Our working definition of a digital platform (with a hat tip to Harold Feld of Public Knowledge) is an online service that operates as a two-sided or multi-sided market with at least one side that is “open” to the mass market
Platforms
States’ attempts to age-gate the Internet blocked by constitutional hurdles
Courts have started blocking some US states' earliest attempts to age-gate the Internet. Courts ordered preliminary injunctions blocking a Texas law requiring ID to access websites featuring adult entertainment, as well as an Arkansas law requiring ID to access some social media platforms.
Copyright Office Issues Notice of Inquiry on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence
The US Copyright Office is undertaking a study of the copyright law and policy issues raised by generative AI and is assessing whether legislative or regulatory steps are warranted. The Office will use the record it assembles to advise Congress; inform its regulatory work; and offer information and resources to the public, courts, and other government entities considering these issues. The notice of inquiry (NOI) seeks factual information and views on a number of copyright issues raised by recent advances in generative AI.
Assessing the Utility of ChatGPT Throughout the Entire Clinical Workflow: Development and Usability Study
Large language model (LLM)–-based artificial intelligence chatbots direct the power of large training data sets toward successive, related tasks as opposed to single-ask tasks, for which artificial intelligence already achieves impressive performance. The capacity of LLMs to assist in the full scope of iterative clinical reasoning via successive prompting, in effect acting as artificial physicians, has not yet been evaluated. The objective of the study was to evaluate ChatGPT’s capacity for ongoing clinical decision support via its performance on standardized clinical vignettes.
Sports leagues ask US for “instantaneous” DMCA takedowns and website blocking
Sports leagues are urging the US to require "instantaneous" takedowns of pirated livestreams and new requirements for Internet service providers to block pirated websites. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 requires websites to "expeditiously" remove infringing material upon being notified of its existence.
Child safety bills are reshaping the internet for everyone
By the end August 2023, adult content will get a lot harder to watch in Texas. Instead of clicking a button or entering a date of birth to access adult sites, users will need to provide photos of their official government-issued ID or use a third-party service to verify their age. It’s the result of a new law passed earlier in summer 2023 intended to prevent kids from seeing adult content online.
As fires and floods rage, Facebook and Twitter are missing in action
As wildfires ravage western Canada, Canadians can’t read the news about them on Facebook or Instagram.
Newsrooms grapple with rules for AI
Leading media organizations are issuing guidance on leveraging artificial intelligence in the newsroom at the same time they're making licensing deals to let AI firms use their content to train AI models.
Poll Shows Overwhelming Concern About Risks From AI as New Institute Launches to Understand Public Opinion and Advocate for Responsible AI Policies
A majority of voters don’t trust tech executives to self-regulate their use of AI, 83% of voters believe AI could accidentally cause a catastrophic event, 72% want to slow down AI development and usage, a new survey shows. American views on AI measures to be released on Friday, August 11, 2023. A new poll from the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute (AIPI) shows that the vast majority of voters of all political affiliations are concerned about the risks from artificial intelligence and support federal regulation of it.