A.I.-Generated Reading List in Chicago Sun-Times Recommends Nonexistent Books; The New York Times, May 21, 2025

 Talya Minsberg , The New York Times; A.I.-Generated Reading List in Chicago Sun-Times Recommends Nonexistent Books

"The summer reading list tucked into a special section of The Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer seemed innocuous enough.

There were books by beloved authors such as Isabel Allende and Min Jin Lee; novels by best sellers including Delia Owens, Taylor Jenkins Reid and Brit Bennett; and a novel by Percival Everett, a recent Pulitzer Prize winner.

There was just one issue: None of the book titles attributed to the above authors were real. They had been created by generative artificial intelligence.

It’s the latest case of bad A.I. making its way into the news. While generative A.I. has improved, there is still no way to ensure the systems produce accurate information. A.I. chatbots cannot distinguish between what is true and what is false, and they often make things up. The chatbots can spit out information and expert names with an air of authority."

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Excerpt]

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

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

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

We're All Copyright Owners. Why You Need to Care About AI and Copyright; CNET, May 19, 2025

Katelyn Chedraoui , CNET; We're All Copyright Owners. Why You Need to Care About AI and Copyright

"Most of us don't think about copyright very often in our daily lives. But in the age of generative AI, it has quickly become one of the most important issues in the development and outputs of chatbots and image and video generators. It's something that affects all of us because we're all copyright owners and authors...

What does all of this mean for the future?

Copyright owners are in a bit of a holding pattern for now. But beyond the legal and ethical implications, copyright in the age of AI raises important questions about the value of creative work, the cost of innovation and the ways in which we need or ought to have government intervention and protections. 

There are two distinct ways to view the US's intellectual property laws, Mammen said. The first is that these laws were enacted to encourage and reward human flourishing. The other is more economically focused; the things that we're creating have value, and we want our economy to be able to recognize that value accordingly."

Dark LLMs: The Growing Threat of Unaligned AI Models; Cornell University, May 15, 2025

 Michael Fire, Yitzhak Elbazis, Adi Wasenstein, Lior Rokach , Cornell University; Dark LLMs: The Growing Threat of Unaligned AI Models

"Large Language Models (LLMs) rapidly reshape modern life, advancing fields from healthcare to education and beyond. However, alongside their remarkable capabilities lies a significant threat: the susceptibility of these models to jailbreaking. The fundamental vulnerability of LLMs to jailbreak attacks stems from the very data they learn from. As long as this training data includes unfiltered, problematic, or 'dark' content, the models can inherently learn undesirable patterns or weaknesses that allow users to circumvent their intended safety controls. Our research identifies the growing threat posed by dark LLMs models deliberately designed without ethical guardrails or modified through jailbreak techniques. In our research, we uncovered a universal jailbreak attack that effectively compromises multiple state-of-the-art models, enabling them to answer almost any question and produce harmful outputs upon request. The main idea of our attack was published online over seven months ago. However, many of the tested LLMs were still vulnerable to this attack. Despite our responsible disclosure efforts, responses from major LLM providers were often inadequate, highlighting a concerning gap in industry practices regarding AI safety. As model training becomes more accessible and cheaper, and as open-source LLMs proliferate, the risk of widespread misuse escalates. Without decisive intervention, LLMs may continue democratizing access to dangerous knowledge, posing greater risks than anticipated."

Most AI chatbots easily tricked into giving dangerous responses, study finds; The Guardian, May 21, 2025

Ian Sample  , The Guardian; Most AI chatbots easily tricked into giving dangerous responses, study finds

"Hacked AI-powered chatbots threaten to make dangerous knowledge readily available by churning out illicit information the programs absorb during training, researchers say.

The warning comes amid a disturbing trend for chatbots that have been “jailbroken” to circumvent their built-in safety controls. The restrictions are supposed to prevent the programs from providing harmful, biased or inappropriate responses to users’ questions.

The engines that power chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude – large language models (LLMs) – are fed vast amounts of material from the internet.

Despite efforts to strip harmful text from the training data, LLMs can still absorb information about illegal activities such as hacking, money laundering, insider trading and bomb-making. The security controls are designed to stop them using that information in their responses.

In a report on the threat, the researchers conclude that it is easy to trick most AI-driven chatbots into generating harmful and illegal information, showing that the risk is “immediate, tangible and deeply concerning”...

The research, led by Prof Lior Rokach and Dr Michael Fire at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, identified a growing threat from “dark LLMs”, AI models that are either deliberately designed without safety controls or modified through jailbreaks. Some are openly advertised online as having “no ethical guardrails” and being willing to assist with illegal activities such as cybercrime and fraud."

A Church Wants a Homeless Shelter. The Mayor Wants Space for Pickleball; The New York Times, May 21, 2025

 Tracey Tully, The New York Times; A Church Wants a Homeless Shelter. The Mayor Wants Space for Pickleball

"Leaders of Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, N.J., were preparing for a Cinco de Mayo festival late one night when the news began to spread: The mayor planned to use eminent domain to seize their church and its 11 acres of land.

Under his plan, the church, which was founded in 1865, would be replaced by 10 pickleball courts, a soccer field and a playground with a nautical theme, according to an engineer’s drawing. The first vote by the Township Council, Toms River’s governing board, was the next afternoon.

The proposal represented a curious new twist in an ongoing battle in the large Jersey Shore community. An affordable housing nonprofit that rents space from the church had asked to create a small homeless shelter on the very land the mayor now wanted to turn into a park. The request was unpopular with neighbors, and the organization was awaiting approval from a zoning board.

The mayor, Daniel T. Rodrick, called the timing a “coincidence.” But opponents have condemned the park plan as a thinly disguised way to block the shelter.

The effort to buy or take the land is all but certain to face legal challenges. But it has unleashed an emotional debate over property rights, religious liberty and the limits of a community’s responsibility to care for poor people at a time when the Trump administration is making deep cuts to safety-net programs that provide emergency food and housing."

Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate-change-related webpages; The Associated Press via Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, May 14, 2025

Melina Walling, The Associated Press via Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University; Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate-change-related webpages

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has agreed to restore climate-change-related webpages to its websites after it was sued over the deletions in February.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group, argued that the deletions violated rules around citizens’ access to government information.

The USDA’s reversal comes ahead of a scheduled May 21 hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the agency’s actions in federal court in New York.

The department had removed resources on its websites related to climate-smart farming, conservation practices, rural clean-energy projects and access to federal loans related to those areas after President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration."

Trump’s ‘fear factor’: Scientists go silent as funding cuts escalate; Science, May 12, 2025

WARREN CORNWALL, Science; Trump’s ‘fear factor’: Scientists go silent as funding cuts escalate

"In February, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Rebekah Tromble launched a program to advise scientists and journalists targeted for intimidation and harassment. But she announced it quietly, fearing the very kind of attacks the initiative was meant to counter. “We were truly concerned that trying to draw too much attention to our work would jeopardize our funding,” says the George Washington University social scientist. “It’s a bit counterintuitive for a program that is actually trying to reach and help people.”

Tromble’s paradoxical situation is emblematic of the fear and self-censorship coursing through the nation’s scientific establishment today. As the Trump administration fires swaths of government researchers, cancels scientific grants, and targets leading universities with punishing funding freezes, scientists who might once have welcomed public attention for their work or spoken up on issues affecting their field are instead opting for silence.

“The lived experience of a scientist right now is terrifying,” said one prominent health researcher who asked not to be named out of concern their funding would be targeted. “We love getting our research in The New York Times and Science. You can imagine how much fear is involved if we are saying ‘no.’”"

The AI and Copyright Issues Dividing Trump’s Court; Jacobin, May 19, 2025

 DAVID MOSCROP , Jacobin; The AI and Copyright Issues Dividing Trump’s Court

"As many have pointed out, the copyright-AI battle is not only a central struggle within the Trump administration; it is also a broader conflict over who controls intellectual property and to what end. For decades, corporations have abused copyright to unreasonably extend coverage periods and impoverish the public domain. Their goal: maximizing both control over IP and profits. But AI firms aren’t interested in reforming that system. They’re not looking to open access or enrich the commons — they just want training data. And in fighting for it, they may end up reshaping copyright law in ways that outlast this administration.

As Nguyen notes, after the Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, was turfed by DOGE-aligned officials, Trump antitrust adviser Mike Davis posted to Truth Social: “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AI profits. . . . This is 100 percent unacceptable.” Trump reposted it. That’s the shape of the struggle: MAGA populists, who see their own content as sacred property, are up against a tech elite that views all content as extractable fuel."

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.”"

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

 

Anthony Faiola

 and 

Stefano Pitrelli, 

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."

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

  Bina Venkataraman, 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

Angela Misri, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University, April Lindgren, Professor emerita/adjunct professor, Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University, Nicole Blanchett, Associate 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 weather, economic 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:"

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

JACOB HOLMES,  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

Hamed Aleaziz , 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.”"

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

José Olivares , 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."

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

Motoko Rich and Adam Satariano , 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 Richard W. Painter

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

PRESTON FORE, 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