Are We Entering a New Age of Creativity with the Help of AI?

In March 2024, The Atlantic announced a strategic content and product partnership with artificial intelligence giant OpenAI. OpenAI would license The Atlantic’s content to train its models and respond to user queries, while The Atlantic would receive a fee, privileged access to OpenAI’s technology, and “premium” positioning within the tech giant. At the time, over 70 similar deals had been struck between publishers and AI companies.

The Atlantic’s journalists, however, were incensed, concerned that partnering with OpenAI was “a devil’s bargain.” The New York Times had also just sued the tech giant for allegedly using 16 million pieces of the Times’ copyrighted content without permission to train its large language models. Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire owner of The Atlantic, had to consider what was in the magazine’s best financial interest and what impact a continued partnership could have on the magazine’s journalism—and more broadly on the ideas landscape as a whole. But, what responsibility did Powell Jobs have to protect creativity and expression? Was Jobs undermining The Atlantic’s reputation, or was she bringing a new business model to bear on an industry facing major headwinds?

Harvard Business School Professor Caroline Elkins joins host Brian Kenny to discuss the case, “The Atlantic and OpenAI.” They explore the question, “Is AI creative?” and how the answer affects not only journalism as we know it, but considerations for whether we can harness AI to enter an age of increased creativity for humankind.