AI-powered search startup Perplexity is under fire for allegedly plagiarizing journalists’ work through its new feature, Perplexity Pages. This feature allows users to curate content on specific topics, with posts appearing strikingly similar to original stories from publications like Forbes, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The posts do not mention the publications by name in the text, instead attributing them with small logos that link out to the original sources. Forbes’ exclusive reporting on Eric Schmidt’s drone project was one such example, with fragments appearing lifted and a modified illustration included without proper attribution.
In another instance, a Perplexity post about Elon Musk’s chip routing from Tesla to xAI garnered over 20,000 views but failed to mention CNBC as the original source. Bloomberg’s report on Apple’s home robot projects was also allegedly reproduced by Perplexity without clear attribution. CEO Aravind Srinivas responded to criticism on Twitter by acknowledging that the feature had “rough edges” and would improve over time based on feedback. He emphasized the importance of giving proper attribution and cited the difficulty that other chatbots faced in crediting sources reliably and prominently.
Perplexity’s Pages feature allows users to easily share content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, with a link back to the Perplexity article rather than the original source. When questioned on their AI’s stance on plagiarism, the search engine replied that reproducing reporting without proper attribution was unethical and violated journalistic integrity. Perplexity had launched Pages in May 2024 as a way for users to create visually appealing articles and reports on various topics, but in these cases, the content seemed to be generated in-house by Perplexity’s team rather than users.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity has raised over $100 million in venture capital from tech giants like Amazon, Google, Open AI, and Meta. The company is currently seeking to raise $250 million at a valuation of $2.5 billion to $3 billion. CEO Srinivas defended the platform’s practices by stating that the web was free to crawl for anyone, emphasizing that they provide links to sources after every sentence generated by their AI. He compared their approach to journalism, where sources are cited to give credit to others.
Despite Perplexity’s claims of providing proper attribution, critics argue that the lack of clear and prominent citations in their posts raises concerns about the ethics of their content curation. The platform’s use of AI to aggregate and curate information may require further scrutiny to ensure that intellectual property rights are respected, and original sources are credited transparently. The ongoing controversy highlights the challenges of utilizing AI to create and disseminate content online while upholding journalistic standards and ethical practices.
