AI-Powered Chatbots: Mythical Super Creature or Legal Trojan Horse?

In collaboration with IBJ
With ChatGPT 4, the world saw for the first time what AI-powered chatbots are capable of: writing a love poem, drafting a geography presentation or explaining the principles of patent law so a 4 year old can understand, anything seems within reach. No wonder that time-strapped workers would consider outsourcing part of their assignments to these user-friendly robots.
However impressive the technology, organisations are reluctant to adopt AI-based solutions for gathering information and generating new content, such as logo’s, texts or images. The data set used to train the algorithms are notoriously unknown, the output may be unreliable or infringing third party rights.

In this webinar we will address the legal challenges associated with using generative AI, with a focus on intellectual property and data protection. Participating legal counsel should get a better understanding of the technology and of the legal risk the use of AI-powered chatbots entails for the organisations where they are used.

Training data sets may contain copyright protected works or trade secrets, which begs the question whether the user infringes such IP rights when they rely on an AI-powered chatbot in a professional or non-professional context. Feeding client data (including confidential information or trade secrets) to a chatbot may be an issue too, considering the vague language of the contractual terms of use. Finally, the AI-generated content may contain protected material and infringe third party IP rights or – inversely – be eligible for protection under IP rights.

Data sets, used for training or input data, may also contain personal data. The processing of personal data by ChatGPT has already raised concerns, as was demonstrated by the recent Italian data protection authority’s temporary enforcement action and the European Data Protection Board’s decision to establish a dedicated task force for information sharing and cooperation among data protection authorities. Regarding data protection, we will discuss topics such as transparency and appropriate legal bases for processing.

These developments are merely the tip of the iceberg and the start of a fascinating legal journey!