Hillsborough schools cut back on Shakespeare, citing new Florida rules; Tampa Bay Times, August 7, 2023

Marlene Sokol , Tampa Bay Times; Hillsborough schools cut back on Shakespeare, citing new Florida rules

"There are ways that students can read these works in their entirety, district officials said. If a student can obtain a copy of one of the books or plays, perhaps with the help of their parents, they can do so.

But teachers are advised, during class lessons, to stay with the approved guidelines, which call for excerpts. If not, in extreme circumstances, they might have to defend themselves against a parent complaint or a disciplinary case at their school...

When asked if students could have that caliber of experience through excerpts, he said, “absolutely not.”"

The Small-Town Library That Became a Culture War Battleground; The Nation, August 7, 2023

SASHA ABRAMSKY, The Nation; The Small-Town Library That Became a Culture War Battleground

"Over the past couple of years, movements that seek to ban books with LGBTQ+ or racial justice themes have picked up steam in GOP-controlled states around the country. Pro-censorship groups have sprung up at both the local and national levels, pioneered by a Florida outfit with the Orwellian appellation Moms for Liberty. The organization is endorsed by Steve Bannon, the Heritage Foundation, and other avatars of the hard right and has more than 200 local chapters. Egged on by such groups, legislatures in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, Indiana, and other states have either passed or are considering policies restricting what sorts of books can be on school library shelves or lent to children from public libraries. The tiny town of Dayton is one of the latest flash points of this effort to limit what young readers can access."

How book-banning campaigns have changed the lives and education of librarians – they now need to learn how to plan for safety and legally protect themselves; The Conversation, July 20, 2023

Nicole A. Cooke Baker Endowed Chair and Professor of Library and Information Science, University of South Carolina, The Conversation ; ; How book-banning campaigns have changed the lives and education of librarians – they now need to learn how to plan for safety and legally protect themselves

"Library professionals maintain that books are what education scholar Rudine Sims Bishop called the “mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors” that allow readers to learn about themselves and others and gain empathy for those who are different from them. 

The drive to challenge, ban or censor books has not only changed the lives of librarians across the nation. It’s also changing the way librarians are now educated to enter the profession. As a library school educator, I hear the anecdotes, questions and concerns from library workers who are on the front lines of the current fight and are not sure how to react or respond. 

What once, and still is, a curriculum that includes book selection, program planning and serving diverse communities in the classroom, my faculty colleagues and I are now expanding to include discussions and resources on how students, once they become professional librarians, can physically, legally and financially protect themselves and their organizations."

Houston’s ‘Little Banned Library’ highlights literature as Texas leads country in number of books banned;Click2Houston, August 8, 2023

 Zachery Lashway, Click2Houston; Houston’s ‘Little Banned Library’ highlights literature as Texas leads country in number of books banned

"House Bill 900 goes into effect on Sept. 1. This law regulates and establishes new standards for reading material at public school libraries. Book vendors will assign ratings to books based on sexual references. Depending on the level of the rating, a child might need parental consent to check out the book, or the book could be banned and removed from the bookshelves.

Kasey Meehan is PEN America Freedom to Read Program Director.

“An effort to really suppress free speech,” Meehan said.

PEN America is a national non-profit organization that defends and celebrates free expression through literature.

“So, one of the, you know, pieces of rhetoric that we’re constantly pushing up against this idea that there’s obscene material in schools or pornography in schools, and by no definition of those terms is that the case. These books are intended to be in schools.” Meehan said. “Sometimes it can be individuals in the district, in the school district, or in the community that are challenging books. And increasingly, though, we also see the role of legislation influencing what books are available.”

Minnesota colleges grappling with ethics and potential benefits of ChatGPT; Star Tribune, August 6, 2023

Hannah Pinski , Star Tribune ; Minnesota colleges grappling with ethics and potential benefits of ChatGPT

"While some Minnesota academics are concerned about students using ChatGPT to cheat, others are trying to figure out the best way to teach and use the tool in the classroom.

"The tricky thing about this is that you've got this single tool that can be used very much unethically in an educational setting," said Darin Ulness, a chemistry professor at Concordia College in Moorhead. "But at the same time, it can be such a valuable tool that we can't not use it.""

Making Trouble That Matters; American Libraries, July 19, 2023

 Emily Drabinski , American Libraries; Making Trouble That Matters

"Library workers like us teach people to read, give queer kids a safe place, and help people apply for jobs, connect to government services, and access broadband internet from our buildings and our hotspots. We facilitate scientific breakthroughs, shape research in the humanities and social sciences, and create information access tools. We structure systematic reviews, unjam staplers, read stories to children, drive bookmobiles, show people to the bathroom, program author talks, and build open access institutional repositories.

Our work matters. This is why we do it...

While none of this is exactly new—libraries have always been sites of social and political struggle—I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like things are as hard and as scary as they’ve ever been.

This is why we need one another, and why we need the American Library Association (ALA). We need to make trouble—good trouble, the kind of trouble that matters, the kind of trouble I became a librarian to get into—and we need to make it together."

Inside The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy; Library Journal, August 3, 2023

Claire Woodcock  , Library Journal; Inside The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

"Most libraries don’t own their own ebooks. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to LJ readers, yet it’s a statement that continues to confound elected officials and administrators who get an astounding amount of say in how much money public and academic libraries are allotted.

This is one of the reasons I, along with my coauthors Sarah Lamdan, Michael Weinberg, and Jason Schultz at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at New York University (NYU) Law, published our recent report, The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy: How Publishers and Platforms Have Reshaped the Way We Read in the Digital Age. In nearly 60 pages, this report takes a hard look at how license agreements dictate what consumers—both individual and institutional—get to do with their digital book collections."

Justice Elena Kagan pushes for US Supreme Court to adopt own ethics code; The Oregonian, August 3, 2023

 Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian; Justice Elena Kagan pushes for US Supreme Court to adopt own ethics code

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on Thursday said she hopes the nation’s high court will adopt its own code of ethics and that the nine justices are in discussions about doing so with a wide variety of opinions.

Unlike Justice Samuel Alito, who said last week that Congress lacks the power to impose an ethics code on the Supreme Court, Kagan countered that it does.

Yet she said she believes Congress has its limits...

Kagan said she’s hopeful the Supreme Court will adopt its own code of conduct and take the question about what Congress can or cannot do “out of play.”

“It’s not a secret for me to say we have been discussing this issue,” she said. “The nine of us have a variety of views about that.”"

Gallup poll finds most Americans give Biden administration a negative ethics score; The Hill, August 3, 2023

 ALEX GANGITANO, The Hill; Gallup poll finds most Americans give Biden administration a negative ethics score

"Americans rate the ethics of the Biden administration more negatively than positively, with only 42 percent of people giving it a positive rating, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.

The 42 percent ethics score given to the “top Biden administration officials,” in the poll’s language, is just above the 37- and 38-percent scores given to former President Trump’s top officials during his administration. The poll is the first ethics assessment from Gallup since President Biden took office.

The poll found that 34 percent of Americans find the Biden officials’ ethics standards good, and 37 percent find them poor. Among Democrats, 84 percent rated the Biden administrations’ ethics as excellent or good, while only 6 percent of Republicans gave them that rating."

Why the Trump trial should be televised; The Washington Post, August 3, 2023

 Neal Katyal , The Washington Post; Why the Trump trial should be televised

"The upcoming trial of United States v. Donald J. Trump will rank with Marbury v. Madison, Brown v. Board of Education and Dred Scott v. Sandford as a defining moment for our history and our values as a people. And yet, federal law will prevent all but a handful of Americans from actually seeing what is happening in the trial. We will be relegated to perusing cold transcripts and secondhand descriptions. The law must be changed...

Most important, live (or near-live) broadcasting lets Americans see for themselves what is happening in the courtroom and would go a long way toward reassuring them that justice is being done. They would be less vulnerable to the distortions and misrepresentations that will inevitably be part of the highly charged, politicized discussion flooding the country as the trial plays out. Justice Louis Brandeis’s observation that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” is absolutely apt here."

Is facial recognition identifying you? Are there ‘dog whistles’ in ChatGPT? Ethics in artificial intelligence gets unpacked; Northeastern Global News, August 3, 2023

 Cesareo Contreras, Northeastern Global News; Is facial recognition identifying you? Are there ‘dog whistles’ in ChatGPT? Ethics in artificial intelligence gets unpacked

"The graduate-level program at Northeastern is designed to teach researchers how to examine artificial intelligence and data systems through an ethical framework. The course is conducted by the Ethics Institute, an interdisciplinary effort supported by the Office of the Provost, the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH) and the Department of Philosophy and Religion...

The aim of the course was to both provide students with some background on the technical components underpinning these systems as well as the frameworks used to adequately analyze their ethical impact. 

Throughout the seminar, students each day were tasked with providing oral arguments based on the day’s reading. Each student was also tasked with developing an original thesis around the topic of discussion and presented it the final week of class. 

One central topic of discussion was algorithmic fairness, Creel says."  

A More Ethical Approach to Employing Contractors; Harvard Business Review, August 2, 2023

 Catherine Bracy, Harvard Business Review; A More Ethical Approach to Employing Contractors

"Companies that do not adopt high-road contracting practices create a race to the bottom, degrading job quality and career mobility. Enacting high-road practices, and requiring them of any vendor your company works with, helps mitigate the potential for worker harm in the first place which helps reduce future liability and risk."

Trump Told Pence ‘You’re Too Honest’ When He Objected to Jan. 6 Scheme; Rolling Stone, August 1, 2023

TIM DICKINSON , Rolling Stone; Trump Told Pence ‘You’re Too Honest’ When He Objected to Jan. 6 Scheme

"The new indictment of Donald Trump on conspiracy charges related to his attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election makes clear that the then-president not only made false claims about who won the presidency, but “knew that they were false.”

Trump’s tortured relationship with the truth is highlighted in an exchange he allegedly had with Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 1, 2021. Trump, the indictment says, called Pence and “berated him” because Pence opposed efforts to claim that he alone had the power, in his ceremonial role presiding over the counting of the votes of the Electoral College, to reject the official tallies from the states. 

As recounted in the indictment, Pence told Trump that — as he understood the laws of our land — there was no constitutional authority invested in the vice president to make such a move.

Trump then allegedly lit into Pence, telling him: “You’re too honest.”"

Henrietta Lacks' descendants reach a settlement over the use of her 'stolen' cells; NPR, August 1, 2023

Joe Hernandez,  NPR; Henrietta Lacks' descendants reach a settlement over the use of her 'stolen' cells

"The family of Henrietta Lacks has reached a settlement with a science and technology company that it says used cells taken without Lacks' consent in the 1950s to develop products it later sold for a profit."

Montgomery County votes to restrict access to certain books at public libraries; KHOU11, July 31, 2023

Marcelino Benito, KHOU11; Montgomery County votes to restrict access to certain books at public libraries

"Commissioners Court ultimately voted to restrict "explicit" or "objectionable" material in public libraries from anyone under 18. That restriction includes LGBTQ-themed books."

Campbell County library board fires director; hundreds attend special meeting; Gillette News Record, July 28, 2023

 Jonathan Gallardo, Gillette News Record; Campbell County library board fires director; hundreds attend special meeting

"The Campbell County Public Library board voted 4-1 to fire director Terri Lesley during a special meeting Friday afternoon, effective immediately.

No reason for Lesley's firing was given by the board...

After the vote, Lesley walked out of the room as most of the audience gave her a standing ovation."

The Ethics of Making (and Publishing) AI Art; Lifehacker, July 31, 2023

Brendan Hesse, Lifehacker; The Ethics of Making (and Publishing) AI Art

"This post is part of Lifehacker’s “Living With AI” series: We investigate the current state of AI, walk through how it can be useful (and how it can’t), and evaluate where this revolutionary tech is heading next. Read more here...

Are there ethical uses of AI art?

Despite the ethical and legal issues, some argue there is a place for these tools, and that they can even be helpful to professional artists...

Given all these concerns, it’s hard to recommend AI art creators, even if the intent to use them is innocent. Nevertheless, these tools are here, and unless some future regulations force them to change, we can’t stop folks from giving them a try. But, if you do, please keep in mind the legal and ethical issues associated with making and sharing AI art, think twice about sharing it, and never claim an AI-generated image as your own work."

The Research Scandal at Stanford Is More Common Than You Think; The New York Times, July 30, 2023

 Theo Baker, The New York Times; The Research Scandal at Stanford Is More Common Than You Think

"To address research misconduct, it must first be brought into the light and examined in the open. The underlying reasons scientists might feel tempted to cheat must be thoroughly understood. Journals, scientists, academic institutions and the reporters who write about them have been too slow to open these difficult conversations.

Seeking the truth is a shared obligation. It is incumbent on all those involved in the scientific method to focus more vigorously on challenging and reproducing findings and ensuring that substantiated allegations of data manipulation are not ignored or forgotten — whether you’re a part-time research assistant or the president of an elite university. In a cultural moment when science needs all the credibility it can muster, ensuring scientific integrity and earning public trust should be the highest priority.

Theo Baker is a rising sophomore at Stanford University. He is the son of Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The Times."

Israelis’ defiance of Netanyahu holds a lesson for anyone who cares about democracy; The Guardian, July 28, 2023

 Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian; Israelis’ defiance of Netanyahu holds a lesson for anyone who cares about democracy

"That prompts a troubling question for all those engaged in the fight against nationalist populism, wherever they are. If all the strength and numbers Israel’s pro-democracy movement has mustered are not enough, what exactly will it take? Can it really be that a nation is powerless to stop a leader bent on destroying his country to save himself? That thought is almost too bleak to contemplate. Which is why everyone who cares about democracy, including those who are distant from Israel, should desperately want those protesters to succeed. We need them to win."

Houston school district to turn libraries into disciplinary centers; The Guardian, July 29, 2023

 Erum Salam, The Guardian; Houston school district to turn libraries into disciplinary centers

"The largest school district in Texas announced its libraries will be eliminated and replaced with discipline centers in the new school year.

Houston independent school district announced earlier this summer that librarian and media-specialist positions in 28 schools will be eliminated as part of superintendent Mike Miles’s “new education system” initiative.

Teachers at these schools will soon have the option to send misbehaving students to these discipline centers, or “team centers’” – designated areas where they will continue to learn remotely...

Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, condemned the district’s move and said the solution to the problem of behavioral conduct was not to revoke access to books, especially in these underserved communities.

He said: “Are there students who need additional support? Yes, and I am 100% supportive of that. But it’s not an eithe/or. You don’t close the libraries, remove the librarians, and simply have the books on the shelf. What about all the other students? What are you saying to them?”"

Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials; AP, July 29, 2023

AP; Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials

"Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday."

No, Justice Alito. Congress should not butt out on Supreme Court ethics.; The Washington Post, July 30, 2023

Ruth Marcus , The Washington Post; No, Justice Alito. Congress should not butt out on Supreme Court ethics.

"Since 1948, Congress has required federal judges — including Supreme Court justices — to recuse themselves from deciding cases in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Is that unconstitutional? Since 1978, it has required federal judges — including justices — to file financial disclosure forms. Is that unconstitutional? (The justices, including Alito, say they voluntarilyfollow those rules.) Since 1989, it has imposed strict limits on outside income and gifts for federal judges — including justices. Is that unconstitutional? Just last year, Congress amended the ethics rules to mandate that federal judges — including justices — promptly disclose their stock transactions. Is that unconstitutional?

Why would it be? The Alito argument, such as it is, proves too much. It would mean that Congress could not make it a crime for justices to accept bribes. And why would Congress have power to impose ethics rules on the executive branch but not on the judiciary — or are those unconstitutional, too?

We don’t want Congress punishing the court for issuing decisions with which lawmakers disagree. Respect for the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary counsels caution in this area. But it does not dictate hands off, no matter what Alito might wish."

Trump attorney calls him ‘the most ethical American I know’ in wake of superseding indictment ; The Hill, July 30, 2023

LAUREN SFORZA  , The Hill; Trump attorney calls him ‘the most ethical American I know’ in wake of superseding indictment

"Alina Habba, an attorney for Donald Trump, praised the former president for being “the most ethical American” she knows after he was hit with fresh superseding charges that accused he and his handlers of deleting footage sought by the federal government in a classified documents case.

“When he has his turn in court and when we get to file our papers, you will see that every single video, every single surveillance tape that was requested, was turned over,” Habba told Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.” 

“If President Trump didn’t want something turned over, I assure you, that is something that could have been done, but he never would act like that. He is the most ethical American I know.”"

A museum’s historic human remains are now the center of an ethics clash; The Washington Post, July 27, 2023

 Maura Judkis, The Washington Post; A museum’s historic human remains are now the center of an ethics clash

"The Mütter is a place for people who don’t fit in. And now, Eisenstein fears he can’t fit in here, either.

“People who have always felt othered” — for their physical abilities, their sexuality, their neurodivergence, their interest in death — “find their home in the museum,” says Polasky, the petitioner, who is now a curator for the British Online Archives.

Whether they can continue to do so depends on the answer to one question: What happens when the ethics of the 19th century meet those of the 21st?"

Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren: When It Comes to Big Tech, Enough Is Enough; The New York Times, July 27, 2023

Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren , The New York Times; Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren: When It Comes to Big Tech, Enough Is Enough

"For more than a century, Congress has established regulatory agencies to preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Commission took on railroads. In 1914 the Federal Trade Commission took on unfair methods of competition and later unfair and deceptive acts and practices. In 1934 the Federal Communications Commission took on radio (and then television). In 1975 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took on nuclear power, and in 1977 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took on electricity generation and transmission. We need a nimble, adaptable, new agency with expertise, resources and authority to do the same for Big Tech.

Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation’s biggest tech companies — like Meta, Google and Amazon — to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans’ privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech.

Our legislation would guarantee common-sense safeguards for everyone who uses tech platforms."

The Guardian’s editorial code has been updated – here’s what to expect; The Guardian, July 27, 2023

 Elisabeth Ribbans, The Guardian; The Guardian’s editorial code has been updated – here’s what to expect

"Much has changed since 2011 – at the Guardian, in the way society shares information and opinions, and in the world at large. The updates reflect this. But as “the embodiment of the Guardian’s values”, which is how the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, described the code in an email to staff today, the standards by which journalists agree to be held accountable, while geared (as far as possible) to the modern environment, seek to maintain something immutable: trust."

The Supreme Court’s excuses for ethics violations insult our intelligence; The Hill, July 25, 2023

 STEVEN LUBET, The Hill; The Supreme Court’s excuses for ethics violations insult our intelligence

"The three justices’ hollow rationalizations display a patronizing expectation that the public will ultimately buy whatever they say, no matter how implausible. 

But to paraphrase the late Justice Robert Jackson: Supreme Court justices do not get the last word because they are infallible; they only believe themselves infallible because they get the last word. When it comes to judicial ethics, that has to change."

If artificial intelligence uses your work, it should pay you; The Washington Post, July 26, 2023

 Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Washington Post; If artificial intelligence uses your work, it should pay you

"Renowned technologists and economists, including Jaron Lanier and E. Glen Weyl, have long argued that Big Tech should not be allowed to monetize people’s data without compensating them. This concept of “data dignity” was largely responding to the surveillance advertising business models of companies such as Google and Facebook, but Lanier and Weyl also pointed out, quite presciently, that the principle would only grow more vital as AI rose to prominence...

When I do a movie, and I sign my contract with a movie studio, I agree that the studio will own the copyright to the movie. Which feels fair and non-threatening. The studio paid to make the movie, so it should get to monetize the movie however it wants. But if I had known that by signing this contract and allowing the studio to be the movie’s sole copyright holder, I would then be allowing the studio to use that intellectual property as training data for an AI that would put me out of a job forever, I would never have signed that contract."

Public libraries are the latest front in culture war battle over books; The Washington Post, July 25, 2023

Gregory S. Schneider, The Washington Post ; Public libraries are the latest front in culture war battle over books

"Resident Tina Johnson, 49, followed, saying she had spent 20 years working with children as a behavioral therapist. She pointed out that banned books disproportionately feature minorities and marginalized people.

“Banning books is not about books. Banning books is about people,” she said. “It’s about telling some children in our community their family is perverse and unwelcome. … Samuels is just one library, in our little county, but it is the front line, as is every library being targeted right now by systematic attacks on the First Amendment.”"

The Generative AI Battle Has a Fundamental Flaw; Wired, July 25, 2023

 WILL BEDINGFIELD, Wired; The Generative AI Battle Has a Fundamental Flaw

"At the core of these cases, explains Sag, is the same general theory: that LLMs “copied” authors’ protected works. Yet, as Sag explained in testimony to a US Senate subcommittee hearing earlier this month, models like GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 do not “copy” work in the traditional sense. Digest would be a more appropriate verb—digesting training data to carry out their function: predicting the best next word in a sequence. “Rather than thinking of an LLM as copying the training data like a scribe in a monastery,” Sag said in his Senate testimony, “it makes more sense to think of it as learning from the training data like a student.”...

Ultimately, though, the technology is not going away, and copyright can only remedy some of its consequences. As Stephanie Bell, a research fellow at the nonprofit Partnership on AI, notes, setting a precedent where creative works can be treated like uncredited data is “very concerning.” To fully address a problem like this, the regulations AI needs aren't yet on the books."

‘Judeo-Christian’ roots will ensure U.S. military AI is used ethically, general says; The Washington Post, July 22, 2023

Shera Avi-Yonah , The Washington Post; ‘Judeo-Christian’ roots will ensure U.S. military AI is used ethically, general says

"A three-star Air Force general said the U.S. military’s approach to artificial intelligence is more ethical than adversaries’ because it is a “Judeo-Christian society,” an assessment that drew scrutiny from experts who say people from a wide range of religious and ethical traditions can work to resolve the dilemmas AI poses.

Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr. made the comment at a Hudson Institute event Thursday while answering a question about how the Pentagonviews autonomous warfare. The Department of Defense has been discussing AI ethics at its highest levels, said Moore, who is the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.

“Regardless of what your beliefs are, our society is a Judeo-Christian society, and we have a moral compass. Not everybody does,” Moore said. “And there are those that are willing to go for the ends regardless of what means have to be employed.”"

ChatGPT: Ethics and the 21st Century Lawyer; New York State Bar Association (NYSBA), July 24, 2023

New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) ; ChatGPT: Ethics and the 21st Century Lawyer

"The ChatGPT Lawyer incident raises many questions of skills and ethics.  This program will discuss the disciplinary decisions arising from that incident in the Southern District of New York and how this may inform future use of AI technology in the practice of law in federal and state court. Panelists will cover the use of Chat GPT and the use of AI in other legal research tools (Westlaw, Lexis). Attendees will gain an understanding of best practices for writing briefs and citing cases appropriately using AI."

Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags; The Guardian, July 23, 2023

Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian; Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags

"f you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system,” the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, recently told the Northwestern University Class of 2023. Pritzker, a billionaire and self-described “cheugy dad”, clearly knows a thing or two about successful commencement speeches: his talk has gone viral.While the 20-minute speech, which was organized around quotes from characters in The Office series, wasn’t entirely about idiot-spotting, that section of it seemed to resonate the most.

You can see why. We live in a golden age of grifters, bullshitters and scammers. We live in an age where some of the world’s most powerful people threw millions of dollars at Elizabeth Holmes, without doing proper due diligence, because she came from the right background and sounded like she knew what she was talking about. A fantasist like George Santosmanaged to successfully fib his way into government. And Marjorie Taylor Greene has a seat in US Congress despite routinely going on unhinged rants about, inter alia, the “gazpacho police”. Clearly not enough people have functioning idiot detection systems.

So how do you spot an idiot? Well, says Pritzker, it’s not always easy. “I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots, but counterintuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work,” Pritzker said. “They can even get elected president.”

That said, there are some major signs to watch out for. [Bolds added] The best way to spot an idiot is to “look for the person who is cruel”, Pritzker says. “When someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct … Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true – the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”"

Tell us: are you using AI for emotional connection or support?; The Guardian, July 18, 2023

Guardian Community Team, The Guardian; Tell us: are you using AI for emotional connection or support?

We’d like to hear from people who are developing personal relationships with AI

"We’d like to find out more about people developing personal relationships with AI.

As some turn to chatbot impersonations of lost loved ones, we’d like to find out rather ways that people are using AI for emotional connection or support. What has worked for you and what hasn’t?

Let us know about your experiences below."

How a Drug Maker Profited by Slow-Walking a Promising H.I.V. Therapy; The New York Times, July 22, 2023

 Rebecca Robbins and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times; How a Drug Maker Profited by Slow-Walking a Promising H.I.V. Therapy

"Gilead, one of the world’s largest drugmakers, appeared to be embracing a well-worn industry tactic: gaming the U.S. patent system to protect lucrative monopolies on best-selling drugs...

Gilead ended up introducing a version of the new treatment in 2015, nearly a decade after it might have become available if the company had not paused development in 2004. Its patents now extend until at least 2031.

The delayed release of the new treatment is now the subject of state and federal lawsuits in which some 26,000 patients who took Gilead’s older H.I.V. drugs claim that the company unnecessarily exposed them to kidney and bone problems."

Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images; The Washington Post, July 21, 2023

  Cat Zakrzewski, The Washington Post; Top tech firms sign White House pledge to identify AI-generated images

"The White House on Friday announced that seven of the most influential companies building artificial intelligence have agreed to a voluntary pledge to mitigate the risks of the emerging technology, escalating the Biden administration’s involvement in the growing debate over AI regulation.]

The companies — which include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Chat GPT-maker OpenAI — vowed to allow independent security experts to test their systems before they are released to the public and committed to sharing data about the safety of their systems with the government and academics.

The firms also pledged to develop systems to alert the public when an image, video or text is created by artificial intelligence, a method known as “watermarking.”

In addition to the tech giants, several newer businesses at the forefront of AI development signed the pledge, including Anthropic and Inflection. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)"