If one believes in the rule of law, surely it can't be true that Microsoft (and others) should get to enjoy all the benefits of intellectual-property laws (when convenient) and other times steamroll them (when convenient).
Wealthy corporations are never going to be "suffocated by legalism" — they can afford to do their research privately. (And many still do.) The issue here is that Copilot is being foisted into the agora seemingly without sufficient (or maybe any) scrutiny of its legal consequences.
More broadly we are seeing a norm emering where there is so much hype chasing AI that these wealthy corporations (see also: Tesla, of course) have a huge incentive to push their experiments into the public sphere prematurely, simply to assert their primacy.
BTW this technique of front-running regulatory scrutiny can still backfire. If the initial public experience with an emerging technology is sufficiently bad, it can poison the acceptance forever. IOW, you can be suffocated by your own hubris faster than any external legalism.
Wealthy corporations are never going to be "suffocated by legalism" — they can afford to do their research privately. (And many still do.) The issue here is that Copilot is being foisted into the agora seemingly without sufficient (or maybe any) scrutiny of its legal consequences.
More broadly we are seeing a norm emering where there is so much hype chasing AI that these wealthy corporations (see also: Tesla, of course) have a huge incentive to push their experiments into the public sphere prematurely, simply to assert their primacy.
BTW this technique of front-running regulatory scrutiny can still backfire. If the initial public experience with an emerging technology is sufficiently bad, it can poison the acceptance forever. IOW, you can be suffocated by your own hubris faster than any external legalism.