A consortium of news groups said on Wednesday that artificial intelligence (AI) firms must ask for permission before using copyrighted text and images to generate content.

Media organisations including AFP, Getty Images, and the Associated Press (AP), said in an open letter that AI tools risk shattering their business models, flooding the web with misinformation, and breaking copyright laws.

The newsgroups emphasised that generative AI and extensive language models have made it possible for anyone to produce synthetic content on a massive scale. They listed potential problems resulting from this practice: copyright violations, an influx of false or biased information, and a vicious cycle where media groups struggle to fund journalism in order to provide ‘reliable news’.

AI tools like ChatGPT chatbot and image generators such as DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney have gained immense popularity. However, the companies behind these tools, including OpenAI and Stability AI, are currently facing lawsuits from artists and authors who claim that their work has been plagiarised.