The News

No copyright exemption for AI training, government says

The Albanese government will not create a copyright exemption to train AI (The Guardian). After groups like the Productivity Commission and the tech lobby had pushed for a carve-out, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland ruled out the proposal and will instead “canvas other options” at the department’s copyright and IP group this week. This includes potentially making the existing voluntary copyright paid licensing framework mandatory.

The Sizzle: Government ministers had previously signalled that they had no intention of letting tech companies go hog-wild on copyrighted data, but this makes it official. The decision followed a loud campaign led by the major media companies (including News Corp).

But before there’s parades in the streets, it’s probably worth mentioning that the government’s decision to not give a carve-out doesn’t necessarily mean these AI companies won’t eventually get around copyright. Some early court decisions in the US covered by the Sizzle found that AI training on copyrighted data is transformative and, therefore, fair use. Australia’s copyright regime is different to the US but AFAIK we haven’t had a ruling on this quite yet.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Microsoft sued over scummy AI Office 365 price hike

Microsoft misled 2.7 million Australian Office 365 subscribers by hiding its normal subscription renewal option and seemingly only offering 45% more expensive plans with AI chatbot Copilot, the competition watchdog alleges (ACCC). This morning, the ACCC launched Federal Court proceedings over Microsoft’s “false or misleading” conduct in emails and a blog post about subscription options and renewal costs. The ACCC says that company hid its non-AI “Classic” plans, instead suggesting that subscribers needed to stump up for its personal plan subscription that was 45% more expensive each year. The non-AI plan was only offered when users tried to cancel their subscription.

The Sizzle: hahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahaha

Get absolutely rekt Microsoft. Everyone knew this was scummy. Just truly the yuckiest combination of “shoving AI down people’s throats” AND “tricking people into paying more”. Get their asses, ACCC.

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School’s AI gun detection mistakes bag of chips for a firearm

A 16-year-old high school student was detained and searched at gunpoint after an AI system flagged his packet of Dorito chips as a firearm (wmat2news). Taki Allen was sitting outside of Kenwood High School in Baltimore, eating some Doritos after football practice. Allen said “like eight cop cars” full of police arrived, guns drawn, made him get on his knees and searched him. After finding nothing, an officer showed Allen a picture from the school’s “AI detection system” — presumably some combination of CCTV footage and AI software — that flagged his crumpled-up chip bag as a firearm.

But, despite the false flag, the police’s superintendent told reporters that the system worked:

The Sizzle: Look, I’m not a education expert but I don’t think a swarm of cops drawing their guns on my student because he was eating chips is a good system to have in a school. We’ve learned time and time again people will often trust computer’s decisions because they believe — often falsely — that it’s extremely accurate and knows better than them. When the consequence for a computer’s decision is putting people in a dangerous situation (who knows what could have happened when with police and guns), it makes me very uncomfortable that a technology that is clearly making mistakes is being rolled out. Or, as Allen succinctly put it:

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Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

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Oh, Also

Here is an exclusive club that I will never join

The 1% Guild is an exclusive organisation limited to a certain kind of person: someone whose device has 1% battery.

You will never find me there. Once I hit <20%, I’m sweating. At <10%, I’m scanning the room, looking for power points or unoccupied USB cables. So! If you make it in, please let me know what it’s like. And may God have mercy on your soul.

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Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Computing

The End

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