Musk's AI chatbot spread election misinformation, secretaries of state say; Axios, August 5, 2024

• Ivana Saric, Axios; Musk's AI chatbot spread election misinformation, secretaries of state say

Five secretaries of state sent a letter to Elon Musk Monday imploring him to fix X's AI chatbot after it shared misinformation about the 2024 presidential election.

Why it matters: Experts have long warned about the threat of AI-driven misinformation, which is more salient than ever as the election heats up and voters are susceptible to lies about the candidates or voting process.

Driving the news: Secretaries of state from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico told Musk that X's AI chatbot, Grok, had produced and circulated "false information on ballot deadlines" shortly after President Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, according to the letter, obtained by Axios.

• The chatbot wrongly told social media users that Vice President Kamala Harris had missed the ballot deadline in nine states: Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania and Washington.
• It said Harris wasn't eligible to appear on the ballot in those states in place of Biden. "This is false. In all nine states the opposite is true," the letter stated.
• The secretaries of state urged Musk to "immediately implement changes" to Grok "to ensure voters have accurate information in this critical election year," per the letter, which was first reported by the Washington Post."

Musk's X seeks Brazil comeback, retreats on 'censorship' feud; Reuters, September 27, 2024

 Ricardo Brito and Luciana Novaes Magalhaes, Reuters; Musk's X seeks Brazil comeback, retreats on 'censorship' feud

"In a major climbdown, Elon Musk's X told Brazil's Supreme Court it had complied with orders to stop the spread of misinformation and asked a judge to lift a ban on the platform, according to a document seen by Reuters.

The billionaire had held out for more than five months against what he called "censorship" in a feud with a judge in one of X's largest and most coveted markets. The court shut Brazilians' access to the platform in late August."

Elon Musk’s misleading election claims reach millions and alarm election officials; The Washington Post, September 10, 2024

 

Sarah Ellison

, 

Amy Gardner

 and 

Clara Ence Morse

, The Washington Post; Elon Musk’s misleading election claims reach millions and alarm election officials

"The chairman of the board of elections in Montgomery County, Pa., was well acquainted with the regular attendees at his monthly meetings who peddled old, debunked voting conspiracy theories.

But something changed after April 4, the chairman, Neil Makhija, explained in an interview. That was the day Elon Musk retweeted a false claim that as many as 2 million noncitizens had been registered to vote in Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Suddenly, the same people were coming to the meetings with a new, unsubstantiated theory of voter fraud that appeared to align with Musk’s latest post: They were convinced that droves of noncitizens were voting illegally in their suburban Philadelphia county of nearly a million people."

Elon Musk’s attacks on Kamala Harris become more unhinged, with help from AI, CNN, September 3, 2024

Donie O'Sullivan , CNN; Elon Musk’s attacks on Kamala Harris become more unhinged, with help from AI

"Elon Musk’s disdain for the Democratic Party was never subtle, but in recent weeks his commentary on the upcoming US presidential election and his attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris have intensified, aided by a crude use of burgeoning artificial intelligence technology.

On Monday, Musk posted an AI-generated image on his social media platform that depicted Harris as a communist, wearing a red uniform complete with hammer and sickle emblazoned hat.

Musk, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump for president and poured millions into a super PAC supporting the Republican, captioned the image with the false assertion, “Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?”"

Elon Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over move to regulate online misinformation; The Guardian, September 12, 2024

Australian Associated Press and Josh Taylor; Elon Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over move to regulate online misinformation

"Elon Musk has called the Australian government “fascists” over new legislation aimed at tackling deliberate lies spread on social media.

Social media companies could be fined up to 5% of their annual turnover under the commonwealth’s proposed laws.

Musk, the US billionaire who owns the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, responded to a post about Australia’s measures with one word.

“Fascists,” he wrote.

But the federal minister Bill Shorten said Musk was inconsistent on free speech.

“When it’s in his commercial interests, he is the champion of free speech; when he doesn’t like it, he’s going to shut it all down,” he said on Channel Nine’s breakfast show on Friday."

Elon Musk’s financial support for Republican causes has been much more extensive and started earlier than previously known; Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2024

Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo, Khadeeja Sardar, Wall Street Journal;  Elon Musk’s financial support for Republican causes has been much more extensive and started earlier than previously known

"Elon Musk’s financial support for Republican causes has been much more extensive and started earlier than previously known."

Gilead Agrees to Allow Generic Version of Groundbreaking H.I.V. Shot in Poor Countries; The New York Times, October 2, 2024

 Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times; Gilead Agrees to Allow Generic Version of Groundbreaking H.I.V. Shot in Poor Countries

"The drugmaker Gilead Sciences on Wednesday announced a plan to allow six generic pharmaceutical companies in Asia and North Africa to make and sell at a lower price its groundbreaking drug lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that provides near-total protection from infection with H.I.V.

Those companies will be permitted to sell the drug in 120 countries, including all the countries with the highest rates of H.I.V., which are in sub-Saharan Africa. Gilead will not charge the generic drugmakers for the licenses.

Gilead says the deal, made just weeks after clinical trial results showed how well the drug works, will provide rapid and broad access to a medication that has the potential to end the decades-long H.I.V. pandemic.

But the deal leaves out most middle- and high-income countries — including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, China and Russia — that together account for about 20 percent of new H.I.V. infections. Gilead will sell its version of the drug in those countries at higher prices. The omission reflects a widening gulf in health care access that is increasingly isolating the people in the middle."

USA: Republican VP candidate J.D. Vance’s fake stories create real risks for journalists; Reporters Without Borders, October 1, 2024

Reporters Without Borders (RSF); USA: Republican VP candidate J.D. Vance’s fake stories create real risks for journalists

"A viral hoax spread by Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance has led to an outburst of violent threats against Haitian immigrants, including journalists from The Haitian Times. After covering the story, the media outlet itself became a target, highlighting the real-world dangers that political disinformation can create for journalists and journalism.

An online news outlet serving the Haitian American community, The Haitian Times, has received anonymous threats and editor Macollvie Neel’s home was “swatted” when police showed up to her residence in response to a false report of a crime. These incidents took place a few days after Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance circulated a widely debunked claim from Facebook alleging that Haitian migrants resettled in the town of Springfield, Ohio were stealing and eating local residents’ pets. 

In the weeks since Vance elevated this fake story, Springfield has been subjected to dozens of bomb threats and city leaders have been flooded with threatening hate mail. Racist and xenophobic displays have left Haitian residents feeling unsafe, including journalists from The Haitian Times, who were forced to cancel a scheduled town hall event.

Instead of retracting this claim, Vance has defended it and asserted that he is willing to “create stories so that the American media actually pays attention.” ...

Combating misinformation: a key issue in the election campaign

RSF recently published its 10-Point Plan for U.S. Press Freedom in which it urges the presidential campaigns to treat the members of the press with respect and “publicly reaffirm the right and necessity of journalists to do their jobs safely.” RSF has previously highlighted the global problem of increased political attacks on the media. Of the five indicators that RSF measures on its World Press Freedom Index, where this year the U.S. dropped to a ranking of 55th out 180 countries, the political indicator saw the sharpest decline in 2024."

Scottish university to host AI ethics conference; Holyrood, October 2, 2024

 Holyrood; Scottish university to host AI ethics conference

"The University of Glasgow will gather leading figures from the artificial intelligence (AI) community for a three-day conference this week in a bid to address the ethical challenges posed by the technology.

Starting tomorrow, the Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium, will see academics, researchers, and policymakers discuss how to make AI a tool for “positive change” across higher education.

The event will inform the development of a new online course on AI ethics, which will boost ethical literacy "across higher education and beyond”, the university said...

During the symposium, speakers from the university’s research and student communities will present and participate in workshops alongside representatives to build the new course.

The first day of the event will examine the current state of AI, focusing on higher education and the use of AI in research and teaching.

On Thursday, the conference will discuss how to tackle inequality and bias in AI, featuring discussions on AI and race, gender, the environment, children’s rights, and how AI is communicated and consumed.

The final day will involve participants creating an ethical framework for inclusive AI, where they will outline a series of actionable steps and priorities for academic institutions, which will be used to underpin the online course."

Oxford University launches new institute to tackle contemporary ethical issues; University of Oxford, October 1, 2024

University of Oxford; Oxford University launches new institute to tackle contemporary ethical issues

"A new institute with a philosophical focus on contemporary ethical issues has launched today at the University of Oxford. The institute has been made possible by a transformative gift from the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education, which has generously supported the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics since 2003.

The new Uehiro Oxford Institute will replace the Oxford Uehiro Centre, bringing together researchers from across the disciplines to answer ethical questions concerning some of the biggest challenges of our time, including around pandemics, climate change, poverty, migration, and rapid developments in bio-, neuro- and information technology. The institute will be based in the Humanities Division and have strong links with the Faculty of Philosophy, while also developing collaborations with research units and scholars working in areas such as psychology, psychiatry, politics and the law.

As well as fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, the Uehiro Oxford Institute will focus closely on public engagement and policy. The institute will also offer various forms of ‘ethics consultancy’, providing assistance on the basis of need to groups facing ethical challenges. The foundation’s gift will also support a range of postdoctoral research fellowships, senior appointments and graduate scholarships."

Tim Walz Said He Was in Hong Kong in 1989 During Tiananmen. Not True.; The New York Times; October 1, 2024

Danny Hakim and Amy Qin , The New York Times; Tim Walz Said He Was in Hong Kong in 1989 During Tiananmen. Not True.

"Repeatedly over the years, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota has said that the year he spent teaching in China began with a trip to Hong Kong during the pro-democracy protests in the spring of 1989 that culminated in the deadly crackdown that June in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

As recently as February, Mr. Walz said on a podcast that he had been in Hong Kong, then a British colony, “on June 4 when Tiananmen happened,” and decided to cross into mainland China to take up his teaching duties even though many people were urging him not to.

Mr. Walz had told the same story a decade earlier, at a congressional hearing, when he testified that he “was in Hong Kong in May 1989,” adding, “As the events were unfolding, several of us went in. I still remember the train station in Hong Kong.”

But it was not true. Mr. Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, indeed taught at a high school in China as part of a program sending American teachers abroad, but he did not actually travel to the country until August 1989."

Fake Cases, Real Consequences [No digital link as of 10/1/24]; ABA Journal, Oct./Nov. 2024 Issue

John Roemer, ABA Journal; Fake Cases, Real Consequences [No digital link as of 10/1/24]

"Legal commentator Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law who tracks AI in litigation, in February reported on the 14th court case he's found in which AI-hallucinated false citations appeared. It was a Missouri Court of Appeals opinion that assessed the offending appellant $10,000 in damages for a frivolous filing.

Hallucinations aren't the only snag, Volokh says. "It's also with the output mischaracterizing the precedents or omitting key context. So one still has to check that output to make sure it's sound, rather than just including it in one's papers.

Echoing Volokh and other experts, ChatGPT itself seems clear-eyed about its limits. When asked about hallucinations in legal research, it replied in part: "Hallucinations in chatbot answers could potentially pose a problem for lawyers if they relied solely on the information provided by the chatbot without verifying its accuracy."

When Between the World and Me Faced a School Book Ban, Ta-Nehisi Coates Decided to Report It Out; Vanity Fair, September 24, 2024

TA-NEHISI COATES , Vanity Fair; When Between the World and Me Faced a School Book Ban, Ta-Nehisi Coates Decided to Report It Out

"The truth is that even as I know and teach the power of writing, I still find myself in disbelief when I see that power at work in the real world. Maybe it is the nature of books. Film, music, the theater—all can be experienced amidst the whooping, clapping, and cheering of the crowd. But books work when no one else is looking, mind-melding author and audience, forging an imagined world that only the reader can see. Their power is so intimate, so insidious, that even its authors don’t always comprehend it. I see politicians in Colorado, in Tennessee, in South Carolina moving against my own work, tossing books I’ve authored out of libraries, banning them from classes, and I feel snatched out of the present and brought into another age, one of pitchforks and book-burning bonfires. My first instinct is to laugh, but then I remember that American history is filled with men and women as lethal as they were ridiculous. And when I force myself to take a serious look, I see something familiar: an attempt by adults to break the young minds entrusted to them and remake them in a more orderly and pliable form."

Use the f-word; The Ink, October 1, 2024

 The Ink; Use the f-word

"Philosopher Jason Stanley talks about why fascists have mounted an attack on education, why universities haven't fought back, and how to resist."

OpenAI Faces Early Appeal in First AI Copyright Suit From Coders; Bloomberg Law, September 30, 2024

Isaiah Poritz , Bloomberg Law; OpenAI Faces Early Appeal in First AI Copyright Suit From Coders

"OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft Corp.‘s GitHub will head to the country’s largest federal appeals court to resolve their first copyright lawsuit from open-source programmers who claim the companies’ AI coding tool Copilot violates a decades-old digital copyright law.

Judge Jon S. Tigar granted the programmers’ request for a mid-case turn to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which must determine whether OpenAI’s copying of open-source code to train its AI model without proper attribution to the programmers could be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act...

The programmers argued that Copilot fails to include authorship and licensing terms when it outputs code. Unlike other lawsuits against AI companies, the programmers didn’t allege that OpenAI and GitHub engaged in copyright infringement, which is different from a DMCA violation."

USU's College of Humanities & Social Sciences Hosts Conference on Ethics of AI; Utah State University (USU), September 23, 2024

Utah State University (USU); USU's College of Humanities & Social Sciences Hosts Conference on Ethics of AI

"AI’s emergence from the obscure to the unavoidable has come with many questions and concerns — some of which deal with how we can and should use it ethically.

To help answer some of these questions the USU Communication Studies and Philosophy Department and the Center for Anticipatory Intelligence hosted a conference.

They brought in scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss these issues — with these experts coming from the University of Cambridge, New York University and Northeastern University, among others."

Gavin Newsom vetoes sweeping AI safety bill, siding with Silicon Valley; Politico, September 29, 2024

 LARA KORTE and JEREMY B. WHITE, Politico; Gavin Newsom vetoes sweeping AI safety bill, siding with Silicon Valley

"Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a sweeping California bill meant to impose safety vetting requirements for powerful AI models, siding with much of Silicon Valley and leading congressional Democrats in the most high-profile fight in the Legislature this year."

AI could be an existential threat to publishers – that’s why Mumsnet is fighting back; The Guardian, September 28, 2024

Justine Roberts , The Guardian; AI could be an existential threat to publishers – that’s why Mumsnet is fighting back

"After nearly 25 years as a founder of Mumsnet, I considered myself pretty unshockable when it came to the workings of big tech. But my jaw hit the floor last week when I read that Google was pushing to overhaul UK copyright law in a way that would allow it to freely mine other publishers’ content for commercial gain without compensation.

At Mumsnet, we’ve been on the sharp end of this practice, and have recently launched the first British legal action against the tech giant OpenAI. Earlier in the year, we became aware that it was scraping our content – presumably to train its large language model (LLM). Such scraping without permission is a breach of copyright laws and explicitly of our terms of use, so we approached OpenAI and suggested a licensing deal. After lengthy talks (and signing a non-disclosure agreement), it told us it wasn’t interested, saying it was after “less open” data sources...

If publishers wither and die because the AIs have hoovered up all their traffic, then who’s left to produce the content to feed the models? And let’s be honest – it’s not as if these tech giants can’t afford to properly compensate publishers. OpenAI is currently fundraising to the tune of $6.5bn, the single largest venture capital round of all time, valuing the enterprise at a cool $150bn. In fact, it has just been reported that the company is planning to change its structure and become a for-profit enterprise...

I’m not anti-AI. It plainly has the potential to advance human progress and improve our lives in myriad ways. We used it at Mumsnet to build MumsGPT, which uncovers and summarises what parents are thinking about – everything from beauty trends to supermarkets to politicians – and we licensed OpenAI’s API (application programming interface) to build it. Plus, we think there are some very good reasons why these AI models should ingest Mumsnet’s conversations to train their models. The 6bn-plus words on Mumsnet are a unique record of 24 years of female interaction about everything from global politics to relationships with in-laws. By contrast, most of the content on the web was written by and for men. AI models have misogyny baked in and we’d love to help counter their gender bias.

But Google’s proposal to change our laws would allow billion-dollar companies to waltz untrammelled over any notion of a fair value exchange in the name of rapid “development”. Everything that’s unique and brilliant about smaller publisher sites would be lost, and a handful of Silicon Valley giants would be left with even more control over the world’s content and commerce."

US Trademark Office cancels Marvel, DC's 'Super Hero' marks; Reuters, September 26, 2024

Blake Brittain , Reuters; US Trademark Office cancels Marvel, DC's 'Super Hero' marks

"A U.S. Trademark Office tribunal has canceled a set of "Super Hero" trademarks jointly owned by comic giants Marvel and DC at the request of a London-based comic book artist, according to a Thursday order.

The USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled for S.J. Richold's Superbabies Ltd after Disney's Marvel and Warner Bros' DC did not file an answer to Superbabies' request to invalidate the marks.

Spokespeople and attorneys for Marvel and DC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Superbabies attorney Adam Adler of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg said in a statement that the ruling was "not just a win for our client but a victory for creativity and innovation."

"By establishing SUPER HEROES' place in the public domain, we safeguard it as a symbol of heroism available to all storytellers," Adler said."

Pulling Back the Silicon Curtain; The New York Times, September 10, 2024

Dennis Duncan, The New York Times; Pulling Back the Silicon Curtain: 

Review of NEXUS: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI, by Yuval Noah Harari

"In a nutshell, Harari’s thesis is that the difference between democracies and dictatorships lies in how they handle information...

The meat of “Nexus” is essentially an extended policy brief on A.I.: What are its risks, and what can be done? (We don’t hear much about the potential benefits because, as Harari points out, “the entrepreneurs leading the A.I. revolution already bombard the public with enough rosy predictions about them.”) It has taken too long to get here, but once we arrive Harari offers a useful, well-informed primer.

The threats A.I. poses are not the ones that filmmakers visualize: Kubrick’s HAL trapping us in the airlock; a fascist RoboCop marching down the sidewalk. They are more insidious, harder to see coming, but potentially existential. They include the catastrophic polarizing of discourse when social media algorithms designed to monopolize our attention feed us extreme, hateful material. Or the outsourcing of human judgment — legal, financial or military decision-making — to an A.I. whose complexity becomes impenetrable to our own understanding.

Echoing Churchill, Harari warns of a “Silicon Curtain” descending between us and the algorithms we have created, shutting us out of our own conversations — how we want to act, or interact, or govern ourselves...

“When the tech giants set their hearts on designing better algorithms,” writes Harari, “they can usually do it.”...

Parts of “Nexus” are wise and bold. They remind us that democratic societies still have the facilities to prevent A.I.’s most dangerous excesses, and that it must not be left to tech companies and their billionaire owners to regulate themselves."

Why the nonprofit behind Little Libraries is tackling banned books, including in Nashville; The Tennessean, September 25, 2024

Angele Latham, The Tennessean ; Why the nonprofit behind Little Libraries is tackling banned books, including in Nashville

"The national network of Little Free Libraries — tiny cupboards perched outside homes holding free books — is partnering with Banned Books Week, PEN America and the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom to raise awareness of literary access for all with an interactive map displaying all little libraries across the country, overlaid with the number of book ban attempts made in each state.

Although the libraries may be small in size, they are not small in number. The network, which began in 2009, now boasts over 70,000 stations around the world, with 1,369 in Tennessee alone.

Little Free Libraries Executive Director Greig Meitzer said the web of libraries — and the access they provide — perfectly represents the ideals and goals behind Banned Books Week.

“Book access is kind of a core aspect of our mission,” he said. “Getting more books to more people, and especially a broad range in diversity of books, gives people increased opportunities to find themselves in a book, to read and get excited.”"

Should You Be Allowed to Profit From A.I.-Generated Art?; The New York Times, September 27, 2024

Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Times; Should You Be Allowed to Profit From A.I.-Generated Art?

[Excerpt]

"We attempt to attribute art whenever we can, and anything that’s only for purchase we either avoid or pay for. This particular piece seems to be available only in an Etsy shop, where the creator apparently uses A.I. prompts to generate images. The price is nominal: a few dollars. Yet I cannot help thinking that those who make A.I.-generated art are taking other artists’ work, essentially recreating it and then profiting from it. 

I’m not sure what the best move is...Name Withheld

From the Ethicist:

There’s a sense in which A.I. image generators — such as DALL-E 3, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion — make use of the intellectual property of the artists whose work they’ve been trained on. But the same is true of human artists. The history of art is the history of people borrowing and adapting techniques and tropes from earlier work, with occasional moments of deep originality...

Maybe you’re worried that A.I. image generators will undermine the value of human-made art. Such concerns have a long history. In his classic 1935 essay, ‘‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’’ the critic Walter Benjamin pointed out that techniques for reproducing artworks have been invented throughout history. In antiquity, the Greeks had foundries for reproducing bronzes; in time, woodcuts were widely used to make multiple copies of images; etching, lithography and photography later added new possibilities. These technologies raised the question of what Benjamin called the ‘‘aura’’ of the individual artwork...

As forms of artificial intelligence grow increasingly widespread, we need to get used to so-called ‘‘centaur’’ models — collaborations between human and machine cognition."

5 Days With Elon Musk on X: Deepfakes, Falsehoods and Lots of Memes; The New York Times, September 27, 2024

Stuart A. Thompson , The New York Times; 5 Days With Elon Musk on X: Deepfakes, Falsehoods and Lots of Memes

"Experts who monitor falsehoods and conspiracy theories have long feared that Mr. Musk would use his ownership of X to further pollute the online ecosystem. Since he bought the platform known as Twitter in 2022, he has shown a willingness to elevate unfounded claims as he has embraced a more conservative political posture, including by endorsing Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign in July.

Nearly a third of his posts last week were false, misleading or missing vital context. They included misleading posts claiming Democrats were making memes “illegal” and falsehoods that they want to “open the border” to gain votes from illegal immigrants. His misleading posts were seen more than 800 million times on X, underscoring Mr. Musk’s unique role as the platform’s most-followed account and a significant source of its misleading content."

These two states are responsible for most of the nation’s school book bans; The 19th, September 24, 2024

Nadra Nittle, The 19th; These two states are responsible for most of the nation’s school book bans

"More than a dozen new state and local policies contributed to the escalation of book bans over the past year. They include Iowa’s SF 496,which took effect last year and has been interpreted to mean that books with sexual or gender themes should be barred. According to PEN America, the law prompted thousands of book bans during the 2023-’24 school year, compared with just 14 bans in the state during the previous school year. 

Florida’s HB 1069, which also took effect last year, mandates that books challenged for “sexual conduct” must be removed as they undergo review. PEN America said the statutory process the law created for book banning and “the state guidance building on it” has led to a spike in statewide book bans. In Florida and Iowa combined, roughly 8,000 book bans were recorded. 

In Wisconsin, the Elkhorn Area School District banned more than 300 books for months on end, PEN America found. The books were removed after a single parent challenged them, but after the district reviewed the titles, they were eventually returned to the shelves, albeit with restrictions such as parental permission to check out certain titles. The organization expects newly enacted laws such as Utah’s HB 29, South Carolina’s Regulation 43-170 and Tennessee’s HB 843 to cause more book bans this school year. 

The Utah law requires all schools in the state to ban a book once three school districts have found it objectionable. South Carolina’s regulation bans books with sexual subject matter and gives the state Board of Education the ability to censor works statewide. The Tennessee law requires schools to remove books with gratuitous violence or sexual content...

Censorship is an issue that has drawn attention from the 2024 presidential candidates. Former President Donald Trump’s campaign platform accusesPresident Joe Biden’s administration of “using the public school system to push their perverse sexual, racial and political material on our youth.” In July, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, criticized book bans while speaking to the American Federation of Teachers union in Texas.  

“While you teach students about our nation’s past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation’s true and full history,” she said. “We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books. Can you imagine?”

Artist sues after US rejects copyright for AI-generated image; Reuters, September 26, 2024

 Blake Brittain, Reuters; Artist sues after US rejects copyright for AI-generated image

"Artist Jason M. Allen asked a Colorado federal court on Thursday to reverse a U.S. Copyright Office decision that rejected copyright protection for an award-winning image he created with artificial intelligence...

A Copyright Office tribunal affirmed the decision last year, finding the image as a whole was not copyrightable because it contained more than a minimal amount of AI-created material.

The office has previously rescinded copyrights for images that artist Kris Kashtanova created using Midjourney. It also rejected a copyright application for an image that computer scientist Stephen Thaler said his AI system created autonomously. Thaler has since appealed...

The case is Allen v. Perlmutter, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, No. 1:24-cv-02665."