The ‘Add-Ins’ link on the menu (top-right) in Microsoft Word in Office 365 enables you to use many useful apps and tools directly within Word, including ChatGPT. Here’s how it works:

Open a Word document and click on ‘Add-Ins’ (a grid symbol) top-right in the horizontal menu bar at the top of the page.

From the dropdown of options, select ‘ChatGPT for Excel and Word’ and follow the very brief instructions to set it up.

Write your document and use the ChatGPT add-in, which appears in the right pane, to research details which you can copy directly into your document using the ‘Copy’ or ‘Insert’ button provided.

Following the news that Volkswagen (VW) is to add ChatGPT to the IDA voice assistant in its cars and SUVs, we look at what this could mean for the direction of technology for cars.

Adding ChatGPT 

At the current CET in Las Vegas, VW announced that starting in Europe in the second quarter of this year, the famous chatbot will be added to a variety of VW EVs, including the D.7, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.3, Tiguan, Passat, and Golf.

Drivers will be able to use ChatGPT hands-free via VW’s existing onboard IDA voice assistant, with Cerence Chat Pro from technology partner Cerence Inc acting as the foundation of the new function, which VW says, “offers a uniquely intelligent, automotive-grade ChatGPT integration.”

Within Limits 

It’s been reported, however, that certain limits have been placed on the kinds of questions that VW’s ChatGPT will answer, e.g. no profanity or ‘sensitive’ topics (it’s a family car).

Why? 

VW’s newsroom says the ChatGPT integration will mean that: “The IDA voice assistant can be used to control the infotainment, navigation, and air conditioning, or to answer general knowledge questions.” Also, VW envisions that: “In the future, AI will provide additional information in response to questions that go beyond this as part of its continuously expanding capabilities. This can be helpful on many levels during a car journey: Enriching conversations, clearing up questions, interacting in intuitive language, receiving vehicle-specific information, and much more – purely hands-free.” 

Just The Start 

Stefan Ortmanns, CEO of Cerence, the company tasked with the integration of ChatGPT with the onboard voice assistant has indicated that this is just the beginning, and that VW looks likely to ramp-up the power of its onboard AI going forward. For example, Ortmanns says: “As we look to the future, together Volkswagen and Cerence will explore collaboration to design a new, large-language-model-based (LLM) user experience as the foundation of Volkswagen’s next-generation in-car assistant.” 

What If It Was Combined With Autonomous Vehicles? 

This first for a volume car manufacturer and commitment to integrating generative AI with vehicles, coupled with the recent UK government suggestion that autonomous cars could be on our roads by 2026 raises some tantalising possibilities and questions. For example, what if AI chatbots like ChatGPT were integrated into autonomous vehicles and how could this affect the evolution of our cars and our commuting experience? Let’s explore some of the potential impacts and transformations this could bring.

Transformation into Access-Pods? 

Cars could evolve from traditional vehicles into “access-pods” and become spaces not just for travel but for various activities. In an autonomous vehicle, the need for a driver is eliminated, which would allow for the interior to be redesigned. For example, seats could become more like comfortable office chairs, and the inclusion of small tables or workstations could become standard. This could transform the car into a mobile office or a personal lounge, making the journey itself a productive or leisurely part of the day.

Working During Commute 

With autonomous vehicles, people could start working during their commute, just as they do on the train (only in a more personal setting). This could significantly change daily schedules, allowing for more flexible work hours. Also, as travel time becomes working time, the distinction between office and home could blur, perhaps leading to a more fluid work-life integration.

Could It Lead To A Societal Shift In Work Habits? 

The ability to work from a private car might lead to changes in living patterns. People might be more willing to live further from their workplaces if they can be productive during longer commutes. This could also have a wider impact on the property market, with less emphasis on living close to urban centres.

Enhanced Productivity and Entertainment 

The integration of AI chatbots in cars (whether autonomous or not) could, as VW suggests, make a journey more interactive and informative. Passengers can engage in productive tasks like setting up meetings, conducting research, or learning new skills through conversational AI. Additionally, entertainment options could become more personalised and interactive.

Safety and Accessibility 

For people who are unable to drive due to various reasons such as age, disability, or other factors, autonomous vehicles with AI integration could offer new levels of independence and mobility.

Traffic and Environmental Impact 

If autonomous vehicles and AI lead to smoother traffic flow and more efficient travel, there could be positive environmental impacts. However, if it encourages longer commutes, it might have the opposite effect.

Regulatory and Ethical Considerations 

With these possible advancements would come the need for new regulations and ethical guidelines, particularly concerning data privacy, cybersecurity, and liability in the event of accidents.

New Business Models?

The prospect of generative AI-controlled autonomous vehicles could also lead to new business models. For example, this could include things like subscription-based access to luxury autonomous pods for commuting, or services that combine transportation with other amenities like fitness, relaxation, or entertainment.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Although VW’s integration of generative AI with vehicle voice assistants is a first for a volume car manufacturer, there was a kind of inevitability to it and it’s unlikely to take long for other car manufacturers to announce the same (they’re probably already working on it). For VW, it’s (currently) a value-adding and differentiating introduction, so provided that the restrictions on what the onboard ChatGPT can discuss aren’t too strict, it could make the driving time much more interesting, productive, and a much more personalised experience. Linking it to the sat-nav for example, may also be a feature that motorists really value, as may be the greater feeling of control, reassurance, and novelty of having something that can tell you about the car and its performance and issues. It may also provide a societal purpose and make people feel less alone while driving and perhaps more alert. Using hands-free voice commands to operate more aspects of the car (e.g. the radio, the hands-free phone etc), may also improve driver safety.

Looking ahead, perhaps to the integration of generative AI with autonomous vehicles, it’s possible that a societal shift could occur where our vehicles become more like productive and comfortable access-pods, which could have wider implications for our work/life balance and business models and could have knock-on effects for whole industries. It could even open new business and entertainment opportunities focused on access-pod occupants. This move by Volkswagen, therefore, offers us a glimpse of a better future for our personal transport options.

With January 1 being ‘Public Domain Day’, we look at what ‘public domain’ actually means in relation to works of literature, music, art, and science.

Public Domain Day

New Year’s Day each year is called ‘Public Domain Day’ because it’s the day that the copyright protection on a wide range of creative works such as literature, music, art, and science from the past expire. This means that they enter the ‘public domain’, i.e. they become free to use and adapt by everyone, with no licence required.

Life Of The Author Plus 70 Years (In The UK) 

In the UK for example, the duration of copyright is generally the life of the author plus 70 years. This means that a work enters the public domain 70 years after the death of the creator.

In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works, the copyright lasts for 70 years from the date the work was made available to the public, unless the author’s identity becomes known within those 70 years. In these cases, the copyright duration reverts to the ‘life plus 70 years’ rule.

It’s important to note, however, that these rules can vary depending on the type of work and the circumstances of its publication. Also, different rules can apply to works published before a certain date or to works of authors who died many years ago. Copyright laws also differ from country to country.

Recent Examples 

Some examples of works that have just entered the public domain in 2024 include:

Books and Literary Works 

Some books by Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf, W.E.B. Du Bois, D.H. Lawrence, H.G. Wells, Evelyn Waugh, and A.A. Milne. These include “The House at Pooh Corner” (1928) by A.A. Milne and “Orlando: A Biography” by Virginia Woolf. Also, Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” have now entered the public domain, as has the poem “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin.

Films 

Some notable films such as Charlie Chaplin’s “The Circus” and “Steamboat Willie,” which features the earliest incarnations of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse (1928), have entered the public domain. Also, films like “The Passion of Joan of Arc” directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and “In Old Arizona” are now in the public domain.

Other Notable Works 

In the art world, paintings by Francis Picabia and works by Cecil Hepworth, such as the 1903 film “Alice in Wonderland,” are now public domain. In music, compositions by Joseph Jongen and Django Reinhardt have also entered the public domain.

Memes and Adaptations 

The widespread circulation of memes and adaptations on the same subject often indicate an event or popular news story in today’s society. For example, as mentioned above, following years of legal battles, Steamboat Willie has now entered the public domain and, therefore, so have the earliest versions of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse – this early Mickey Mouse has a more mischievous character. The film (and the accompanying Mickey and Minnie) was due to enter the public domain in 1984 but had its copyright extended. The extra 40 year wait and the legal wranglings with Disney (dubbed the ‘Mickey Mouse Protection Act’) have therefore made its public domain entrance newsworthy and a cause for celebration for some (e.g. those who saw it as a fight now lost by a large corporation). The result has been the appearance of many memes and adaptations appearing in multiple forms and locations (the first big meme of 2024), almost as a way to rub Disney’s nose in the fact that it has finally given up the Steamboat Willie Mickey and Minnie prizes to the rest of us.

Exceptions 

Some works, however, don’t fall under standard public domain rules due to specific reasons. These include:

– Works never covered by copyright such as facts, ideas, and methods of operation, which are not eligible for copyright.

– In some countries, government-produced works are public domain.

– Works where creators have chosen to waive copyright and place their works in the public domain anyway.

– Works with unknown or contested authorship, where there may be unclear copyright status.

– Works which have longer copyright due to specific legislation (like the US Copyright Term Extension Act).

– Unpublished works. These may have different copyright durations compared to published works.

– International variations whereby copyright laws vary by country, affecting public domain status.

– Corporate or anonymous works. These have different rules for copyright duration, often based on the publication date.

How Do You Check? 

For those wanting to quickly check whether a work is now in the public domain (more rigorous legal checks may be advisable), and find public domain works you can use, you can try websites like:

The Public Domain Review (publicdomainreview.org) – this focuses on historical and cultural works, including art and film, that are in the public domain.

Europeana Collections (www.europeana.eu) – offering access to millions of artworks, photographs, books, and music from European museums, galleries, libraries, and archives.

Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) – focusing on books and offers a vast collection of works that are in the public domain.

Internet Archive (www.archive.org) – a digital library offering free access to books, movies, music, and more, many of which are in the public domain.

The Public Domain Review (publicdomainreview.org) – offering a curated collection of works that have entered the public domain.

The Library of Congress Digital Collections (www.loc.gov/collections/) – offering access to a wide range of historical films, photographs, and documents, many of which are in the public domain.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

In its most basic form, when works come into the public domain it means no need for the cost of licences or legal worries for businesses wanting to use parts of them or adapt them. Wikipedia (which dedicated a whole page to the now public domain ‘Steamboat Willie’ Mickey Mouse suggests that when major works become free to enjoy, share, and re-use, it’s not just an event for creatives and knowledge collectors, but “also for all of us – as ‘consumers’ of knowledge.”  It seems, therefore, that ‘public domain’ has a legal definition in different countries but can also mean many things depending on who you are and what it’s taken to get something into the public domain. For example, it can be seen as a victory over large corporations, where all of us gaining something of rare value, or as a supply of free value-adding content that’s ripe for adaptation for a number of promotional and marketing purposes.

In the first change to Microsoft keyboards in 30 years, an AI key is to be added to Microsoft Windows 11 PC keyboards from February.

Copilot Key 

In a move that Microsoft says will make “2024 the year of the AI PC” and to mark a “shift toward a more personal and intelligent computing future where AI will be seamlessly woven into Windows from the system”, the new AI key will be added to allow the launch of Copilot directly from the keyboard.

Copilot is Microsoft’s AI-powered “companion” that’s been embedded into 365’s popular apps to provide intelligent suggestions and automation. This includes areas like Office Suite, where it can help in creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations by suggesting content, layouts, data insights and help with coding. It’s designed to enhance productivity and creativity, and to streamline tasks across different Microsoft software.

First Change To Keyboard In Three Decades 

In a blog post announcing the change, Microsoft says “the Copilot key marks the first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades. We believe it will empower people to participate in the AI transformation more easily.” 

When? 

Microsoft says that over the coming days leading up to and at the Computer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas January 9-12, 2024, users will notice the Copilot key being added to many of the new Windows 11 PCs from its own partners, with availability beginning later in January through Spring, including on upcoming Surface devices.

Competition

Microsoft has invested heavily in (and worked in partnership with) OpenAI (ChatGPT’s creators) and this small but significant keyboard change shows how competition in the relatively new generative AI field is hotting up. With Google’s Bard and Duet AI (its equivalent of Copilot) plus Gemini and AI Studio, Microsoft’s move to compete and make it easier to access Copilot is behind this latest keyboard change. Some commentators compared it to when Apple added a Siri button (or option) to its touch bar on MacBooks to support voice usage.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The introduction of the first change to Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades reflects Microsoft’s investment in AI and the fact they’re competing with rivals such as Google. Clearly, they’ll want to gain share in the generative AI market, and support and boost user numbers for Copilot. It’s also a way for Microsoft to bind users to its many products and ensure that the company remains a front-runner in what Microsoft sees as a world where AI is here to stay and grow in importance.

The company’s need to be leading the field may in no small way be the reason why its relationship has become so close to OpenAI (with the recent high-profile boardroom turmoil) that the relationship has become the subject of antitrust investigations. Expect more significant changes as the fast-evolving and highly competitive generative AI market grows.

A recent Times report highlighted how Phil Douglas, director-general of the UK Border Force, aims to replace the UK’s physical passport-based entry system with an upgraded, frictionless, facial recognition-based e-Gates system.

Current eGates System 

The current eGates system that most UK travellers have experienced involves the use of facial recognition alongside a passport and automated gates. With this system, travellers must still queue before entering the automated gates and hold their physical passport into the machine while looking into a camera (which isn’t always successful). The current system relies on a match between data encrypted on the passport and the facial recognition camera image, and users of the system must be registered on a database.

The current eGates system can also only be used by travellers aged 10 and over who are citizens of the UK, EU, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea.

Issues 

In addition to the queuing required and the fact that some users need several attempts, the current eGates system has several other issues. For example, unsuccessful attempts to use the system (of which there are many) still require manual checks, while major outages of the eGates system have previously caused chaos at UK airports (in May and September 2023).

The Upgraded System 

The upgraded system highlighted by Mr Douglas in the recent Times report will mean that passengers can keep their physical passports in their pockets and be admitted to the UK just by looking into a camera linked to a centralised facial recognition system.

The benefits of the upgraded eGates should be less queuing (better for the airport and for travellers) plus a more ‘frictionless’ experience for travellers.

Already In Operation In Other Countries 

Much faster and more frictionless systems, like the upgraded version intended for the UK, are already in operation in countries like Dubai and Australia. It’s been reported that the Dubai ‘Smart Gates’ system uses facial recognition for 50 nationalities and can enable travellers to clear immigration procedures in as little as five seconds!

Eta 

Speaking at the Airlines 2023 conference in November last year, Phil Douglas highlighted how the eGates system changes are part of wider immigration process changes including the incoming Electronic Travel Authorisation (Eta). The Eta scheme, which opened for applications last October, is a requirement worldwide for visitors who don’t need a visa for short stays in the UK but who the government would like to know more about and be able to refuse entry if they may pose a threat. It’s envisaged that the application-style scheme (which will work even for those people “airside” at Heathrow for two hours between international flights), could enable the UK Border Force to make decisions about admission much earlier, and perhaps refuse ETas for those with a criminal history.  Critics, however, have said that the scheme could damage UK airlines and tourism, particularly for Northern Ireland.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

For anyone who’s ever arrived home at a UK airport from a holiday or business trip, not having to fish out the passport after the flight, being able to avoid queues in arrivals for the eGates machines, then being able to just walk through in seconds sounds very attractive.

Avoiding the chaos of eGates outages is also likely to be very attractive to airports, passengers, airlines, and other stakeholders, although it does highlight the dangers of ever-reliance on technology. For a stretched UK government’s Border Force, technology that can cut queues and cut staff costs, and eliminate passport reliance while eliminating human error opportunities is also likely to be appealing. A system that allows travellers to complete immigration checks in seconds, like Dubai’s or Australia’s may also be an image that the UK wants to project as a country positioning itself as a tech centre.

However, some may see a more sinister, rigid, less romantic side to travel. Having a purely biometrics-based immigration procedure where your freedom to enter or leave is decided by whatever is recorded on a central database entry (and triggered by your face) is perhaps a more negative vision of the future. Police facial recognition trials, for example, have not been accurate or unbiased, and coupled with updated eGates and the Eta scheme (which is unsurprising given the government has prioritised immigration as a central issue), some may feel uneasy about a dystopian creep into travel and freedom.

For example, could ETa and purely smart borders mean those individuals whose central database details are marked with previous (perhaps minor) offences or other issues (e.g. social media posts) find themselves refused exit from or entry into countries? Could such a system be misused by governments?

Also, with the phasing-out of physical passports (and payments for renewals), and everything linked to a central database, could this open up the route for travel subscription payment systems? There is also the fear of security and privacy related to a border/immigration database that holds so much personal information about people.

The more distant future and fears aside, AI is now likely to be the key to enhancing and improving biometric systems and – whether we like it or not – such a system for borders is just one of many we will face going forward.

Following a US case dating back to 2017 which led to Apple admitting that it has deliberately slowed down some older models of iPhones (throttling), a settlement for compensation payments to affected iPhone owners has been reached.

After agreeing in 2020 to pay, this settlement of the lawsuit means that each of the 5.5 million complainants will receive £72 from Apple’s agreed £394m ($500m) total payout pot.

Unfortunately for Apple, it is still facing another class action lawsuit led by market researcher Justin Gutmann on behalf of 24 million British iPhone users over a similar throttling issue following an update. If it loses, Apple could face an £853 million ($1.03 billion) payout.

Online protection company McAfee’s Mobile Research Team has identified a list of malicious apps that Android owners should immediately delete. This is because they use Xamalicious malware to build a stealth backdoor, infect, and take over devices.

The apps, which have now been removed from the Google Play store, are reported to have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

Detailed information about how each of the apps infects devices, and a list of the 13 malicious apps that were present in the Google Play Store can be found on McAfee’s website here.

The advice is to avoid using apps that require accessibility services unless there is a genuine need for their use, install security software

An online map from non-profit climate science organisation ‘Climate Central’ shows which areas of the UK could be underwater due to climate change by 2050.

Sea Level Rise 

As highlighted in a 2021 report by Benjamin H Strauss et al, if a high emissions scenario raised global temperatures by 4 ∘C warming, this could produce an 8.9 m global sea level rise within a roughly 200 to 2000-year envelope, that could submerge at least 50 major cities!

First Unveiled In 2020 

It was back in 2020 when Climate Central’ s CoastalDEM digital model and warnings that sea levels may rise between 2-7ft by the end of the century first illustrated how and why many UK coastal areas could end up submerged i by 2050. It also highlighted the point that how high the sea level rises depends on how much warming pollution humanity dumps into the atmosphere.

The Latest 

Climate Central’s latest update to the model, highlighted in its new ‘Flooded Future: Global vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood’ report, suggests that predictions have got worse. The report, which includes the map, explains the basic sea level rise cause, saying: “As humanity pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the planet warms” and that “as it does so, ice sheets and glaciers melt and warming sea water expands, increasing the volume of the world’s oceans.” 

However, as indicated by the new report’s title, it goes on to explain, with the help of its flooding map, that it is now thought that even if moderate’ reductions are made to the amount of human-made pollution, and with a ‘medium’ amount of ‘luck’ with weather events, vast swathes of the UK look likely to become submerged.

In fact, the report suggests that globally, by 2050, land that’s currently home to 300 million people will fall below the elevation of an average annual coastal flood and, by 2100, land now home to 200 million people could sit permanently below the high tide line. Based on the current CoastalDEM, Climate Central reports that around 10 million people currently live on land below the high-tide line.

What The Map Shows 

The updated map, included in the report shows (using red markings for submerged areas), shows that by 2050, areas of the UK most likely to be affected by serious flooding and/or being completely under water include:

– London’s River Thames area (flagged as a danger zone).

– The River Severn (in the South West) either side of the estuary from Taunton up to Tewkesbury, and back to Cardiff on the northern bank.

– Large areas of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coast, into Cambridgeshire.

– Large areas around the Humber Estuary in the North of England.

The interactive map, entitled the “Coastal Risk Screening Tool” can be viewed online here.

Challenges 

Some of the key challenges to accurate predictions of submerged areas have been not knowing how much warming pollution is being dumped into the atmosphere and how quickly the land-based ice sheets in Greenland and especially Antarctica will destabilise / are destabilising. It’s also very difficult to accurately project where and when the sea level rise could lead to increased/permanent flooding, and be able to compare sea level rise against land elevations, given that accurate elevation data is generally unavailable, inaccessible, and/or too expensive

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

One of the many worrying aspects of global warming is around melting of the world’s ice caps and the expansion of the warmer oceans leading to a rise in sea level and serious flooding. Having a map based on up-to-date data that shows where the worst flooding could be will be a useful tool in terms of helping to raise awareness about the threat and its potential consequences and in planning to help mitigate its effects where possible.

In the UK, the fact that the Thames is flagged by the map and reported as being a danger zone has caused alarm. The effects of flooding of the kind highlighted on Climate Central’s map could range from near-term increases in coastal flooding damaging infrastructure and crops to the permanent displacement of whole coastal communities. Although many coastal areas have existing coastal defences, the Climate Central map indicates that these may not be enough to deal with future sea levels, thereby giving a serious heads-up to the need for planning and action for next steps. For example, more adaptive and expensive measures may be needed such as the construction of levees and other defences or, in the worst cases, relocation to higher ground could be the only way to lessen some of the threats.

One of the key points of the report and the map is to make people understand that the amount by which the sea level will rise (and flooding will occur) depends upon how much greenhouse gasses are dumped into the atmosphere by human activity. The conclusion, therefore, must be that changing our behaviour to minimise our carbon footprint and really focusing on meeting climate targets is the only way to minimise the damage to the planet, reduce global warming, and hopefully reduce the risk of disappearing beneath the waves. Although there was a pledge at the COP28 summit in Dubai last year, to ‘transition away’ from the use of fossil fuels, many people are aware that the clock is really ticking on this most fundamental issue.

If you have a document in Microsoft Word that you’d like to convert to a more readable, book-like format, reducing distractions and allowing you to really focus on the content, here’s how:

Open the document in Microsoft Word.

Go to the ‘View’ tab (top left) and select ‘Read Mode.’

This tidies away the menus and distractions at the side, but leaves the edit and other options in a drop-down (top right).

It’s been reported that The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that they used millions of its articles without permission to help train chatbots.

The First 

It’s understood that the New York Times (NYT) is the first major US media organisation to sue ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI, plus tech giant Microsoft (which is also an OpenAI investor and creator of Copilot), over copyright issues associated with its works.

Main Allegations 

The crux of the NYT’s argument appears to be that the use of its work to create GenAI tools should come with permission and an agreement that reflects the fair value of the work. Also, it’s important in this case to note that the NYT relies on digital subscriptions rather than physical newspaper subscriptions, of which it now has 9 million+ subscribers (the relevance of which will be clear below).

With this in mind, in addition to the main allegation of training AI on its articles without permission (for free), other main allegations made by the NYT about OpenAI and Microsoft in relation to the lawsuit include :

– OpenAI and Microsoft may be trying to get a “free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism” by using it to provide another way to deliver information to readers, i.e. a way around its payment wall. For example, the NYT alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft chatbots gave users near-verbatim excerpts of its articles. The NYT’s legal team have given examples of these, such as restaurant critic Pete Wells’ 2012 review of Guy Fieri’s (of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives fame) “Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar”. The NYT argues that this threatens its high-quality journalism by reducing readers’ perceived need to visit its website, thereby reducing its web traffic, and potentially reducing its revenue from advertising and from the digital subscriptions that now make up most of its readership.

– Misinformation from OpenAI’s (and Microsoft’s) chatbots, in the form of errors and so-called ‘AI hallucinations’ make it harder for readers to tell fact from fiction, including when their technology falsely attributes information to the newspaper. The NYT’s legal team cite examples of where this may be the case, such as ChatGPT once falsely attributing two recommendations for office chairs to its Wirecutter product review website.

“Fair Use” And Transformative 

In their defence, Open AI and Microsoft appear likely to be relying mainly on the arguments that the training of AI on NYT’s content amounts to “fair use” and the outputs of the chatbots are “transformative.”

For example, under US law, “fair use” is a doctrine that allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission or payment, especially for purposes like criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. Determining whether a specific use qualifies as fair use, however, will involve considering factors like the purpose and character of the usage. For example, the use must be “transformative”, i.e. adding something new or altering the original work in a significant way (often for a different purpose). OpenAI and Microsoft may therefore argue that training their AI products could potentially be seen as transformative as the AI uses the newspaper content in a way that is different from the original purpose of news reporting or commentary. However, the NYT has already stated that: “There is nothing ‘transformative’ about using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it”. Any evidence of verbatim outputs may also damage the ‘transformative’ argument for OpenAI and Microsoft.

Complicated 

Although these sound like relatively clear arguments either way, there are several factors that add to the complication of this case. These include:

– The fact that OpenAI altered its products following copyright issues, thereby making it difficult to decide whether its outputs are currently enough to find liability.

– Many possible questions about the journalistic, financial, and legal implications of generative AI for news organisations.

– Broader ethical and practical dilemmas facing media companies in the age of AI.

What Is It Going To Cost? 

Given reports that talks between all three companies to avert the lawsuit have failed to resolve the matter, what the NYT wants is:

Damages of an as yet undisclosed sum, which some say could be in the $billions (given that OpenAI is valued at $80 billion and Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary).

For OpenAI and Microsoft to destroy the chatbot models and training sets that incorporate the NYT’s material.

Many Other Examples

AI companies like OpenAI are now facing many legal challenges of a similar nature, e.g. the scraping/automatic collection of online content/data by AI without compensation, and for other related reasons. For example:

– A class action lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of scraping personal data from internet users, alleging violations of privacy, intellectual property, and anti-hacking laws. The plaintiffs claim that this practice violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

– Google has been accused in a class-action lawsuit of misusing large amounts of personal information and copyrighted material to train its AI systems. This case raises issues about the boundaries of data use and copyright infringement in the context of AI training.

– A Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt class action claims that these companies used copyrighted images to train their AI systems without permission. The key issue in this lawsuit is likely to be whether the training of AI models with copyrighted content, particularly visual art, constitutes copyright infringement. The challenge lies in proving infringement, as the generated art may not directly resemble the training images. The involvement of Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network (LAION) in compiling images used for training adds another layer of complexity to the case.

– Back in February 2023, Getty Images sued Stability AI alleging that it had copied 12 million images to train its AI model without permission or compensation.

The Actors and Writers Strike 

The recent strike by Hollywood actors and writers is another example of how fears about AI, consent, and copyright, plus the possible effects of AI on eroding the value of people’s work and jeopardising their income are now of real concern. For example, the strike was primarily focused on concerns regarding the use of AI in the entertainment industry. Writers, represented by the Writers Guild of America, were worried about AI being used to write or complete scripts, potentially affecting their jobs and pay. Actors, under SAG-AFTRA, protested against proposals to use AI to scan and use their likenesses indefinitely without ongoing consent or compensation.

Disputes like this, and the many lawsuits against AI companies highlight the urgent need for clear policies and regulations on AI’s use, and the fear that AI’s advance is fast outstripping the ability for laws to keep up.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

We’re still very much at the beginning of a fast-evolving generative AI revolution. As such, lawsuits against AI companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI are now challenging the legal limits of gathering training material for AI models from public databases. These types of cases are likely to help to shape the legal framework around what is permissible in the realm of data-scraping for AI purposes going forward.

The NYT/OpenAI/Microsoft lawsuit and other examples, therefore, demonstrate the evolving legal landscape as courts now try to grapple with the implications of AI technology on copyright, privacy, and data use laws, and its complexities. Each case will contribute to defining the boundaries and acceptable practices in the use of online content for AI training purposes, and it will be very interesting to see whether arguments like “fair use” are enough to stand up to the pressure from multiple companies and industries. It will also be interesting to see what penalties (if things go the wrong way for OpenAI and others) will be deemed suitable, both in terms of possible compensation and/or the destruction of whole models and training sets.

For businesses (who are now able to create their own specialised, tailored chatbots), these major lawsuits should serve as a warning to be very careful in the training of their chatbots and to think carefully about any legal implications, and to focus on creating chatbots that are not just effective but are also likely to be compliant.