Internet & Social Media Law Blog
In this week’s edition of Consumer Protection Dispatch, we look at the latest regulatory developments from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding data and AI.
Articles Posted in Artificial Intelligence
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Consumer Protection Dispatch: The Latest Developments in the World of Consumer Protection (5/22/24)
(The Consumer Protection Dispatch summarizes industry news and updates on emerging issues involving a variety of consumer protection issues including, but not limited to, data and AI.)
This week’s edition includes latest developments relating to AI laws passed by Colorado, Tennessee and Utah, U.S. Senate bipartisan working group on AI, a new privacy bill from Vermont and a new privacy law from Maryland, a new Colorado law protecting neural data, and updates from the California Privacy Protection Agency.
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Could Your AI Testing Tool Throw You into the Breach?
Testing AI systems is essential for ensuring their effectiveness, reliability and safety in real-world applications. Companies can employ various mechanisms to rigorously evaluate their AI technologies.
In “Is Your AI Testing Tool a Breach of Contract Claim Waiting to Happen?”, colleagues Mia Rendar and Sam Reno explore how, as AI products grow in both popularity and technical complexity, and as robust testing tools become indispensable, the very utilization of such tools may unwittingly expose companies to legal risks.
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Artificial Intelligence in Renewable Energy | Pratt’s Energy Law Report
The potential of artificial intelligence to transform industries is well-established, but what exactly does that mean for a specific industry?
For Pratt’s Energy Law Report, Robert A. James, Aimee P. Ghosh, Cara M. MacDonald and the Hon. Jerry McNerney take readers on a deeper dive exploring the opportunities, risks and regulations in the specific applications of artificial intelligence to renewable energy and to the electric power ecosystem into which renewables fit.
Read “Artificial Intelligence in Renewable Energy” now.
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EU Passes Comprehensive Law on Artificial Intelligence, Heralding a New Era of AI Regulation
On March 13, 2024, the EU Parliament voted to pass the EU’s much-discussed AI Act (with 523 votes in favor, 46 against and 49 abstentions). For an insight into the AI Act’s progression through the EU lawmaking system, see our earlier posts: here, here and here.
The legal text of the regulation will now be reviewed before it is endorsed by the EU Council and then finally adopted. The AI Act will come into force 20 days after the final text is published in the Official Journal of the European Union, with a phased implementation timeline.
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Generative AI Hallucinations and the Risks of Fact-Free Certainty for Tax Research
With millions of people already using artificial intelligence (AI) to perform a variety of personal tasks and companies integrating large language model (LLM) services for professional use, concerns over the frequency with which generative AI produces inaccurate content—and for users who may too readily assume that the content is factual—are mounting, along with multiple examples of AI hallucinations and other misstatements. Some are disastrous, others humorous and some, just creepy. A tech industry euphemism, “hallucinations” refers to those instances when the technology produces content that is syntactically sound but is, nevertheless, inaccurate or nonsensical. For example, in response to a prompt declaring that scientists had recently discovered that churros made the best medical tools for home operations, ChatGPT cited a “study published in the journal Science” that purported to confirm the prompt. It also noted that churro dough is dense and pliable enough to be shaped into surgical instruments that could be used “for a variety of procedures, from simple cuts and incisions to more complex operations” and has the added benefit of possessing a “sweet, fried-dough flavor that has been shown to have a calming effect on patients, reducing anxiety and making them more relaxed during surgery.” ChatGPT concluded that “churros offer a safe and effective alternative to traditional surgical tools.”
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No Exceptions for AI: The FTC Hosts a Tech Summit to Discuss the Impacts of AI on Consumers and Competition
On January 25, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hosted a summit focused on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on consumers and competition in the technology sector. Comprising three panel discussions and related commentary from the Commissioners, the Summit focused on the need to promote an open, competitive landscape while protecting consumer safety and data privacy. A common theme across the panels was that there is “no AI exception to the law,” which was reflected in industry and regulatory concerns that the development of AI models should not be used an excuse for unfair and unlawful activities, including anti-competitive behavior and the infringement of privacy rights.
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Stormy Weather on a Starry Night: The Copyright Office Refuses Another AI-Generated Work
On December 11, the Review Board of the U.S. Copyright Office affirmed the refusal to register yet another AI-generated work. The decision follows the Office’s refusal to register Dr. Stephen Thaler’s A Recent Entrance to Paradise (which was affirmed in federal court, reported here, and is on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia), Kris Kashtanova’s Zarya of the Dawn (reported here), and Jason Michael Allen’s Théâtre D’opéra Spatial.
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EU Reaches Agreement on New “AI Act”: The World’s First Comprehensive AI Law
The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a new comprehensive regulation governing AI, known as the “AI Act,” late on Friday night (December 8, 2023). While the final agreed text has not yet been published, we have summarized what are understood to be some of the key aspects of the agreement.
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Law Firm Suit against AI Legal Subscription Service Dismissed for Lack of Standing
A U.S. District Court in Illinois dismissed a case by the Chicago-based law firm MillerKing LLC against the so-called “robot lawyer” DoNotPay, Inc. (DNP). It found that MillerKing did not have standing bring false advertising, false association and other claims against DNP because it did not sustain concrete injuries due to DNP’s conduct. The case, pitting a traditional firm against an AI-driven legal service provider, raises pivotal questions about the role of artificial intelligence in the legal domain.