Aug 2 / Punit Bhatia and Elena Gurevich

The AI World

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AI puts itself to the test by comparing and evaluating US and EU regulatory strategies. Investigating how AI systems might reinforce bias in anything from employment practices to social media algorithms, and navigating the murky waters of accountability and transparency. Could blockchain technology hold the key to enabling a future in which ethical and responsible usage of AI coexists? Can we use AI to our advantage, or is it destined to serve as our future's judge, juror, and executioner?

Transcript of the Conversation

Punit  00:00
The AI world is full of challenges. On one hand, the regulators are challenged on what position to take? Do they embrace AI? Or do they take a passive stance and let it develop and then make regulation? Then we have the EU Act, which is creating some concerns amongst some companies. Then we have the transparency challenge with the technology coming up. How do you ensure privacy? How will it AI impact? What will blockchain do? And then there's also how can you use technology to create transparency maybe. And then how do companies embrace AI? Do they adopted because there's fear of missing out? Do they take a slow start saying, don't use AI if we don't have to? What should they do? Well, all these are fascinating questions. And to talk about these, we have none other than Elene Gurevich, who's going to talk to us she's a lawyer, she's fascinated by this technology world, where she's in the IP world, AI world, and also this blockchain, and then we're going to talk to her about all that. Let's go and talk to her.  

FIT4Privacy  01:19

Hello, and welcome to the Fit4Privacy podcast with Punit Bhatia. This is the podcast for those who care about their privacy. Here your host Punit Bhatia has conversations with industry leaders about their perspectives, ideas and opinions relating to privacy, data protection and related matters. Be aware that the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not legal advice. Let us get started.  

Punit  01:48

So here we are with Elena. Elena welcome to the Fit4Privacy podcast.  

Elena  01:53

Hi, Hi, Punit. Thanks for having me.  

Punit  01:56

It's a pleasure to have you. And in your work being a lawyer what fascinates you, or what attracts you towards this ip and blockchain world?

Elena  02:06

Got to mention one more magic word. I mean, two letters, essentially AI, right? Because that's pretty much what, what everyone has been buzzing about for the past, like a year and a half. I mean, I've been in into that a little more than that. Yeah. I mean, what, what's not fascinating about it, the blockchain and AI space and how they intersect with intellectual property, and what it means for digital art, and intellectual property rights and digital arts provenance for that matter, you know, how that all interplays in what, what benefits digital artists might you know, how it might benefit digital artists, using Blockchain technology when it comes to art, provenance, digital art, I've known a lot of artists, and I know a lot of others. And there are a lot of initiatives out there to foster this culture of digital authenticity and provenance and, you know, using Blockchain technology as a means to, to do to do that. And I think it's fascinating, you know, just pretty much some of the some of the artists are trying to take the matters into their own hands, considering there's no real comprehensive legislation on the topic. You know, and it's, yeah, it's been there are a lot of interesting projects out there who are building this. This structure like how you can, how you can trace provenance, how you can trace the authenticity of that particular image video or some record recordings online. And yeah, that's, that's fascinating. And as an attorney, obviously, that's very interesting topic to me.  

Punit  04:04

For sure. So let's maybe go block by block. Then when we talk about artificial intelligence you talked about there's no comprehensive legislation. I know the adoption hasn't of AI or embracing of AI has not been great.  

Elena  04:19

Yeah.  

Punit  04:19

Some countries are being very enthusiastic, proactive, some are being reactive. What's your view on that? What's happening in terms of adoption or evolution of AI, especially in terms of regulation? Of course, there's the EU AI,  

Elena  04:32

Yeah.  

Punit  04:32

but the rest of it. Let's talk about that first.  

Elena  04:36

Yeah. So yeah, obviously, when we're talking about comprehensive, comprehensive, comprehensive AI, The severe regulation, the EU comes to mind, which was just recently unanimously voted on by all the member states, and we're just very, very near to it being just in the forest right when it gets published in the official journal. And as for the rest of the world, I'm not talking about the EU right now in the US, there's no such piece of comprehensive AI regulation is pretty much this. We have this patchwork of different bills and proposed bills and legislations that are very targeted. They're very specific. And each and every one of those proposed bills, they target particular issues that the authorities want to tackle when it comes to AI be elections or defeats and stuff like that. And yeah, kind of there's nothing, I would say, really fundamental. We have recently, just, I think, last week, that Colorado AI bill so far that I would say it's the most comprehensive of them all. That's targeting, again, specifically targeting algorithmic bias. And that's, that's a very interesting piece of legislation. Again, it's very comprehensive, and it addresses a lot of a lot of points. And by reading it, it kind of got a lot of a lot of very, very useful ideas from the AI Act. And yeah, it's going to be very interesting how it's going to be coming along, I believe it's supposed to come into force in February 2026. So yeah, definitely is going to be interesting. But again, it's again, it's state by state, right? It's going to be the Colorado law. In other words, in New York, by that time, they're buying me some something else. So the states in the absence of this comprehensive federal regulation, they coming up with regulations of their own. And, as usual, it's yeah, it goes just sideways at this point, and there's a lot of lobbying as well. A lot of, a lot of people in the industry are not happy with this. And this lobbying is sometimes very successful. A few of the bills were taken down recently on  

Punit  05:58

Lobbying to get the law, or lobbying to avoid a lot?  

Elena  07:22

Lobbying to make these proposals as LAX as possible.  

Punit  07:27

Okay.  

Elena  07:27

So the main idea is we don't want to impede our, you know, we don't want to impede the research and our innovation. We want, the US needs to be the first one in the world and all this stuff. And let's just not play with overregulating anything. So you know, the main theme being just let's just leave this the way it is, you know, let's not interfere and let's let the innovators innovate I would say.  

Punit  08:01

Interesting, because if we come to the EU side, there the story is we want responsible innovation, that's the term they use. We want to foster innovation, but in a responsible and human centric way. And that's why they have come up with what we call the EU AI act. And I don't know how you would go about explaining it in two, three minutes, because it's comprehensive as people most people say it.  

Elena  08:29

Yeah. Yeah. It's  very comprehensive piece of legislation. If you want to get a sense of how comprehensive it is, you can read it. It's a lot of pages. Warning a lot of pages. But yeah, it's it's it's been. It's a risk based framework, basically, that addresses AI systems and puts them into different categories of risks, and acceptable risk, high risk, limited risk and minimal risk. So it's depending on on their use as well. So the there are high risk applications and the where the EU AI companies have strict obligations on those high risk ecosystems. That includes rigorous testing, documentation and oversight. And there are, of course, transparency and accountability requirements as well for AI operators for AI developers, and employers. The EU AI Act also bans certainly AI practices altogether. That's that being biometric, real by real time, biometric identification, social scoring. There are a few exceptions to that as well, and we can talk about it later. But overall, it's a very, very comprehensive piece of legislation that I think a lot of people are saying it might have the Brussels effect as the as they see on other other countries and the way they tackle this problem, the problem of regulating AI space, but I guess we'll see because, like we already mentioned that it's just been voted on, and it's going to be coming into force kind of in stages. And by 2026, it will be in force completely. So again, we'll see how it's gonna go. And the AI office will be the one in charge sort of to enforce, enforce those rules and obligations. So it's going to be very interesting how, how things gonna unfold, definitely exciting times.

Punit  10:54

Absolutely I think the risk based approach, and not asking each and every system to comply with each and every one requirement. That's a unique and an interesting one. And let's see how other countries look at that. But if you broadly categorize I think, about 50 to 60%, maybe 70% of systems can be in the low risk, or the no risk category, and hence, escape away with light obligations.  

Elena  11:20

Or at least they'll try to get into that category, you know kinda.  

Punit  11:24

Yeah, that's all so they will try to get into that category. That's true.  

Elena  11:28

Since can it be essential for them? 

Punit 11:31
Yeah

Elena 11:31

To do that, or that some of them might just choose not to do business in the EU altogether? I mean, depending on the company, right? And on its size, considering what the compliance with the ACT entails in terms of even, I'm not even saying staff, but just in terms of money, right, it's complying with the act is, it's going to cost companies a lot of money. And depending on the size of the company, some companies might even just be considering if it's a small company, right? Do we even need to kind of roll out our services in the EU market, so we don't need this sort of extra trouble. And I've already heard a few conversations like that from small startup founders. So you know, kind of people are considering this as well. So

Punit  11:31

I don't know there are always companies like that, I know, some websites are not available in Europe, because of GDPR. Because they don't want to take the extra effort of complying with the EU GDPR. And same thing can happen for EU AI Act, then if you look at broadly speaking, AI creates a lot of challenges. And to address those challenges, you need some sort of set of rules or guidelines to handle it. And that way, the EU AI Act, or even the Colorado Act or EU Colorado AI Act comes in, and maybe many more, because New York is already talking about AI. We don't know what form or shape it will come, they have some ledge

Elena  13:05

In New York. Yeah, in New York, we have this local law 144. That's just this weird name that they have for it. But yeah, it was it came into force last July actually. And it concerns using AI in the workplace in terms of hiring people. hiring and firing a using AI in HR and you know, screaming through resumes and stuff like that. So the companies, they have to they are obligated under this law, to do the yearly audits and to publish the results of those audits. But again, as always, the companies will find their loopholes, you know, just anything and everything under the sun to be able to kind of get away with as much as they can. So what they've been doing. And that's been a few already reports out fascinating read, by the way. So there are companies who actually take the time and do the research. And they go over the audits and the results of those audits for the companies in New York. It turns out a lot of companies, they do the audits, but they never publish the reports or they publish them but the publish them, publish them, they put them somewhere on the website, in like in such an inconspicuous place where an ordinary you know, consumer, the person who uses them on the website, they will never find them. And again, there's nothing in the law that says there are no instructions or you know, there's nothing specific in terms of where you should place or where where you should put that report for all the people to read. So it's yeah, it's again, it's interesting how the companies are kind of going about that. Again, so yeah, fun times.  

Punit  14:58

It is fun times because that even though GDPR was clear, or the privacy laws are clear, you need to put a privacy notice I was yesterday browsing website and they were saying privacy notice, which is how it should be in the footer, you go there. And there are three, privacy policy. privacy and digital privacy notice and California privacy notice. Now for a normal user, that one step of clicking privacy notice was enough. And now you've given them three options. And somebody's like, Okay, which one? Do I read the digital privacy policy, the privacy notice, or California, maybe somebody from California would choose that one, but still, you've given others two options. And the content of both of them was very different. So in EU AI act or AI audits, that option to hide always remains for those who want to hide or create confusion. But talking about the challenges we were talking, because that's why we need the law. One of the things is AI, at least the new AI that we're talking about these days, that can generate content that can aggregate content with LLM's and everything. And then I'm curious to ask you from your IP background, who would have the rights to the content that's generated or created or even aggregated? Because usually expected to be aggregated over the web? But sometimes it's one source. But who has that copyright? And how does that copyright work?

Elena 16:24

So to answer your question, in very simple terms, depends on the jurisdiction at the moment, because different countries are approaching this very differently. Take China, for example, right? The recent, the recent court's decision that an AI Generated Image deserves to be registered. Yeah. So the court awarded copyright registration to an AI generated image, which is very interesting. And the base, the basis was, the reasoning was pretty much that person who created the image or using generative AI, to they were working with different prompts, there were different iterations. So they were actually doing some work. And there was actually some creative input from that person, right, they're just, there was no simple pushing the button type of thing. And that's it. So that's interesting the way they approach that. But when it comes to the Yes, and I'm based in the US this, this stance is still the same. If you're not human you are that the work cannot be copyrighted in any way, shape, or form. If you're a monkey and you took a selfie, you cannot later copyright that work, or if you're a celestial being, and you wrote a book or something like that. So that effect, you cannot copyright that work as well. It has to be a human, there has to be some modicum of creativity. And it has to be, it has to be either, it has to be fixed in a tangible medium. It has to be, I don't know, I read the song or I wrote a poem and I printed something out or I drew something on a napkin, right in any type of fixing that would consider me in the bar is pretty low, actually. So modicum of creativity, how creative something can be right? That's subjective also, but the fact still remains there has to be a human author. And we've had recently several decisions by the US Copyright Office that rejected copyright registration by artists who claimed that AI was supposed to be the author and the creator of the work and their copyright registrations were filings were in effect rejected so yeah, that's where we stand with a yes. In the UK things are different in the UK as far as I know, you can infact copyright it war work generated by a computer. And it's very interesting, but again, the UK kinda has been positioning itself as this industry favourable country right, we are favoring AI and we have those few companies that UK has, we do not want to impede progress and in all that, so they they've been on this I wouldn't say not I've been on the fence is that even like a word. But they they're just the kind of, they've been very cautious to jump into this regulation fray, I would say the way the everybody's been talking about the EU, the way the EU has right because some of the people who are opposed to AI regulation. That's exactly, that's exactly what they've been talking about. It's kind of just like the UK, the I'm sorry, the EU is just shooting themselves in the foot with this legislation, and they won't have any progress and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So people alarming thing, the industry will die. Very, very dramatic. And which is, in fact isn't true at all. And I think it's a very, very, it's a very good thing that this piece of legislation has passed. So we'll again, we'll see how it's how it evolves later on. But obviously, a lot of a lot of lawsuits, a lot of a lot of interesting stuff will be coming out in the in the future. So definitely, it's going to be interesting to see how it works. But coming back, I'm sorry?

Punit 21:13

I would say I would agree.  Depends on how it evolves. And we will have to see how the future brings. Because at the moment, it's a bit confusing for people and also the legislation perspective, because there was a copyright law, which was very clear. Now there's the AI generated content, which was never foreseen in that copyright law. And hence, the confusion. But that will exist even for product laws, quality laws, safety laws, everything because none of those laws or legislation is meant for self generated or auto generated content.  

Elena  21:15

Yeah.  

Punit 21:15

Depends on how it evolves. And we will have to see how the future brings. Because at the moment, it's a bit confusing for people and also the legislation perspective, because there was a copyright law, which was very clear. Now there's the AI generated content, which was never foreseen in that copyright law. And hence, the confusion. But that will exist even for product laws, quality laws, safety laws, everything because none of those laws or legislation is meant for self generated or auto generated content.

Elena 22:06

Yeah


Punit  21:46

And doesn't cater to the soft aspect of it. It was always the physical product for which you will have safety aspects.  

Elena  21:46

Yeah  

Punit  21:46

Now, how do you ensure safety of a software product or the LLM's that is used by somebody? How do you ensure safety of that? Because how? so that's going to be a fascinating world in next, say 10 to 20 years.  

Elena  22:06

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And precisely because of this reason, it's very interesting how when we're talking about risk and harms of AI, right and risk mitigation, how can you mitigate the risk, the risk when we're talking about Open Source AI systems right are open Wait, as they're called? How can you trace how can you possibly be aware of how the downstream deployers, like how the downstream users how everyone is using that technology? You really can. But what I've seen and what the latest AI report says that, essentially, open weight AI systems have been on the rise. And obviously, it's available to everyone, this technology is available to developers to build on the on top of right. And considering that we're on this trend that AI models are starting to be implemented on the edge right on personal devices of people. How do you control that without being invasive? Right? We're talking about people's privacy and all the all the implications of that? How do you control what people do on their own devices with that AI system? Provided they might use it for the various purposes? But how do you control that without being invasive? That's the that's the question  

Punit  23:42

That push all because whether it was GDPR, or whether it's AI Act, or whether it be any of the digital act that's coming up, the intention of the regulators is to bring the sense of control to the human around their data, and also the actions around their behavior or actions impacting them. And so, some of us call it responsible, some of scholars human centric, some call it transparency, and how do you see that transparency coming up in coming years because AI as we say, will come up more and more.  

Elena  24:21

Yeah.  

Punit  24:21

Then more privacy would be an issue more and more. And then we have technologies which are coming up, for instance blockchain so how can these technologies help assist in creation of the transparency culture or responsibility culture?  

Elena  24:37

Well, considering the AI, AI systems and AI in general right to exist, it cannot exist without data, the more data and the model ingest the better the AI model is right, the better the output is and not even the the more data, the better that data is depends on quality again, and the diversity of that data. But again, data privacy issues, data protection will be will be at the forefront 100%. A lot of different issues already coming up. In terms of transparency I've spoken about recently, there's been another report published the AI transparency, foundation models transparency index, by Stanford University researchers and the transparency trend, again, it's on the rise a lot of a lot more companies than back in October 2023. A lot of more companies are more willing to come up and be upfront with their transparency practices. So they've been publishing a lot more resources and a lot more reports on their transparency practices. And that's, that's very good. And we welcome that. But again, a lot of things just didn't change and stay the same in terms of companies again, and they still are not willing to share any details of the data. They've been training their models on, they are now willing to share any type of copyright, copyright data if the fact that they even used some of the copyright data, which obviously the it was considering the amounts of data that these models are being trained on. So a lot of issues are still the same. But again, there's this slight, slight uptick in this transparency, willingness to be transparent, at least on that, that front, so that's good. When it comes to 

Punit 26:49

Blockchain help create more transparency, is that possible?

Elena 26:54

Ah, well, how blockchain works, right? The blockchain is just this ledger that creates whenever you are putting something on the blockchain, it creates this, this this hash, that's just you cannot really forge it, change it or do anything with it. Right. So it's a great, great resource for tracking when it comes to provenance of the work when we're talking about art, right? So if it's on blockchain, you can trace any, any action or any step in the creation and just existence of that work on chain, like on the blockchain from the moment of its creation, right. And which is, that's very good in terms of artists who work with digital art and NFT. And the owners, for sure. There's just dropping some NFT words out there. Everybody forgot at this point what that is, right. But yeah, I've been to the NFTNYC, recently in April in New York, and a lot of people were talking about that, actually, AI was obviously, on the agenda. But people were more concerned how these two spaces can coexist. What can they bring to each other? How can we use AI when we work on the blockchain? And vice versa? How can blockchain help? Some some aspects of AI risk mitigation that we're talking about right? and a lot people out there who are working on that? And that's an interesting space as well. So these I would say these two were made for each other, in terms of they complement each other, right, when we're talking about tracing and tracking, and how can you make sure that work is the original work that wasn't AI generated? Because obviously, we have a lot of companies rolled out their own watermarking techniques, right, detecting AI generally work and detecting is synthetic content. But again, those are not foolproof, they don't work 100% all the time, a lot of those. A lot of those times these systems don't work at all. We have a lot of a lot of I heard a lot of and read a lot of stories about people who were accused of using, for example, tragic beauty, right to write their essays, entrance essays to college and all that sort of things, which wasn't that not true. And they were labeled as just those people basically who did that and the outcome was people some people didn't get into college, some people lost their I don't know position as a student in college, you know, there were real life consequences to that and we need to think of ways how can we ensure that there is no you know that there are no cases like that anymore. It is obviously it's happening. And it's been happening in real time in real life. And it's, it's serious, it has serious conflict consequences. It just affects people's lives.  

Punit  30:14

So you're talking about normally we talk about plagiarism that is somebody has used AI to produce content, which is not their own to get some advantage, like admission into a university or submitting an assignment. However, somebody wrote their own content did not use AI.  

Elena  30:30

Yeah.  

Punit  30:30

And they were accused of plagiarism.  

Elena 30:32

Yes.  

Punit  30:34

Which is not the fact.  

Elena  30:37

Exactly, yeah.  

Punit  30:38

We call it  

Elena  30:39

Yeah, cuz, apparently a lot of maybe not a lot. But some of the professors or whoever that was they were using these AI tools that help you detect help you detect 100%, right, they help you detect AI generated content. And these tools were in fact, not correct at that point. And here, we come up on the issue of liability right.? So who's at fault? If I'm that student who just got rejected, and I didn't get to the college that I wanted to get into, just by the mere fact that the AI tool detection tool, stated that I was using AI, which, in fact, I wasn't right, who's, who am I going to complain about the AI company? the developer of that tool? the professor who used that tool, all of them? You know, it's just, it's interesting as the university the state. And those issues need to be addressed as well, because obviously, the person's life has been changed drastically. And you know, that people might might need some, you know, some means of resolution.  

Punit  32:01

I think that's where the EU rights like, right to be not subjected to automated processing. And also understanding that these tools which allow you to detect plagiarism or AI use are good, but not good enough. It's like the weather, you say it will rain? Sometimes it does. And sometimes it doesn't. And most time, it's right to same way the tool is 7080, maybe 90%. Right? But it's not 100%, right?  

Elena  32:30

Yeah.  

Punit  32:30

So somebody is being, let's say accused that this is plagiarism, or this is false, this is using some means, then it should not be an automated decision saying okay, the tool says, then it's the responsibility of the person to intervene and maybe have two or three persons check in and then make a decision rather than completely rely on to like you're talking the New York Act asking.  

Elena  32:55

Yeah.  

Punit  32:56

Hiring and firing not to rely only on AI. So that the same thing in hiring of students are firing off or not hiring students, you need to apply that judgment. And that will remain I think, in the AI world more and more, because there is technology, it can do a lot of things, but only with a certain amount of accuracy. And that's where the human factor comes in.  

Elena  33:17

Yeah.  

Punit  33:18

And that's where the human factor comes in.  

Elena  33:19

Exactly. But as a I don't like this word, but as a species, right? That humans, we are, for some reason, we tend to over rely on technology, right versus me versus you, I would move I would rely more on my calculator on my phone. So tell me, what's kind of when I'm trying to, you know, figure out what's the sum of like those numbers, right? Versus you telling me or a certain amount of information that just we have this with predisposed and just believing this technology? It's been, I've read some research papers on that as well, people are they trust videos on the computer that they see more than just something that they saw it they own eyes at some point, you know, and this this kind of game, like the mind games, like they will mind is basically playing on them. And it's very interesting. So this tendency of people to over rely on the signal. So if AI told me that if ChatGPT wrote that, it's in fact true, and that's where critical thinking comes into play. We eat it's never been more important to pretty much question everything you see and hear when you're on the internet. When you're online. You need to check and triple check every single source at this point. Yes, it's time consuming. And a lot of people don't have time and don't want to waste time. But when talking about the attorneys, for example, right, everybody heard about this case, the Avianca case where the attorneys just submitted a bunch of these cited a bunch of cases in the court docs that were just made up by ChatGPT. And the cutest part of this case is for the best part that I love this part when the attorney asked ChatGPT, if those cases existed, if this was correct and ChatGPT, of course it responded, yes, they are correct. Everything is true. And it's just mind boggling to me.  

Punit  35:24

Yeah. But that's where, we need to be cognizant of the fact that AI or any other tool is there to assist us, but not to be trusted blindly. And that takes me to kind of final questions saying, if somebody or some company is grappling with this challenge of on one hand, they want to go innovation, business centric, and more customers more revenue. And other hand they hear about this new legislations in Colorado, in EU and many others, thinking, I think we can be responsible, or maybe you need to take cognizance of these laws, or maybe we need to be looking at some framework, what would you advise them?  

Elena  36:08

I would first tell them, ask yourself a question. If you can get to where you want to be, by not using AI in the first place. If there's any other way for you to get where you want to be. Just think about it, think it through because this FOMO is great everybody's scared to be second, everybody's scared to miss on something even I'm scared you don't read your emails for two days straight. You don't read any news, right? For some reason, I don't know you've been in a cave, somewhere. You don't read that. And two days later, you have this still in I'm still you trying to catch up, you're constantly trying to stay on top of things, which is impossible. So at some point, I just told myself, just let it go. So that would be my first advice. Just let it go and think objectively, don't think about I need this and that. And that because this FOMO might cost your business money, actual money when you're trying to integrate the technology you don't really need.

Punit 37:16

Yep

Elena 37:16

Yeah and a lot of businesses have faced that. And loss, you know, so you really you need to be cognizant about that. And when it comes to customer service, if you especially when you're dealing with caught your customers data, you need to be very cognizant about data privacy issues, right? Because a lot of people are just blatantly saying, well, for example, I have this, I have this tool, I'm planning to roll it out, it will just process people's blood results, right? Just blood work something like that medical tests. And that's it. There's no that's not private information, right? We're safe? We can we don't have to do anything. Of course, you're not! what do you mean, what is just the the way some people are thinking, it's really again, it's not even funny, it's just, it's scary at this point, the way companies are very, very, they're quick to jump into this all without really consulting anyone without talking to people who know, know about that stuff, you know, and people need to be very, very clever about how they approach that if you figure out that you need to integrate that technology that's gonna really help you take your business to the next level, right be operating a chatbot, or kind of doing the logistics and, you know, predicting some consumers, consumer behavior online, but again, it comes with a lot of legal issues. And if you're not willing to tackle that right now, you might be very sorry, later on. When another piece of legislation maybe next year, but federal piece of legislation, very comprehensive one will just you know, befall you and you will be too late to address that. Because because a lot of a lot of businesses out there. In my previous discussions with them last year, even they were very, I would say, blase when it came to compliance with any type of regulations when it came to AI right. And everybody was like, well, the EU AI after that doesn't apply to us or it's going to be it's not going to be here until 2026. So we're just we have all the time in the world. So this mindset that we have all the time in the world it needs to stop you don't. You should have started to do your homework yesterday. That's where we are right now.  

Punit  37:16

I think that's the common philosophy or approach people have. One, it doesn't apply to us even before on the GDPR. We don't process personal data that standard on so. And nowadays, oh AI doesn't apply to us, they will try to look at one of the categories and say are we don't do it. But when you dig deep, like, for instance, when you look at the definition of AI, and even in EU AI act, it's very broad. And then it says, Go and refer to annex one, or Annex A, I don't know, a, and when you read that one, then everything is AI, almost. So that's so broad. And that's where companies and people have to understand, but I get your message, don't be afraid of the formal, you're not going to miss out much. But be aware of the issues that you will be taking along by not looking at legislation, or rather, adopting or bringing in AI when you can do without it. And with that, if someone is interested in talking to you, or getting into a conversation, from business work perspective, what's the best way to contact you?  

Elena  41:04

That would be as of right now, my LinkedIn page. That's the best way I'm constantly present on their message. Just DM me and you know, you'll get in touch with me. And I'm almost done with my website. Finally, probably when this episode comes up, it's gonna be you know, I'm very particular about what I liked. I could have used AI, obviously, right, I could have just done this website in like 30 seconds. The truth is, I tried and I didn't like the results. Exactly. So yeah, I want what I want and yeah, hopefully soon, it's gonna get there.  

Punit  41:45

And also apply the medicine you give to others to yourself.  

Elena  41:50

Exactly! I mean, you you have to preach what you teach. Right?  

Punit  41:54

Yeah. Okay. So with that, I would say, Elena, it was wonderful to have you have this conversation. Thank you so much for your time.  

Elena  42:01

Thanks for having me Punit.  

FIT4Privacy  42:03

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, feel free to share it with a friend and write a review. If you have already done so, thank you so much. And if you did not like the show, don't bother and forget about it. Take care and stay safe. Fit for privacy helps you to create a culture of privacy and manage risks by creating, defining and implementing a privacy strategy that includes delivering scenario based training for your staff. We also help those who are looking to get certified in CIPPE CIPM, and CIPT through on demand courses that help you prepare and practice for certification exam. Want to know more? Visit www.fit4privacy.com. That's www. FIT the number 4 privacy.com. If you have questions or suggestions, drop an email at hello(@)fit4privacy.com.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence has two sides to its story. It poses important problems about ownership, accountability, and ethics while simultaneously offering enormous possibilities for innovation and advancement. This episode clarified the current discussion surrounding AI regulation and emphasised the importance of taking a fair stance. While the US and EU struggle with differing approaches, one thing is certain: cooperation, foresight, and a thorough grasp of the human element are necessary to enable responsible AI development. Transparency and the moral use of AI will be crucial as we forge ahead on this new frontier. Thus, the next time you engage with an AI system, stop and think about the intricate issues it brings up. We are all collaborating to shape the AI future.

However, the conversation doesn't end here. This is just the beginning of an ongoing dialogue. As AI continues to evolve, we must remain vigilant and proactive. We need to foster collaboration between policymakers, developers, and the public to ensure AI serves humanity – not the other way around. By striking a balance between innovation and responsible use, we can paint a future where AI empowers us to create a better world, a world where the human touch remains the guiding light.

ABOUT THE GUEST 

Elena Gurevich is a multilingual lawyer with a background in intellectual property law, and a keen interest in data protection, AI, and blockchain technology.  She provides legal advice and representation to clients in the fields of intellectual property, digital art, and emerging technologies. She is passionate about learning and shares her knowledge on how these technologies can transform creative industries. 

Punit Bhatia is one of the leading privacy experts who works independently and has worked with professionals in over 30 countries. Punit works with business and privacy leaders to create an organization culture with high AI & privacy awareness and compliance as a business priority by creating and implementing a AI & privacy strategy and policy.

Punit is the author of books “Be Ready for GDPR” which was rated as the best GDPR Book, “AI & Privacy – How to Find Balance”, “Intro To GDPR”, and “Be an Effective DPO”. Punit is a global speaker who has spoken at over 50 global events. Punit is the creator and host of the FIT4PRIVACY Podcast. This podcast has been featured amongst top GDPR and privacy podcasts.

As a person, Punit is an avid thinker and believes in thinking, believing, and acting in line with one’s value to have joy in life. He has developed the philosophy named ‘ABC for joy of life’ which passionately shares. Punit is based out of Belgium, the heart of Europe.

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