In response to the accusations, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas acknowledged the issue and promised improvements. He stated that the company values giving attribution to content and has designed its product to clearly cite its source materials. However, critics argue that Perplexity's approach violates ethical principles by not fully and transparently crediting original sources and upholding journalistic integrity.
Key takeaways:
- AI-powered search startup Perplexity is accused of plagiarizing journalists’ work through its feature, Perplexity Pages, which curates content on specific topics. The posts are similar to original stories from multiple publications, including Forbes, CNBC, and Bloomberg.
- The posts do not mention the publications by name in the article text, but only include small, easy-to-miss logos that link out to them. This has raised concerns about proper attribution and respect for intellectual property rights.
- CEO Aravind Srinivas responded to the issue stating that Perplexity Pages has “rough edges” and that the features will improve with time and feedback. He emphasized that they have always cared about giving attribution to content and have designed their product to clearly cite its source materials.
- Perplexity, co-founded by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andrew Konwinski in 2022, has raised over $100 million in venture capital from tech giants including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, Open AI cofounder Andrej Karpathy, and Meta Chief Scientist Yann LeCun. It’s now raising $250 million at a $2.5 billion to $3 billion valuation.