Progress in generative AI depends not only on better model architectures, but on terabytes of scraped Flickr images, Wikipedia pages, Stack Overflow answers, and websites. But generative models ingest vast quantities of intellectual property (IP), which they can memorize and regurgitate verbatim. Several recently-filed lawsuits relate such memorization to copyright infringement. These lawsuits will lead to policies and legal rulings that define our ability, as ML researchers and practitioners, to acquire training data, and our responsibilities towards data owners and curators.

AI researchers will increasingly operate in a legal environment that is keenly interested in their work — an environment that may require future research into model architectures that conform to legal requirements. Understanding the law and contributing to its development will enable us to create safer, better, and practically useful models.

We’re excited to share a series of tutorials from renowned experts in both ML and law and panel discussions, where researchers in both disciplines can engage in semi-moderated conversation.

Our workshop will begin to build a comprehensive and precise synthesis of the legal issues at play. Beyond IP, the workshop will also address privacy and liability for dangerous, discriminatory, or misleading and manipulative outputs. It will take place on 29 July 2023, in Ballroom B.