AI Companies Are Trying to Get MIT Press Books.

As mentioned in a recent article in this section, several companies specialised in artificial intelligence have begun to approach the literary environment. The aim is to gain access to countless published titles and, consequently, consent to use what they write as material to feed to AI models undergoing ‘training’.

The MIT Press, a non-profit university press, has therefore decided to address the published authors directly - to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, it has contacted them by e-mail, including a link to a Google Form containing five questions concerning their views on generative AI in publishing.

The MIT Press also explained that it had already been contacted by several AI companies and data brokers interested in providing financial compensation in exchange for data needed to train LLMs - so far, no agreement has been made, but MIT Press acknowledges the possibility that much of the content it possesses is already being used for this purpose.