The Most Interesting Thing in A.I. The Copyright Wars - with Nicholas Thompson and Bill Gross
13 snips
Nov 26, 2025 In this discussion, Bill Gross, a pioneering entrepreneur known for founding IdeaLab and revolutionizing paid search advertising, shares insights on his new project, ProRata. He addresses the pressing issue of AI attribution and how it relates to the ongoing copyright debates, sparked by the NYT v. OpenAI case. Gross proposes a revenue-sharing model that could strengthen AI companies by compensating creators. He also predicts AI will positively impact climate solutions, transforming industries and enabling solo entrepreneurs to thrive.
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Origin Of Paid Search
- Bill Gross recounts inventing paid search and launching GoTo.com in 1998 after seeing search spam degrade results.
- He put cost-per-click in ads for transparency and later settled patent claims with Google for $360M.
Lawsuit Sparked ProRata Mission
- The New York Times v. OpenAI lawsuit was the lightning strike that made Bill focus on fair compensation for creators.
- He saw AI platforms building value on creator work without a fair exchange and felt it threatened creativity and democracy.
Attribution By Claims And Weighting
- ProRata’s core idea is to 'unscramble' AI outputs into claims and match those to source documents with weights.
- Weighting discounts common claims and rewards unique contributions to derive proportional attribution.
