On Tuesday, May 2, 2023, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) held the second of four sessions on the copyright implications of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), titled “Artificial Intelligence and Copyright – Visual Arts.” The session focused on GAI issues relevant to visual works, and featured two panels with various stakeholders that brought a range of perspectives to the discussion. These panelists included representatives from GAI platform companies, graphic design software companies, think tanks, policy organizations, and law firms, as well as artists concerned by the impact of GAI ..read more

Counterfactuals, the buzzy term being touted in the latest AI news, assert some impressive promises for the tech world. But the general idea is nothing new. Counterfactual thinking describes the human drive to conjure up alternative outcomes based on different choices that might be made along the way—essentially it’s a way of looking at cause and effect. Counterfactual philosophy dates back to Aristotle, and along the way it’s been debated by historians and even written about by Winston Churchill in his 1931 essay, “If Lee Had NOT Won the Battle of Gettysburg.” In more recent years, scientists ..read more

New and emerging technologies have always carried a host of potential risks to accompany their oft-blinding potential. Just as dependably, those risks have often been ignored, glossed over or just missed as public enthusiasm waxes and companies race to bring a product to market first and most effectively. Automobiles promised to get people (and products) from one place to another at life-changing speeds, but also posed a danger to life and limb while imposing a new burden on existing infrastructure. Even as technology leaps have transitioned from appliances and aircraft to computers, connectiv ..read more

On April 6, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed Judge Gilstrap’s ruling in SAS Institute, Inc. v. World Programming Limited, which effectively denied copyright protection to SAS Institute’s data analysis software. The decision is likely to have lasting implications for developers that seek to protect software through copyright law ..read more

Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are one of the more exciting examples. Their generative capabilities have implications for our patent system, some of which are underappreciated and nonintuitive. Under U.S. patent law, an inventor may not obtain a patent if the claimed invention would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill, in view of the prior art. (See 35 U.S.C. § 103 ..read more

In today’s News of Note, generative AI continues to draw criticism and even a ban, but that doesn’t stop developers from pushing forward with everything from music prediction and mind-reading—to talking with crabs. Plus, we look at quantum computing in health care, a new report on the impact of deep-sea rare earths mining, and so much more ..read more

Over on Pillsbury’s SourcingSpeak blog, colleagues James W. McPhillips, Elizabeth Zimmer, Sandro Serra and Mia Rendar provide an in-depth exploration of the many concerns and considerations in play for organizations seeking to integrate AI systems into their own operations. Part I: Artificial Intelligence Systems and Risks in Commercial Contracting provides an introduction to AI systems, along with some examples of how they come into play. Part II: The Legal Risks of AI Systems in Technology Services breaks down some of the risks and issues that would-be AI adopters should ..read more

It is not every day that the rough-and-tumble “giga” world of mining and mineral refining interacts with the rarefied and metaphysical “nano” realm of quantum physics. The lawyers at Pillsbury and other law firms engaged in each endeavor rarely darken each other’s doors. But the streams are indeed converging today, as rare earths and related critical materials have been found to be uniquely suited for developments in quantum computing ..read more

On February 21, 2023, the Copyright Office eclipsed its prior decisions in the area of AI authorship when it partially cancelled Kristina Kashtanova’s registration for a comic book titled Zarya of the Dawn. In doing so, the Office found that the AI program Kashtanova used—Midjourney—was primarily responsible for the visual output that the Office chose to exclude from Kashtanova’s registration. (Midjourney is an AI program that creates images from textual descriptions, much like OpenAI’s DALL-E.) The decision not only highlights tension between the human authorship requirements of copyright law ..read more

On February 8, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released a report citing its “findings on the current state of cloud adoption in the sector, including potential benefits and challenges associated with increased adoption.” Treasury acknowledged that cloud adoption is an “important component” of a financial institution’s overall technology and business strategy, but also warned the industry about the harm a technical breakdown or cyberattack could have on the public given financial institutions’ reliance on a few large cloud service providers. The Treasury also noted that “[t]his report ..read more