Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Trump signs the Take It Down Act into law; The Verge, May 19, 2025

Lauren Feiner, The Verge ; Trump signs the Take It Down Act into law

"President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law, enacting a bill that will criminalize the distribution of nonconsensual intimate images (NCII) — including AI deepfakes — and require social media platforms to promptly remove them when notified.

The bill sailed through both chambers of Congress with several tech companies, parent and youth advocates, and first lady Melania Trump championing the issue. But critics — including a group that’s made it its mission to combat the distribution of such images — warn that its approach could backfire and harm the very survivors it seeks to protect

The law makes publishing NCII, whether real or AI-generated, criminally punishable by up to three years in prison, plus fines. It also requires social media platforms to have processes to remove NCII within 48 hours of being notified and “make reasonable efforts” to remove any copies. The Federal Trade Commission is tasked with enforcing the law, and companies have a year to comply...

The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which advocates for legislation combating image-based abuse, has long pushed for the criminalization of nonconsensual distribution of intimate images (NDII). But the CCRI said it could not support the Take It Down Act because it may ultimately provide survivors with “false hope.” On Bluesky, CCRI President Mary Anne Franks called the takedown provision a “poison pill … that will likely end up hurting victims more than it helps.”"

Monday, May 19, 2025

Donald Trump’s Library of Congress fight is really about the separation of powers; AP, May 16, 2025

SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press (AP); Donald Trump’s Library of Congress fight is really about the separation of powers

"It’s not really about the books.

President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of top officials at the Library of Congress and equally sudden attempt to appoint a slate of loyalists as replacements has instead morphed into an enormous fight over the separation of powers, as the White House tries to wrest control of what has for centuries been a legislative institution.

It’s a power struggle with potentially vast consequences. The Library of Congress not only stores the world’s largest collection of books but also an office overseeing reams of copyrighted material of untold value. 

There is a research institute that has long been protected from outside influence. Its servers house extremely sensitive information regarding claims of workplace violations on Capitol Hill, as well as payments and other financial data for the legislative branch’s more than 30,000 employees. There’s even speculation that the whole affair is tied to an ongoing debate over whether big tech companies can use copyrighted material for artificial intelligence systems."

Artificial Intelligence Resources Compiled for Legal Community; Court News Ohio, May 13, 2025

Staff Report , Court News Ohio; Artificial Intelligence Resources Compiled for Legal Community

"Artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence (AI, collectively) are rapidly evolving technologies that impact many, if not most, facets of human life. AI’s potential impact on judicial systems is no exception – from how judges and magistrates write opinions, to the briefs and motions prepared by attorneys, to the evidenceprovided by plaintiffs and defendants.

To assist the legal community, an array of resources is now available on the Supreme Court of Ohio website about AI and its use in the courts and legal profession.

The new “Artificial Intelligence Resource Library” offers:

  • AI ethics guidelines for judicial officers and attorneys.
  • AI practices in state courts.
  • Legal association reports and statements.
  • Journal and scholarly articles.
  • Useful courses on the topic.

The library content is organized for three groups: courts; attorneys; and the public (particularly nonlawyers who represent themselves in court)."

In inauguration, Leo urges end to division: It’s ‘the hour for love’; The Washington Post, May 18, 2025

 

The Washington Post; In inauguration, Leo urges end to division: It’s ‘the hour for love’

"The Catholic Church inaugurated its 267th pope in an incense-laced rite heralding the start of a novel papacy — one filled by a White Sox fan, former missionary and dual citizen of the United States and Peru who sought to position himself Sunday as a humble unifier in an age of arrogance, hatred and division...

On Sunday, Leo again struck upon one of his early themes: unity, a word widely used by conservative Catholics who had sought a more traditional pope after Francis’s less doctrinally focused papacy. At Mass, Leo echoed the need for “unity” — but suggested it must also “coexist” with another word embraced by church liberals: “diversity.”

He called on the faithful to aid the marginalized and the poor and declared that religion and faith should not be heaved on others “by force.”


“This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people,” Leo said."

Full Text of Pope Leo XIV’s Homily From Inauguration Mass: ‘This Is the Hour for Love’; National Catholic Register, May 18, 2025

 

National Catholic Register, Full Text of Pope Leo XIV’s Homily From Inauguration Mass: ‘This Is the Hour for Love’

"Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters."

'Criminal': Elton John condemns UK's AI copyright plans; Reuters, May 18, 2025

Reuters; 'Criminal': Elton John condemns UK's AI copyright plans

"The biggest names in the industry, including John, Paul McCartney, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ed Sheeran and others, have urged the government to change course, saying the proposal will make it even harder for young people to make a living in the creative industries.

"The danger is for young artists, they haven't got the resources to keep checking or fight big tech," John told the BBC. "It's criminal and I feel incredibly betrayed.""

Meloni pledges ethical AI alliance with Pope Leo XIV; Decode39, May 15, 2025

Decode39; Meloni pledges ethical AI alliance with Pope Leo XIV

"During a call with Pope Leo XIV, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reaffirmed Italy’s collaboration with the Holy See on ethical, human-centred AI, building on initiatives from the 2024 G7 and Pope Francis’s “Rome Call for AI Ethics”

AI ethics dialogue. In a call on Thursday with Pope Leo XIV, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni renewed Italy’s commitment to collaborate with the Holy See on ethical, human-centred artificial intelligence...

Defending human dignity. Meloni also noted the new pontiff’s recent address to the College of Cardinals stressed the defence of human dignity, justice, and work in AI’s development.

Thus, Italy and the Vatican are committed to shaping AI governance to protect vulnerable communities and workers."


Sunday, May 18, 2025

RIP American innovation; The Washington Post, May 12, 2025

  , The Washington Post; RIP American innovation

"That U.S. businesses have led the recent revolution in artificial intelligence is owed to the decades of research supported by the U.S. government in computing, neuroscience, autonomous systems, biology and beyond that far precedes those companies’ investments. Virtually the entire U.S. biotech industry — which brought us treatments for diabetes, breast cancer and HIV — has its roots in publicly funded research. Even a small boost to NIH funding has been shown to increase overall patents for biotech and pharmaceutical companies...

Giving out grants for what might look frivolous or wasteful on the surface is a feature, not a bug, of publicly funded research. Consider that Agriculture Department and NIH grants to study chemicals in wild yamsled to cortisone and medical steroids becoming widely affordable. Or that knowing more about the fruit fly has aided discoveries related to human aging, Parkinson’s disease and cancer.

For obvious reasons, companies don’t tend to invest in shared scientific knowledge that then allows lots of innovation to flourish. That would mean spending money on something that does not reap quick rewards just for that particular company.

Current business trends are more likely to help kill the U.S. innovation engine. A growing share of the country’s research and development is now being carried out by big, old companies, as opposed to start-ups and universities — and, in the process, the U.S. as a whole is spending more on R&D without getting commensurately more economic growth."

Intellectual property is our bedrock; Daily Journal, May 17, 2025

 Phil Kerpen, Daily Journal; Intellectual property is our bedrock

"Elon Musk is probably the second-most powerful man in the world these days, so when he responded to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s “delete all IP law” post with “I agree,” we need to take this radical proposal seriously.

Musk and Dorsey want their AI bots to remix all the world’s content without having to worry about who owns it, but it’s important that we slow down and start from first principles, or we risk undermining one of the foundations of our Constitution and economic system.

The moral case for IP was already powerfully articulated prior to American independence by John Locke. In his 1694 memorandum opposing the renewal of the Licensing Act, Locke wrote: “Books seem to me to be the most proper thing for a man to have a property in of any thing that is the product of his mind,” which is no doubt equally true of more modern creative works. Unlike physical property, which is a mixture of an individual’s work effort and the pre-existing natural world, creative works are the pure creation of the human mind. How could they not then properly be owned by their authors?

The Constitution cements this truth. Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” This clause isn’t incidental; it’s a deliberate choice to recognize inventors and authors properly have a property right in their creations and is the only right expressly protected in the base text of the Constitution, before the Bill of Rights was added...

Deleting all IP law is like banning free speech to stop misinformation — it might narrowly accomplish its goal, but only by destroying what we ought to be protecting."

Have journalists skipped the ethics conversation when it comes to using AI?; The Conversation, May 13, 2025

Assistant Professor, School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityProfessor emerita/adjunct professor, Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityAssociate Professor, Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University , The Conversation; Have journalists skipped the ethics conversation when it comes to using AI?

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in journalistic work for everything from transcribing interviews and translating articlesto writing and publishing local weathereconomic reports and water quality stories.

It’s even being used to identify story ideas from the minutes of municipal council meetings in cases where time-strapped reporters don’t have time to do so. 

What’s lagging behind all this experimentation are the important conversations about the ethics of using these tools. This disconnect was evident when we interviewed journalists in a mix of newsrooms across Canada from July 2022 to July 2023, and it remains a problem today. 

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 journalists from 11 Canadian newsrooms. Many of the people we spoke to told us that they had worked at multiple media organizations throughout their careers.

The key findings from our recently published research:"

Saturday, May 17, 2025

Anthropic’s law firm throws Claude under the bus over citation errors in court filing; The Register, May 15, 2025

Thomas Claburn, The Register; Anthropic’s law firm throws Claude under the bus over citation errors in court filing

"An attorney defending AI firm Anthropic in a copyright case brought by music publishers apologized to the court on Thursday for citation errors that slipped into a filing after using the biz's own AI tool, Claude, to format references.

The incident reinforces what's becoming a pattern in legal tech: while AI models can be fine-tuned, people keep failing to verify the chatbot's output, despite the consequences.

The flawed citations, or "hallucinations," appeared in an April 30, 2025 declaration [PDF] from Anthropic data scientist Olivia Chen in a copyright lawsuit music publishers filed in October 2023.

But Chen was not responsible for introducing the errors, which appeared in footnotes 2 and 3.

Ivana Dukanovic, an attorney with Latham & Watkins, the firm defending Anthropic, stated that after a colleague located a supporting source for Chen's testimony via Google search, she used Anthropic's Claude model to generate a formatted legal citation. Chen and defense lawyers failed to catch the errors in subsequent proofreading.

"After the Latham & Watkins team identified the source as potential additional support for Ms. Chen’s testimony, I asked Claude.ai to provide a properly formatted legal citation for that source using the link to the correct article," explained Dukanovic in her May 15, 2025 declaration [PDF].

"Unfortunately, although providing the correct publication title, publication year, and link to the provided source, the returned citation included an inaccurate title and incorrect authors.

"Our manual citation check did not catch that error. Our citation check also missed additional wording errors introduced in the citations during the formatting process using Claude.ai."...

The hallucinations of AI models keep showing up in court filings.

Last week, in a plaintiff's claim against insurance firm State Farm (Jacquelyn Jackie Lacey v. State Farm General Insurance Company et al), former Judge Michael R. Wilner, the Special Master appointed to handle the dispute, sanctioned [PDF] the plaintiff's attorneys for misleading him with AI-generated text. He directed the plaintiff's legal team to pay more than $30,000 in court costs that they wouldn't have otherwise had to bear.

After reviewing a supplemental brief filed by the plaintiffs, Wilner found that "approximately nine of the 27 legal citations in the ten-page brief were incorrect in some way."

Two of the citations, he said, do not exist, and several cited phony judicial opinions."

Librarians, supporters rail against new regime at Alabama Public Library Service; Alabama Political Reporter, May 9, 2025

,  Alabama Political Reporter; 

Librarians, supporters rail against new regime at Alabama Public Library Service

"More than 30 people showed up to speak out at the latest Alabama Public Library Service meeting on Thursday, with the vast majority expressing harsh criticism of the board’s actions since Chairman John Wahl took over."

A Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for U.S. Citizenship? D.H.S. Is Considering It.; The New York Times, May 16, 2025

 , The New York Times; A Reality Show Where Immigrants Compete for U.S. Citizenship? D.H.S. Is Considering It.


[Kip Currier: The idea of dangling the possibility of becoming a U.S. citizen by putting fellow human beings through a competition like this is beyond appalling. Shame on all those who even considered and are talking about this as a way to normalize depravity and exploitative spectacle.

We need government officials -- and fellow citizens -- who uphold human dignity and live by the core values of empathy, decency, and care for the well-being of every person, especially those at the margins of society.]


[Excerpt]

"The Department of Homeland Security is considering taking part in a television show that would have immigrants go through a series of challenges to get American citizenship, officials said on Friday.

The challenges would be based on various American traditions and customs, said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the department was still reviewing the idea, which was pitched by a producer named Rob Worsoff.

“The pitch generally was a celebration of being an American and what a privilege it is to be able to be a citizen of the United States of America,” Ms. McLaughlin said. “It’s important to revive civic duty.”"

Friday, May 16, 2025

Democrats press Trump on Copyright Office chief’s removal; The Hill, May 14, 2025

 JARED GANS, The Hill ; Democrats press Trump on Copyright Office chief’s removal

"A half dozen Senate Democrats are pressing President Trump over his firing of the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, arguing that the move is illegal. 

“It threatens the longstanding independence and integrity of the Copyright Office, which plays a vital role in our economy,” the members said in the letter. “You are acting beyond your power and contrary to the intent of Congress as you seek to erode the legal and institutional independence of offices explicitly designed to operate outside the reach of partisan influence.” ...

The head of the Copyright Office is responsible for shaping federal copyright policy, and the senators argued the role is particularly crucial as the country confronts issues concerning the intersection of copyright law and technologies like artificial intelligence."

Faith leaders denounce US book burning as hate-fuelled intimidation; The Guardian, May 15, 2025

 , The Guardian; Faith leaders denounce US book burning as hate-fuelled intimidation

"A group of faith leaders in Ohio denounced a recent alleged hate crime in the state, in which a man burned books belonging to a public library. The destroyed books were on Jewish, African American and LGBTQ+ history."

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Top Priority for Pope Leo: Warn the World of the A.I. Threat; The New York Times, May 15, 2025

Motoko Rich and  , The New York Times; Top Priority for Pope Leo: Warn the World of the A.I. Threat

"Less than a week into the role, Leo XIV has publicly highlighted his concerns about the rapidly advancing technology. In his inaugural address to the College of Cardinals, he said the church would address the risks that artificial intelligence poses to “human dignity, justice and labor.” And in his first speech to journalists, he cited the “immense potential” of A.I. while warning that it requires responsibility “to ensure that it can be used for the good of all.”

While it is far too early to say how Pope Leo will use his platform to address these concerns or whether he can have much effect, his focus on artificial intelligence shows he is a church leader who grasps the gravity of this modern issue.

Paolo Benanti, a Franciscan friar, professor and the Vatican’s top adviser on the ethics of artificial intelligence, said he was surprised by Leo’s “bold” priorities. Father Benanti remembers that just 15 years ago, when he told his doctoral advisers that he wanted to study cyborgs and human enhancement at the Gregorian, the pontifical university where he now teaches, his advisers thought he was nuts."

Does the Federal Government Have a Right to States’ Data?; Government Technology, May 14, 2025

Julia Edinger , Government Technology; Does the Federal Government Have a Right to States’ Data?

"A federal executive order (EO) issued in March has created questions about the government’s right to access states’ data — especially in cases where that information was collected with a promise of privacy.

Governments have increasingly prioritized inclusive data collection practices, taking into consideration things like disability and gender identity — in part as preparation for AI deployment. This shift broadens the need for governments to protect privacy, especially as federal data collection by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) creates concerns.

A March 20 EO issued by President Donald Trump, "Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos," raises questions for some.

“[The EO] … said that federally funded state programs will be required to report personal data to the federal government,” said Elizabeth Laird, director of equity in civic technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), who described the new rule as a “significant shift.”...

This EO is relevant to both state and local agencies, Laird said, noting the EO did not specify what type of information and which programs will be impacted. The risk, she said, is that data that was collected for one intent could be used for another without the explicit consent of those who provided it."

A Plane From Qatar? C’mon, Man.; The New York Times, May 14, 2025

Norman Eisen, Virginia Canter, and 

The writers were ethics counsels in the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama White Houses., The New York Times; A Plane From Qatar? C’mon, Man.

"As lawyers responsible in recent White Houses for enforcing the rules against foreign government presents for presidents, we believe Donald Trump is transgressing them in the most brazen of ways. We’re not just talking about his apparent eagerness to accept an airplane valued at about $400 million from Qatar. His crypto entanglements are just as bad — perhaps even worse." 

Software engineer lost his $150K-a-year job to AI—he’s been rejected from 800 jobs and forced to DoorDash and live in a trailer to make ends meet; Fortune, May 14, 2025

, Fortune; Software engineer lost his $150K-a-year job to AI—he’s been rejected from 800 jobs and forced to DoorDash and live in a trailer to make ends meet

Republicans propose prohibiting US states from regulating AI for 10 years; The Guardian, May 14, 2025

, The Guardian; Republicans propose prohibiting US states from regulating AI for 10 years

"Republicans in US Congress are trying to bar states from being able to introduce or enforce laws that would create guardrails for artificial intelligence or automated decision-making systems for 10 years.

A provision in the proposed budgetary bill now before the House of Representatives would prohibit any state or local governing body from pursuing “any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems” unless the purpose of the law is to “remove legal impediments to, or facilitate the deployment or operation of” these systems...

The bill defines AI systems and models broadly, with anything from facial recognition systems to generative AI qualifying. The proposed law would also apply to systems that use algorithms or AI to make decisions including for hiring, housing and whether someone qualifies for public benefits.

Many of these automated decision-making systems have recently come under fire. The deregulatory proposal comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by several state attorneys general against the property management software RealPage, which the lawsuit alleges colluded with landlords to raise rents based on the company’s algorithmic recommendations. Another company, SafeRent, recently settled a class-action lawsuit filed by Black and Hispanic renters who say they were denied apartments based on an opaque score the company gave them."

Anthropic expert accused of using AI-fabricated source in copyright case; Reuters, May 13, 2025

 , Reuters; Anthropic expert accused of using AI-fabricated source in copyright case

"Van Keulen asked Anthropic to respond by Thursday to the accusation, which the company said appeared to be an inadvertent citation error. He rejected the music companies' request to immediately question the expert but said the allegation presented "a very serious and grave issue," and that there was "a world of difference between a missed citation and a hallucination generated by AI.""