A series of animal-themed artworks by Banksy appeared in London over the past week in the usual overnight style. This series speaks to me and I’ll try to be as concise as possible with my first impressions. As a whole, I interpret the latest Banksy series as a love letter to our planet. The theme is very current this summer.
Piranhas on phone-booth near police station. This is the most recent artwork and is very on point considering the increasing international attention on UK policing. It calls in question the way we perceive justice and methods of enforcement. Piranhas instill fear but they are also misunderstood and necessary for ecosystems.
2. Swinging monkeys under a railway line in Brick Lane remind us of the South American jungles and invite us to reflect on the notion of freedom of association, friendship, and moving together for a cause. Their swift moving technique points to sustainable means of transportation through the concrete jungle.
3. Hungry pelicans over a pub in Walhamstow represent the joy of congregating over a meal, which could also be interpreted as a symbol of alternative conflict resolution. Pelicans are also associated with complex diverse ecosystems, representing the joy in sustaining balance and harmony with nature.
4. Stretching cat in Cricklewood. Cats are super important to keep rodents in check in big cities. Cats are also loaded with symbolism, as they populate ancient scriptures and mythology, evoking mystery and superpowers. Cats roam at night (like graffiti artists) and they are said to have 9 lives, hinting to regeneration processes, be they biologic or synthetic.
5. A goat on the side of Boss & Co, London’s oldest gunmaker in Richmond. I always wondered how goats can climb on trees. It is the cutest thing. Obviously this is a message of peace and a clear stand against gun violence.
6. A howling wolf on a satellite dish is in the process of being stolen by masked men. There is no police in sight and there are many photos of the theft in plain sight. Of course, the satellite represents reception and transmission of information. The wolf’s howling is amplified through the satellite and broadcast out to the entire world. Yes, the people of the UK want to be heard. The artwork is saying exactly that.
The stealing of that particular artwork is further representative of the silencing of legitimate speech by dictatorial powers. I hope the theft is part of an art performance and the artwork will reappear somewhere else, but even if it doesn’t, the message is really powerful and unforgettable. It made me cry.
7. Two elephants poking their heads out of blocked-out windows and attempting to touch each other’s trunks in Chelsea. A unifying “love thy neighbor” message, also representing the joy of connecting, falling in love, communication, exchange, reconciliation between left and right, beween different genders, between crown and indigenous people, a symbol of togetherness even though we are apart, so hope, I guess.
The Federal Court of Justice, Bundesgerichtshof decided in a ruling issued on June 11, 2024 (AZ X ZB 5/22) that Artificial Intelligence cannot be recognized as an inventor. Only a human can file for an AI generated invention. The DABUS cases are pro-corporate attempts brought by the Artificial Inventor Project seeking intellectual property rights for AI-generated output “in the absence of” a traditional human inventor, but the courts are not buying it, and the result is and will always be the same, you need a human name on a patent, regardless of how little input the human made in generating the invention.
Normally, to register a valid patent for an invention, you need to prove “substantial human contribution”, so even human inventors who are for hire would need to have their names on the patent. Previously, German courts were split on the issue. Now, the Bundesgerichtshof has resolved the split by removing the requirement for “substantial contribution” by a human.
What the Bundesgerichtshof is doing basically is to tell the courts to stop obsessing over the degree of contribution of human versus machine input. It is unnecessary to examine how much of the process of invention has been automated. Everyone agrees that machines cannot invent anything coherent entirely on their own and if they could, it would take a human to decide whether something was invented, so without the human, there is no invention. It matters very little what technology you use to come to the conclusion that something is an invention.
So humans will continue having their names on the patent, but they won’t need to prove they never used AI to generate parts or the whole of the invention. The requirement for a human inventor is simple, if someone uses the patent without permission, a robot cannot file a lawsuit and you can’t sue a robot for infringing on your IP. A robot can’t assign rights to anyone because it is a corporate asset. Assets are owned, they have no agency or the capacity to consent. Given that corporations are not recognized as inventors, they need at least one precedent where a corporate asset can replace the actual human inventors. There is no other goal in trying so desperately to remove the human inventor requirement. Right now, if you are for hire, you already consented to be deprived of your rights with or without AI. Even before the advent of AI, it was customary for the CEO of a corp to put their own name on the patent even though 9 other employees made the invention and all their names are not necessarily on the patent. If AI becomes an exception for the human inventor requirement, it will be another step into corporate appropriation of human work.
Luckily, DABUS is an extremely weak case, well publicized all over the media but very weak, from here, I’d say the DABUS claims begin to border on frivolous at this point. How many times in how many jurisdictions can a plaintiff lose the same case, before being declared a vexatious litigant? The fact that there seems to be unlimited money to bring an unlimited number of the same version of unsuccessful case is telling. I think the courts have better things to do right now.
It is another way to say that human users will always own the rights to AI generated output, so long they have provided the most minimal of input in a prompt and made a final call regarding the generated output. If no human was involved in the generating of an invention, then it wouldn’t be possible to register it. AI platforms are simple tools, no different from other applications you may have used to create your IP. Basically, the German courts are instructed to stop caring what tools and mediums an inventor used to create the IP, be it Microsoft Word, a gas-stove, a shovel, Ableton Live, a tractor, a fork, artificial intelligence, an X Box Kinect, a hair-brush, or any other tangible or intangible object.
Most often, tools may have not been used at all for a valid invention, humans often have an instant vision of something they need to use at a specific moment, but that doesn’t yet exist. You imagine it, you make it, you use it and if you want to make money with it, then you patent it. Otherwise, I believe the majority of existing inventions are not even patented. Conversely, the majority of patented inventions are so abstract that they may be as good as useless. Inventions come from a specific need. Patenting whatever is patentable and isolating molecules from efficient systems (i.e. things from nature) has proven time and again to be counterproductive old-world mentality, but this is a subject for another post.
What is true for inventions is even more true for music or script-writing for example (I hope coding as well, because I will need to code soon and will not hesitate to use AI.) Humans hear music in their heads and our minds create multiple scenarios faster than the speed of light. Of course we need tools to organize all this information and take it out of our heads in coherent form from time to time. AI is here to facilitate and accelerate human creation and productivity. Corporations don’t seem to like this. Before the advent of AI nobody cared whether you compose on a MacBookPro, on a phone, with a pen and a harmonica, or by recording your washer and dryer to make beats. Bottom line is, we have all these billions of machines and tools, but it takes a human to make shit and mainly to decide if it has been made at all.
On a first glance, it seems that the Australia courts keep requiring the need for a human to own and control the invention, but in the decision there is a discussion as to whether AI can be named an inventor for the sake of being named an inventor, even though only a human can file a valid patent and be a patentee, regardless of the number of “inventive steps” the machine has taken, or any thought processes a human has had. As I explained above, nobody cares how a human applicant got to the invention. Practically, it is the court thinking out loud philosophically while nothing really changes. To cite paragraph 12 from the judgment
[The commissioner’s] position confuses the question of ownership and control of a patentable invention including who can be a patentee, on the one hand, with the question of who can be an inventor, on the other hand. Only a human or other legal person can be an owner, controller or patentee. That of course includes an inventor who is a human. But it is a fallacy to argue from this that an inventor can only be a human. An inventor may be an artificial intelligence system, but in such a circumstance could not be the owner, controller or patentee of the patentable invention.
To sum it up, the Australian court says AI could be a “sole” inventor, but you still need a human to take credit for the AI’s work in order to register the invention and derive any economic benefit. After all these mental acrobatics, it looks like we are at the exact same place we started out.
It’s all great stuff, and it all points to the same place. Humans will own everything AI generates. When you see a court discussing definitions in the dictionary, it means the law is no longer of any help and everyone is completely lost. Here we have one of those moments.
I didn’t know that “computer” initially referred to a human who made computations. So, a human can be a computer, but a computer cannot be a human. Got it. What helpful information to start the day.
Dozens of class actions filed since 2022 against the Texas based company RealPage, now consolidated into a single class action in Nashville, Tennessee, demonstrate the single most significant factor behind the last few years monumental rent increases and lack of affordable housing across the continent: widespread and unchecked anti-competitive rent price-fixing directed by shady algorithms.
Since the Propublica investigation in 2022 that put a spotlight on the issue, the situation has only worsened. Rent-fixing by algorithm has enabled and continues to enable landlords and real estate companies to do covertly and indirectly what they can’t do directly. As we speak, rents are being pushed into stratospheric heights, forcing many low earners into encampments.
RealPage’s software uses an algorithm to churn through a mountain of data during the night to suggest daily prices for available rental units. The software uses not only information about the apartment being priced and the property where it is located, but also private data on what nearby competitors are charging in rents. The software considers actual rents paid to those rivals—not just what they are advertising, the company told ProPublica.
Two district attorneys (Washington,Arizona) are suing Realpage and more than a dozen of the the largest apartment building landlords, accusing them of a scheme to artificially fix rental prices in violation of U.S. antitrust law, all while concealing their conspiracy from the public. RealPage has denied any wrongdoing in the earlier cases, and it said it would contest both cases.
Washington
Washington alleges that 14 landlords conspired to keep rental prices high using RealPage’s revenue management platform and seeks triple damages and other relief to restore competitive conditions. Landlords conspired to share information, limit supply, and drive up rents via RealPage’s software which forced tenants to pay millions of dollars above fair market prices.
“In a truly competitive market, one would expect competitors to keep their pricing strategies confidential — especially if they believe those strategies provide a competitive edge,” the lawsuit says.
In response, RealPage declared that there is no causal connection between revenue management software and increases in market-wide rents. The problem with denying causal connection, however, is a flagrant lack of algorithmic transparency and intentional concealment from the public. You can’t both have a secret algorithm and deny causation between the algorithm conduct and the obvious widespread result being artificial rent increase and illegal price-fixing. So that defense will fail.
Arizona
Arizona alleges that by providing highly detailed, sensitive, non-public leasing data with RealPage, the defendant landlords departed from normal competitive behavior and engaged in a price-fixing conspiracy. RealPage then used its revenue management algorithm to illegally set prices for all participants.
Moreover, RealPage’s conspiracy with the landlord co-defendants violate both the Arizona Uniform State Antitrust Act and the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act.
Arizona’s antitrust law prohibits conspiracies in restraint of trade and attempts to establish monopolies to control or fix prices. The State’s consumer fraud statute makes it unlawful for companies to engage in deceptive or unfair acts or practices or to conceal or suppress material facts in connection with a sale, in this case apartment leases.
The illegal practices of the defendants led to artificially inflated rental prices and caused Phoenix and Tucson-area residents to pay millions of dollars more in rent.
Defendants conspired to enrich themselves during a period when inflation was at historic highs and Arizona renters struggled to keep up with massive rent increases.
The Class Actions
The private lawsuits by renter-plaintiffs accuse RealPage to collude with landlords to artificially inflate rents and limit the supply of housing, alleging that owners, operators and managers of large residential multifamily complexes used RealPage software to keep rental prices in many major U.S. cities above market rates and shared non-public, commercially sensitive information with RealPage as part of the conspiracy.
Olymel affirme que les renseignements personnels d’employés actuels, d’anciens employés et de postulants ont pu être dérobés.
\”Les données concernées sont liées au dossier d’emploi et comprennent le nom, l’adresse, la date de naissance, le numéro d’assurance sociale et, dans certains cas, pour les travailleurs étrangers, des informations contenues dans leurs passeports.\”
CyberNews reports that a massive repository of individuals’ data has been posted online. Dubbed “Compilation of Many Breaches” (COMB) this may be the biggest-ever compilation of hacked user credentials ever posted online before, but it’s not the result of a new hack or data breach. Leaked user data combines a 2012 data breach at LinkedIn involving 117 million accounts, as well as stolen Netflix login data. This is the time to change passwords and it comes as a reminder for users to stop recycling user names and passwords across different services.
Selon le Syndicat de professionnelles et professionnels du gouvernement du Québec (SPGQ), le projet de loi 59 censé moderniser le régime de santé et sécurité du travail souffre d\’une déficience majeure: il fait abstraction du télétravail.
The CPRA introduces amendments to the CCPA of existing provisions of Title 1.81.5 of the California Civil Code (currently known as the CCPA and codified at Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq) and adds new provisions (related to the establishment California Privacy Protection Agency). It is unclear, however, whether Title 1.81.5 will continue to be known as the CCPA or will instead be known as CPRA effective Jan. 1, 2023.
The CPRA took effect on Dec. 16, 2020, but most of the provisions revising the CCPA won’t become “operative” until Jan. 1, 2023.
Here is a diagram breaking down the two statutes and outlining how the CPRA expands the CPAA.
The California Privacy Protection Agency is a new agency, created by the CPRA, which is vested with “full administrative power, authority, and jurisdiction to implement and enforce” the CCPA. The CPRA transfers rulemaking authority from the California Attorney General to the California Privacy Protection Agency effective July 1, 2021, with final CPRA regulations due by July 1, 2022.
In response to Apple’s new data disclosure requirements, WhatsApp informed users last week that certain data points, such as the user’s profile status, login activity, contact list, purchases, and financial information, may be shared with businesses and the third parties they use.
Unless you consent to totally unacceptable 3rd party data sharing of your personal and financial information, your account will be deleted anyway.
The alternative to Whasapp is Telegram or Signal. The simple reason that big tech anti-trust defendants are backing Signal at the moment however should come as ared flag. Until all anti-trust lawsuits against Twitter, Apple, Amazon, Google, and FB are resolved, it is impossible to trust any company so heavily endorsed by social media tyrants.
I maintain my position that government actors have absolutely no business to be on private social media networks. If you are a politician on Twitter, you are giving off an image of selling out your country to Big Tech.
It would be reckless to encourage your citizens to hand over their personal information to big tech giants for the privilege to follow you on private social media networks.
From a political standpoint, private companies have 100% the right and the power to pick and choose sides and ban whoever they want. Users are being tolerated as guests on these platforms and must behave by their code. If your opinion falls out of line, they can legally remove you.
Governments need to set up their own communication platforms. Otherwise, they call into question their legitimacy and raison d\’être. Governments that keep relying on private corporations to communicate hand government power to non elected private actors. It is like building your house on someone else\’s land. The landowner can kick you out at any time. As a government actor, you need a more stable alternative.
En Ontario, administrer des tests psychologiques avant l\’embauche est considéré une violation de la vie privée et un motif valable de plainte pour discrimination. Le fait de ne pas être dotés d\’une codification équivalente au Québec ne veut pas dire que ces arguments ne se plaident pas ici. L\’Ontario est d\’ores et déjà une juridiction aux lois très étoffés et qui donne toujours plus d\’information et de ressources à ses citoyens en matière d\’accès à la justice.
Au tout début de la page, on conseille aux employeurs de porter une attention particulière à la liste qui énumère les documents de nature confidentielle (dont les tests psychologiques), et de s\’assurer d\’avoir fait une offre d\’emploi valable avant d\’administrer de tels tests.
Sous la rubrique c) on discute de ces tests, mais je trouve intéressante aussi la partie b) pour des précautions relatives aux tests médicaux.
En ce qui concerne les tests psychométriques:
\”Tests should be tailored to actual job duties.\” = doivent être adaptés (faits sur mesure) pour les tâches de l\’emploi
\”Avoid testing that seeks to assess personal interests, attitudes and values. If these tests are legitimately needed to assess ability to perform a job, use them with great care to make sure they do not favour certain cultures or genders. Many such tests are outdated and may have been created based on stereotypes or biases relating to Code grounds.\”
il faut éviter d\’évaluer les intérêts personnels, attitudes et (surprise) VALEURS personnelles. Plusieurs de ces tests datent d\’un certain temps qui les rend incompatibles avec les sensibilités d\’aujourd\’hui, ou ils sont carrément bourrés de stéréotypes qui peuvent constituer des motifs de discrimination suivant le Human Rights Code (équivalent de la Charte des droits et libertés)
\”Even if a test is fair, an employer will need to put in place measures to minimize the impact of unintentional bias on the part of persons scoring candidates’ answers. One option is to have more than one person score each candidate.\”
même si le test n\’est pas discriminatoire (selon la bonne foi de l\’employeur), l\’employeur doit mettre en place des mesures de sécurité afin de minimiser l\’impact de préjugés non-intentionnels de la part des personnes qui évaluent le candidat (les 3rd parties)
Subsection 23(2) of the Code prohibits the use of an employment application form or a written or oral inquiry that directly or indirectly classifies an applicant on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination. This also applies to psychological profiles and testing. The validity of behavioural testing as a tool to predict on-the-job performance may be subject to a complaint under the Code.
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