Author Sarah Silverman and two others have filed a lawsuit against Meta and Open AI, citing copyright issues.
The three claim that Open AI and Meta used their works to train their Artificial intelligence programs
American comedian and author Sarah Silverman and two other authors, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden, have filed a lawsuit against Meta and Open Ai, claiming that the two establishments used their copyrighted works to train their AI models.
Sarah Silverman not happy with OpenAi and Meta’s insensitivity
Meta and OpenAI have been slapped with a lawsuit that claims that they willingly used copyrighted work belonging to three journalists to train their AI models without prior permission. According to the court documents, many of the books that appear in the data set that Meta once admitted to have used to train Llama are copyrighted and belong to the three authors.
Similarly, in the case against OpenAI, Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit alleges that when ChatGPT generates summaries of the plaintiff’s work, it indicates that it had training with copyrighted content.
“The summaries get some details wrong. This is expected since a large language model mixes expressive material derived from many sources. Still, the rest of the summaries are accurate…”
The plaintiffs claim that the above companies retrieved copyrighted data from “shadow libraries” like Library Genesis, Bibliotik, and others. They explain that these libraries use torrent systems to make books available in bulk while overriding all copyright protocols; thus, they are illegal, unlike open-source data sources.
“These shadow libraries have long been of interest to the AI-training community because of the large quantity of copyrighted material they host.”
The lawsuit also said they are carrying out the lawsuit and representing others whose works were used without their permission. This development comes at a time when global economic powers are introducing regulatory frameworks for artificial intelligence development and issuance for commercial purposes.
However, the regulatory steps still need to be introduced properly as the AI industry is young and thus needs more time to be fully regulated. Keep watching Fintech Express for more updates on this and other fintech-related developments.
Standard Chartered, one of the world’s largest banking institutions, has predicted Bitcoin to hit $50K by the end of 2023 and $120K by the end of 2024
The bank had initially published a $100K price tag forecast by the end of 2024, noting that “crypto winter” had ended.
The development comes days after Hong Kong mentioned the bank when asking financial services providers to warm up to crypto.
Standard Chartered has expressed confidence that Bitcoin will soar in price in 2024. It expects the coin to hit $50K in 2023 and $120K in 2024. Its analysis expects miners to hold more of their supply and fewer coins to be available in the market.
$800 billion Standard Chartered predicts Bitcoin to hit the $120K price by 2025
According to Standard Chartered, Bitcoin will have a stronger market cycle going into 2024. The bank had initially expected the rice of the coin to hit $100K in 2024 but has changed its mind based on growing demand predicting it to hit $120K before 2025.
According to Standard Chartered’s analysis, the surge in bitcoin prices will come with increased hoarding of the coin from major investors and bitcoin miners. It added that the increased profitability for miners per Bitcoin would allow them to sell fewer coins to maintain a steady cash flow, thus making the coin prospects even better.
Hong Kong authorities had mentioned Standard Chartered in a Q2 2023 meeting where the authorities required the banks in its area of jurisdiction to warm up to crypto. At the time, Standard Chartered was not offering any crypto services in Hong Kong, but current developments that have convinced the bank that the coin is set to gain value continually may leave the door open.
Keep watching Fintech Express for more updates on this and other fintech-related developments.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in China to take part in bilateral talks with the nation on their shared economic interests
Janet Yellen has become the second U.S. Cabinet member to visit the nation in a month as high-level communication continues between the two nations.
US’s Janet Yellen is in China for bilateral business talks as the relations between the two countries have become sour recently. Yellen is now the second member of the U.S. Cabinet to visit the Asian super economy in a month, among high-profile visitors who have been there for business purposes like Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook.
Janet Yellen spearheads further economic talks with China despite fallouts
Janet Yellen’s visit to China will be followed by the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry’s in the coming days. These visits have been more frequent as the two nations seek to mend their relations which seem to have been falling further apart as days pass.
China has joined hands with Russia and other nations to form a breakaway economic bloc (BRICS+) that would see them cease using a ‘weaponized’ dollar in bilateral and multilateral trades among the member states. The US is also de-risking from China’s global supply chains and has called on its allies like the U.K. to do the same.
As such, the two nations have stood against each other, with the future looking to split them further. However, via Janet Yellen’s visit to China, the US has revealed that it doesn’t purpose to decouple from the Asian nation despite the existing hints.
Official statements from the two nations also show that there are plans for further talks between the two nations.
“Differences should not be a reason for estrangement, but rather a driver for strengthening communication and exchanges,” China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement Monday about Yellen’s visit.
The Ministry of Finance indicated that China had asked the US to remove tariffs on Chinese goods and stop pressuring Chinese companies, among other things.
“My purpose is to make sure we don’t engage in a series of unintended escalatory actions that will be harmful to our economic relationship with one another,” Yellen said in an interview that aired Saturday on CBS News.’
She added that the events of the COVID-19 pandemic factored in the souring ties between the two nations. However, she believes steps should be implemented to prevent further escalation, and her trip seems to be doing much about it.
“And I think my trip has been successful in forging those relationships and creating the opportunity for a deeper set of more frequent contacts at our staff levels.”
Keep watching Fintech Express for more updates on US-China relations and other fintech-related developments.
Balaji Srinivasan, an ex-coinbase executive, has reacted to an Invesco research citing investors and Central Bankers flocking into gold.
The research spans 85 sovereign wealth funds, and 57 central banks, all collectively managing $21T in assets.
Balaji Srinivasan has reflected on central banks buying gold as fiat money continues to weaken globally as economic factions grow, showing worrying times ahead that inflation may continue for a while longer. He claims that the cited central bankers are relocating funds from riskier investments as a strategy to brace against a de-dollarisation impact.
Balaji Srinivasan sheds light on central banks flocking to gold
In his summary, Balaji Srinivasan cites ten points on central bankers’ actions.
1) Flight to gold. “Amid volatile [bond] yields, 2022 saw a flight to gold, questions around the US dollar’s future as the world’s reserve currency, and increased diversification of currency holdings.”
2) Gold hedges inflation. “Reserve portfolio managers identified inflation as a key risk…69% of central banks countering global inflation through gold allocations.”
3) Gold as a safe-haven. “96% of central banks increasing gold allocations cited its status as a ‘safe-haven’ asset”
4) Sanctions are a major factor. “A substantial percentage of central banks are concerned about the precedent set by the US freezing of Russian reserves, with the majority (58%) agreeing that the event has made gold more attractive.”
5) Physical gold in vaults only. “Consequently, central banks now prefer to hold physical gold rather than gold ETFs or derivatives…”
6) Not even London is trusted. “We…had it held in London…but we’ve now transferred our gold reserves back to our own country to keep it safe – its role now is to be a safe-haven asset” said one central bank based in the West.
7) Yuan rising as a trade currency, not a ‘reserve’ currency. “A considerable proportion do expect a shift towards renminbi (27% of central banks), but expectations differ based on the region.”
8) India now the #1 emerging market to invest in, over China. “India has now overtaken China as the most attractive Emerging Market for investing in Emerging Market debt.”
9) Dollar is being hedged with EM currencies (!). “While the US dollar is expected to retain its dominance, central banks are increasingly exploring diversification into Emerging Market currencies to hedge against volatility.”
10) Everyone wants to de-dollarize. “People have been looking for alternatives to the dollar and euro for a long time and they would’ve gone to them already if there were any suitable alternatives.”
CENTRAL BANKS ARE BUYING GOLD
Invesco just released its annual global survey of 85 sovereign wealth funds and 57 central banks, collectively managing $21T.
And what does it say?
1) Flight to gold. "Amid volatile [bond] yields, 2022 saw a flight to gold, questions around the US… pic.twitter.com/w3TPre6OKI
This report comes when the tension between economic powers is increasing. The United States has been under fire for their continued misuse of money and overprinting. As a result, nations are rising against the dollar, believing it is no longer the strong world reserve currency.
In June, the US hit its debt ceiling, resulting in emergency house proceedings to suspend it. That means the underlying problem was not addressed. A month later, the US spending has risen by a trillion dollars pushing the total debt to over $32.67T.
This debt trend has been discouraging to international economic powers. It has also worsened as the US has long been weaponizing the dollar against nations like China and Russia. As a result, these two nations and other 25+ interested ones have allied to develop the BRICS+ economic bloc.
BRICS+ will unveil a gold-backed currency that will replace the US dollar when the member states trade. The new report from Invesco shows that the reserve power that the US Dollar shortly held is being taken up by hard assets like gold and its alternatives (Bitcoin, now that even BlackRocks admits Bitcoin is a digital gold).
According to Balaji Srinivasan:
“The dollar is getting unbundled. When there’s an alternative in every situation, much of the dollar’s coercive power goes away. And that’s the theme of this report — sovereigns are seeking an exit from the dollar, and a hedge against its uncertain future”
Keep watching Fintech Express for more updates on finance and other fintech-related developments.
Adam Back, a highly ranked computer scientist who some believe could be affiliated with the pseudomonas name Satoshi Nakamoto has expressed interest in seeing Bitcoin getting upgraded.
He tweeted that a Bitcoin network upgrade that maintains security could be acceptable.
Adam Back is open to seeing Bitcoin get a network upgrade that could increase its bandwidth and storage and push the CPU cost of pool (or solo/stratum v2) full nodes to be 10X higher than full nodes while ensuring that the Bitcoin validating nodes remain unaffected.
Bitcoin developer and high-ranking Satoshi Nakamoto identity, Adam Back open to Bitcoin network upgrades
Adam Back is a Ph.D. holder in computer science and a renowned Bitcoin developer. He was one of the first cryptographers to build a digital electronic monetary system. Adam Back developed hash cash, a proof-f-work-based algorithm cited by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudomonas name behind Bitcoin.
Due to these connections with interest in digital electronic monetary systems, Adam Back is believed to have some ties with Satoshi Nakamoto. Nevertheless, he has never claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, nor has the real identity behind the pseudomonas name been revealed.
On July 9, he expressed interest in seeing Bitcoin get a valuable network upgrade amid the rollout of next-generation scaling solutions like ZKsync. Adam Back’s interest comes when Bitcoin gets more use cases via the support of inscriptions and the ability to harbor other digital assets. As such, the Bitcoin network would need scaling solutions sooner than later to avoid congestion.
So is it an ok tradeoff, if it improves Bitcoin for the bandwidth, storage, CPU cost of pool (or solo/stratum v2) full nodes to be 10x higher than a fullnodes, provided that Bitcoin validating nodes are unaffected, or even helped by this. I'd think … maybe yes.
In his tweet, he gave an instance of committed snapshots, snapshot validity ZKPS, Zerosync, utreexo-related things, sidechains, indexes,in-block comparison/coordinations signature aggregation, verifiable history compaction nimble wimble, power user workable 10X overhead, not 100-1000X data center only as the possible upgrades that could be done to the network.
He explained that such an upgrade on full nodes bandwidth, storage, or CPU load to construct blocks would ensure that they remain cheap and thus more decentralized.
Keep watching Fintech Express for more updates on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other fintech-related developments.
