Microsoft and Meta quizzed on AI copyright

Microsoft and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and WhatsApp, were quizzed by parliamentarians during a House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee meeting about the state of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs).

While Microsoft and Meta discussed the huge advances that have been made, both appeared to have given little thought on the implications of their work on protecting intellectual property (IP). LLMs need access to vast swathes of freely available data on the internet to improve accuracy and reduce bias – but scraping text for commercial use infringes UK copyright law.

Vice-president and deputy chief privacy officer for policy at Meta, Rob Sherman, and director of public policy at the office for responsible AI at Microsoft, Owen Larter, both appeared to argue the case to change UK laws in line with some other countries, thereby allowing their AI software and LLMs to use data freely.

The session with the Microsoft and Meta representatives started with committee members enquiring about the current state of LLMs and the opportunities and risks.

When asked about the hype versus reality of generative AI (GenAI) and LLMs, Meta’s Sherman described the industry as reaching “a really important inflection point in the development of AI”, where models are able to run much more efficiently.

“A big area of investment for us is in both the ability to detect bias in machine learning models where they exist and to correct for that bias so that we can actually make the world a bit more fair and inclusive where we can,” he added.

Microsoft’s Larter said he was really enthusiastic about the opportunity of AI, especially in terms of productivity. Larter used the question to showcase Microsoft’s Copilot AI, particularly the GenAI in GitHub Copilot, which he said significantly boosts the productivity of software developers by “auto-completing” snippets of code.

The Lords were keen to hear what the two experts thought about open and closed data models and how to balance risk with innovation. Sherman said: “Our company has been very focused on [this]. We’ve been very supportive of open source along with lots of other companies, researchers, academics and nonprofits as a viable and an important component of the AI ecosystem.”

Along with the work a wider community can provide in tuning data models and identifying security risks, Sherman pointed out that open models lower the barrier to entry. This means the development of LLMs is not restricted to the largest businesses – small and mid-sized firms are also able to innovate.

In spite of Microsoft’s commitment to open source, Larter appeared more cautious. He told the committee that there needs to be a conversation about some of the trade-offs between openness and safety and security, especially around what he described as “highly capable frontier models”.

“I think we need to take a risk-based approach there,” he said. Future generations of AI models may offer significant capabilities that offer societal benefits, but may present serious risks. “We need to think very carefully about whether it makes sense to open source those models or not.”