Just spilled milk?

AI is growing in applications. From outsourcing research questions to ChatGPT or Claude to algorithmic trading, the technology is trending. But has the law kept up? And what does this mean for you when either using AI or deciding how to protect your business from some negative AI uses? 

In short, how to prevent the AI milk from spilling?

This is the subject of this recent entry from the Center for Internet and Society. Some studies show that AI growth has outpaced related regulations. This means that competitors can use AI to, say, scrape your ad meta data without being held accountable for copyright infringement — if they do it from a jurisdiction where this hasn’t been decided. Recent cases have been filed in this space, including this one by publishers and prominent authors against Meta for permitting its AI to train on copyrighted works.

There can also be more nefarious uses of the technology, such as to use bots or other AI creations to interact with your business so as to create false traffic. While some of these applications can fit within current legal regimes, other innovative uses of AI have not been decided by the courts. Even when they have, courts within a jurisdiction don’t always agree. Plus, there is still the issue of different rulings in varied geographic jurisdictions like Bratislava and Palo Alto.