FINDING GOD in the APP STORE; The New York Times, September 14, 2025

Lauren Jackson , The New York Times; FINDING GOD in the APP STORE

"God works in mysterious ways — including through chatbots. At least, that’s what many people seem to think.

On religious apps, tens of millions of people are confessing to spiritual chatbots their secrets: their petty vanities and deepest worries, gluttonous urges and darkest impulses. Trained on religious texts, the bots are like on-call priests, imams or rabbis, offering comfort and direction at any time. On some platforms, they even purport to channel God."

Preparing faith leaders to prepare others to use artificial intelligence in a faithful way; Presbyterian News Service, September 4, 2025

Mike Ferguson , Presbyterian News Service; Preparing faith leaders to prepare others to use artificial intelligence in a faithful way

"It turns out an engineer whose career included stops at Boeing and Amazon — and who happens to be a person of deep faith — has plenty to say about how faith leaders can use artificial intelligence in places of worship.

Jovonia Taylor-Hayes took to the lectern Wednesday during Faithful Futures: Guiding AI with Wisdom and Witness, which is being offered online and at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. The PC(USA)’s Office of Innovation is among the organizers and sponsors, which also includes The Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Think of all the varied ways everyday people use AI, Taylor-Hayes said, including as an aid to streamline grocery shopping and resume building; by medical teams for note-taking; for virtual meetings and closed-captioning, which is getting better, she said; and in customer service.

“The question is, what does it look like when we stop and think about what AI means to me personally? Where does your head and heart go?” she asked. One place where hers goes to is scripture, including Ephesians 2:10 and Psalm 139:14. “God has prepared us,” she said, “to do what we need to do.”

During the first of two breakout sessions, she asked small groups both in person and online to discuss questions including where AI shows up in their daily work and life and why they use AI as a tool."

Faith leaders bring ethical concerns, curiosity to AI debate at multi-denominational conference; Episcopal News Service (ENS), September 5, 2025

David Paulsen, Episcopal News Service (ENS) ; Faith leaders bring ethical concerns, curiosity to AI debate at multi-denominational conference

"Some of the most tech-forward minds in the Protestant church gathered here this week at the Faithful Futures conference, where participants wrestled with the ethical, practical and spiritual implications of artificial intelligence. The Episcopal Church is one of four Protestant denominations that hosted the Sept. 2-5 conference. About halfway through, one of the moderators acknowledged that AI has advanced so far and so rapidly that most conferences on AI are no longer focused just on AI...

AI raises spiritual questions over what it means to be human

Much of the conference seemed to pivot on questions that defied easy answers. In an afternoon session Sept. 3, several church leaders who attended last year’s Faithful Futures conference in Seattle, Washington, were invited to give 10-minute presentations on their preferred topics.

“What happens to theology when the appearance of intelligence is no longer uniquely human?” said the Rev. Michael DeLashmutt, a theology professor at General Theological Seminary in New York, New York, who also serves as the Episcopal seminary’s senior vice president.

DeLashmutt argued that people of faith, in an era of AI, must not forget what it means to be Christian and to be human. “Being human means being relational, embodied, justice-oriented and open to God’s spirit,” he said. “So, I think the real risk is not that machines will become human, but that we will forget the fullness of what humanity actually is.”

Kip Currier, a computing and information professor at the University of Pittsburgh, warned that AI is being used by sports betting platforms to appeal to gamblers, including those suffering from addiction. Mark Douglas, an ethics professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, outlined the ecological impact of AI data centers, which need to consume massive amounts of energy and water.

The Rev. Andy Morgan, a Presbyterian pastor based in Knoxville, Tennessee, described himself as his denomination’s “unofficial AI person” and suggested that preachers should not be afraid of using AI to improve their sermons – as long as they establish boundaries to prevent delegating too much to the technology."

Big Questions About AI and the Church Video; August 25, 2025

Big Questions About AI and the Church Video

Kip Currier: This Big Questions About AI and the Church video (1:12:14) was created by the members of my cohort and me (Cohort 7). Our cohort emanated from the groundbreaking August 2024 ecumenical AI & The Church Summit in Seattle that we all attended.

Perhaps raising more questions than providing answers, the video's aim is to encourage reflection and discussion of the many-faceted issues and concerns at the nexus of AI, faith communities, and our broader societies.

Many thanks to our cohort member Rev. Dr. Andy P. Morgan for spearheading, synthesizing, and uploading this video to YouTube. 

Experts Raise Concerns Over Trump’s White House Ballroom Renovation Plans; The New York Times, August 3, 2025

 Ashley Ahn, The New York Times; Experts Raise Concerns Over Trump’s White House Ballroom Renovation Plans

"Experts on historic preservation are raising concerns over the feasibility of President Trump’s plans to complete large-scale renovations to the White House by the end of his term, and whether the project can be done while respecting the historic nature of the building.

Mr. Trump unveiled plans on Thursday to construct a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot state ballroom off the East Wing to be completed “long before” the end of his term in 2029. The project would be one of the largest renovations to the iconic building in decades...

The White House, the Supreme Court building, the Capitol and all their “related buildings and grounds” are exempt from the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which requires federal agencies to assess and mitigate adverse effects to historic properties and seek consultation through a formal review process.

Instead, the White House has its own committee that provides advice on the “preservation and the interpretation of the museum character” of the building. The Committee for the Preservation of the White House — chaired by the director of the National Park Service — is made up of several federal officials and a number of members appointed by the president.

Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said on Thursday in a news release that the administration was “fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House.”

Still, the committee’s recommendations are not binding, giving the president significant leeway to do as he wishes."

Virginia teachers learn AI tools and ethics at largest statewide workshop; WTVR, July 23, 2025

 

WTVR CBS 6 Web Staff; Virginia teachers learn AI tools and ethics at largest statewide workshop


[Kip Currier: Nothing in this brief article substantively (or even cursorily) talks about the ethics issues of K-12 teachers using AI tools. The piece extolls what can be gained by teachers using AI tools. But what's lost by using these products? What skills do we not gain or hone by relying on AI to think and create for us?

Was an ethics code or AI code of conduct discussed at all at this two-day gathering of teachers?

And what about the ongoing problem of AI hallucinations-- i.e. inaccurate and nonexistent information generated by AI? Nowhere in this reporting is the need for proofreading and verification of AI-generated outputs even mentioned.

In the pell-mell rush to adopt AI tools, fueled by AI tech companies, it's vital to remember the need for embracing AI ethics guidelines and guardrails.]

[Excerpt]

"Hundreds of Virginia teachers are getting hands-on experience with artificial intelligence tools, ethics and curriculum integration at the largest statewide professional development workshop focused on AI.

The two-day workshop, hosted by AI Ready RVA, continues Thursday at the VCU School of Business...

"There are tools that allow teachers to create lesson plans or quizzes or rubrics immediately based on a source that they can find online so they don't have to spend hours on Sunday prepping for the week ahead. And so we have a list of various platforms that we're going to be teaching them and practice sessions so that they can master these tools so that way they start the school year really strong," Demetriou said."

Immigration courts hiding the names of ICE lawyers goes against centuries of precedent and legal ethics requiring transparency in courts; The Conversation, July 23, 2025

1. Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University, The Conversation; Immigration courts hiding the names of ICE lawyers goes against centuries of precedent and legal ethics requiring transparency in courts

[Kip Currier: ICE immigration lawyers intentionally hiding their names, and immigration court judges facilitating this practice, should chill the blood of any lawyer and non-lawyer concerned about accountability, transparency, ethics, and the rule of law in a democratic country. This is not normal practice for free societies that value public trust. We should not and cannot permit such actions to be normalized: civil watchdogs like the ACLU and legal groups like the American Bar Association (ABA) have a responsibility to publicize their positions on these concerning Kafkaesque developments in U.S. courts and society at large.

The speed at which the U.S. is transitioning into an autocratic police state since Inauguration Day 2025 is both stunning and terrifying.

For more information on these issues, see here and here.]

[Excerpt]

1. "Something unusual is happening in U.S. immigration courts. Government lawyers are refusing to give their names during public hearings.
2. 
   
3. In June 2025, Immigration Judge ShaSha Xu in New York City reportedly told lawyers in her courtroom: “We’re not really doing names publicly.” Only the government lawyers’ names were hidden – the immigrants’ attorneys had to give their names as usual. Xu cited privacy concerns, saying, “Things lately have changed.
4. 
   
5. When one immigration lawyer objected that the court record would be incomplete without the government attorney’s name, Xu reportedly refused to provide it. In another case, New York immigration Judge James McCarthy in July referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, attorney as merely “Department” throughout the hearing.
6. 
   
7. New York immigration Judge Shirley Lazare-Raphael told The Intercept that some ICE attorneys believe it is “dangerous to state their names publicly.” This follows a broader pattern of ICE agents wearing masks during arrests to hide their identities. 
8. This secrecy violates a fundamental principle that has protected Americans for centuries: open courts. Here’s how those courts operate and why the principle governing them matters."

DOJ's Ex-Ethics Lawyer Speaks Out After Being Fired by Pam Bondi; Newsweek, July 14, 2025

Dan Gooding and  Gabe Whisnant , Newsweek; DOJ's Ex-Ethics Lawyer Speaks Out After Being Fired by Pam Bondi

[Kip Currier: Shameful action by the U.S. Attorney General: Pam Bondi's firing of DOJ's premier ethics lawyer shows us everything we need to know about her priorities and ethical values.]

[Excerpt]

"Attorney General Pam Bondi has dismissed the Justice Department's top ethics lawyer, Joseph Tirrell, according to a post he shared on LinkedIn.

Tirrell, a Navy veteran, posted a copy of his termination letter on the platform Friday, noting that it resembled notices received by other DOJ employees. The letter included a typo, misspelling his name as "JOSPEH."

He wrote, in part, on LinkedIn, "Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics. I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department. I led a small, dedicated team of professionals and coordinated the work of some 30 other full-time ethics officials, attorneys, paralegals and other specialists across the Department of Justice, ensuring that the 117,000 Department employees were properly advised on and supported in how to follow the Federal employee ethics rules."

He continued, "I look forward to finding ways to continue in my personal calling of service to my country. I encouraged anyone who is reading this to do the same. I believe in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.— 'the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' I also believe that Edmund Burke is right and that 'the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.'""

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

Natasha Singer , 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."

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations; ProPublica, June 30, 2025

Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski , ProPublica; Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations

"There is nothing remarkable about a politician raising money for nonprofits and other groups that promote their campaigns or agendas. What’s unusual, experts said, is for a politician to keep some of the money for themselves.

“If donors to these nonprofits are not just holding the keys to an elected official’s political future but also literally providing them with their income, that’s new and disturbing,” said Daniel Weiner, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now leads the Brennan Center’s work on campaign finance."

Emil Bove’s ‘I’m Not A Henchman’ T-Shirt Has People Asking Questions At Judicial Confirmation Hearing; Above The Law, June 26, 2025

 Liz Dye  , Above The Law; Emil Bove’s ‘I’m Not A Henchman’ T-Shirt Has People Asking Questions At Judicial Confirmation Hearing

"Emil Bove, III began his career at the Southern District of New York, where he was by all accounts a competent prosecutor. His management style left something to be desired, however, and he was denied promotion for “abusive” behavior

(Opens in a new window) toward his subordinates...

Third Circuit, here he comes!

On Wednesday, June 25, Bove appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering his nomination to the Third Circuit.

He opened by insisting, “I am not anybody’s henchman, I am not an enforcer. I’m a lawyer from a small town, who never expected to be in an arena like this.”

That is horseshit, of course. No one gets to “an arena like this” without a healthy dose of ambition. Note that Bove’s aw shucks modesty didn’t extend to telling the White House that he’d be a more appropriate nominee the US District Court.

And although his tone during the hearing was measured, his willingness to twist the truth was on full display

Asked about the Adams case, Bove pointed to the order dismissing the charges(Opens in a new window) as proof that he’d behaved appropriately. In reality, the Justice Department’s refusal to prosecute left the court little choice. And Judge Dale Ho denied the DOJ’s request to dismiss without prejudice, because allowing the Trump administration to reap the benefits of a corrupt bargain would be “difficult to square with the words engraved above the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court: ‘Equal Justice Under Law.’”

Bove denied telling subordinates to defy a court order, but said he just plum couldn’t remember if he’d told them to give the bird to a federal judge.

Over and over he simply refused to answer questions based on spurious claims about the deliberative process privilege. But, he assured the senators, all was on the up and up, even if he couldn’t commit(Opens in a new window) to recusing from cases involving his former client Donald Trump.

And if any Republican senator might be tempted to vote no, he brought out the big guns. Alan Dershowitz, late of Harvard Law (and his marbles), sent a letter(Opens in a new window) to the Judiciary Committee gushing that “Mr. Bove’s superior character, demeanor and diligence are evident throughout his time as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, as well as in private practice.”"

(Opens in a new windowtoward his subordinates.

AI ‘reanimations’: Making facsimiles of the dead raises ethical quandaries; The Conversation, June 17, 2025

 Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston, Daniel J. Feldman, Senior Research Fellow, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston; The Conversation; AI ‘reanimations’: Making facsimiles of the dead raises ethical quandaries

"The use of artificial intelligence to “reanimate” the dead for a variety of purposes is quickly gaining traction. Over the past few years, we’ve been studying the moral implications of AI at the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and we find these AI reanimations to be morally problematic.

Before we address the moral challenges the technology raises, it’s important to distinguish AI reanimations, or deepfakes, from so-called griefbots. Griefbots are chatbots trained on large swaths of data the dead leave behind – social media posts, texts, emails, videos. These chatbots mimic how the departed used to communicate and are meant to make life easier for surviving relations. The deepfakes we are discussing here have other aims; they are meant to promote legal, political and educational causes."

Watchdog Finds Trump Administration Broke Law by Withholding Library Funds; The New York Times, June 16, 2025

Tony Romm , The New York Times; Watchdog Finds Trump Administration Broke Law by Withholding Library Funds

"The inquiry concerned the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which serves as the federal government’s primary source of funding for libraries, museums and archives. In March, Mr. Trump sought to sharply curtail the agency as part of an executive order focused on the “reduction of the federal bureaucracy,” prompting legal challenges from states, librarians and other opponents.

The accountability office, an arm of Congress that keeps watch over the nation’s spending, concluded on Monday that the library agency ultimately “ceased performing” its functions after the president’s directive, and withheld funding that lawmakers had previously appropriated to carry out its mission.

Ethics officials ultimately classified the interruption in aid as an illegal impoundment, which is prohibited under a 1970s law meant to restrict the president and his ability to defy Congress on spending. The White House maintains that those limits are unconstitutional, and the president and his top budget aide, Russell T. Vought, have sought to test that theory as part of their dramatic and chaotic reorganization of the federal government."

The Military May Find Itself in an Impossible Situation; The New York Times, June 11, 2025

Joshua Braver. 

Dr. Braver is an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies civil military relations. , The New York Times; The Military May Find Itself in an Impossible Situation

"Would a military officer disobey a lawful but unethical order — unethical in the sense that it violates the officer’s professional code? We may be on the verge of finding out."

Global AI: Compression, Complexity, and the Call for Rigorous Oversight; ABA SciTech Lawyer, May 9, 2025

Joan Rose Marie Bullock, ABA SciTech Lawyer; Global AI: Compression, Complexity, and the Call for Rigorous Oversight

"Equally critical is resisting haste. The push to deploy AI, whether in threat detection or data processing, often outpaces scrutiny. Rushed implementations, like untested algorithms in critical systems, can backfire, as any cybersecurity professional can attest from post-incident analyses. The maxim of “measure twice, cut once” applies here: thorough vetting trumps speed. Lawyers, trained in precedent, recognize the cost of acting without foresight; technologists, steeped in iterative testing, understand the value of validation. Prioritizing diligence over being first mitigates catastrophic failures of privacy breaches or security lapses that ripple worldwide."

Holmes Rolston III, Pioneer of Environmental Ethics, Dies at 92; The New York Times, June 2, 2025

John Motyka, The New York Times; Holmes Rolston III, Pioneer of Environmental Ethics, Dies at 92

"A life-defining moment for the environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston III came when he was forced out as pastor of the Presbyterian church in rural Rockbridge Baths, Va., in 1965.

It was a painful setback, prompted by his passion for science and the time off he took for hiking jaunts in the Shenandoah hills — pursuits that did not square with his conservative congregation’s view of a minister’s role.

But the dismissal propelled him on to a restless intellectual and spiritual journey, with stops as a trained theologian and a natural historian, until, as a newly minted philosophy professor, he posed a question that had been unasked or routinely dismissed since before Plato: Does nature have value?

His answer — that nature has intrinsic value apart from that derived from human perspectives — appeared in a groundbreaking essay in 1975 that launched his career as the globally recognized “father” of environmental ethics. Moreover, in tune with rising public concern about land, air, water and wildlife, his thesis heralded what the philosopher Allen Carlson called the “environmental turn” in philosophy after millenniums of neglect...

Professor Rolston’s essay “Is There an Ecological Ethic?” was published in the prestigious journal Ethics. It was the first major article in a philosophical journal to accord value to nature."

Philosophers On The Science & Ethics of Resurrecting Extinct Species; Daily Nous, June 2, 2025

Justin Weinberg

, Daily Nous; Philosophers On The Science & Ethics of Resurrecting Extinct Species

"“The Return of the Dire Wolf” announced Time magazine—not quite correctly, it turns out—in its article on the creation of three creatures genetically engineered into existence by the firm Colossal Biosciences.

Still, the biotechnology that led to the creation of those wolves is impressive. It opens a lot of possibilities, and of course raises a lot of questions, both about our understanding of what this technology actually does and our sense of how it should (and shouldn’t) be used. Those questions are taken up by several philosophers in this edition of Philosophers On."

AI Cheating Apps Are Already Here—Let’s Not Argue About Ethics; Inc., May 22, 2025

 

EXPERT OPINION BY JOE PROCOPIO, Inc.;

AI Cheating Apps Are Already Here—Let’s Not Argue About Ethics

It’s not “AI ethics” we need to worry about, it’s lazy tech.

"I’m here to again point out that the more we lazily lean into technology without considering consequences, the more we realize all exams will eventually have to be face-to-face, one-on-one, oral, in a clean room, with no devices or eyeglasses, and with your hands clearly visible."

NAR to Consider Code of Ethics Policy Changes Around Discriminatory Speech; National Association of REALTORS®, May 21, 2025

Stacey Moncrieff , National Association of REALTORS®; NAR to Consider Code of Ethics Policy Changes Around Discriminatory Speech

"“The Code of Ethics is part of what distinguishes REALTORS® from mere real estate professionals,” NAR President Kevin Sears said in a letter to key stakeholders Wednesday. “It is the foundation of our ability to earn and maintain consumers’ trust as we fulfill our mission to preserve, protect and advance the right to real property for all.”"

AI is transforming gambling: Researcher explores the ethical risks; Phys.org, May 21, 2025

 Alisha Katz, University of Florida, Phys.org; AI is transforming gambling: Researcher explores the ethical risks

[Kip Currier: It's good to see the increasing use of AI in online gambling getting more attention and scrutiny. The AI chapter of my forthcoming Ethics, Information, and Technology book for Bloomsbury also examines this worrisome intersection of AI, ethics, the online gambling/gambling industry, and gamblers themselves, some of whom are particularly vulnerable to AI-assisted manipulation efforts.

Imagine an AI system that knows when a habitual online gambler tends to place bets, what games they like to play and put money on, how much and where they gamble, etc. Couple that data with easily attained demographic profile data (often freely given by users when they sign up for online access), like age, gender, occupation, income level, and place of residence. Those individual data points enable a multi-faceted marketing profile to be rendered about that gambler.

Now, consider the above scenario but the individual is a repeat online gambler who's been trying to stop gambling. They're attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings (which the AI systems likely do not know) but are being methodically targeted on their smartphones by AI systems that know exactly what to send that person to lure them back in to the gambling world if they haven't been engaging in online betting for a while. That scenario is real. 60 Minutes reported on it in 2024:

Technology has fueled a sports betting boom and a spike in problem gambling, addiction therapist warns. June 30, 2024. 60 Minutes]

[Excerpt]

"As gamers and spectators prepare for the 2025 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas on May 27, a cultural conversation around AI and ethics in gambling is brewing.

Though the gambling industry is expected to exceed $876 billion worldwide by 2026, there is a growing concern that unregulated AI systems can exploit vulnerable individuals and profit from them.

UF researcher Nasim Binesh, Ph.D., M.B.A., an assistant professor in the UF College of Health & Human Performance's Department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management, is exploring this concern, having published a study in the International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration about identifying the risks and ethics of using AI in gambling."