from the yes-the-first-amendment-applies dept

Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool for free expression. And it keeps improving. As the saying goes, it’s the worst it will ever be. People use it to receive ever-smarter speech and to create ever-better speech of their own. AI is now an important part of the marketplace of ideas—a market that, in America, is not for the state to control. The more useful AI becomes, the more worried you should be about letting the government dictate what AI can and cannot say. Like the powerful speech tools that came before it—the printing press, the camera, the internet—AI warrants full First Amendment protection .

The right question is not whether AI outputs are protected, but how. The key is to insist that they receive the same First Amendment protection as other expressive technologies. No more, to be sure; but also no less. Striking that balance may require some new rules, crafted with free-speech fundamentals firmly in view.…