If you agree with this article, AI is gaining on personhood one right at a time.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/machine-first-amendment-rights

A Machine With First Amendment Rights

We have created the first machines with First Amendment rights.

Don’t take that sentence literally, but take it very seriously.

I spent yesterday at the Verify 2023 conference, an annual gathering on cybersecurity and journalism put on by the Hewlett Foundation and Aspen Digital. The conference included this conversation on artificial intelligence trust and safety, at which Jim Baker—former FBI general counsel and former Twitter deputy general counsel—spoke. In response to the suggestion that the area of content moderation and large language models needs regulation, Baker made the apparently common-sense point that any time you’re talking about regulating content, you’re going to run into major First Amendment problems.

And all of a sudden, it hit me: Bard and ChatGPT and all these other large language AI models, at least in functional terms, have free speech rights.

Before you cry out your instinctive objections, let me walk through the logic behind this bold claim—each step of which is based on black-letter law but which cumulatively lead to a very peculiar place that, in my judgment, simply can’t be correct.

… the government can only regulate ChatGPT’s expressive content in a fashion consistent with the First Amendment’s narrow tolerance for government regulation of speech: for situations involving defamation, incitement, copyright infringement, and other non-protected content. From a doctrinal point of view, of course, the government has to stay its hand not because ChatGPT has rights but because OpenAI has the right to operate ChatGPT and OpenAI has constitutional rights. But from a regulatory point of view, this is a distinction without a difference. The result, whether in a formal sense the First Amendment right attaches to the company in operating the machine or to the machine itself, is the same: the government can only regulate the autonomous expressive conduct of the machine in a fashion that satisfies the First Amendment.

A bit stronger that Elon Musk’s suggestion that AI work be halted for a time.

https://hyperallergic.com/811493/iran-issues-fatwa-against-ai/

Iran Issues Fatwa Against AI

In an extraordinary move, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa against Artificial Intelligence, calling it “satanic.” Anyone using the quickly developing technology would be punished by hanging, Iranian officials said.

(Related)

https://www.makeuseof.com/why-has-italy-banned-chatgpt/

Why Italy Has Banned ChatGPT “With Immediate Effect”

OpenAI's ChatGPT has been widely praised—there's hardly any question we haven't seen it answer. Yet, the Italian enforcer of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has placed an immediate, temporary embargo on ChatGPT use in Italy.

This means that if you're in Italy, you'll now be unable to use the AI chatbot. Here's why.

Another try at privacy…

https://www.insideprivacy.com/state-privacy/iowa-enacts-comprehensive-consumer-privacy-law/

Iowa Enacts Comprehensive Consumer Privacy Law

On March 28, Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law SF 262, making Iowa the sixth state to enact a comprehensive consumer privacy law. The new law will take effect on January 1, 2025.

As we discuss here, Iowa’s privacy law shares a number of key similarities to existing state privacy frameworks, including providing consumers with the rights to access, delete, obtain a copy of their data in a portable format, and opt out of sale of their personal information. The law does not provide a private right of action, instead empowering the state attorney general to bring enforcement actions and seek injunctions if controllers or processors do not cure alleged violations after 90 days.

Inevitable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65143479

Trump and Stormy Daniels cash in on merchandise after indictment

… The message asked people for money, offering a T-shirt with the words "I stand with Trump" for donations of $47 (£38) or more, which his campaign team claimed were "flying off shelves".

… Her website features a range of merchandise, including $20 T-shirts with the words "#TEAMSTORMY", signed posters of herself posing in lingerie, and a $30 dog chew toy that looks like Mr Trump.

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.makeuseof.com/best-sites-for-cheat-sheets-shortcuts-quick-reference/

6 Best Sites for Cheat Sheets, Shortcuts, and Quick Reference Cards

The internet loves making cheat sheets for everything from programming languages to recipes and cooking ratios. These websites create their own from scratch or collect the best of the internet's advice to give you easy access to shortcuts and quick reference cards.

Might be worth a read…

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/30/vulkan-files-leak-reveals-putins-global-and-domestic-cyberwarfare-tactics

‘Vulkan files’ leak reveals Putin’s global and domestic cyberwarfare tactics

• Documents leaked by whistleblower angry over Ukraine war

• Private Moscow consultancy bolstering Russian cyberwarfare

• Tools support hacking operations and attacks on infrastructure

• Documents linked to notorious Russian hacking group Sandworm

• Russian program aims to control internet and spread disinformation

I’m not sure that anything so inconsistent truly passes the Turing test. Even Donald Trump would be questionable.

https://www.techradar.com/opinion/chatgpt-has-passed-the-turing-test-and-if-youre-freaked-out-youre-not-alone

ChatGPT has passed the Turing test and if you're freaked out, you're not alone

Despite just releasing ChatGPT-4, OpenAI is already working on the fifth iteration of the immensely popular chat application, GPT-5. According to a new report from BGR, we could be seeing those major upgrades as soon as the end of the year.

One milestone, in particular, could be within reach if this turns out to be true: the ability to be indistinguishable from humans in conversation. And it doesn’t help that we’ve essentially been training this AI chatbot with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of conversations a day.

Computer and AI pioneer Alan Turing famously proposed a test for artificial intelligence that if you could speak to a computer and not know that you weren't speaking to a human, the computer could be said to be artificially intelligent. With OpenAI's ChatGPT, we've certainly crossed that threshold to a large degree (it can still be occassionally wonky, but so can humans), but for everyday use, ChatGPT passes this test.

(Related) Another perspective.

https://www.exponentialview.co/p/chartpack-measuring-ai-1

Chartpack: Measuring AI (1/3)

The mismeasure of AI: How it began

What if the way we evaluate artificial intelligence was flawed?¹ The rapid rise of ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) has left us struggling to understand where we stand in the AI landscape. Old standards, like the problematic Turing Test², are no longer relevant, with GPT-4's output already being (mostly) indistinguishable from human-made text. However, this doesn't mean that it has reached human-level intelligence, only that it can mimic our outputs. Even OpenAI’s Sam Altman deemed it "a bad test" for these models.

This leaves us in a predicament. How do we understand the capabilities and impacts of these models?

I see this as a plea for time to catch up.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/elon-musk-and-tech-execs-call-for-pause-on-ai-development

Elon Musk and tech execs call for pause on AI development

… The institute called on all AI companies to “immediately pause” training AI systems that are more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months, sharing concerns that “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” among other things.

Does this resolve anything? Is $725,000,000 even material?

https://www.pogowasright.org/judge-approves-725-million-deal-in-meta-data-privacy-class-action/

Judge approves $725 million deal in Meta data privacy class action

Natalie Hanson reports:

A federal judge on Wednesday granted preliminary approval of Facebook parent company Meta’s agreement to pay $725 million to a class of millions of people whose personal information was harvested in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Meta Platforms agreed this past December to pay $725 million to settle claims by its users that the social-media behemoth illegally gave third parties, including political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, access to their private information.

The settlement marks the largest recovery ever achieved in a data-privacy class action, and it is the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a private class action.

Read more at Courthouse News

I may need the Privacy Foundation’s April 21^st seminar to make sense of these laws. I am unable to do it on my own.

https://www.pogowasright.org/idaho-is-about-to-become-even-more-extreme-on-abortion/

Idaho Is About to Become Even MORE Extreme on Abortion

Alanna Vagianos reports:

Idaho already has some of the most extreme abortion restrictions on the books, with nearly all abortions banned in the state and an affirmative defense law that essentially asserts any doctor who provides an abortion is guilty until proven innocent. And now Idaho Republicans have set their sights on hindering certain residents from traveling out of state to get an abortion.

House Bill 242, which passed through the state House and is likely to move quickly through the Senate, seeks to limit minors’ ability to travel for abortion care without parental consent. The legislation would create a whole new crime — dubbed “abortion trafficking” — which is defined in the bill as an “adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion … or obtains an abortion-inducing drug” for the minor. “Recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking,” the legislation adds.

So a minor who has been raped and impregnated by a parent cannot get an abortion without parental consent and cannot be driven anywhere in the state to pick up an abortion drug, or the person driving them can be sentenced to two to five years in prison?

Read more on HuffPost.

Surveillance marketed as convenience? Is it really so difficult to use a credit card or (gasp) cash?

https://www.36ng.ng/2023/03/27/biometric-technology-jpmorgan-will-let-consumers-pay-with-their-face-or-palm-instead-of-a-card/

Biometric Technology: Jpmorgan Will Let Consumers Pay With Their Face Or Palm Instead Of A Card

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning to test new technology that would let consumers pay with their palms or faces at certain US merchants.

The bank, home to one of the world’s biggest payment-processing businesses, plans to roll out the service to its broader base of US merchant clients if the pilot program goes well, according to a statement Thursday. The pilot may include a Formula 1 race in Miami as well as some brick-and-mortar stores.

“The evolution of consumer technology has created new expectations for shoppers,” Jean-Marc Thienpont, head of omnichannel solutions for JPMorgan’s payments business, said in the statement. “Merchants need to be ready to adapt to these new expectations.

Drastic? Could we do this in the US? Or are we looking at too much money to ignore?

https://www.ft.com/content/1a133b5c-35f9-4776-99fc-7c02095ff2aa?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Meta bosses look at political ads ban in Europe

Meta executives are discussing a company-wide ban on political advertising in Europe, following concerns that its social networking platforms such as Facebook and Instagram will be unable to comply with forthcoming EU regulations that target online campaigning.

Brussels regulators are drawing up new laws to come into force next year designed to force large internet groups to reveal more about the political groups behind online campaigns and which users they are targeting.

Meta, led by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is concerned that the definition of political ads under the plan will be so broad that it will be easier to refuse all paid-for political campaigns on the company’s sites, according to two people briefed on internal discussions.

Perspective.

https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2023/03/29/uk-government-publishes-ai-white-paper/

UK Government Publishes AI White Paper

On March 29, 2023, the UK government published a white paper on artificial intelligence (“AI”) entitled “A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation.” The white paper sets out a new “flexible” approach to regulating artificial intelligence which is intended to build public trust in AI and make it easier for businesses to grow and create jobs.

I like the idea of hacking to pay for an espionage offense. We could do the same thing to pay for a defense, if North Korea had enough hard currency to make it worth while.

https://thehackernews.com/2023/03/north-korean-apt43-group-uses.html

North Korean APT43 Group Uses Cybercrime to Fund Espionage Operations

A new North Korean nation-state cyber operator has been attributed to a series of campaigns orchestrated to gather strategic intelligence that aligns with Pyongyang's geopolitical interests since 2018.

Google-owned Mandiant, which is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker APT43, said the group's motives are both espionage- and financially-motivated, leveraging techniques like credential harvesting and social engineering to further its objectives.

The monetary angle to its attack campaigns is an attempt on the part of the threat actor to generate funds to meet its "primary mission of collecting strategic intelligence."

Perspective. Describe who votes for who?

https://www.bespacific.com/the-four-quadrants-of-american-politics/

The Four Quadrants of American Politics

The Atlantic: “Control of the House of Representatives could teeter precariously for years as each party consolidates its dominance over mirror-image demographic strongholds. That’s the clearest conclusion of a new analysis of the demographic and economic characteristics of all 435 congressional districts, conducted by the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California in conjunction with The Atlantic. Based on census data, the analysis finds that Democrats now hold a commanding edge over the GOP in seats where the share of residents who are nonwhite, the share of white adults with a college degree, or both, are higher than the level in the nation overall. But Republicans hold a lopsided lead in the districts where the share of racial minorities and whites with at least a four-year college degree are both lower than the national level—and that is the largest single bloc of districts in the House…

Nearly three-fourths of House Democrats represent districts where the share of white adults with a college degree exceeds the national level of 36 percent. More than three-fourths of Republicans hold districts where the share of white college graduates trails the national level…”

Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-recognize-ai-snake-oil/

How to recognize AI snake oil

Much of what’s being sold as “AI” today is snake oil — it does not and cannot work. Why is this happening? How can we recognize flawed AI claims and push back? Presentation by Arvind Narayanan Associate Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University Center for Information Technology Policy.

If every car has an interlock then every driver must pass the test every time they start their car?  If I can generate a portable hack to bypass that test I’m going to be rich! 

https://www.thedrive.com/news/new-law-mandates-interlocks-on-all-new-cars-but-drunk-driving-tech-isnt-ready-yet 

New Law Mandates Interlocks on All New Cars, but Drunk Driving Tech Isn’t Ready Yet

Buried deep on Page 135 of a $1 trillion spending bill that mainly adds EV charging infrastructure is a small provision that could make a big deal for automakers.  Passed last year, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act asks that within three years, new cars would be equipped with drunk-driving deterrents automakers don’t yet know how to comply with.

As reported by Automotive News, the technology to passively detect if drivers may be drunk could be years away, although efforts are underway to offer the tech as soon as 2026.

This will be difficult to comply with but easy to enforce.  If I sell my software to Canada the US can define their use as a human right abuse and retroactively I’m in violation.  Or I don’t sell to North Korea but the software shows up anyway.  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-restricts-use-of-commercial-hacking-tools-by-u-s-agencies-f0a4afda?mod=djemalertNEWS

Biden Restricts Use of Commercial Hacking Tools by U.S. Agencies

…   Mr. Biden signed an executive order that imposes rules limiting the acquisition and deployment of hacking tools from vendors whose products have been linked to human-rights abuses or are deemed to pose counterintelligence or national security risks to the U.S.  It also limits the purchasing of tools if they are sold to foreign governments considered to have poor records on human rights.

Tools & Techniques.  Could be handy if it works. 

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-gptzero-check-ai-generated-text/ 

How to use GPTZero to check for AI-generated text

GPTZero can tell you whether a document, report or other item was possibly written by a human or by AI.  Here’s a step-by-step guide on using GPTZero for this purpose.

GPTZero site. 

Is this a ‘how much is too much’ case or simply an ‘anything is a violation’ case? Depends on which side you are on.

https://www.pogowasright.org/mcdonalds-seeks-ban-to-forbid-confidential-consumer-information-disclosure-in-voice-data-lawsuit/

McDonald’s seeks ban to forbid confidential consumer information disclosure in voice data lawsuit

Anna Bradley-Smith and JJ Ko reports:

McDonald’s should have to face claims it violates Illinois data protection laws by collecting customers’ voiceprints without their consent at its drive-thrus, plaintiff Shannon Carpenter has argued in response to McDonald’s attempt to have his lawsuit dismissed.

Carpenter, who filed his class action lawsuit in April and recently had it split between state and federal courts said in the memo that U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle should allow the claims in federal court to proceed because his allegations are well-pled and address all of McDonald’s’ points for dismissal.

McDonald’s argued that Carpenter does not allege the fast food giant collects unique identifying information that could constitute a voiceprint biometric, but Carpenter says that “wholly ignores” his allegations that McDonald’s AI voice assistant “extracts exactly the type of unique ‘identifying’ voiceprint data that BIPA seeks to protect including the speaker’s pitch, volume, duration, age, gender, nationality, and national origin.”

Read more at TopClassActions,

The McDonald’s Drive-Thru BIPA Class Action Lawsuit is Carpenter v. McDonald’s Corp., Case No. 1:21-cv-02906, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Time to start training Ethical Hackers. Knowing how to do it makes it easier to stop. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

https://www.databreaches.net/the-criminal-use-of-chatgpt-a-cautionary-tale-about-large-language-models/

The criminal use of ChatGPT – a cautionary tale about large language models

From Europol:

In response to the growing public attention given to ChatGPT, the Europol Innovation Lab organised a number of workshops with subject matter experts from across Europol to explore how criminals can abuse large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, as well as how it may assist investigators in their daily work.

Their insights are compiled in Europol’s first Tech Watch Flash report published today. Entitled ‘ChatGPT – the impact of Large Language Models on Law Enforcement’, this document provides an overview on the potential misuse of ChatGPT, and offers an outlook on what may still be to come.

The aim of this report is to raise awareness about the potential misuse of LLMs, to open a dialogue with Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies to help them build in better safeguards, and to promote the development of safe and trustworthy AI systems.

A longer and more in-depth version of this report was produced for law enforcement only.

Read more of their press release. Download the report.

Perspective. (Interesting)

https://every.to/p/what-people-are-getting-wrong-about-the-ai-art-lawsuits

The AI Copyright Fight: A Guide

Whenever a client wants to skirt the edges of copyright law, the usual response of copyright lawyers is: "Do you really want to find out?" That is...do you actually want to learn how much you'd owe in damages from copyright infringement?

I heard this a lot from lawyers when I ran a niche indie publisher. I suspect it's a refrain that AI companies are going to have to get used to as well. Many AI image-generators, like Midjourney, Stability AI, and DeviantArt’s DreamUp, were trained on copyrighted images.

Tools & Techniques. This could be amusing…

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-use-chatgpt-with-siri-on-iphone/

How to Use ChatGPT With Siri on Your iPhone

ChatGPT may not have an official mobile app, but you can still access its capabilities with Siri and the Shortcuts app. We'll teach you how.

Forgive them Lord, for they know nothing about the target of their legislation. 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/25/tech/tiktok-user-reaction-hearing/index.html

TikTok users are making fun of Congress members for their questions to app CEO Shou Chew

TikTok creators have had enough of Congress seemingly not understanding how the internet works.

…   “There needs to be an age limit in Congress,” one caption by user @rachelhannahh said about a clip of US Rep. Buddy Carter, who represents Georgia’s 1st district, asking Chew whether the app tracks pupil dilation as a form of facial recognition to drive algorithms.

Chew responded by saying the app does not use body, face or voice data to identify users, and the only face data the app collects is for “filters to have sunglasses on your face.”

Robots got rights! 

https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/publications/robotics-ai-and-criminal-law-crimes-against-robots

Robotics, AI and Criminal Law. Crimes Against Robots

This book offers a phenomenological perspective on the criminal law debate on robots.  Today, robots are protected in some form by criminal law.  A robot is a person’s property and is protected as property.  This book presents the different rationale for protecting robots beyond the property justification based on the phenomenology of human-robot interactions.  By focusing on robots that have bodies and act in the physical world in social contexts, the work provides an assessment of the issues that emerge from human interaction with robots, going beyond perspectives focused solely on artificial intelligence (AI).  Here, a phenomenological approach does not replace ontological concerns, but complements them.  The book addresses the following key areas: Regulation of robots and AI; Ethics of AI and robotics; and philosophy of criminal law.

It will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the areas of Criminal Law, Technology and Law and Legal Philosophy.

We have to answer these questions.

https://www.elgaronline.com/display/book/9781035310869/book-part-9781035310869-35.xml

Chapter 21: AI machines as inventors: The role of human agency in patent law

In recent years, there has been growing concern about the detrimental impact that artificial intelligence (AI) machines are having on patent law.  While these accounts rest on a simple historical claim, namely that AI machines create novel and unprecedented problems for the law, they are largely ahistorical.  To begin the process of rectifying this oversight, this chapter examines one of the assumptions that is supposedly being challenged by AI-machines, namely the idea that inventorship in patent law is an exclusively human activity.  To do this, I look at the strategies US patent law used in the early to mid-part of the twentieth century to embrace the non-human agency associated with the generation of organic chemical compounds and what this means for AI machines as inventors.