Technologies

AI Is Eating the Internet, but Many Are Hopeful Human-Made Content Will Win Out

Publishers, including CNET’s owner, are taking a wide range of approaches to try to make it through AI’s changes.

With AI encroaching on all corners of the internet, from bogus articles to Instagram Reels, there’s concern that human-made content is under threat, and as a result, so are the film, music and publishing industries.

There are AI actresses, AI-generated music filling up Spotify and AI answers at the top of Google Search, above the 10 blue links.

But consumers of news and media remain uncomfortable with the idea of fully AI-generated content. A recent Reuters Institute survey of people in six countries, including the US, found that only 12% of people are comfortable with fully AI-generated news, compared to 62% who prefer their news entirely human-produced.

That desire for human-made content has some publishing executives optimistic, including Vivek Shah, CEO of CNET owner Ziff Davis. He said as much in a recent episode of the podcast Channels with Peter Kafka.

“The narrative around is that the declines in search traffic somehow are existential and I just don’t see it that way,” said Shah.

“I still think we prefer words and sounds and videos from humans,” he added. “Do I think that the robots will eat into some of that? I do.”

Internet search and content analysts see the same preferences among consumers.

“I also agree that as Google continues to roll out new AI search features like AI Overviews and AI Mode, users will continue to seek authentic content from real humans,” said Lily Ray, vice president of SEO strategy and research at Amsive, a marketing agency, “and when the AI answer isn’t sufficient to meet those needs, they will continue to search for content that provides that sense of real human connection.”

As AI is rapidly shifting how people find information online, publishers are moving quickly to strike deals. News Corp, Axel Springer and Future PLC have signed content licensing deals with OpenAI, for example. Other companies are taking on AI companies directly.

AI models are trained on the entire corpus of information found online, which includes published journalistic content. Recently, Penske Media, which owns Variety and Rolling Stone, sued Google over its use of AI Overviews, which gives AI-generated answers at the top of search. Penske alleges that Google is abusing its monopoly power in online search and that AI Overviews steals Penske content, circumventing the need for readers to click on articles directly.

Ziff Davis, along with the New York Times, has sued ChatGPT creator OpenAI for scraping journalistic content to train AI models rather than signing a licensing deal. Shah told Kafka that OpenAI rebuffed Ziff Davis’ attempts to negotiate a licensing deal.

OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Ziff Davis said Shah was unavailable for comment.

The strong response from publishers comes as Wall Street rewards Google, chipmaker Nvidia and OpenAI partner Microsoft with record valuations even as the publishing industry is contracting. There have been major drops in traffic across the internet in 2025. This year, too, the publishing industry has seen layoffs at CNN, Vox Media, HuffPost, the LA Times and NBC.

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Another way publishers are fighting back is by trying to block AI crawlers from scraping their content for free. Along with blocks in robots.txt, a file on a website that lays out certain permissions from online crawlers, Ziff Davis has signed on to the RSL standard, which is a more robust layer of tech that can block AI bots for sucking up content. The hope is that if enough publishers sign on, it can be enough of a united front to better bargain with Big Tech.

Despite the growing popularity of AI, Shah feels that ultimately people prefer “words and sounds and videos from humans.” He also notes that brands are increasingly trying to get their products to fill up AI search results, which isn’t good for objective purchasing decisions.

“If you start to look into citations in LLM chatbots, you’re going to see that sources have gone from journalism sources to marketing sources,” said Shah. “And so, someone’s got to measure this because I am amazed at how many citations are not publisher.com but a brand.com.”

Technologies

G10’s ‘surprise’ currency star could stumble as peers hike interest rates

The British pound has benefited from a resilient economy and rate hike expectations, but the BOE looks increasingly dovish while a crucial budget lies ahead.

The British pound has largely shrugged off another change of government and geopolitical shocks to outperform many of its peers this year, but the currency’s recent weakness could be set to deepen.

Sterling has gained around 1.6% against the euro

It is near-flat against the U.S. dollar

The resignation of Prime Minister Keir Starmer on July 20 left Britain facing its seventh leader in 10 years, with markets watching closely whether a new administration would hold to the “fiscal rules” repeatedly emphasized by former Finance Minister Rachel Reeves.

U.K. borrowing costs have risen under Starmer’s quickly appointed successor Andy Burnham, also of the center-left Labour Party, but that has occurred in lockstep with a global government bond sell-off.

Matthew Ryan, head of market strategy at financial services firm Ebury, said that a “clean and orderly transition of power” had “removed a potential banana skin and eased the perceived political risk premium attached to the pound.”

Britain’s long-term borrowing costs are the highest since 1998

In a Friday note, Ryan said sterling had been “the surprise outperformer” among the G10 group of wealthy nations over the past three months, tying this to an unexpectedly resilient U.K. economy.

Gross domestic product grew by 0.4% in the second quarter, following 0.6% expansion in the first quarter — one of the strongest performances among advanced economies. Sunny weather and excitement around the FIFA World Cup boosted consumer spending, while business activity remained surprisingly resilient despite the volatile geopolitical backdrop.

The pound also drew support at the start of the Iran conflict in April on outsized market expectations for a monetary policy response to inflation fears from the Bank of England, Jane Foley, senior FX strategist at Rabobank, told CNBC.

The U.K. is highly vulnerable to higher oil and gas costs, both of which have spiked this year, helping push headline inflation near 3%.

Sterling weakness ahead?

Despite the resurgence of price pressures, the Bank of England has held its key interest rate at 3.75% throughout this year.

Current market pricing suggests low odds of a rate hike at its September meeting. In contrast, there are high expectations for a hike by the European Central Bank on Wednesday and, increasingly, the Federal Reserve later this month.

Central bank rate hikes typically boost their home currency.

Dovish messaging by the BOE on Sept. 17 would “further expose the pound” just before markets get anxious for the first annual budget announcement of Burnham’s administration on Oct. 28, Foley of Rabobank noted.

New U.K. Finance Minister John Healey said in a Monday speech that he would remain committed to fiscal discipline, while targeting a more even distribution of economic growth around the country — in contrast to the concentration of growth in powerhouse London.

JP Morgan U.K. economist Allan Monks said his remarks suggested a cautious approach to tax and spending changes given the backdrop of higher borrowing costs. The budget is likely to retain a focus on devolution, greater public control of public services and more private sector partnerships, but contain little to change the macro outlook, Monks said in a note Monday.

Ebury’s Matthew Ryan said the budget contained a high level of political risk, and was likely to contain “a combination of higher ancillary tax rates and an increase in debt issuance in order to fund Burnham’s spending ambitions.”

These could include changes to taxes on property purchases and local council duties, an introduction of a “mansion tax” and tighter pension and personal investment account relief, he said, adding that markets would be jumpy over anything that looked likely to dampen growth and squeeze the private sector, while simultaneously requiring more borrowing.

Technologies

Hit TV show ‘South Park’ becomes ‘South America’ in apparent reference to Trump’s geographic name changes

Show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said in a statement that they were “inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google.”

Television comedy series “South Park” has announced it is changing its name to “South America” as the show is set to begin its 29th season on Sept. 16.

The show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said, “Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to SOUTH AMERICA. We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount — a Skydance Capitulation.”

Parker and Stone’s statement comes after U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America amid a trade spat with Canada. Canadian officials said they will not recognize the new name.

Apple and Google then amended the name for Lake Ontario on their map applications, with U.S. users seeing “Lake America,” while Canadian users saw “Lake Ontario.”

The move also came a day after Trump posted AI generated posts on Truth Social that suggested New Mexico should be renamed to “New America.”

Last year, the president used an executive order to change the name for the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, drawing international opposition.

“South Park” won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for the “Sermon on the Mount” episode which premiered last year and parodies Trump’s presidency.

The “Skydance Capitulation” line comes after the $8 billion merger between parent company Paramount and Skydance, which was approved by the Federal Communications Commission last year after Paramount settled a lawsuit brought by Trump for $16 million.

Trump had alleged an interview that aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2024 with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, was deceptively edited.

Paramount subsidiary CBS News in July 2025 said it was canceling comedian Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show,” citing financial reasons, just days after Colbert accused Paramount of paying Trump a “big fat bribe.” The final episode of the show aired in May.

Paramount and the White House didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Technologies

Trump Claims No Regret Over Initiating Iran Conflict Amid Rising U.S. Economic Sanctions

Trump insists he has no regrets about initiating the Iran conflict, warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten Israel and U.S. cities, while the administration ramps up economic sanctions. He predicts the war will end after the midterms, even as markets brace for a prolonged standoff.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he has no regrets about starting the Iran war and added that “If I had it to do again, I would do exactly what I did.” Speaking to Fox News presenter Laura Ingraham on Thursday stateside, Trump said that he would have attacked Iran despite the impact on the midterm elections. “If we hadn’t done Iran, you would be cruising to midterms victory right now,” Ingraham told Trump, to which Trump replied “supposing we were cruising, and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. They would use it.” He added that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, the Islamic Republic would “wipe out” Israel and the Middle East, and start hitting U.S. cities.

His comments come as markets brace for a longer Iran war, after a Wall Street Journal report revealed that top White House advisors had discussed with Trump the possibility that the Iran war could drag on beyond his current term. Trump has said that the war will end immediately after the midterm elections and oil and gas prices will also fall, adding to his months-long claims that the conflict will end soon.

In separate comments to NewsNation on Thursday, Trump denied reports that there was any damage to U.S. assets, after Iran claimed it had hit multiple U.S. fighter aircraft at a base in Jordan. “No damage. No nothing,” Trump said, when asked if there was any truth to the reports.

Economic pressure: Washington is continuing efforts to isolate Iran from its economic network, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent flagging sanctions against “a large bank” next week. “We’re going to do it on Monday because we want to honor the memory of our fallen citizens on 9/11. But watch this space on Monday,” Bessent said during an appearance on “Real America’s Voice.” Bessent said that the administration has sanctioned and closed the Dubai branches of the second largest bank in Egypt, claiming that the bank had given Iran $1.8 billion dollars. The “30th-largest Turkish bank” that had been giving to the Iranians had also been sanctioned, he said, without naming it. The U.S. had sanctioned Turkey-based Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi (Golden Global Bank) and its subsidiaries last week.

Trump, in the NewsNation interview, was also asked how Iran could continue holding out under the current economic pressure. “I don’t know that they’re gonna be able to hold out,” Trump said. “But it’ll get settled after the elections. Or maybe sooner. But it’ll get settled right after the election.”

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Bessent said the 30th largest Turkish bank had been sanctioned. An earlier version misstated the bank’s ranking.