The president of controversial startup Perplexity AI has made a bizarre offer to help The New York Times Company while its tech workers are on strike — The Gray Lady This comes just weeks after he threatened to sue the company for “illegal use” of the article.
Aravind Srinivas, CEO of the Jeff Bezos-backed startup, responded to Times publisher AG Sulzberger's post about X on Monday by saying the shutdown would affect the newspaper's Election Day coverage. The reaction to the staff's assurance that it would not be given raised eyebrows.
“Hey AG Sulzberger @nytimes – sorry to see this,” Srinivas wrote to X.
“Perplexity is standing by to make sure everyone has access to your important coverage during the election period. DM us here anytime.”
Mr Srinivas had to quickly clarify his comments after facing backlash that his proposal was tantamount to crossing the picket line of the 600-strong technical union, which went on strike on the eve of the election.
“To be clear, the proposal was not to ‘replace’ journalists and engineers with AI, but to provide technical infrastructure support on high-traffic days,” Srinivas wrote. are.
A Perplexity spokesperson referred the Post to Srinivas' comments on X.
The Times and the Times Tech Guild could not be reached for comment.
“It's pretty damning to suggest this, but this is completely on brand because these AI guys fundamentally don't understand the damage they're doing to major institutions,” New York Andy Hirschfeld, a reporter based in , wrote in X.
Another user accused Srinivas of “disgusting bootlicking”.
Last month, lawyers for the Times filed a cease-and-desist order against Perplexity AI, asking it to stop using the content.
“Perplexity and its business partners have unjustly enriched themselves through the unauthorized use of the Times' expressive, carefully written, researched and edited journalism.” The Times Challenges Google's Search Engine he wrote in a letter to technology companies that are trying to do so. Superiority.
The letter alleges that Perplexity circumvented anti-scraping and anti-bot protections for use of the content and gave the company an October 30 deadline to respond.
A week after the Times threatened legal action, the Post and Dow Jones filed suit against Perplexity, alleging copyright infringement.
“Perplexity is a generative artificial intelligence company that, in Perplexity’s own words, claims to provide users with accurate and up-to-date news and information on a platform that allows users to ‘skip the link’ to the original publisher’s website. ” the companies said in the federal lawsuit.
“Perplexity seeks to accomplish this by engaging in mass piracy of publishers' copyrighted works and diverting customers and vital revenue from those copyright holders.”
News Corp. subsidiaries The Post and Dow Jones said in their filing that they seek redress for Perplexity's brazen plan to compete for readers while free riding on the valuable content that publishers produce. I'm looking for it.''
Meanwhile, members of the Tech Guild resumed picketing in front of the Times Co. offices in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning.
“We know it's a tough day for our members to go on strike, but let's be clear: We're here because of @NYTimes management's decisions,” the union said. wrote in an X post on Tuesday.
A Times spokesperson told the Post on Monday: “The Tech Guild is already the highest-paid individual contributor in the company, and we look forward to continuing to work with them to reach a fair contract that takes into account that journalism is our top priority.” “”
