Hub AI and society

Artificial Intelligence is a key technology that can help us solve major societal challenges such as climate change, energy supply, healthcare, education or logistics. AI can solve specific problems more effectively by supporting us in decision-making, automating solutions and thus scaling them, or discovering completely new solutions. But the use of AI also poses new risks, for example when it comes to surveillance or questions of social justice.

What is our society doing with AI – and what is AI doing to our society? We shed light on this question in our AI and Society Content Hub.

AI and society

US think tank warns of "reverse brain drain" in China's AI sector

AI and society

Researchers used AI to manipulate Reddit users, scrapped study after backlash

AI and society
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xAI alters Grok chatbot to shield Elon Musk from misinformation claims

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AI and society
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OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and Microsoft AI CTO Mustafa Suleyman recently made statements that suggest they undervalue the human work that powers their AI models. In an interview with her alma mater, Dartmouth University, Murati said generative AI could replace creative professions that "maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place." Suleyman referred to data on the Internet as "freeware." In an explicit response to Murati's remarks, Dartmouth student Will Elliott found an apt analogy in the university newspaper "The Dartmouth":

"A GenAI architect suggesting that some creative jobs shouldn’t have existed in the first place is like a person saying they’d be better off if their parents were never born."

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The German Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament representing the 16 federal states, is pushing for stricter laws against deepfakes. It has proposed a bill to protect personal rights from such realistic-looking media content, which is increasingly being generated using AI. The core of the draft is a new paragraph 201b of the German Criminal Code (StGB), which would punish the dissemination of computer-generated or altered recordings that violate personal rights with a fine or imprisonment of up to two years. Those who make such content publicly accessible or distribute deepfakes related to highly personal matters could face up to five years in prison. The Bundesrat justifies its proposal by stating that deepfakes pose "considerable dangers both to individual personal rights and assets and to the democratic process of forming opinions." The bill will now be introduced in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, which will then decide on it. The government has previously acknowledged that instruments to combat AI-generated videos have not been sufficient so far and that action is needed.

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Germany is a leader in AI research, but lags behind the US and China when it comes to translating it into products, according to an analysis by KfW. According to chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib, Germany is struggling to translate research into applications. Germany imports significantly more AI products than it exports and is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign providers, Köhler-Geib told DW. Germany also lags far behind China (29 percent) and the US (27 percent) in terms of AI patent applications (6 percent). Professor Alexander Löser of the Berlin University of Applied Sciences also sees Germany primarily as a customer for AI services from abroad. Many local talents would work abroad. Strict regulations also hinder access to training data. KfW and Löser call for better access to data, more investment in AI research and development, and more training opportunities.

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Apple is sending App Store boss Phil Schiller to the board of OpenAI. According to Bloomberg, Schiller will be given an observer role without voting rights. As an observer, he will not become a full member of the board, but will have insight into the company's decision-making processes. This puts Apple on an equal footing with Microsoft, OpenAI's largest financial backer and technology partner. The agreement follows Apple's announcement in June that it would also integrate ChatGPT into its devices with Apple Intelligence. At present, the partnership is not of a financial nature. Instead, OpenAI gains access to hundreds of millions of potential users, while Apple gains access to the technology. Apple is also in talks with Google, Anthropic, Baidu and Alibaba about further AI offerings.

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YouTube now allows users to request the removal of AI-generated content that simulates their face or voice. The change allows affected individuals to request the removal of this kind of AI-generated content as a privacy violation under YouTube's privacy request process. When deciding whether to remove AI-generated content, YouTube considers whether the content is labeled as synthetic or AI-generated, whether it uniquely identifies a person, and whether the content could be considered parody, satire, or something else of value and public interest. YouTube warns its users that removal means the video is completely taken down from the site and that simply labeling it as AI content does not necessarily protect it from removal. YouTube gives the uploader 48 hours to respond to the complaint.

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AI in practice

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince sees trouble ahead for the open web

AI research

New Othello experiment supports the world model hypothesis for large language models

AI in practice

ChatGPT might be draining your brain, MIT warns - what ‘cognitive debt’ means for you

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