This Week’s Top 5 Stories in AI – AI Magazine
As AI technology continues to change and develop, copyright cases involving AI are becoming increasingly common while governments struggle to establish effective regulations and enterprises grapple to stick to them.
In the last few months, the AI industry has faced a high amount of legal challenges over its use of copyrighted content.
Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney, accusing the company of piracy, Reddit did the same with Anthropic – and the BBC is considering legal action over unauthorised use of its content by AI developers.
Now, a federal judge has delivered a split decision in a closely watched copyright case, with a ruling that allows Anthropic to continue using copyrighted books for training purposes whilst ordering the company to face trial over its use of pirated materials.
Judge William Alsup of the US District Court rules that Anthropic’s training of its Claude large language model (LLM) using copyrighted works constitutes “exceedingly transformative” use under American copyright law.
Educational institutions worldwide are grappling with policies around AI tool usage as systems like ChatGPT become more sophisticated and accessible.
AI is being increasingly used across the education sector. ChatGPT in particular has been widely adopted across educational institutions since its public release.
Yet researchers at MIT have published findings suggesting that OpenAI’s ChatGPT may diminish critical thinking capabilities amongst users.
The study, conducted by MIT’s Media Lab, tracked 54 participants aged between 18 and 39 from the Boston metropolitan area over several months.
Participants were divided into three groups and asked to complete essay-writing tasks based on standardised academic test prompts.
One group used ChatGPT to assist with their writing, another relied on Google’s search engine and a third worked without technological assistance.
Electroencephalography equipment monitored participants’ neural activity across 32 brain regions during the writing exercises. The technology measures electrical activity in the brain through sensors placed on the scalp.
Results showed that ChatGPT users demonstrated the lowest levels of brain engagement across “neural, linguistic and behavioural measurements,” according to the researchers.
As AI adoption accelerates across industries, the question of how large language models (LLMs) are trained – and whether that process infringes on copyright – is moving to the forefront.
Now, the BBC has threatened legal action against Perplexity AI over alleged unauthorised use of BBC content in its chatbot responses.
The corporation has written to Perplexity demanding the company immediately cease using BBC material, delete any content it holds and propose financial compensation for material already used.
The BBC claims Perplexity’s AI chatbot reproduces BBC content “verbatim” without permission.
This is the first time the BBC has taken such action against an AI company, reflecting the growing tensions between content creators and AI firms over copyright and licensing arrangements.
Perplexity AI operates an AI-powered search engine that describes itself as an ‘answer engine,’ providing responses to user queries by searching web sources and synthesising information.
The company has gained popularity as users seek alternatives to traditional search engines for obtaining direct answers to questions.
The BBC’s legal threat comes in a letter addressed to Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s CEO, stating the alleged content use “constitutes copyright infringement in the UK and breach of the BBC’s terms of use.”
Microsoft has published its second annual Responsible AI Transparency Report, showcasing the measures it is taking to ensure its development of AI is both ethical and open.
In recent years, Microsoft’s investments in AI have skyrocketed.
The US-based firm is expected to spend US$80bn on AI this fiscal year, making Microsoft one of the world’s largest investors in AI and its associated technologies.
But as Microsoft has increased its investments in AI it has simultaneously made an effort to increase its transparency.
This is a move that reflects some of the emerging sentiments in the sector, where corporate clients and customers are demanding stronger guardrails, while regulators are circling, ready to impose stricter rules.
“The past year has seen a wave of AI adoption by organisations of all sizes, prompting a renewed focus on effective AI governance in practice,” say Natasha Crampton, Chief Responsible AI Officer and Teresa Hutson, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, in their joint foreword.
Google has launched AI Mode, a chatbot-style feature that provides direct answers to user queries without requiring visits to external websites.
The feature is an extension of Google's AI Overview tool – which generates summary paragraphs that appear at the top of search results pages – that the company introduced in 2024.
What makes AI Mode unique, is that unlike traditional search results that display links to websites, it creates detailed responses similar to those produced by ChatGPT or Claude.
Users must actively select AI Mode before conducting searches, making it separate from Google's standard search functionality.
Whilst Google’s AI model itself is not particularly revolutionary, the fact that it is made by the company that has a near monopoly on search engines makes it likely that it will receive a great deal of use.
In fact, it could fundamentally change how people find information online, with Google’s Head of Search Liz Reid calling it “the future of Google Search”.
However, industry experts warn that this technology could reduce web traffic and advertising revenues for millions of publishers who depend on search engine optimisation.
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