Ethical uses of generative AI in the practice of law; Reuters, October 3, 2024

  Thomson Reuters; Ethical uses of generative AI in the practice of law

"In the rapidly evolving landscape of legal technology, the integration of generative AI tools presents both unprecedented opportunities and significant ethical challenges. Ryan Groff, a distinguished member of the Massachusetts Bar and a lecturer at New England Law, explores these dimensions in his enlightening webinar, “Ethical Uses of Generative AI in the Practice of Law.” 

In the webinar, Ryan Groff discusses the ethical implications of using generative AI (GenAI) in legal practices, tracing the history of GenAI applications in law and distinguishing between various AI tools available today.  He provides an insightful overview of the historical application of GenAI in legal contexts and differentiates the various AI tools currently available. Groff emphasizes that while AI can enhance the efficiency of legal practices, it should not undermine the critical judgment of lawyers. He underscores the importance of maintaining rigorous supervision, safeguarding client confidentiality, and ensuring technological proficiency."

Generative AI and Legal Ethics; JD Supra, September 20, 2024

 Craig Brodsky, Goodell, DeVries, Leech & Dann, LLP, JD Supra; Generative AI and Legal Ethics

 "In his scathing opinion, Cullen joined judges from New York Massachusetts and North Carolina, among others, by concluding that improper use of AI generated authorities may give rise to sanctions and disciplinary charges...

As a result, on July 29, 2024, the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional issued Formal Opinion 512 on Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools. The ABA Standing Committee issued the opinion primarily because GAI tools are a “rapidly moving target” that can create significant ethical issues. The committee believed it necessary to offer “general guidance for lawyers attempting to navigate this emerging landscape.”

The committee’s general guidance is helpful, but the general nature of Opinion 512 it underscores part of my main concern — GAI has a wide-ranging impact on how lawyers practice that will increase over time. Unsurprisingly, at present, GAI implicates at least eight ethical rules ranging from competence (Md. Rule 19-301.1) to communication (Md. Rule 19-301.4), to fees (Md. Rule 19-301.5), to confidentiality, (Md. Rule 19-301.6), to supervisory obligations (Md. Rule 19-305.1 and Md. Rule 305.3) to the duties of a lawyer before tribunal to be candid and pursue meritorious claims and defenses. (Md. Rules 19-303.1 and 19-303.3).

As a technological feature of practice, lawyers cannot simply ignore GAI. The duty of competence under Rule 19-301.1 includes technical competence, and GAI is just another step forward. It is here to stay. We must embrace it but use it smartly.

Let it be an adjunct to your practice rather than having Chat GPT write your brief. Ensure that your staff understands that GAI can be helpful, but that the work product must be checked for accuracy.

After considering the ethical implications and putting the right processes in place, implement GAI and use it to your clients’ advantage."

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION ON AI & THE COMMONS; Creative Commons, July 24, 2024

 Anna Tumadóttir , Creative Commons; QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION ON AI & THE COMMONS

"The intersection of AI, copyright, creativity, and the commons has been a focal point of conversations within our community for the past couple of years. We’ve hosted intimate roundtables, organized workshops at conferences, and run public events, digging into the challenging topics of credit, consent, compensation, transparency, and beyond. All the while, we’ve been asking ourselves:  what can we do to foster a vibrant and healthy commons in the face of rapid technological development? And how can we ensure that creators and knowledge-producing communities still have agency?...

We recognize that there is a perceived tension between openness and creator choice. Namely, if we  give creators choice over how to manage their works in the face of generative AI, we may run the risk of shrinking the commons. To potentially overcome, or at least better understand the effect of generative AI on the commons, we believe  that finding a way for creators to indicate “no, unless…” would be positive for the commons. Our consultations over the course of the last two years have confirmed that:

• Folks want more choice over how their work is used.
• If they have no choice, they might not share their work at all (under a CC license or strict copyright).

If these views are as wide ranging as we perceive, we feel it is imperative that we explore an intervention, and bring far more nuance into how this ecosystem works.

Generative AI is here to stay, and we’d like to do what we can to ensure it benefits the public interest. We are well-positioned with the experience, expertise, and tools to investigate the potential of preference signals.

Our starting point is to identify what types of preference signals might be useful. How do these vary or overlap in the cultural heritage, journalism, research, and education sectors? How do needs vary by region? We’ll also explore exactly how we might structure a preference signal framework so it’s useful and respected, asking, too: does it have to be legally enforceable, or is the power of social norms enough?

Research matters. It takes time, effort, and most importantly, people. We’ll need help as we do this. We’re seeking support from funders to move this work forward. We also look forward to continuing to engage our community in this process. More to come soon."

A bill to protect performers from unauthorized AI heads to California governor; NPR, August 30, 2024

Mandalit del Barco, NPR; A bill to protect performers from unauthorized AI heads to California governor

"Other proposed guardrails

In addition to AB2602, the performer’s union is backing California bill AB 1836 to protect deceased performers’ intellectual property from digital replicas.

On a national level, entertainment industry stakeholders, from SAG-AFTRA to The Recording Academy and the MPA, and others are supporting The “NO FAKES Act” (the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act) introduced in the Senate. That law would make creating a digital replica of any American illegal.

Around the country, legislators have proposed hundreds of laws to regulate AI more generally. For example, California lawmakers recently passed the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047), which regulates AI models such as ChatGPT.

“It's vital and it's incredibly urgent because legislation, as we know, takes time, but technology matures exponentially. So we're going to be constantly fighting the battle to stay ahead of this,” said voice performer Zeke Alton, a member of SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee. “If we don't get to know what's real and what's fake, that is starting to pick away at the foundations of democracy.”

Alton says in the fight for AI protections of digital doubles, Hollywood performers have been the canary in the coal mine. “We are having this open conversation in the public about generative AI and it and using it to replace the worker instead of having the worker use it as a tool for their own efficiency,” he said. “But it's coming for every other industry, every other worker. That's how big this sea change in technology is. So what happens here is going to reverberate.”"

The COPIED Act Is an End Run around Copyright Law; Public Knowledge, July 24, 2024

Lisa Macpherson , Public Knowledge; The COPIED Act Is an End Run around Copyright Law

"Over the past week, there has been a flurry of activity related to the Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media (COPIED) Act. While superficially focused on helping people understand when they are looking at content that has been created or altered using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, this overly broad bill makes an end run around copyright law and restricts how everyone – not just huge AI developers – can use copyrighted work as the basis of new creative expression. 

The COPIED Act was introduced in the Senate two weeks ago by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA, and Chair of the Commerce Committee); Marsha Blackburn (R-TN); and Martin Heinrich (D-NM). By the end of last week, we learned there may be a hearing and markup on the bill within days or weeks. The bill directs agency action on standards for detecting and labeling synthetic content; requires AI developers to allow the inclusion of these standards on content; and prohibits the use of such content to generate new content or train AI models without consent and compensation from creators. It allows for enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, and for private rights of action. 

We want to say unequivocally that this is the wrong bill, at the wrong time, from the wrong policymakers, to address complex questions of copyright and generative artificial intelligence."

Data Owners Are Increasingly Blocking AI Companies From Using Their IP; PetaPixel, July 22, 2024

 MATT GROWCOOT, PetaPixel; Data Owners Are Increasingly Blocking AI Companies From Using Their IP

"Training data for generative AI models like Midjourney and ChatGPT is beginning to dry up, according to a new study.

The world of artificial intelligence moves fast. While court cases attempt to decide whether using copyrighted text, images, and video to train AI models is “fair use”, as tech companies argue, those same firms are already running out of new data to harvest. 

As generative AI has proliferated and become well-known, there has been a well-documented backlash and many have taken action by denying access to their online data — including photographers.

An MIT research group led the study which looked at 14,000 web domains that are included in three major AI training data sets. 

The study, published by the Data Provenance System, discovered an “emerging crisis in consent” as online publishers pull up the drawbridge by not giving permission to AI crawlers. 

The researchers looked at the C4, RefineWeb, and Dolma data sets and found that five percent of all the data is now restricted. But that number jumps to 25 percent when looking at the highest-quality sources. Generative AI needs a good caliber of data to produce good models."

What Is The Future Of Intellectual Property In A Generative AI World?; Forbes, July 18, 2024

 Ron Schmelzer, Forbes; What Is The Future Of Intellectual Property In A Generative AI World?

"Taking a More Sophisticated and Nuanced Approach to GenAI IP Issues

Clearly we’re at a crossroads when it comes to intellectual property and the answers aren’t cut and dry. Simply preventing IP protection of AI-generated works might not be possible if AI systems are used in any significant portion of the creation process. Likewise, prohibiting AI systems from making use of pre-existing IP-protected works might be a Pandora’s box we can’t close. We need to find new approaches that balance the ability to use AI tools as part of the creation process with IP protection of both existing works and the outputs of GenAI systems.

This means a more sophisticated and nuanced approach to clarifying the legal status of data used in AI training and developing mechanisms to ensure that AI-generated outputs respect existing IP rights, while still providing protection for creative outputs that have involved significant elements of human creativity in curation and prompting, even if the outputs are transformative recombinations of training data. Clearly we’re in the early days of the continued evolution of what intellectual property means."

This might be the most important job in AI; Business Insider, July 21, 2024

 Lakshmi Varanasi , Business Insider; This might be the most important job in AI

"Generative AI can hallucinate, spread misinformation, and reinforce biases against marginalized groups if it's not managed properly. Given that the technology relies on volumes of sensitive data, the potential for data breaches is also high. At worst, though, there's the danger that the more sophisticated it becomes, the less likely it is to align with human values.

With great power, then, comes great responsibility, and companies that make money from generative AI must also ensure they regulate it.

That's where a chief ethics officer comes in...

Those who are successful in the role ideally have four areas of expertise, according to Mills. They should have a technical grasp over generative AI, experience building and deploying products, an understanding of the major laws and regulations around AI, and significant experience hiring and making decisions at an organization."

The Fast-Moving Race Between Gen-AI and Copyright Law; Baker Donelson, July 10, 2024

Scott M. Douglass and Dominic Rota, Baker Donelson ; The Fast-Moving Race Between Gen-AI and Copyright Law

"It is still an open question whether plaintiffs will succeed in showing that use of copyrighted works to train generative AI constitutes copyright infringement and be able to overcome the fair use defense or succeed in showing that generative AI developers are removing CMI in violation of the DMCA.

The government has made some moves in the past few months to resolve these issues. The U.S. Copyright Office started an inquiry in August 2023, seeking public comments on copyright law and policy issues raised by AI systems, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced a new bill in April 2024, that would require people creating a training dataset for a generative AI system to submit to the Register of Copyrights a detailed summary of any copyrighted works used in training. These initiatives will most likely take some time, meaning that currently pending litigation is vitally important for defining copyright law as it applies to generative AI.

Recent licensing deals with news publishers appear to be anywhere from $1 million to $60 million per year, meaning that AI companies will have to pay an enormous amount to license all the copyrighted works necessary to train their generative AI models effectively. However, as potential damages in a copyright infringement case could be billions of dollars, as claimed by Getty Images and other plaintiffs, developers of generative AI programs should seriously consider licensing any copyrighted works used as training data."

Record labels sue AI music startups for copyright infringement; WBUR Here & Now, July 8, 2024

 WBUR Here & Now; Record labels sue AI music startups for copyright infringement

"Major record labels including Sony, Universal Music Group and Warner are suing two music startups that use artificial intelligence. The labels say Suno and Udio rely on mass copyright infringement, echoing similar complaints from authors, publishers and artists who argue that generative AI infringes on copyright.

Here & Now's Lisa Mullins discusses the cases with Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent for Axios."

China is the runaway leader in generative AI patent applications followed by the US, the UN says; AP, July 3, 2024

JAMEY KEATEN, AP;  China is the runaway leader in generative AI patent applications followed by the US, the UN says

"China has requested far more patents than any other country when it comes to generative AI, the U.N. intellectual property agency said Wednesday, with the United States a distant second...

The new report on patents, the first of its kind, aims to track patent applications as a possible indication of trends in artificial intelligence. It focuses only on generative AI and excludes artificial intelligence more broadly, which includes technologies like facial recognition or autonomous driving."

Tech companies battle content creators over use of copyrighted material to train AI models; The Canadian Press via CBC, June 30, 2024

Anja Karadeglija , The Canadian Press via CBC; Tech companies battle content creators over use of copyrighted material to train AI models

"Canadian creators and publishers want the government to do something about the unauthorized and usually unreported use of their content to train generative artificial intelligence systems.

But AI companies maintain that using the material to train their systems doesn't violate copyright, and say limiting its use would stymie the development of AI in Canada.

The two sides are making their cases in recently published submissions to a consultation on copyright and AI being undertaken by the federal government as it considers how Canada's copyright laws should address the emergence of generative AI systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT."

2024 Generative AI in Professional Services: Perceptions, Usage & Impact on the Future of Work; Thomson Reuters Institute, 2024

 Thomson Reuters Institute; 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services: Perceptions, Usage & Impact on the Future of Work

"Inaccuracy, privacy worries persist -- More than half of respondents identified such worries as inaccurate responses (70%); data security (68%); privacy and confidentiality of data (62%); complying with laws and regulations (60%); and ethical and responsible usage (57%), as primary concerns for GenAI."

GenAI in focus: Understanding the latest trends and considerations; Thomson Reuters, June 27, 2024

Thomson Reuters; GenAI in focus: Understanding the latest trends and considerations

"Legal professionals, whether they work for law firms, corporate legal departments, government, or in risk and fraud, have generally positive perceptions of generative AI (GenAI). According to the professionals surveyed in the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2024 GenAI in Professional Services report, 85% of law firm and corporate attorneys, 77% of government legal practitioners, and 82% of corporate risk professionals believe that GenAI can be applied to industry work.  

But should it be applied? There, those positive perceptions softened a bit, with 51% of law firm respondents, 60% of corporate legal practitioners, 62% of corporate risk professionals, and 40% of government legal respondents saying yes.  

In short, professionals’ perceptions of AI include concerns and interest in its capabilities. Those concerns include the ethics of AI usage and mitigating related risks. These are important considerations. But they don’t need to keep professionals from benefiting from all that GenAI can do. Professionals can minimize many of the potential risks by becoming familiar with responsible AI practices."

How to Fix “AI’s Original Sin”; O'Reilly, June 18, 2024

 Tim O’Reilly, O'Reilly; How to Fix “AI’s Original Sin”

"In conversation with reporter Cade Metz, who broke the story, on the New York Times podcast The Daily, host Michael Barbaro called copyright violation “AI’s Original Sin.”

At the very least, copyright appears to be one of the major fronts so far in the war over who gets to profit from generative AI. It’s not at all clear yet who is on the right side of the law. In the remarkable essay “Talkin’ ’Bout AI Generation: Copyright and the Generative-AI Supply Chain,” Cornell’s Katherine Lee and A. Feder Cooper and James Grimmelmann of Microsoft Research and Yale note:

Copyright law is notoriously complicated, and generative-AI systems manage to touch on a great many corners of it. They raise issues of authorship, similarity, direct and indirect liability, fair use, and licensing, among much else. These issues cannot be analyzed in isolation, because there are connections everywhere. Whether the output of a generative AI system is fair use can depend on how its training datasets were assembled. Whether the creator of a generative-AI system is secondarily liable can depend on the prompts that its users supply.

But it seems less important to get into the fine points of copyright law and arguments over liability for infringement, and instead to explore the political economy of copyrighted content in the emerging world of AI services: Who will get what, and why?"

Using AI to Create Content? Watch Out for Copyright Violations; Chicago Business Attorney Blog, June 20, 2024

George Bellas , Chicago Business Attorney Blog; Using AI to Create Content? Watch Out for Copyright Violations

"Businesses using generative AI programs like ChatGPT to create any content—whether for blogs, websites or other marketing materials, and whether text, visuals, sound or video—need to ensure that they’re not inadvertently using copyrighted materials in the process.

Clearly, the times they are a changing….and businesses need to adapt to the changes.  Employers should promulgate messages to their employees and contractors updating their policy manuals to ensure that communications professionals and others crafting content are aware of the risks of using AI-generated materials, which go beyond the possibility that they are “hallucinated” rather than factual—although that’s worth considering, too."

POPE FRANCIS ATTENDS THE G7 SESSION ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS, June 14, 2024

 The Vatican, POPE FRANCIS ATTENDS THE G7 SESSION ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: 

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS, Borgo Egnazia (Puglia)

[Excerpt]

            "An exciting and fearsome tool

 Esteemed ladies and gentlemen,

I address you today, the leaders of the Intergovernmental Forum of the G7, concerning the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of humanity.

“Sacred Scripture attests that God bestowed his Spirit upon human beings so that they might have ‘skill and understanding and knowledge in every craft’ ( Ex 35:31)”. [1] Science and technology are therefore brilliant products of the creative potential of human beings. [2]

Indeed, artificial intelligence arises precisely from the use of this God-given creative potential.

As we know, artificial intelligence is an extremely powerful tool, employed in many kinds of human activity: from medicine to the world of work; from culture to the field of communications; from education to politics. It is now safe to assume that its use will increasingly influence the way we live, our social relationships and even the way we conceive of our identity as human beings. [3]

The question of artificial intelligence, however, is often perceived as ambiguous: on the one hand, it generates excitement for the possibilities it offers, while on the other it gives rise to fear for the consequences it foreshadows. In this regard, we could say that all of us, albeit to varying degrees, experience two emotions: we are enthusiastic when we imagine the advances that can result from artificial intelligence but, at the same time, we are fearful when we acknowledge the dangers inherent in its use. [4]"

Voice of America (VoA), June 13, 2024

 Matt Dibble, Voice of America (VoA); AI copyright fight turns to disclosing original content

"Artists and other creators say their works have been used to build the multibillion-dollar generative AI industry without any compensation for them. Matt Dibble reports on a proposed U.S. law that would force AI companies to reveal their sources."

EFF-Austin: Generative AI & Copyright; June 11, 2024

 EFF-Austin: Generative AI & Copyright

"Generative AI & Copyright

From the Organizers:

One of the key legal issues currently being debated around Generative AI is whether or not tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are in violation of copyright; namely, whether the act of using existing artistic content as training data to produce new content is a derivative or transformational use of the training data. In this talk, Ed will walk us through both what current copyright law has to say about the legal status of AI art, as well as what he believes the legal framework around AI art should be going forward.

Our speaker this month is Ed Cavazos. Ed Cavazos is a technology attorney and the managing partner of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s Austin office. His practice focuses on intellectual property and cutting-edge issues in the internet, e-commerce, video game, and software industries. He has been involved in a wide variety of high-profile legal matters, including assisting on the Steve Jackson Games lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service while still a law student, successfully defending tech companies against patent and copyright trolls, and representing some of the earliest entrepreneurs developing NFT and Metaverse-related business models. His 1994 book, Cyberspace and the Law (MIT Press) was one of the first texts exploring internet legal issues and over the years he has written a number of law review articles exploring similar issues. Ed was one of the founders of EFF-Austin in the early 1990’s and has, since then, served in various officer, board and advisory board roles.

Talk will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/user/austintechlive and will later be archived at https://www.youtube.com/user/effaustin. Questions for the speaker from virtual attendees may be submitted via the Youtube livestream chat, our Twitter account, @EFFaustin, or our Mastodon account, @effaustin."

Angry Instagram posts won’t stop Meta AI from using your content; Popular Science, June 5, 2024

Mack DeGeurin, Popular Science; Angry Instagram posts won’t stop Meta AI from using your content

"Meta, the Mark Zuckerberg-owned tech giant behind Instagram, surprised many of the app’s estimated 1.2 billion global users with a shock revelation last month. Images, including original artwork and other creative assets uploaded to the company’s platforms, are now being used to train the company’s AI image generator. That admission, initially made public by Meta executive Chris Cox during an interview with Bloomberg last month, has elicited a fierce backlash from some creators. As of writing, more than 130,000 Instagram users have reshared a message on Instagram telling the company they do not consent to it using their data to train Meta AI. Those pleas, however, are founded on a fundamental misunderstanding of creators’ relationship with extractive social media platforms. These creators already gave away their work, whether they realize it or not."