Public Needs Greater Transparency Into How Generative AI Systems Are Built

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief defending a California law requiring developers of generative AI systems to disclose training data, arguing that xAI has not shown the law violates the First Amendment. The brief urges the Ninth Circuit to affirm the denial of a preliminary injunction against the law, stating that transparency laws can help close the information gap about how AI systems are built and operate.

NEW YORK—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today filed an amicus brief defending a California law requiring developers of generative AI systems to disclose information about the data they use to train their models. The brief argues that xAI, which has sued to block the law on multiple constitutional grounds, has not shown that the law violates the First Amendment. “Generative AI systems are now shaping nearly every facet of our online lives, but the public knows very little about how they are built, operate, and affect our information ecosystem,” said Stephany Kim, legal fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “The companies building these systems shouldn’t also be the ones deciding what the public gets to know about them. Transparency laws can help close that information gap and enable people to make more informed decisions.” The Knight Institute’s brief argues that governments should have substantial leeway to enact transparency laws that facilitate the free flow of accurate and useful information about commercial products and services. It urges the Ninth Circuit to affirm the district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction with respect to xAI’s First Amendment claim. Read today’s amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit here https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/ms4noyib4k . Read more about the case here https://knightcolumbia.org/cases/xai-v-bonta . Lawyers on the brief include Stephany Kim, Jake Karr, Xiangnong George Wang, and Alex Abdo of the Knight First Amendment Institute. For more information, contact: Gabriel Tyler, gabriel.tyler@knightcolumbia.org mailto:gabriel.tyler@knightcolumbia.org