California Agrees on New Deal With Tech to Fund Journalism and AI Research

(TheConservativeTimes.org) – California has announced that they will be directing millions of taxpayer dollars and tech companies to pay for journalism and artificial intelligence research.

This is the first agreement of its kind, and it will have state and technology companies collectively fund two hundred and fifty million dollars over five years. This money would be used to develop an artificial intelligence research program and to support California-based news organizations.

These initiatives are set to begin in 2025 with one hundred million dollars in the first year, which would go mostly to news organizations, according to Democratic Assembly member Buffy Wicks.

Said Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, “This agreement represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California — leveraging substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians.”

There haven’t been announcements specifying how much of the funding would be coming from the state, which news organizations would be eligible, or even how much money would be going to AI research.

This deal was made after a year of negotiations between technology giants and lawmakers over Wicks’ proposal to require companies, like Google, to pay a certain percentage of advertising revenue to media companies for linking to their content.

The bill received major pushback from companies, so much so that Google even temporarily removed news websites from some peoples’ search results.

Wicks stated, “This partnership represents a cross-sector commitment to supporting a free and vibrant press, empowering local news outlets up and down the state to continue in their essential work.” She continued, “This is just the beginning.”