AI and the Law
Finding the line between government and governance
Matt Chmiel
Head of Discourse
Editor’s Note: We invited a legal expert on AI and copyright law to talk about the ethical and legal landscape for an AI-powered internet. We can’t tell you who was there but we can tell you what was said.
AI is the ultimate blackbox. Does that mean entrepreneurs are shielded from liability? We hosted a Group Chat that dug into this question. Here are 3 takeaways:
Section 230 and AI
Liability remains murky when it comes to AI-generated content. The legal shield of Section 230, which protects platforms from user-generated content liability, extends ambiguously into the AI realm.
Questions of liability scatter across the tech stack. The platform that hosts the agent; the brand that sponsors it; and the software developer that launched it all play a role in this equation.
If you are creating an agent that goes out and makes false claims about a product, the developer could claim immunity under Section 230… but this is not a certainty.
Good Governance
You have to understand what your AI does and then you have to rigorously test it against every bad-case scenario. And then you have to keep records of what you're doing.
Red teaming—stress testing AI systems to expose vulnerabilities—is emerging as a critical practice for ethical and functional deployment.
One of the interesting takeaways we heard was a distinction between communication and reporting tools.
You have to make the decision on whether you are a communication tool or a reporting tool. Then we had to make a decision about how our AI responds to extreme scenarios like suicide threats or violence.
Colorado and the States
The federal government is probably not going to set any standards for AI. The real action is happening in the states.
Emerging regulations like the Colorado AI Act reflect a trend toward greater oversight of AI's societal impacts.
If you don't know about it now, you should read up on the Colorado AI Act.
If you don't know what data is training your model by February of 26 and you know you're going to be deploying your tool in Colorado or to consumers or businesses in Colorado, you're going to be out of compliance. So you know you really need to be thinking about that.
We run a Group Chat every week. If you want to participate, inquire about membership here. If you want to keep up with the perspectives that we hear, you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter.