Ex-FTC boss Khan: break out the handcuffs for AI CEOs, citing 1934 precedent

tthrowworhtthrow about 3 hours ago 29 commentsRead Article on theregister.com

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Discussion (29 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

int32_64•about 1 hour ago

Aaron Swartz was facing up to 35 years for wire fraud and hacking for swiping some JSTOR documents, and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics.

gruez•about 1 hour ago

>and the DOJ has done nothing against the AI companies and their IP violating antics.

For good reason. Courts have so far ruled AI training is fair use, and it doesn't look likely to be overturned by the supreme court. Theres also the matter of some labs pirating books to get training data, which is illegal (they lost in civil court), but it's unclear whether that can be criminally prosecuted.

adastra22•about 1 hour ago

Hacking other companies is illegal as far as I understand.

gruez•44 minutes ago

1. OP specifically mentioned "IP violating antics", not hacking

2. All the hacking legislation (and criminal law in general) require proving intent, which so far as we can tell didn't exist in those cases. At best you can try some "reckless" or "negligent" angle, but that would a novel legal argument and would be risky to prosecute

tptacek•29 minutes ago

It's not at all relevant to this thread, but no he wasn't. At their worst, prosecutors were threatening to push for 7 years; the guideline sentence for Swartz's offense, were he to take it to trial and lose, would likely have been under the level allowing for straight probation (go to a sentencing calculator and plug the values in); writing after his death, his own lawyer stated that had he gone to trial and lost he was unlikely to face a custodial sentence at all.

We get this "35 year" number from adding up all the counts he faced, taking their maximum sentence. That's just not how sentencing works. Like charges group, and you're sentenced according to the most severe charge.

People cite these numbers in part because DOJ posts them in their press releases. DOJ is in these instances lying. When we amplify those lies, we're doing their work for them.

throwworhtthrow•about 3 hours ago

Source: https://x.com/linamkhan/status/2099204390548639960 (seems like a single post, so you don't need to log in and see replies)

I can't tell if Khan is being realistic when she says laws against “unfair or deceptive [acts]” or “unfair methods of competition” apply to AI labs. Her 2-sentence justifications aren't enough to convince me. But maybe it's sufficient for state AG's who want to start investigations.

xnx•about 1 hour ago

AI is a very competitive market where consumers are getting the product for much less than it costs. This does not seem like an area where the government needs to butt in.

Attention would be better spent on long list of other poorly behaved companies: cable ISP monopolies, health insurance companies, home insurance companies, etc.

lenerdenator•about 1 hour ago

Bear with me here: we could do all of them.

You can get these companies under control. You just have to, y'know, try.

seemaze•28 minutes ago

we could do all of them, but they all seem to be up to date on their tithe. AI has a somewhat mixed record of tribute.

afavour•about 2 hours ago

It won’t happen, but if it did the CEOs have no one but themselves to blame. They’re hyping up their products as being able to destroy the human race then are somehow surprised at the level of anti-AI sentiment out there in the world.

mikrl•about 1 hour ago

I honestly don’t know what anyone expected given all the labs started building self-driving malware at about the same time.

I remember lots of people talking about running agents in VMs or on whole dedicated machines, yet barely anyone talking about how they were using mundane OS access controls.

fwlr•about 2 hours ago

The passage banning “unfair competition” is utterly marvellous:

    A trader may not, by pursuing a dishonest practice, force his competitors to choose between its adoption or the loss of their trade. A method of competition [is ‘unfair’ when it] casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal… 

    It is true that the statute does not authorize regulation which has no purpose other than that of relieving merchants from troublesome competition …  But here the competitive method is shown to exploit [those] who are unable to protect themselves. It employs a device [that has] met with condemnation throughout the community. Without inquiring whether [other criminal statues apply] … it is clear that the practice is of the sort which the common law and criminal statutes have long deemed contrary to public policy. For these reasons a large share of the industry holds out against the device, despite ensuing loss in trade, or bows reluctantly to what it brands unscrupulous. It would seem a gross perversion of the normal meaning of the word … to hold that the method is not 'unfair.'

Apply it immediately!

homeonthemtn•about 2 hours ago

^ further evidence that the problem with democracy isn't democracy, it's that we lack politicians willing to enforce it

collingreen•35 minutes ago

Isn't that just the human problem for every possible form of government?

EGreg•18 minutes ago

If you execute a ponzi scheme with thousands of degens — but it’s magic crypto tokens

When you perpetrate a huge hacking job with thousands of attackers — but it’s magic agent swarms

VCFundedGenYer•about 1 hour ago

It’s definitely happening in 2029 if the election goes a certain way. They all know that too.

There WILL be an end to this.