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Artificial Intelligence

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Businessman touching the brain working of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the futuristic business and coding software development on interface and synchronize network connection, IoT, innovative and technology of business.

The rapid and evolving development of artificial intelligence (“AI”) has alarmed various government agencies, especially the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”).  On November 21, the FTC approved an omnibus resolution simplifying the process for its staff to issue civil investigative demands (“CIDs”) in AI investigations.  This resolution comes on the heels of President Biden’s October executive order establishing new standards for AI safety and security.  Both actions may increase exposure for businesses involved in the use of products and services that use or are produced through AI.  Businesses should be knowledgeable about their use and marketing of AI and ensure their products and conduct do not pose a risk to consumers or competition.Continue Reading Federal Trade Commission: The AI Watchdog

Advances in artificial intelligence have become front and center in the minds of many, including attorneys general focused on consumer protection. Although concerns exist for consumer protection, the advancement of artificial intelligence has the opportunity to add value to consumers.  This is especially true in healthcare. Recently, attorneys general gathered to discuss these issues at the Attorney General Alliance Annual Meeting, during a panel that discussed  The Value of Disruptive Healthcare. In the last few years, the growth of telemedicine has dramatically changed the delivery of healthcare. While these changes were already afoot, the pandemic highlighted the need for virtual access to healthcare and wellness tools. That disruption has added value in many ways to consumers and health care providers managing care for their patients. Similarly, in the coming years, we can expect artificial intelligence to drive even more changes in treatment, therapies, and standards of care in the healthcare sector. During these periods of major technological advancements attorneys general should consider consumers’ safety, privacy, security and consumers’ overall livelihood and health. Dramatic changes in healthcare business and technology are already challenging existing laws in unexpected ways, often creating gaps between the law and what consumers and producers need or want the law to say. This gap period, or regulatory lag, will require producers to assume some regulatory risk and for attorneys general to monitor business activities that they believe create too much risk for consumers.Continue Reading Attorneys General Consider Consumer Protection Issues Related to Artificial Intelligence in Consumer-Facing Healthcare Technology

Businessman touching the brain working of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the futuristic business and coding software development on interface and synchronize network connection, IoT, innovative and technology of business.

Ever since the public launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the world has been gasping at the astonishing accomplishments of this generative AI chatbot:  a simple “prompt” in the form of a question (“which are the most important decisions of the CJEU in copyright?”) will receive a credible response within seconds (“The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued several important decisions in the field of copyright law. While it is challenging to determine a definitive list of the most important decisions, here are some key rulings that have had significant impact” and it goes on to list some of the CJEU’s most well know decisions, such as Infopaq, UsedSoft, Svensson, Deckmyn, ACI Adam, GS Media and YouTube).Continue Reading AI-Powered Chatbots: Mythical Super Creature or Legal Trojan Horse

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On February 27, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Division of Advertising Practices updated their business guidance on the usage of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) for 2023. In their post titled “Keep your AI claim in check”, the FTC guides marketers on how best to legally and efficiently utilize AI in advertising and avoid AI washing. Building upon the FTC’s previous AI guidance of 2020 and 2021, this year’s iteration emphasizes that false or unsubstantiated claims about a product’s efficacy—including those that involve promises about the ability of AI—runs afoul of the FTC Act. Specifically, the FTC reminds marketers of the following questions that they should consider with the increasing use of AI in products:Continue Reading Everyone’s Talking AI, Including the FTC: Key Takeaways from the FTC’s 2023 AI Guidance

Federal Trade Commission

This week, the Commission announced that it blocked a hospital merger in Utah and New Jersey and ordered an oil and gas divestiture in Michigan. The FTC also issued a policy statement on exclusionary rebates and fees in prescription drug pricing and submitted a report to Congress on combatting online harms through innovation. Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips issued a dissenting statement regarding the FTC’s report to Congress, and Commissioner Christine Wilson questioned whether the FTC’s Fuel Rating Rule under the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act is necessary. These stories and more after the jump. Continue Reading FTC Updates (June 13-17, 2022)

Federal Trade Commission

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Deceptive or Misleading Conduct & Consumer Protection

  • The FTC recently issued full refunds totaling over $2 million to consumers who lost money through certain deceptive direct mail schemes. The agency recovered the refunds via a federal district court order resulting from the FTC’s lawsuit against Agora Financial, LLC, NewMarket Health, and other defendants. The lawsuit was based upon two publications defendants marketed to older consumers. One publication contained a protocol promising to permanently cure type 2 diabetes in 28 days, while the other promised to show how to claim money from a secret giveaway by Congress. The FTC obtained the order including consumer refunds before the Supreme Court stripped the agency of its ability to obtain equitable monetary relief in federal court in the April 22, 2021 AMG Capital decision. Congress has not yet acted on the FTC’s request to reinstate this power.

Continue Reading FTC Updates (November 1-5, 2021)

On May 21, 2021, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (“CPSC”) published a report on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in consumer products. The report highlights recent CPSC staff activity concerning AI and ML, proposes a framework for evaluating the potential safety impact of AI and ML capabilities in consumer products, and makes several recommendations that the CPSC can take in identifying and addressing potential hazards related to AI and ML capabilities in consumer products.

Concerning staff activity, CPSC recently hired a Chief Technologist with a background in AI and ML to address the use of AI in consumer products. The CPSC also recently established an “AI/ML Working Group” and held a virtual forum on AI and ML in March 2021.

Informed by the discussions held with various stakeholders at this forum, the CPSC staff has proposed a framework in the report for evaluating the potential safety impact of AI and ML in consumer products. The framework’s first step involves screening products for AI and ML “components.” The CPSC and stakeholders have identified the following components to be essential to producing an AI capability: data sources, algorithms, computations, and connections. Likewise, the CPSC and stakeholders have found the following components to define ML capabilities: assessing and monitoring outputs, analyzing and modeling changes, and adjusting and adapting behavior over time. The framework’s second step involves assessing the functions and features of consumer products’ AI and ML capabilities. The third step involves understanding how products’ AI and ML capabilities may impact consumers, which can be accomplished by studying the nature of the technology, how it is implemented in the product, and how the consumer might use the product. The final step involves ascertaining if, and to what extent, AI and ML capabilities may transform the product and/or its use over time.
Continue Reading CPSC Publishes Report on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

This article was originally published in Automotive World.

The future of the mobility is dependent on AI, but without greater understanding among consumers, trust could be hard to build.

The mobility sector is keen to realise the full benefits of artificial intelligence (AI), not least to open up the revenues which data-driven connected services could offer. But moving forward, it must balance these opportunities with the rights of drivers, passengers and pedestrians. A number of concerns have already surfaced, all of which will become more pressing as the technology is further embedded into vehicles, mobility services and infrastructure.

Privacy and liability are two of the major challenges. As Christian Theissen, Partner, White & Case explains, mobility has become inherently connected to consumer habits and behavioural patterns, much like the e-commerce and social media industries. “The access, ownership, storage and transmission of personal data, such as driving patterns, must be taken into consideration by both lawmakers and companies gathering and using data,” he says. Meanwhile, in a world of AI-powered self-driving, at what point do regulators start blaming the machine when something goes wrong?

Automakers must build knowledge

Part of the challenge in considering these issues is that as things stand, there is limited understanding among consumers around what rights there are. “Consumers appreciate AI,” says Cheri Falvey, Partner, Crowell & Moring, “and in particular the ease with which navigational apps help guide them to their destination. Whether they appreciate how their data is accumulating and developing a record of their mobility patterns, and what their rights are in respect to that data, is another question.”

There is often little precedent for regulators to rely on when making new policy in this arena, so it’s a good time to create a proactive regulatory strategy that invites discussion and collaboration from the start

This is in part because it is not always clear when AI is at work. A driver may register when a car’s navigation system learns the way home, but won’t necessarily realise that data on how a car is driven is being collected for predictive maintenance purposes, or that their data is being fed into infrastructure networks to manage traffic flow.Continue Reading Automakers and Regulators Must Educate Consumers on Mobility AI

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