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nexa@server-nexa.polito.it

July 2023

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Re: [nexa] cibernetica

by Alberto Cammozzo

Grazie, tutti i contributi che ho letto finora sono molto interessanti. Di particolare rilevo per questa lista credo sia il saggio di Niccolò Monti 'The Unmeaning Machine. Cybernetics from Semiotics to AI' che affronta il tema della 'barrier of meaning'. Alberto On 13/07/23 20:46, Giovanni Leghissa via nexa wrote: > vi invio il link che vi permette di scaricare l'ultimo numero di > Philosophy kitchen, rivista di filosofia online che dirigo - numero > dedicato alla cibernetica. > spero possa interessare alcuni di voi > G > https://philosophykitchen.com/2023/06/pk18-cibernetica-prospettive-sul-pens… > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Fabio Alemagna

Il giorno dom 16 lug 2023 alle ore 14:21 Fabio Alemagna <falemagn(a)gmail.com> ha scritto: > Ho già più volte documentato come in molti casi interpretati come > "diffamazione" da qualcuno, in realtà ChatGPT neanche sapeva chi fosse > la persona a cui si stava riferendo e aveva supposto fosse un > personaggio di fantasia su cui imbastire una storia, come gli era > apparso l'utente avesse richiesto. Un esempio su tutti: > https://www.facebook.com/angamela.oibaf/posts/pfbid0pdSKfezqqNvAjr6W1F8r92d… Aggiungo che un nome e cognome non identificano una persona univocamente. Al di là dei casi di omonimia, se io stesso inventassi una storia con un personaggio di fantasia a cui però dovessi dare un nome e cognome di una o più persone esistenti senza farlo di proposito, sarei per questo responsabile di diffamazione? Ovviamente no. La famosa clausola "ogni riferimento a persone esistenti o a fatti realmente accaduti è puramente casuale" dovrebbe dirci qualcosa. Fabio

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Fabio Alemagna

Il giorno dom 16 lug 2023 alle ore 12:39 Giacomo Tesio <giacomo(a)tesio.it> ha scritto: > > se io mettessi online un generatore di > > frasi casuali, ma di senso compiuto, che prendessero spunto > > dall'input dell'utente, e se l'input dell'utente fosse il nome e > > cognome di una persona esistente, e se il software generasse, > > casualmente, frasi potenzialmente diffamatorie per quella persona > > [...] il responsabile dell'eventuale diffamazione sarei io > > Certo! > > Se sul tuo sito compaiono frasi diffamatorie il responsabile di tale > diffamazione sei ovviamente tu! Se sul "mio sito" *qualcun altro* mette il nome e cognome di qualcuno, se quel nome e cognome neanche esistono all'interno del data base che quel sito utilizza, non posso IO essere responsabile. > Vuoi illuminarci su ciò che a tuo parere non comprendiamo? Da nessuna parte esiste "Giacomo Desio" nella rete neurale di un LLM. Quello è un input fornito dall'utente, che fa partire un'inferenza, che produce un output che potrà a sua volta contenere contenere quell'input *fornito dall'utente*. Ciò avviene sulla base di un algoritmo che tenta di prevedere quale "token" (tipicamente una sillaba) è più probabile che segua i token forniti in precedenza dall'utente e quelli generati dall'algoritmo stesso, sulla base dei *pattern* che sono stati estratti dai testi su cui la rete neurale è stata istruita, con un pizzico di randomness aggiunta. A seconda di quanto corretti e quanti fossero i dati su cui la rete neurale è stata istruita, il risultato sarà più o meno accurato in termini di lessico e esattezza. L'esattezza non è garantita, è solo più o meno probabile. In ogni caso, l'output dipende dall'input, e l'input lo ha fornito l'utente. Ho già più volte documentato come in molti casi interpretati come "diffamazione" da qualcuno, in realtà ChatGPT neanche sapeva chi fosse la persona a cui si stava riferendo e aveva supposto fosse un personaggio di fantasia su cui imbastire una storia, come gli era apparso l'utente avesse richiesto. Un esempio su tutti: https://www.facebook.com/angamela.oibaf/posts/pfbid0pdSKfezqqNvAjr6W1F8r92d… Fabio

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Giacomo Tesio

Salve Fabio, On Sat, Jul 15, 2023 at 12:58:40PM +0200, Fabio Alemagna wrote: > Colgo entusiasmo per queste ipotesi e interpretazioni che la FTC fa. > > Io ritengo che siano invece, al di là del fatto che si tratta appunto > di ipotesi e interpretazioni, non fatti conclamati, considerazioni > sostanzialmente frutto di bias cognitivi e background culturale che > poca conoscenza hanno del funzionamento degli LLM. Io ho abbastanza chiaro come funzionino i LLM e sono felice [1] che anche negli USA qualcuno inizi a comprenderne abbastanza il funzionamento da comprendere gli obiettivi di chi le sviluppa e distribuisce. Vuoi illuminarci su ciò che a tuo parere non comprendiamo? > se io mettessi online un generatore di > frasi casuali, ma di senso compiuto, che prendessero spunto > dall'input dell'utente, e se l'input dell'utente fosse il nome e > cognome di una persona esistente, e se il software generasse, > casualmente, frasi potenzialmente diffamatorie per quella persona > [...] il responsabile dell'eventuale diffamazione sarei io Certo! Se sul tuo sito compaiono frasi diffamatorie il responsabile di tale diffamazione sei ovviamente tu! Che tu abbia usato notepad o un generatore stocastico di stronzate per realizzarle è un dettaglio implementativo irrilevante: se danneggi qualcuno, ne devi rispondere. In fondo sei tu ad aver deciso, assumendotene la responsabilità, di realizzare quel software e pubblicarne l'output! Giacomo [1]: Non sono però affatto entusiasta perché non considero particolarmente credibile la FTC (con o senza Khan) anzitutto per il framework interpretativo ormai inadeguato (una prospettiva meramente economica, in cui ci si limita alla protezione dei "consumatori") e intrinsecamente imperialista (al massimo ci si preoccupa dei consumatori _americani_).

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Fabio Alemagna

Il giorno dom 16 lug 2023 alle ore 09:37 Maurizio Borghi via nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > > Lina Khan sta facendo cose egregie alla FTC. È osteggiata non solo dalla lobby delle big tech, come è ovvio, ma anche dai molti giuristi antitrust americani fedeli all’impostazione neo-liberale. L'idea che semplicemente possa essere in errore non sovviene? https://www.wsj.com/articles/lina-khan-openai-chatgpt-letter-federal-trade-…

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] Undone Computer Science conference

by Roberto Resoli

Il 13 luglio 2023 15:06:55 CEST, "380°" <g380(a)biscuolo.net> ha scritto: >Buongiorno, > >grazie _infinite_ per la segnalazione, non conoscevo gli studi sulla >undone science [1], fantastico! Mi unisco ai ringraziamenti, veramente interessante! rob

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Maurizio Borghi

Lina Khan sta facendo cose egregie alla FTC. È osteggiata non solo dalla lobby delle big tech, come è ovvio, ma anche dai molti giuristi antitrust americani fedeli all’impostazione neo-liberale. Buona domenica M On Sat, 15 Jul 2023 at 13:02, Daniela Tafani <daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> wrote: > Buongiorno, Maurizio. > > > Grazie dell'analisi. > > > Prevedibilmente, è ben più vituperata Lina Khan. > > > Ne ha scritto ieri Cory Doctorow, con un appello finale a sostenerla, > evitando il cinismo da quattro soldi: > > Why they're smearing Lina Khan > > My god, they sure *hate* Lina Khan. This once-in-a-generation, > groundbreaking, brilliant legal scholar and fighter for the public > interest, the slayer of Reaganomics, has attracted more vitriol, mockery, > and dismissal than any of her predecessors in living memory. > > She sure must be doing something right, huh? > > A quick refresher. In 2017, Khan – then a law student – published *Amazon's > Antitrust Paradox* in the *Yale Law Journal*. It was a brilliant, > blistering analysis showing how the Reagan-era theory of antitrust (which > celebrates monopolies as "efficient") had failed on its own terms, using > Amazon as Exhibit A of the ways in which post-Reagan antitrust had left > Americans vulnerable to corporate abuse: > > https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox > > The paper sent seismic shocks through both legal and economic circles, and > goosed the neo-Brandeisian movement (sneeringly dismissed as "hipster > antitrust"). This movement is a rebuke to Reaganomics, with its celebration > of monopolies, trickle-down, offshoring, corporate dark money, > revolving-door regulatory capture, and companies that are simultaneously > too big to fail and too big to jail. > > This movement has many proponents, of course – not just Khan – but Khan's > careful scholarship, combined with her encyclopedic knowledge of the > long-dormant statutory powers that federal agencies had to make change, and > a strategy for reviving those powers to protect Americans from corporate > predators made her a powerful, inspirational figure. > > When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he surprised everyone > by appointing Khan to the FTC. It wasn't just that she had such a radical > vision – it was also that she lacked the usual corporate law experience > that such an appointee would normally require (experience that would ensure > that the FTC was helmed by people whose default view of the world is that > it should be structured and regulated by powerful, wealthy people in > corporate boardrooms). > > Even more surprising was that Khan was made *chair* of the FTC, something > that was only possible because a few Republican Senators broke with their > party to support her candidacy: > > > https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1171/vote_117_1_… > > These Republicans saw in Khan an ally in their fight against "woke" Big > Tech. For these senators, the problem wasn't that tech had got too big and > powerful – it was that there were a few limited instances in which tech > leaders failed to wield that power in the ways they preferred. > > The Republican project is a matter of getting turkeys to vote for > Christmas by doing a lot of culture war bullshit, cruelly abusing > disfavored sexual and racial minorities. This wins support from > low-information voters who'll vote against their class interests and > support more monopolies, more tax cuts for the rich, and more cuts to the > services they rely on. > > But while tech leaders are 100% committed to the project of permanent > oligarchic takeover of every sphere of American life, they are less > full-throated in their support for hateful, cruel discrimination against > disfavored minorities (in this regard, tech leaders resemble the corporate > wing of the Democrats, which is where we get the "Silicon Valley is a > Democratic Party stronghold" narrative). > > This failure to unquestioningly and unstintingly back culture war bullshit > put tech leaders in the GOP's crosshairs. Some GOP politicians actually > believe in the culture war bullshit, and are grossly offended that tech is > "woke." Others are smart enough not to get high on their own supply, but > worry that any tech obstruction in the bullshit culture wars will make it > harder to get sufficient turkey votes for a big fat Christmas surprise. > > Biden's ceding of antitrust policy to the left wing of the party, combined > with disaffected GOP senators viewing Khan as their enemy's enemy, led to > Khan's historic appointment as FTC Chair. In that position, she was joined > by a slate of Biden trustbusters, including Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ > Antitrust Division, Tim Wu at the White House, and other important, skilled > and principled fighters like Alvaro Bedoya (FTC), Rebecca Slaughter (FTC), > Rohit Chopra (CFPB), and many others. > > Crucially, these new appointees weren't just principled, they were *good > at their jobs*. In 2021, Tim Wu wrote an executive order for Biden that > laid out 72 concrete ways in which the administration could act – with no > further Congressional authorization – to blunt corporate power and insulate > the American people from oligarchs' abusive and extractive practices: > > https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down > > Since then, the antitrust arm of the Biden administration have been *fuckin' > ninjas*, Getting Shit Done in ways large and small, working – for the > first time since Reagan – to protect Americans from predatory businesses: > > https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff > > This is in marked contrast to the corporate Dems' champions in the > administration. People like Pete Buttigieg are heralded as competent > technocrats, "realists" who are too principled to peddle hopium to the > base, writing checks they can't cash. All this is cover for a King Log > performance, in which Buttigieg's far-reaching regulatory authority sits > unused on a shelf while a million Americans are stranded over Christmas and > whole towns are endangered by greedy, reckless rail barons straight out of > the Gilded Age: > > https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge > > The contrast between the Biden trustbusters and their counterparts from > the corporate wing is stark. While the corporate wing insists that every > pitch is outside of the zone, Khan and her allies are swinging for the > stands. They're trying to make life better for you and me, by declaring > commercial surveillance to be an unfair business practice and thus illegal: > > > https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupli… > > And by declaring noncompete "agreements" that shackle good workers to > shitty jobs to be illegal: > > https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal > > And naturally, this has *really* pissed off all the right people: > America's billionaires and their cheerleaders in the press, government, and > the hive of scum and villainy that is the Big Law/thinktank > industrial-complex. > > Take the *WSJ*: since Khan took office, they have published *67 vicious > editorials* attacking her and her policies. Khan is living rent-free in > Rupert Murdoch's head. Not only that, he's given her the presidential > suite! You *love* to see it. > > These attacks are worth reading, if only to see how flimsy and frivolous > they are. One major subgenre is that Khan shouldn't be bringing any action > against Amazon, because her groundbreaking scholarship about the company > means she has a conflict of interest. Holy *moly* is this a stupid thing > to say. The idea that the chair of an expert agency should recuse herself *because > she is an expert* is what the physicists call *not even wrong.* > > But these attacks are even more laughable due to who they're coming from: > people who have the most outrageous conflicts of interest imaginable, and > who were conspicuously silent for years as the FTC's revolving door > admitted the a bestiary of swamp-creatures so conflicted it's a wonder they > managed to dress themselves in the morning. > > Writing in *The American Prospect*, David Dayen runs the numbers: > > Since the late 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials worked directly for a > company that has business before the agency, with 26 of them related to the > technology industry. > > > https://prospect.org/economy/2023-06-23-attacks-lina-khans-ethics-reveal-pr… > > Take Christine Wilson, a GOP-appointed FTC Commissioner who quit the > agency in a huff because Khan wanted to do things for the American people, > and not their self-appointed oligarchic princelings. Wilson wrote an angry > break-up letter to Khan that the *WSJ* published, presaging their > concierge service for Samuel Alito: > > > https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-resigning-from-the-ftc-commissioner-ftc… > > For Wilson to question Khan's ethics took galactic-scale chutzpah. Wilson, > after all, is a commissioner who took cash money from Bristol-Myers Squibb, > then voted to approve their merger with Celgene: > > > https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4365601-Wilson-Christine-Smith-fina… > > Or take Wilson's GOP FTC predecessor Josh Wright, whose incestuous > relationship with the companies he oversaw at the Commission are so > intimate he's practically got a Habsburg jaw. Wright went from Google to > the US government and back again *four times*. He also lobbied the FTC on > behalf of Qualcomm (a major donor to Wright's employer, George Mason’s > Antonin Scalia Law School) after working "personally and substantially" > while serving at the FTC. > > George Mason's Scalia center practically *owns* the revolving door, > counting *fourteen* FTC officials among its affliates: > > > https://campaignforaccountability.org/ttp-investigation-big-techs-backdoor-… > > Since the 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials – both GOP appointed and > appointees backed by corporate Dems – "worked directly for a company that > has business before the agency": > > https://www.citizen.org/article/ftc-big-tech-revolving-door-problem-report/ > > The *majority* of FTC and DoJ antitrust lawyers who served between > 2014-21 left government service and went straight to work for a Big Law > firm, serving the companies they'd regulated just a few months before: > > > https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-Revolvin… > > Take Deborah Feinstein, formerly the head of the FTC's Bureau of > Competition, now a partner at Arnold & Porter, where she's represented > General Electric, NBCUniversal, Unilever, and Pepsi and a whole medicine > chest's worth of pharma giants before her former subordinates at the FTC. > Michael Moiseyev who was assistant manager of FTC Competition is now in > charge of mergers at Weil Gotshal & Manges, working for Microsoft, Meta, > and Eli Lilly. > > There's a whole bunch more, but Dayen reserves special notice for Andrew > Smith, Trump's FTC Consumer Protection boss. Before he was put on the > public payroll, Smith represented *120 clients* that had business before > the Commission, including "nearly every major bank in America, drug > industry lobbyist PhRMA, Uber, Equifax, Amazon, Facebook, Verizon, and a > variety of payday lenders": > > > https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/andrew_smith_foia_appeal_respon… > > Before Khan, in other words, the FTC was a "conflict-of-interest assembly > line, moving through corporate lawyers and industry hangers-on without > resistance for decades." > > Khan is the first FTC head with no conflicts. This leaves her opponents in > the sweaty, desperate position of inventing conflicts out of thin air. > > For these corporate lickspittles, Khan's "conflict" is that she has a *point > of view*. Specifically, she thinks that the FTC should do its job. > > This makes grifters like Jim Jordan furious. Yesterday, Jordan grilled > Khan in a hearing where he accused her of violating an ethics official's > advice that she should recuse herself from Big Tech cases. This is a > talking point that was created and promoted by *Bloomberg*: > > > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-16/ftc-rejected-ethics-advi… > > That ethics official, Lorielle Pankey, did *not*, in fact, make this > recommendation. It's simply untrue (she *did* say that Khan presiding > over cases that she has made public statements about could be used as ammo > against her, but did *not* say that it violated any ethical standard). > > But there's more to this story. Pankey herself has a *gigantic* conflict > of interest in this case, including a stock portfolio with $15,001 and > $50,000 in Meta stock (Meta is another company that has whined in print and > in its briefs that it is a poor defenseless lamb being picked on by big, > mean ole Lina Khan): > > > https://www.wsj.com/articles/ethics-official-owned-meta-stock-while-recomme… > > Jordan called his hearing on the back of this fake scandal, and then > proceeded to show his whole damned ass, even as his GOP colleagues got into > a substantive and even informative dialog with Khan: > > > https://prospect.org/power/2023-07-14-jim-jordan-misfires-attacks-lina-khan/ > > Mostly what came out of that hearing was news about how Khan is doing her > job, working on behalf of the American people. For example, she confirmed > that she's investigating OpenAI for nonconsensually harvesting a mountain > of Americans' personal information: > > https://www.ft.com/content/8ce04d67-069b-4c9d-91bf-11649f5adc74 > > Other Republicans, including confirmed swamp creatures like Matt Gaetz, > ended up agreeing with Khan that Amazon Ring is a privacy dumpster-fire. > Nobodies like Rep TomM assie gave Khan an opening to discuss how her agency > is protecting mom-and-pop grocers from giant, price-gouging, > greedflation-drunk national chains. Jeff Van Drew gave her a chance to talk > about the FTC's war on robocalls. Lance Gooden let her talk about her fight > against horse doping. > > But Khan's opponents did manage to repeat a lot of the smears against her, > and not just the bogus conflict-of-interest story. They also accused her of > being 0-4 in her actions to block mergers, ignoring the *huge* number of > mergers that have been called off or not initiated *because* M&A > professionals now understand they can no longer expect these mergers to be > waved through. Indeed, just last night I spoke with a friend who owns a > medium-sized tech company that Meta tried to buy out, only to withdraw from > the deal because their lawyers told them it would get challenged at the > FTC, with an uncertain outcome. > > These talking points got picked up by people commenting on Judge > Jacqueline Scott Corley's ruling against the FTC in the > Microsoft-Activision merger. The FTC was seeking an injunction against the > merger, and Corley turned them down flat. The ruling was objectively *very > bad*. Start with the fact that Corley's son is a Microsoft employee who > stands reap massive gains in his stock options if the merger goes through. > > But beyond this (real, non-imaginary, not manufactured conflict of > interest), Corley's judgment and her remarks in court were *inexcusably* > bad, as Matt Stoller writes: > > https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers > > In her ruling, Corley explained that she didn't think Microsoft would > abuse the market dominance they'd gain by merging their giant videogame > platform and studio with one of its largest competitors. Why not? Because > Microsoft's execs pinky-swore that they wouldn't abuse that power. > > Corely's deference to Microsoft's corporate priorities goes deeper than > trusting its execs, though. In denying the FTC's motion, she stated that it > would be unfair to put the merger on hold in order to have a full > investigation into its competition implications because Microsoft and > Activision had set a deadline of July 18 to conclude things, and Microsoft > would have to pay a penalty if that deadline passed. > > This is surreal: a judge ruled that a corporation's radical, massive > merger shouldn't be subject to full investigation because that corporation > itself set an arbitrary deadline to conclude the deal before such an > investigation could be concluded. That's pretty convenient for future > mega-mergers – just set a short deadline and Judge Corely will tell > regulators that the merger can't be investigated because the deadline is > looming. > > And this is all about the future. As Stoller writes, Microsoft isn't > exactly subtle about why it wants this merger. Its own execs said that the > reason they were spending "dump trucks" of money buying games studios was > to "spend Sony out of business." > > Now, maybe you hate Sony. Maybe you hate Activision. There's plenty of > good reason to hate both – they're run by creeps who do shitty things to > gamers and to their employees. But if you think that *Microsoft* will be > better once it eliminates its competition, then you have the attention span > of a goldfish on Adderall. > > Microsoft made *exactly* the same promises it made on Activision when it > bought out another games studio, Zenimax – and it broke every one of those > promises. > > Microsoft has a long, long, *long* history of being a brutal, abusive > monopolist. It is a *convicted* monopolist. And its bad conduct didn't > end with the browser wars. You remember how the lockdown turned all our > homes into rent-free branch offices for our employers? Microsoft seized on > that moment to offer our bosses keystroke-and-click level surveillance of > our use of our own computers in our own homes, via its Office365 bossware > product: > > https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge > > If you think a company that gave your boss a tool to spy on their > employees and rank them by "productivity" as a prelude to firing them or > cutting their pay is going to treat gamers or game makers well once they > have "spent the competition out of business," you're a credulous sucker and > you are gonna be *so* disappointed. > > The enshittification play is obvious: use investor cash to make things > temporarily nice for customers and suppliers, lock both of them in – in > this case, it's with a subscription-based service similar to Netflix's – > and then claw all that value back until all that's left is a big pile of > shit. > > The Microsoft case is about the future. Judge Corely doesn't take the > future seriously: as she said during the trial, "All of this is for a > shooter videogame." The reason Corely greenlit this merger isn't because it > won't be harmful – it's because she doesn't think those harms matter. > > But it does, and not just because games are an art form that generate > billions of dollars, employ a vast workforce, and bring pleasure to > millions. It also matters because this is yet another one of the Reaganomic > precedents that tacitly endorses monopolies as efficient forces for good. > As Stoller writes, Corley's ruling means that "deal bankers are sharpening > pencils and saying ‘Great, the government lost! We can get mergers through > everywhere else.’ Basically, if you like your high medical prices, you > should be cheering on Microsoft’s win today." > > Ronald Reagan's antitrust has colonized our brains so thoroughly that > commentators were surprised when, immediately after the ruling, the FTC > filed an appeal. *Don't they know they've lost?* the commentators said: > > > https://gizmodo.com/ftc-files-appeal-of-microsoft-activision-deal-ruling-18… > > They echoed the smug words of insufferable Activision boss Mike Ybarra: > "Your tax dollars at work." > > https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1679277251337277440 > > But *of course* Khan is appealing. The only reason that's surprising is > that Khan is working for us, the American people, not the giant > corporations the FTC is supposed to be defending us from. Sure, I get that > this is a major change! But she needs our backing, not our cheap cynicism. > > The business lobby and their pathetic Renfields have hoarded all the nice > things and they don't want us to have any. Khan and her trustbuster > colleagues want the opposite. There is no measure so small that the > corporate world won't have a conniption over it. Take click to cancel, the > FTC's perfectly reasonable proposal that if you sign up for a recurring > payment subscription with a single click, you should be able to cancel it > with a single click. > > The tooth-gnashing and garment-rending and scenery-chewing over this is > *wild*. America's biggest companies have wheeled out their biggest guns, > claiming that if they make it too easy to unsubscribe, they will lose > money. In other words, they are *currently* making money not because > people want their products, but because it's too hard to stop paying for > them! > > https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/ > > We shouldn't have to tolerate this sleaze. And if we back Khan and her > team, they'll protect us from these scams. Don't let them convince you to > give up hope. This is the start of the fight, not the end. We're trying to > reverse 40 years' worth of Reagonmics here. It won't happen overnight. > There will be setbacks. But keep your eyes on the prize – this is the most > exciting moment for countering corporate power and giving it back to the > people in my lifetime. We owe it to ourselves, our kids and our planet to > fight one. > > > > https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion > > Buon fine settimana, > > Daniela > ------------------------------ > *Da:* Maurizio Borghi <maurizio.borghi(a)unito.it> > *Inviato:* sabato 15 luglio 2023 12:37 > *A:* Daniela Tafani > *Cc:* nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > *Oggetto:* Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms > consumers > > Si può leggere qui il documento della FTC: > > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/67a7081c-c770-4f05-a39e-9d02117e50… > > L'indagine ha per oggetto la possibilità che i prodotti che incorporano > Large Language Models configurino pratiche sleali o ingannevoli in > relazione a 1) privacy e data security e 2) danni ai consumatori, inclusi > danni reputazionali (diffamazione, ecc.). Si compone di 49 "interrogazioni" > e 17 richieste di documentazione, inclusa ad esempio la richiesta di > documenti interni come linee guida o “dizionari” (sic) che spieghino che > cosa intende OpenAI per: a) "freely and openly available data", b) > "reinforcement learning from human feedback" e c) "hallucination" o > "hallucinate". > > Tra i molti aspetti interessanti dell'indagine, c'è il fatto che la FTC > sembri considerare OpenAI direttamente responsabile per i danni > eventualmente provocati da un prodotto (significativamente chiamato > "product" e non "service") che permette a terze parti, cioè agli > utilizzatori, di generare affermazioni false o diffamatorie a loro > insaputa. E ciò a dispetto degli "avvertimenti" riguardo alle c.d. > allucinazioni ecc. > > Nella sua impostazione generale, l'investigazione mi sembra inoltre > sgomberare il campo dalla distinzione tra "input" e "output" su cui si basa > molta della narrativa AI-innocentista, ovvero l'argomento secondo cui > l’utilizzo di training data è comunque lecito, indipendentemente dal tipo > di dato e dalle modalità di utilizzo, mentre è solo a livello dell’output > che può sorgere qualche responsabilità – eventualmente da “condividere” con > l’utilizzatore di turno. Nell’impostazione della FTC, invece, la pratica > commerciale che presiede al prodotto in questione va considerata nel suo > insieme,e in relazione agli effetti complessivamente provocati sul > consumatore. > > Infine, alcune alcune delle interrogazioni (ad es. la n. 22) riguardano in > maniera dettagliata la raccolta e il trattamento di dati personali, con la > richiesta di specificare le modalità impiegate da Open AI per escludere > l’impiego di informazioni personali come training data. Qui la FTC da’ > chiaramente per acquisito che il trattamento di dati personali come > training data senza consenso sia illegale. Forse una riprova del fatto che > i tanto vituperati rilievi del Garante italiano non erano così infondati? > > Un saluto cordiale, > > _______________ > *Maurizio Borghi* > Università di Torino > https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi > Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society <https://nexa.polito.it/> > > > Il giorno gio 13 lug 2023 alle ore 17:40 Daniela Tafani < > daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> ha scritto: > >> The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers >> The agency’s demand for OpenAI’s documents about AI risks mark the >> company’s greatest U.S. regulatory threat to date >> By Cat Zakrzewski >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/cat-zakrzewski/?itid=ai_top_zakrzewsk…> >> Updated July 13, 2023 at 10:44 a.m. EDT|Published July 13, 2023 at 6:00 >> a.m. EDT >> The Federal Trade Commission has opened an expansive investigation into >> OpenAI, probing whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT bot has run afoul >> of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at >> risk. >> >> The agency this week sent the San Francisco company a 20-page demand for >> records about how it addresses risks related to its AI models, according to >> a document reviewed by The Washington Post >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/67a7081c-c770-4f05-a39e-9d02117e50…>. >> The salvo represents the most potent regulatory threat to date to OpenAI’s >> business in the United States, as the company goes on a global charm >> offensive >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/09/sam-altman-openai-chat…> >> to shape the future of artificial intelligence policy. >> >> Analysts have called OpenAI’s ChatGPT the fastest-growing consumer app in >> history, and its early success set off an arms race among Silicon Valley >> companies >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-ai-arms-race-is-on…> >> to roll out competing chatbots. The company’s chief executive, Sam Altman, >> has emerged as an influential figure in the debate over AI regulation, >> testifying on Capitol Hill >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/16/sam-altman-open-ai-con…>, >> dining with lawmakers and meeting with President Biden >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/04/white-house-ai-ceos-me…> >> and Vice President Harris. >> >> Big Tech was moving cautiously on AI. Then came ChatGPT. >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/27/chatgpt-google-meta/?i…> >> >> But now the company faces a new test in Washington, where the FTC has issued >> multiple warnings >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/25/artificial-intelligenc…> >> that existing consumer protection laws apply to AI, even as the >> administration and Congress struggle to outline new regulations. >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/17/congress-regulating-ai…> >> Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has predicted >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/21/ai-regulation-us-senat…> >> that new AI legislation is months away. >> >> The FTC’s demands of OpenAI are the first indication of how it intends to >> enforce those warnings*. *If the FTC finds that a company violates >> consumer protection laws, it can levy fines or put a business under a consent >> decree >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/12/mudge-twitter-ftc-cons…>, >> which can dictate how the company handles data. The FTC has emerged as the >> federal government’s top Silicon Valley cop, bringing large fines against >> Meta >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/12/ftc-votes-approve-bill…>, >> Amazon >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/31/amazon-alexa-ring-ftc-…>and >> Twitter >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/25/twitter-fine-ftc/?itid…>for >> alleged violations of consumer protection laws. >> >> The FTC called on OpenAI to provide detailed descriptions of all >> complaints it had received of its products making “false, misleading, >> disparaging or harmful” statements about people. The FTC is investigating >> whether the company engaged in unfair or deceptive practices that resulted >> in “reputational harm” to consumers, according to the document. >> >> The FTC also asked the company to provide records related to a security >> incident that the company disclosed in March when a bug in its systems >> allowed some users to see payment-related information, as well as some >> data from other users’ chat history. The FTC is probing whether the >> company’s data security practices violate consumer protection laws. OpenAI >> said in a blog post <https://openai.com/blog/march-20-chatgpt-outage>that >> the number of users whose data was revealed to someone else was “extremely >> low.” >> >> OpenAI and the FTC did not immediately respond to requests for comment >> sent on Thursday morning. >> >> News of the probe comes as FTC Chair Lina Khan is likely to face a >> combative hearing >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/12/tech-giants-racking-up-w…> >> Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, where Republican lawmakers >> are expected to analyze her enforcement record and accuse her of mismanaging >> >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/09/musk-ftc-house-republi…>the >> agency. Khan’s ambitious plans to rein in Silicon Valley have suffered key >> losses in court. On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected the FTC’s attempt >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/11/microsoft-activision-f…>to >> block Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy the video game company Activision. >> >> The agency has repeatedly warned that action is coming on AI, in speeches, >> blog posts >> <https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/02/keep-your-ai-claims-check>, >> op-eds and news conferences. In a speech at Harvard Law School >> <https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Remarks-to-JOLT-4-1-2023.pdf> >> in April, Samuel Levine, the director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer >> Protection, said the agency was prepared to be “nimble” in getting ahead of >> emerging threats. >> >> “The FTC welcomes innovation, but being innovative is not a license to be >> reckless,” Levine said. “We are prepared to use all our tools, including >> enforcement, to challenge harmful practices in this area.” >> >> The FTC also has issued several colorful blog posts about its approach to >> regulating AI, at times invoking popular science fiction movies to warn the >> industry against running afoul of the law. The agency has warned >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/25/artificial-intelligenc…> >> against AI scams, using generative AI to manipulate potential customers and >> falsely exaggerating the capabilities of AI products. Khan also >> participated in a news conference with Biden administration officials in >> April about the risk of AI discrimination. >> >> “There is no AI exemption to the laws on the books,” Khan said at that >> event. >> >> The FTC’s push faced swift pushback from the tech industry. Adam >> Kovacevich, the founder and CEO of the industry coalition Chamber of >> Commerce, said it’s clear that the FTC has oversight of data security and >> misrepresentation. But he said it’s unclear if the agency has the authority >> to “police defamation or the contents of ChatGPT’s results.” >> >> "AI is making headlines right now, and the FTC is continuing to put >> flashy cases over securing results,” he said. >> >> Among the information the FTC is seeking from Open AI is any research, >> testing or surveys that assess how well consumers understand “the accuracy >> or reliability of outputs” generated by its AI tools. The agency made >> extensive demands about records related to ways OpenAI’s products could >> generate disparaging statements, asking the company to provide records of >> the complaints people send about its chatbot making false statements. >> >> The agency’s focus on such fabrications comes after numerous high-profile >> reports of the chatbot producing incorrect information that could damage >> people’s reputations. Mark Walters, a radio talk show host in Georgia sued >> OpenAI for defamation, alleging the chabot made up legal claims against >> him. The lawsuit >> <https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/walters-openai-co…>alleges >> that ChatGPT falsely claimed that Walters, the host of “Armed American >> Radio,” was accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the Second >> Amendment Foundation. The response was provided in response to a question >> about a lawsuit about the foundation that Walters is not a party to, >> according to the complaint. >> >> ChatGPT also said that a lawyer had made sexually suggestive comments and >> attempted to touch a student on a class trip to Alaska, citing an article >> that it said had appeared in The Washington Post. But no such article >> existed, the class trip never happened and the lawyer said he was never >> accused of harassing a student, The Post reported previously >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/05/chatgpt-lies/?itid=lk_…> >> . >> >> The FTC in its request also asked the company to provide extensive >> details about its products and the way it advertises them. It also demanded >> details about the policies and procedures that OpenAI takes before it >> releases any new product to the public, including a list of times that >> OpenAI held back a large language model because of safety risks. >> >> The agency also demanded a detailed description of the data that OpenAI >> uses to train its products, which mimic humanlike speech by ingesting text, >> mostly scraped from Wikipedia, Scribd and other sites across the open web. >> The agency also asked OpenAI to describe how it refines its models to >> address their tendency to “hallucinate,” making up answers >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/30/ai-chatbots-chatgpt-ba…>when >> the models don’t know the answer to a question. >> >> OpenAI also has to turn over details about how many people were affected >> by the March security incident and information about all the steps it took >> to respond. >> >> The FTC’s records request, which is called a Civil Investigative Demand, >> primarily focuses on potential consumer protection abuses, but it also asks >> OpenAI to provide some details about how it licenses its models to other >> companies. >> >> Europe moves ahead on AI regulation, challenging tech giants’ power >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/14/eu-parliament-approves…> >> >> The United States has trailed other governments in drafting AI >> legislation and regulating the privacy risks associated with the >> technology. Countries within the European Union have taken steps to limit >> U.S. companies’ chatbots under the bloc’s privacy law, the General Data >> Protection Regulation. Italy temporarily blocked >> <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/31/italy-ban-chatgpt-artificia…> >> ChatGPT from operating there due to data privacy concerns, and Google >> had to postpone the launch of its chatbot Bard after receiving requests for >> privacy assessments from the Irish Data Protection Commission. The European >> Union is also expected to pass AI legislation by the end of the year. >> >> There is a flurry of activity in Washington to catch up. On Tuesday, >> Schumer hosted an all-senator briefing with officials from the Pentagon and >> intelligence community to discuss the national security risks of artificial >> intelligence, as he works with a bipartisan group of senators to craft new >> AI legislation. Schumer told reporters after the session that it’s going to >> be “very hard” to regulate AI, as lawmakers try to balance the need for >> innovation with ensuring there are proper safeguards on the technology. >> >> On Wednesday, Vice President Harris hosted a group of consumer protection >> advocates and civil liberties leaders at the White House for a discussion >> on the safety and security risks of AI. >> >> “It is a false choice to suggest that we either can advance innovation or >> we protect consumers,” Harris said. “We can do both.” >> >> >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/13/ftc-openai-chatgpt-sam… >> _______________________________________________ >> nexa mailing list >> nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it >> https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa >> > > > -- > _______________ > *Maurizio Borghi* > Università di Torino > https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi > Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society <https://nexa.polito.it/> > > My Webex room: https://unito.webex.com/meet/maurizio.borghi > -- _______________ *Maurizio Borghi* Università di Torino https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society <https://nexa.polito.it/> My Webex room: https://unito.webex.com/meet/maurizio.borghi

July 16, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Fabio Alemagna

Il giorno sab 15 lug 2023 alle ore 12:58 Fabio Alemagna <falemagn(a)gmail.com> ha scritto: > > [...] > Trovo che sia una posizione sostanzialmente cretina. A scanso di equivoci, intendo "cretina" nell'accezione letterale del termine, ovvero "senza senso, scriteriata", etc etc, senza offesa intesa per nessuno.

July 15, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Daniela Tafani

Buongiorno, Maurizio. Grazie dell'analisi. Prevedibilmente, è ben più vituperata Lina Khan. Ne ha scritto ieri Cory Doctorow, con un appello finale a sostenerla, evitando il cinismo da quattro soldi: Why they're smearing Lina Khan My god, they sure hate Lina Khan. This once-in-a-generation, groundbreaking, brilliant legal scholar and fighter for the public interest, the slayer of Reaganomics, has attracted more vitriol, mockery, and dismissal than any of her predecessors in living memory. She sure must be doing something right, huh? A quick refresher. In 2017, Khan – then a law student – published Amazon's Antitrust Paradox in the Yale Law Journal. It was a brilliant, blistering analysis showing how the Reagan-era theory of antitrust (which celebrates monopolies as "efficient") had failed on its own terms, using Amazon as Exhibit A of the ways in which post-Reagan antitrust had left Americans vulnerable to corporate abuse: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox The paper sent seismic shocks through both legal and economic circles, and goosed the neo-Brandeisian movement (sneeringly dismissed as "hipster antitrust"). This movement is a rebuke to Reaganomics, with its celebration of monopolies, trickle-down, offshoring, corporate dark money, revolving-door regulatory capture, and companies that are simultaneously too big to fail and too big to jail. This movement has many proponents, of course – not just Khan – but Khan's careful scholarship, combined with her encyclopedic knowledge of the long-dormant statutory powers that federal agencies had to make change, and a strategy for reviving those powers to protect Americans from corporate predators made her a powerful, inspirational figure. When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he surprised everyone by appointing Khan to the FTC. It wasn't just that she had such a radical vision – it was also that she lacked the usual corporate law experience that such an appointee would normally require (experience that would ensure that the FTC was helmed by people whose default view of the world is that it should be structured and regulated by powerful, wealthy people in corporate boardrooms). Even more surprising was that Khan was made chair of the FTC, something that was only possible because a few Republican Senators broke with their party to support her candidacy: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1171/vote_117_1_… These Republicans saw in Khan an ally in their fight against "woke" Big Tech. For these senators, the problem wasn't that tech had got too big and powerful – it was that there were a few limited instances in which tech leaders failed to wield that power in the ways they preferred. The Republican project is a matter of getting turkeys to vote for Christmas by doing a lot of culture war bullshit, cruelly abusing disfavored sexual and racial minorities. This wins support from low-information voters who'll vote against their class interests and support more monopolies, more tax cuts for the rich, and more cuts to the services they rely on. But while tech leaders are 100% committed to the project of permanent oligarchic takeover of every sphere of American life, they are less full-throated in their support for hateful, cruel discrimination against disfavored minorities (in this regard, tech leaders resemble the corporate wing of the Democrats, which is where we get the "Silicon Valley is a Democratic Party stronghold" narrative). This failure to unquestioningly and unstintingly back culture war bullshit put tech leaders in the GOP's crosshairs. Some GOP politicians actually believe in the culture war bullshit, and are grossly offended that tech is "woke." Others are smart enough not to get high on their own supply, but worry that any tech obstruction in the bullshit culture wars will make it harder to get sufficient turkey votes for a big fat Christmas surprise. Biden's ceding of antitrust policy to the left wing of the party, combined with disaffected GOP senators viewing Khan as their enemy's enemy, led to Khan's historic appointment as FTC Chair. In that position, she was joined by a slate of Biden trustbusters, including Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division, Tim Wu at the White House, and other important, skilled and principled fighters like Alvaro Bedoya (FTC), Rebecca Slaughter (FTC), Rohit Chopra (CFPB), and many others. Crucially, these new appointees weren't just principled, they were good at their jobs. In 2021, Tim Wu wrote an executive order for Biden that laid out 72 concrete ways in which the administration could act – with no further Congressional authorization – to blunt corporate power and insulate the American people from oligarchs' abusive and extractive practices: https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down Since then, the antitrust arm of the Biden administration have been fuckin' ninjas, Getting Shit Done in ways large and small, working – for the first time since Reagan – to protect Americans from predatory businesses: https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff This is in marked contrast to the corporate Dems' champions in the administration. People like Pete Buttigieg are heralded as competent technocrats, "realists" who are too principled to peddle hopium to the base, writing checks they can't cash. All this is cover for a King Log performance, in which Buttigieg's far-reaching regulatory authority sits unused on a shelf while a million Americans are stranded over Christmas and whole towns are endangered by greedy, reckless rail barons straight out of the Gilded Age: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge The contrast between the Biden trustbusters and their counterparts from the corporate wing is stark. While the corporate wing insists that every pitch is outside of the zone, Khan and her allies are swinging for the stands. They're trying to make life better for you and me, by declaring commercial surveillance to be an unfair business practice and thus illegal: https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/12/regulatory-uncapture/#conscious-uncoupli… And by declaring noncompete "agreements" that shackle good workers to shitty jobs to be illegal: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal And naturally, this has really pissed off all the right people: America's billionaires and their cheerleaders in the press, government, and the hive of scum and villainy that is the Big Law/thinktank industrial-complex. Take the WSJ: since Khan took office, they have published 67 vicious editorials attacking her and her policies. Khan is living rent-free in Rupert Murdoch's head. Not only that, he's given her the presidential suite! You love to see it. These attacks are worth reading, if only to see how flimsy and frivolous they are. One major subgenre is that Khan shouldn't be bringing any action against Amazon, because her groundbreaking scholarship about the company means she has a conflict of interest. Holy moly is this a stupid thing to say. The idea that the chair of an expert agency should recuse herself because she is an expert is what the physicists call not even wrong. But these attacks are even more laughable due to who they're coming from: people who have the most outrageous conflicts of interest imaginable, and who were conspicuously silent for years as the FTC's revolving door admitted the a bestiary of swamp-creatures so conflicted it's a wonder they managed to dress themselves in the morning. Writing in The American Prospect, David Dayen runs the numbers: Since the late 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials worked directly for a company that has business before the agency, with 26 of them related to the technology industry. https://prospect.org/economy/2023-06-23-attacks-lina-khans-ethics-reveal-pr… Take Christine Wilson, a GOP-appointed FTC Commissioner who quit the agency in a huff because Khan wanted to do things for the American people, and not their self-appointed oligarchic princelings. Wilson wrote an angry break-up letter to Khan that the WSJ published, presaging their concierge service for Samuel Alito: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-im-resigning-from-the-ftc-commissioner-ftc… For Wilson to question Khan's ethics took galactic-scale chutzpah. Wilson, after all, is a commissioner who took cash money from Bristol-Myers Squibb, then voted to approve their merger with Celgene: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4365601-Wilson-Christine-Smith-fina… Or take Wilson's GOP FTC predecessor Josh Wright, whose incestuous relationship with the companies he oversaw at the Commission are so intimate he's practically got a Habsburg jaw. Wright went from Google to the US government and back again four times. He also lobbied the FTC on behalf of Qualcomm (a major donor to Wright's employer, George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School) after working "personally and substantially" while serving at the FTC. George Mason's Scalia center practically owns the revolving door, counting fourteen FTC officials among its affliates: https://campaignforaccountability.org/ttp-investigation-big-techs-backdoor-… Since the 1990s, 31 out of 41 top FTC officials – both GOP appointed and appointees backed by corporate Dems – "worked directly for a company that has business before the agency": https://www.citizen.org/article/ftc-big-tech-revolving-door-problem-report/ The majority of FTC and DoJ antitrust lawyers who served between 2014-21 left government service and went straight to work for a Big Law firm, serving the companies they'd regulated just a few months before: https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-Revolvin… Take Deborah Feinstein, formerly the head of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, now a partner at Arnold & Porter, where she's represented General Electric, NBCUniversal, Unilever, and Pepsi and a whole medicine chest's worth of pharma giants before her former subordinates at the FTC. Michael Moiseyev who was assistant manager of FTC Competition is now in charge of mergers at Weil Gotshal & Manges, working for Microsoft, Meta, and Eli Lilly. There's a whole bunch more, but Dayen reserves special notice for Andrew Smith, Trump's FTC Consumer Protection boss. Before he was put on the public payroll, Smith represented 120 clients that had business before the Commission, including "nearly every major bank in America, drug industry lobbyist PhRMA, Uber, Equifax, Amazon, Facebook, Verizon, and a variety of payday lenders": https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/andrew_smith_foia_appeal_respon… Before Khan, in other words, the FTC was a "conflict-of-interest assembly line, moving through corporate lawyers and industry hangers-on without resistance for decades." Khan is the first FTC head with no conflicts. This leaves her opponents in the sweaty, desperate position of inventing conflicts out of thin air. For these corporate lickspittles, Khan's "conflict" is that she has a point of view. Specifically, she thinks that the FTC should do its job. This makes grifters like Jim Jordan furious. Yesterday, Jordan grilled Khan in a hearing where he accused her of violating an ethics official's advice that she should recuse herself from Big Tech cases. This is a talking point that was created and promoted by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-16/ftc-rejected-ethics-advi… That ethics official, Lorielle Pankey, did not, in fact, make this recommendation. It's simply untrue (she did say that Khan presiding over cases that she has made public statements about could be used as ammo against her, but did not say that it violated any ethical standard). But there's more to this story. Pankey herself has a gigantic conflict of interest in this case, including a stock portfolio with $15,001 and $50,000 in Meta stock (Meta is another company that has whined in print and in its briefs that it is a poor defenseless lamb being picked on by big, mean ole Lina Khan): https://www.wsj.com/articles/ethics-official-owned-meta-stock-while-recomme… Jordan called his hearing on the back of this fake scandal, and then proceeded to show his whole damned ass, even as his GOP colleagues got into a substantive and even informative dialog with Khan: https://prospect.org/power/2023-07-14-jim-jordan-misfires-attacks-lina-khan/ Mostly what came out of that hearing was news about how Khan is doing her job, working on behalf of the American people. For example, she confirmed that she's investigating OpenAI for nonconsensually harvesting a mountain of Americans' personal information: https://www.ft.com/content/8ce04d67-069b-4c9d-91bf-11649f5adc74 Other Republicans, including confirmed swamp creatures like Matt Gaetz, ended up agreeing with Khan that Amazon Ring is a privacy dumpster-fire. Nobodies like Rep TomM assie gave Khan an opening to discuss how her agency is protecting mom-and-pop grocers from giant, price-gouging, greedflation-drunk national chains. Jeff Van Drew gave her a chance to talk about the FTC's war on robocalls. Lance Gooden let her talk about her fight against horse doping. But Khan's opponents did manage to repeat a lot of the smears against her, and not just the bogus conflict-of-interest story. They also accused her of being 0-4 in her actions to block mergers, ignoring the huge number of mergers that have been called off or not initiated because M&A professionals now understand they can no longer expect these mergers to be waved through. Indeed, just last night I spoke with a friend who owns a medium-sized tech company that Meta tried to buy out, only to withdraw from the deal because their lawyers told them it would get challenged at the FTC, with an uncertain outcome. These talking points got picked up by people commenting on Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley's ruling against the FTC in the Microsoft-Activision merger. The FTC was seeking an injunction against the merger, and Corley turned them down flat. The ruling was objectively very bad. Start with the fact that Corley's son is a Microsoft employee who stands reap massive gains in his stock options if the merger goes through. But beyond this (real, non-imaginary, not manufactured conflict of interest), Corley's judgment and her remarks in court were inexcusably bad, as Matt Stoller writes: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers In her ruling, Corley explained that she didn't think Microsoft would abuse the market dominance they'd gain by merging their giant videogame platform and studio with one of its largest competitors. Why not? Because Microsoft's execs pinky-swore that they wouldn't abuse that power. Corely's deference to Microsoft's corporate priorities goes deeper than trusting its execs, though. In denying the FTC's motion, she stated that it would be unfair to put the merger on hold in order to have a full investigation into its competition implications because Microsoft and Activision had set a deadline of July 18 to conclude things, and Microsoft would have to pay a penalty if that deadline passed. This is surreal: a judge ruled that a corporation's radical, massive merger shouldn't be subject to full investigation because that corporation itself set an arbitrary deadline to conclude the deal before such an investigation could be concluded. That's pretty convenient for future mega-mergers – just set a short deadline and Judge Corely will tell regulators that the merger can't be investigated because the deadline is looming. And this is all about the future. As Stoller writes, Microsoft isn't exactly subtle about why it wants this merger. Its own execs said that the reason they were spending "dump trucks" of money buying games studios was to "spend Sony out of business." Now, maybe you hate Sony. Maybe you hate Activision. There's plenty of good reason to hate both – they're run by creeps who do shitty things to gamers and to their employees. But if you think that Microsoft will be better once it eliminates its competition, then you have the attention span of a goldfish on Adderall. Microsoft made exactly the same promises it made on Activision when it bought out another games studio, Zenimax – and it broke every one of those promises. Microsoft has a long, long, long history of being a brutal, abusive monopolist. It is a convicted monopolist. And its bad conduct didn't end with the browser wars. You remember how the lockdown turned all our homes into rent-free branch offices for our employers? Microsoft seized on that moment to offer our bosses keystroke-and-click level surveillance of our use of our own computers in our own homes, via its Office365 bossware product: https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge If you think a company that gave your boss a tool to spy on their employees and rank them by "productivity" as a prelude to firing them or cutting their pay is going to treat gamers or game makers well once they have "spent the competition out of business," you're a credulous sucker and you are gonna be so disappointed. The enshittification play is obvious: use investor cash to make things temporarily nice for customers and suppliers, lock both of them in – in this case, it's with a subscription-based service similar to Netflix's – and then claw all that value back until all that's left is a big pile of shit. The Microsoft case is about the future. Judge Corely doesn't take the future seriously: as she said during the trial, "All of this is for a shooter videogame." The reason Corely greenlit this merger isn't because it won't be harmful – it's because she doesn't think those harms matter. But it does, and not just because games are an art form that generate billions of dollars, employ a vast workforce, and bring pleasure to millions. It also matters because this is yet another one of the Reaganomic precedents that tacitly endorses monopolies as efficient forces for good. As Stoller writes, Corley's ruling means that "deal bankers are sharpening pencils and saying ‘Great, the government lost! We can get mergers through everywhere else.’ Basically, if you like your high medical prices, you should be cheering on Microsoft’s win today." Ronald Reagan's antitrust has colonized our brains so thoroughly that commentators were surprised when, immediately after the ruling, the FTC filed an appeal. Don't they know they've lost? the commentators said: https://gizmodo.com/ftc-files-appeal-of-microsoft-activision-deal-ruling-18… They echoed the smug words of insufferable Activision boss Mike Ybarra: "Your tax dollars at work." https://twitter.com/Qwik/status/1679277251337277440 But of course Khan is appealing. The only reason that's surprising is that Khan is working for us, the American people, not the giant corporations the FTC is supposed to be defending us from. Sure, I get that this is a major change! But she needs our backing, not our cheap cynicism. The business lobby and their pathetic Renfields have hoarded all the nice things and they don't want us to have any. Khan and her trustbuster colleagues want the opposite. There is no measure so small that the corporate world won't have a conniption over it. Take click to cancel, the FTC's perfectly reasonable proposal that if you sign up for a recurring payment subscription with a single click, you should be able to cancel it with a single click. The tooth-gnashing and garment-rending and scenery-chewing over this is wild. America's biggest companies have wheeled out their biggest guns, claiming that if they make it too easy to unsubscribe, they will lose money. In other words, they are currently making money not because people want their products, but because it's too hard to stop paying for them! https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/ftc_cancel_subscriptions/ We shouldn't have to tolerate this sleaze. And if we back Khan and her team, they'll protect us from these scams. Don't let them convince you to give up hope. This is the start of the fight, not the end. We're trying to reverse 40 years' worth of Reagonmics here. It won't happen overnight. There will be setbacks. But keep your eyes on the prize – this is the most exciting moment for countering corporate power and giving it back to the people in my lifetime. We owe it to ourselves, our kids and our planet to fight one. https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion Buon fine settimana, Daniela ________________________________ Da: Maurizio Borghi <maurizio.borghi(a)unito.it> Inviato: sabato 15 luglio 2023 12:37 A: Daniela Tafani Cc: nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it Oggetto: Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers Si può leggere qui il documento della FTC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/67a7081c-c770-4f05-a39e-9d02117e50… L'indagine ha per oggetto la possibilità che i prodotti che incorporano Large Language Models configurino pratiche sleali o ingannevoli in relazione a 1) privacy e data security e 2) danni ai consumatori, inclusi danni reputazionali (diffamazione, ecc.). Si compone di 49 "interrogazioni" e 17 richieste di documentazione, inclusa ad esempio la richiesta di documenti interni come linee guida o “dizionari” (sic) che spieghino che cosa intende OpenAI per: a) "freely and openly available data", b) "reinforcement learning from human feedback" e c) "hallucination" o "hallucinate". Tra i molti aspetti interessanti dell'indagine, c'è il fatto che la FTC sembri considerare OpenAI direttamente responsabile per i danni eventualmente provocati da un prodotto (significativamente chiamato "product" e non "service") che permette a terze parti, cioè agli utilizzatori, di generare affermazioni false o diffamatorie a loro insaputa. E ciò a dispetto degli "avvertimenti" riguardo alle c.d. allucinazioni ecc. Nella sua impostazione generale, l'investigazione mi sembra inoltre sgomberare il campo dalla distinzione tra "input" e "output" su cui si basa molta della narrativa AI-innocentista, ovvero l'argomento secondo cui l’utilizzo di training data è comunque lecito, indipendentemente dal tipo di dato e dalle modalità di utilizzo, mentre è solo a livello dell’output che può sorgere qualche responsabilità – eventualmente da “condividere” con l’utilizzatore di turno. Nell’impostazione della FTC, invece, la pratica commerciale che presiede al prodotto in questione va considerata nel suo insieme,e in relazione agli effetti complessivamente provocati sul consumatore. Infine, alcune alcune delle interrogazioni (ad es. la n. 22) riguardano in maniera dettagliata la raccolta e il trattamento di dati personali, con la richiesta di specificare le modalità impiegate da Open AI per escludere l’impiego di informazioni personali come training data. Qui la FTC da’ chiaramente per acquisito che il trattamento di dati personali come training data senza consenso sia illegale. Forse una riprova del fatto che i tanto vituperati rilievi del Garante italiano non erano così infondati? Un saluto cordiale, _______________ Maurizio Borghi Università di Torino https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society<https://nexa.polito.it/> Il giorno gio 13 lug 2023 alle ore 17:40 Daniela Tafani <daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it<mailto:daniela.tafani@unipi.it>> ha scritto: The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers The agency’s demand for OpenAI’s documents about AI risks mark the company’s greatest U.S. regulatory threat to date By Cat Zakrzewski<https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/cat-zakrzewski/?itid=ai_top_zakrzewsk…> Updated July 13, 2023 at 10:44 a.m. EDT|Published July 13, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT The Federal Trade Commission has opened an expansive investigation into OpenAI, probing whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT bot has run afoul of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at risk. The agency this week sent the San Francisco company a 20-page demand for records about how it addresses risks related to its AI models, according to a document reviewed by The Washington Post<https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/67a7081c-c770-4f05-a39e-9d02117e50…>. The salvo represents the most potent regulatory threat to date to OpenAI’s business in the United States, as the company goes on a global charm offensive<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/09/sam-altman-openai-chat…> to shape the future of artificial intelligence policy. Analysts have called OpenAI’s ChatGPT the fastest-growing consumer app in history, and its early success set off an arms race among Silicon Valley companies<https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-ai-arms-race-is-on…> to roll out competing chatbots. The company’s chief executive, Sam Altman, has emerged as an influential figure in the debate over AI regulation, testifying on Capitol Hill<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/16/sam-altman-open-ai-con…>, dining with lawmakers and meeting with President Biden<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/04/white-house-ai-ceos-me…> and Vice President Harris. Big Tech was moving cautiously on AI. Then came ChatGPT.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/27/chatgpt-google-meta/?i…> But now the company faces a new test in Washington, where the FTC has issued multiple warnings<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/25/artificial-intelligenc…> that existing consumer protection laws apply to AI, even as the administration and Congress struggle to outline new regulations.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/17/congress-regulating-ai…> Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has predicted<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/21/ai-regulation-us-senat…> that new AI legislation is months away. The FTC’s demands of OpenAI are the first indication of how it intends to enforce those warnings. If the FTC finds that a company violates consumer protection laws, it can levy fines or put a business under a consent decree<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/12/mudge-twitter-ftc-cons…>, which can dictate how the company handles data. The FTC has emerged as the federal government’s top Silicon Valley cop, bringing large fines against Meta<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/12/ftc-votes-approve-bill…>, Amazon <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/31/amazon-alexa-ring-ftc-…> and Twitter <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/25/twitter-fine-ftc/?itid…> for alleged violations of consumer protection laws. The FTC called on OpenAI to provide detailed descriptions of all complaints it had received of its products making “false, misleading, disparaging or harmful” statements about people. The FTC is investigating whether the company engaged in unfair or deceptive practices that resulted in “reputational harm” to consumers, according to the document. The FTC also asked the company to provide records related to a security incident that the company disclosed in March when a bug in its systems allowed some users to see payment-related information, as well as some data from other users’ chat history. The FTC is probing whether the company’s data security practices violate consumer protection laws. OpenAI said in a blog post <https://openai.com/blog/march-20-chatgpt-outage> that the number of users whose data was revealed to someone else was “extremely low.” OpenAI and the FTC did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent on Thursday morning. News of the probe comes as FTC Chair Lina Khan is likely to face a combative hearing<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/12/tech-giants-racking-up-w…> Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, where Republican lawmakers are expected to analyze her enforcement record and accuse her of mismanaging <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/09/musk-ftc-house-republi…> the agency. Khan’s ambitious plans to rein in Silicon Valley have suffered key losses in court. On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected the FTC’s attempt <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/11/microsoft-activision-f…> to block Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy the video game company Activision. The agency has repeatedly warned that action is coming on AI, in speeches, blog posts<https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/02/keep-your-ai-claims-check>, op-eds and news conferences. In a speech at Harvard Law School<https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Remarks-to-JOLT-4-1-2023.pdf> in April, Samuel Levine, the director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the agency was prepared to be “nimble” in getting ahead of emerging threats. “The FTC welcomes innovation, but being innovative is not a license to be reckless,” Levine said. “We are prepared to use all our tools, including enforcement, to challenge harmful practices in this area.” The FTC also has issued several colorful blog posts about its approach to regulating AI, at times invoking popular science fiction movies to warn the industry against running afoul of the law. The agency has warned<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/25/artificial-intelligenc…> against AI scams, using generative AI to manipulate potential customers and falsely exaggerating the capabilities of AI products. Khan also participated in a news conference with Biden administration officials in April about the risk of AI discrimination. “There is no AI exemption to the laws on the books,” Khan said at that event. The FTC’s push faced swift pushback from the tech industry. Adam Kovacevich, the founder and CEO of the industry coalition Chamber of Commerce, said it’s clear that the FTC has oversight of data security and misrepresentation. But he said it’s unclear if the agency has the authority to “police defamation or the contents of ChatGPT’s results.” "AI is making headlines right now, and the FTC is continuing to put flashy cases over securing results,” he said. Among the information the FTC is seeking from Open AI is any research, testing or surveys that assess how well consumers understand “the accuracy or reliability of outputs” generated by its AI tools. The agency made extensive demands about records related to ways OpenAI’s products could generate disparaging statements, asking the company to provide records of the complaints people send about its chatbot making false statements. The agency’s focus on such fabrications comes after numerous high-profile reports of the chatbot producing incorrect information that could damage people’s reputations. Mark Walters, a radio talk show host in Georgia sued OpenAI for defamation, alleging the chabot made up legal claims against him. The lawsuit <https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/walters-openai-co…> alleges that ChatGPT falsely claimed that Walters, the host of “Armed American Radio,” was accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the Second Amendment Foundation. The response was provided in response to a question about a lawsuit about the foundation that Walters is not a party to, according to the complaint. ChatGPT also said that a lawyer had made sexually suggestive comments and attempted to touch a student on a class trip to Alaska, citing an article that it said had appeared in The Washington Post. But no such article existed, the class trip never happened and the lawyer said he was never accused of harassing a student, The Post reported previously<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/05/chatgpt-lies/?itid=lk_…>. The FTC in its request also asked the company to provide extensive details about its products and the way it advertises them. It also demanded details about the policies and procedures that OpenAI takes before it releases any new product to the public, including a list of times that OpenAI held back a large language model because of safety risks. The agency also demanded a detailed description of the data that OpenAI uses to train its products, which mimic humanlike speech by ingesting text, mostly scraped from Wikipedia, Scribd and other sites across the open web. The agency also asked OpenAI to describe how it refines its models to address their tendency to “hallucinate,” making up answers <https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/30/ai-chatbots-chatgpt-ba…> when the models don’t know the answer to a question. OpenAI also has to turn over details about how many people were affected by the March security incident and information about all the steps it took to respond. The FTC’s records request, which is called a Civil Investigative Demand, primarily focuses on potential consumer protection abuses, but it also asks OpenAI to provide some details about how it licenses its models to other companies. Europe moves ahead on AI regulation, challenging tech giants’ power<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/14/eu-parliament-approves…> The United States has trailed other governments in drafting AI legislation and regulating the privacy risks associated with the technology. Countries within the European Union have taken steps to limit U.S. companies’ chatbots under the bloc’s privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation. Italy temporarily blocked<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/31/italy-ban-chatgpt-artificia…> ChatGPT from operating there due to data privacy concerns, and Google had to postpone the launch of its chatbot Bard after receiving requests for privacy assessments from the Irish Data Protection Commission. The European Union is also expected to pass AI legislation by the end of the year. There is a flurry of activity in Washington to catch up. On Tuesday, Schumer hosted an all-senator briefing with officials from the Pentagon and intelligence community to discuss the national security risks of artificial intelligence, as he works with a bipartisan group of senators to craft new AI legislation. Schumer told reporters after the session that it’s going to be “very hard” to regulate AI, as lawmakers try to balance the need for innovation with ensuring there are proper safeguards on the technology. On Wednesday, Vice President Harris hosted a group of consumer protection advocates and civil liberties leaders at the White House for a discussion on the safety and security risks of AI. “It is a false choice to suggest that we either can advance innovation or we protect consumers,” Harris said. “We can do both.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/13/ftc-openai-chatgpt-sam… _______________________________________________ nexa mailing list nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it<mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it> https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa -- _______________ Maurizio Borghi Università di Torino https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society<https://nexa.polito.it/> My Webex room: https://unito.webex.com/meet/maurizio.borghi

July 15, 2023

Re: [nexa] The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

by Fabio Alemagna

Colgo entusiasmo per queste ipotesi e interpretazioni che la FTC fa. Io ritengo che siano invece, al di là del fatto che si tratta appunto di ipotesi e interpretazioni, non fatti conclamati, considerazioni sostanzialmente frutto di bias cognitivi e background culturale che poca conoscenza hanno del funzionamento degli LLM. Affermare che OpenAI sarebbe «direttamente responsabile per i danni eventualmente provocati da un prodotto (significativamente chiamato "product" e non "service") che permette a terze parti, cioè agli utilizzatori, di generare affermazioni false o diffamatorie a loro insaputa», è come dire che se io mettessi online un generatore di frasi casuali, ma di senso compiuto, che prendessero spunto dall'input dell'utente, e se l'input dell'utente fosse il nome e cognome di una persona esistente, e se il software generasse, casualmente, frasi potenzialmente diffamatorie per quella persona se l'utente le pubblicasse, e se poi l'utente le pubblicasse, il responsabile dell'eventuale diffamazione sarei io e non l'utente che ha fornito l'input e ha poi divulgato l'output. Trovo che sia una posizione sostanzialmente cretina. Fabio Il giorno sab 15 lug 2023 alle ore 12:37 Maurizio Borghi via nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > > Si può leggere qui il documento della FTC: > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/67a7081c-c770-4f05-a39e-9d02117e50… > > L'indagine ha per oggetto la possibilità che i prodotti che incorporano Large Language Models configurino pratiche sleali o ingannevoli in relazione a 1) privacy e data security e 2) danni ai consumatori, inclusi danni reputazionali (diffamazione, ecc.). Si compone di 49 "interrogazioni" e 17 richieste di documentazione, inclusa ad esempio la richiesta di documenti interni come linee guida o “dizionari” (sic) che spieghino che cosa intende OpenAI per: a) "freely and openly available data", b) "reinforcement learning from human feedback" e c) "hallucination" o "hallucinate". > > Tra i molti aspetti interessanti dell'indagine, c'è il fatto che la FTC sembri considerare OpenAI direttamente responsabile per i danni eventualmente provocati da un prodotto (significativamente chiamato "product" e non "service") che permette a terze parti, cioè agli utilizzatori, di generare affermazioni false o diffamatorie a loro insaputa. E ciò a dispetto degli "avvertimenti" riguardo alle c.d. allucinazioni ecc. > > Nella sua impostazione generale, l'investigazione mi sembra inoltre sgomberare il campo dalla distinzione tra "input" e "output" su cui si basa molta della narrativa AI-innocentista, ovvero l'argomento secondo cui l’utilizzo di training data è comunque lecito, indipendentemente dal tipo di dato e dalle modalità di utilizzo, mentre è solo a livello dell’output che può sorgere qualche responsabilità – eventualmente da “condividere” con l’utilizzatore di turno. Nell’impostazione della FTC, invece, la pratica commerciale che presiede al prodotto in questione va considerata nel suo insieme,e in relazione agli effetti complessivamente provocati sul consumatore. > > Infine, alcune alcune delle interrogazioni (ad es. la n. 22) riguardano in maniera dettagliata la raccolta e il trattamento di dati personali, con la richiesta di specificare le modalità impiegate da Open AI per escludere l’impiego di informazioni personali come training data. Qui la FTC da’ chiaramente per acquisito che il trattamento di dati personali come training data senza consenso sia illegale. Forse una riprova del fatto che i tanto vituperati rilievi del Garante italiano non erano così infondati? > > Un saluto cordiale, > > _______________ > Maurizio Borghi > Università di Torino > https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi > Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society > > > Il giorno gio 13 lug 2023 alle ore 17:40 Daniela Tafani <daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> ha scritto: >> >> The FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers >> >> The agency’s demand for OpenAI’s documents about AI risks mark the company’s greatest U.S. regulatory threat to date >> >> By Cat Zakrzewski >> Updated July 13, 2023 at 10:44 a.m. EDT|Published July 13, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT >> The Federal Trade Commission has opened an expansive investigation into OpenAI, probing whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT bot has run afoul of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at risk. >> >> The agency this week sent the San Francisco company a 20-page demand for records about how it addresses risks related to its AI models, according to a document reviewed by The Washington Post. The salvo represents the most potent regulatory threat to date to OpenAI’s business in the United States, as the company goes on a global charm offensive to shape the future of artificial intelligence policy. >> >> Analysts have called OpenAI’s ChatGPT the fastest-growing consumer app in history, and its early success set off an arms race among Silicon Valley companies to roll out competing chatbots. The company’s chief executive, Sam Altman, has emerged as an influential figure in the debate over AI regulation, testifying on Capitol Hill, dining with lawmakers and meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris. >> >> Big Tech was moving cautiously on AI. Then came ChatGPT. >> >> But now the company faces a new test in Washington, where the FTC has issued multiple warnings that existing consumer protection laws apply to AI, even as the administration and Congress struggle to outline new regulations. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has predicted that new AI legislation is months away. >> >> The FTC’s demands of OpenAI are the first indication of how it intends to enforce those warnings. If the FTC finds that a company violates consumer protection laws, it can levy fines or put a business under a consent decree, which can dictate how the company handles data. The FTC has emerged as the federal government’s top Silicon Valley cop, bringing large fines against Meta, Amazon and Twitter for alleged violations of consumer protection laws. >> >> The FTC called on OpenAI to provide detailed descriptions of all complaints it had received of its products making “false, misleading, disparaging or harmful” statements about people. The FTC is investigating whether the company engaged in unfair or deceptive practices that resulted in “reputational harm” to consumers, according to the document. >> >> The FTC also asked the company to provide records related to a security incident that the company disclosed in March when a bug in its systems allowed some users to see payment-related information, as well as some data from other users’ chat history. The FTC is probing whether the company’s data security practices violate consumer protection laws. OpenAI said in a blog post that the number of users whose data was revealed to someone else was “extremely low.” >> >> OpenAI and the FTC did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent on Thursday morning. >> >> News of the probe comes as FTC Chair Lina Khan is likely to face a combative hearing Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, where Republican lawmakers are expected to analyze her enforcement record and accuse her of mismanaging the agency. Khan’s ambitious plans to rein in Silicon Valley have suffered key losses in court. On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected the FTC’s attempt to block Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy the video game company Activision. >> >> The agency has repeatedly warned that action is coming on AI, in speeches, blog posts, op-eds and news conferences. In a speech at Harvard Law School in April, Samuel Levine, the director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the agency was prepared to be “nimble” in getting ahead of emerging threats. >> >> “The FTC welcomes innovation, but being innovative is not a license to be reckless,” Levine said. “We are prepared to use all our tools, including enforcement, to challenge harmful practices in this area.” >> >> The FTC also has issued several colorful blog posts about its approach to regulating AI, at times invoking popular science fiction movies to warn the industry against running afoul of the law. The agency has warned against AI scams, using generative AI to manipulate potential customers and falsely exaggerating the capabilities of AI products. Khan also participated in a news conference with Biden administration officials in April about the risk of AI discrimination. >> >> “There is no AI exemption to the laws on the books,” Khan said at that event. >> >> The FTC’s push faced swift pushback from the tech industry. Adam Kovacevich, the founder and CEO of the industry coalition Chamber of Commerce, said it’s clear that the FTC has oversight of data security and misrepresentation. But he said it’s unclear if the agency has the authority to “police defamation or the contents of ChatGPT’s results.” >> >> "AI is making headlines right now, and the FTC is continuing to put flashy cases over securing results,” he said. >> >> Among the information the FTC is seeking from Open AI is any research, testing or surveys that assess how well consumers understand “the accuracy or reliability of outputs” generated by its AI tools. The agency made extensive demands about records related to ways OpenAI’s products could generate disparaging statements, asking the company to provide records of the complaints people send about its chatbot making false statements. >> >> >> The agency’s focus on such fabrications comes after numerous high-profile reports of the chatbot producing incorrect information that could damage people’s reputations. Mark Walters, a radio talk show host in Georgia sued OpenAI for defamation, alleging the chabot made up legal claims against him. The lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT falsely claimed that Walters, the host of “Armed American Radio,” was accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the Second Amendment Foundation. The response was provided in response to a question about a lawsuit about the foundation that Walters is not a party to, according to the complaint. >> >> ChatGPT also said that a lawyer had made sexually suggestive comments and attempted to touch a student on a class trip to Alaska, citing an article that it said had appeared in The Washington Post. But no such article existed, the class trip never happened and the lawyer said he was never accused of harassing a student, The Post reported previously. >> >> The FTC in its request also asked the company to provide extensive details about its products and the way it advertises them. It also demanded details about the policies and procedures that OpenAI takes before it releases any new product to the public, including a list of times that OpenAI held back a large language model because of safety risks. >> >> >> The agency also demanded a detailed description of the data that OpenAI uses to train its products, which mimic humanlike speech by ingesting text, mostly scraped from Wikipedia, Scribd and other sites across the open web. The agency also asked OpenAI to describe how it refines its models to address their tendency to “hallucinate,” making up answers when the models don’t know the answer to a question. >> >> OpenAI also has to turn over details about how many people were affected by the March security incident and information about all the steps it took to respond. >> >> The FTC’s records request, which is called a Civil Investigative Demand, primarily focuses on potential consumer protection abuses, but it also asks OpenAI to provide some details about how it licenses its models to other companies. >> >> Europe moves ahead on AI regulation, challenging tech giants’ power >> >> The United States has trailed other governments in drafting AI legislation and regulating the privacy risks associated with the technology. Countries within the European Union have taken steps to limit U.S. companies’ chatbots under the bloc’s privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation. Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT from operating there due to data privacy concerns, and Google had to postpone the launch of its chatbot Bard after receiving requests for privacy assessments from the Irish Data Protection Commission. The European Union is also expected to pass AI legislation by the end of the year. >> >> There is a flurry of activity in Washington to catch up. On Tuesday, Schumer hosted an all-senator briefing with officials from the Pentagon and intelligence community to discuss the national security risks of artificial intelligence, as he works with a bipartisan group of senators to craft new AI legislation. Schumer told reporters after the session that it’s going to be “very hard” to regulate AI, as lawmakers try to balance the need for innovation with ensuring there are proper safeguards on the technology. >> >> On Wednesday, Vice President Harris hosted a group of consumer protection advocates and civil liberties leaders at the White House for a discussion on the safety and security risks of AI. >> >> “It is a false choice to suggest that we either can advance innovation or we protect consumers,” Harris said. “We can do both.” >> >> >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/13/ftc-openai-chatgpt-sam… >> >> _______________________________________________ >> nexa mailing list >> nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it >> https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > > > > -- > _______________ > Maurizio Borghi > Università di Torino > https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi > Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society > > My Webex room: https://unito.webex.com/meet/maurizio.borghi > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa

July 15, 2023

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