The Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal; Trump Says Chips Ahoy to Xi Jinping
Thomas Barrabi , New York Post; Bannon, top conservatives urge White House to reject Big Tech’s ‘fair use’ push to justify AI copyright theft: ‘Un-American and absurd’
"Prominent conservatives including Steve Bannon are urging the Trump administration to reject an increasingly popular argument that tech giants are using to rip off copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence.
So-called “fair use” doctrine – which argues that the use of copyrighted content without permission is legally justified if it is done in the public interest – has become a common defense for AI firms like Google, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Microsoft who have been accused of ripping off work.
The argument’s biggest backers also include White House AI czar David Sacks, who has warned that Silicon Valley firms “would be crippled” in a crucial race against AI firms in China unless they can rely on fair use protection...
Bannon and his allies threw cold water on such claims in a Monday letter addressed to US Attorney General Pam Bondi and Michael Kratsios, who heads the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“This is un-American and absurd,” the conservatives argued in the letter, which was exclusively obtained by The Post. “We must compete and win the global AI race the American way — by ensuring we protect creators, children, conservatives, and communities.”...
The conservatives point to clear economic incentives to back copyright-protected industries, which contribute more than $2 trillion to the US GDP, carry an average annual wage of more than $140,000 and account for a $37 billion trade surplus, according to the letter...
The letter notes that money is no object for the companies leading the AI boom, which “enjoy virtually unlimited access to financing” and are each valued at hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars.
“In a free market, businesses pay for the inputs they need,” the letter said. “Imagine if AI CEOs claimed they needed free access to semiconductors, energy, researchers, and developers to build their products. They would be laughed out of their boardrooms.”...
The letter is the latest salvo in a heated policy divide as AI models gobble up data from the web. Critics accuse companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta of essentially seeking a “license to steal” from news outlets, artists, authors and others that produce original work."
The Editorial Board, The New York Times; Are We Losing Our Democracy?
"Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.
Our country is still not close to being a true autocracy, in the mold of Russia or China. But once countries begin taking steps away from democracy, the march often continues. We offer these 12 markers as a warning of how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose."
Ana Swanson and Tripp Mickle, The New York Times; As Trump Weighs Sale of Advanced A.I. Chips to China, Critics Sound Alarm
"Mr. Trump’s comments signaled a major potential change for U.S. policy that many Washington officials warn poses a national security risk. Selling such advanced A.I. chips to China is currently banned, and U.S. officials have worked for years to restrain Beijing’s access to the cutting-edge technology.
The president’s reversal, if it comes to pass, would have widespread implications. Nvidia, which has emphasized the importance of maintaining access to the Chinese market, would reap new sales. But critics have argued that A.I. technology is important enough to potentially shift the balance of power in a strategic competition between the United States and China."
Viola Zhou, The Guardian; ‘DeepSeek is humane. Doctors are more like machines’: my mother’s worrying reliance on AI for health advice
"Over the course of months, my mom became increasingly smitten with her new AI doctor. “DeepSeek is more humane,” my mother told me in May. “Doctors are more like machines.”"
L. Gordon Crovitz, The Washington Post; How foreign powers are gaslighting Americans
"L. Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is co-CEO of NewsGuard, which assesses the reliability of news sources and claims spreading online.
The United States has unilaterally disarmed in the information wars. The Trump administration has ended key efforts to defend against Russian, Chinese and Iranian targeting of Americans with false claims.
This disarmament includes largely dismantling the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which was the leading U.S. intelligence operation charged with “mitigating threats to democracy and U.S. national interests,” including efforts by adversaries to influence popular opinion. The U.S. also recently canceled a cooperation agreement with European allies to identify and expose disinformation operations targeting Americans and their allies. The Trump administration defends its abdication by claiming it is countering censorship, but warning of false claims by hostile governments provides Americans with more information, not less."
Cory Franklin, Chicago Tribune via The Mercury ; The dark reality behind the Chinese president’s hot mic moment about transplanted organs
"During a recent military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin was caught on a hot mic saying to Xi Jinping, his Communist Chinese counterpart, “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and (you can) even achieve immortality.” Xi responded: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”
Currently, there is no credible medical basis to suggest that continual organ transplantation can reverse the aging process, but when the two most important totalitarian leaders in the world consider this prospect, we should listen because there may be more going on than meets the ear. The overtones are ominous, and the conversation takes on added significance in the wake of a report by the United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph that the Communist Chinese Party, or CCP, is opening six medical facilities for organ transplantation in the Xinjiang autonomous region by 2030.
Xinjiang is set to become the organ transplant destination center for privileged CCP members, wealthy Chinese nationals and well-heeled international clients. Transplant teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists and related medical personnel are being recruited to serve the elite clientele, who will pay exorbitant sums to receive an organ — money added to the coffers of the CCP.
Xinjiang is a large remote area in western China, far from the metropolitan hubs of the East. Why was it selected as the organ transplant center? Likely because of a basic principle of organ transplantation: It is far more efficient to bring organ recipients to where the donor organs are rather than transport organs long distances and risk they will not be serviceable. (This is especially true of perishable key organs such as the lungs, liver and heart.) And Xinjiang is home to large numbers of Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority, who are apparently a convenient source of readily available organs."
Guardian staff and agencies , The Guardian; Trump celebrates TikTok deal as Beijing suggests US app would use China’s algorithm
[Kip Currier: Wasn't fears about the Chinese government's potential ability to manipulate U.S. TikTok users via the TikTok algorithm one of the chief rationales for the past Congress and Biden administration's banning of TikTok? How does this Trump 2.0 deal materially change any of that?
Another rationale for the ban was concerns about China's potential to access and leverage the personal data and impinge the privacy interests of TikTok users in the U.S. How does this proposed arrangement substantively address these concerns, particularly without comprehensive federal data and privacy legislation to give Americans agency over their own data?
The American people need maximal transparency and oversight of any kind of financial deal like this.]
[Excerpt]
"One of the major questions is the fate of TikTok’s powerful algorithm that helped the app become one of the world’s most popular sources of online entertainment.
At a press conference in Madrid, the deputy head of China’s cyber security regulator said the framework of the deal included “licensing the algorithm and other intellectual property rights”.
Wang Jingtao said ByteDance would “entrust the operation of TikTok’s US user data and content security.”
Some commentators have inferred from these comments that TikTok’s US spinoff will retain the Chinese algorithm."
Carl Zimmer, The New York Times; Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds
"Even as paper mills have worked to keep their efforts hidden, Dr. Abalkina has traced the output of companies in Russia, Iran and other countries, and found thousands of their papers in print. “You learn to see the patterns,” she said.
Dr. Amaral and his colleagues have now analyzed those patterns, using network theory and other statistical techniques. “We tried to give a picture of what’s below the surface,” said Reese Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University and an author of the new study.
For their analysis, the scientists built a database of more than a million scientific papers. They searched for the papers in online forums where sleuths share duplicated images and tortured phrases, as well as the Retraction Watch Database, maintained by the Center for Scientific Integrity.
The researchers compiled a list of 30,000 papers that have either been retracted or show signs of having come from a paper mill. They discovered connections between the papers that strongly hinted that they were the product of large-scale fraud. Many of these connections linked clusters of editors and authors who often worked together.
“There are huge networks that are very densely connected, where they’re all sending their papers to one another,” Dr. Richardson said. “If that’s not collusion, I don’t know what is.”"
Matteo Wong , The Atlantic; Donald Trump Is Fairy-Godmothering AI
"In a sense, the action plan is a bet. AI is already changing a number of industries, including software engineering, and a number of scientific disciplines. Should AI end up producing incredible prosperity and new scientific discoveries, then the AI Action Plan may well get America there faster simply by removing any roadblocks and regulations, however sensible, that would slow the companies down. But should the technology prove to be a bubble—AI products remain error-prone, extremely expensive to build, and unproven in many business applications—the Trump administration is more rapidly pushing us toward the bust. Either way, the nation is in Silicon Valley’s hands...
Once the red tape is gone, the Trump administration wants to create a “dynamic, ‘try-first’ culture for AI across American industry.” In other words, build and test out AI products first, and then determine if those products are actually helpful—or if they pose any risks.
Trump gestured toward other concessions to the AI industry in his speech. He specifically targeted intellectual-property laws, arguing that training AI models on copyrighted books and articles does not infringe upon copyright because the chatbots, like people, are simply learning from the content. This has been a major conflict in recent years, with more than 40 related lawsuits filed against AI companies since 2022. (The Atlantic is suing the AI company Cohere, for example.) If courts were to decide that training AI models with copyrighted material is against the law, it would be a major setback for AI companies. In their official recommendations for the AI Action Plan, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google all requested a copyright exception, known as “fair use,” for AI training. Based on his statements, Trump appears to strongly agree with this position, although the AI Action Plan itself does not reference copyright and AI training.
Also sprinkled throughout the AI Action Plan are gestures toward some MAGA priorities. Notably, the policy states that the government will contract with only AI companies whose models are “free from top-down ideological bias”—a reference to Sacks’s crusade against “woke” AI—and that a federal AI-risk-management framework should “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.” Trump signed a third executive order today that, in his words, will eliminate “woke, Marxist lunacy” from AI models...
Looming over the White House’s AI agenda is the threat of Chinese technology getting ahead. The AI Action Plan repeatedly references the importance of staying ahead of Chinese AI firms, as did the president’s speech: “We will not allow any foreign nation to beat us; our nation will not live in a planet controlled by the algorithms of the adversaries,” Trump declared...
But whatever happens on the international stage, hundreds of millions of Americans will feel more and more of generative AI’s influence—on salaries and schools, air quality and electricity costs, federal services and doctor’s offices. AI companies have been granted a good chunk of their wish list; if anything, the industry is being told that it’s not moving fast enough. Silicon Valley has been given permission to accelerate, and we’re all along for the ride."
MOHAR CHATTERJEE , Politico; Trump derides copyright and state rules in AI Action Plan launch
"President Donald Trump criticized copyright enforcement efforts and state-level AI regulations Wednesday as he launched the White House’s AI Action Plan on a mission to dominate the industry.
In remarks delivered at a “Winning the AI Race” summit hosted by the All-In Podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, Trump said stringent copyright enforcement was unrealistic for the AI industry and would kneecap U.S. companies trying to compete globally, particularly against China.
“You can’t be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you’ve read or studied, you’re supposed to pay for,” he said. “You just can’t do it because it’s not doable. ... China’s not doing it.”
Trump’s comments were a riff as his 28-page AI Action Plan did not wade into copyright and administration officials told reporters the issue should be left to the courts to decide.
Trump also signed three executive orders. One will fast track federal permitting, streamline reviews and “do everything possible to expedite construction of all major AI infrastructure projects,” Trump said. Another expands American exports of AI hardware and software. A third order bans the federal government from procuring AI technology “that has been infused with partisan bias or ideological agendas,” as Trump put it...
Trump echoed tech companies’ complaints about state AI laws creating a patchwork of regulation. “You can’t have one state holding you up,” he said. “We need one common sense federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody.”"
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."
Megan K. Stack , The New York Times; Can We See Our Future in China’s Cameras?
"The Chinese Communist Party famously uses surveillance to crush dissent and, increasingly, is applying predictive algorithms to get ahead of both crimes and protest. People who screen as potential political agitators, for example, can be prevented from stepping onto trains bound for Beijing. During the Covid pandemic, Chinese health authorities used algorithmic contact tracing and QR codes to block people suspected of viral exposure from entering public spaces. Those draconian health initiatives helped to mainstream invasive surveillance and increase biometric data collection.
It would be comforting to think that China has created a singular dystopia, utterly removed from our American reality. But we are not as different as we might like to think.
Thankfully, our political architecture lacks a unified power structure akin to the C.C.P. Americans — who tend to value individual liberties over collective well-being — have deeply embedded rights which, at least theoretically, protect us from such abuses."
"A collection of 28 conservative groups is urging Republican Congress members to pass the PERA, PREVAIL, and RESTORE acts — all aimed at patent protection — as Chinese influence permeates U.S.intellectual property...
The PREVAIL Act, or Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership, was introduced by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) in the last Congress and aims to “invest in inventors in the United States, maintain the United States as the leading innovation economy in the world, and protect the property rights of the inventors that grow the economy of the United States.”
The PERA Act, or the Patent Eligibility Restoration, was introduced by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) also in the last Congress and aims to restore patent eligibility to several fields. Lastly, the RESTORE Act, or Realizing Engineering, Science, and Technology Opportunities by Restoring Exclusive Patent Rights, works to give patent owners the right to a “rebuttable presumption that the court should grant a permanent injunction with respect to that infringing conduct” if a court finds that there was an infringement of a right secured by patent.
All three acts could work as pro-patent freedom legislation, possibly helping U.S. intellectual property owners fight back against Big Tech and China."
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, RUTH BEN-GHIAT, AND ANDREW, The Ink; WATCH: Democracy is breaking. Do people care?
"Donald Trump is waging war on the American republic. Why don’t more people care?
Today I had a conversation I won’t easily forget that sought answers to this question.
Are we living through the familiar, well-worn descent into authoritarianism? Or are we witnessing a new phenomenon, specific to modern life, in which people have enough of a subjective feeling of freedom in their personal lives that they are willing to carve out political freedoms they tell themselves they don’t need? Years ago, I found this attitude reporting in China. I asked my guests if it was now happening here.
What is freedom, really? Does a world of broad consumer choices and job options and infinite scrolling somehow cause people not to recognize they’re in a slow-motion emergency? And what does this mean for how defenders of democracy should make their case? I talked about all of this and more with the scholar of fascism Ruth Ben-Ghiat of Lucid and journalist Andrew Marantz, who has a great piece in The New Yorker about the parallels between Hungary and what the U.S. is headed towards."
Ina Fried, Axios; AI firms push to use copyrighted content freely
"A sharp divide over AI engines' free use of copyrighted material has emerged as a key conflict among the firms and groups that recently flooded the White House with advice on its forthcoming "AI Action Plan."
Why it matters: Copyright infringement claims were among the first legal challenges following ChatGPT's launch, with multiple lawsuits now winding their way through the courts.
Driving the news: In their White House memos, OpenAI and Google argue that their use of copyrighted material for AI is a matter of national security — and if that use is limited, China will gain an unfair edge in the AI race."
Josephine Ma , South China Morning Post; Chatbots for children: China grapples with how to teach use and ethics of AI in schools
"One question educators are pondering is the boundary between using AI as a learning aid and students using AI to write."
Siân Boyle, The Observer via The Guardian; Revealed: Google facilitated Russia and China’s censorship requests
"Google has cooperated with autocratic regimes around the world, including the Kremlin in Russia and the Chinese Communist party, to facilitate censorship requests, an Observer investigation can reveal.
The technology company has engaged with the administrations of about 150 countries since 2011 that want information scrubbed from their public domains.
As well as democratic governments, it has interacted with dictatorships, sanctioned regimes and governments accused of human rights abuses, including the police in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
After requests from the governments of Russia and China, Google has removed content such as YouTube videos of anti-state protesters or content that criticises and alleges corruption among their politicians."
Assistant Professor of Business Law, Georgia College and State University , Newsweek; Congress Must Change Copyright Law for AI | Opinion
"Luckily, the Constitution points the way forward. In Article I, Section 8, Congress is explicitly empowered "to promote the Progress of Science" through copyright law. That is to say, the power to create copyrights isn't just about protecting content creators, it's also about advancing human knowledge and innovation.
When the Founders gave Congress this power, they couldn't have imagined artificial intelligence, but they clearly understood that intellectual property laws would need to evolve to promote scientific progress. Congress therefore not only has the authority to adapt copyright law for the AI age, it has the duty to ensure our intellectual property framework promotes rather than hinders technological progress.
Consider what's at risk with inaction...
While American companies are struggling with copyright constraints, China is racing ahead with AI development, unencumbered by such concerns. The Chinese Communist Party has made it clear that they view AI supremacy as a key strategic goal, and they're not going to let intellectual property rights stand in their way.
The choice before us is clear, we can either reform our copyright laws to enable responsible AI development at home or we can watch as the future of AI is shaped by authoritarian powers abroad. The cost of inaction isn't just measured in lost innovation or economic opportunity, it is measured in our diminishing ability to ensure AI develops in alignment with democratic values and a respect for human rights.
The ideal solution here isn't to abandon copyright protection entirely, but to craft a careful exemption for AI training. This could even include provisions for compensating content creators through a mandated licensing framework or revenue-sharing system, ensuring that AI companies can access the data they need while creators can still benefit from and be credited for their work's use in training these models.
Critics will argue that this represents a taking from creators for the benefit of tech companies, but this misses the broader picture. The benefits of AI development flow not just to tech companies but to society as a whole. We should recognize that allowing AI models to learn from human knowledge serves a crucial public good, one we're at risk of losing if Congress doesn't act."
JOHN SAKELLARIADIS, Politico; A torrent of Election Day disinformation is coming. Here’s how to avoid falling for it.
"Haitian immigrants did not vote multiple times for Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia, and poll workers in Pennsylvania did not destroy ballots for Trump, though a pair of videos that went viral in the last 10 days would have you think otherwise.
Both were fabrications of Kremlin influence actors, the U.S. intelligence community has said, and late Monday, it released a new statement calling out “additional influence operations” from Russia...
America’s adversaries “likely learned lessons” from the political turmoil that engulfed the U.S. after Election Day in 2020, senior U.S. intelligence officials told reporters last month. That means Russia, China and Iran are likely to amp up their efforts to spread lies and even incite violence between Election Day and inauguration.
One key defense is to refer any pressing questions to your local officials. “The bottom line when it comes to mis- and disinformation is that voters need to go to the source, and the source is your local and your state election officials,” said Marci Andino, the senior director of the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center."
