Microsoft Landed a Patent to Turn You Into a Chatbot - Gizmodo

This is the least horrifying question raised by a recently-granted Microsoft patent for an individual-based chatbot.

First noticed by the Independent, The United States Patent and Trademark Office confirmed to Gizmodo via email that Microsoft is not yet permitted to make, use, or sell the technology, only to prevent others from doing so.

“That is chilling,” Jennifer Rothman, University of Pennsylvania law professor and author of The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World told Gizmodo via email.

She predicted that such technology could attract disputes around the right to privacy, the right to publicity, defamation, the false light tort, trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and false endorsement “to name only a few,” she said.

Presuming that the collection and use of the data is authorized and people affirmatively opt in to the creation of a chatbot in their own image, the technology still raises concerns if such chatbots are not clearly demarcated as impersonators.

Rothman noted that while we have lifelike puppets (deepfakes, for example) this patent is the first she’s seen that combines such tech with data harvested through social media.

But additional likely laws governing data collection (the California Consumer Privacy Act, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation) might throw a wrench in chatbot creations.

A person could be misled or even harmed if their therapist took a two-week vacation, but a chatbot mimicking the therapist continued to provide and bill for services without the patient’s knowledge of the switch.”.