It’s 5 PM in Prague, and Czechia’s deputy prime minister for digitalization is dancing alone onstage to a soundtrack of chest-rattling bass, his dirty-blond dreadlocks swinging down his back. A former trance DJ and punk-band frontman, 44-year-old Ivan Bartoš is one of the most recognizable figures in the Pirate Party, …
Read More »Google's AI Overview Search Results Copied My Original Work
Last week, an AI Overview search result from Google used one of my WIRED articles in an unexpected way that makes me fearful for the future of journalism. I was experimenting with AI Overviews, the company’s new generative AI feature designed to answer online queries. I asked it multiple questions …
Read More »OpenAI’s New Tool Will Give Artists Control Over Their Data—but It’s Unclear How
OpenAI is fighting lawsuits from artists, writers, and publishers who allege it inappropriately used their work to train the algorithms behind ChatGPT and other AI systems. On Tuesday the company announced a tool apparently designed to appease creatives and rights holders by granting them some control over how OpenAI uses …
Read More »How One Author Pushed the Limits of AI Copyright
Last October, I received an email with a hell of an opening line: “I fired a nuke at the US Copyright Office this morning.” The message was from Elisa Shupe, a 60-year-old retired US Army veteran who had just filed a copyright registration for a novel she’d recently self-published. She’d …
Read More »Taylor Swift’s Music Is Back on TikTok—Right Before Her New Album Drops
In the drawn-out contract battle between TikTok and Universal Music Group, a high-profile exemption has been made for Taylor Swift. A few of her songs became available again as TikTok sounds on Thursday, just a week before the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. It remains unclear …
Read More »The Best Queer Batman Parody You Almost Never Saw
Four years ago, Vera Drew, the director of The People’s Joker, had a YouTube show called Hot Topics With Vera Drew. It was, she admits, a blatant attempt to get funded by the mall retailer and suburban hub for emo wear. “I only made four episodes of it,” she says, …
Read More »OpenAI’s GPT Store Is Triggering Copyright Complaints
For the past few months, Morten Blichfeldt Andersen has spent many hours scouring OpenAI’s GPT Store. Since it launched in January, the marketplace for bespoke bots has filled up with a deep bench of useful and sometimes quirky AI tools. Cartoon generators spin up New Yorker–style illustrations and vivid anime …
Read More »Here’s Proof You Can Train an AI Model Without Slurping Copyrighted Content
In 2023, OpenAI told the UK parliament that it was “impossible” to train leading AI models without using copyrighted materials. It’s a popular stance in the AI world, where OpenAI and other leading players have used materials slurped up online to train the models powering chatbots and image generators, triggering …
Read More »Google Is Getting Thousands of Deepfake Porn Complaints
The number of nonconsensual deepfake porn videos online has exploded since 2017. As the harmful videos have spread, thousands of women—including Twitch streamers, gamers, and other content creators—have complained to Google about websites hosting the videos and tried to get the tech giant to remove them from its search results. …
Read More »'Palworld' Mod's 'Electric Yellow Rat' Tests the Limits of Nintendo’s Legal Reach
It’s a beautiful day in ToastedShoes’ version of Palworld, where the YouTuber is currently hunting creatures on “Legal Island.” He creeps through the grass and makes a delighted discovery: “Look at that!” he yells. “It’s my favorite legally distinct pocket-sized creature—Electric Yellow Rat.” Indeed, that is exactly what it is, …
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