Week 25: What's Happening in AI

New AI regulation proposed in CA, an international fight over chip IP, examining AI’s role in medicine, and more.

Feb 15, 2024

Welcome to this week’s edition of What's Happening in AI - a collection of what we’re reading on AI policy, development, deployment, and the future.

| Policy

Elections

AI-generated speeches are gaining traction. The former Prime Minister of Pakistan gave a victory speech from prison using AI to replicate his voice. In India, videos of deceased politician M Karunanidhi are being generated with AI and used by his former political party.

Watch: Rise of Generative AI and Deepfakes Ahead of US Election

United States

US Patent Office guidance: AI content cannot be patented because “patents function to incentivize and reward human ingenuity.” And the Senate Finance Committee is increasing scrutiny for AI in healthcare, citing studies that prove black patients were harmed by algorithmic bias.

States

California State Senator Wiener proposed new AI legislation that requires AI companies to increase testing disclosures and allows the attorney general to sue AI companies for harm. This is part of a larger trend: an average of 50 new state-level pieces of AI legislation are proposed per week.

Europe

European Union

The EU released election security guidance for large tech companies using AI. The guidance focuses primarily on LLMs and other content-generating AI platforms. And the AI Act was approved in committee (final vote in April).

Asia

The US and China will hold official talks over AI and unintended consequences, likely this spring. And in Japan, the Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association is calling for regulation changes that would protect their content from being used to train AI models.