FTC warns tech companies about over-hyping AI claims

As artificial intelligence hype spins ever greater, the FTC is warning tech firms in opposition to making unsubstantiated claims about AI.

“We’ve already warned companies to keep away from utilizing automated instruments which have biased or discriminatory impacts,” Michael Atleson, an legal professional within the division of promoting practices, wrote in a post on the commission’s blog. “However the reality is that some merchandise with AI claims may not even work as marketed within the first place. … Entrepreneurs ought to know that — for FTC enforcement functions — false or unsubstantiated claims a few product’s efficacy are our bread and butter.”

The feeding frenzy for all issues AI-related started on the finish of November when OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Inside every week greater than one million individuals had signed up for the service. By the top of February that quantity was at 100,000,000. This was spurred, partly, by Microsoft announcing it would be adding ChatGPT to most of its merchandise. Even Google’s bungled announcement for Bard, its personal AI-powered chatbot, hasn’t cooled issues down.

“[Artificial intelligence is] an ambiguous time period with many doable definitions,” Atleson wrote within the amusing and typically literary submit. “However one factor is for certain: it’s a advertising and marketing time period. Proper now it’s a sizzling one. And on the FTC, one factor we learn about sizzling advertising and marketing phrases is that some advertisers received’t be capable of cease themselves from overusing and abusing them.”

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The submit lays out 4 of the factors the FTC will use for inspecting claims:

• Are you exaggerating what your AI product can do?
• Are you promising that your AI product does one thing higher than a non-AI product?
• Are you conscious of the dangers?
• Does the product truly use AI in any respect? 

To the final level, Atleson instantly warns firms the FTC will look at greater than advertising and marketing supplies in its investigations. It can use in-house technologists to “look below the hood and analyze different supplies to see if what’s inside matches up along with your claims.”

The warning comes because the FTC is rising its concentrate on excessive tech firms. Earlier this month the company launched an workplace of know-how and plans to greater than double the variety of technologists it has on employees.

Why we care. We’ve acquired an unimaginable variety of press releases about AI prior to now month. Some had been about integrations already in place and a few about future plans to take action. A couple of of the latter did learn as if these plans had been very current, however that doesn’t imply they received’t occur. (Hat tip to the corporate with the honesty to say a brand new functionality was “AI like.”)

Having the FTC look at these claims is a superb assist to martech patrons. Individuals shopping for a brand new platform incessantly accomplish that as a result of it may possibly assist them in areas the place they’ve little or no experience. They’ve their fingers full assessing the platform’s claims and capabilities. Hopefully, they now don’t have to fret if that costly new answer actually does use AI.