Lawyer Ex Machina #44: Summer ed. - May 2023
(Editor's note: the publishing schedule for LexM will change from now until mid-August; this is the last newsletter for May 2023, and there will be only one newsletter a month in June and July, followed by one in mid-August. I anticipate restarting the weekly newsletter in late August.)
AI
From WSJ ($): The end of the billable hour?
3 Geeks and a Law Blog has a podcast episode (with transcript) featuring an interview with Jeff Pfeifer of LexisNexis about Lexis+ AI’s rollout and features.
Google has filed comments with the USPTO saying that the company believes that artificial intelligence should not be considered as an inventor on patent applications.
Tuesday, May 25, noon PDT: UCLA Law's Institute on Technology Law & Policy is holding an online talk on AI and the First Amendment, with Profs. Eugene Volokh, Mark Lemley & James Grimmelmann. Register here.
Prof. Pamela Samuelson of UC Berkeley School of Law gave a talk about generative AI and copyright. [YouTube]
Lexis and Microsoft have unveiled a matter management and intake product that works within Teams for corporate departments that utilizes "conversational AI assistants to help deliver answers more quickly."
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held a hearing on Wednesday on "Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property: Part I — Interoperability of AI and Copyright Law."
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee also held a hearing this week on "Artificial Intelligence in Government," opposite the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law's hearing that included testimony by OpenAI's Sam Altman.
From Politico: "The possibly-unstoppable march of facial recognition"
Blockchain
The Subcommittee on Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion held a hearing today on “Putting the ‘Stable’ in ‘Stablecoins:’ How Legislation Will Help Stablecoins Achieve Their Promise”
Data Privacy
As state and federal legislators consider mandating social media companies verify the ages of potential users, what are the privacy risks to users of age-verfication services?
From the Washington Post ($): “Google promised to delete sensitive data. It logged my abortion clinic visit”
North Carolina has a bill in the House that would allow the police to track cellular phones without a warrant.
Legal Industry
Jordan Furlong on how lawyers have become knowledge technicians, not trusted advisors and how AI may threaten the former role.