Sky News forms consortium to drive push for AI standards

Sky News has formed a consortium with other major news organisations to develop industry standards for AI's fair use of their material.

The founding members - the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the BBC and Sky News - are calling on other media leaders to join in and develop shared protocols to "protect original journalism" and respond to a "global challenge". In an open letter released on Thursday, they write: "Across the industry, our reporting, our archives, our original content, have become foundational training material for AI systems.

"This material has been scraped, copied and reused with no common standards to enable permission or payment, weakening the economic model that supports journalism." The alliance, called the Standards for Publisher Usage Rights coalition (SPUR), says that while the rise of AI brings opportunities for publishers and their audiences, it "also raises urgent questions about fairness, consent, attribution, transparency and trust". It adds: "The lack of transparency about how AI answers are created risks eroding public trust in both the news and the technologies used to access it." The letter outlining SPUR's mission was signed by Sky News chairman David Rhodes; Telegraph Media Group chief executive Anna Jones; Financial Times chief executive Jon Slade; The Guardian chief executive Anna Bateson; and BBC director-general Tim Davie.

They add in the joint letter: "Artificial Intelligence is fundamentally reshaping how content is created, distributed, discovered and monetised. "We believe we need to come together to protect original journalism and secure the long-term sustainability of our industry." The move is seen as a response to widespread concerns over AI "scraping" of media sources without their permission.

SPUR said its goals were to work with tech companies and policy-makers to build a framework to "shape a market that rewards original reporting and supports responsible AI innovation". SPUR said it would develop shared industry standards that allow "original journalism to be used sustainably.