Barry Diller interview: How to fight the growing threat of AI

Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and Expedia Group, has been a longtime Google critic. Now, he is entering the fray on AI, where the capabilities of ChatGPT have raised alarms that jobs across entire sectors could be wiped out. Diller, whose publications include People magazine and the Daily Beast, says he has a few ideas on how to prevent this fast-mutating technology from obliterating the publishing industry like the internet almost did 15 years ago. 

Lydia: You have been extremely vocal on your concerns over the power of Google, which is now being sued by governments worldwide on antitrust grounds. When is the pushback against AI coming, and what will it look like?

Barry: For the first time this topic has reached the stage where the publishing industry as a whole is truly grappling with the potential consequences of generative AI. That is the first stage. And that is gathering steam.

The stage after that is a series of options… I think all of which will be taken. The first is legislation and the second is litigation. I can’t tell you what direction it will take but litigation is mandatory. I won’t talk about those specifics but there are options here. We are involved. 

Lydia: Do you agree that active development of AI should be placed on pause given concerns about it potentially becoming “dangerous” or is the genie already out of the bottle?

Barry: It is not practical or possible to have a six month moratorium. We can’t get the world to go along with it.

Lydia: But China is so cooperative?

Barry: (laughs) Exactly. 

Lydia: Will generative artificial intelligence start to reduce the need for journalists who simply aggregate news? When could we see it happen? Six months?

Barry: Nothing is done in six months but what is true is 100 million people have gone onto ChatGPT in the last month or so which is extraordinary.

This has gotten the entire publishing world to recognize this issue. The forces will gather to set rules that allow businesses to survive.

Lydia: That’s a nebulous statement. 

Barry: We’re definitely involved. We are very much engaged with everyone in publishing to take the right steps. There are also real issues about the sources of financial support that underlie this threat.

When the internet began and all publishers allowed their content to live on the internet without cost, it took 15 years for publishing to say ‘no it is not free’ and institute paywalls. 

If we want the same thing to happen again, we do nothing. Even the New York Times came close to bankruptcy, although it eventually recovered over the course of many years.