One of the more controversial elements of the deal is that it earmarks funding for artificial intelligence, a technology that has raised fears among journalists that it might leave them out of jobs.

Under the deal, the details of which were first reported by POLITICO on Monday, Google and the state of California would jointly contribute money over five years to support local newsrooms, excluding broadcasters, through a “News Transformation Fund” housed at UC Berkeley’s journalism school. Google would give $110 million to journalism initiatives, and the state would kick in $70 million, according to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who led negotiations on the deal.

The deal would also steer $70 million in private dollars toward the development of artificial intelligence tools through a to-be-established nonprofit, Wicks said, an item that people familiar with the negotiations described as an effort to cultivate tech industry buy-in. Funding for artificial intelligence was not included in earlier legislation from Wicks.

The deal does not require California’s legislature to pass any laws. Wicks indicated that her bill was “used as leverage to force the conversation,” according to Politico. The agreement is a way to begin funneling the money to struggling newsrooms in the state without having to go through the long process of passing legislation.

“If you look at Canada, they passed that over a year ago, and publishers haven’t received a penny from that yet,” she explained.

The AI component remains a concern. But Wicks insisted that only a small amount of funding would go toward the technology, which could be used to help various industries track state legislation.

The aim of the bill is to force Google to give back to the journalistic outlets from which their service benefits. However, the company argued that they have provided “substantial financial assistance to newsrooms already” and “warned Wicks’ approach would incentivize clickbait or fringe content.”

Democratic state lawmakers criticized the deal, insisting that it does not go far enough to fund local media outlets. Yet, there are plenty of other problems with the deal.

This agreement will compromise journalistic independence and integrity by making news outlets more dependent on tech giants like Google and the state government. With these two entities having the ability to shell out large sums of money to local media outlets, journalists will feel pressured to self-censor or to avoid publishing reportage critical of Google, other tech companies, and perhaps even the government. This would lead to biased or incomplete coverage of important issues in the tech industry.

Another issue is that the funding could favor larger, more established news organizations over smaller, independent operations, leading to a less diverse media landscape. This would mean that fewer viewpoints and perspectives would be represented. Concentrating these funds into fewer hands will result in a narrower range of news coverage and lessen objectivity in reporting, which is already a problem in America’s media landscape.

The AI issue remains a problem. Government and private funding being poured into AI development could prompt newsrooms to prioritize tech-driven content and data journalism over traditional investigative reporting and in-depth analysis that could only be offered by a human being. The shift would result in more superficial, algorithm-friendly content at the expense of nuanced reporting with more context. It could, as Google suggested, boost more clickbaity type of reporting that is more focused on getting clicks than informing the public.

The decline in local journalism is certainly a problem. A free press is necessary for people to be informed. But using more government to remedy the issue will only bring about more problems.