Bored Apes Law Suit + The Global Race for AI

Hi Friends,

Today we are going to dive into a few really interesting innovations and news:

• The UK invests $100 million+ in creating their own AI
• The US Navy is deploying unmanned, AI-driven ships to counter smuggling and illegal fishing
• Bored Apes Yacht Club won a law suit that further establishes IP rights in the wild west of NFTs and digital art
• AI Voice Clone Scams - beware!

The UK’s $100 million Sovereign AI Initiative

The UK government is taking action to develop its own AI technology and compete globally. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan have pledged £100 million to establish a Foundation Model Taskforce, which will work with the industry to develop AI systems that are safe and reliable. The taskforce is inspired by the COVID-19 vaccine unit and will report directly to the Prime Minister and Technology Secretary, with a chairperson to be announced this summer. In addition to this, the UK budget has devoted roughly £900 million to an exascale supercomputer and dedicated AI research resources. The aim is to have "sovereign" AI technology that can help create medical treatments, aid public services, and fight climate change, while avoiding ethical and technical pitfalls that have led to calls for a pause on experiments. The UK already has a strong presence in AI, but the Foundation Model Taskforce aims to keep British AI relevant in a field dominated by foreign-born technologies such as ChatGPT.

 AI-Driven Ships to Restore Order!

The US Navy is planning to increase its use of unmanned ships utilizing AI technology to counter illegal activities in the waters around Central and South America. The Navy's drone ship initiative known as Task Force 59, which launched in late 2021 in the 5th Fleet area, will be expanded to the 4th Fleet area this year. The 4th Fleet area is ideal for operationalizing the concepts developed by Task Force 59 to increase the Navy's maritime domain awareness capabilities. The use of unmanned, AI-driven vessels is expected to become more prevalent in the Navy's fleet over the coming years. The Navy estimates that it could have between 89 and 149 unmanned vessels by 2045, freeing up manned vessels for other tasks. The AI technology will allow the Navy to sustain its surveillance of key waterways for longer periods of time and help it process and respond to the vast quantities of data obtained by the unmanned vessels. The Navy hopes to leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to intercept traffickers heading to U.S. waters and to be more effective in exposing China's illegal fishing and gray zone activities.

What’s next? Robot Pirates?

 Bored Apes, FTW!

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creator Yuga Labs has won a lawsuit against artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, whom Yuga Labs accused of trademark infringement over a parody of BAYC's non-fungible token (NFT) collection. The California court ruled that Yuga was entitled to protect the BAYC trademark and that Ripps and Cahen's project, known as RR/BAYC, wasn't protected by the First Amendment as artistic expression. The RR/BAYC project was created by the artists to parody BAYC's NFT collection, and they claimed it was meant to be "an artistic statement on the nature of NFT." Yuga Labs filed a lawsuit, alleging that Ripps and Cahen misused the BAYC trademarks to trick community members into buying their NFTs instead of the official BAYC NFTs.

The court found that the RR/BAYC project was "a collection of NFTs that point to the same online digital images as the BAYC collection," and contained no artistic expression or critical commentary. Applying copyright and trademark laws to NFTs is largely uncharted territory, but the court ruled that Yuga Labs still holds trademark rights. The court also found that Ripps and Cahen broke rules related to cybersquatting by creating and using domain names similar to Yuga Labs' branding. It's not clear how much the artists will have to pay in damages, as the amount will be determined in a later trial.

 AI Voice Clone Scams

There is a horrible scam circulating the internet where someone that sounds exactly like you calls family members asking for money to pay ransom for kidnapping or damages in a severe car accident. These are just two scenarios that pull on the heart strings of vulnerable older family members that don’t even know AI has progressed enough to create voice generation. Be careful if you have any content on the internet where your voice is audible AND alert your family members to always call you first before sending money to anyone who claims to be you… even if they have the same voice.

 Top Tech Innovation News

• Amazon Releases AI Tool So You Can Finally Hear Dialogue In Movies
• Grimes says she'll split the royalties on any 'successful' AI-generated song that uses her voice
• AI clones teen girl’s voice in $1M kidnapping scam: ‘I’ve got your daughter’
• Romania plugs into Web3 with national NFT marketplace
• VC funding into Web3 startups down 82% year-over-year: Crunchbase

Thanks for reading, friends,

Yours Truly,

V Ray

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