for more on this.
The Partnership for NYC, alongside its partners at the MTA, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, NJ TRANSIT, and NYC Department of Transportation, launched a call for applications for the 6th annual Transit Tech Lab this week.
To kick off this year’s program, the Transit Tech Lab is seeking early and growth-stage tech companies with compelling solutions to one of three local transit system challenges:
Customer Experience Challenge: How can we improve customer experience by better communicating service changes, reducing delays, and augment safety and cleanliness initiatives?
Resilience Challenge: How can we build a more resilient and adaptive transit system?
NYCDOT’s Curb Activity Challenge: How can we maximize the city’s curb space to serve the multiple and varied needs of New Yorkers?
Representatives from each participating agency will evaluate applications based on the technology’s impact and the applicant’s product, team, and overall value proposition. Finalists will advance to conduct a proof-of-concept over an eight-week period; the companies demonstrating the most compelling technologies that align with the agencies' objectives have the opportunity to secure a yearlong pilot.
Applications are due Wednesday, February 28. Interested applicants are invited to attend an information session on February 1 at 1pm ET.
If you know of a company or emerging innovator that would be a good fit for this year’s Transit Tech Lab, please let us know about them via email or encourage them to apply here: https://transitinnovation.org.
Last summer I sat down with Tom Secunda, who co-founded Bloomberg LP with Mike Bloomberg, to talk about areas of shared philanthropic interest. Tom told me that academic institutions do not have access to the kind of AI/ML infrastructure that the top tech companies have and he wanted to fix that. His idea was a consortium of Universities in New York State, the New York State Government, and philanthropic donors. His vision was a large shared facility in upstate NY with state-of-the-art AI/ML infrastructure that participating academic institutions could make available to their faculty for cutting-edge AI/ML research.
Tom is a convincing person. He convinced me that this was a good idea last summer and he went on to convince Governor Hochul and the top Universities in New York State and his fellow philanthropist Jim Simons.
I am glad Governor Hochul and her team were quick to recognize the promise of this idea. Today, Governor Hochul will announce Empire AI in her State of the State Address.
Empire AI will be a "state-of-the-art artificial intelligence computing center in Upstate New York to be used by New York's leading institutions to promote responsible research and development, create jobs, and unlock AI opportunities focused on public good."
Over $400mm of public and private funding has been committed over ten years to build and operate the Empire AI facility. New York State is contributing $275mm and over $125mm is coming from participating Universities and philanthropy.
I am excited to see New York State step up like this. Other states, like Massachusetts, have done something similar but this NYS effort is significantly larger. I expect more states will follow now. Cutting-edge AI/ML research should not be limited to large tech companies. We need our academic institutions to be on equal footing. This model, particularly if more states adopt it, can help make that possible.
New York is one of the leading AI centers in the US, along with California and Massachusetts. We see this every day as entrepreneurs building AI companies come knocking on our door. It is very encouraging to see our local government supporting and investing in this new area of economic development.
I want to congratulate Governor Hochul, the leaders of our academic institutions, and Tom Secunda, for their vision and initiative here. This is important.