What is owed to the creators of the original material? In January, a group of artists sued London-based Stability AI, a maker of image-generating software, arguing that it was infringing their copyright by using their work in data formation and creation of derivative works. Cartoonist Sarah Anderson, who is part of the lawsuit, told The New York Times that she believed artists should choose to include their work in this data and should be compensated for it. Getty Images is also suing Stability AI in the UK and US for what it calls “blatant infringement” of millions of photos. Getty argued that the theft is particularly offensive because it has data licensing agreements for machine learning. Stability AI has yet to respond to complaints.
Does “fair use” apply? Copyrighted works can be used without permission for commentary, criticism, or other “transformative” purposes, and bots have traditionally been exempt from liability. But “the courts in the future will not be so sympathetic to automatic copying,” Mark Lemley, director of a program at Stanford Law School that focuses on science and technology, wrote in the Texas Law Review with a former colleague, Bryan Casey. Lemley calls for a new “fair learning” standard for using copyrighted material in machine learning. Include the question: What is the purpose of the copy? If it’s just for learning, this may be allowed, but if the intention is to reproduce the work, it won’t be. Not all machine learning datasets would qualify for protection. The new tools also raise questions about who is responsible for the breach: the user requesting the machine, the company that programmed the tool, or both?
Who owns the output of generative AI? At the moment, only the work of a human can be copyrighted, but what about works that rely in part on generative AI? Some tool developers have said they will not claim copyright over content generated by their machines. In February, the Copyright Office refused to copyright AI-generated images in a graphic novel, even though the writer argued that she had made the images through “a creative process and iterative” that involved “composing, selecting, arranging, cropping and editing for each image.” The government likened using the AI tool to hiring an artist. But the lines can blur as that the use of these tools becomes more common.Like the tools, intellectual property issues are a work in progress that will only become more complex. — Ephrath of Livni
A new generation of chatbots
A brave new world. A new crop of AI-powered chatbots has sparked a battle to determine whether the technology could upend the internet economy, turning current powerhouses into has-beens and creating the industry’s next giants. Here are the bots you need to know:
JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Griffin donating. Ken Griffin, the founder of the hedge fund Citadel, gave $300 million to Harvard. The gift is the largest ever to his alma mater, which will rename its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after him, and brings his total giving to the school to nearly half a million dollars. Not everyone was happy about it.
Withdrawal of the abortion pill. A Texas judge has ruled that mifepristone, an 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 drug industry condemned it, saying it could change the business of making drugs by retroactively changing the rules and politicizing the approval process.
