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DPD AI chatbot swears, calls itself ‘useless’ and criticises delivery firm | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 20, 2024

Jan. 20, 2024

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/20/dpd-ai-chatbot-swears-ca…> The delivery firm DPD has disabled part of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered online chatbot after a disgruntled customer was able to make it swear and criticise the company. Musician Ashley Beauchamp, 30, was trying to track down a missing parcel but was having no joy in getting useful information from the chatbot. Fed up, he decided to have some fun instead and began to experiment to find out what the chatbot could do. Beauchamp said this was when the “chaos started”. To begin with, he asked it to tell him a joke, but he soon progressed to getting the chatbot to write a poem criticising the company. With a few more prompts the chatbot also swore. Parcel delivery firm DPD have replaced their customer service chat with an AI robot thing. It’s utterly useless at answering any queries, and when asked, it happily produced a poem about how terrible they are as a company. It also swore at me. 😂 pic.twitter.com/vjWlrIP3wn — Ashley Beauchamp (@ashbeauchamp) January 18, 2024 Beauchamp shared the conversation on X, with the chatbot replying to one message: “Fuck yeah! I’ll do my best to be as helpful as possible, even if it means swearing.” Then in another instance, the chatbot calls itself a “useless Chatbot that can’t help you”. One post by Beauchamp, a classical musician from London, was viewed 800,000 times in 24 hours. Referring to the chatbot, he wrote on X: “It’s utterly useless at answering any queries, and when asked, it happily produced a poem about how terrible they are as a company.” DPD uses AI in its online chat to answer queries as well as human operators. The company said a new update had been behind the chatbot’s unusual behaviour and it had since disabled the part that was responsible and was updating its system as a consequence. “We have operated an AI element within the chat successfully for a number of years,” the firm said. “An error occurred after a system update yesterday. The AI element was immediately disabled and is currently being updated.” Beauchamp said that while his chatbot adventure had been “very amusing” there was a serious side to the exchange. “These chatbots are supposed to improve our lives, but so often when poorly implemented it just leads to a more frustrating, impersonal experience for the user,” he said. “I think it’s really struck a chord with people.” As for his parcel, DPD said it was in touch with Beauchamp to “resolve his issue”.

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Germany’s last solar panel producer prepares to close shop
by Luigi Scorca Jan. 19, 2024

Jan. 19, 2024

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/germanys-last-sola…

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L'essere umano che non cambia, ma potrebbe
by don Luca Peyron Jan. 19, 2024

Jan. 19, 2024

Triste notizia, che purtroppo non genera stupore. https://www.wired.it/article/stupro-metaverso-polizia/ -- _________________________ don Luca Peyron Pastorale Universitaria - Apostolato Digitale Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Meta documents show 100, 000 children sexually harassed daily on its platforms | Meta | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 19, 2024

Jan. 19, 2024

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/18/instagram-facebook-child…> Meta estimates about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment each day, including “pictures of adult genitalia”, according to internal company documents made public late Wednesday. The unsealed legal filing includes several allegations against the company based on information the New Mexico attorney general’s office received from presentations by Meta employees and communications between staff. The documents describe an incident in 2020 when the 12-year-old daughter of an executive at Apple was solicited via IG Direct, Instagram’s messaging product. “This is the kind of thing that pisses Apple off to the extent of threatening to remove us from the App Store,” a Meta employee fretted, according to the documents. A senior Meta employee described how his own daughter had been solicited via Instagram in testimony to the US Congress late last year. His efforts to fix the problem were ignored, he said. The filing is the latest in a lawsuit initiated by the New Mexico attorney general’s office on 5 December, which alleges Meta’s social networks have become marketplaces for child predators. Raúl Torrez, the state’s attorney general, has accused Meta of enabling adults to find, message and groom children. The company has denied the suit’s claims, saying it “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents”. Meta issued a statement in response to Wednesday’s filing: “We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we have over 30 tools to support them and their parents. We’ve spent a decade working on these issues and hiring people who have dedicated their careers to keeping young people safe and supported online.” A 2021 internal presentation on child safety was also referenced in the lawsuit. According to the suit, one slide stated that Meta is “underinvested in minor sexualization on IG, notable on sexualized comments on content posted by minors. Not only is this a terrible experience for creators and bystanders, it’s also a vector for bad actors to identify and connect with one another.” The complaint also highlights Meta employees’ concerns over child safety. In a July 2020 internal Meta chat, one employee asked: “What specifically are we doing for child grooming (something I just heard about that is happening a lot on TikTok)?” According to the complaint, he received a response: “Somewhere between zero and negligible.” Meta’s statement also says the company has taken “significant steps to prevent teens from experiencing unwanted contact, especially from adults”. The New Mexico lawsuit follows a Guardian investigation in April that uncovered how Meta is failing to report or detect the use of its platforms for child trafficking. The investigation also revealed how Messenger, Facebook’s private messaging service, is used as a platform for traffickers to communicate to buy and sell children. Meta employees discussed the use of Messenger “to coordinate trafficking activities” and facilitate “every human exploitation stage (recruitment, coordination, exploitation) is represented on our platform”, according to documents included in the suit. Yet, an internal 2017 email describes executive opposition to scanning Facebook Messenger for “harmful content” because it would place the service “at a competitive disadvantage vs other apps who might offer more privacy”, the lawsuit states. In December, Meta received widespread criticism for rolling out end-to-end encryption for messages sent on Facebook and via Messenger. Encryption hides the contents of a message from anyone but the sender and the intended recipient by converting text and images into unreadable cyphers that are unscrambled on receipt. Child safety experts, policymakers and law enforcement have argued encryption obstructs efforts to rescue child sex-trafficking victims and the prosecution of predators. Privacy advocates praised the decision for shielding users from surveillance by governments and law enforcement.

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Toward a Humane Metaverse: Challenges and Opportunities
by don Luca Peyron Jan. 18, 2024

Jan. 18, 2024

Un editoriale ed un numero di Giuseppe Riva ed altri che mi paiono interessanti. Buona lettura dl https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2023.29303.editorial _________________________ don Luca Peyron Pastorale Universitaria - Apostolato Digitale Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Re: [nexa] padre Benanti sostituisce Amato alla commissione algoritmi
by maurizio lana Jan. 17, 2024

Jan. 17, 2024

la domanda principale non credo che sia "perché un frate si occupa di intelligenza artificiale?", perché ognuno si occupa di quel che gli interessa e nessuno glielo può negare. semmai, se "tutto questo dibattito su Benanti non si è riscontrato su nessun altro membro di nessuna altra commissione" è perché 1) lo Stato è laico e Benanti è un religioso; e 2) l'etica non è monopolio dei religiosi. quindi la domanda principale è: "non ci sono in Italia studiose/i laici per presiedere la commissione algoritmi?" vedo una enorme "carenza di pensiero" in questa vicenda. sfiducia nel pensiero libero e critico - come se un pensiero libero e critico non esista nella società, come se la società non possa essere capace di uno sguardo auto-critico, non sia adulta. abbia bisogno di tutela superiore (?). Maurizio Il 14/01/24 12:00, Antonio <antonio(a)piumarossa.it> ha scritto: > Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2024 12:46:13 +0100 > From: Antonio<antonio(a)piumarossa.it> > To: Nexa<nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: Re: [nexa] padre Benanti sostituisce Amato alla commissione > algoritmi > > >> Ma tutto questo dibattito su Benanti non l'ho riscontrato su nessun altro >> membro di nessuna altra commissione... interessante > Il 10 gennaio Marco Damilano, all'interno della trasmissione "Il cavallo e la torre", ha intervistato padre Benanti [1]. > La prima domanda è stata: "perchè un frate si occupa di intelligenza artificiale?". > Risposta (grosso modo): "io vengo da degli studi brevi in ingegneria ... nel fare studi di teologia e filosofia volevo > rileggere quella parte, poi .... dottorato negli Stati Uniti (Istituto di Etica dell’Università di Georgetown - Washington 2013-2015 ndr), ecc." > > Ieri sera ho visto un film: "La felicità è un sistema complesso" [2], nel quale il protagonista, Enrico Giusti, (interpretato da Valerio Mastandrea), come occupazione lavorativa, convince imprenditori e giovani ereditieri di complessi industriali disinteressati alle sorti dell'azienda che dirigono, persuadendoli a vendere ad altri per evitare il fallimento e per ridurre al minimo le perdite e i licenziamenti. > C'è una scena in cui, presentandosi a mo' di scherzo ad una ragazza, dice, sono il migliore d'Italia nel mio lavoro e poi, dopo una pausa, aggiunge, anche perché credo di essere l'unico a farlo. > > Ecco, a me sembra che in Italia, coloro che hanno fatto studi scientifici e umanistici siano mosche bianche. > Ci riempiamo la bocca di "pensiero sistemico" ma poi, alla prova dei fatti, siamo chiamati solo e soltanto per esprimere il nostro parere nel campo in cui siamo specializzati (segnalo per approfondire l'argomento, Piero Dominici [3] e l'intervento prossimo venturo di Francesco Varanini all'OpenAIF [4]) > > Chiudo con le parole di Giuliano Amato (tanto per citare l'altro protagonista della vicenda) [5] > "Ma le domande, alla fin fine, sono soltanto della teologia cristiana? Solo per i credenti vi è una ragione che impedisce di sfuggire alla nostra finitezza? Solo per Agostino e per chi ne condivide la fede la radice del male è porre l'io al di sopra di tutto? L’hybris è punita soltanto perché viola le leggi degli dèi, o perché contrasta con i principi universali della convivenza umana?" > > Buon weekend, > Antonio > > [1]https://www.raiplaysound.it/audio/2024/01/Il-cavallo-e-la-torre---Artificiale---10012024-1e46030a-296d-4579-9057-97e62a40af6d.html > [2]https://www.raiplay.it/programmi/lafelicitaeunsistemacomplesso > [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G_lxUzWg9c > [4]https://www.francescovaranini.it/2024/01/la-formazione-degli-essere-umani-e-lapprendimento-delle-macchine-intervento-di-francesco-varanini-nel-ciclo-di-incontri-openaif-evento-online-aperto-19-gennaio-2024-ore-18/ > [5]http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/22323/1/Intelligenza%20Artificiale%20ONLINE%20DEF.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------------ old men ought to be explorers thomas stearns eliot, four quartets ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana Università del Piemonte Orientale Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli

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110° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 24 gennaio 2024, ore 13.00
by Valeria Bergantino Jan. 15, 2024

Jan. 15, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare al *110° Nexa Lunch Seminar *che si terrà *mercoledì 24 gennaio*, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00, con un incontro dal titolo: /*"*/*Towards Responsible AI in Banking: Addressing Bias for Fair Decision-Making*/*"*/. Ospite dell'incontro: *Alessandro Castelnovo* (Intesa Sanpaolo). _L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE._ _SEDE FISICA_ dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono *Portineria* e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate dai cartelli lungo il percorso. QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. _STANZA VIRTUALE _dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Di seguito maggiori dettagli: Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-110> NEXA 110° Nexa Lunch Seminar Mercoledì 24 gennaio 2024, ore 13.00 - 14.00 https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-110 <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-109> Towards Responsible AI in Banking:Addressing Bias for Fair Decision-Making Speaker: *ALESSANDRO CASTELNOVO* (Intesa Sanpaolo) *L'INCONTRO SI TERRÀ IN PRESENZA E ONLINE* *SEDE FISICA*: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano) Suonare al citofono *Portineria* - Seguire le indicazioni segnalate dai cartelli apposti lungo il percorso (Per maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci clicca QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti>) *STANZA VIRTUALE*: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Il crescente impiego di *Intelligenza Artificiale* (IA) nel settore bancario ha portato a notevoli progressi nelle operazioni quotidiane e nelle decisioni aziendali. Tuttavia, con l'adozione sempre maggiormente diffusa di sistemi di IA, emerge la necessità di affrontare le *sfide legate ai bias*, al fine di mitigarne gli effetti indesiderati e garantire decisioni eque e responsabili. Nel corso di questo seminario verrà presa in analisi la teoria relativa ai *bias* e alla *fairness*, approfondendone le caratteristiche, e saranno presentate delle applicazioni reali che si verificano nel mondo bancario. BIOGRAFIA - e informazioni supplementari: [Lunch110] *Alessandro CASTELNOVO* è lead Data Scientist in Intesa Sanpaolo, con oltre 7 anni di esperienza lavorativa nel campo dell'Intelligenza Artificiale. Sempre all'interno di Intesa fa parte di un team che supporta nella definizione e l'implementazione delle metriche di fairness più appropriate per ogni use case di AI. Laureato in statistica, sta completando un dottorato in Computer Science con specializzazione in fairness e eXplainable AI (XAI), con l'obiettivo di rendere gli algoritmi decisionali sempre più responsabili e affidabili. *Letture consigliate e link utili:* * Baumann, J.; Castelnovo, A.; Crupi, R.; Inverardi, N.; Regoli, D. (2023). /Bias on Demand: A Modeling Framework That Generates Synthetic Data With Bias/, disponibile al LINK <https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3593013.3594058> * Castelnovo, A.; Crupi, R.; Greco, G.; Regoli, D.; Penco, I.G.; Cosentini, A.C. (2022). /A clarification of the nuances in the fairness metrics landscape/, disponibile al LINK <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-07939-1> * Castelnovo, A.; Inverardi, N.; Malandri, L.; Mercorio, F.; Mezzanzanica, M.; Seveso, A. (2023). /Leveraging Group Contrastive Explanations for Handling Fairness/, disponibile al LINK <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-44070-0_17> * Castelnovo, A.; Malandri, L.; Mercorio, F.; Mezzanzanica, M.; Cosentini, A. (2022). /Towards Fairness Through Time/, disponibile al LINK <https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-93736-2_46> * Castelnovo, A. et al. (2020). /BeFair: Addressing Fairness in the Banking Sector/, disponibile al LINK <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9377894> Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> <https://www.instagram.com/nexa_center/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/3054864/admin/> #nexalunchseminar <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexalunchseminar&src=typd> #IntesaSanpaolo <https://twitter.com/intesasanpaolo> #UniversitàMilanoBicocca <https://twitter.com/unimib> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica), fondato nel 2006, è un centro di ricerca interdisciplinare che, in collaborazione con l’Università di Torino (in particolare il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza), studia le tecnologie digitali e il loro rapporto con la società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “Mercoledì di Nexa”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese alle ore 17 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma accessibile, i temi legati alla Rete: “intelligenza artificiale”, reti sociali, software libero, capitalismo della sorveglianza, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, condivisione di file, "big data" e "open data", “smart cities”, e molto altro. Al centro della maggior parte degli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino, i Proff. Marco Ricolfi e Maurizio Borghi dell'Università di Torino, lo staff, i Fellows del Centro Nexa e tutti i presenti. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Le registrazioni degli incontri sono disponibili qui: https://nexa.polito.it/audio-video. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Valeria Bergantino*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>. Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Officer Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ <https://nexa.polito.it/> mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it <mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request”
by Daniela Tafani Jan. 14, 2024

Jan. 14, 2024

Lazy use of AI leads to Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request” The telltale error messages are a sign of AI-generated pablum all over the Internet. Amazon users are at this point used to search results filled with products that are fraudulent, scams, or quite literally garbage. These days, though, they also may have to pick through obviously shady products, with names like "I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy." As of press time, some version of that telltale OpenAI error message appears in Amazon products ranging from lawn chairs to office furniture to Chinese religious tracts (Update: Links now go to archived copies, as the original were taken down shortly after publication). A few similarly named products that were available as of this morning have been taken down as word of the listings spreads across social media (one such example is archived here). Other Amazon product names don't mention OpenAI specifically but feature apparent AI-related error messages, such as "Sorry but I can't generate a response to that request" or "Sorry but I can't provide the information you're looking for," (available in a variety of colors). Sometimes, the product names even highlight the specific reason why the apparent AI-generation request failed, noting that OpenAI can't provide content that "requires using trademarked brand names" or "promotes a specific religious institution" or, in one case, "encourage unethical behavior." Le foto, i link e il seguito qui: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/lazy-use-of-ai-leads-to-amazon-products-…

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iredmail
by Stefano Quintarelli Jan. 10, 2024

Jan. 10, 2024

iredmail carino prima o poi lo dovro' provare https://www.iredmail.org/ ciao, s.

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AI copyright lawsuit hinges on the legal concept of ‘fair use’ - The Washington Post
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 10, 2024

Jan. 10, 2024

<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/04/nyt-ai-copyright-lawsu…> If a media outlet copied a bunch of New York Times stories and posted them on its site, that would probably be seen as a blatant violation of the Times’s copyright. But what about when a tech company copies those same articles, combines them with countless other copied works, and uses them to train an AI chatbot capable of conversing on almost any topic — including the ones it learned about from the Times? That’s the legal question at the heart of a lawsuit the Times filed against OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court last week, alleging that the tech firms illegally used “millions” of copyrighted Times articles to help develop the AI models behind tools such as ChatGPT and Bing. It’s the latest, and some believe the strongest, in a bevy of active lawsuits alleging that various tech and artificial intelligence companies have violated the intellectual property of media companies, photography sites, book authors and artists. Together, the cases have the potential to rattle the foundations of the booming generative AI industry, some legal experts say — but they could also fall flat. That’s because the tech firms are likely to lean heavily on a legal concept that has served them well in the past: the doctrine known as “fair use.” Broadly speaking, copyright law distinguishes between ripping off someone else’s work verbatim — which is generally illegal — and “remixing” or putting it to a new, creative use. What is confounding about AI systems, said James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and information law at Cornell University, is that in this case they seem to be doing both. Generative AI represents “this big technological transformation that can make a remixed version of anything,” Grimmelmann said. “The challenge is that these models can also blatantly memorize works they were trained on, and often produce near-exact copies,” which, he said, is “traditionally the heart of what copyright law prohibits.” From the first VCRs, which could be used to record TV shows and movies, to Google Books, which digitized millions of books, U.S. companies have convinced courts that their technological tools amounted to fair use of copyrighted works. OpenAI and Microsoft are already mounting a similar defense. “We believe that the training of AI models qualifies as a fair use, falling squarely in line with established precedents recognizing that the use of copyrighted materials by technology innovators in transformative ways is entirely consistent with copyright law,” OpenAI wrote in a filing to the U.S. Copyright Office in November. AI systems are typically “trained” on gargantuan data sets that include vast amounts of published material, much of it copyrighted. Through this training, they come to recognize patterns in the arrangement of words and pixels, which they can then draw on to assemble plausible prose and images in response to just about any prompt. Some AI enthusiasts view this process as a form of learning, not unlike an art student devouring books on Monet or a news junkie reading the Times cover-to-cover to develop their own expertise. But plaintiffs see a more quotidian process at work beneath these models’ hood: It’s a form of copying, and unauthorized copying at that. “It’s not learning the facts like a brain would learn facts,” said Danielle Coffey, chief executive of the News/Media Alliance, a trade group that represents more than 2,000 media organizations, including the Times and The Washington Post. “It’s literally spitting the words back out at you.” There are two main prongs to the New York Times’s case against OpenAI and Microsoft. First, like other recent AI copyright lawsuits, the Times argues that its rights were infringed when its articles were “scraped” — or digitally scanned and copied — for inclusion in the giant data sets that GPT-4 and other AI models were trained on. That’s sometimes called the “input” side. Second, the Times’s lawsuit cites examples in which OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model — versions of which power both ChatGPT and Bing — appeared to cough up either detailed summaries of paywalled articles, like the company’s Wirecutter product reviews, or entire sections of specific Times articles. In other words, the Times alleges, the tools violated its copyright with their “output,” too. Judges so far have been wary of the argument that training an AI model on copyrighted works — the “input” side — amounts to a violation in itself, said Jason Bloom, a partner at the law firm Haynes and Boone and the chairman of its intellectual property litigation group. “Technically, doing that can be copyright infringement, but it’s more likely to be considered fair use, based on precedent, because you’re not publicly displaying the work when you’re just ingesting and training” with it, Bloom said. (Bloom is not involved in any of the active AI copyright suits.) Fair use also can apply when the copying is done for a purpose different from simply reproducing the original work — such as to critique it or to use it for research or educational purposes, like a teacher photocopying a news article to hand out to a journalism class. That’s how Google defended Google Books, an ambitious project to scan and digitize millions of copyrighted books from public and academic libraries so that it could make their contents searchable online. The project sparked a 2005 lawsuit by the Authors Guild, which called it a “brazen violation of copyright law.” But Google argued that because it displayed only “snippets” of the books in response to searches, it wasn’t undermining the market for books but providing a fundamentally different service. In 2015, a federal appellate court agreed with Google. That precedent should work in favor of OpenAI, Microsoft and other tech firms, said Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and co-director of its High Tech Law Institute. “I’m going to take the position, based on precedent, that if the outputs aren’t infringing, then anything that took place before isn’t infringing as well,” Goldman said. “Show me that the output is infringing. If it’s not, then copyright case over.” OpenAI and Microsoft are also the subject of other AI copyright lawsuits, as are rival AI firms including Meta, Stability AI and Midjourney, with some targeting text-based chatbots and others targeting image generators. So far, judges have dismissed parts of at least two cases in which the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that the AI’s outputs were substantially similar to their copyrighted works. In contrast, the Times’s suit provides numerous examples in which a version of GPT-4 reproduced large passages of text identical to that in Times articles in response to certain prompts. That could go a long way with a jury, should the case get that far, said Blake Reid, associate professor at Colorado Law. But if courts find that only those specific outputs are infringing, and not the use of the copyrighted material for training, he added, that could prove much easier for the tech firms to fix. OpenAI’s position is that the examples in the Times’s lawsuit are aberrations — a sort of bug in the system that caused it to cough up passages verbatim. Tom Rubin, OpenAI’s chief of intellectual property and content, said the Times appears to have intentionally manipulated its prompts to the AI system to get it to reproduce its training data. He said via email that the examples in the lawsuit “are not reflective of intended use or normal user behavior and violate our terms of use.” “Many of their examples are not replicable today,” Rubin added, “and we continually make our products more resilient to this type of misuse.” The Times isn’t the only organization that has found AI systems producing outputs that resemble copyrighted works. A lawsuit filed by Getty Images against Stability AI notes examples of its Stable Diffusion image generator reproducing the Getty watermark. And a recent blog post by AI expert Gary Marcus shows examples in which Microsoft’s Image Creator appeared to generate pictures of famous characters from movies and TV shows. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. The Times did not specify the amount it is seeking, although the company estimates damages to be in the “billions.” It is also asking for a permanent ban on the unlicensed use of its work. More dramatically, it asks that any existing AI models trained on Times content be destroyed. Because the AI cases represent new terrain in copyright law, it is not clear how judges and juries will ultimately rule, several legal experts agreed. While the Google Books case might work in the tech firms’ favor, the fair-use picture was muddied by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in a case involving artist Andy Warhol’s use of a photograph of the rock star Prince, said Daniel Gervais, a professor at Vanderbilt Law and director of its intellectual property program. The court found that if the copying is done to compete with the original work, “that weighs against fair use” as a defense. So the Times’s case may hinge in part on its ability to show that products like ChatGPT and Bing compete with and harm its business. “Anyone who’s predicting the outcome is taking a big risk here,” Gervais said. He said for business plaintiffs like the New York Times, one likely outcome might be a settlement that grants the tech firms a license to the content in exchange for payment. The Times spent months in talks with OpenAI and Microsoft, which holds a major stake in OpenAI, before the newspaper sued, the Times disclosed in its lawsuit. Some media companies have already struck arrangements over the use of their content. Last month, OpenAI agreed to pay German media conglomerate Axel Springer, which publishes Business Insider and Politico, to show parts of articles in ChatGPT responses. The tech company has also struck a deal with the Associated Press for access to the news service’s archives. A Times victory could have major consequences for the news industry, which has been in crisis since the internet began to supplant newspapers and magazines nearly 20 years ago. Since then, newspaper advertising revenue has been in steady decline, the number of working journalists has dropped dramatically and hundreds of communities across the country no longer have local newspapers. But even as publishers seek payment for the use of their human-generated materials to train AI, some also are publishing works produced by AI — which has prompted both backlash and embarrassment when those machine-created articles are riddled with errors. Cornell’s Grimmelmann said AI copyright cases might ultimately hinge on the stories each side tells about how to weigh the technology’s harms and benefits. “Look at all the lawsuits, and they’re trying to tell stories about how these are just plagiarism machines ripping off artists,” he said. “Look at the [AI firms’ responses], and they’re trying to tell stories about all the really interesting things these AIs can do that are genuinely new and exciting.” Reid of Colorado Law noted that tech giants may make less sympathetic defendants today for many judges and juries than they did a decade ago when the Google Books case was being decided. “There’s a reason you’re hearing a lot about innovation and open-source and start-ups” from the tech industry, he said. “There’s a race to frame who’s the David and who’s the Goliath here.”

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