Bill Gross thinks AI companies are running out of ways to avoid paying creators

"The inspiration came when The New York Times sued OpenAI a few years ago. I thought, wow, I really do think that the AI companies are stealing stuff from everybody. I think that lawsuits are one way to solve it, but I think a better way to solve it would be a business model that's fair to everybody. And I thought, just like Spotify shares revenue with artists, just like YouTube shares revenue with artists, why don't the AI companies share revenue with artists?"

"If I can solve the problem of unscrambling the egg, figuring out where the answer came from, then I could use that as the attribution breakdown for sharing 50% of the revenues, just like Spotify shares revenues with the artists. So, I worked for a few months on coming up with a method to do that, and I was successful. So, then I patented that, and then I said, now, let me go see if I can get publishers to join."

"He doesn't expect AI companies to participate out of goodwill. In fact, Gross has already launched a spinoff, Gist, which allows ProRata partners to generate additional revenue from ProRata's indexing of their work. Instead, he believes outside pressures will eventually leave AI operators with little choice."

ProRata aims to let publishers and creators see how their work informs AI-generated outputs and receive payment based on attribution. The initiative was inspired by a lawsuit involving AI and the belief that AI companies were taking content without fair compensation. A method was developed to “unscramble the egg” by identifying where answers came from, enabling revenue attribution. The approach was patented and used to sign 1,500 publications over two years. A separate spinoff, Gist, generates additional revenue for ProRata partners by leveraging ProRata’s indexing. The plan relies on outside pressures to eventually push major AI companies toward revenue sharing.

Read at Fast Company