Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images; The Washington Post, July 21, 2023

 Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post; Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images

"The White House on Friday announced that seven of the most influential companies building artificial intelligence have agreed to a voluntary pledge to mitigate the risks of the emerging technology, escalating the Biden administration’s involvement in the growing debate over AI regulation.]

The companies — which include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Chat GPT-maker OpenAI — vowed to allow independent security experts to test their systems before they are released to the public and committed to sharing data about the safety of their systems with the government and academics.

The firms also pledged to develop systems to alert the public when an image, video or text is created by artificial intelligence, a method known as “watermarking.”

In addition to the tech giants, several newer businesses at the forefront of AI development signed the pledge, including Anthropic and Inflection. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)"

The Biden administration is endangering intellectual property rights; The Dallas Morning News, June 20, 2023

Frank Cullen, The Dallas Morning News; The Biden administration is endangering intellectual property rights

"Simply put, the waiver seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

What the waiver would do is quash the development of additional COVID-19 countermeasures, from lifesaving antiviral pills to rapid tests even more accurate than the ones we have. Firms currently investing in new COVID-19 tests and treatments will have no reason to continue their work if the IP rights for those products are preemptively nullified.

In the long term, an IP waiver would set a devastating precedent for U.S. innovators working to address crises far beyond COVID-19. Startups and inventors need secure intellectual property rights to raise funding and recoup their steep research and development costs, especially in America’s life sciences industry. New drugs often cost more than $2 billion and can take more than a decade to make it to market."