MYLES WERNTZ, Christianity Today; CHATBOT CHEATING IN ETHICS CLASS
"The ethical and practical problems are legion: copyright disputes, ecological effects, a possible economic bubble, and plain deceit. Still, for an undergraduate on a deadline, the appeal is obvious."
Paulo Carvão , Forbes; Copyright Is Dead. But Is It?
"This is a clash between two visions of the future. One embraces a world where technology moves faster than the law, forcing us to abandon old notions of ownership in favor of new, more resilient business models. The other sees a future where copyright is not an outdated legal concept but a vital economic engine that can be adapted and monetized in the age of AI. The middle ground points us to a path forward that adapts current laws to fit AI’s real-world usage.
The future of copyright is unlikely to be a simple binary decision. Instead, it will be a negotiation between creators, tech companies, lawyers, and regulators. What’s clear is that the conversation is no longer confined to legal journals but has entered the mainstream, sparking a necessary dialogue about the value of creativity, the nature of intelligence, and the future of the digital economy."
Michael S. Rosenwald , The New York Times; Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88
"As a philosopher of AI, Professor Boden was often asked if she thought that robots would, or could, take over society.
“The truth is that they certainly won’t want to,” she wrote in Aeon magazine in 2018.
Why? Because robots, unlike humans, don’t care.
“A computer’s ‘goals,’” she wrote, “are empty of feeling.”"
Theodore Schleifer and Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times; Larry Ellison Wants to Do Good, Do Research and Make a Profit
"Mr. Ellison has rarely engaged with the community of Giving Pledge signers, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. He has cherished his autonomy and does not want to be influenced to support Mr. Gates’s causes, one of the people said, while also sensitive to any idea that he is backing off the pledge.
But the stakes of Mr. Ellison’s message on X are enormous. His fortune is about 10 times what it was when he signed the pledge as the software company he founded, Oracle, rides the artificial intelligence boom. Mr. Ellison controls a staggering 40-plus percent of the company’s stock...
“Oxford, Cambridge and the whole university sector are under pressure to capitalize on intellectual property because of long-running government policy belief that the U.K. has fallen behind economically,” said John Picton, an expert in nonprofit law at the University of Manchester."
Chloe Veltman, NPR ; Boston Public Library aims to increase access to a vast historic archive using AI
"Boston Public Library, one of the oldest and largest public library systems in the country, is launching a project this summer with OpenAI and Harvard Law School to make its trove of historically significant government documents more accessible to the public.
The documents date back to the early 1800s and include oral histories, congressional reports and surveys of different industries and communities...
Currently, members of the public who want to access these documents must show up in person. The project will enhance the metadata of each document and will enable users to search and cross-reference entire texts from anywhere in the world.
Chapel said Boston Public Library plans to digitize 5,000 documents by the end of the year, and if all goes well, grow the project from there...
Harvard University said it could help. Researchers at the Harvard Law School Library's Institutional Data Initiative are working with libraries, museums and archives on a number of fronts, including training new AI models to help libraries enhance the searchability of their collections.
AI companies help fund these efforts, and in return get to train their large language models on high-quality materials that are out of copyright and therefore less likely to lead to lawsuits. (Microsoft and OpenAI are among the many AI players targeted by recent copyright infringement lawsuits, in which plaintiffs such as authors claim the companies stole their works without permission.)"
Arvin Patel, , Forbes; The AI Patent Revolution: Why Young Professionals Should Think Like Inventors
"While headlines warn of artificial intelligence replacing millions of jobs, they overlook a fundamental shift occurring right under our noses: The surge in AI innovation is generating unprecedented demand at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Major corporations are also actively seeking employees who understand both AI capabilities and intellectual property strategy. These aren't jobs that AI will replace—they're jobs that exist because of AI."
Will Oremus , The Washington Post; AI guzzled millions of books without permission. Authors are fighting back.
[Kip Currier: I've written this before on this blog and I'll say it again: technology companies would never allow anyone to freely vacuum up their content and use it without permission or compensation. Period. Full Stop.]
[Excerpt]
"Baldacci is among a group of authors suing OpenAI and Microsoft over the companies’ use of their work to train the AI software behind tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot without permission or payment — one of more than 40 lawsuits against AI companies advancing through the nation’s courts. He and other authors this week appealed to Congress for help standing up to what they see as an assault by Big Tech on their profession and the soul of literature.
They found sympathetic ears at a Senate subcommittee hearing Wednesday, where lawmakers expressed outrage at the technology industry’s practices. Their cause gained further momentum Thursday when a federal judge granted class-action status to another group of authors who allege that the AI firm Anthropic pirated their books.
“I see it as one of the moral issues of our time with respect to technology,” Ralph Eubanks, an author and University of Mississippi professor who is president of the Authors Guild, said in a phone interview. “Sometimes it keeps me up at night.”
Lawsuits have revealed that some AI companies had used legally dubious “torrent” sites to download millions of digitized books without having to pay for them."
Blake Brittain , Reuters; US authors suing Anthropic can band together in copyright class action, judge rules
"A California federal judge ruled on Thursday that three authors suing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic for copyright infringement can represent writers nationwide whose books Anthropic allegedly pirated to train its AI system.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the authors can bring a class action on behalf of all U.S. writers whose works Anthropic allegedly downloaded from "pirate libraries" LibGen and PiLiMi to create a repository of millions of books in 2021 and 2022."
Michael D. Smith and Rahul Telang, Harvard Business Review ; Can Gen AI and Copyright Coexist?
"We’re experts in the study of digital transformation and have given this issue a lot of thought. We recently served, for example, on a roundtable of 10 economists convened by the U.S. Copyright Office to study the implications of gen AI on copyright policy. We recognize that the two decisions are far from the last word on this topic; both will no doubt be appealed to the Ninth Circuit and then subsequently to the Supreme Court. But in the meantime, we believe there are already many lessons to be learned from these decisions about the implications of gen AI for business—lessons that will be useful for leaders in both the creative industries and gen AI companies."
Reece Rogers Wired ; Join Our Livestream: Inside the AI Copyright Battles
"WHAT'S GOING ON right now with the copyright battles over artificial intelligence? Many lawsuits regarding generative AI’s training materials were initially filed back in 2023, with decisions just now starting to trickle out. Whether it’s Midjourney generating videos of Disney characters, like Wall-E brandishing a gun, or an exit interview with a top AI lawyer as he left Meta, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs has been following this fight for years—and she’s ready to answer your questions.
Bring all your burning questions about the AI copyright battles to WIRED’s next, subscriber-only livestream scheduled for July 16 at 12pm ET / 9am PT, hosted by Reece Rogers with Kate Knibbs. The event will be streamed right here. For subscribers who are not able to join, a replay of the livestream will be available after the event."
Kent Conrad and Saxby Chambliss , Grand Forks Herald; Viewpoint: Don’t let America’s copyright crackdown hand China global AI leadership
[Kip Currier: The assertion by anti-AI regulation proponents, like the former U.S. congressional authors of this think-piece, that requiring AI tech companies to secure permission and pay for AI training data will kill or hobble U.S. AI entrepreneurship is hyperbolic catastrophizing. AI tech companies can license training data from creators who are willing to participate in licensing frameworks. Such frameworks already exist for music copyrights, for example. AI tech companies just don't want to pay for something if they can get it for free.
AI tech companies would never permit users to scrape up, package, and sell their IP content for free. Copyright holders shouldn't be held to a different standard and be required to let tech companies monetize their IP-protected works without permission and compensation.]
Excerpt]
"If these lawsuits succeed, or if Congress radically rewrites the law, it will become nearly impossible for startups, universities or mid-size firms to develop competitive AI tools."
TORI NOBLE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Two Courts Rule On Generative AI and Fair Use — One Gets It Right
"Gen-AI is spurring the kind of tech panics we’ve seen before; then, as now, thoughtful fair use opinions helped ensure that copyright law served innovation and creativity. Gen-AI does raise a host of other serious concerns about fair labor practices and misinformation, but copyright wasn’t designed to address those problems. Trying to force copyright law to play those roles only hurts important and legal uses of this technology.
In keeping with that tradition, courts deciding fair use in other AI copyright cases should look to Bartz, not Kadrey."
John Villasenor, Brookings; The problems with California’s pending AI copyright legislation
"California’s pending bill, AB-412, is a well-intentioned but problematic approach to addressing artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright currently moving through the state’s legislature. If enacted into law, it would undermine innovation in generative AI (GenAI) not only in California but also nationally, as it would impose onerous requirements on both in-state and out-of-state developers that make GenAI models available in California.
The extraordinary capabilities of GenAI are made possible by the use of extremely large sets of training data that often include copyrighted content. AB-412 arose from the very reasonable concerns that rights owners have in understanding when and how their content is being used for building GenAI models. But the bill imposes a set of unduly burdensome and unworkable obligations on GenAI developers. It also favors large rights owners, which will be better equipped than small rights owners to pursue the litigation contemplated by the bill."
THINH H. NGUYEN AND DEREK E. BAMBAUER, The Hill ; The US Copyright Office is wrong about artificial intelligence
"AI is too important to allow copyright to impede its progress, especially as America seeks to maintain its global competitiveness in tech innovation."
"It’s a tumultuous time for copyright in the United States, with dozens of potentially economy-shaking AI copyright lawsuits winding through the courts. It’s also the most turbulent moment in the US Copyright Office’s history. Described as “sleepy” in the past, the Copyright Office has taken on new prominence during the AI boom, issuing key rulings about AI and copyright. It also hasn’t had a leader in more than a month...
As the legality of the ouster is debated, the reality within the office is this: There’s effectively nobody in charge. And without a leader actually showing up at work, the Copyright Office is not totally business-as-usual; in fact, there’s debate over whether the copyright certificates it’s issuing could be challenged."
Joan Rose Marie Bullock, ABA SciTech Lawyer; Global AI: Compression, Complexity, and the Call for Rigorous Oversight
"Equally critical is resisting haste. The push to deploy AI, whether in threat detection or data processing, often outpaces scrutiny. Rushed implementations, like untested algorithms in critical systems, can backfire, as any cybersecurity professional can attest from post-incident analyses. The maxim of “measure twice, cut once” applies here: thorough vetting trumps speed. Lawyers, trained in precedent, recognize the cost of acting without foresight; technologists, steeped in iterative testing, understand the value of validation. Prioritizing diligence over being first mitigates catastrophic failures of privacy breaches or security lapses that ripple worldwide."
Harvard Law School Human Rights Program; Artificial Intelligence—Promises and Perils for Humans’ Rights
"In recent years, rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, significantly accelerated by the development and deployment of deep learning and Large Language Models, have taken center stage in policy discussions and public consciousness. Amidst a public both intrigued and apprehensive about AI’s transformative potential across workplaces, families, and even broader political, economic, and geopolitical structures, a crucial conversation is emerging around its ethical, legal, and policy dimensions.
This webinar will convene a panel of prominent experts from diverse fields to delve into the critical implications of AI for humans and their rights. The discussion will broadly address the anticipated human rights harms stemming from AI’s increasing integration into society and explore potential responses to these challenges. A key focus will be on the role of international law and human rights law in addressing these harms, considering whether this legal framework can offer the appropriate tools for effective intervention."
The Mainichi; Japan aims to lift intellectual property competitiveness via AI use
"The Japanese government said Tuesday it will seek to enhance the country's competitiveness in the area of intellectual property by promoting the use of artificial intelligence and attracting foreign talent.
In the intellectual property strategy for 2025, the country will take advantage of the international popularity of Japanese anime and the content of such movies that highlights local culture to help promote regional economies, expecting a total economic impact of around 1 trillion yen ($7.0 billion)."
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS AND KAREN HAO, The Ink; WATCH: Is A.I. the new colonialism?
"We just got off a call with the technology journalist Karen Hao, the keenest chronicler of the technology that’s promising — or threatening — to reshape the world, who has a new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
The book talks not just about artificial intelligence and what it might be, or its most visible spokesperson and what he might believe, but also about the way the tech industry titans resemble more and more the empires of old in their relentless resource extraction and exploitation of labor around the world, their take-no-prisoners competitiveness against supposedly “evil” pretenders, and their religious fervor for progress and even salvation. She also told us about what the future might look like if we get A.I. right, and the people who produce the data, the resources, and control the labor power can reassert their ownership and push back against these new empires to build a more humane and human future."
