NBC News; Tech leaders discuss A.I. ethics and regulation at Aspen Ideas Festival
"Entrepreneur Eric Schmidt, professor Walter Isaacson, and MIT dean Daniel Huttenlocher discuss how to regulate A.I. while maximizing its positive influence. NBCUniversal News Group is the media partner of Aspen Ideas Festival."
Bloomberg; Buolamwini: Optimistic About Using Ethical AI Systems
"Algorithmic Justice League founder and MIT AI Researcher Joy Buolamwini recently sat down with President Biden in a closed door meeting about AI. She joins Ed Ludlow to discuss her meeting and the rise of the AI hype, what the tech industry is getting right and wrong, and the need for AI regulation."
Bill Bray , CIMSEC; WHAT I HAVE LEARNED TEACHING ETHICS TO MIDSHIPMEN
"Regardless of the journeys these midshipmen take, all will face difficult ethical choices as officers. Some will be of the life-and-death variety. Many will be immensely consequential, especially for those who choose to make the Navy or Marine Corps a career and ascend to command.
Whether better studies someday shed more light on the efficacy of ethics instruction, I believe the Naval Academy’s Ethics course reinforces the seekers and plants seeds for growth in the other students. Someday, in the crucible, these future officers will have to rely on their knowledge and character to make the best decision in an agonizing situation. When that moment comes, they are on their own."
Nina Totenberg, NPR; Supreme Court ethics v. pride, prejudice and political movers and shakers
"The annual cascade of Supreme Court decisions this week will make lots of headlines, but polls show that Americans of all political stripes are increasingly troubled by the lack of a code of ethics for the high court.
Chief Justice John Roberts has more than once said the court is working on an ethics code for itself, but so far, crickets.
Meanwhile, investigative reporters are finding that Supreme Court conduct is rich ground to plow."
ZVIKA KLEIN, The Jerusalem Post; Over half of Americans report targeted online harassment - ADL survey
"A recent survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has revealed on Wednesday a troubling trend of online hate and harassment, affecting more than half of all Americans. The fifth annual survey found that 52 percent of respondents reported experiencing some form of online hate or harassment in their lifetimes, marking a significant increase from previous years.
The survey, which sampled 2,139 individuals across the United States, uncovered a surge in reports of hate and harassment over the past 12 months, affecting various demographic groups. Notably, the LGBT community, Black/African American individuals and Muslims experienced the highest increases in hate and harassment, with rates of 47 percent, 38 percent, and 38 percent, respectively.
Shockingly, transgender individuals faced the highest rate of harassment, with a staggering 76 percent reporting incidents of online abuse in their lifetimes. In the past year alone, 51 percent of transgender respondents experienced harassment, the highest among any reported demographic category."
Alexandra Alter and , The New York Times; How Review-Bombing Can Tank a Book Before It’s Published
"Reviews can be weaponized, in some cases derailing a book’s publication long before its release."
Bina Venkataraman, The Washington Post; AI ghosts are coming. But must we perform from beyond the grave?
"At a minimum, consider putting your wishes regarding an AI avatar into your will. You might also exert some control by creating your own ghost in advance instead of leaving critical design choices to your descendants."
The Times of Israel; Ethics in the digital era
"A new course offered by Dr. Jeremy Fogel at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science presents fresh perspectives on issues that Computer Science students at Reichman University will deal with in their careers. According to Dr. Fogel, a lecturer in Jewish philosophy, “The role of an educational institution is not only to transmit information, but also to cultivate and encourage the development of ethical thinking amongst its students and give them the space to do so.”
Students are being asked to discuss moral issues that have arisen as a result of the Digital Revolution, using the viewpoints of great philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, etc. Dr. Fogel believes that analyzing current digital developments through the eyes of these philosophers might give students some insights about these developments. Since reality constantly changes with new initiatives and inventions, it has become very hard to explore their ethical outcomes...
Dr. Fogel explains that there’s an ethical component in every action we take in our lives, such as what we eat, where we work, etc. When our students develop their new application or software, they will have to ask themselves, “What are the moral and ethical issues that could arise by using this?” Dr. Fogel also says that “The students I have met, want to make the world a better place. I am not teaching them anything new; they already have these ethical questions in their minds. I am just giving them the tools and inspiration to try and answer them.”"
Juliana Kim, NPR; Harvard professor who studies dishonesty is accused of falsifying data
"Francesca Gino, a prominent professor at Harvard Business School known for researching dishonesty and unethical behavior, has been accused of submitting work that contained falsified results.
Gino has authored dozens of captivating studies in the field of behavioral science — consulting for some of the world's biggest companies like Goldman Sachs and Google, as well as dispensing advice on news outlets, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and even NPR.
But over the past two weeks, several people, including a colleague, came forward with claims that Gino tampered with data in at least four papers."
"To Maurice Schweitzer, a University of Pennsylvania professor, it seemed logical to team up with Francesca Gino, a rising star at Harvard Business School. They were both fascinated by the unseemly side of human behavior — misleading, cheating, lying in order to profit — and together, they published eight studies over nearly a decade.
Now, Schweitzer wonders if he was the one being deceived."
Kirby Ferguson, Bloomberg Law; ChatGPT and Generative AI Are Hits! Can Copyright Law Stop Them?
"Getty Images, a top supplier of visual content for license, has sued two of the leading companies offering generative AI tools. Will intellectual property laws spell doom for the burgeoning generative AI business? We explore the brewing battle over copyright and AI in this video.
Video features:
Scott Heller , The New York Times; 75 Years After ‘The Lottery’ Was Published, the Chills Linger
Stephen King, David Sedaris, Carmen Maria Machado and others on how Shirley Jackson’s eerie classic first got under their skin.
"Josephine Decker
Filmmaker, “Shirley”
The first time was in middle school, and I think it affirmed my nascent understanding that the world has cruel rules, and no one understands why they are there. I recently worked with a teen mother whom Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) separated from her child for two weeks because her partner “smelled like marijuana.” No actual evidence. Shirley Jackson managed to get to the core of something incredibly true, which is that people will be attacked, without mercy, and society will approve. Because it’s something we’ve always done."
"Newly released and previously unreported court documents that belonged to Justice John Paul Stevens, who led the marble palace’s liberal wing, show just how aware the justices were of charges that the appearance of impropriety could shake the public’s faith in the institution. They also show just how quick they were to push back against these concerns.
The Library of Congress opened the papers to the public on May 2.
The issues the justices wrestled with back then echo the controversies engulfing the court today. Although the court often puts up a united front in public, the documents provide a rare glimpse into its inner workings and show that at least one justice — Stevens — found Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s rationale for not recusing himself from a major case to be insufficient."
Benjamin Weiser, The New York Times; ChatGPT Lawyers Are Ordered to Consider Seeking Forgiveness
"A Manhattan judge on Thursday imposed a $5,000 fine on two lawyers who gave him a legal brief full of made-up cases and citations, all generated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT.
The judge, P. Kevin Castel of Federal District Court, criticized the lawyers harshly and ordered them to send a copy of his opinion to each of the real-life judges whose names appeared in the fictitious filing.
But Judge Castel wrote that he would not require the lawyers, Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca, whom he referred to as respondents, to apologize to those judges, “because a compelled apology is not a sincere apology.”
“Any decision to apologize is left to respondents,” the judge added."
Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian ; Alito’s wrongdoing makes a supreme court ethics overhaul an imperative
"What’s to be done about these persistent judicial ethics lapses?...
In 2019, the well-respected Brennan Center for Justice, in an extensive report, urged the court to voluntarily adopt a formal ethics code, rather than wait for Congress to impose one. It also called for the court to explain justices’ reasons for recusal, in order to provide more transparency, and to strengthen its informal – and all-too-weak – practices governing gifts and financial disclosures.
All good and necessary ideas. And it would be ideal for the court to get to work on all of that.
But since there seems little appetite to do so, it’s left up to Congress to do it for them. Checks, balances and all of that.
Today’s supreme court is extremely powerful, increasingly political and decreasingly trusted. It’s never been more obvious that ethics reform needs to happen now."
Karen Sloan, Reuters; 'Snitch' rule adopted by California bar amid ethics scandals
"The California Supreme Court on Wednesday adopted a lawyer professional misconduct reporting rule that brings it in line with every other state.
Lawyers in California starting on Aug. 1 will be required to report fraud, misappropriation of funds and other criminal acts or conduct that raise "a substantial question" about another lawyer's "honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer."
Adoption of the so-called “snitch rule” comes after intense debate within the State Bar of California, which recommended the rule change to the court earlier this month."
Kelly Jensen, Book Riot ; WHY DON’T LIBRARY PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMS REQUIRE AN ETHICS COURSE?
[Kip Currier: Very interesting to read this author's experiences and thoughts regarding the important role of ethics decision-making and curricula in MLIS Programs.
In the University of Pittsburgh's MLIS Program, Dr. Toni Carbo and the late Father Stephen Almagno pioneered an elective Information Ethics course for many years.
In 2011, I relaunched that Information Ethics course, adding topics like Cyberbullying/Ethics of Social Media and IP/Open Movements. Several years later, I revamped the course again as LIS 2194: Ethics of Data, Information, and Emerging Technologies, building in cutting edge topic areas, e.g. ethical issues of AI, Internet of Things (IoT), Drones, Autonomous Vehicles, and Killer and Helper Robots. Two of the course's learning outcomes directly address the author's stated desire for emerging information professionals to attain more experience with ethical decision-making:
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The author also mentions the importance of information professionals gaining greater awareness of legal and ethical issues, with which I wholeheartedly agree. In my LIS 2700: Managing and Leading Information Services course (formerly a required MLIS core course and now an elective since 2020), we delve into management and leadership-related legal and ethical issues throughout the course, including a two-week block, with one week specifically examining legal issues of management/leadership and a subsequent week exploring ethical issues. Students in the course also grapple with hypothetical and real-world ethical dilemmas in order to become more comfortable with addressing not-easily-answered ethical challenges.
Regarding a required course that includes information on ethics, Pitt's MLIS Program in 2020 inaugurated a new required core curriculum. One of the new core courses is LIS 2040: The Information Professional in Communities, which I have solo taught and also taught with a colleague. Ethics is embedded throughout this course, with a stand-alone unit on ethics, ethical codes, ethical decision-making and models, etc. Several assignments also require students to conduct analysis of bonafide case studies and to spot key components of ethical decision-making, such as identification of stakeholders and issues, facts known and unknown, and lessons learned.]
[Excerpt from WHY DON’T LIBRARY PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMS REQUIRE AN ETHICS COURSE?]
"My program did not have a course on ethics or the law as it pertains to libraries. Were those topics covered in other core classes? They were. But was an entire course dedicated to working through the decision-making models taking ethics and laws into account? Nope. And even today, 15 years later, the only required core course in the program is a “Perspectives on Information,” which most likely covers ethics and law in some capacity, but not over an entire semester...
Without more focus on ethical and legal responsibilities of librarians, where do they turn when a tricky situation emerges? Where and how do they build a decision-making model taking into account both the legal needs and ethical needs of the situation in question?"
Dave Davies , Fresh Air, NPR; Facing book bans and restrictions on lessons, teachers are scared and self-censoring
"Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson explains how new laws about teaching race, racism, gender identity and sexuality have created new fears and burdens in schools and classrooms."
Tom Dreisbach, NPR ; What we've learned from pro-Trump attorney John Eastman's state bar trial
"Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, told NPR in an interview that those actions represent an attempt by the legal community to uphold professional standards.
"Lawyers hold positions of public trust in our society," Levinson said. "There's a reason that we have to take and pass moral character exams, that we have to agree to certain rules of the profession. Because we do have a lot of control over our clients' lives and their finances and even on larger policy issues."
Levinson said Eastman's defense faces serious challenges."
Jennifer Hassan, The Washington Post; Mattel once sued over the ‘Barbie Girl’ song — before learning to love it
"“Mattel lost all those cases and got the message,” Tushnet said. “These were important precedents protecting commentary at a time when the internet was just allowing people to reach larger audiences without traditional gatekeepers. Then the ‘Barbie Girl’ case confirmed that traditional, commercial media also had the freedom to parody and comment on well-known trademarks.”"
Devin Coldewey, TechCrunch; If the ‘Secret Invasion’ title credits aren’t an ethical use of AI art, what is?
"In the case of Secret Invasion, a show rooted in the idea of alien beings impersonating humans, Method likely pitched AI-generated imagery as a timely visual parallel. What could be better to suggest uncanny imitation and the discomfort it brings? And what’s more, they probably pitched this look way back in 2021 or early 2022 in order to ship it on time. That rather contradicts the idea that Marvel is turning to AI as a result of the writers strike or as some other cost-cutting measure."
Paul Waldman , The Washington. Post; Welcome to the Supreme Court, where corruption has no meaning
"There are two seminal rulings that show how the court has altered the relationship between public officials and the ultrawealthy who want things from them: The first is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), which — along with a series of subsequent casesthat opened the floodgates to ever-increasing political spending — insisted that we shouldn’t worry about the corrupting influence of all that money.
The second was McDonnell v. United States (2016), in which the court overturned the conviction of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, who had accepted $175,000 in gifts and loans — including a $20,000 shopping spree for his wife, the use of a Ferrari and a Rolex watch — from a donor who was seeking the state’s help in promoting his business. The court ruled that since McDonnell only partially came through for the donor — he set up a series of meetings with the donor and other officials — he hadn’t taken “official acts” in exchange for the money and gifts, and therefore he was innocent. More cases dismissing corruption accusations followed.
“This court majority has put in place a radically diminished notion of what corruption is,” said Michael Waldman, head of the Brennan Center for Justice and author of a new book on the Supreme Court. “There’s an ideology that rich people throwing their money around in a way that benefits these officials is not corrupting unless you have a receipt showing ‘I admit to receiving a bribe.’”
The result is a world in which the ultrawealthy face few constraints in developing problematic relationships, and those they want to influence, whether judges or politicians, can enjoy the fruits of their generosity unfettered by pesky rules and regulations."
Jack Stripling, The Washington Post; The professor is canceled. Now what?
"Experts who spoke with The Post generally agreed that social media posts about matters of public concern are typically considered protected speech. A university that tries to fire a professor for tweets alone is likely to face strong head winds, including lawsuits or reputational damage, said Risa L. Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law at Cornell University and general counsel of the American Association of University Professors. That’s one reason investigations often focus on a professor’s classroom conduct, such as whether a professor targeted a student based on race, sex or religion."
JOSHUA ADEGOKE, Make Use Of; Data Ethics: 9 Codes of Conduct Every Data Scientist Should Follow
"You Must be Ethical as a Data Scientist
Your decisions affect everything from company business plans to criminal justice systems. So, you shouldn’t make them lightly. Always be honest, ethical, and meticulous in your work to protect people from existing ethical dilemmas across your industry and other tech fields."
"In recent years, AI companies have been publicly chided for generating machine learning algorithms that discriminate against historically marginalized groups. To quell that criticism, many companies pledged to ensure their products are fair, transparent, and accountable, but these promises are frequently criticized as being mere “ethics washing,” says Sanna Ali, who recently received her PhD from the Stanford University Department of Communication in the School of Humanities and Sciences. “There’s a concern that these companies talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.”
To explore whether that’s the case, Ali interviewed AI ethics workers from some of the largest companies in the field. The research project, co-authored with Stanford Assistant Professor of Communication Angèle Christin, Google researcher Andrew Smart, and Stanford W.M Keck Professor and Professor of Management Science and Engineering Riitta Katila, was partially funded by a seed grant from Stanford HAI and published in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency(FAccT ’23). The study found that ethics initiatives and interventions were difficult to implement in the tech industry’s institutional environment. Specifically, Ali found, teams were largely under-resourced and under-supported by leadership, and they lacked authority to act on problems they identified."
Reuters via NBC ; Supreme Court's Alito defends against ethics questions
"Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday published a commentary in The Wall Street Journal defending himself from questions about his ethical conduct raised in an article by news outlet ProPublica.
The commentary on the WSJ website addressed what Alito referred to as “charges” by journalists from ProPublica that he had failed to recuse from cases in which an entity connected to hedge fund founder Paul Singer was a party and to report certain gifts on mandatory annual financial disclosure forms, such as a private flight to Alaska for a fishing trip.
“Neither charge is valid,” Alito wrote."
, WSJ ; Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads Its Readers
"The publication levels false charges about Supreme Court recusal, financial disclosures and a 2008 fishing trip."
Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica; Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court
"In the years that followed, Singer’s hedge fund came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media. In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion.
Alito did not report the 2008 fishing trip on his annual financial disclosures. By failing to disclose the private jet flight Singer provided, Alito appears to have violated a federal law that requires justices to disclose most gifts, according to ethics law experts.
Experts said they could not identify an instance of a justice ruling on a case after receiving an expensive gift paid for by one of the parties."
ANDREW ATTERBURY, Politico; Florida school district and state ed leaders sued over restricting kids book on penguins
"A group of students alongside the authors of a children’s book centered on a penguin family with two fathers sued a central Florida school district and top state education officials Tuesday claiming that limiting its availability is a violation of free expression.
The lawsuit, one of several challenging Florida’s policies for launching local book objections, aims to require Lake County officials to make the book — “And Tango Makes Three” — available to all students."
Anthony Aycock, The Washington Post ; The largely forgotten book ban case that went up to the Supreme Court
"Record efforts to ban books are fueling fights in Texas, Virginia and across the country. Just this week, a group including free-speech advocates, authors, parents and the publisher Penguin Random House filed a federal lawsuit against a Florida school district over the removal of books covering gender and LGBTQ issues.
Yet only one previous case of a library book ban has ended up before the Supreme Court: Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico. And, outside law school classrooms, it has largely been forgotten."
Fanny Potkin and Panu Wongcha-um , Reuters; Exclusive: Southeast Asia to set 'guardrails' on AI with new governance code
"Southeast Asian countries are drawing up governance and ethics guidelines for artificial intelligence (AI) that will impose "guardrails" on the booming technology, five officials with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters...
The other ASEAN countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Those governments were not immediately reachable for comment."
Steven Lee Myers and , The New York Times; G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation Ahead of 2024 Election
"On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online."
Peter Grad , Tech Xplore; Ethical, legal issues raised by ChatGPT training literature
""Knowing what books a model has been trained on is critical to assess such sources of bias," they said.
"Our work here has shown that OpenAI models know about books in proportion to their popularity on the web."
Works detected in the Berkeley study include "Harry Potter," "1984," "Lord of the Rings," "Hunger Games," "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," "Fahrenheit 451," "A Game of Thrones" and "Dune."
While ChatGPT was found to be quite knowledgeable about works in the public domain, lesser known works such as Global Anglophone Literature—readings aimed beyond core English-speaking nations that include Africa, Asia and the Caribbean—were largely unknown. Also overlooked were works from the Black Book Interactive Project and Black Caucus Library Association award winners.
"We should be thinking about whose narrative experiences are encoded in these models, and how that influences other behaviors," Bamman, one of the Berkeley researchers, said in a recent Tweet. He added, "popular texts are probably not good barometers of model performance [given] the bias toward sci-fi/fantasy.""
AARIAN MARSHALL, Wired; A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Takes a Wild Turn
"Amid competing letters, statements, and legal paperwork there’s a fundamental question, one that Massachusetts tried to find the answer to: Who owns the reams of data created by today’s increasingly software- and computer-chip-enabled vehicles?"
