At the 2024 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, participated in a highly anticipated interview discussing the controversies surrounding his company and its business development. Srinivas was asked during the interview to define "plagiarism," but he did not provide a clear answer.
This topic has garnered widespread attention, as news companies like Dow Jones of News Corp and the New York Post have filed lawsuits against Perplexity, accusing it of being a "content harvester."
Srinivas insists that Perplexity always cites its sources of information and does not claim ownership of any content. He stated, "Our job is to extract content from the web to summarize it in a way that is understandable." He also mentioned that this approach is no different from how journalists, scholars, and students work.
However, the allegations that Perplexity extensively copies content persist, especially in the lawsuit by Dow Jones, which claims that Perplexity is competing with them for the same audience. A report by the AI plagiarism detection tool Copyleaks revealed that some summaries by Perplexity contain significant plagiarism, such as 48% of a Forbes article being rewritten.
Srinivas acknowledged during the interview that while Perplexity sometimes makes mistakes in citing information, they strive to attach sources after each sentence. He mentioned that Perplexity has revenue-sharing partnerships with multiple media companies such as Time Magazine, Fortune, and Der Spiegel, while Dow Jones has chosen to resolve the issue through litigation.
Additionally, Srinivas refuted the view that Perplexity users use the platform to summarize paid articles. He stated that most users use Perplexity for financial research rather than daily news. He emphasized that users primarily want to understand the impact of a news story on them, such as "Should I continue to buy Nvidia stocks?"
It is reported that Perplexity is raising approximately $500 million, with a valuation of $8 billion. Srinivas revealed that the platform receives 100 million search queries per week and is rapidly rolling out new products, including online shopping tools and sports score trackers.
Finally, Srinivas proposed that in the future, there might be a scenario where "scientists own the rights to certain facts," preventing "others"—possibly publishers—from controlling the presentation and context of information.
Key Points:
🔍 Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas fails to clearly define "plagiarism," sparking controversy over content copying.
📰 Dow Jones and other news companies accuse Perplexity of being a "content harvester" and engage in legal battles with it.
💡 Perplexity claims its users primarily use the platform for financial research, not for daily news.
