An Unsettled Legal and Regulatory Environment
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2025 3:54 pm
Further complicating business leaders’ relationship with GenAI is the ever-evolving crop of legal and regulatory developments that pepper the global landscape (and specifically the U.S. landscape at the state and federal levels). Several novel legal developments made their mark in the first half of this year. A first-of-its-kind lawsuit is pitting major U.S. record labels against GenAI song generation services Suno and Udio, citing alleged copyright infringements resulting from training AI models china rcs data on artists’ protected works. This case adds to a litany of other such claims across media, calling into question the legal soundness of the fundamental approach of large language models.
Also making headlines is a recently passed California law that takes aim at companies spending $100 million or more to train AI models or $10 million or more to modify them, requiring that they “test the model for its ability to enable cybersecurity or infrastructure attacks or the development of chemical, biological, radioactive, or nuclear weaponry.” The proposed law, pending Governor Newsom’s signature, is drawing criticism from across the tech community, surfacing the underlying tensions in balancing innovation with safety.
On a more settled front, the European Union’s AI Act is now officially in force as of August 1, meaning that companies that operate in or impact the EU must now comply. Various deadlines are set depending on the nature of the AI services provided and their risk levels. As the first major, comprehensive AI law, the Act is setting the tone for how companies and governments worldwide assess and triage risks and mitigations.
Also making headlines is a recently passed California law that takes aim at companies spending $100 million or more to train AI models or $10 million or more to modify them, requiring that they “test the model for its ability to enable cybersecurity or infrastructure attacks or the development of chemical, biological, radioactive, or nuclear weaponry.” The proposed law, pending Governor Newsom’s signature, is drawing criticism from across the tech community, surfacing the underlying tensions in balancing innovation with safety.
On a more settled front, the European Union’s AI Act is now officially in force as of August 1, meaning that companies that operate in or impact the EU must now comply. Various deadlines are set depending on the nature of the AI services provided and their risk levels. As the first major, comprehensive AI law, the Act is setting the tone for how companies and governments worldwide assess and triage risks and mitigations.