Generals preparing to fight the last war…

https://www.bespacific.com/law-unlimited-welcome-to-the-re-envisioned-legal-profession/

Law Unlimited: Welcome to the re-envisioned legal profession

Via LLRX – Law Unlimited: Welcome to the re-envisioned legal profession – Will Generative AI destroy law firms? Jordan Furlong argues this may only occur if lawyers are too fixed in their ways to see the possibilities that lie beyond who we’ve always been and what we’ve always done.

Keeping up.

https://www.pogowasright.org/webinar-the-new-breed-of-state-health-privacy-laws/

Webinar – The New Breed of State Health Privacy Laws

There are so many webinars each week that I generally don’t sign up for them or post links to them, but this one really caught my eye because there have been so many recent changes at the state level.

The New Breed of State Health Privacy Laws

Thursday, July 27, 2023 at 2 PM ET

The State of Washington passed the My Health My Data (MHMD) Law, a very broad and powerful health privacy law that might be the strictest privacy law in the U.S. This law was soon followed by state health privacy laws in Nevada and Connecticut. These laws have implications far beyond health. In this webinar, Daniel Solove discusses these new laws with Mike Hintze (Hintze Law).

More information and registration form at TeachPrivacy.

Some protection but possibly not enough?

https://www.bespacific.com/authorbots/

Authorbots

Bambauer, Derek E. and Surdeanu, Mihai, Authorbots (May 9, 2023). 3 Journal of Free Speech Law (forthcoming 2023), Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 23-13, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4443714 – “ChatGPT has exploded into the popular consciousness in recent months, and the hype and concerns about the program have only grown louder with the release of GPT-4, a more powerful version of the software. Its deployment, including with applications such as Microsoft Office, has raised questions about whether the developers or distributors of code that includes ChatGPT, or similar generative pre-trained transformers, could face liability for tort claims such as defamation or false light. One important potential barrier to these claims is the immunity conferred by 47 U.S.C. § 230, popularly known as “Section 230.” In this Essay, we make two claims. First, Section 230 is likely to protect the creators, distributors, and hosts of online services that include ChatGPT in many cases. Users of those services, though, may be at greater legal risk than is commonly believed. Second, ChatGPT and its ilk make the analysis of the Section 230 safe harbor more complex, both substantively and procedurally. This is likely a negative consequence for the software’s developers and hosts, since complexity in law tends to generate uncertainty, which in turn creates cost. Nonetheless, we contend that Section 230 has more of a role to play in legal questions about ChatGPT than most commentators do—including the principal legislative drafters of Section 230—and that this result is generally a desirable one.”

Who’da thunk it?

https://www.makeuseof.com/chatgpt-write-poetry-book-how-to/

How to Use ChatGPT to Write a Poetry Book

Who determines “possible criminal behavior?” (Is it behavior no innocent person could possibly blunder into?)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2023/07/17/license-plate-reader-ai-criminal/?sh=7c07b0a43ccc

This AI Watches Millions Of Cars Daily And Tells Cops If You’re Driving Like A Criminal

In March of 2022, David Zayas was driving down the Hutchinson River Parkway in Scarsdale. His car, a gray Chevrolet, was entirely unremarkable, as was its speed. But to the Westchester County Police Department, the car was cause for concern and Zayas a possible criminal; its powerful new AI tool had identified the vehicle’s behavior as suspicious.

Searching through a database of 1.6 billion license plate records collected over the last two years from locations across New York State, the AI determined that Zayas’ car was on a journey typical of a drug trafficker. According to a Department of Justice prosecutor filing, it made nine trips from Massachusetts to different parts of New York between October 2020 and August 2021 following routes known to be used by narcotics pushers and for conspicuously short stays. So on March 10 last year, Westchester PD pulled him over and searched his car, finding 112 grams of crack cocaine, a semiautomatic pistol and $34,000 in cash inside, according to court documents. A year later, Zayas pleaded guilty to a drug trafficking charge.

(Related)

https://www.pogowasright.org/bill-that-would-force-internet-companies-to-spy-on-their-users-for-the-dea-headed-to-senate-floor/

Bill That Would Force Internet Companies to Spy on Their Users for the DEA Headed to Senate Floor

Lucas Ropek reported:

Internet drug sales have skyrocketed in recent years, allowing powerful narcotics to be peddled to American teenagers and adolescents. It’s a trend that’s led to an epidemic of overdoses and left countless young people dead. Now, a bill scheduled for a congressional vote seeks to tackle the problem, but it comes with a major catch. Critics worry that the legislative effort to crack down on the drug trade could convert large parts of the internet into a federal spying apparatus.

The Cooper Davis Act was introduced by Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in March and has been under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee for weeks. Named after a 16-year-old Kansas boy who died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago, the bipartisan bill, which the committee is scheduled to vote on Thursday, has spurred intense debate. Proponents say it could help address a spiraling public health crisis; critics see it as a gateway to broad and indiscriminate internet surveillance.

Read more at Gizmodo.

On Friday, the bill was headed to the Senate Floor.

Likely that writing by a committee would look like writing generated from a large library of examples.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/07/why-ai-detectors-think-the-us-constitution-was-written-by-ai/

Why AI detectors think the US Constitution was written by AI

If you feed America's most important legal document—the US Constitution —into a tool designed to detect text written by AI models like ChatGPT, it will tell you that the document was almost certainly written by AI. But unless James Madison was a time traveler, that can't be the case. Why do AI writing detection tools give false positives? We spoke to several experts—and the creator of AI writing detector GPTZero—to find out.

Among news stories of overzealous professors flunking an entire class due to the suspicion of AI writing tool use and kids falsely accused of using ChatGPT, generative AI has education in a tizzy. Some think it represents an existential crisis. Teachers relying on educational methods developed over the past century have been scrambling for ways to keep the status quo—the tradition of relying on the essay as a tool to gauge student mastery of a topic.

As tempting as it is to rely on AI tools to detect AI-generated writing, evidence so far has shown that they are not reliable. Due to false positives, AI writing detectors such as GPTZero, ZeroGPT, and OpenAI's Text Classifier cannot be trusted to detect text composed by large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.

If you feed GPTZero a section of the US Constitution, it says the text is "likely to be written entirely by AI." Several times over the past six months, screenshots of other AI detectors showing similar results have gone viral on social media, inspiring confusion and plenty of jokes about the founding fathers being robots. It turns out the same thing happens with selections from The Bible, which also show up as being AI-generated.

So much for the “AI will replace programmers” idea…

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66178247

AI trend drives rise in students wanting to study computing

This year's application data showed 18-year-olds were increasingly inspired to study computing "thanks to the rise of digital and AI", UCAS chief executive Clare Marchant said.

Applications to study computing were up almost 10% compared to 2022.

Resource.

https://www.makeuseof.com/free-websites-to-learn-data-analytics/?newsletter_popup=1

7 Websites to Learn Data Analytics for Free

There are many data-analysis tools and processes that assist in manipulating data. These range from spreadsheets, reporting tools, and data visualization to data mining programs.

To use these tools, you need some essential data analysis skills. The following free-to-use websites will help you acquire the necessary analytical skills. You can use their courses to boost your data analytics skills.

I have been waiting for an indication that the US has been using the technology France announced it will implement. (https://gizmodo.com/france-bill-allows-police-access-phones-camera-gps-1850609772 )

https://www.ft.com/content/6567e7f2-c5fb-4da4-bd95-bf7ceef54038

Thousands of Russian officials to give up iPhones over US spying fears

FSB enforces crackdown on use by state officials after claiming it uncovered an espionage operation using Apple devices

… The ban on iPhones, iPad tablets and other Apple devices at leading ministries and institutions reflects growing concern in the Kremlin and the Federal Security Service spy agency over a surge in espionage activity by US intelligence agencies against Russian state institutions.

“Security officials in ministries — these are FSB employees who hold civilian positions such as deputy ministers — announced that iPhones were no longer considered safe and that alternatives should be sought,” said a person close to a government agency that has banned Apple products.

… “Officials truly believe that Americans can use their equipment for wiretapping,” said Andrey Soldatov, a Russia security and intelligence services expert. “The FSB has long been concerned about the use of iPhones for professional contacts, but the presidential administration and other officials opposed [restrictions] simply because they liked iPhones.”

I want a robot butler.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jochen-Wirtz/publication/372135992_How_Intelligent_Automation_Service_Robots_and_AI_Will_Reshape_Service_Products_and_Their_Delivery/links/64a62849b9ed6874a5fc7d48/How-Intelligent-Automation-Service-Robots-and-AI-Will-Reshape-Service-Products-and-Their-Delivery.pdf

How Intelligent Automation, Service Robots, and AI Will Reshape Service Products and Their Delivery

Intelligent Automation in form of robots, smart self-service technologies, wearable technologies, software and systems such as machine learning (ML), generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT, and the metaverse are increasingly adopted in a wide range of customer-facing service settings. The shift toward robot- and AI-powered services will lead to improved customer experiences, service quality, and productivity all at the same time. However, these also carry ethical, fairness, and privacy risks for customers and society. In this opinion piece, we discuss the implications of the service revolution for service firms, their marketing, and their customers, and provide avenues for future research opportunities.

A topic of interest.

https://journal.ijresm.com/index.php/ijresm/article/view/2749

How to Solve Unbreakable Codes: World War II Edition; Version 202.3

We cannot imagine a life without the Internet. Cyber data security has become a main concern for anyone connected to the web. The security and privacy of information are maintained by encryption. Decryption techniques are also equally important to check the robustness of encryption. So, this paper is an exploration of the feasibility of using current technologies like Machine Learning and Blockchain concepts to break the encryptions, with special reference to the Enigma encryption.

Imagine a ‘sting’ operation that identifies potential scammers and pays for itself…

https://www.pcmag.com/news/wormgpt-is-a-chatgpt-alternative-with-no-ethical-boundaries-or-limitations

WormGPT Is a ChatGPT Alternative With 'No Ethical Boundaries or Limitations'

A hacker has created his own version of ChatGPT, but with a malicious bent: Meet WormGPT, a chatbot designed to assist cybercriminals.

WormGPT’s developer is selling access to the program in a popular hacking forum, according to email security provider SlashNext, which tried the chatbot. “We see that malicious actors are now creating their own custom modules similar to ChatGPT, but easier to use for nefarious purposes,” the company said in a blog post(Opens in a new window).

The best indication that the AI invasion is inevitable? The tool works!

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/13/1076199/chatgpt-can-turn-bad-writers-into-better-ones/

ChatGPT can turn bad writers into better ones

People who use ChatGPT to help with writing tasks are more productive and produce higher-quality work than those who don’t, a study found.

People have been using ChatGPT to help them to do their jobs since it was released in November of last year, with enthusiastic adopters using it to help them write everything from marketing materials to emails to reports.

Now we have the first indication of its effect in the workplace. A new study by two MIT economics graduate students, published today in Science, suggests it could help reduce gaps in writing ability between employees. They found that it could enable less experienced workers who lack writing skills to produce work similar in quality to that of more skilled colleagues.

… The writers who chose to use ChatGPT took 40% less time to complete their tasks, and produced work that the assessors scored 18% higher in quality than that of the participants who didn’t use it.

Nonsense. Not being able to predict an answer is not the same a not understanding the process.

https://www.vox.com/unexplainable/2023/7/15/23793840/chat-gpt-ai-science-mystery-unexplainable-podcast

Even the scientists who build AI can’t tell you how it works

… “If we open up ChatGPT or a system like it and look inside, you just see millions of numbers flipping around a few hundred times a second,” says AI scientist Sam Bowman. “And we just have no idea what any of it means.”

What good is a “Turing test” that most humans can’t pass?

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/14/1076296/mustafa-suleyman-my-new-turing-test-would-see-if-ai-can-make-1-million/

Mustafa Suleyman: My new Turing test would see if AI can make $1 million

I’d be curious to see how other fields stack up.

https://www.edweek.org/technology/what-educators-know-about-artificial-intelligence-in-3-charts/2023/07

What Educators Know About Artificial Intelligence, in 3 Charts

… The survey results paint a picture of a profession that is keenly aware of how artificial intelligence is swiftly changing what students need to learn and how educators will do their jobs, but one that may not be fully prepared to meet these new demands.

I’m not going to suggest that this hack might have other applications. (Where numbers of people have value.)

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/07/buying-campaign-contributions-as-a-hack.html

Buying Campaign Contributions as a Hack

The first Republican primary debate has a popularity threshold to determine who gets to appear: 40,000 individual contributors. Now there are a lot of conventional ways a candidate can get that many contributors. Doug Burgum came up with a novel idea: buy them:

A long-shot contender at the bottom of recent polls, Mr. Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. And one lucky donor, as his campaign advertised on Facebook, will have the chance to win a Yeti Tundra 45 cooler that typically costs more than $300—just for donating at least $1.

It’s actually a pretty good idea. He could have spent the money on direct mail, or personalized social media ads, or television ads. Instead, he buys gift cards at maybe two-thirds of face value (sellers calculate the advertising value, the additional revenue that comes from using them to buy something more expensive, and breakage when they’re not redeemed at all), and resells them. Plus, many contributors probably give him more than $1, and he got a lot of publicity over this.

Probably the cheapest way to get the contributors he needs. A clever hack.

A long post that explains that Google thinks it can get away with. Worth reading.

https://www.pogowasright.org/can-google-really-just-use-all-your-posts-and-tweets-to-train-ai-models-seems-like-they-can/

Can Google really just use all your posts and tweets to train AI models? Seems like they can.

Seen recently on my favorite newsletter, Risky Biz News:

Google changes privacy policy: Google has changed its privacy policy to let its users know that any publicly-available information may be scanned and used to train its AI models. It’s funny that Google’s legal team thinks its privacy policy is stronger than copyright law. Hilarious!

That gave me pause, because I’m not sure about this at all. Could using publicly available info to train AI be considered “fair use?”

(Related)

https://www.bespacific.com/crawlers-search-engines-and-the-sleaze-of-generative-ai-companies/

Crawlers, search engines and the sleaze of generative AI companies

Search Engine Land: “…LLMs are not search engines It should now be very clear that an LLM is a different beast from a search engine. A language model’s response does not directly point back to the website(s) whose content was used to train the model. There is no economic exchange like we see with search engines, and this is why many publishers (and authors ) are upset. The lack of direct source citations is the fundamental difference between a search engine and an LLM, and it is the answer to the very common question of “why should Google and Bing be allowed to scrape content but not OpenAI?” (I’m using a more polite phrasing of this question.). Google and Bing are trying to show source links in their generative AI responses, but these sources, if shown at all, are not the complete set. This opens up a related question: Why should a website allow its content to be used to train a language model if it doesn’t get anything in return? That’s a very good question – and probably the most important one we should answer as a society. LLMs do have benefits despite the major shortcomings with the current generation of LLMs (such as hallucinations, lying to the human operators, and biases, to name a few), and these benefits will only increase over time while the shortcomings get worked out. But for this discussion, the important point is to realize that a fundamental pillar of how the open web functions right now is not suited for LLMs…”

(Related)

https://www.axios.com/2023/07/13/ap-openai-news-sharing-tech-deal

Exclusive: AP strikes news-sharing and tech deal with OpenAI

The Associated Press on Thursday said it reached a two-year deal with OpenAI, the parent company to ChatGPT, to share access to select news content and technology.

Why it matters: The deal marks one of the first official news-sharing agreements made between a major U.S. news company and an artificial intelligence firm.

… The AP will get access to OpenAI’s technology and product expertise.

If the FTC has questions, will ChatGPT provide the answers?

https://www.bespacific.com/ftc-is-investigating-whether-chatgpt-harms-consumers/

FTC is investigating whether ChatGPT harms consumers

Washington Post [read free ]: “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…”

Could be an exceptionally useful tool.

https://www.makeuseof.com/use-chatgpt-wolfram-plugin/

3 Ways to Use ChatGPT'S Wolfram Plugin

1. Fact-Checking Information

This means you can run any claims in your ChatGPT-generated content against the more carefully curated Wolfram database to ensure accuracy. How can you do this?

Simply paste the text of the content you want to fact-check or provide a link to it and ask ChatGPT to invoke the Wolfram plugin to fact-check it.

2. Solve Complex STEM Problems

One of Wolfram's biggest selling points is its computation abilities. The Wolfram plugin will typically be able to handle a lot of the math problems that ChatGPT might have a hard time knitting together.

3. Data Analysis

ChatGPT, especially when backed by the GPT-4 model, has quite some impressive data analysis abilities. However, the Wolfram plugin can significantly improve those abilities.

Wolfram's ability to generate graphs of different kinds means you can analyze and summarize data in dozens and represent them in dozens of possible infographics formats without the limits of ChatGPT itself.

AI is coming so you should probably get ready. Any insights for the non-lawyers?

https://www.bespacific.com/an-ai-primer-for-legal-professionals/

An AI Primer for Legal Professionals

“How will new AI technologies shape the future of law? And how can legal professionals ensure that they adhere to legal ethics while they benefit from new technologies? In part I of our new series, Filevine’s legal futurists Dr. Cain Elliott and Dr. Megan Ma, along with Senior Director of Product Alex McLaughlin, help lawyers answer these questions — and prepare for the future of their practice. Don’t want to wait for Part IV, watch the full AI, Ethics, and Legal: A Deep Dive Into the Future of Legal Tech Webinar on Youtube.”

Not sure how useful this is, but it does show a lot of them…

https://www.bespacific.com/search-ai-models/

Search AI Models

AllModels.fyi: “Search [over 30,000 entries], filter, and sort AI models. Find the right one for your AI project. Subscribe for a monthly update of new models.”

I call this “real data.” Data that has not been contaminated by AI generated nonsense. (It has been contaminated by disinformation and other random noise.) Does this suggest that what exists today is a good as something like ChatGPT will ever get?

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-could-run-out-text-train-chatbots-chatgpt-llm-2023-7

Generative AI tools are quickly 'running out of text' to train themselves on, UC Berkeley professor warns

ChatGPT and other AI-powered bots may soon be "running out of text in the universe" that trains them to know what to say, an artificial intelligence expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley says.

Stuart Russell said that the technology that hoovers up mountains of text to train artificial intelligence bots like ChatGPT is "starting to hit a brick wall." In other words, there's only so much digital text for these bots to ingest, he told an interviewer last week from the International Telecommunication Union, a UN communications agency.

… A study conducted last November by Epoch, a group of AI researchers, estimated that machine learning datasets will likely deplete all "high-quality language data" before 2026. Language data in "high-quality" sets comes from sources such as "books, news articles, scientific papers, Wikipedia, and filtered web content," according to the study.

(Related)

https://www.bespacific.com/a-categorical-archive-of-chatgpt-failures/

A Categorical Archive of ChatGPT Failures

A Categorical Archive of ChatGPT Failures Ali Borji. Quintic AI. April 5, 2023 “Large language models have been demonstrated to be valuable in different fields. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, has been trained using massive amounts of data and simulates human conversation by comprehending context and generating appropriate responses. It has garnered significant attention due to its ability to effectively answer a broad range of human inquiries, with fluent and comprehensive answers surpassing prior public chatbots in both security and usefulness. However, a comprehensive analysis of ChatGPT’s failures is lacking, which is the focus of this study. Eleven categories of failures, including reasoning, factual errors, math, coding, and bias, are presented and discussed. The risks, limitations, and societal implications of ChatGPT are also highlighted. The goal of this study is to assist researchers and developers in enhancing future language models and chatbots. Please refer to here for the list of questions.”

I wonder if this is the only app the government deploys?

https://www.pogowasright.org/watch-government-spyware-on-your-phone-unfortunately-theres-an-app-for-that/

Watch: Government Spyware on Your Phone? Unfortunately, There’s an App for That

Washington, DC (July 9, 2023) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance is challenging the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) in federal court for coordinating with Google to automatically install spyware on the smartphones of more than one million Commonwealth residents, without their knowledge or consent, in a misguided effort to combat Covid-19. A newly-released video details how DPH’s actions have violated fundamental constitutional rights.

Thousands of people do not know DPH’s Covid-19 tracking app is on their phone, as it does not appear on their home screens like other apps. NCLA client Robert Wright, who commutes to Massachusetts for work, was appalled to learn that the government put an app on his phone without his knowledge, especially one that could constantly track his movements. NCLA’s lawsuit argues the DPH app’s automatic installation infringes on the Fourth Amendment right to privacy because it interferes with phone owners’ private property and collects information about them. By taking up storage space on phones against their owners’ will, such unwanted installations also constitute uncompensated taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Humorous or truly scary?

https://thenextweb.com/news/uk-politician-andrew-gray-wants-be-first-ai-powered-member-of-parliament-polis

Budding politician ‘has no policies,’ will use AI to legislate

… “If elected, I will vote in Parliamant [sic] in accordance with the consensus. Simple,” Gray wrote on LinkedIn.

The tool he’s using, Polis, collects and analyses public opinion in real time.

I’m surprised it took so long…

https://cointelegraph.com/news/google-hit-with-lawsuit-over-ai-privacy-policy

Google hit with lawsuit over new AI data scraping privacy policy

A week after Google updated its privacy policy to allow data scraping for AI training purposes, the company faces a class-action lawsuit.

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.makeuseof.com/build-custom-chatgpt-with-your-own-data/

How to Build a Custom ChatGPT With Your Own Data

Looking to provide ChatGPT with your custom data? Here's a step-by-step on how to do just that!

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/11/anthropic-an-openai-rival-opens-claude-2-ai-chatbot-to-the-public.html

Anthropic — the $4.1 billion OpenAI rival — debuts new A.I. chatbot and opens it to public

There’s a new entrant in the budding AI arms race.

As Microsoft -backed OpenAI and Google race to develop the most advanced chatbots, powered by generative artificial intelligence, Anthropic is investing heavily to keep up. Just a few months after raising $750 million over two financing rounds, the startup is debuting a new AI chatbot: Claude 2.

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI research executives and funded by companies including Google, Salesforce and Zoom, Anthropic is opening up its chatbot technology to consumers for the first time with Claude 2. For the past two months, the company’s AI models have been tested by businesses such as Slack, Notion and Quora, and Anthropic has accumulated a waitlist of more than 350,000 people requesting access to Claude’s application programming interface and its consumer offering.