Writers are protesting against studios’ use of AI language models to put in writing scripts. Actors are on strike after rejecting a proposal from corporations looking for to make use of AI technology to scan people’s faces and bodies, and own the appropriate to use these deepfake-style digital copies without consent or compensation in perpetuity. 

What connects these cases is a fear that humans can be replaced by computer programs, and a sense that there’s little or no we will do about it. No wonder. Our lax approach to regulating the excesses of the previous tech boom means AI corporations have felt protected constructing and launching products which might be exploitative and harmful. 

But that’s about to alter. The generative AI boom has revived American politicians’ enthusiasm for passing AI-specific laws. Though it’ll take some time until that has any effect, existing laws already provide loads of ammunition for many who say their rights have been harmed by AI corporations. 

I just published a story  the flood of lawsuits and investigations which have hit those corporations recently. These lawsuits are prone to be very influential in ensuring that the way in which AI is developed and utilized in the long run is more equitable and fair. Read it here. 

The gist is that last week, the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into whether OpenAI violated consumer protection laws by scraping people’s online data to coach its popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. 

Meanwhile, artists, authors, and the image company Getty are suing AI corporations equivalent to OpenAI, Stability AI, and Meta, alleging that they broke copyright laws by training their models on their work without providing any recognition or payment. Last week comedian and creator Sarah Silverman joined the authors’ copyright fight against AI corporations. 

Each the FTC investigation and the slew of lawsuits revolve around AI’s data practices, which depend on hoovering the web for data to coach models. This inevitably includes personal data in addition to copyrighted works. 

These cases will essentially determine how AI corporations are legally allowed to behave,  says Matthew Butterick, a lawyer who represents artists and authors, including Silverman, in school actions against GitHub and Microsoft, OpenAI, Stability AI, and Meta.