Trump transition team ethics pledge appears to exclude president-elect; CNN, November 27, 2024

 Betsy Klein, Steve Contorno and Arlette Saenz , CNN; Trump transition team ethics pledge appears to exclude president-elect

[Kip Currier: Res Ipsa Loquitur (The thing speaks for itself)]

[Excerpt]

"President-elect Donald Trump’s team submitted an ethics plan guiding the conduct of its members throughout the transition period that does not appear to include provisions for one key member of the team: the president himself.

“There does not appear to be a provision addressing the requirement for the president-elect to address his conflicts of interest,” said Valerie Smith Boyd, director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service."

How the Trump transition ethics pledge differs from recent norms; Reuters, November 27, 2024

Heather Timmons , Reuters; How the Trump transition ethics pledge differs from recent norms

"U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's team signed an agreement on Tuesday with President Joe Biden's administration to coordinate with federal agencies and share documents, after weeks of delays.

The Trump team also posted a separate ethics pledge on the website of the General Services Administration, which echoes the standard ethics pledge signed by other past presidential candidates, ethics experts say, with some notable differences...

TRUMP'S ASSETS AND CONFLICTS

The standard pledge contains a promise that the candidate, if elected, will "avoid both actual and apparent conflicts of interest" and to "hold only non-conflicting assets, such as assets exempt from conflict by regulation."

The Trump transition team pledge contains no mention of Trump's personal ethics or assets.

It's a notable difference, said Enzo Benoit, spokesman for the Partnership for Public Service, which monitors transitions. But it may be a minor issue because Trump will be bound by the more detailed conflicts of interest requirements when he actually takes office."

We need to start wrestling with the ethics of AI agents; MIT Technology Review, November 26, 2024

James O'Donnell, MIT Technology Review; We need to start wrestling with the ethics of AI agents

"The first, called tool-based agents, can be coached using natural human language (rather than coding) to complete digital tasks for us. Anthropic released one such agent in October—the first from a major AI model-maker—that can translate instructions (“Fill in this form for me”) into actions on someone’s computer, moving the cursor to open a web browser, navigating to find data on relevant pages, and filling in a form using that data. Salesforce has released its own agent too, and OpenAI reportedly plans to release one in January. 

The other type of agent is called a simulation agent, and you can think of these as AI models designed to behave like human beings. The first people to work on creating these agents were social science researchers. They wanted to conduct studies that would be expensive, impractical, or unethical to do with real human subjects, so they used AI to simulate subjects instead. This trend particularly picked up with the publication of an oft-cited 2023 paper by Joon Sung Park, a PhD candidate at Stanford, and colleagues called “Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior.”... 

If such tools become cheap and easy to build, it will raise lots of new ethical concerns, but two in particular stand out. The first is that these agents could create even more personal, and even more harmful, deepfakes. Image generation tools have already made it simple to create nonconsensual pornography using a single image of a person, but this crisis will only deepen if it’s easy to replicate someone’s voice, preferences, and personality as well. (Park told me he and his team spent more than a year wrestling with ethical issues like this in their latest research project, engaging in many conversations with Stanford’s ethics board and drafting policies on how the participants could withdraw their data and contributions.) 

The second is the fundamental question of whether we deserve to know whether we’re talking to an agent or a human. If you complete an interview with an AI and submit samples of your voice to create an agent that sounds and responds like you, are your friends or coworkers entitled to know when they’re talking to it and not to you? On the other side, if you ring your cell service provider or doctor’s office and a cheery customer service agent answers the line, are you entitled to know whether you’re talking to an AI?

This future feels far off, but it isn’t. There’s a chance that when we get there, there will be even more pressing and pertinent ethical questions to ask. In the meantime, read more from my piece on AI agents here, and ponder how well you think an AI interviewer could get to know you in two hours."

From Bannon to Musk: The decade that made misinformation the new normal; EL PAÍS, November 25, 2024

 JAVIER SALAS, EL PAÍS ; From Bannon to Musk: The decade that made misinformation the new normal

"The key insight came from researcher Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, who explained: “Misinformation is not a piece of content. It is a strategy.”"

‘Acts of Submission’: An open letter to the director of the Office of Government Ethics.; The New York Review, November 22, 2024

Walter M. Shaub Jr. , The New York Review; ‘Acts of Submission’: An open letter to the director of the Office of Government Ethics.

"Dear Hon. David Huitema (David),

Congratulations on being confirmed to serve as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). Thank you for accepting a job you will not enjoy.

It’s been more than a year since President Biden nominated you. The confirmation process took far too long, and it could not have been pleasant. Back in 2023, not long after President Trump’s appointee, Hon. Emory A. Rounds III, finished his term, Senator Mike Lee of Utah declared that the next OGE director should be chosen after the new president’s inauguration (although he had championed Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination shortly before the 2020 election). Since then, he has tried to block you from serving in that role. This September he even claimed in the Senate that “Mr. Huitema left open the possibility of supporting a partisan policy, a partisan approach, from a nonpartisan position.” If the senator had bothered to read the transcript of your confirmation hearing, he would have known you emphatically rejected partisanship. You can expect the Republicans to make increasingly frequent, intense, and unfair attacks on your character.

The straight party-line vote on your confirmation suggests that Senate Republicans will sheepishly fall in line behind a president-elect who wages war on ethics. Your uncontroversial nomination should have been confirmed promptly with a unanimous pro forma vote. As a career government ethics official, you served both Republican and Democratic administrations, assisting their nominees in preparing financial disclosures and ethics agreements, advising appointees on complex issues. No one questioned your commitment, and you gave no one reason to distrust you. That is surely why Biden chose you. I doubt he even knows your political affiliation. I worked with you for years but have no clue as to your political outlook. 

Sadly, however, your fate is likely sealed. President-elect Trump could fire you on or soon after January 20. In Trump’s administration, you will be guilty not for being a party operative, but for not being one. Trump demands fealty."

OpenAI’s funding into AI morality research: challenges and implications; The Economic Times, November 25, 2024

The Economic Times ; OpenAI’s funding into AI morality research: challenges and implications

"OpenAI Inc has awarded Duke University researchers a grant for a project titled ‘Research AI Morality,’ the nonprofit revealed in a filing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to a TechCrunch report. This is part of a larger three-year, $1-million grant to Duke professors studying “making moral AI.”

The funding was granted to “develop algorithms that can predict human moral judgments in scenarios involving conflicts among morally relevant features in medicine, law and business,” the university said in a press release. Not much is known about this research except the fact that the funding ends in 2025."

‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher; The Guardian, November 23, 2024

David Barnett , The Guardian; ‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher

"A biography by a British graphic novelist of Elon Musk is struggling to find an English-language publisher due to feared “legal consequences”.

Elon Musk: Investigation into a New Master of the World is the latest graphic novel by Darryl Cunningham, from West Yorkshire. Cunningham, 64, has written and illustrated seven nonfiction books on topics ranging from the 2008 global economic meltdown (Supercrash), to Russian leader Vladimir Putin (subtitled The Rise of a Dictator)...

“Delcourt had lawyers go over every single word and picture to make sure there were no problems. I didn’t use any information that hadn’t been published elsewhere, much of it from the book by Musk’s own mother, Maye.

“But it looks like we live in a climate of fear where the worst people have immense power, and because of this there’s a tendency for the individuals, institutions, businesses and the state to run for cover.”

Cunningham praised Delcourt, who also put out the French edition of his book on Putin, for “having the courage” to publish the book...

Cunningham said: “Knowing what I know about the man, my conclusion is that it’s incredible that such a mediocre figure can amass such wealth, but it was ever thus.”"

Sean Rowe wants to realign the Episcopal Church; Religion News Service via AP, November 19, 2024

YONAT SHIMRON , Religion News Service via AP; Sean Rowe wants to realign the Episcopal Church

How do you see the church in the next four years vis-à-vis the Trump administration?

I’m gonna continue to call the church to stand with the least of these. We have for many years had a significant ministry with refugees. We’re one of 13 federal agencies that resettles refugees. We will continue that work. We want to stand with those who are seeking refuge in this country and stand on our record of success, resettling asylum-seekers and refugees. We’re Christians who support the dignity, safety and equality of women and LGBTQ people. We understand that not as a political statement but as an expression of our faith. We may disagree about immigration policy in the pews. We’re largely united about our support of people who are seeking refuge and asylum and inclusion of all people.

Has the church taken a stand on Christian nationalism?

Our House of Bishops has at least a theological report on Christian nationalism, which I think is well done. We’re after creating an inclusive, welcoming church that helps to transform the world. Christian nationalism really has no place. We will bring forth an understanding of the kingdom of God that is entirely in opposition to those ways of thinking and the values of Christian nationalism.

You yourself were once an evangelical. You went to Grove City College, a conservative evangelical school. What happened?

I attended Grove City College but I did not learn Christian nationalism there. I learned about the rule of law as a core fundamental and that’s what I don’t see in a lot of the thinking that is there now. I always struggled with a lack of an expansive or inclusive worldview that did not account for the complexity of human nature and the world around me. It felt limiting and narrow to me. I had friends who came out as LGBTQ, I traveled to see how other cultures lived and thought. As my world expanded, I came back to new understandings. I’ve gone from being an evangelical Christian, as the term is understood today, to someone who understands God as much broader and the world as much more complex than I once thought."

‘We recognise it in this very primal way’: Stephen Fry, Brie Larson, Chris Ofili and more on why we can’t get enough of Greek mythology; The Guardian, November 24, 2024

 Introduction by Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian; ‘We recognise it in this very primal way’: Stephen Fry, Brie Larson, Chris Ofili and more on why we can’t get enough of Greek mythology

"Greek myth is not a stable thing. There is no such thing as a canonical, “original” version of a Greek myth. The stories that remain to us – the material of classical plays and poetry, and of visual culture from pottery to pediments – are already elaborations and accretions. In the ancient Greek and Roman world, stories were adapted and remade to serve the needs of the moment. The Greek tragedians often took the germ of an idea from the Homeric epics, and built an entire plot from it. Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, for instance, is in dialogue with Homer’s Odyssey: both are stories of a warrior’s return from war, but with entirely different outcomes. Euripides’s subversive play Helen proposes that the entire Trojan war was fought not in the cause of a real woman, but of an illusory, fake version sent by the gods, while the “real” Helen of Troy sat out the siege in Egypt.

Seen in this light, as novelist Pat Barker points out below, the modern appetite for working with (and maybe sometimes against) Greek myth is a part of a long continuum, rather than an innovation...

Stephen Fry on Ithaka by CP Cavafy (1911), a poem inspired by The Odyssey

Author of Mythos, Heroes and Troy, a trilogy of books retelling the myths of ancient Greece

The Odyssey is the beginning of human modernity. Suddenly, the greatest qualities a warrior could have were cunning, intelligence and curiosity, but also a sense of home – Odysseus is constantly striving to get back to his wife and son. There was something new in that. This idea of “nostos” – of returning home to the hearth after your wanderings – has been very powerful in the Greek imagination ever since.

Early last century, there was a wonderful Greek poet living in Alexandria named Constantine Cavafy. I found out about him by reading EM Forster, who met Cavafy in Alexandria and recommended him to WH Auden and others. One of Cavafy’s greatest poems is about Ithaca, the island which Odysseus spends 10 years trying to get back to. The poem is about this journey, this yearning to find the place that we think of as home, but Cavafy tells us that it’s not worth anything. You must strive for it, he says, but you’ll find it isn’t the place itself that’s the destination, it’s the striving, it’s what you learn on the way. It’s the gorgeous things you find and the people you meet and the experiences you have. So you must aim for Ithaca and simultaneously know it’s not worth getting to, because it will have nothing to give you. That’s how the poem ends, in Edmund Keeley’s terrific translation: “Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey./ Without her you wouldn’t have set out./ She has nothing left to give you now.”

I think it’s a very brilliant and moving poem, even in translation (I’m sure if you were fluent in modern Greek it would be even more astonishing). It’s an example of what the Greek myths can give us in terms of retellings. All the JRR Tolkien books are nostos stories, stories of returns home – The Hobbit is subtitled There and Back Again. It is the most mythic, primal, elemental story that we have. As told to Killian Fox"

Ronan Farrow on surveillance spyware: ‘It threatens democracy and freedom’; The Guardian, November 23, 2024

Adrian Horton , The Guardian; Ronan Farrow on surveillance spyware: ‘It threatens democracy and freedom’

"Surveilled, now on HBO, is, on one level, a visual accompaniment to Farrow’s bombshell April 2022 report on how governments – western democracies, autocratic regimes and many in between – secretly use commercial spyware to snoop on their citizens. The hour-long documentary, directed by Matthew O’Neill and Perri Peltz, records the emotional toll, scope and threat potential of a technology most people are neither aware of nor understand. It also serves as an argument for urgent journalistic and civic oversight of commercial spyware – its deliberately obscure manufacturers, its abuse by state clients and its silent erosion of privacy.

The film, like Farrow’s 2022 article and much of his subsequent reporting, primarily concerns a proprietary spyware technology called Pegasus that is produced by the Israeli company NSO Group. Pegasus, as the film chillingly demonstrates, can infiltrate a private device through one of its many third-party apps, sometimes with one click – via a spam or phishing link – or, for certain models, without any help of the device’s owner at all. Once activated, Pegasus can control your phone, turn on your microphone, use the camera, record voice or video, and disgorge any of its data – your texts, photos, location. It is very possible, and now documented, to be hacked by Pegasus and not even know it.

Surveilled follows Farrow on his globe-trotting efforts to trace the invisible, international scope of Pegasus: to Tel Aviv, the center of the commercial spyware industry, where NSO executives toe the party line that the group only sells to governments for law enforcement purposes and has no knowledge of its abuses. To Silicon Valley, where the giant tech companies such as WhatsApp are in a game of cat and mouse with Pegasus and others infiltrating its services. To Canada, where the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab leads efforts for transparency on who has Pegasus, and what they are doing with it. And to Barcelona, where Citizen Lab representatives detect Pegasus hacks, suspected from and later confirmed by the Spanish government, on pro-Catalan independence politicians, journalists and their families...

“All of the privacy law experts that I’m talking to are very, very afraid right now,” he added. “This tech is just increasingly everywhere, and I think we have to contend with the inevitability that this is not just going to be this path of private companies selling to governments.”

Though in part a film of journalistic process, Surveilled also advocates for a regulatory framework on commercial spyware and surveillance, as well as awareness – even if you are not a journalist, a dissident, an activist, you could be surveilled, with privacy writ large at stake."

A Long-Held Secret Is Now Public. Will It Alter Cormac McCarthy’s Legacy?; The New York Times, November 23, 2024

Alexandra Alter and Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times; A Long-Held Secret Is Now Public. Will It Alter Cormac McCarthy’s Legacy?

"Several scholars also raised questions about the extensive excerpts from McCarthy’s letters to Britt, and noted that while Britt owns the physical letters, McCarthy’s words, even in letters to others, are the intellectual property of his literary estate. Attempts to reach a representative of McCarthy’s literary estate were not successful, but a person with knowledge of the estate’s practices who was not authorized to speak on the record said that the estate did not grant permission for McCarthy’s letters to be reproduced."

Facing Cuts Likely to Worsen Under Trump, Academic Librarians Urgently Organize; Truthout, November 17, 2024

 Emily Drabinski, Truthout; Facing Cuts Likely to Worsen Under Trump, Academic Librarians Urgently Organize

"The Project 2025 blueprint for the next Trump administration sets its sights on two crucial public institutions: libraries and higher education. Librarians show up on page 5 — targeted for their support for LGBTQIA+ reading — while dismantling the Department of Education, eliminating student loan programs, and restricting what can be taught about gender, race and class feature throughout the document. But even as academic librarians live in dread of what will happen to their libraries after January 20, many of them are also already facing termination now...

In March, the Department of Education (DOE) announced plans to eliminate data collection about academic libraries from its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. In contemporary higher education, resources are allocated to those who can make a data-driven case for them — that’s part of what it means to run a school like a business. Removing libraries from the survey means that they can’t be counted at all. In a joint comment, several major library associations argued that such a decision would make it impossible to benchmark resources and services at the 3,700 academic libraries in the U.S. that data librarians use to argue for increased staffing and materials budgets. Such erasure will also make it impossible “to understand the cost of information over time, as well as the correlation between research expenditures and the cost of information.” The DOE still plans to eliminate academic library data beginning in 2025-26, undercutting the capacity of librarians to articulate their value in the data-driven language required by the contemporary university."

How To Avoid AI Misinformation: 2 Essential Steps For Smarter Research; Forbes, November 21, 2024

 Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D., Forbes; How To Avoid AI Misinformation: 2 Essential Steps For Smarter Research

"AI can be a powerful ally or a risky gamble, depending on how you use it. If you’re relying on AI for research, taking shortcuts can backfire—and cost you your credibility. To avoid AI misinformation, follow these two essential steps:

1. Ask for references.
2. Verify those references yourself.

Here’s why these steps are critical."

A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness; The New York Times, November 17, 2024

Gina Kolata , The New York Times; A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness

"Instead, in a study Dr. Rodman helped design, doctors who were given ChatGPT-4 along with conventional resources did only slightly better than doctors who did not have access to the bot. And, to the researchers’ surprise, ChatGPT alone outperformed the doctors.

“I was shocked,” Dr. Rodman said.

The chatbot, from the company OpenAI, scored an average of 90 percent when diagnosing a medical condition from a case report and explaining its reasoning. Doctors randomly assigned to use the chatbot got an average score of 76 percent. Those randomly assigned not to use it had an average score of 74 percent.

The study showed more than just the chatbot’s superior performance.

It unveiled doctors’ sometimes unwavering belief in a diagnosis they made, even when a chatbot potentially suggests a better one."

Matt Gaetz Withdraws from Attorney General Consideration amid Ethics Scandal; National Review, November 21, 2024

JAMES LYNCH , National Review; Matt Gaetz Withdraws from Attorney General Consideration amid Ethics Scandal

"Former Representative Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) is withdrawing his name from consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general, he announced Thursday.

Gaetz said that the Ethics Committee investigation into allegations he paid underage women for sex had become too much of a distraction as President-elect Trump works to staff his incoming administration."

Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like; The New York Times, November 21, 2024

Vimal Patel , The New York Times; Republicans Target Social Sciences to Curb Ideas They Don’t Like

"The slashing of core classes across the state, which has often been based on course titles and descriptions, is meant to comply with a state law passed last year that curbed “identity politics” in the curriculum. The law also bars classes from the core that “distort significant historical events” or that include theories that “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.”

AI task force proposes ‘artificial intelligence, ethics and society’ minor in BCLA; The Los Angeles Loyolan, November 18, 2024

Coleman Standifer, asst. managing editor; Grace McNeill, asst. managing editor , The Los Angeles Loyolan; AI task force proposes ‘artificial intelligence, ethics and society’ minor in BCLA

"The Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) is taking steps to further educate students on artificial intelligence (AI) through the development of an “artificial intelligence, ethics and society," spearheaded by an AI task force. This proposed addition comes two years after the widespread adoption of OpenAI's ChatGPT in classrooms.

Prior to stepping into his role as the new dean of BCLA, Richard Fox, Ph.D., surveyed BCLA’s 175 faculty about how the college could best support their teaching. Among the top three responses from faculty were concerns about navigating AI in the classroom, Fox told the Loyolan.

As of now, BCLA has no college-wide policy on AI usage and allows instructors determine how AI is — or is not — utilized in the classroom.

“We usually don't dictate how people teach. That is the essence of academic freedom," said Fox. “What I want to make sure we're doing is we're preparing students to enter a world where they have these myriad different expectations on writing from their faculty members.”

Headed by Roberto Dell’Oro, Ph.D., professor of theological studies and director of the Bioethics Institute, the task force met over the summer and culminated in a proposal for a minor in BCLA. The proposal — which Dell'Oro sent to the Loyolan— was delivered to Fox in August and now awaits a formal proposal to be drawn up before approval, according to Dell’Oro.

The minor must then be approved by the Academic Planning and Review Committee (ARPC), a committee tasked with advising Provost Thomas Poon, Ph.D., on evaluating proposals for new programs.

According to the proposal, the proposed minor aims “to raise awareness about the implications of AI technologies, emphasize the importance of ethical considerations in its development and promote interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, ethics, and society.

The minor — if approved by the APRC — would have “four or five classes,” with the possibility of having an introductory course taught by faculty in the Seaver College of Science and Engineering, according to the proposal.

Most of the sample courses in the proposal include classes rooted in philosophy and ethics, such as, “AI, Robots, and the Philosophy of the Person,” “Could Robots Have Rights?” and “Introduction to Bioethics.” According to Dell’Oro, the hope is to have courses available for enrollment by Fall 2025."

OpenAI accidentally deleted potential evidence in NY Times copyright lawsuit; TechCrunch, November 20, 2024

 Kyle Wiggers , TechCrunch; OpenAI accidentally deleted potential evidence in NY Times copyright lawsuit

"OpenAI tried to recover the data — and was mostly successful. However, because the folder structure and file names were “irretrievably” lost, the recovered data “cannot be used to determine where the news plaintiffs’ copied articles were used to build [OpenAI’s] models,” per the letter.

“News plaintiffs have been forced to recreate their work from scratch using significant person-hours and computer processing time,” counsel for The Times and Daily News wrote. “The news plaintiffs learned only yesterday that the recovered data is unusable and that an entire week’s worth of its experts’ and lawyers’ work must be re-done, which is why this supplemental letter is being filed today.”

The plaintiffs’ counsel makes clear that they have no reason to believe the deletion was intentional. But they do say the incident underscores that OpenAI “is in the best position to search its own datasets” for potentially infringing content using its own tools."

‘Black mark’: Lawmakers seethe over Ethics’ Gaetz report imbroglio; Politico, November 20, 2024

JORDAIN CARNEY, NICHOLAS WU, DANIELLA DIAZ and OLIVIA BEAVERS, Politico ; ‘Black mark’: Lawmakers seethe over Ethics’ Gaetz report imbroglio

"Matt Gaetz is plunging the House into chaos, again.

Members of the House Ethics Committee deadlocked over whether to release the findings of an investigation into the former Florida lawmaker, who is Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general. The inaction is triggering outrage among Democrats, who argue the committee is dragging out the process, while Republicans remain furious that Gaetz put them in this position...

The havoc is the latest illustration of how Trump’s looming return to Washington is shaking the foundations of Capitol Hill and forcing Republican lawmakers to make a series of immediate, high-stakes calls about the integrity of the legislative branch."

Trump’s education pick once incorrectly claimed to have education degree; The Washington Post, November 20, 2024

Beth Reinhard

, 

Aaron Schaffer

 and 

Laura Meckler

, The Washington Post; Trump’s education pick once incorrectly claimed to have education degree

"Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice as education secretary, incorrectly claimed in 2009 that she had a bachelor’s degree in education on a questionnaire for a Connecticut Board of Education post, according to news reports at the time.

McMahon received a bachelor’s degree in French and a teaching certificate from East Carolina University, according to her alma mater’s announcement that she would deliver the 2018 commencement speech.

The error on the questionnaire was reported by the Hartford Courant during her unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2010. She said at the time that she mistakenly thought her degree was in education because she did a semester of student teaching, and that she had written to the governor’s office the previous year to correct the error after another newspaper noticed the mistake.

McMahon resigned from the state education board one day after the Courant told her it intended to write about the error, the paper reported, but McMahon said the timing was unrelated. The state education board could not immediately fulfill a request to provide a copy of the questionnaire and other correspondence Wednesday morning, but the Trump transition team did not dispute that the error occurred."