Tag: ftc

#HelloWorld. Copyright suits are as unrelenting as the summer heat, with no relief in the forecast. AI creators are working on voluntary commitments to watermark synthetic content. And meanwhile, is ChatGPT getting “stupider”? Lots to explore. Let’s stay smart together. (Subscribe to the mailing list to receive future issues).

Big names portend big lawsuits. Since ChatGPT’s public launch in November 2022, plaintiffs have filed eight major cases in federal court—mostly in tech-centric Northern California—accusing large language models and image generators of copyright infringement, Digital Millennium Copyright Act violations, unfair competition, statutory and common law privacy violations, and other assorted civil torts. (Fancy a summary spreadsheet? Drop us a line.)

Here comes another steak for the grill: This month, on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” IAC’s chairman Barry Diller previewed that “leading publishers” were constructing copyright cases against generative AI tech companies, viewing it as a lynchpin for arriving at a viable business model: “yes, we have to do it. It’s not antagonistic. It’s to stake a firm place in the ground to say that you cannot ingest our material without figuring out a business model for the future.” Semafor later reported that The New York Times, News Corp., and Axel Springer were all among this group of likely publishing company plaintiffs, worried about the loss of website traffic that would come from generative AI answers replacing search engine results and looking for “billions, not millions, from AI.”

Continue reading “The AI Update | July 27, 2023”

#HelloWorld. Pushback and disruption are the themes of this edition as we look at objections to proposed regulation in Europe, an FTC investigation, the growing movement in support of uncensored chatbots, and how AI is disrupting online advertising. Let’s stay smart together. (Subscribe to the mailing list to receive future issues.)

Pushback against AI regulation. The AI Update has followed closely the progress of the European Union’s proposed AI Act. Today we report on pushback in the form of an open letter from representatives of companies that operate in Europe expressing “serious concerns” that the AI Act would “jeopardise Europe’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty without effectively tackling the challenges we are and will be facing.” The letter takes aim in particular at the proposed “high risk” treatment of generative AI models, worrying that “disproportionate compliance costs and disproportionate liability risks” will push companies out of Europe and harm the ability of the EU to be at the forefront of AI development. The ask from the signatories is that European legislation “confine itself to stating broad principles in a risk-based approach.” As we have explained, there is a long road and many negotiations ahead before any version of the AI Act becomes the law in Europe. So it remains to be seen whether any further revisions reflect these concerns. Continue reading “The AI Update | July 13, 2023”