I think you're right, but who knows how SCOTUS is likely to rule these days? You can't trust them to be consistent with even their most recent rulings.
Unless they add user accounts and authentication at the browser level, and somehow prevent minors from creating new "adult" accounts. So, basically adding another layer of authentication and attestation to the entire scheme.
So open source operating systems are exempted, but what about open source browsers? Could I get in legal trouble for distributing a browser that doesn't include age verification code, or for distributing a patch that removes it?
Schneider was arrested for residential picketing, an activity SCOTUS ruled in Frisby v. Schultz (1988) is not protected under the First Amendment. Police are obviously targeting Schneider over of his YouTube content, but his arrest for so-called targeted residential picketing is permitted under the law. If police don't like your message and they have a law they can use against you, they will.
I'm sorry, but are you operating under the assumption that I wrote the post you're replying to here? If so then perhaps make sure you're replying to the right person before calling them dishonest or stupid? And if not, perhaps reconsider calling people dishonest or stupid anyway?
You may want to do so yourself. Publishing false medical information is not synonymous with "practicing medicine without a license," and in any case the First Amendment does protect against legal consequences for protected speech. Practicing medicine without a license is not protected speech, but giving bad medical advice (depending on context) could be.
"Also, in no way shape or form is it legal to give bad medical advice."
False. It is illegal to offer services as a doctor if you're not a doctor, but giving bad medical advice (to a friend, in a magazine article, in a book) is perfectly legal.
By "making chatbots liable" read the companies providing the service. So if Claude, then Anthropic. And if ChatGPT, then OpenAI.
For the record, I do not believe chatbots themselves can actually be held liable -- I am not that ignorant. What I'm saying is that words protected under the First Amendment when spoken by a human should be similarly protected when said by a chatbot. The chatbot is the speaker in fact, but the service provider is the one with First Amendment rights under the law.
There's a better argument against regulating chatbots than the fact of the current administration's incompetence: making chatbots liable for false information would make them liable in ways that regular people aren't. A book containing bogus medical advice is still protected under the First Amendment. A rando giving bogus advice in an online forum is also protected. Why, then, should a chatbot's output not be protected? Are random word generators with no real sense of what they're saying to be held to a higher standard than humans who ought to know better? It doesn't make sense.
Unless the medical advice in question is being offered as part of a medical consultation or similar service, chatbots should enjoy the same First Amendment protections as the rest of us.
The kids may be fine in the sense that they'll find ways to cope with the bullshit and life goes on, but one could still argue that kids shouldn't have to deal with all that nonsense in the first place. I am aware of the seemingly ever-present "[thing kids like] is very bad for them" moral panics, but do kids actually like dealing with AI-generated bullshit? I don't think so, and neither do adults.
Some technologies really are harmful to society, kids included, and even beneficial technologies can have negative effects. The important thing is what to do about it, and what not to do about it. We probably agree on what not to do about most of these things, but I think you sometimes lean too far in the direction of reducing legitimate concerns to a "moral panic."
What is it about "infinite scroll" that makes it so dangerous? Is having people click on a "load more" button less "addictive?" Is a "load more" button more harmful than clicking on page numbers? Should a feed cut off after a certain point, even if users would like to see older content? I don't understand what's so evil about "infinite" scrolling.
Also, was Meta really monetizing content involving child exploitation, like doing that especially? I find it hard to believe.
Ordinarily I'd say this wouldn't survive on appeal, but given the state of things all the way up to SCOTUS I'm no longer certain of anything. A sad day for advocates of an open Internet.
CAD files for gun parts, unlike currency, don't carry identifying markings like the EURion constellation. Identifying what is or isn't a "gun part" is an entirely different challenge and pretty much impossible to do reliably.
It's not just the code that runs the printer but also the content being printed. A document printer that by law stops you from printing "seditious" texts, for example, would constitute a kind of digitally-enforced prior restraint on speech. Even if the law were limited to stopping the printing of actual unprotected speech, there is no way to do this reliably in such a way that it doesn't affect protected speech.
Harmful and annoying, sure, but is it too much to hope in today's legal environment that it's also unconstitutional? To me it's like requiring that laser printers include filters against unprotected speech such as libel or incitement to violence. The false positives and pre-publication suppression alone would be enough to kill such a law as unconstitutional (I expect), so why should it not be the same for 3D printers?
I expect some will say it's because 3D printers are used to make functional items, but anyone who's 3D printed a Baby Yoda or flexi dragon knows printing purely or primarily expressive works is a major part of the 3D printing world.
OpenAI's CEO has said that saying "thank you" to ChatGPT costs them "tens of millions of dollars." There is also the cost of training, although in that case the cost per capita goes down as more people adopt AI. Like so many environmental problems, though, it's not so much about individual behavior as it is about the system as a whole.
"The more powerful shift is toward agentic AI—tools that don’t just generate content, but actually do things."
And this is the part that worries me most about where AI is headed. I believe the ability to just do things without a human veto and with perhaps minor human involvement will prove a big problem.
People have lost the contents of their entire hard drives to agentic AI because of commands being run in a non-sandboxed environment. And the consequences could be even more serious: Critical vulnerabilities will be introduced into software in spite of human reviewers' best efforts. People will be denied for important things like jobs, loans, medical procedures because of agentic AI. Companies and organizations will send out false information to people, or forward confidential information to the wrong people because of agentic AI. And I'm sure there's a bunch of scenarios that haven't occurred to me.
With unprecedented power often comes unprecedented danger, and my experience with AI suggests it makes enough mistakes that are often subtle enough to be really dangerous (without exaggeration). I am genuinely worried.
Selective originalism: rationalization, not rationale.
Consigned items don't suddenly become the property of the new owners just because there's an agreement disclaiming liability.
I think you're right, but who knows how SCOTUS is likely to rule these days? You can't trust them to be consistent with even their most recent rulings.
Unless they add user accounts and authentication at the browser level, and somehow prevent minors from creating new "adult" accounts. So, basically adding another layer of authentication and attestation to the entire scheme.
So open source operating systems are exempted, but what about open source browsers? Could I get in legal trouble for distributing a browser that doesn't include age verification code, or for distributing a patch that removes it?
Schneider was arrested for residential picketing, an activity SCOTUS ruled in Frisby v. Schultz (1988) is not protected under the First Amendment. Police are obviously targeting Schneider over of his YouTube content, but his arrest for so-called targeted residential picketing is permitted under the law. If police don't like your message and they have a law they can use against you, they will.
I'm sorry, but are you operating under the assumption that I wrote the post you're replying to here? If so then perhaps make sure you're replying to the right person before calling them dishonest or stupid? And if not, perhaps reconsider calling people dishonest or stupid anyway?
You may want to do so yourself. Publishing false medical information is not synonymous with "practicing medicine without a license," and in any case the First Amendment does protect against legal consequences for protected speech. Practicing medicine without a license is not protected speech, but giving bad medical advice (depending on context) could be.
"Also, in no way shape or form is it legal to give bad medical advice." False. It is illegal to offer services as a doctor if you're not a doctor, but giving bad medical advice (to a friend, in a magazine article, in a book) is perfectly legal.
By "making chatbots liable" read the companies providing the service. So if Claude, then Anthropic. And if ChatGPT, then OpenAI. For the record, I do not believe chatbots themselves can actually be held liable -- I am not that ignorant. What I'm saying is that words protected under the First Amendment when spoken by a human should be similarly protected when said by a chatbot. The chatbot is the speaker in fact, but the service provider is the one with First Amendment rights under the law.
Chatbot liability
There's a better argument against regulating chatbots than the fact of the current administration's incompetence: making chatbots liable for false information would make them liable in ways that regular people aren't. A book containing bogus medical advice is still protected under the First Amendment. A rando giving bogus advice in an online forum is also protected. Why, then, should a chatbot's output not be protected? Are random word generators with no real sense of what they're saying to be held to a higher standard than humans who ought to know better? It doesn't make sense. Unless the medical advice in question is being offered as part of a medical consultation or similar service, chatbots should enjoy the same First Amendment protections as the rest of us.
The kids may be fine in the sense that they'll find ways to cope with the bullshit and life goes on, but one could still argue that kids shouldn't have to deal with all that nonsense in the first place. I am aware of the seemingly ever-present "[thing kids like] is very bad for them" moral panics, but do kids actually like dealing with AI-generated bullshit? I don't think so, and neither do adults. Some technologies really are harmful to society, kids included, and even beneficial technologies can have negative effects. The important thing is what to do about it, and what not to do about it. We probably agree on what not to do about most of these things, but I think you sometimes lean too far in the direction of reducing legitimate concerns to a "moral panic."
It is so frustrating seeing all the laws popping up that threaten to destroy online anonimity, participation, and freedom of speech.
What is it about "infinite scroll" that makes it so dangerous? Is having people click on a "load more" button less "addictive?" Is a "load more" button more harmful than clicking on page numbers? Should a feed cut off after a certain point, even if users would like to see older content? I don't understand what's so evil about "infinite" scrolling. Also, was Meta really monetizing content involving child exploitation, like doing that especially? I find it hard to believe.
Appeals?
Ordinarily I'd say this wouldn't survive on appeal, but given the state of things all the way up to SCOTUS I'm no longer certain of anything. A sad day for advocates of an open Internet.
CAD files for gun parts, unlike currency, don't carry identifying markings like the EURion constellation. Identifying what is or isn't a "gun part" is an entirely different challenge and pretty much impossible to do reliably.
It's not just the code that runs the printer but also the content being printed. A document printer that by law stops you from printing "seditious" texts, for example, would constitute a kind of digitally-enforced prior restraint on speech. Even if the law were limited to stopping the printing of actual unprotected speech, there is no way to do this reliably in such a way that it doesn't affect protected speech.
Harmful and annoying, sure, but is it too much to hope in today's legal environment that it's also unconstitutional? To me it's like requiring that laser printers include filters against unprotected speech such as libel or incitement to violence. The false positives and pre-publication suppression alone would be enough to kill such a law as unconstitutional (I expect), so why should it not be the same for 3D printers? I expect some will say it's because 3D printers are used to make functional items, but anyone who's 3D printed a Baby Yoda or flexi dragon knows printing purely or primarily expressive works is a major part of the 3D printing world.
OpenAI's CEO has said that saying "thank you" to ChatGPT costs them "tens of millions of dollars." There is also the cost of training, although in that case the cost per capita goes down as more people adopt AI. Like so many environmental problems, though, it's not so much about individual behavior as it is about the system as a whole.
Agentic AI
"The more powerful shift is toward agentic AI—tools that don’t just generate content, but actually do things." And this is the part that worries me most about where AI is headed. I believe the ability to just do things without a human veto and with perhaps minor human involvement will prove a big problem. People have lost the contents of their entire hard drives to agentic AI because of commands being run in a non-sandboxed environment. And the consequences could be even more serious: Critical vulnerabilities will be introduced into software in spite of human reviewers' best efforts. People will be denied for important things like jobs, loans, medical procedures because of agentic AI. Companies and organizations will send out false information to people, or forward confidential information to the wrong people because of agentic AI. And I'm sure there's a bunch of scenarios that haven't occurred to me. With unprecedented power often comes unprecedented danger, and my experience with AI suggests it makes enough mistakes that are often subtle enough to be really dangerous (without exaggeration). I am genuinely worried.