George Carlin's Estate Files Suit Over 'Comedy Special' Generated by AI

The estate of comedy legend George Carlin has filed a lawsuit against the makers of an hour-long video featuring a version of him made using artificial intelligence, accusing them of stealing "a great American artist’s work." A voice sounding remarkably like the comedian, who died of heart failure in 2008, appears on a "comedy special" titled "George Carlin: I'm glad I'm dead," which was uploaded to YouTube earlier this month by the Dudesy channel.

Senate Judiciary Committee to Hold Hearing on Child Sex Content Online

Despite decades of efforts to crack down on sexual pictures and videos of children online, they’re more widely available now than ever, according to new data from the nonprofit tasked by the U.S. government with tracking such material. A high-profile hearing will spotlight the issue as the CEOs of tech companies Meta, X, TikTok, Snap and Discord testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on their respective efforts to combat child sexual abuse material, known as CSAM.

FTC Opens Inquiry Into Big Tech Companies' Investments in AI

The Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry into the multibillion-dollar investments by Microsoft, Amazon and Google in the artificial intelligence start-ups OpenAI and Anthropic, broadening the regulator’s efforts to corral the power the tech giants can have over A.I. These deals have allowed the big companies to form deep ties with their smaller rivals while dodging most government scrutiny.

X Blocks Searches for Taylor Swift After Proliferation of Fake Graphic Images

Social-media platform X blocked searches about Taylor Swift days after explicit, digitally fabricated fakes of the singer began proliferating on the site. Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, said Saturday in response to questions about Swift searches: “This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.”

X Plans to Build 'Trust and Safety Center' to Fight Child Sexual Exploitation

Elon Musk’s X, the company formerly known as Twitter, is planning to build a new “Trust and Safety center of excellence” in Austin, Texas, to help enforce its content and safety rules. The company aims to hire 100 full-time content moderators at the new location, according to Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X. The group will focus on fighting material related to child sexual exploitation, but will help enforce the social media platform’s other rules, which include restrictions on hate speech and violent posts, he added.

Senators Want Independent Agency to Regulate Tech Companies

A bipartisan group of senators called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to help create an independent agency to regulate major technology companies, reviving a push from last year. Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) argued in a letter to Schumer that the current moment “requires a new federal agency to protect consumers, promote competition, and defend the public interest.”

SEC Blames SIM Swapping Attack for Breach of Its Account on X

The Securities and Exchange Commission has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month, which led to the creation of a fake post announcing approval of Bitcoin ETFs that caused the cryptocurrency’s price to spike. In an update, the SEC says an “unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent ‘SIM swap’ attack.”

European Users of Instagram, Facebook Users Get More Choices

Instagram and Facebook users in Europe will be offered more choices on how they consume Meta Platforms' services to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), the social media company said. The world's largest social network is the latest to make changes to conform to the DMA after Google outlined efforts to comply with the new EU technology rules, which could hurt revenues for some companies.

Comcast Says 36 Million Xfinity Accounts Compromised by Hackers

Comcast said nearly 36 million U.S. Xfinity accounts were compromised after hackers gained access to its systems through a vulnerability in third-party cloud-computing software. The cable giant said the compromised data includes usernames and “hashed” passwords — which had been scrambled and stored in a way that makes them unreadable by humans — as well as names, contact information, birth dates, the last four digits of users’ social security numbers and secret questions and answers.

Apple Pays $13.65 Million Russian Fine Over Case Involving In-App Payments

U.S. tech giant Apple has paid a Russian fine of 1.2 billion roubles ($13.65 million), imposed over the company's alleged abuse of its dominant market position concerning in-app payments, Russia's FAS antitrust agency said on Monday. Apple, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has previously "respectfully disagreed" with a FAS ruling that Apple's distribution of apps through its iOS operating system gave its own products a competitive advantage.

OpenAI Bans Developer Over Bot Mimicking Presidential Candidate

The artificial intelligence company OpenAI banned the developer of a bot mimicking long shot Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dean Phillips — the first action that the maker of ChatGPT has taken in response to what it sees as a misuse of its AI tools in a political campaign. Delphi co-founder Dara Ladjevardian told The Post that the company “incorrectly” believed that OpenAI’s terms of service would let “a political action committee that supports Dean Phillips create a clone of him using our platform.”

Microsoft Says Russian-Backed Hackers Accessed Executives' Email

An elite hacking group sponsored by Russian intelligence gained access to the emails of some of Microsoft’s senior executives beginning in late November, the company disclosed in a blog post and regulatory filing. The hackers appeared to focus on combing through Microsoft’s corporate email accounts to look for information related to the hacking group, which Microsoft’s researchers called Midnight Blizzard.

New Hampshire Investigating Robocalls Impersonating President Biden

The New Hampshire attorney general's office says it is investigating what appears to be an "unlawful attempt" at voter suppression after NBC News reported on a robocall impersonating President Joe Biden that told recipients not to vote in the presidential primary. "Although the voice in the robocall sounds like the voice of President Biden, this message appears to be artificially generated based on initial indications," the attorney general's office said in a statement.

OpenAI CEO Says, 'We Do Not Want to Train on The New York Times'

Artificial intelligence doesn’t need vast quantities of training data from publishers like The New York Times Co., according to OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, in a response to allegations his startup is poaching copyrighted material. “There is this belief held by some people that you need all my training data and my training data is so valuable,” Altman said at Bloomberg House at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. “Actually, that is generally not the case. We do not want to train on the New York Times data, for example.”

Apple Seeks to Avoid Watch Ban by Removing Pulse Oximetry Feature

A U.S. law enforcement agency has determined that Apple, opens new tab can use a redesign to bypass an import ban on newer Apple Watch models stemming from its patent infringement dispute with Masimo, opens new tab, the medical-monitoring technology company said in a court filing. The import ban, issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), applies to Apple's current Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches and initially went into effect on Dec. 26.

Appels Court Rejects Twitter's Claims About Search Warrant on Trump

A federal appeals court has rejected Twitter’s claim that Donald Trump should have been alerted to the existence of a search warrant for his data by prosecutors investigating interference in the 2020 election, leaving in place a $350,000 fine imposed on the social media company for not complying on time. The ruling that X appealed was of a court order barring the company from telling Trump or his attorneys about the existence of a January 2023 search warrant for his data and a subsequent sanction for not handing over the information on time.

OpenAI Limits Tools for Political Campaigning, Candidate Impersonation

OpenAI outlined limits on using its tools in politics during the run-up to elections in 2024, amid mounting concern that artificial-intelligence systems could mass-produce misinformation and sway voters in high-profile races. Among a series of clarifications on its policies, OpenAI said people aren’t allowed to use its tools for political campaigning and lobbying or to create chatbots that impersonate candidates and other real people, or chatbots that pretend to be local governments.

The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.