As part of its ongoing enforcement efforts against allegedly deceptive and misleading uses of artificial intelligence, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) disclosed five new enforcement actions on September 25, 2024, against companies across various industries that either allegedly made fraudulent claims about their AI resources or offered AI services that could be used in misleading or deceptive ways. Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris website.
FTC Launches Operation AI Comply
The FTC announced recent lawsuits are part of a crackdown on companies allegedly engaging in this behavior called “Operation AI Comply.” Read more on the Duane Morris Artificial Intelligence Blog.
How Copyright Law Regards Artificial Intelligence
Duane Morris partner Agatha Liu is quoted in the Bloomberg Law article, “AI Art Appeal’s Procedural Flaws Put Broader Ruling in Doubt.”
An appeals court panel’s focus on procedural issues in a case involving efforts to copyright AI-generated work left attorneys concerned the judges may sidestep larger questions about how copyright law regards the emerging technology. […]
“The point of copyright protection is it should reward creativity. It should be associated with a human being, not a machine,” said Liu. “But there’s merit in claiming the creator of the machine being an author.”
Read the full article on the Bloomberg Law website.
Artificial Intelligence Updates – 09.18.24
#HelloWorld. It’s been a long summer hiatus. Please bear with us as we play our way back into shape. In this issue, we recap the summer highlights of AI legal and regulatory developments. Of course, the EU AI Act, but not just the EU AI Act. California continues to enact headline-grabbing AI legislation, content owners continue to ink deals with AI model developers, and what would a month in the federal courts be without another AI lawsuit or two. Let’s stay smart together.
Read more on The Artificial Intelligence Blog.
Employment Legislation in Illinois Regulates BIPA and AI
In the span of 10 days in August 2024, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law a series of significant employment legislation, paving the way for a new employment landscape beginning in 2025 and 2026. The new legislation includes:
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- Adding new requirements for employers utilizing artificial intelligence in their decision-making processes, and imposing liability under the Illinois Human Rights Act if those AI systems create a discriminatory effect;
- Passing long-awaited reforms to the Biometric Information Privacy Act that limit the number of violations an individual may accumulate under the law
Next up for Medtech: Being Generative in Domain-Specific Languages
Given the vast amounts of data available, including raw measurements, diagnostic information, treatment plans, and regulatory guidelines, the biomedical technologies sector stands to gain immensely from artificial intelligence (AI), particularly machine learning (ML).
ML, at its core, learns from training datasets to identify patterns, which can then be applied to new input data to make direct inferences. For instance, if specific body scans frequently result in a particular diagnosis, ML can be used to quickly provide that diagnosis when similar scans are encountered, thus aiding in disease diagnosis.
Read the full article by Duane Morris partner Agatha H. Liu, PhD on the MD+DI website.
Artificial Intelligence Employment Law Enacted in Illinois
On August 9, 2024, Illinois enacted its landmark artificial intelligence employment law, HB 3773. This legislation, which amends the Illinois Human Rights Act, endeavors to prevent discriminatory consequences of using AI in employment decision-making processes. This law goes into effect on January 1, 2026. Illinois is one of 34 states that have either enacted or proposed laws regulating the use of artificial intelligence. Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris website.
Changes to Illinois Biometric Data Law Lower Liability, but the Stakes Remain High
In recent years, a heavy question mark has weighed on companies that process biometric information as part of their standard operating procedures: What is our risk exposure? On August 2, 2024, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law a bill passed by the Illinois Legislature in May to amend BIPA in a way that is expected to limit the risk exposure associated with violations. The amended text of BIPA now indicates that violations essentially occur on a per-person basis, not a per-scan basis. This is expected to yield a marked decrease in the number of violations for which a company may be liable, though penalties of up to $5,000 may still add up quickly where thousands of individuals or more are implicated. Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris website.
Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Energy Industry
Last year, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14110 on the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.” Since the issuance of the executive order, a lot of attention has been focused on the provision requiring “the head of each agency with relevant regulatory authority over critical infrastructure … to assess potential risks related to the use of AI in critical infrastructure sectors involved, … and to consider ways to mitigate these vulnerabilities.” Naturally, government agencies generated numerous reports cataloging the well-documented risks of AI. At the same time, nearly every company has implemented risk-mitigation guidelines governing the use of artificial intelligence. To be sure, the risks of AI are real, from privacy and cybersecurity concerns, to potential copyright infringements, to broader societal risks posed by automated decision-making tools. Perhaps because of these risks, less attention has been focused on the offensive applications of AI, and relatedly, fewer companies have implemented guidelines promoting the use of artificial intelligence. Those companies may be missing out on opportunities to reduce legal risks, as a recent report by the Department of Energy highlights.
Read The Legal Intelligencer article by Duane Morris partners Phil Cha and Brian H. Pandya.
Artificial Intelligence Employment Discrimination Lawsuit Proceeds
In Mobley v. Workday, Inc., Case No. 23-CV-770 (N.D. Cal. July 12, 2024) (ECF No. 80), Judge Rita F. Lin of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted in part and denied in part Workday’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint concerning allegations that Workday’s algorithm-based screening tools discriminated against applicants on the basis of race, age, and disability. This litigation has been closely watched for its novel case theory based on artificial intelligence use in making personnel decisions. For employers utilizing artificial intelligence in their hiring practices, tracking the developments in this cutting-edge case is paramount. This ruling illustrates that employment screening vendors who utilize AI software may potentially be liable for discrimination claims as agents of employers.
Read the full post on the Duane Morris Class Action Defense Blog.