Internet & Social Media Law Blog
On May 31, 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) held the final session of its Spring 2023 AI Listening Session. This session was held across two panels and discussed the copyright implications of AI-generated content (AIGC) in music and sound recordings. The panelists consisted of various stakeholders in the music industry such as founders of AIGC music companies, songwriters, professors, and counsel to music and streaming companies.
Articles Posted in Generative AI
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Implementing a Policy for Employee Use of ChatGPT in the Workplace
The use of generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, are becoming increasingly popular in the workplace. Generative AI tools include artificial intelligence chatbots powered by “large language models” (LLMs) that learn from (and share) a vast amount of accumulated text and interactions (usually snapshots of the entire internet). These tools are capable of interacting with users in a conversational and iterative way with a human-like personality, to perform a wide range of tasks, such as generating text, analyzing and solving problems, language translation, summarizing complex content or even generating code for software applications. For example, in a matter of seconds they can provide a draft marketing campaign, generate corresponding website code, or write customer-facing emails.
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The U.S. Copyright Office Sessions: “Artificial Intelligence and Copyright – Visual Arts”
On Tuesday, May 2, 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) held the second of four sessions on the copyright implications of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), titled “Artificial Intelligence and Copyright – Visual Arts.”
The session focused on GAI issues relevant to visual works, and featured two panels with various stakeholders that brought a range of perspectives to the discussion. These panelists included representatives from GAI platform companies, graphic design software companies, think tanks, policy organizations, and law firms, as well as artists concerned by the impact of GAI.
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China Tackles Generative AI
As the emergence of generative AI brings new market opportunities to China, leading China-based tech giants have released or plan to release their own self-developed generative AI services. On April 11, 2023, China’s main cybersecurity and data privacy regulator, Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued its Administrative Measures on Generative Artificial Intelligence Service draft for public comments. (The public comment period will end on May 10, 2023.)
In “China Issues Proposed Regulations on Generative AI,” colleagues Jenny (Jia) Sheng, Chunbin Xu and Wenjun Cai break down the proposed rules, which apply to all generative AI services open to users in mainland China and are focused on cybersecurity and data privacy risks.
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AI as Prior Art: New Hurdles and Horizons in Patent Disputes
Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are one of the more exciting examples. Their generative capabilities have implications for our patent system, some of which are underappreciated and nonintuitive.
Under U.S. patent law, an inventor may not obtain a patent if the claimed invention would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill, in view of the prior art. (See 35 U.S.C. § 103.)
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News of Note for the Internet-Minded (4/13/23) – Quantum Health Care, Rare Earth Finds and Gen AI for the Crabs
In today’s News of Note, generative AI continues to draw criticism and even a ban, but that doesn’t stop developers from pushing forward with everything from music prediction and mind-reading—to talking with crabs. Plus, we look at quantum computing in health care, a new report on the impact of deep-sea rare earths mining, and so much more.
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Risks, Reliability and Regulated Industries: A Series on AI Systems in Commercial Contracting
Over on Pillsbury’s SourcingSpeak blog, colleagues Elizabeth Zimmer, Sandro Serra and Mia Rendar provide an in-depth exploration of the many concerns and considerations in play for organizations seeking to integrate AI systems into their own operations.
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A New Dawn for Copyright in AI-Generated Works?
On February 21, 2023, the Copyright Office eclipsed its prior decisions in the area of AI authorship when it partially cancelled Kristina Kashtanova’s registration for a comic book titled Zarya of the Dawn. In doing so, the Office found that the AI program Kashtanova used—Midjourney—was primarily responsible for the visual output that the Office chose to exclude from Kashtanova’s registration. (Midjourney is an AI program that creates images from textual descriptions, much like OpenAI’s DALL-E.) The decision not only highlights tension between the human authorship requirements of copyright law and the means of expression that authors can use, but it also raises the question: Can AI-generated works ever be protected under U.S. copyright law?
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News of Note for the Internet-Minded (2/21/23) – Chatbots, Robots and Qubits
Today in News of Note, an innovation may pave the way for real-world quantum computing, plus we look at the latest generative AI debuts, how the world is addressing safety concerns with AI in the military, robotic chefs and much more.
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Generative AI Faces Familiar Challenges from “Baked In” Algorithmic Bias
Last week, Twitch banned an AI-generated production based on Seinfeld called “Nothing, Forever” from the platform for 14 days after a character named Larry Feinberg—a Jerry Seinfeld clone—made transphobic statements during his standup routine. The show’s creators blamed OpenAI’s Curie model, an older, more rudimentary version, for generating the offensive remarks. More specifically, Curie’s baked-in algorithmic bias caused it to generate the hateful comments. While jarring, the incident is by no means surprising to anyone familiar with the issue of algorithmic bias in the development and use of AI systems.