Friday, July 11, 2025

AI must have ethical management, regulation protecting human person, Pope Leo says; The Catholic Register, July 11, 2025

Carol Glatz , The Catholic Register; AI must have ethical management, regulation protecting human person, Pope Leo says

"Pope Leo XIV urged global leaders and experts to establish a network for the governance of AI and to seek ethical clarity regarding its use.

Artificial intelligence "requires proper ethical management and regulatory frameworks centered on the human person, and which goes beyond the mere criteria of utility or efficiency," Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, wrote in a message sent on the pope's behalf.

The message was read aloud by Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, the Vatican representative to U.N. agencies in Geneva, at the AI for Good Summit 2025 being held July 8-11 in Geneva. The Vatican released a copy of the message July 10."

Top Democrat Blames RFK Jr. for ‘Emergency’ Measles Outbreak; The Daily Beast, July 11, 2025

, The Daily Beast ; Top Democrat Blames RFK Jr. for ‘Emergency’ Measles Outbreak

"“Under your tutelage as Secretary, you have undermined vaccines, gutted public health funding, and dismantled core federal protections meant to keep Americans safe,” Schumer wrote. 

“By destabilizing the nation’s infectious disease response infrastructure via conducting mass layoffs including infectious disease scientists, indiscriminately issuing careless and devastating grant freezes and rescissions, and politicizing the overhaul of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), you have walked our country into the nation’s largest measles outbreak in 33 years,” he continued.

The senator noted that the record number of measles cases comes 25 years after measles was eliminated in 2000, but cases have been on the rise amid an increase in vaccine skepticism."

Join Our Livestream: Inside the AI Copyright Battles; Wired, July 11, 2025

 Reece Rogers Wired; Join Our Livestream: Inside the AI Copyright Battles

"WHAT'S GOING ON right now with the copyright battles over artificial intelligence? Many lawsuits regarding generative AI’s training materials were initially filed back in 2023, with decisions just now starting to trickle out. Whether it’s Midjourney generating videos of Disney characters, like Wall-E brandishing a gun, or an exit interview with a top AI lawyer as he left Meta, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs has been following this fight for years—and she’s ready to answer your questions.

Bring all your burning questions about the AI copyright battles to WIRED’s next, subscriber-only livestream scheduled for July 16 at 12pm ET / 9am PT, hosted by Reece Rogers with Kate Knibbs. The event will be streamed right here. For subscribers who are not able to join, a replay of the livestream will be available after the event."

Superman’s Other Secret Weakness? Journalism Ethics.; The New York Times, July 11, 2025

 , The New York Times; Superman’s Other Secret Weakness? Journalism Ethics.

"If Superman’s greatest weakness is green kryptonite, then Clark Kent’s may well be the ethics of journalism — thanks to his work as a reporter who has to cover his own heroic alter ego. It is a conflict in the character apparent since his first comic book appearance."

Thursday, July 10, 2025

An AI Ethics Roadmap Beyond Academic Integrity For Higher Education; Forbes, July 8, 2025

 Dr. Aviva Legatt,, Forbes; An AI Ethics Roadmap Beyond Academic Integrity For Higher Education

"Higher education institutions are rapidly embracing artificial intelligence, but often without a comprehensive strategic framework. According to the 2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study, 74% of institutions prioritized AI use for academic integrity alongside other core challenges like coursework (65%) and assessment (54%). At the same time, 68% of respondents say students use AI “somewhat more” or “a lot more” than faculty.

These data underscore a potential misalignment: Institutions recognize integrity as a top concern, but students are racing ahead with AI and faculty lack commensurate fluency. As a result, AI ethics debates are unfolding in classrooms with underprepared educators. “Faculty were expected to change their assignments overnight when generative AI hit,” said Jenny Maxwell, Head of Education at Grammarly. “We’re trying to meet institutions where they are—offering tools and guidance that support both academic integrity and student learning without adding more burden to educators.”

The necessity of integrating ethical considerations alongside AI tools in education is paramount. Employers have made it clear that ethical reasoning and responsible technology use are critical skills in today’s workforce. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2025 Corporate Recruiters Survey, these skills are increasingly vital for graduates, underscoring ethics as a competitive advantage rather than merely a supplemental skill. “Just because you think you’re an ethical person doesn’t mean you won’t inadvertently do harm if you’re working in machine learning without being trained and constantly aware of the risks,” said Liz Moran, Director of Academic Programs at SAS. “That’s why we’re launching an AI Foundations credential with a dedicated course on Responsible Innovation and Trustworthy AI. Students need the ethical reasoning to use those skills responsibly.”

EU's AI code of practice for companies to focus on copyright, safety; Reuters, July 10, 2025

, Reuters ; EU's AI code of practice for companies to focus on copyright, safety

"The European Commission on Thursday unveiled a draft code of practice aimed at helping firms comply with the European Union's artificial intelligence rules and focused on copyright-protected content safeguards and measures to mitigate systemic risks.

Signing up to the code, which was drawn up by 13 independent experts, is voluntary, but companies that decline to do so will not benefit from the legal certainty provided to a signatory.

The code is part of the AI rule book, which will come into effect in a staggered manner and will apply to Google owner Alphabet, Facebook owner Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and other companies."

Oprah Winfrey's latest book club pick, 'Culpability,' delves into AI ethics; ABC News, July 8, 2025

HILLEL ITALIE AP national writer, ABC News;  Oprah Winfrey's latest book club pick, 'Culpability,' delves into AI ethics

"Oprah Winfrey has chosen a novel with a timely theme for her latest book club pick. Bruce Holsinger's “Culpability” is a family drama that probes the morals and ethics of AI.

“I appreciated the prescience of this story,” Winfrey said in a statement Tuesday, the day of the novel's publication. “It’s where we are right now in our appreciation and dilemmas surrounding Artificial Intelligence, centered around an American family we can relate to. I was riveted until the very last shocking sentence!”"

EU AI Act at the Crossroads: GPAI Rules, AI Literacy Guidance and Potential Delays; JD Supra, July 8, 2025

Mark BoothSteven Farmer, Scott Morton , JD Supra; EU AI Act at the Crossroads: GPAI Rules, AI Literacy Guidance and Potential Delays

"The EU AI Act (AI Act), effective since February 2025, introduces a risk-based regulatory framework for AI systems and a parallel regime for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models. It imposes obligations on various actors, including providers, deployers, importers and manufacturers, and requires that organizations ensure an appropriate level of AI literacy among staff. The AI Act also prohibits “unacceptable risk” AI use cases and imposes rigorous requirements on “high-risk” systems. For a comprehensive overview of the AI Act, see our earlier client alert.

As of mid-2025, the implementation landscape is evolving. This update takes stock of where things stand, focusing on: (i) new guidance on the AI literacy obligations for providers and deployers; (ii) the status of the developing a General-Purpose AI Code of Practice and its implications; and (iii) the prospect of delayed enforcement of some of the AI Act’s key provisions."

EU Rolls Out AI Code With Broad Copyright, Transparency Rules; Bloomberg, July 10, 2025

Bloomberg ; EU Rolls Out AI Code With Broad Copyright, Transparency Rules

WaPo Columnist Flames Jeff Bezos After Quitting in Protest; The Daily Beast, July 10, 2025

 , The Daily Beast; WaPo Columnist Flames Jeff Bezos After Quitting in Protest

"Davidson said in the Facebook post the spiked piece centered on what he believed was a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term, “his widespread, ominous attack on thought, belief and speech,” and referenced federal officials’ comments and Trump’s own executive orders. 

But the Post spiked the column, according to Davidson. He said he tried to write two more pieces to test his resilience under the new policy, but that he bristled when editors objected to his use of “well-deserved” when describing a potential pay raise for federal employees...

“Bezos’s policies and activities have projected the image of a Donald Trump supplicant. The result: fleeing journalists, plummeting morale and disappearing subscriptions,” Davidson wrote.

“Nonetheless, Post coverage of Trump remains strong,” he added. “Yet the policy against opinion in News section columns means less critical scrutiny of Trump—a result coinciding with Bezos’ unseemly and well-documented coziness with the president.”

Microsoft Pledges $4 Billion Toward A.I. Education; The New York Times, July 9, 2025

 , The New York Times; Microsoft Pledges $4 Billion Toward A.I. Education


[Kip Currier: Not one mention of "ethics" or "AI ethics" in this New York Times article.

So, I sent an email to the reporter today (7/10/25):

Dear Natasha Singer,

I was surprised, and actually disconcerted, to not see any mention of "ethics" and "AI ethics" concepts in your article "Microsoft Pledges $4 Billion Toward A.I. Education". Given well-documented concerns of the vital need for ethical guidelines and frameworks vis-a-vis AI by a wide-range of stakeholders (e.g. religious leaders/Rome Call for AI Ethics, the U.N. AI Advisory Body, academics, etc.), I would have expected your reporting to at least have mentioned potential ethical considerations about this Microsoft funding plan, which carries such significant implications for education and societies.

Best wishes,

Kip Currier]

 

[Excerpt]

"Microsoft said on Wednesday that it planned to give more than $4 billion in cash and technology services to train millions of people to use artificial intelligence, amid an intensifying Silicon Valley crusade to embed chatbots into classrooms.

Microsoft, the maker of the Copilot chatbot, said the resources would go to schools, community colleges, technical colleges and nonprofits. The company is also starting a new training program, Microsoft Elevate Academy, to “deliver A.I. education and skilling at scale” and help 20 million people earn certificates in A.I.

“Microsoft will serve as an advocate to ensure that students in every school across the country have access to A.I. education,” Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, said in an interview on Sunday.

Microsoft did not immediately specify how much of the more than $4 billion the company planned to dispense as grants and how much of it would be in the form of Microsoft A.I. services and cloud computing credits.

The announcement comes as tech companies are racing to train millions of teachers and students on their new A.I. tools. Even so, researchers say it is too soon to tell whether the classroom chatbots will end up improving educational outcomes or eroding important skills like critical thinking.

On Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers, a union representing 1.8 million members, said it was setting up a national A.I. training center for educators, with $23 million in funding from Microsoft and two other chatbot makers, OpenAI and Anthropic."

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

How the Vatican Is Shaping the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence; American Enterprise Institute, July 7, 2025

Shane Tews , American Enterprise Institute; How the Vatican Is Shaping the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

"Father Paolo Benanti is an Italian Catholic priest, theologian, and member of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis. He teaches at the Pontifical Gregorian University and has served as an advisor to both former Pope Francis and current Pope Leo on matters of artificial intelligence and technology ethics within the Vatican.

Below is a lightly edited and abridged transcript of our discussion...

In the Vatican document, you emphasize that AI is just a tool—an elegant one, but it shouldn’t control our thinking or replace human relationships. You mention it “requires careful ethical consideration for human dignity and common good.” How do we identify that human dignity point, and what mechanisms can alert us when we’re straying from it?

I’ll try to give a concise answer, but don’t forget that this is a complex element with many different applications, so you can’t reduce it to one answer. But the first element—one of the core elements of human dignity—is the ability to self-determine our trajectory in life. I think that’s the core element, for example, in the Declaration of Independence. All humans have rights, but you have the right to the pursuit of happiness. This could be the first description of human rights.

In that direction, we could have a problem with this kind of system because one of the first and most relevant elements of AI, from an engineering perspective, is its prediction capabilities.Every time a streaming platform suggests what you can watch next, it’s changing the number of people using the platform or the online selling system. This idea that interaction between human beings and machines can produce behavior is something that could interfere with our quality of life and pursuit of happiness. This is something that needs to be discussed.

Now, the problem is: don’t we have a cognitive right to know if we have a system acting in that way? Let me give you some numbers. When you’re 65, you’re probably taking three different drugs per day. When you reach 68 to 70, you probably have one chronic disease. Chronic diseases depend on how well you stick to therapy. Think about the debate around insulin and diabetes. If you forget to take your medication, your quality of life deteriorates significantly. Imagine using this system to help people stick to their therapy. Is that bad? No, of course not. Or think about using it in the workplace to enhance workplace safety. Is that bad? No, of course not.

But if you apply it to your life choices—your future, where you want to live, your workplace, and things like that—that becomes much more intense. Once again, the tool could become a weapon, or the weapon could become a tool. This is why we have to ask ourselves: do we need something like a cognitive right regarding this? That you are in a relationship with a machine that has the tendency to influence your behavior.

Then you can accept it: “I have diabetes, I need something that helps me stick to insulin. Let’s go.” It’s the same thing that happens with a smartwatch when you have to close the rings. The machine is pushing you to have healthy behavior, and we accept it. Well, right now we have nothing like that framework. Should we think about something in the public space? It’s not a matter of allowing or preventing some kind of technology. It’s a matter of recognizing what it means to be human in an age of such powerful technology—just to give a small example of what you asked me."

Viewpoint: Don’t let America’s copyright crackdown hand China global AI leadership; Grand Forks Herald, July 5, 2025

  Kent Conrad and Saxby Chambliss , Grand Forks Herald; Viewpoint: Don’t let America’s copyright crackdown hand China global AI leadership


[Kip Currier: The assertion by anti-AI regulation proponents, like the former U.S. congressional authors of this think-piece, that requiring AI tech companies to secure permission and pay for AI training data will kill or hobble U.S. AI entrepreneurship is hyperbolic catastrophizing. AI tech companies can license training data from creators who are willing to participate in licensing frameworks. Such frameworks already exist for music copyrights, for example. AI tech companies just don't want to pay for something if they can get it for free.

AI tech companies would never permit users to scrape up, package, and sell their IP content for free. Copyright holders shouldn't be held to a different standard and be required to let tech companies monetize their IP-protected works without permission and compensation.]

Excerpt]

"If these lawsuits succeed, or if Congress radically rewrites the law, it will become nearly impossible for startups, universities or mid-size firms to develop competitive AI tools."

Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods; The Guardian, July 9, 2025

, The Guardian; Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods

"Disasters and tragedies have long been the source of American conspiracy theories, old and new. So when devastating flash floods hit Texas over the Fourth of July weekend, and as the death toll continues to rise, far-right conspiracists online saw their opportunity to come out in full force, blurring the lines of what’s true and untrue.

Some people, emerging from the same vectors associated with the longstanding QAnon conspiracy theory, which essentially holds that a shadowy “deep state” is acting against President Donald Trump, spread on X that the devastating weather was being controlled by the government."

White House Hangs Hegseth Out to Dry for Rogue Arms Move; The Daily Beast, July 9, 2025

, The Daily Beast; White House Hangs Hegseth Out to Dry for Rogue Arms Move

[Kip Currier: Regarding Trump's statement (see below) "[Putin is] killing too many people", how many is "too many"? The callousness of this statement is striking but not surprising.]

[Excerpt]

"On Tuesday, Trump was asked about the U.S. resuming sending key weapons to Ukraine as it battles the ongoing invasion spearheaded by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Putin is not... he’s not treating human beings right,” Trump said. He’s killing too many people. So we’re sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I’ve approved that.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins then asked Trump who ordered the pause last week. He sidestepped a direct answer, instead asking, “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?” Hegseth, who was seated next to the president, remained silent."

Why the new rulings on AI copyright might actually be good news for publishers; Fast Company, July 9, 2025

 PETE PACHAL, Fast Company; Why the new rulings on AI copyright might actually be good news for publishers

"The outcomes of both cases were more mixed than the headlines suggest, and they are also deeply instructive. Far from closing the door on copyright holders, they point to places where litigants might find a key...

Taken together, the three cases point to a clearer path forward for publishers building copyright cases against Big AI:

Focus on outputs instead of inputs: It’s not enough that someone hoovered up your work. To build a solid case, you need to show that what the AI company did with it reproduced it in some form. So far, no court has definitively decided whether AI outputs are meaningfully different enough to count as “transformative” in the eyes of copyright law, but it should be noted that courts have ruled in the past that copyright violation can occur even when small parts of the work are copied—ifthose parts represent the “heart” of the original.

Show market harm: This looks increasingly like the main battle. Now that we have a lot of data on how AI search engines and chatbots—which, to be clear, are outputs—are affecting the online behavior of news consumers, the case that an AI service harms the media market is easier to make than it was a year ago. In addition, the emergence of licensing deals between publishers and AI companies is evidence that there’s market harm by creating outputs without offering such a deal.

Question source legitimacy: Was the content legally acquired or pirated? The Anthropic case opens this up as a possible attack vector for publishers. If they can prove scraping occurred through paywalls—without subscribing first—that could be a violation even absent any outputs."

U.S. Copyright Office Announces Webinar on Copyright Essentials for Writers; U.S. Copyright Office, Webinar: August 6, 2025 1 PM EDT

  U.S. Copyright Office; U.S. Copyright Office Announces Webinar on Copyright Essentials for Writers

"The U.S. Copyright Office invites you to register to attend the third session in our Copyright Essentials webinar series. The Plot Thickens: Copyright Essentials for Writers will take place on August 6 at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. 

In this session, the Copyright Office will discuss what writers should know about copyright. We will cover information for writers of various literary works—from novels and blogs to poetry, cookbooks, textbooks, and more. The session will also review suitable application options and how our Public Information Office can help you along the way. 

Attendees will also learn copyright basics, answers to commonly asked questions, and where to find Copyright Office educational resources.

Speakers:

  • Jessica Chinnadurai, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Public Information and Education
  • Laura Kaiser, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Public Information and Education

Prior Copyright Essentials webinars can be viewed on our website:

The Copyright Office strategic goal of Copyright for All means making the copyright system as understandable and accessible to as many members of the public as possible, through initiatives including education and outreach. Sign up to stay updated about future webinars in this series."

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Player faith in technology shaken by storm around AI line-calling at Wimbledon; The Guardian, July 7, 2025

Tumaini Carayol , The Guardian; Player faith in technology shaken by storm around AI line-calling at Wimbledon

"Bright on Monday morning, the Wimbledon chief executive, Sally Bolton, fielded a contentious scheduled meeting with the media, which was almost entirely centred around ELC. Bolton asserted repeatedly that the mistake was purely down to human error, that the protocols had been changed to prevent a similar issue and that ELC has otherwise been working accurately during the tournament. At the very least, the situation with Pavlyuchenkova also underlined the importance of having contingency plans for when technology fails, including the possibility of umpires using video replay."

MyPillow CEO’s lawyers fined for AI-generated court filing in Denver defamation case; The Colorado Sun, July 7, 2025

Olivia Prentzel, The Colorado Sun ; MyPillow CEO’s lawyers fined for AI-generated court filing in Denver defamation case

"A federal judge ordered two attorneys representing MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to pay $3,000 each after they used artificial intelligence to prepare a court filing that was riddled with errors, including citations to nonexistent cases and misquotations of case law. 

Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster violated court rules when they filed the motion that had contained nearly 30 defective citations, Judge Nina Y. Wang of the U.S. District Court in Denver ruled Monday."

Monday, July 7, 2025

Medical Societies Sue Kennedy and H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice; The New York Times, July 7, 2025

, The New York Times; Medical Societies Sue Kennedy and H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice

 "Six leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, charging that recent decisions limiting access to vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the public.

The suit, filed in federal court in western Massachusetts, seeks to restore Covid vaccines to the list of recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women.

Mr. Kennedy has been on a “decades-long mission” to undermine vaccines and to portray them as more dangerous than the illnesses they are designed to prevent, said Richard H. Hughes IV, a lawyer who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University and is leading the effort.

“The secretary’s intentions are clear,” Mr. Hughes said: “He aims to destroy vaccines.”

The plaintiffs include the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance."

Welcome to Your Job Interview. Your Interviewer Is A.I.; The New York Times, July 7, 2025

Natallie Rocha , The New York Times; Welcome to Your Job Interview. Your Interviewer Is A.I.

"Job seekers across the country are starting to encounter faceless voices and avatars backed by A.I. in their interviews. These autonomous interviewers are part of a wave of artificial intelligence known as “agentic A.I.,” where A.I. agents are directed to act on their own to generate real-time conversations and build on responses."

The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind; The Guardian, July 7, 2025

, The Guardian ; The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind

"Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism and transgender athletes are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.

Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?

They’re following Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” – an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:

First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.

Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check in process.

Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.

Then go after the universities."

YouTube Pirates Are Cashing In on Hollywood’s Summer Blockbusters; The New York Times, July 5, 2025

  Nico Grant and , The New York Times; YouTube Pirates Are Cashing In on Hollywood’s Summer Blockbusters

"But the company also had cause to be concerned. In the days after the Disney film’s opening, a pirated version of “Lilo & Stitch” proved to be a hit on YouTube, where more than 200,000 people viewed it, potentially costing Disney millions of dollars in additional sales, according to new research from Adalytics, a firm that analyzes advertising campaigns for brands.

The findings of the research shed new light on the copyright issues that once threatened to upend YouTube’s business. They also show how advertisers have unwittingly supported illicit content on YouTube, and they provide rare data about piracy on the platform."

Privacy under siege: DOGE’s one big, beautiful database; Brookings, June 25, 2025

 ,  , and  , Brookings; Privacy under siege: DOGE’s one big, beautiful database

"The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to reporting in the Washington Post, recently set its sights on creating “a single centralized [government] database” that would enable broad access across government agencies to vast amounts of information currently collected and held by individual federal agencies.  

Government data aggregation and unification on this scale is antithetical to the purpose-driven requirements for data sharing among government agencies that lie at the heart of the Privacy Act, a 1974 law passed in the aftermath of Watergate and the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) scandals."

RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?; ABC News, July 3, 2025

Mary Kekatos , ABC News; RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?


[Kip Currier: Probably not a good idea, given the current administration's documented disregard for the rights of people to control access to their own data.

See hereherehere, and here.]


[Excerpt]

"Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the agency was launching a campaign to encourage all Americans to use wearables to track health metrics.

Wearables come in the form of watches, bands, rings, patches and clothes that can be used for a variety of reasons including monitoring glucose levels, measuring activity levels, track heart health and observe sleeping patterns.

"It's a way … people can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility," Kennedy said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health."

‘The American system is being destroyed’: academics on leaving US for ‘scientific asylum’ in France; The Guardian, July 5, 2025

, The Guardian ; ‘The American system is being destroyed’: academics on leaving US for ‘scientific asylum’ in France

"Months into Trump’s second presidency, politics is increasingly blurring into academia as the government works to root out anything it deems as “wokeism” from the post-secondary world.

“There’s a lot of censorship now, it’s crazy,” said Carol Lee, an evolutionary biologist, pointing to the list of terms now seen as off-limits in research grant applications. “There are a lot of words that we’re not allowed to use. We’re not allowed to use the words diversity, women, LGBTQ.”"

Saturday, July 5, 2025

‘The damage is terrifying’: Barbara Kingsolver on Trump, rural America and the recovery home funded by her hit novel; The Guardian, July 5, 2025

Hannah Marriott, The Guardian ; ‘The damage is terrifying’: Barbara Kingsolver on Trump, rural America and the recovery home funded by her hit novel

"Rural life and the opioid crisis have not been sufficiently represented in fiction, she says. “Appalachian life in general has not been sufficiently represented. People don’t know the complexity and the nuance.” Appalachians represent “ecosystems of people, the people in need and the people who give; the Memaws (grandmothers) who take care of all the kids.” She dismisses one infamous account – vice president JD Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy – as a book that was “really all about himself, how he got out and made good, and the people that stay behind, well, are just lazy”. Appalachian culture, she says, is about modesty and self-reliance. “If he were a real Appalachian, he wouldn’t tell that story.”...

“Charity is a very loaded concept. It involves a power imbalance. It is a person standing in a position of privilege saying: I will give this gift to you, and implicit is: ‘to help you become more like me’. Everything about that is odious to me.”...

Pride, denial and shame are longstanding Kingsolver fascinations. She says that the archetypal American story of the lone hero pulling themselves up by their bootstraps “is just bullshit. We have classes in this country. We have class barriers. There are places you can be born that you’re never going to get out of.” Still, she says, that myth is powerful: it “brainwashes” people; it can lead to self-blame...

She lives in Trump country, and says she understands how he “hooked” so many people, but she never demonises Trump voters herself, describing her neighbours as “some of the most generous, kindhearted people you will ever meet”. She has no kind words for the man himself. His presidency is, she says, “a circus. That’s too kind a word for it. Circuses make you laugh. This one makes you cry. It’s stunning how much damage one ignorant man can do.”

She points out that Trump’s “so-called Big Beautiful Bill” could be devastating for the region, with its cuts to the National Park Service, the Weather Service and disaster preparedness – just last year the area was hit by the devastating Hurricane Helene – and cuts to Medicaid, which could cause havoc in an already under-served area. “The damage will be unimaginable. Lots of people will die, lots of wild lands will be destroyed. The damage is terrifying.” Does she think her Trump-voting neighbours will change their allegiance if such terrors come to pass? “Will they connect the dots when our hospital closes? I don’t even know the answer to that,” she says, shaking her head, fearing that the TV and radio stations that told them to vote for Trump in the first place will “come up with some other reason why your hospital closed. For those of us who are in the information business, that’s a depressing subject.”...

In the long term, she says she believes in the Martin Luther King Jr quote that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”."

Two Courts Rule On Generative AI and Fair Use — One Gets It Right; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), June 26, 2025

 TORI NOBLE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Two Courts Rule On Generative AI and Fair Use — One Gets It Right

 "Gen-AI is spurring the kind of tech panics we’ve seen before; then, as now, thoughtful fair use opinions helped ensure that copyright law served innovation and creativity. Gen-AI does raise a host of other serious concerns about fair labor practices and misinformation, but copyright wasn’t designed to address those problems. Trying to force copyright law to play those roles only hurts important and legal uses of this technology.

In keeping with that tradition, courts deciding fair use in other AI copyright cases should look to Bartz, not Kadrey."

Ousted US copyright chief argues Trump did not have power to remove her; The Register, July 4, 2025

Lindsay Clark, The Register; Ousted US copyright chief argues Trump did not have power to remove her

"The White House said the power to remove is aligned with the power to appoint. If there is no Librarian of Congress and the president cannot designate an acting librarian, the president's removal authority extends to inferior officers like the register of copyrights, it argued.

Perlmutter was expunged from office a few days after Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was also shown the door. Hayden was later replaced by deputy attorney general Todd Blanche and Perlmutter by deputy attorney general Paul Perkins.

In the latest filing this week, Perlmutter's legal team said the administration's claim that it had the power to remove her from an office appointed by the Library of Congress employed a "novel constitutional theory" and "sweeping assertions of power."

The Copyright Office is housed in the Library of Congress, and the librarian oversees the Copyright Office head directly, Perlmutter said. Her filing argued that "neither the law nor common sense requires" that the court should "should stand idly by and do nothing while [the Trump administration] wields unprecedented, and unlawful, authority.""

Gambling addiction in the military may be going unnoticed, advocates warn; Task & Purpose, July 3, 2025

PATTY NIEBERG , Task & Purpose; Gambling addiction in the military may be going unnoticed, advocates warn

"“Gambling addiction holistically, across the spectrum, even outside the DoD population, is horrendously underresearched. We have very limited data,” Huble told Task & Purpose. “We don’t have good prevalence information on the general population and then within military populations, especially, there is not really standardized screening from branch to branch.”

As defense officials finalize the 2026 budget, the National Council on Problem Gambling — which advocates for addiction treatment but still supports legalized betting — is asking Congress to help study gambling in the military to improve prevention and treatment options. Major gambling companies like FanDuel Group and BetMGM are also pushing Congress to study the issue in the military. 

In June, the council sent a letter to Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), who lead the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, asking that problem gambling issues in the military be included as an eligible topic for Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program in the fiscal year 2026 defense appropriations bill. The letter was signed by BetMGM, FanDuel Group, MGM Resorts International, and problem gambling councils from 29 states."

Thursday, July 3, 2025

The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger; Wired, June 28, 2025

Reece Rogers, Wired; The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger

 "The negative response online is indicative of a larger trend: Right now, though a growing number of Americans use ChatGPT, many people are sick of AI’s encroachment into their lives and are ready to fight back...

Not only are the rich getting richer during the AI era, but many of the technology’s harms are falling on people of color and other marginalized communities. “Data centers are being located in these really poor areas that tend to be more heavily Black and brown,” Hanna says. She points out how locals have not just been fighting back online, but have also been organizing even more in-person to protect their communities from environmental pollution. We saw this in Memphis, Tennessee, recently, where Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is building a large data center with over 30 methane-gas-powered generators that are spewing harmful exhaust.

The impacts of generative AI on the workforce are another core issue that critics are organizing around."

Selling “Alligator Alcatraz” Prison Merchandise Is a Deranged New Low for the GOP;Esquire, July 2, 2025

Charles P. Pierce,  Esquire; Selling “Alligator Alcatraz” Prison Merchandise Is a Deranged New Low for the GOP

"What better way to mark the 249th birthday of this nation than to celebrate the opening of an open-air concentration camp in the middle of the Everglades? Not merely celebrate it but also turn it into an instant pop-culture phenomenon with T-shirts and ball caps and as complete a lack of moral conscience as exists in all the misplaced pythons in the swamps beyond...

Red states, which would not have economies if it weren’t for the patient suffering of the blue states they so deride, are now lining up to participate in the construction of an American gulag system. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Texas jumped to the front of the line. No gators, but lots of scorpions and venomous snakes ready to do their duty—until they all agree to unionize, at which point Governor Greg Abbott will feast on their living flesh. Of course, how can, say, Mississippi and Alabama resist getting in on all this sweet merch cash?"