⛓️ Zuck’s Drip

Hi, friends. Big couple weeks in AI, with new NIST AI standards, a Mickey Mouse cameo, and more newspapers suing AI companies. Read time: 4 minutes, 28 seconds.

Big Tech AI News

💰 Microsoft reported breakout earnings based on AI growth. Revenue was $61.9 billion, up 17%. Azure cloud services grew 31%, with AI being 7% of that. CEO Nadella: “AI democratize[s] expertise.” 

➕ Google grew, too. Q1 revenue was $86.31 billion. Of note: YouTube reported 21% revenue growth YoY to $8.1 billion, or 11% of total GOOG revenue. Good training data.

 ⛓️ Meta announced a new Meta AI available here. Check out Zuck's epic announcement video with a distracting-yet-admittedly-fetching silver chain necklace. First impressions:

• ❌ Meta's AI model is not good enough for legal work, similar to OpenAI's lesser model, GPT-3.5. It hallucinated badly on a trademark analysis, for example.

• 🐦 Outstanding engineering to render art on the fly as you type. See the bluebird example below. PS - shoutout to the GC AI user in Costa Rica. #Goals. 

🧈 Meta's AI seemingly does not apply policies to protect copyrights or trademarks, per Mickey, Mario, and Luigi below. Note that the AI tries to explain that the images are for personal, non-commercial use. Nice try. 

Regulatory, Policy, and Law & AI

🌊 Law Prof Eric Goldman warns Generative AI is doomed because of a 'regulatory tsunami' and public distrust of robots could block its adoption.  

👀 The EEOC says Workday must face claims that its AI is biased. The plaintiff here says he was rejected across employers by Workday's AI. TIL: 80% of U.S. employers and nearly all Fortune 500 companies use AI in hiring.

🧥 Security agencies including the FBI and AISC issued a report on deploying AI securely, calling for layered defenses (also good fashion advice).  🔒 NIST released and called for public comment on 4 new draft publications related to AI. 

🗽 The NY State Bar recently put out this R&R on AI. It does a good job of reviewing history but ends up a bit alarmist, focusing on hallucination instead of the opportunities (h/t Brooke Achua for the find). 

IP

🫠 Open Source. Wilson Sonsini sent a C&D on behalf of Hashicorp to an open-source project allegedly using Hashicorp's code. Hashicorp itself is built on open source and made an earlier version available publicly, which OpenTofu explained it used. OpenTofu also says its guidelines warn contributors not to use AI tools that might remove copyright info - snippet below. The real crime? Using legal redline software Litera to compare code. Gah. 

🚨 Copyright. Another OpenAI suit! A fresh complaint was filed April 30 from the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and other publications owned by Alden Capital. "We’ve spent billions reporting news ... we can’t allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses.” See summary and link to the complaint. They found similar copying examples to the NY Times' Exhibit J. 

Corporate & AI Adoption

💉 Moderna made news with its Open AI implementation and goal to use AI to help develop 15 new products this year. 

🤖 Appointing an AI bot as a board observer? Yes. And you thought recording calls was gnarly... Also the NACD created a 24-member AI commission. Nice list.

🤔 McKinsey surveyed 9000 workers... and 51% that use AI heavily plan to quit their jobs in the next 3-6 months. Your editor's advice to employers? Don't scare them away with bad legal policies. Even better? Get your legal teams delightful AI software.

🎧 AI & Boards - hear your editor on the Diligent Corporate Directors Podcast talking about the future of AI. Just 20 minutes! H/t WGCN member Nithya Das.

Random

😮 Meta's AI commented in a Facebook group that like others, it (the AI) has a kid with a disability. Yikes. 

🧅 Former Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, who was kicked out by activist investors (we feel for his GC), bought The Onion, which reported last year that "Guy Who Sucks At Being A Person Sees Huge Potential In AI." Cuts deep. 

🔊 AI & Taylor - ask your Alexa, “I’m a member of the Tortured Poets Department.” Trust. 

👂Linguistics nerds - using outsourced AI reviewers in Africa, where the English language is often spoken more formally, is shaping how AI talks. Check out this graph below of the use of the word "delve", which ChatGPT loves.

Events

• Future of LegalTech & AI - Your editor gets to talk about innovation, legal, and AI, woot. Catch her, other founders, and VC Ray Wu on May 7 @ 1 pm PT. Register here.

• New AI class coming up in May. Dates TBD. Waitlist here

GC AI Product Updates 

We are *this close* to opening up the product. If you aren't on the waitlist yet, get on it! 🩰

Elegant Copy & Paste for selections
Only need the first few rows of a table or just one clause from an answer? Select the text you want, then click the “Copy selection” button. Formatting is preserved.

🚅 Faster research and MOAR pdfs

Research is faster! And GC AI can read PDF links now. See this example where we asked it for an email pulling from the latest from the FTC proposed rule on non-competes. 

📚 Prompt Library updates

Check out our new ‘Opinion Overview’ prompt. It uses GC AI’s Exact Quote (™ pending) feature, which means you get full, exact word quotes down to the commas. Examples: Ninth Circuit’s new sign-in-wrap ruling or FTC’s updated rules on MLMs. 

🔐 We also updated our privacy policy review prompt to be more precise and added a new example chat. You asked for an MSA reviewer prompt - it’s coming soon. 

🇯🇵 Use of the week

A star VP at a big tech company used GC AI to draft contract language in both English and Japanese. Hint: Ask questions in English about other-language documents.  

💌  User Love of the week

"GC AI is so great!  I feel like I can do the work of two people.  Thank you so much."     - General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, fintech company.  

🏗️  We’re hiring a Founding Engineer and a Founding Business Lead (ideally a biz ops type, to double your editor). Welcome any referrals!

Best,

Cecilia and the GC AI Team