Shares in Reddit have surged by more than 10% after the company announced a partnership with AI start-up OpenAI.
Under the agreement, OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot, will gain access to Reddit’s content, and Reddit will integrate AI-powered features into its platform.
This move highlights Reddit’s efforts to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising.
The deal comes amid a rising number of legal challenges from copyright holders regarding the use of their material by AI firms.
On Thursday, Sony, the world’s largest music publisher, sent letters to Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, demanding to know if their songs had been used to develop AI systems.
The BBC has contacted Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI for comments.
In recent months, OpenAI has also signed agreements with several publishers, including the Associated Press and the Financial Times.
In February, Google announced a partnership granting it access to Reddit data to train its AI models.
In both the European Union and the US, questions persist about whether using such content to train AI tools constitutes copyright infringement or falls under fair use and “temporary copying” exceptions.
This issue is being tested in US courts through several legal cases, involving individuals like “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin, comedian Sarah Silverman, and the New York Times.
This week, OpenAI introduced the latest version of the technology behind ChatGPT.
The company announced that GPT-4o will be made available to all ChatGPT users, including non-subscribers.
This new version is faster than its predecessors and has been designed to respond in a more conversational manner.
It can read and interpret images, translate languages, and recognize emotions from visual expressions. Additionally, it has a memory feature that allows it to recall previous prompts.