Axios CEO Believes AI Will 'Eviscerate the Unprepared' Among Media Companies (seattletimes.com) 21
In the view of Jim VandeHei, CEO of Axios, artificial intelligence will eviscerate the weak, the ordinary, the unprepared in media," reports the New York Times:
VandeHei says the only way for media companies to survive is to focus on delivering journalistic expertise, trusted content and in-person human connection. For Axios, that translates into more live events, a membership program centered on its star journalists and an expansion of its high-end subscription newsletters. "We're in the middle of a very fundamental shift in how people relate to news and information," he said, "as profound, if not more profound, than moving from print to digital." "Fast forward five to 10 years from now and we're living in this AI-dominated virtual world — who are the couple of players in the media space offering smart, sane content who are thriving?" he added. "It damn well better be us."
Axios is pouring investment into holding more events, both around the world and in the United States. VandeHei said the events portion of his business grew 60% year over year in 2023. The company has also introduced a $1,000-a-year membership program around some of its journalists that will offer exclusive reporting, events and networking. The first one, announced last month, is focused on Eleanor Hawkins, who writes a weekly newsletter for communications professionals. Her newsletter will remain free, but paying subscribers will have access to additional news and data, as well as quarterly calls with Hawkins... Axios will expand Axios Pro, its collection of eight high-end subscription newsletters focused on specific niches in the deals and policy world. The subscriptions start at $599 a year each, and Axios is looking to add one on defense policy...
"The premium for people who can tell you things you do not know will only grow in importance, and no machine will do that," VandeHei said....VandeHei said that although he thought publications should be compensated for original intellectual property, "that's not a make-or-break topic." He said Axios had talked to several AI companies about potential deals, but "nothing that's imminent.... One of the big mistakes a lot of media companies made over the last 15 years was worrying too much about how do we get paid by other platforms that are eating our lunch as opposed to figuring out how do we eat people's lunch by having a superior product," he said.
"VandeHei said Axios was not currently profitable because of the investment in the new businesses," according to the article.
But "The company has continued to hire journalists even as many other news organizations have cut back."
Axios is pouring investment into holding more events, both around the world and in the United States. VandeHei said the events portion of his business grew 60% year over year in 2023. The company has also introduced a $1,000-a-year membership program around some of its journalists that will offer exclusive reporting, events and networking. The first one, announced last month, is focused on Eleanor Hawkins, who writes a weekly newsletter for communications professionals. Her newsletter will remain free, but paying subscribers will have access to additional news and data, as well as quarterly calls with Hawkins... Axios will expand Axios Pro, its collection of eight high-end subscription newsletters focused on specific niches in the deals and policy world. The subscriptions start at $599 a year each, and Axios is looking to add one on defense policy...
"The premium for people who can tell you things you do not know will only grow in importance, and no machine will do that," VandeHei said....VandeHei said that although he thought publications should be compensated for original intellectual property, "that's not a make-or-break topic." He said Axios had talked to several AI companies about potential deals, but "nothing that's imminent.... One of the big mistakes a lot of media companies made over the last 15 years was worrying too much about how do we get paid by other platforms that are eating our lunch as opposed to figuring out how do we eat people's lunch by having a superior product," he said.
"VandeHei said Axios was not currently profitable because of the investment in the new businesses," according to the article.
But "The company has continued to hire journalists even as many other news organizations have cut back."
Adams (Score:1)
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Given model collapse, probably.
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This has already happened on facebook with images. A lot of image bots were seeded with original facebook memes and such. The end result was that most images were showing some kind of Jeus-like figure with various spiritual backgrounds. Apparently that was the root for most successful viral images on that platform.
It also seems that they were using "any significantly upvoted and commented on image posts" as a metric for their quality control.
So in came the comment bots... and commented on every AI post. And
Advertising (Score:2)
For things like advertising and design, there's going to be massive upheaval. Just like artists had to learn to use a wacom tablet, designers are going to have to learn to use AI. It is only a matter of time before someone makes a full movie with a meaningful uncontrived narrative by themselves using only AI. There will still be a place for everyone, they just have to find it. Advice to anyone young, no matter your intended trade, get used to using AI as much as you can even when you don't need it. If you'r
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they just have to find it
There is a lot of assumption that there will be time for new training for any given person who has just set out on one career only to find they are shut out of it. No one has ever hired a plumber whose only certification/training is that they "read books". Just like no one is ever going to hire a plumber that "uses AI". Companies look for certifications from training facilities.
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I didn't say all you need to do to become a plumber is use AI .. I'm saying get the certification stuff but use AI too. There'll be AI-based plumber assistance apps on phones soon.
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At least currently, you must know enough to tell when the AI is telling you the truth or has been dipping in the funny mushrooms.
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Well, yes. And no. AI "art" is too generic and all looks the same in a way. People just need to start to notice. This has already started and, with less art getting produced by humans, will only get worse.
Money grab (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks to me like Axios is rushing to grab as much money as they can before shit goes under.
Standard pump and dump.
Look, news aren't going to go away, at least not quality news.
Back in the day, there were local storytellers who were "broadcasting" news to the village.
Then newspapers came. Storytellers* were now writing articles.
Then radio came. Some article writers moved there, others* kept writing. Radio didn't replace newspapers*.
Then television came. Neither newspapers*, nor radio* disappeared.
Internet came afterwards. TV*, radio* and newspapers* didn't go away.
With AI, there will still be someone who needs to capture the information before it would be processed and spit out through a LLM.
*the good ones, at least. The mediocre and shit ones went away, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
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Yep, same here. This is a shout of "Buy our stuff!", nothing else.
Also agree on the storytellers. Without good "storytellers" all you have is generic crap. Sure, AI can make "better crap", but it still is crap. Once the novelty wears off, nobody is going to willingly read AI generated stuff or look at AI generated "art".
Comment aged poorly (Score:3)
>"The premium for people who can tell you things you do not know will only grow in importance, and no machine will do that," VandeHei said
Very few people are producing primary work these days, and those who are produce papers and issue press releases. If those things are available on the Internet, they're available to an AI. In fact, one of the primary uses of an AI is already to ingest all that and spit out summaries for us. It's not just something that might happen one day, it's already here.
legwork (Score:2)
Someone has to go out and interview people in person or talk to them on the phone or on zoom, and be able to ask relevant follow-up questions. The few remaining reporters who actually perform that legwork will have a cloud of hungry AI bots ingesting whatever facts and subsequent human analyses that were generated so they can "summarize' it.
The repetitive science-fiction story (Score:2)
We don't have AI or anything that looks like AI. We have statistical context models that can form a vague approximation of reality without having the slightest understanding of what they've done or why humans don't have sixteen fingers. They haven't the faintest idea of what facts are and never will, by their design. All they do is provide statistically real-like work based on analyzing a flood of human data, and their input stream is going to rapidly degrade as their output becomes part of their input.
Ther
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Maybe. Yet the pop. seems to accept the least acceptable widget or service if it is cheap enough. And the current AI strikes me as being cheap enough, even with the hallucinations. Buy something Amazon who shipped you A-Number-One-Widget? It sucks but only cost $4.99 a pop.
Re: The repetitive science-fiction story (Score:2)
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Indeed. And the only real thing generative AI has, namely that it "sounds good" or "looks good" is going away fast as well. In the end, the generated material is too generic and has an uncanny sameness to it. Essentially "better crap" as one person put it, but still crap.
It takes a while for people to figure that out, but I predict headlines like "People do not want to see AI generated art" and "people are bored by AI generated text".
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You are hung up on semantics. What you said "statistical context models that can form a vague approximation of reality without having the slightest understanding..." qualifies as AI.
The reason we "have AI" is because the definition of "AI" is extremely broad and includes algorithms that do these sorts of things. You seem to be thinking of something VERY narrow and specific, like "AGI" which we don't have. But AGI is different than AI.
The dictionary definition of AI is just something that mimics intellige
AI CEO says..... (Score:2)
When? (Score:2)
When? When? You have been saying this for like a year or so now, while cranking out models and saying "this one for sure will do it!"
So, fucking when? Every day that goes by where it doesn't is another nail in your BS argument's coffin.
This has become the modern money-making meta, hasn't it? Come up with some BS new tech that doesn't do anything you promise, hype it up, sell your early-investor shares and bail before the legal system can catch up to the scam. Hell, they're only just now "about to put the