Lawyer Ex Machina #41: going into finals
AI
Music and AI
Did you miss the viral 'heart on my sleeve' track produced with AI-generated soundalikes of Drake & The Weeknd before it was removed from TikTok and streaming services? CNN has a brief excerpt of the song in a video segment covering the controversy.
"Anyone with a modicum of technological ability can create a song in their house and have the voice of a famous singer on it, that is virtually indistinguishable from the original." - Jon Sarlin, CNN reporter
The music industry is already "roiling," and Google/YouTube, in particular, is in a sticky situation: should labels be able to use DMCA takedown notices, and should platforms follow them, when the label may not have copyright in an AI-generated, original song?
The Economist has a series of articles about GenAI, including one that goes into detail about how large language models work to generate text based on statistics.
Louisiana state judge Scott Schlegel has a several AI-generated videos that highlight the good and bad potential of the technology with the legal system.
The Supreme Court has denied a petition to hear a case brought by an AI developer who unsuccessfully sought to have inventions created by the AI patented in the U.S. [Supreme Court docket]
The USPTO held its East Coast listening session on AI inventorship earlier this week. [Reactions: Prof. Dennis Crouch/Patently-O | Law360 | IPWatchDog] The West Coast listening session on the same topic will be held at Stanford Law School on May 8th; the deadline to request to speak or attend live is May 2nd.
Infamous "Pharma Bro" and temporary Wu Tang album owner Martin Shkreli has released an AI chatbot to dispense medical advice, called Dr. Gupta
What legal websites went in to training GPT? There's a list.
OpenAI has introduced data controls that allow GPT users to opt out of saving chat history and having it used as training data.
Futurist Jaron Lanier believes that artificial intelligence (a term he hates) should be regulated on the principle of digital dignity.
The Center for American Progress has released a report on "The Needed Executive Actions to Address the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence"
Blockchain
Politico reports that a bill to regulate stablecoins (cryptocurrency that is tied to fiat currency) has lost bipartisan support and may be dead in the water.
Coinbase has filed a mandamus petition against the Securities and Exchange Commission "to provide guidance for the crypto industry." [Petition]
From Reuters: "Ex-OpenSea manager's trial kicks off in first NFT insider trading case."
Miscellaneous
The American Bar Association is being sued in a class action lawsuit over a March 2023 data breach. [Docket]
Maine legislators have reintroduced a bill regulating biometric privacy, modeled largely on Illinois' law.
A California appellate court has found that a "geofence warrant ... lacked the particularity required by the Fourth Amendment and was impermissibly overbroad." [EFF commentary | Case information]
Long-ish reads
Anne Lenhart, a policy fellow at George Washington University, has circulated a list of federal legislative proposals from the 117th Congress to address AI.
Margot E. Kaminski, "The Developing Law of AI Regulation: A Turn to Risk Regulation," The Digital Social Contract: A Lawfare Paper Series, LawFare, April 2023