What OpenAI Can Learn from Planned Parenthood
What OpenAI Can Learn from Planned Parenthood
A shit ton, apparently.
This week, we’re talking:
ScarJo v. Sam Altman and why Sam Altman’s fast-and-loose relationship with consent is bad news for everybody 🗣️ 🏴☠️
Google cutting DOJ a cashier’s check to avoid a jury trial ⚖️💰
Apple trying to get antitrust lawsuit dismissed 💌
Section 230: to keep, to ditch or to start from scratch? 🛜
Far right Indian news site being platformed by US tech companies 🇮🇳 🚩
TikTok layoffs coming down the pipe 🤕🤕
My Take:
Sam Altman reached out to Scarlett Johansson a little over a year ago to ask her to lend her voice to their ChatGPT voice assistant. OpenAI’s desire to have ScarJo’s voice animate their technology was apparently strategic. OpenAI exec’s felt that drawing the comparison to ScarJo’s AI character of Samantha in the 2013 film, Her, would make the technology more palatable and comfortable for consumers. (Clearly OpenAI execs missed the end of Her and the message of the film flew right over their heads, but that’s fodder for another time.)
Johansson said, “no.” Twice, in fact.
But Sam Altman doesn’t have a great track record of respecting creatives' work or wishes and he apparently had no intention of starting here.
The tech rolled out and people all over the internet commented on how similar the voice sounded to ScarJo – with some, including her own family, believing she voiced it herself. She hadn’t. OpenAI had just hired somebody who sounded almost identical.
Coincidence? That’s what Altman now claims. A message on X he sent out coinciding with the product launch makes that seem pretty unlikely.
Luckily for ScarJo, she’s got the team and resources and attention to call out this nonsense. But the concern is much larger than one actor – we’re beginning to see a pattern emerge where Altman and OpenAI exhibit a tenuous, non-committal relationship with consent. This would be a concerning characteristic in any CEO – but it becomes a straight Orwellian nightmare when you’re dealing with the CEO of a company whose technology promises to reshape the world as we know it.
Many have been wondering why OpenAI has seen so many landmark departures over the past few months. There has been rampant speculation that the board who unsuccessfully tried to oust Altman was onto something: is he pursuing growth at all costs – even when that means playing fast and loose with ethics, human rights, and consent?
My colleague, Dr. Maritza Johnson, has been exploring the parallels between consent in privacy activism and consent in activism around intimate justice. "Technologists can learn a lot from Planned Parenthood on this one. FRIES. It stands for Freely Given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific. Imagine if we built a system for data collection and use that upheld those principles and put people in control of their data in a technically enforceable way."
Passive consent isn’t enough. It has to be informed consent, it has to be enthusiastic consent – especially when the stakes are this high.
But apparently before Altman can master these slightly more nuanced realities, he’s going to have to get back to the basics that most of us were taught in grade school: no means no.
Because, to borrow again from intimacy justice advocates, “yes” can never mean “yes” until or unless “no” *actually* means “no.”
Stories to Watch:
Google sends DOJ unexpected check in attempt to avoid monopoly jury trial by Ashley Belanger VIA arsTECHNICA ⚖️💰
Yup, you read that right. Google doesn’t want a jury trial — so they tried to pay off the Department of Justice with a cashier’s check. “Google asserted that its check, which it said covered its alleged overcharges for online ads, allows it to sidestep a jury trial whether or not the government takes it.” I’m not sure how antagonizing the courts is going to move the needle for Google — but the court hasn’t yet said that they plan on declining it. One to watch, for sure. Also, go follow my friend Arielle Garcia on LI — she is spilling all the privacy tea while journalists are still getting their shoes on.
Apple says US antitrust lawsuit should be dismissed by David Shepardson VIA Reuters 💌
“Far from being a monopolist, Apple faces fierce competition from well-established rivals, and the complaint fails to allege that Apple has the ability to charge supra-competitive prices or restrict output in the alleged smartphones market,” writes Apple in its letter to the Judge. Strange placement of the word, “alleged,” aside — the court has seven days to respond.
Lawmakers debate ending Section 230 in order to save it by Lauren Feiner VIA The Verge 🛜
Big Tech lobbyists, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and public librarians… this might sound like the beginning of a crude joke but it’s actually the outspoken constituency trying to stop Section 230 from sunsetting. The American Library Association, Creative Commons, the Internet Archive, the Wikimedia Foundation and others all sent the following letter to congress: “By narrowly framing the debate around the interests of ‘Big Tech,’ there is a risk of misunderstanding the far-reaching implications of altering or dismantling Section 230. The heaviest costs and burdens of such action would fall on the millions of stakeholders we represent who, unlike large companies, do not have the resources to navigate a flood of content-based lawsuits. While it may seem that such changes will not ‘break the Internet,’ this perspective overlooks the intricate interplay of legal liability and innovation that underpins the entire digital infrastructure.” E&C Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) recognize those concerns and have produced a slightly different proposition: give congress 18 months to rewrite Section 230 or let it sunset. Their reasoning is sound. Good faith efforts to update Section 230 have been blocked again and again by Big Tech lobbyists — if the stakes were to create a Section 230 that better works for everybody or else risk losing it entirely, that might be just enough motivation to get everybody to put on their big boy pants and get to work.
A Far-Right Indian News Site Posts Racist Conspiracies. US Tech Companies Keep Platforming It by Vittoria Elliott and David Gilbert VIA Wired 🇮🇳 🚩
“The business model of the internet at the end of the day is advertising, and what we're seeing over and over again is, that business model is broken. Advertisers don't know where their money is going. And the biggest issue is that a lot of that is being funneled to mis- and disinformation online.” -Sarah Kay Wiley, director of policy and partnerships at Check My Ads
TikTok plans global layoffs in operations and marketing by Brian Fung VIA CNN 🤕🤕
“The layoffs had been in the works for some time, perhaps almost a year, but recent turnover in TikTok’s marketing, trust and safety and operations teams prompted delays, one of the employees told CNN.The layoffs are not related to the legal and political turmoil facing the company in the United States that could end in a potential nationwide ban of the TikTok app, the person added.” 🤨 /suspect
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