Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren want generative AI investigated before it kills journalism

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are once again raising antitrust concerns about Big Tech. This time, the heat is on new generative artificial intelligence features that summarize or use creators’ work—sometimes verbatim—to answer questions.

Led by Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, eight Democratic senators sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) calling for an investigation into whether the design of recent generative AI features released by already dominant tech platforms violate antitrust laws by using news publishers’ and other creators’ content without proper compensation.

According to the senators, these new AI features have “significant competitive consequences” for the online content marketplace, as they are misappropriating content from journalists and other content creators. This may lead to “less local news reporting and credible sources of information, along with lower levels of competition, investment, and innovation in the digital marketplace.”

The letter was also signed by Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Tina Smith of Minnesota.

The FTC and the DOJ declined to comment. Meta and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Currently, new generative AI features on platforms including Google provide an AI-generated answer to a user’s query by pulling and summarizing content from publishers. This practice allows the platform to retain users on its own site, profiting from advertising and data collection while reducing the traffic directed to publishers’ websites. Critics say such behavior undermines the traditional business model of digital journalism, which relies heavily on referral traffic from platforms like Google.

Pressure on publishers to opt in

The only way for publishers to avoid having their content summarized by these AI features is to opt out of search indexing entirely—a move the letter said would cause a “materially significant drop” in referral traffic. The senators argue that this arrangement leaves publishers with little choice but to compete against themselves, with no viable way to earn revenue from the AI-generated content that originates from their own material.

“In short, these tools may pit content creators against themselves without any recourse to profit from AI-generated content that was composed using their original content,” the letter reads.

Let’s make a deal

The letter comes at a time when various news and content publishers are partnering with artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity. While some sites, including News Corp and Reddit, have struck deals to license their content to these AI platforms, others, namely the New York Times, have taken legal action against OpenAI for using their articles without permission to train large language models.

“These platforms have long employed strategies to profit off users’ engagement with third-party content without fairly compensating the creators of that content,” the letter reads. “We are concerned about the potentially devastating impact of some new generative AI features, introduced by these same dominant platforms.”