afternoonbuzz

Digital Copyright, Sundar Pichai, Twitter, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 17, 2023

NEW RESOURCES

Internet Archive Blog: Law Professor Makes Digital Copyright Book Open for All. “Geared for a general audience, the book chronicles how copyright laws were drafted, written, lobbied and enacted in Congress over time. Litman researched the legislative history of copyright law, including development of the 1976 Copyright Act, and spent two years in Washington, D.C., observing Congress leading up to the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bloomberg: Google CEO Warns Against Rush to Deploy AI Without Oversight. “Alphabet Inc. and Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the push to adopt artificial intelligence technology must be well regulated to avoid potential harmful effects.”

Engadget: Twitter will label tweets limited due to hate policy violations. “Twitter may have a looser stance on bans under Elon Musk, but it’s still willing to flag content that runs afoul of its rules. The social network will label tweets it believes are violating its Hateful Conduct policy. You’ll see a notice that Twitter is limiting the ‘visibility’ of the problematic post with an opportunity to learn more.” I don’t think this will answer the requirements of the Digital Services Act.

USEFUL STUFF

Techdirt: The AI Doomers’ Playbook. “In just a few days, we went from ‘governments should force a 6-month pause’ (the petition from the Future of Life Institute) to ‘wait, it’s not enough, so data centers should be bombed.’ Sadly, this is the narrative that gets media attention and shapes our already hyperbolic AI discourse. In order to understand the rise of AI Doomerism, here are some influential figures responsible for mainstreaming doomsday scenarios. This is not the full list of AI doomers, just the ones that recently shaped the AI panic cycle (so I‘m focusing on them).”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: A Small Town Became the Center of a QAnon Storm. It’s Fighting Back. “The Netherlands’ most notorious conspiracy theorist was sentenced to prison, after spreading lies about satanic pedophiles in the town of Bodegraven.”

Rolling Stone: They’re Selling Nudes of Imaginary Women on Reddit — and It’s Working. “Claudia is among the first, but by no means the last, fictional adult content creator to be generated via rapidly evolving AI technology, prompting a slew of ethical questions and concerns.”

BBC: AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd song goes viral . “A song that uses Artificial Intelligence to clone the voices of Drake and The Weeknd has gone viral on social media. Called Heart On My Sleeve, the track simulates the two stars trading verses about pop star and actress Selena Gomez, who previously dated The Weeknd.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: US neo-Nazi accused of sniper plot appears to have shared instructions with Australian far-right figures. “Brandon Russell, a US neo-Nazi who was charged this year with conspiring to attack the Maryland power grid, appears to have shared instructions on how to carry out such an attack months earlier in an Australian far-right channel on Telegram.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: A data scientist cloned his best friends’ group chat using AI. “Izzy Miller downloaded 500,000 messages from his seven-year group chat, then trained an AI language model to replicate his friends — learning details about their lives and imitating the way they speak.”

Wall Street Journal: Elon Musk Creates New Artificial Intelligence Company X.AI. “Elon Musk has created a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI Corp. that is incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing. Mr. Musk is the only listed director of the company, and Jared Birchall, the director of Mr. Musk’s family office, is its secretary, according to the filing made last month. X.AI has authorized the sale of 100 million shares for the privately held company.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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