The Capitol Hill hearings that includes TikTok’s CEO lead off episode 450 of the Cyberlaw Podcast. The CEO dealt with the endless stream of Congressional accusations and suspicion about in addition to may have been anticipated. And it did him as little good as a cynic would have anticipated. Jim Dempsey and Mark MacCarthy assume Congress is shifting towards motion on Chinese language IT merchandise – most likely within the type of the bipartisan Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act. However passing laws and truly doing one thing about China’s IT successes are two very various things.
The FTC is jumping into the policy arena on cloud services, Mark tells us, and it will possibly’t escape its DNA; it is dwelling on doable business focus and lock-in and never asking a lot concerning the nationwide safety implications of knocking off a bunch of American cloud suppliers when the alternate options are largely Chinese language cloud suppliers. The FTC’s myopia signifies that the administration will not get as a lot assist because it may from the FTC on cloud safety measures. I reissue my normal objection to the FTC’s refusal to comply with the FCC’s lead in deferring on nationwide safety to govt department considerations. Mark and I disagree about whether or not the FTC Act requires the Fee to restrict itself to client safety.
Jim Dempsey critiques the most recent AI releases, including Google’s Bard, which appears to have lots of the identical hallucination issues as OpenAI’s. Jim and I debate what I contemplate the wacky and unjustified fascination within the press with catching AI participating in wrongthink. I imagine it is only a mechanism for justifying the imposition of left-wing values on AI output – which already scores left/libertarian on 14 of 15 standard tests for figuring out ideological affiliation. Equally, I query the trouble to cease AI from hallucinating footnotes in help of its faulty information. If ever there have been a case for a separate AI citechecker, for generative AI correction of AI errors, the faux quotation drawback looks like a pure.
Talking of Silicon Valley’s mendacity drawback, Mark reminds us that social media is totally immune for false person speech, even after it will get discover that the speech is dangerous and false. He reminds us of his thoughtful argument in favor of tweaking part 230 to extra intently resemble the discover and motion obligations discovered within the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). I argue that the DMCA has not a lot solved the incentives for overcensoring speech because it has surrendered to them.
Jim introduces us to an rising pattern in state privateness regulation: privateness payments that business helps. Iowa’s new law is the exemplar; Jim questions whether or not it can fulfill customers in the long term.
I summarize Hachette v. Internet Archive, through which Choose John G. Koeltl delivers a harsh rebuke to web hippies in all places, ruling that the Web Archive violated copyright in its effort to create a digital equal to public library lending. The decide’s lesson for the remainder of us: You may assume honest use is a factor, but it surely’s not. Recover from it.
In fast hits,
- I observe that the Cyberlaw Podcast scooped WIRED in covering the GSA’s lies about the security of login.gov and its later effort to justify these lies by invoking “fairness” – at present changing patriotism because the final resort of scoundrels.
- And I supply a quick, nostalgic requiem for Toshiba, which is being broken up for scrap by what’s left of Japan Inc. Thirty years in the past, Toshiba was handled on the Hill like Huawei is right this moment – a scary and unstoppable competitor who threatened the American lifestyle. Now, not a lot.
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