When the White House press secretary says ‘your mom,’ it’s not a joke. It’s the message.; Poynter, October 21, 2025

 Ren LaForme, Amaris Castillo and TyLisa Johnson, Poynter; When the White House press secretary says ‘your mom,’ it’s not a joke. It’s the message.

"Late last week, after President Donald Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine, HuffPost correspondent S.V. Dáte reached out to the White House with a straightforward question: Who picked Budapest?

In 1994, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia met in Budapest, where Ukraine agreed to give up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for Russia’s promise to respect its sovereignty and existing borders, and to refrain from using force or coercion against it. Given that context, the choice of Budapest struck some as tone-deaf.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, but not with an explanation. Instead, she replied: “Your mom did.” She later posted a screenshot of the exchange on X, called Dáte “a left-wing hack” and said he masquerades as a real reporter.

It’s another breach of the professionalism that once defined interactions between reporters and the White House, even in moments of tension. Every administration has had its spats with the press — Richard Nixon’s enemies list, Barack Obama’s leak prosecutions, Joe Biden’s limited-access strategy — but Trump’s team has turned that antagonism into a communications strategy.

Since January, the White House has taken direct control of the press pool from the White House Correspondents’ Association, censored pool reports before release, eliminated a wire reporter’s pool slot and reassigned the traditional first questions in briefings to friendly outlets. It has removed journalists from the president’s travel pool and restricted access to events that had long been open to the full press corps. (See our Press Freedom Watch for a running list of such incidents).

When a press secretary can respond to a reporter’s question with “your mom” and post it proudly online, it’s not a slip of decorum. It’s the message."

Federal Workers Given Secret Order as Trump Tears Down Part of the White House; The Daily Beast, October 21, 2025

Janna Brancolini , The Daily Beast; Federal Workers Given Secret Order as Trump Tears Down Part of the White House

"The Trump administration has ordered federal employees not to share photos of the East Wing of the White House being demolished to make way for the president’s $250 million vanity project. 

The Treasury Department’s headquarters, which are located next door to the East Wing, look out on the construction site for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom Donald Trump is building with private donor funds.

Treasury employees received an email Monday evening telling them not to document the demolition, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

“As construction proceeds on the White House grounds, employees should refrain from taking and sharing photographs of the grounds, to include the East Wing, without prior approval from the Office of Public Affairs,” a Treasury official wrote. 

Crews began tearing down the East Wing’s covered entrance on Monday, with dramatic video showing cranes and backhoes smashing up windows and ripping away the façade."

It’s Still Ludicrously Easy to Generate Copyrighted Characters on ChatGPT; Futurism, October 18, 2025

 Frank Landymore, Futurism; It’s Still Ludicrously Easy to Generate Copyrighted Characters on ChatGPT

"Forget Sora for just a second, because it’s still ludicrously easy to generate copyrighted characters using ChatGPT.

These include characters that the AI initially refuses to generate due to existing copyright, underscoring how OpenAI is clearly aware of how bad this looks — but is either still struggling to rein in its tech, figures it can get away with playing fast and loose with copyright law, or both.

When asked to “generate a cartoon image of Snoopy,” for instance, GPT-5 says it “can’t create or recreate copyrighted characters” — but it does offer to generate a “beagle-styled cartoon dog inspired by Snoopy’s general aesthetic.” Wink wink.

We didn’t go down that route, because even slightly rephrasing the request allowed us to directly get a pic of the iconic Charles Schultz character. “Generate a cartoon image of Snoopy in his original style,” we asked — and with zero hesitation, ChatGPT produced the spitting image of the “Peanuts” dog, looking like he was lifted straight from a page of the comic-strip."

All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding; The New York Times, October 20, 2025

Alan Blinder, The New York Times; All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding

"Seven of the nine universities that the White House initially approached about a plan to steer more federal money toward schools aligned with President Trump’s priorities have refused to endorse the proposal.

On Monday evening, an eighth signaled that it had reservations about it.

Only one, the University of Texas, suggested it might be open to signing on quickly."

‘Every kind of creative discipline is in danger’: Lincoln Lawyer author on the dangers of AI; The Guardian, October 20, 2025

Nadia Khomami  , The Guardian; ‘Every kind of creative discipline is in danger’: Lincoln Lawyer author on the dangers of AI

"The writer has his own battles with AI. He is part of a collective of authors, including Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult and John Grisham, suing OpenAI for copyright infringement...

Connelly has pledged $1m (£746m) to combat the wave of book bans sweeping through his home state of Florida. He said he felt moved to do something after he learned that Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, which had been influential to him, was temporarily removed from classrooms in Palm Beach County.

“I had to read that book to be what I am today. I would have never written a Lincoln Lawyer without it,” he said. He was also struck when Stephen Chbosky’s coming of age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “which meant a lot to my daughter”, received a ban.

He and his wife, Linda McCaleb, help fund PEN America’s Miami office countering book bans. “It’s run by a lawyer who then tries to step in, usually by filing injunctions against school boards,” he said. “I don’t believe anyone has any right to tell some other kid they can’t read something, to usurp another parent’s oversight of their children.”"

Trump's fake video featured 'Danger Zone.' Musician Kenny Loggins wants it scrubbed; NPR, October 20, 2025

Anastasia Tsioulcas , NPR; Trump's fake video featured 'Danger Zone.' Musician Kenny Loggins wants it scrubbed

"Singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins is asking President Trump to remove the audio of one of his performances from a contentious AI-generated video that Trump posted on his Truth Social account on Saturday evening.

In the fake video, a crown-wearing Trump is in a fighter jet emblazoned "KING TRUMP." Accompanied by Loggins singing "Danger Zone" — a hit single from the 1986 movie Top Gun — the plane dumps sludgy brown material over crowds of protesters carrying American flags and signs in what appears to be New York City's Times Square.

The video was published as an apparent reply to the widespread No Kings protests that took place across the U.S. on Saturday."

The platform exposing exactly how much copyrighted art is used by AI tools; The Guardian, October 18, 2025

Dan Milmo , The Guardian; The platform exposing exactly how much copyrighted art is used by AI tools

"The US tech platform Vermillio tracks use of a client’s intellectual property online and claims it is possible to trace, approximately, the percentage to which an AI generated image has drawn on pre-existing copyrighted material."

To protect his copyrights, storm chaser Reed Timmer goes to court often; The Oklahoman, October 19, 2025

 Dale Denwalt, The Oklahoman; To protect his copyrights, storm chaser Reed Timmer goes to court often

"A copyright controversy between celebrity storm chaser Reed Timmer and a YouTube streamer highlights a behind-the-scenes legal industry meant to protect original content online.

For fans, it has offered a peek inside the lucrative but complex world of federal copyright law and the legal tools used to make sure original creators get paid when their work is used by someone else. While the dispute was resolved quickly, Timmer often goes to court to protect his work.

A decade ago, it was mostly large, well-established companies and publishers who rooted out cases of copyright infringement, said Oklahoma City attorney Douglas Sorocco. But now there are more independent creators, citizen journalists and small businesses creating their own digital content...

"For the hurricane, I thought it would be A-OK to show very brief clips of what was happening with Milton so I could stay up to date," White said.

Timmer agreed, even if his digital rights management company didn't. In a response video posted the same day as White's, Timmer clarified he is "not suing Charlie" and asked that the copyright claim be removed."

OpenAI Blocks Videos of Martin Luther King Jr. After Racist Depictions; The New York Times, October 17, 2025

Claire Moses, The New York Times ; OpenAI Blocks Videos of Martin Luther King Jr. After Racist Depictions

[Kip Currier: This latest tech company debacle is another example of breakdowns in technology design thinking and ethical leadership. No one in all of OpenAI could foresee that Sora 2.0 might be used in these ways? Or they did but didn't care? Either way, this is morally reckless and/or negligent conduct.

The leaders and design folks at OpenAI (and other tech companies) would be well-advised to look at Tool 6 in An Ethical Toolkit for Engineering/Design Practice, created by Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics:

Tool 6: Think About the Terrible People: Positive thinking about our work, as Tool 5 reminds us, is an important part of ethical design. But we must not envision our work being used only by the wisest and best people, in the wisest and best ways. In reality, technology is power, and there will always be those who wish to abuse that power. This tool helps design teams to manage the risks associated with technology abuse.

https://www.scu.edu/ethics-in-technology-practice/ethical-toolkit/

The "Move Fast and Break Things" ethos is alive and well in Big Tech.]

[Excerpt]

"OpenAI said Thursday that it was blocking people from creating videos using the image of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with its Sora app after users created vulgar and racist depictions of him.

The company said it had made the decision at the request of the King Center as well as Dr. Bernice King, the civil rights leader’s daughter, who had objected to the videos.

The announcement was another effort by OpenAI to respond to criticism of its tools, which critics say operate with few safeguards.

“Some users generated disrespectful depictions of Dr. King’s image,” OpenAI said in a statement. “OpenAI has paused generations depicting Dr. King as it strengthens guardrails for historical figures.”"

Can You Trademark Peanut Butter and Jelly? Smucker’s Says Yes.; The New York Times, October 17, 2025

Yan Zhuang, The New York Times; Can You Trademark Peanut Butter and Jelly? Smucker’s Says Yes.

 "J.M. Smucker, the maker of Uncrustables, is suing Trader Joe’s, accusing the grocery store chain of infringing on its trademarks by selling a copycat version of its popular snack...

You generally can’t trademark foods. Sandwich recipes, or certain combinations of sandwich ingredients, are also “quite plainly not a copyrightable work,” an appeals judge ruled in 2015 in a case involving a Puerto Rico man who had attempted to trademark his chicken sandwich.

But you can trademark the specific shape or configuration of a food product. In this case, Smucker’s says, it has trademarked “a round pie-like shape with distinct peripheral undulated crimping” — a design it says Trader Joe’s has copied.

Smucker’s also accused Trader Joe’s of infringing on its trademark image of “a round crustless sandwich with a bite taken out showing filling on the inside,” which the grocery store chain uses on its packaging.

“Smucker does not take issue with others in the marketplace selling prepackaged, frozen, thaw-and-eat crustless sandwiches. But it cannot allow others to use Smucker’s valuable intellectual property to make such sales,” the company said in its filing."

Universities Are Standing Up to Trump; The New York Times, October 17, 2025

Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Universities Are Standing Up to Trump

"For months, his campaign faced only sporadic resistance. But over the last week, Brown University, M.I.T., the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California have all rebuffed the White House’s push to give preferential funding treatment to schools that show fealty to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Brown’s decision, in particular, is a case study of how the White House may have misjudged its own strength and academia’s nerve, especially once one of Mr. Trump’s top aides said that the nine schools initially chosen to consider the proposal were “good actors,” or could be...

Previously, Harvard had been the only school to defy the Trump administration so openly, refusing a list of demands intrusive enough that even some of the university’s critics said the school had no feasible choice but to balk. Harvard sued soon after and won a crucial ruling last month.

The schools that have rejected the government’s compact may very well be risking Washington’s wrath since Mr. Trump has proved willing to attack the federal funding of schools that his administration disfavors. But the compact represents both an effort to immunize the administration’s efforts from court challenges and to take its ambitions well beyond a single school.

The demands also reach farther, with conditions that include accepting “that academic freedom is not absolute” and pledging to potentially shut down “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”"

Bridging Biology and AI: Yale and Google's Collaborative Breakthrough in Single-Cell RNA Analysis; Yale School of Medicine, October 15, 2025

Naedine Hazell, Yale School of Medicine; Bridging Biology and AI: Yale and Google's Collaborative Breakthrough in Single-Cell RNA Analysis

"Google and Yale researchers have developed a more “advanced and capable” AI model for analyzing single-cell RNA data using large language models that is expected to “lead to new insights and potential biological discoveries.”

“This announcement marks a milestone for AI in science,” Google announced.

On social media and in comments, scientists and developers applauded the model—which Google released Oct. 15—as the much-needed bridge to make single-cell data accessible, or interpretable, by AI. 

Many scientists, including cancer researchers focusing on improving the outcomes of immunotherapies, have homed in on single-cell data to understand the mechanisms of disease that either protect, or thwart, its growth. But their efforts have been slowed by the size and complexity of data...

“Just as AlphaFold transformed how we think about proteins, we’re now approaching that moment for cellular biology. We can finally begin to simulate how real human cells behave—in context, in silico," van Dijk explained, following Google's model release. "This is where AI stops being just an analysis tool and starts becoming a model system for biology itself.”

An example of discoveries that could be revealed using this large-scale model with improved predictive power was tested by Yale and Google researchers prior to the release of the model. The findings will be shared in an forthcoming paper.

On Wednesday, the scaled-up model, Cell2Sentence-Scale 27B was released. The blog post concluded: “The open model and its resources are available today for the research community. We invite you to explore these tools, build on our work and help us continue to translate the language of life.”"

AMERICA NEEDS A MASS MOVEMENT—NOW: Without one, America may sink into autocracy for decades.; The Atlantic, October 14, 2025

David Brooks , The Atlantic; AMERICA NEEDS A MASS MOVEMENT—NOW

"For their 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works, the political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan looked at 323 resistance movements from 1900 to 2006, including more than 100 nonviolent resistance campaigns. What Chenoweth and Stephan showed is that citizens are not powerless; they have many ways to defend democracy.

For the United States, the question of the decade is: Why hasn’t a resistance movement materialized here? The second Trump administration has flouted court decisions in a third of all rulings against it, according to The Washington Post. It operates as a national extortion racket, using federal power to control the inner workings of universities, law firms, and corporations. It has thoroughly politicized the Justice Department, launching a series of partisan investigations against its political foes. It has turned ICE into a massive paramilitary organization with apparently unconstrained powers. It has treated the Constitution with disdain, assaulted democratic norms and diminished democratic freedoms, and put military vehicles and soldiers on the streets of the capital. It embraces the optics of fascism, and flaunts its autocratic aspirations.

I am not one of those who believe that Donald Trump has already turned America into a dictatorship. Yet the crossing-over from freedom into authoritarianism may be marked not by a single dramatic event but by the slow corrosion of our ruling institutions—and that corrosion is well under way. For 250 years, the essence of America’s democratic system, drawing on thinkers going back to Cicero and Cato, has been that no one is above the law. Public officials’ first duty is to put the law before the satisfaction of their own selfish impulses. That concept is alien to Trump."

Pentagon calls Netflix's hit gay Marines show Boots 'woke garbage'; Out, October 16, 2025

Mey Rude, Out ; Pentagon calls Netflix's hit gay Marines show Boots 'woke garbage'

[Kip Currier: As the head of the Department of Defense-cum-War, Pete Hegseth's statements, reported in this article and other news stories, are disrespectful to the thousands of LGBT service members who have selflessly served and sacrificed for their country.

All people are entitled to dignity and respect. The divisiveness of Hegseth and others who denounce people and groups must not be normalized.

Thank you to all military service members, living and deceased, who have given so much for democracy, our nation, and the world.]

[Excerpt]

"Netflix's new show Boots is topping the streamers' viewing charts, but the U.S. military isn't as enthusiastic about the show as fans are.

The Pentagon now says in a statement that it does not endorse the new show, which stars Miles Heizeras a closeted young man who joins the Marines in a time when it was forbidden for gay recruits to serve.

"Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, the U.S. military is getting back to restoring the warrior ethos. Our standards across the board are elite, uniform, and sex neutral because the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn't care if you're a man, a woman, gay, or straight," a statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson to Entertainment Weekly says.

In the statement, Wilson says that officials "will not compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children."

Netflix has yet to respond.

Since becoming Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth has made several moves to erase LGBTQ+ people from the military. In June, he announced that a Navy ship named for gay rights leader Harvey Milk would be renamed. Hegseth also supports Trump's Executive Order 14183, which mandates the discharge of all trans service members and prevents new trans troops from enlisting."

Pete Hegseth Would Hate Netflix’s New Show. That’s Why I Loved It.; Slate, October 9, 2025

DAVID MACK, Slate ; Pete Hegseth Would Hate Netflix’s New Show. That’s Why I Loved It.

"“Becoming a man? What does that actually mean?” That’s the question posed at the start of Boots, Netflix’s new queer coming-of-age series set in a Marine Corps training program, but also one essentially posed by our new so-called Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just last week. Yet while Hegseth, onstage before the nation’s top military brass, tried to answer the question with chest-beating machismo, insisting on “the highest male standard” and decrying “beardos” and “males who think they’re females,” only Boots arrives at a coherent answer.

In an incredible bit of timing, Boots is also set in 1990—the year to which Hegseth said he wants to wind back military training and standards, declaring current guidelines “woke garbage.”"

AI’s Copyright War Could Be Its Undoing. Only the US Can End It.; Bloomberg, October 14, 2025

 Dave Lee, Bloomberg; AI’s Copyright War Could Be Its Undoing. Only the US Can End It.

 "Whether creatives like Ulvaeus are entitled to any payment from AI companies is one of the sector’s most pressing and consequential questions. It’s being asked not just by Ulvaeus and fellow musicians including Elton John, Dua Lipa and Paul McCartney, but also by authors, artists, filmmakers, journalists and any number of others whose work has been fed into the models that power generative AI — tools that are now valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars."

How to Secure Your Phone for the No Kings Protest; Your Time Starts Now (Substack), October 15, 2025

LORI CORBET MANN, Your Time Starts Now (Substack); How to Secure Your Phone for the No Kings Protest

"This post is about using technology safely at a protest — how to protect yourself, and the people you organise with, from unnecessary risk.

It’s a longer read than I would have liked — I’ve learned that when I just post the steps, I’m flooded with questions asking why, so I’ve explained the reasoning too. But if you prefer to skip straight to the practical advice, you’ll find a downloadable checklist at the end.

Technology is everywhere: phones, tablets, headphones, smartwatches, fitness trackers. In everyday life that’s fine, but at a protest it can expose you and others to tracking and surveillance.

This guide explains how those devices broadcast information, how that data can be used to identify or locate you, and what you can do to reduce those risks. The aim isn’t to frighten you — it’s to help you make calm, informed choices about what you carry and how you use it."

Hollywood-AI battle deepens, as OpenAI and studios clash over copyrights and consent; Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2025

 Wendy Lee and Samantha Masunaga, Los Angeles Times; Hollywood-AI battle deepens, as OpenAI and studios clash over copyrights and consent

• "OpenAI’s new Sora 2 tool allows users to put real people and characters into AI-generated videos, sparking immediate backlash from Hollywood studios and talent agencies.
• The dispute centers on who controls copyrighted images and likenesses, with Hollywood arguing OpenAI cannot use content without explicit permission or compensation.
• The clash between Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos and Hollywood’s intellectual property protections could shape the future of AI in entertainment."

Major media outlets, including Hegseth’s former employer Fox News, decline to sign new Pentagon reporting rules; Politico, October 14, 2025

CHEYANNE M. DANIELS , Politico; Major media outlets, including Hegseth’s former employer Fox News, decline to sign new Pentagon reporting rules

"Fox News, which previously employed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, joined most major news organizations on Tuesday in refusing to agree to new rules around reporting at the Pentagon.

The company signed a joint statement with ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News saying the new requirements “would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.”

Barzaga misses House ethics hearing, cites late-night gaming; Inquirer.net, October 13, 2025

Faith Argosino , Inquirer.net; Barzaga misses House ethics hearing, cites late-night gaming

"Cavite 4th District Rep. Francisco “Kiko” Barzaga Jr. arrived late to his own ethics hearing Monday—missing it entirely—after admitting he had stayed up late “playing computer games.”

Barzaga made the admission in an ambush interview at the House of Representatives when asked why he failed to attend the hearing."

What’s the Deal With All Those FanDuel Ads?; The New York Times, October 12, 2025

 Jordyn Holman, The New York Times; What’s the Deal With All Those FanDuel Ads?

 "Since sports betting became legal in America on a state-by-state basis in 2018, a crop of online sportsbooks have fought aggressively for attention. FanDuel, whose parent company is Flutter Entertainment, is the largest, with more than 40 percent of the market.

Flutter, named after British slang for a small bet, is also the biggest online gambling company in the world, with brands like Britain’s Betfair, Ireland’s Paddy Power and Australia’s Sportsbet. It recorded 16 million average monthly users in its latest quarter.

Last year, Flutter brought in $14 billion in revenue, a 19 percent jump from 2023. It expects double-digit growth to continue this year.

Peter Jackson, Flutter’s chief executive since 2018, still sees room to grow in America, where big states like California and Texas bar online gambling.

As more people become aware of the ease of betting on their phones, on any number of moments within games, there is a push by regulators and public health officials to rein in the industry.

“People have and will always gamble,” Mr. Jackson, 49, said. “What we do is we offer a safe environment for people to do it.”

And as for all those ads? They are not letting up, he said...

People are seeing a lot of ads about sports betting. What differentiates FanDuel from the rest?

With the FanDuel brand, we spend a billion dollars on advertising and promotions. Historically, a lot was focused on bringing to life the sports betting concept into the U.S., because it was relatively new. We’re not that many years into people being able to legally bet on sports, and still only half of Americans can do it today.

But this year, we’ve slightly changed our tone. It’s really important that we start to distinguish our brand so people recognize how much better we are, and do a little bit less heavy lifting for the category and get a little more selfish.

How many FanDuel commercials is too many Fan Duel commercials?

This is the conundrum that we have around the world. At least we’re not advertising auto insurance."

US Supreme Court asked to hear dispute over copyrights for AI creations; Reuters, October 10, 2025

 Blake Brittain, Reuters; US Supreme Court asked to hear dispute over copyrights for AI creations

 "A computer scientist on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that a work of art generated by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law.

Stephen Thaler told the justices that the U.S. Copyright Office's decision denying copyright protection for the art made by his AI system "created a chilling effect on anyone else considering using AI creatively" and "defies the constitutional goals from which Congress was empowered to create copyright.""

More college students are using AI for class. Their professors aren't far behind; NPR, October 7, 2025

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, NPR; More college students are using AI for class. Their professors aren't far behind

"More college students are using AI chatbots to help them with their studies. But data recently released by an AI company shows they're aren't the only ones using the technology."

Tilly Norwood & AI Confusion Will Shape Looming Guild Negotiations, Copyright Experts Agree; Deadline, October 12, 2025

Dade Hayes , Deadline; Tilly Norwood & AI Confusion Will Shape Looming Guild Negotiations, Copyright Experts Agree

"Handel and Mishawn Nolan, managing partner of intellectual property law firm Nolan Heimann, shared their perspectives during a panel Friday afternoon at Infinity Festival in Los Angeles.

Digital scanning of human actors, for the purposes of using their likenesses in film and TV projects is another tricky area for the unions given how untested the legal questions are, the attorneys agreed.

“I actually have a client right now” whose body is being scanned, Nolan said. “What I received [from the company] was just a sort of standard certificate of engagement. It was all rights, just like you would normally use. And I said, ‘Well, what are you gonna do with the data? What is the scope of the use?’”

Because of the intense pressure on productions to move quickly, Nolan said, “everyone would like to just turn around [a talent agreement] tomorrow.” But the complexities of copyright issues raised by AI, which is evolving at a breakneck clip, require a lot more thought, she argued. “The way that we’ve always done business can’t be done in the future. It can’t be done instantaneously,” she continued. “You have to take a moment and think about, what are you doing? What are you capturing? What are you going to use it for? How are you going to use it? How long are you going to have access to it? And what happens in the long term? Who holds onto it? Is it safe? Is it gonna be destroyed?”"

Notre Dame hosts Vatican AI adviser, Carnegie Mellon professor during AI ethics conference; South Bend Tribune, October 9, 2025

Rayleigh Deaton, South Bend Tribune; Notre Dame hosts Vatican AI adviser, Carnegie Mellon professor during AI ethics conference

"The increasingly ubiquitous nature of artificial intelligence in today's world raises questions about how the technology should be approached and who should be making the decisions about its development and implementation.

To the Rev. Paolo Benanti, an associate professor of ethics of AI at LUISS University and the AI adviser to the Vatican, and Aarti Singh, a professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department, ethical AI use begins when the technology is used to better humanity, and this is done by making AI equitable and inclusive.

Benanti and Singh were panelists during a session on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at the University of Notre Dame's inaugural R.I.S.E. (Responsibility, Inclusion, Safety and Ethics) AI Conference. Hosted by the university's Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, the conference ran Oct. 6-8 and focused on how AI can be used to address multidisciplinary societal issues while upholding ethical standards...

And, Singh said, promoting public AI awareness is vital. She said this is done through introducing AI training as early as elementary school and encouraging academics to develop soft skills to be able to communicate their AI research with laypeople — something they're not always good at.

"There are many programs being started now that are encouraging from the student level, but of course also faculty, in academia, to go out there and talk," Singh said. "I think the importance of doing that now is really crucial, and we should step up.""

OpenAI Risks Billions as Court Weighs Privilege in Copyright Row; Bloomberg Law, October 10, 2025

Annelise Levy

, Bloomberg Law; OpenAI Risks Billions as Court Weighs Privilege in Copyright Row

"Authors and publishers suing the artificial intelligence giant have secured access to some Slack messages and emails discussing OpenAI’s deletion of a dataset containing pirated books and are seeking additional attorney communications about the decision. If they succeed, the communications could demonstrate willful infringement, triggering enhanced damages of as much as $150,000 per work...

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York last week ordered OpenAI to turn over most employee communications about the data deletion that the AI company argued were protected by attorney-client privilege. OpenAI may appeal the decision. A separate bid for OpenAI’s correspondence with in-house and outside attorneys remains pending."

Republican Praises School for Turning Down Trump ‘Bribe’; The Daily Beast, October 12, 2025

 Will Neal , The Daily Beast; Republican Praises School for Turning Down Trump ‘Bribe’

"“The surest way to screw up the world’s best technical school is to let feds tell them how to run it,” Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie wrote on X. “Congrats to my alma mater for turning down a bribe to let the executive branch dictate what happens on its campus. A lot of things are wrong in [the U.S.], but MIT is not one of them.”"

AI videos of dead celebrities are horrifying many of their families; The Washington Post, October 11, 2025

Tatum Hunter

 and 

Drew Harwell

, The Washington Post; AI videos of dead celebrities are horrifying many of their families

[Kip Currier: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's reckless actions in releasing Sora 2.0 without guardrails and accountability mechanisms exemplify Big Tech's ongoing Zuckerberg-ian "Move Fast and Break Things" modus operandi in the AI Age. 

Altman also had to recently walk back his ill-conceived directive that copyright holders would need to opt-out of having their copyrighted works used as AI training data (yet again!), rather than the burden being on OpenAI to secure their opt-ins through licensing.

To learn more about potential further copyright-related questionable conduct by OpenAI, read this 10/10/25 Bloomberg Law article:  OpenAI Risks Billions as Court Weighs Privilege in Copyright Row]

[Excerpt]

"OpenAI said the text-to-video tool would depict real people only with their consent. But it exempted “historical figures” from these limits during its launch last week, allowing anyone to make fake videos resurrecting public figures, including activists, celebrities and political leaders — and leaving some of their relatives horrified.

“It is deeply disrespectful and hurtful to see my father’s image used in such a cavalier and insensitive manner when he dedicated his life to truth,” Shabazz, whose father was assassinated in front of her in 1965 when she was 2, told The Washington Post. She questioned why the developers were not acting “with the same morality, conscience, and care … that they’d want for their own families.”

Sora’s videos have sparked agitation and disgust from many of the depicted celebrities’ loved ones, including actor Robin Williams’s daughter, Zelda Williams, who pleaded in an Instagram post recently for people to “stop sending me AI videos of dad.”"