Cecilia Ziniti
Dec 19, 2024
Hi, everyone. The AI news continues, with Nobel prizes, lawsuits, FTC crackdowns, and patent pledges. So much to love going into the end of an amazing year in AI. Let’s dive in.
Btw, thanks for your patience with us missing last month, we’ve been busy building legal AI for you. 🙏
📘 Read time: 4 minutes 21 seconds
Big Tech
💰 OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says they’re considering ads in ChatGPT as the service sprints toward a projected 1 billion users in 2025. Your editor’s take? The user experience for ads in assistants is tough given user trust - people bare their souls to ChatGPT and ads in the loop will be jar them. Then again, your editor remember when sponsored search results in Google actually looked different than organic ones …
📞 ChatGPT also is accessible by phone (1-800-ChatGPT) giving your editor flash backs on voice privacy, and to Google launching 1-800-Goog-411 in 2007 so they could capture a bunch of voice data for training and catch up with Apple/Siri. Smart! OpenAI starts the call with a hefty warning and with privacy and terms acceptance ("by continuing you agree..."), and the service has an October 2023 knowledge cutoff, so it didn't know about GC AI. 😱 But, promising. See an audiogram video of your editor's phone call under the GC AI prompt below. ⬇️
🚪 Speaking of Google, they reportedly told the FTC that Microsoft's exclusive OpenAI server deal is anticompetitive. My take? The thing to watch here will be how quickly these antitrust probes get dropped when power changes hands at the FTC next month.
🎬 Lights, camera... caution! OpenAI's Sora video tool launches with training wheels on, keeping its "real person" feature under wraps while they perfect their safety approach. See your editor's Sora video here!
🎥 Your editor used Sora (openAI’s new video model) to create the video below of a serene beach scene 🏖️. Stay tuned for next week's special holiday edition, with a breakdown of the Sora Terms of Use.
AI Regulatory
⚔️ Meta joins Elon Musk's crusade to block OpenAI’s nonprofit-to-profit switch, warning California AG about "seismic implications" – while OpenAI fires back with emails showing Musk once wanted the same deal.
📜 Many reports say President Trump will repeal the AI Executive Order issued by President Biden in October 2023.
⚖️ President-Elect Trump named Andrew Ferguson, a current Republican FTC commissioner and former Solicitor General of Virginia, to replace Lina Khan as FTC chair. Ferguson had made a plea to be appointed in a memo leaked below. He says doesn’t want the FTC regulating AI. He also dissented frequently as a commissioner, including this gem, where he says FTC “wildly exceeded” its authority.
AI Globally 🌎
🏆 Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield have been awarded a Nobel Prize for their neural network breakthroughs, work that powers every major AI model today.
🧪 MIT study reveals AI's R&D paradox: 44% more discoveries, but researcher satisfaction plunges.
📄 Anthropic has announced updated capabilities for PDFs using its Claude 3.5 Sonnet model. It can now read PDF images and charts. Bit late to the party but welcome Claude.
Intellectual Property
⚖️ Judge dismisses RawStory’s claim against that OpenAI violates the DMCA by removing copyright management information. “The alleged injury for which Plaintiffs truly seek redress is not the exclusion of CMI from Defendants' training sets, but rather Defendants' use of Plaintiffs' articles to develop ChatGPT without compensation to Plaintiffs."
📚 Canada’s CanLII claims AI startup Caseway raided their legal library, while Caseway's founder boasts of surging signups post-lawsuit.
📉 Homework help company Chegg shares have plummeted 99% as ChatGPT becomes students' preferred homework companion.
AI & Legal
⚖️ Breaking Illinois Supreme Court's AI decision: No mandatory disclosure for lawyers using AI tools, as existing ethics rules deemed sufficient to handle misuse – marking a major milestone in legal AI's evolution. We love Illinois - they approved the ethical use of email by llawyers in a similarly thoughtful opinion back in 1995!
📢 OpenAI announced a defensive patent strategy, pledging to use patents solely for protection, provided others refrain from legal action and harmful conduct. Makes sense but then again OpenAI only has 9 issued patents - fewer than .007% the number Google has.
😃 Investor Yousuf Khan shares why AI gives GCs reasons to rejoice. Makes sense!
🤔 Elon Musk made this announcement that his AI, Grok, will “render extremely compelling legal verdicts.” What does that mean? Give a holler if you know!
New, Notable, Random & Fun
📖 Learn when to use AI and when not to in this list of do’s and don’t for AI use cases.
🥤Coca-Cola is receiving mixed reactions to its first Ai-generated holiday ad, an homage to a classic 1995 commercial.
🏰 Disney gets serious about AI: The entertainment giant has created a new business unit to coordinate AI and mixed reality innovation across parks, films, and streaming.
📢 Quote of the week: “AI turned me into a basic b.” NYT reporter, in her excellent article chronicling an experiment where she relied on AI to make all her decisions for a week. AI recommended taupe paint. Self-care. From scratch meals for lunch. Hm. [Editors note: as we say in legal AI prompting class, AI today will give you a good basic baseline. Up to you as a lawyer to make it great.]
Product Updates
New security features in GC AI:S
Single Sign-On (SSO): SSO integration means secure one-click sign-in through Okta, Azure AD, or Google Workspace.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adds an extra security layer to keep your team's workspace safe.
More security features: Directory Sync, Domain Verification, Authentication Audit Logs and Log Streams.
We are hiring!
GC AI is growing again! 🚀 We’re hiring a Founding Account Executive to join our expanding sales team.
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