Artificial intelligence began to reshape music, movies and art in 2023, sparking both enthusiasm and panic. Some artists used AI to aid their creative practices. Others took legal action against the companies that co-opted art to make their models more powerful. As battles played out across picket lines and courtrooms, millions of viewers and listeners around the world tuned into AI-created content with curiosity, disdain and glee. Here are the major ways AI impacted culture this year.

The man charged with administering Arizona's elections isn't concerned about the state's ability to securely hold elections. But he's going to have to persuade millions of other people to feel the same way. Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, was elected Arizona's secretary of state in 2022. A lawyer who previously worked as a prosecutor in Colorado and Arizona, and served as the Maricopa County Recorder before taking office, Fontes must now take on the role of convincing the state's voters that its elections are legitimate. Arizona is possibly the market leader in ridiculous election conspiracies and deniers.

Rite Aid used facial recognition systems to identify shoppers that were previously deemed "likely to engage" in shoplifting without customer consent and misidentified people – particularly women and Black, Latino or Asian people – on "numerous" occasions, according to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the settlement, Rite Aid has been forbidden from deploying facial recognition technology in its stores for five years. The FTC said in a federal court complaint that Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers "it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior". The technology sent alerts to Rite Aid employees either by email or phone when it identified people entering the store on its watchlist. The FTC said in its complaint that store employees would then put those people under increased surveillance, ban them from making purchases or accuse them in front of friends, family and other customers of previously committing crimes.

Rite Aid has been banned from using facial recognition technology for five years over allegations that its surveillance system was used incorrectly to identify potential shoplifters, especially Black, Latino, Asian or female shoppers. The settlement with the Federal Trade Commission addresses charges that the struggling drugstore chain didn't do enough to prevent harm to its customers and implement "reasonable procedures," the government agency said. Rite Aid said late Tuesday that it disagrees with the allegations, but that it's glad it reached an agreement to resolve the issue. The FTC said in a federal court complaint that technology used by Rite Aid for several years led to thousands of incorrect matches, including an incident where Rite Aid store employees stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl. Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers "it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior," the FTC said. The complaint noted that many images it used for its database were low-quality, coming from security cameras, employee phone cameras and news stories in some cases.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. An artificial intelligence system can't be registered as the inventor of a patent, Britain's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a decision that denies machines the same status as humans. The U.K.'s highest court concluded that "an inventor must be a person" to apply for patents under the current law. The decision was the culmination of American technologist Stephen Thaler's long-running British legal battle to get his AI, dubbed DABUS, listed as the inventor of two patents.

AI may or may not take people's jobs in years to come, but in the meantime, there's one thing they cannot obtain: patents. Dr. Stephen Thaler has spent years trying to get patents for two inventions created by his AI "creativity machine" DABUS. Now, the United Kingdom's Supreme Court has rejected his appeal to approve these patents when listing DABUS as the inventor, Reuters reports. The court's rationale stems from a provision in UK patent law that states, "an inventor must be a natural person." The ruling stipulated that the appeal was unconcerned with whether this should change in the future. "The judgment establishes that UK patent law is currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by AI machines," Thaler's lawyers said in a statement.

Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel weighs in on how artificial intelligence can change the patient-doctor relationship on'America's Newsroom.' If you received medical care any time this year, there's a good chance you had a close encounter with artificial intelligence. Widely regarded as the breakout year for AI, 2023 ushered in a whole crop of new and improved tech tools, many of which have impacted the health and wellness space. "2023 has been a landmark year for AI in health care, witnessing groundbreaking advancements that have reshaped medical practices and paved the way for a future where health care is more personalized, efficient and accessible," Dr. Harvey Castro, a Dallas, Texas-based board-certified emergency medicine physician and national speaker on AI in health care, told Fox News Digital. WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

The United States Senate will not vote on an aid package for Ukraine this year, chamber leaders have said. Democratic and Republican negotiators continue to seek a compromise on the delayed funding deal to support Kyiv as it defends against Russia's invasion, a joint statement released on Tuesday said. Ukraine has become increasingly desperate to secure funding from the West in recent weeks, with political delays to both US and European Union aid bolstering Russian confidence amid the bogged-down conflict. Having already handed Ukraine about $100bn in aid since the February 2022 invasion, President Joe Biden has asked the lower house Congress to approve another $60bn. However, Republicans have blocked the move, using the issue to demand new immigration legislation.

Fox News correspondent Gillian Turner has the latest on the president's focus amid calls for an impeachment inquiry on "Special Report." The rise of artificial intelligence has helped proliferate the spread of fake news, with the internet seeing a surge in websites devoted to disseminating misinformation. "Artificial intelligence tools to propagate fake news are going to snowball out of control quickly," Ziven Havens, the policy director at the Bull Moose Project, a nonprofit "dedicated to building the conservative populist movement," told Fox News Digital. The comments come as AI-created false articles have increased across the internet by 1,000% since May, going from 49 sites to more than 600 in that time span, according to a report from the Washington Post. The report notes that AI has made it easier than ever to disseminate fake news, an operation that used to depend on large groups of low-wage workers to pump out articles that can be hard to differentiate from legitimate news sources.

Republican activist Ying Tan joined'Fox & Friends First' to discuss her reaction and why she believes the Democrat is taking advantage of artificial intelligence. New York City Democratic Councilwoman-elect Susan Zhuang used modern technology to her advantage by answering a news outlet's questionnaire with the help of artificial intelligence, and it left her former opponent outraged. "If she can't answer a single question on her own, how can she represent a district?" Republican activist Ying Tan, who ran against Zhuang, said Tuesday on "Fox & Friends First." "And as a first-generation immigrant myself, I don't feel shy to speak with the accent I have, and during the campaign I insisted on going out on the street, to reach out to the voters…" she continued. Microsoft Bing Chat and ChatGPT AI chat applications are seen on a mobile device in this photo illustration in Warsaw, Poland, on July 21, 2023.