“A Pandora’s Box”: Comcast Stock (NASDAQ:CMCSA) Gains as Lawsuit Contains Serious Potential Pitfalls

The notion of artificial intelligence (AI) in the arts is as present as it is potentially calamitous. So when communications giant Comcast (CMCSA) decided to take on a comparative startup in the market it seemed like a clear response to conditions in the field. But Comcast may be letting itself in for more harm than good, a Bloomberg report noted. Despite this, shareholders are encouraged, and Comcast shares posted modest gains in Friday afternoon’s trading.

Comcast, along with Disney (DIS), joined in a lawsuit targeting Midjourney, an AI company that has an image generator. And of course, a lot of AI generators turn to copyrighted materials to learn how to work. On a certain level, this is expected; let the human writer among us who was not influenced by copyrighted material—the works of another writer—throw the first stone on this one. But Comcast and Disney are going full-bore ahead with the lawsuits.

And that, Bloomberg noted, is where the potential calamity lies. Disney and Comcast are presumably looking to turn to AI as well for their own projects. So while Disney and Comcast call Midjourney a “bottomless pit of plagiarism,” they are finding themselves increasingly interested in dipping a toe in said pit, taking advantage of the staggering potential for productivity and cost savings therein. Indeed, as the Bloomberg report put it, “…when studios attempt to rein in the same technology that they’re eagerly using elsewhere, the more urgent question isn’t about retreat.”

Independent Chair? No Way, Say Shareholders

In a more mundane development, Comcast took a proposal to shareholders for an “independent chair” of the Comcast board of directors. Such a chair, Comcast asserted, would be something of a check and balance to the power of Brian Roberts, current CEO of Comcast, who also serves as the current chair. But shareholders were happy enough with things as-is, and thus voted down the proposal.

A second proposal called for consideration of “CEO pay ratio,” or how much the CEO gets paid compared to the average employee, when considering executive pay. Shareholders apparently did not care about that either, as that proposal was likewise rejected.

Is Comcast Stock a Good Buy Right Now?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on CMCSA stock based on nine Buys, 10 Holds and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 10.97% loss in its share price over the past year, the average CMCSA price target of $41.44 per share implies 19.44% upside potential.

See more CMCSA analyst ratings

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