AI Confounds Intellectual Property Law

The rise of Artificial Intelligence reminds of the days when the internet was new and expanding. Many will recall that businesses were initially discouraged from making it a tool of their marketing. We were encouraged to think of it as an educational and nonprofit enterprise.

That changed quickly as everyone figured out how to take advantage of its amazing capabilities. The maze of hyperlinks burgeoned ‘and the rest is history.’

Likewise, AI is transitioning before our eyes from an amazement into a powerful tool to create new services and derive profits. We must now try to understand ‘prompt engineering’ and ‘convolutional neural networks’ or, for some, start using ChatGPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) just as we learned to take advantage of Facebook or QuickBooks online.

An interesting program of TALK Louisville was presented in April to look at “How AI and IP Are Evolving.” The featured speakers were attorneys Brantley Shumaker with Gray, Ice, Higdon, and Stephen Hall with Wyatt, Tarrant and Combs.

Intellectual property is a mine field which these men assist customers to traverse. Even new patents are out-of-date as AI evolves and takes a lead role in producing content.

AI just wrote a ‘blurb’ for me when I searched for AI + Microsoft lawsuit:

Microsoft and OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) startup, have been involved in several lawsuits related to the use of copyrighted materials to train AI models. The lawsuits have been filed by various authors, including nonfiction writers and journalists, who claim that OpenAI and Microsoft have used their copyrighted works without permission to train their AI systems.

One of the most notable lawsuits was filed by The New York Times in December 2023, alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft had used millions of the publication’s articles to train their AI models, including the popular chatbot ChatGPT. The lawsuit claims that the companies’ use of the Times’ content has resulted in “billions of dollars” in damages.

Microsoft has responded to the lawsuit, filing a motion to dismiss parts of the complaint and arguing that the lawsuit is “near-sighted” and akin to Hollywood’s losing backlash against the VCR. OpenAI has also filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that the Times “tricked” ChatGPT into directly reproducing copyrighted material from the publication.

In addition to the lawsuit filed by The New York Times, several other authors and writers have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies have used their copyrighted works without permission to train their AI models. … The lawsuits have raised important questions about the use of copyrighted materials in the development of AI systems and the potential impact on the creative industries. …

Just in case I could be sued for using too much of the blurb, I will stop at the “fair use” copyright rule, and suggest that you use my prompt, free, to read more.

AI and Cybersecurity will be on the TALK agenda for its June 14 Eighth Annual Cyber Security Summit.