It’s a big news Thursday. In this morning’s edition of Signals, we dive into this week’s breaking social media and AI stories ricocheting around the globe. From Anthropic’s new policy of including invisible watermarks on text and images generated by Claude to continued coverage of Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto, AI leaders face massive backlash and growing public anxiety. Meanwhile, we witness an explosion of social media litigation against tech giants and an approaching release of the Social Network sequel The Social Reckoning. This begs the question– have we entered a new era of tech accountability? Let’s dive in and see!
In breaking news on Tuesday, Forbes reported on a plan by Anthropic to begin including invisible watermarks on text and images generated by the Claude AI model. As stated in the article, “the new policy brings Anthropic into compliance with an EU regulation called the ‘Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content’”. It is important to note that this new policy applies to all Claude models and products worldwide and does not allow for the option to opt out.
This new policy has been met online with rapid backlash, especially from users claiming to use Claude as a means of proofreading and coders “who said they worry adding a cryptographic signature to a code will ‘degrade the output’”. However, the new policy unearths a much larger question– who should be credited for AI generated work?
In one of the most intriguing articles of the week entitled “Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto is exactly why people don’t like AI”, TechCrunch unpacks Zuckerberg’s out-of-touch beliefs on the future of AI. In the article, author Russell Brandom dissects Zuckerberg’s 6,500 word manifesto, highlighting where Zuckerberg may have gotten it wrong. Brandom remarks that “even as Zuckerberg tries to paint a picture of the wonderful future abundance superintelligence will bring, he keeps reminding us of all the ways it’s likely to go wrong”.
The article goes on to capture the essence of why Zuckerberg continues to garner pushback from the broader public. Brandom states that “sometimes you design a technology to do good things and it has unintended consequences that make things worse. And the fact that one of the most powerful people in the world refuses to acknowledge this can make people understandably nervous.”
This was a very big week for those following ongoing social media litigation across the United States. As reported by Reuters this Monday, a U.S. appeals court allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against tech giants over “claims they designed their products to be addictive to young users”.
In another article from Reuters two days later, author Diana Novak Jones reports that
“Meta Platforms will face a coalition of state attorneys general in a California federal court trial beginning on Wednesday over claims it engineered Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to children, a case that could expose the company to massive damages and force it to make sweeping changes to its platforms”.
In a statement, Eric Goldman, a professor and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law, told Reuters that “big damage awards and judicial dictates about features both potentially pose existential threats to social media defendants”.
If you’re looking for a great summary of the four-state trial from California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that just started in Oakland, CA, here’s a really great video from Nicki Petrossi, an SMC Advisory Board member and the host of Scrolling 2 Death. Keep in mind these four states are ‘bellwether’ cases, representing 29 state AG’s -this is big time.
On Tuesday, Elle published a profile piece on SMC Advisory Board Member and Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen ahead of the October 9th release of the film “The Social Reckoning”. The Aaron Sorkin movie follows Haugen’s journey to uncover “one of the most consequential corporate scandals of the digital age”. The profile seeks to unpack the “real Haugen” amidst the lore and Hollywood dramatics. Frances herself even remarks that “there’s the myth of Frances–strong, polished, unbreakable–and then there’s who I am”. No matter the Hollywood flare, Frances still thinks a movie like “The Social Reckoning” can help create a tipping point where people believe that change is not only necessary, but possible.
Curated and written by Emma Lembke, Steve Rosenbaum, and AI
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