August 20, 2024 Authors Take Aim at Anthropic’s AI Chatbot in Copyright Lawsuit, The IRS’s Aging Tech Infrastructure: A Ticking Time Bomb for Taxpayers and a creative software package takes on its competition by saying it will not incorporate generative AI – period.

All this and more on the “we don’t need no stinkin’ AI” edition of Hashtag Trending. I’m your host, Jim Love. Let’s get into it.

In a landmark legal battle, a group of authors has sued artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, alleging the company committed “large-scale theft” in training its popular chatbot Claude on pirated copies of copyrighted books.

This lawsuit represents the first time Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI assistant, has been targeted by writers over copyright infringement claims. But it joins a growing number of similar cases against other major AI companies.

The three authors bringing the case – Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson – are seeking to represent a class of similarly situated fiction and non-fiction writers.

Anthropic and other tech companies have previously argued that training AI models falls under the “fair use” doctrine, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for purposes like research and education.

But the allegations in the lawsuit are that Anthropic trained its Claude chatbot on a dataset called “The Pile” that included a trove of pirated books, without permission or compensation to the authors. This allowed Anthropic to “strip-mine the human expression and ingenuity” behind these copyrighted works to build its AI product. The lawsuit disputes Anthropic’s claims that its AI systems are learning in the same way humans do, by legally purchasing or borrowing books and that, supposedly would negate the “fair use” defence.

There’s a touch of irony here as Anthropic has positioned itself as a more responsible and safety-focused developer of generative AI compared to competitors like OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

However, the authors argue that Anthropic’s actions have “made a mockery of its lofty goals” through the alleged large-scale copyright infringement.

Regardless of the impact to Anthropic’s reputation. the outcome will be watched closely by the tech industry, creators, and the legal community.

Sources include: ABC News

The Internal Revenue Service, the agency responsible for managing the US tax system, is facing a technology crisis that threatens to impact millions of Americans.

According to a recent audit, the IRS is heavily reliant on technology systems that are over 60 years old – systems that are still being used to process tax returns and manage sensitive personal data.

Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on updates over the years, the IRS still lacks a clear strategy to modernize these legacy systems. This has left the agency and taxpayers vulnerable to delays, security risks, and escalating IT costs.

The IRS closed its dedicated Technology Retirement Office, which was responsible for managing the decommissioning of outdated legacy systems. This has left the agency without a clear plan to address its aging infrastructure.

The agency has only successfully implemented 2 out of 4 recommended strategies for modernizing its technology. The remaining strategies were poorly executed and lacked proper oversight.

The IRS has identified 107 out of 334 legacy systems for retirement, but has only developed concrete plans to decommission 2 of them. This demonstrates a significant shortfall in the agency’s understanding and management of its own technology.

Obsolete systems, some dating back to the 1960s, now account for 33% of IRS applications, 23% of software, and 8% of hardware. These systems rely on outdated programming languages like COBOL, making them difficult and costly to maintain.

The IRS’s IT infrastructure costs have risen by 35% from 2019 to 2023, a trend that is expected to continue without a comprehensive plan to retire legacy systems.

The consequences of this technological crisis are stark. Taxpayers face the risk of delays, security breaches, and unreliable service from an agency that plays a crucial role in their financial lives.

And before my Canadian listeners smile smugly, the IRS is only the latest, not the only example of the huge technical debt that governments at all levels in the US and Canada are facing. It was twenty four years ago that we all breathed a sigh of relief that our aging monolithic government systems survived Y2K, but we forget that was a patch – a band-aid on a single problem and those ancient systems are still running the vast majority of key government services.

There’s a great debated about government debt and whether that will ever come due. That’s not our wheelhouse. But governments shouldn’t try a head in the sand strategy to technical debt – whether it collapses under some technical crisis or just from the cost or inability to support government technology and the demands on it, eventually technical debt will need to be paid – one way or the other.

Source include: TechSpot

Procreate, a leading digital art and design app, has made waves in the creative community by firmly rejecting the integration of generative AI into its software. In a video message, Procreate CEO James Cuda expressed his distaste for the direction the industry is headed, stating “We’re not going to be introducing any generative AI into our products. I don’t like what’s happening to the industry, and I don’t like what it’s doing to artists.”

The creative community’s concerns about generative AI are twofold. First, there is the issue of AI models being trained on artists’ content without their consent or compensation. Second, many fear that the widespread adoption of this technology will significantly reduce employment opportunities for human creatives.

Procreate’s announcement has attracted widespread praise from digital illustrators and designers who are seeking alternatives to apps that have embraced generative AI. For example, Clip Studio Paint abandoned plans to introduce image-generation features after backlash from its user base.

In contrast, even their competitor Adobe, that has attempted to take a more ethical approach to building in generative AI, and Adobe that their own Firefly models are only trained on licensed content. The company had an intense backlash when it’s terms of service update implied otherwise. Still, Adobe been slammed by those who feel the company has turned its back on independent artists and creators.

Procreate may have hit a nerve with it’s firm stance, stating on their website that “Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future.” The company believes that “machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us.”

Procreate’s decision to forgo generative AI tools has solidified its reputation as a creator-centric company that prioritizes the needs and concerns of digital artists. In the past, it’s bucked the software as a service trend by selling its software at a one-time cost.

As the debate around the ethics and impact of generative AI continues, Procreate’s unwavering position on AI may further endear the app to users of creative software.

Sources include: The Verge

And that’s our show for today. You can find show notes at our news site technewsday.com or .ca take you pick.

Thanks for listening. I’m your host Jim Love, have a Wonderful Wednesday.