Rightsholders won a few battles, and lost some, in the EU’s world-leading draft AI law. The bill’s architects are casting it as a balance between the need to protect “fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability” in the face of risks from AI, and the creation of an environment that will enable Europe’s AI businesses to thrive amidst intense global competition.
Technology
The Unperson Of 2023
For the first time in history, humans had a world-altering fact forced on them; sentences do not imply sentience. The crown-jewel of our species, the quality that supposedly entitled us to our special moral status: the ability fluently to manipulate highly complex, abstract language about a near-infinite number of subjects is, undeniably, no longer confined to humans. ChatGPT did what parrots with large vocabularies and chimps that have learned ASL could not.
Source: The Unperson Of 2023
Midjourney Leaps into AI Video Creation
Midjourney, the generative image creation tool perhaps best known for running inside a Discord server, is spreading its AI wings. The creators of Midjourney announced on Tuesday that they plan to introduce a “text to video” model in the next few months. The company will begin training its video models starting in January, CEO David Holz said during an “Office Hour” Discord session.
How Nikon, Sony and Canon are fighting deepfakes with new technology
The three camera giants have agreed on a global standard for digital signatures, which will make them compatible with a web-based tool called Verify. This tool, launched by an alliance of global news organizations, technology companies, and camera makers, will allow anyone to check the credentials of an image for free. Verify will display the relevant information if an image has a digital signature.
Source: How Nikon, Sony and Canon are fighting deepfakes with new technology
Boom in A.I. Prompts a Test of Copyright Law
The lawsuits posing these questions are in early stages of litigation. If they don’t produce settlements (as most litigation does), it could be years until a Federal District Court rules on the matter. Those rulings would probably be appealed, and appellate decisions could vary by circuit, which could potentially elevate the question to the U.S. Supreme Court.
AI companies would be required to disclose copyrighted training data under new bill
The AI Foundation Model Transparency Act — filed by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) — would direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish rules for reporting training data transparency. Companies that make foundation models will be required to report sources of training data and how the data is retained during the inference process
Source: AI companies would be required to disclose copyrighted training data under new bill
The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, contends that millions of articles published by The Times were used to train automated chatbots that now compete with the news outlet as a source of reliable information.
Source: The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work
AI image-generators are being trained on explicit photos of children, a study shows
Hidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence image-generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to a new report that urges companies to take action to address a harmful flaw in the technology they built. Those same images have made it easier for AI systems to produce realistic and explicit imagery of fake children as well as transform social media photos of fully clothed real teens into nudes.
Source: AI image-generators are being trained on explicit photos of children, a study shows
Copilot users can create their own AI songs with the new Suno AI plug-in
Microsoft’s AI chatbot Copilot will now be able to churn out AI songs on demand — thanks to a new plug-in with Suno. The Cambridge-based AI music startup offers a tool on Discord that can compose an original song — complete with lyrics — based on a text prompt. Now, Copilot users will be able to access Suno using the Microsoft chatbot.
Source: Copilot users can create their own AI songs with the new Suno AI plug-in
AI cannot patent inventions, UK Supreme Court confirms
Technologist Dr Stephen Thaler had sought to have his AI, called Dabus, recognised as the inventor of a food container and a flashing light beacon. But in 2019, the intellectual property office (IPO) rejected this, saying only a person could be named as an inventor. Now five Supreme Court judges have dismissed a bid to reverse those decisions, concluding that “an inventor must be a person”, and that an AI cannot be named as an inventor to secure patent rights.
Source: AI cannot patent inventions, UK Supreme Court confirms