GME3: Georgia On Our Minds, OpenAI’s Italian Job, and Safety Isn’t Child’s Play

In this week’s GME3 we’re covering an attempt by the Georgia state Senate to pass a bill legalizing sports betting, accusations from the Italian privacy watchdog Garante over alleged violations of EU privacy regulations by OpenAI, and testimony from social media CEOs over the potential dangers that young users of their platforms can face. Find the full stories below!

Gambling

Georgia On Our Minds

A new sports betting bill is advancing through the Georgia state Senate, but this time with a twist. Previous attempts to legalize gambling in Georgia have failed, primarily because the Georgia state constitution explicitly bans pari-mutuel betting and casinos, and any legislation that aims to legalize those activities would require a constitutional amendment. Amending the state constitution is a challenging task, requiring a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of the state legislature, followed by a statewide referendum.

Instead, Georgia lawmakers are attempting to circumvent the need to amend the state constitution by establishing the sports betting regime under the purview of the pre-existing state lottery.  Earlier this week, the Senate Economic Development and Tourism Committee voted 8-2 to move Senate Bill 386 through the house. The Bill would create 16 new sports betting licenses for the state.

This approach – though much simpler, only requiring a majority vote from both chambers and a signature from the Governor – isn’t a done deal. Though the Bill has support from many Democrats, Georgia’s Republicans, who are traditionally more opposed to gambling in general, have put forward some resistance to the change. However, Republican State Senator Clint Dixon argued that this new Bill would benefit the state, as, due to the 1992 mandate from when the state lottery was introduced, the tax proceeds would go towards prekindergarten funding and scholarships for high school students.

Under this new paradigm, one license would go directly to the Georgia state lottery, with another 8 going to pro sports teams, including the Braves, Falcons, and Hawks. The final 7 licenses are to be distributed by the lottery to other sports teams at their discretion. These licenses will require a $100,000 application fee and an annual licensing fee of $1 million.

It remains to be seen whether this strategy will pay out, and the Bill may still be ruled unconstitutional. The argument could be made that legalizing sports betting was not the intention of the original 1992 law. We’ll be keeping an eye on the progress of this Bill, so be sure to follow us on LinkedIn for future updates!

Media

OpenAI’s Italian Job

Italian privacy regulators are accusing OpenAI, creators of the popular generative AI ChatGPT, of violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Garante, the Italian data protection authority, began its investigation last year and even banned the use of ChatGPT from the entire country for a time. Based on the results of the investigation that’s occurred since, Garante claims that they have found evidence that points towards breaches of the GDPR. 

Specifically, Garante raised the following concerns:

• Some user’s messages with the AI and payment information were exposed,

• The lack of a means to verify user ages meant that children were able to access “inappropriate” information, 

• It’s unclear if there is a legitimate legal basis for OpenAI to collect the massive amounts of information they need to train their AI software, and

• It was found that ChatGPT could generate outright false information about real individuals.

OpenAI responded, claiming that, though they believed themselves to be in compliance with the GDPR and other privacy laws, the company remains committed to working with regulators to find a way forward.

The rise of generative AI has made regulators all over the world take a harder look at the companies that develop this software. Only last week the FTC began an inquiry into the funding from tech giants like Amazon and Google that goes into AI startups like OpenAI. As the technology continues to evolve, so will the regulations surrounding it. With new legislation in the works in the EU and here in Canada, we imagine that this “Wild West” period of AI software development may be coming to a close in the near future.

Entertainment

Safety Isn’t Child’s Play

CEOs from social media giants Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about the measures their companies are taking to ensure the safety of children who make use of their platforms.

In their announcement of the hearing, the Judiciary Committee concluded that “social media companies have failed to police themselves at our kids’ expense, and now Congress must act.” This rather dramatic claim is a result of an investigation into the exploitation of children via social media that began at the end of 2022. But, after evidence was revealed in November 2023 that supported the claim that Meta hid evidence of harm to children from both Congress and the public, this hearing was scheduled. The stated goal of the hearing is to gather information so Congress can draft legislation that can compel these social media companies to do more to protect young users on their platforms. 

Some of these proposed laws include:

• Stop CSAM Act: This would allow victims of online sexual exploitation to sue the tech platforms that hosted it.

• Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA): This act would establish a “duty of care” for social media companies, which would require them to offer better parental controls and regular safety audits.

Beyond the investigation into explicit abuse that occurs over social media, the underlying idea is that, due to under-regulation, social media companies have been allowed to create products that are addictive and can jeopardize the well-being of young users. These social media platforms maintain that they are working to provide better protections for young users, but, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee, we still have a long way to go.