What owes the creator of the original material? In January, a a group of artists sued London-based Stability AI, a maker of image-generating software, argues that it infringes their copyright by using their work in training data and creating derivative works. Cartoonist Sarah Anderson, who is part of the lawsuit, told The New York Times that she believes artists should choose to include their work in the data, and should be compensated for doing so. Getty Images is also suing AI Stability in the UK and US over what it calls “impudent offense” from millions of photos. Getty found the theft particularly offensive because it had an agreement to license data for machine learning. AI Stability has yet to respond to the complaint.
Does “fair use” apply? Copyrighted works may be used without permission for commentary, criticism, or other “transformative” purposes, and robots are usually exempt from liability. But “a future court would not be so sympathetic to machine copying,” he wrote Mark Lemleydirector of Stanford Law School programs focused on science and technology, at Texas Law Review with his former partner, Bryan Casey. Lemley called for a new “fair learning” standard for using copyrighted material in machine learning. It would include the question: What is the purpose of copying? If it's for studying, it's okay, but if the goal is to reproduce works, it's not allowed. Not every machine learning data set will qualify for protection. The new tool also raises the question of who is responsible for the breach — the user driving the machine, the company programming the tool, or both?
Who owns the generative AI output? For now, only human works can be copyrighted, but what about works that rely in part on generative AI? Some tool developers say they won't sue for copyrights on content generated by their machines. In February, the Copyright Office denied copyright to an AI-generated image in a graphic novel, although the author argued that he had created the image through an “iterative, creative process” that involved “composing, selecting, arranging, cropping, and editing to every picture.” The government compared using AI tools to hiring an artist. But the lines may be blurring as the use of such tools becomes more common. Like the tools, intellectual property issues are a work in progress that will only get more complex. — Euphrates of Livni
The New Generation of Chatbots
Brave new world. A new crop of chatbots powered by artificial intelligence has sparked a scramble to determine whether the technology can overturn the internet economy, turn a current powerhouse into an existing one and create the next industry giant. Here are the bots to know about:
IF YOU MISSED IT
Griffin's gift. Ken Griffin, founder of the Citadel hedge fund, donated $300 million to Harvard. The prize was the largest ever for his alma mater, which would be renamed the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after him, and brought his total donations to the school to almost half a billion dollars. Not everyone is happy about that.
Withdrawal of abortion pills. A Texas judge ruled that mifepristone, the abortion pill, should be pulled from shelves more than two decades after the Food and Drug Administration approved it. The Justice Department challenged the decision, and the pharmaceutical industry condemned it, saying it could upend the drug-making business by retroactively changing regulations and politicizing the approval process.