Communicating at the intersection of legal and AI

By Sean Devlin, staff writer, Ragan Communications

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In recent months, there’s been no shortage of chatter about the implications of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on how the role of the communicator. Will it take jobs away from communications professionals? Will it reallocate tasks that allow communicators to focus on the more creative parts of their roles? There are still many outstanding questions to be answered surrounding AI’s impact on the communications role, but one that definitely needs to be reckoned with centers on the interaction between AI, copyright, and legal within the comms field.

Awareness of quality control and copyright risk

While AI can create massive amounts of content with the simple prompt of a few keystrokes, this access makes it doubly necessary for communications departments to take extreme care with how they employ the use of AI. Every communicator using generative AI needs to streamline their research and writing must take extra care to not fully go through the motions and sk ensure that the output they’re getting back from an AI program is up to snuff in terms of quality and that it matches the company voice. AI isn’t going to replace the deft skill and judgment that you bring to ensure your work hits the correct tone and reaches the right stakeholders, and that’s a big plus for comms pros who might have apprehension about what this tech might bring.

During our “AI For Communicators and Marketers: What You Need to Know Now ” webinar, Mrinali Menon, corporate, intellectual property & technology law attorney and Columbia University instructor, shared some thoughts and advice on the legal implications and proper use of AI going forward. She began by outlining the multiple legal risks of AI.

But communicators should also be paying attention to potential intellectual property (IP) violations and privacy risks. This is particularly notable when it comes to the use of AI-generated imagery. An AI program isn’t built to distinguish what images are and is not copyrighted — it just uses the inputs that it is given and generates from that data. Comms pros need eagle-eyed discretion when employing these types of images to avoid problems down the road—and should attribute any images created using AI accordingly. Adobe even said a couple of weeks ago that it would offer legal protection for users who face a lawsuit over using images created by its Firefly AI image product.

Similarly, precautions need to be taken with proprietary data and AI. If you think there might be an issue with privacy, don’t even think about putting it into an AI program, because that’ll open up a whole can of legality worms with regard to risk.

In addition, communicators need to be aware of trademark licensing and potential infringement when using generative AI. AI programs aren’t built to know what information does or does not infringe on the trademarks or licensing of other parties, and communicators need to be keenly aware of this. Feeding trademarked information to an AI can “confuse” the program by allowing it to spit back outputs with trademarked material that might cause issues down the road. Simply put, you need to know what material is and isn’t fair game to work with in the first place with respect to trademarks.

Best practices

How can communicators ensure that they’re on the ball when it comes to using an AI program to assist in their work? Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.

• Be sure you know the terms of service with the AI you’re using. You need to know what you’re getting into before you employ the help of a tool so powerful.
• Be aware of the legal implications of AI use. Know that you don’t own the images or content that an AI spits back to you — AI wasn’t built to filter for that.
• Ensure that you’re not feeding AI things that you don’t want the whole world knowing like trade secrets or proprietary information.
• Take the time to verify that everything coming back to you from the AI is true — just because a program gives you information doesn’t make it the truth. Use your skills as a communicator to determine what is and isn’t admissible.
• Finally, be transparent with clients and stakeholders with respect to AI use. AI is a tool, not a magic wand. It’s up to smart communicators to know how to wield it to produce the best results.

The full webinar is available to stream on Ragan Training 

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports, a good pint and ’90s trivia night.