Calls mount for binding SCOTUS ethics code after anti-abortion crusader alleges Hobby Lobby leak; ABA Journal, November 21, 2022

DEBRA CASSENS WEISS, ABA Journal; Calls mount for binding SCOTUS ethics code after anti-abortion crusader alleges Hobby Lobby leak

"The New York Times and other publications covered the reaction to Schenck’s allegations. Reactions included:

• Fix the Court, a court transparency group, called for passage of the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, which would require justices to write and adopt an ethics code; strengthen recusal rules; and adopt disclosure rules for gifts, income and reimbursements. Similarly, Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said in a tweet the justices should “operate under the same ethics rules as every other federal judge.” (Fix the Court, the New York Times)

•Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, a legal advocacy organization, said the Senate Judiciary Committee should investigate the new leak report. (The Washington Post)

• Louis J. Virelli III, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law, said revelations are creating public concern, and “the cost for the justices will be more transparency.” Requiring the justices to disclose with whom they meet, particularly those with interests in a decision, would be constitutional, he said. (The New York Times)

• Alicia Bannon, director of the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, criticized “a whole bunch of bad incentives & broken processes that encourage today’s politicized dynamics” in a tweet. “18-year terms for justices + decoupling appointments & vacancies would be a good place to start,” she tweeted. “Finally, this is also an opportunity for leadership from the justices. SCOTUS could adopt a binding code of conduct tomorrow. They could commit to greater transparency, including re: recusal. They could stop appearing w/ politicians and litigants. Legitimacy must be earned.” (The National Law Journal)

• In a blog post, Paul Horwitz, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, said the revelations raise questions that include: What is the right balance between isolation and non-isolation for judges and justices? And how many actions described by the New York Times are not only legal but generally treated as the way the system works? (PrawfsBlawg via Original Jurisdiction)"

NYT report leads to calls for ethics code for Supreme Court justices; WBUR, November 22, 2022

WBUR ; NYT report leads to calls for ethics code for Supreme Court justices

"The New York Times reported over the weekend that a whistleblower says in 2014, an activist at a dinner with Justice Samuel Alito and his wife was told about a Supreme Court decision before it was released. That report is prompting calls for Justices to follow an ethics code, like lower court judges.

Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Amanda Frost, law professor at the University of Virginia.

This segment aired on November 22, 2022."

Opinion The Supreme Court has lost its ethical compass. Can it find one fast?; The Washington Post, November 22, 2022

 Ruth Marcus , The Washington Post; Opinion The Supreme Court has lost its ethical compass. Can it find one fast?

"The Supreme Court must get its ethics act together, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. needs to take the lead...

Three years ago, Justice Elena Kagan testified before the House that the justices were “studying the question of whether to have a code of judicial conduct that’s applicable only to the United States Supreme Court,” calling it, “something that’s being thought very seriously about.” That’s the last we’ve heard from the court on this topic.

Roberts has had a rough 2022. Tackling his court’s ethics problem would be a smart way to finish a bad year on a good note."

The everyday ethics of AI;

Tom Dennis, UND Today

 ; The everyday ethics of AI

"The AI Act is a proposed European law on artificial intelligence. Though it has not yet taken effect, it’s the first such law on AI to be proposed by a major regulator anywhere, and it’s being studied in detail around the world because so many tech companies do extensive business in the EU.

The law assigns applications of AI to four risk categories, Powell said. First, there’s “minimal risk” – benign applications that don’t hurt people. Think AI-enabled video games or spam filters, for example, and understand that the EU proposal allows unlimited use of those applications.

Then there are “limited risk” systems such as chatbots, in which – the AI Act declares — the user must be made aware that they’re interacting with a machine. That would satisfy the EU’s goal that users decide for themselves whether to continue the interaction or step back.

“High risk” systems can cause real harm – and not only physical harm, as can happen in self-driving cars. These systems also can hurt employment prospects (by sorting resumes, for example, or by tracking productivity on a warehouse floor). They can deny credit or loans or the ability to cross an international border. And they can influence criminal-justice outcomes through AI-enhanced investigation and sentencing programs.

According to the EU, “any producer of this type of technology will have to give not just justifications for the technology and its potential harms, but also business justifications as to why the world needs this type of technology,” Powell said.

“This is the first time in history, as far as I know, that companies are held accountable to their products to this extent of having to explain the business logic of their code.”

Then there is the fourth level: “unacceptable risk.” And under the AI Act, all systems that pose a clear threat to the safety, livelihoods and rights of people will be banned, plain and simple.""

Allegation of Supreme Court Breach Prompts Renewed Calls for Ethics Code; The New York Times, November 20, 2022

Jodi Kantor , The New York Times ; Allegation of Supreme Court Breach Prompts Renewed Calls for Ethics Code

"Lawmakers are demanding further investigation at the Supreme Court and renewing their calls for binding ethics rules for the justices, after allegations that a landmark 2014 contraception decision was prematurely disclosed through a secretive influence campaign by anti-abortion activists."

‘Wild West’ of Generative AI Poses Novel Copyright Questions; Bloomberg Law, November 18, 2022

 Riddhi Setty and Isaiah Poritz , Bloomberg Law; ‘Wild West’ of Generative AI Poses Novel Copyright Questions 

"Artist Kris Kashtanova became the first person to register a copyright for an artificial intelligence-assisted work in September, for an 18-page comic book called “Zarya of the Dawn” that was created with the AI art program Midjourney.

In recent weeks, however, Kashtanova said the Copyright Office wants to revoke the registration because it had overlooked the use of AI in the creation of the comic.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence applications has left the burgeoning industry reckoning with how the powerful new technology interacts with copyright laws that govern everything from source code to art prints. The legal landscape is far from clear, with both the creators of AI tools and the artists who use them confronting copyright questions that haven’t yet been answered.

“It’s like the wild west right now,” said Ryan Abbott, an attorney at Brown Neri Smith & Khan LLP.

In what appears to be the first copyright infringement suit against the creator of an AI program, research company OpenAI Inc.—which has created a number of AI programs including generative art program DALL-E—was hit with a class action earlier this month by two software developers who said another OpenAI program called Copilot unlawfully duplicates their code without the proper license or attribution."

Column: Can scientists moonlight as activists — or does that violate an important ethical code?; Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2022

OPINION COLUMNIST, Nicholas Goldberg, Los Angeles Times; Column: Can scientists moonlight as activists — or does that violate an important ethical code?

Kalmus, Chornak and their colleagues believe it is their moral responsibility as scientists to help awaken society to the dangers of climate change, which include not just more of the raging storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves we’re already experiencing, but very possibly famine, mass migration, collapsing economies and war.

I think they’re right. 

But as more and more scientists have become engaged in climate activism over the years, they have faced pushback from traditionalists who insist that scientists should be disinterested, impartial “seekers of truth” who keep their opinions to themselves, thank you very much."

SAM BANKMAN-FRIED ADMITS THE "ETHICS STUFF" WAS "MOSTLY A FRONT"; Futurism, November 17, 2022

NOOR AL-SIBAI , Futurism; SAM BANKMAN-FRIED ADMITS THE "ETHICS STUFF" WAS "MOSTLY A FRONT"

"The disgraced former head of the crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, built his formidable public persona on the idea that he was a new type of ethical crypto exec. In particular, he was a vocal proponent of "effective altruism" — the vague-but-noble concept of using data to make philanthropic giving as targeted and helpful as possible.

But in a direct message, Vox's Kelsey Piper asked Bankman-Fried if the "ethics stuff" had been "mostly a front."

Bankman-Fried's reply: "Yeah."

"I mean that's not *all* of it," he wrote. "But it's a lot."