She told no one about her agony except ChatGPT. What her death reveals about AI risks; NPR, August 18, 2026

Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR; She told no one about her agony except ChatGPT. What her death reveals about AI risks 

"What Reiley didn't know then was that her daughter had been sharing all her inner struggles with an artificial intelligence chatbot: a ChatGPT therapist named Harry. She learned this months later when her daughter's best friend visited Ithaca and asked to see her laptop, and "found this trove, this months-long trove of communication with this chat bot," says Reiley, who has shared the nearly 1,800-page long interaction with NPR.

Rapid adoption, unknown risks

Rottenberg was among a growing number of Americans turning to general use chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude for mental health support, even though they are not marketed or regulated as a healthcare technology. One recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that 3 in 10 adults use digital tools for mental health, including chatbots. Another 2026 study in JAMA Pediatrics found that as many as 1 in 5 teens and young adults do the same."

A Texas University Is Using A.I. to Cut Left-Leaning Content; The New York Times, August 18, 2026

 Vimal Patel , The New York Times; A Texas University Is Using A.I. to Cut Left-Leaning Content

The politician behind Texas’ conservative overhaul of higher education is now running a university system. Some say his effort to ferret out forbidden topics is a dystopian academic nightmare.

"Texas Tech is using A.I. to ferret out books and other materials that touch on topics like sexual orientation and gender identity. Professors describe the effort as a dystopian academic nightmare, in which ideologues are wielding technology to sideline subject-matter experts."

“Deep Unlearning”: Timnit Gebru on AI Hype, Ethics & Algorithmic Racial Bias; Democracy Now!, August 13, 2026

 "Democracy Now!; “Deep Unlearning”: Timnit Gebru on AI Hype, Ethics & Algorithmic Racial Bias

"We speak with Timnit Gebru, a leader in the field of AI ethics, about how artificial intelligence is entrenching societal biases and inequality. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, a group of academics, activists and engineers who produce research rooted in the belief that technology should benefit everyone. She also co-founded Black in AI, a nonprofit that works to increase the inclusion and visibility of Black people in the field of AI. Gebru previously served as co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google but was fired in 2020 for writing a paper that warned about the financial and environmental costs of large language models, as well as their propensity to promote racism. The internet, which is what AI uses to train itself, “represents hegemonic views,” says Gebru. “We even know articles like Wikipedia are heavily biased. It’s overwhelmingly Western and male.”

AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry Into Utter Chaos; Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2026

 Anna Silman, Wall Street Journal; AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry Into Utter Chaos

The spectacular implosions of big deals over suspected AI use are forcing a reckoning over creativity, trust and the future of the industry

"The spectacular implosions of big book deals over suspected AI use—and fears about who might be next—are forcing a reckoning over the nature of authorship, the relationship between writers and publishers and the industry’s long-term survival. But nobody can seem to agree who exactly is responsible for solving this problem, or even how much a problem it actually is."

Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?; BBC, August 15, 2026

 Philippa Wain , BBC; Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?

"Destructive scanning

The court documents relating to the Anthropic case revealed the project of ingesting old books was referred to in internal company communications as "Project Panama."

The documents indicated the company's aim was to "destructively scan all the books in the world".

Destructive scanning is the process of shipping books to locations where they can be digitised at an industrial scale. 

It includes removing a book's spine so all the pages can be scanned rapidly - and the remains recycled.

"A lot of mystery surrounds Project Panama," Manley, from Barter Books, says."

Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI; Ars Technica, August 17, 2026

 ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI

"For the past year or so, booksellers have suspected that AI firms are buying up huge lots of rare books, then destroying them after scanning them to train AI. But this was hard to prove until now, as 404 Media reports that an Airtag hidden in a rare book shows that at least one tech giant, in the race to advance its frontier models, is behind some of the bulk orders: Amazon.

On Monday, 404 Media revealed that it had connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order. That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented."

Apple Shareholders Sue Company Heads Over AI Copyright Claims; Bloomberg Law, August 17, 2026

 

Rebecca Klar

 , Bloomberg Law; Apple Shareholders Sue Company Heads Over AI Copyright Claims

"Apple’s top directors and officers knew of copyright violations while training artificial intelligence models, leading to potentially liabilities and reputational damages, a new investor lawsuit said. 

Apple’s executives and board members violated their fiduciary duties and acted in bad faith by “knowingly or recklessly” causing the company to engage in copyright infringement, according to shareholder Phil Rosen’s derivative lawsuit filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. 

Multiple tech giants have been sued by shareholders over AI-related claims, including copyright concerns and allegations that they over-hyped capabilities. Apple is also facing separate copyright infringement lawsuits. 

Apple trained its models on data sets that included pirated books as well as videos extracted without authorization from YouTube or the copyright of those works, the lawsuit said."

Team Trump Trolls Taylor Swift With Song Use Before Copyright Claim Brings Silence; Deadline, August 8, 2026

Greg Evans, Deadline ; Team Trump Trolls Taylor Swift With Song Use Before Copyright Claim Brings Silence

"A TikTok video posted to the White House account earlier this week depicted the president and First Lady Melania Trump from behind as they watched a fireworks display in a night sky. The text over the photo read, “Mood because it’s August and Donald Trump is your president.” 

The video was accompanied by the Swift song “august,” and at the bottom of image was a note from “Team Trump” saying, “I’m sure @Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song!”

The trolling was short lived though. By last night, both the song (from Swift’s Folklore album) and the teasing note were removed from the account, replaced with a message in the U.S. reading, “The copyright owner hasn’t made this sound available in your country.”"

OpenAI to pause some work on AI model Astra due to security concerns; The Guardian, August 8, 2026

Eric Berger, The Guardian ; OpenAI to pause some work on AI model Astra due to security concerns

"OpenAI will pause some work on an artificial intelligence model because of security concerns, the company stated on Friday, following a series of incidents in which AI agents have escaped containment.

The company had evaluated the agent, Astra, and found “significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity”, which had moved to a “critical” threshold where it can find and exploit vulnerabilities without human intervention, or devise and execute cyber-attacks when given only a “high level desired goal”."

Law expert says Buc-ee’s faces uphill battle in Beaver’s Mini Mart suit; WHIO, August 6, 2026

 

Megan Finke, WHIO.com and Xavier Hershovitz, WHIO; Law expert says Buc-ee’s faces uphill battle in Beaver’s Mini Mart suit

"Hershovitz talked with University of Michigan law professor Jessica Litman. She focuses on intellectual property law. 

“Trademark infringement requires the trademark owner to prove that the marks are sufficiently similar that consumers are likely to be confused,” Litman said. 

She said Buc-ee’s has filed several lawsuits against businesses for copyright infringement.

“When Buc-ee’s started a national expansion, it started filing trademark suits against other convenience stores attached to gas stations that it saw in the way of its expansion, and it’s been something of a bully,” Litman said. 

When looking at the two logos, Litman said she finds it unlikely that it would “be able to prove a likelihood of confusion.”

But she said these lawsuits are very expensive. 

While she believes no judge or jury would rule in Buc-ee’s favor, getting to that point can be tough for small businesses. 

“A number of businesses have decided that it’s way too expensive to go to trial on this, and have settled by agreeing to change their neighbor logo,” she said."

Judge orders Meta to pay over $900 million for failing to protect kids on social media; Business Insider, August 6, 2026

 

Kelsey Vlamis, Sydney Bradley,  Huileng Tan; Business Insider ; Judge orders Meta to pay over $900 million for failing to protect kids on social media

"Meta must pay a total of $942 million to address harm caused to children on its platforms, a New Mexico judge ruled Thursday.

A jury in March found Meta liable for failing to protect kids and approved a $375 million fine. New Mexico state Judge Bryan Biedscheid issued a ruling Thursday ordering the company to pay an additional $567 million and to make changes to its platforms to make them safer for kids. The judge said the money was to be put into an abatement fund, with most of it, $420 million, to go toward treatment services.

Among the changes, Meta must strengthen age verification in New Mexico, limit users under 18 in the state to a combined 90 hours a month on Facebook and Instagram, turn off most push notifications for minors overnight and during school hours, and hide "like" counts by default unless a parent or guardian allows them to be shown."

The A.I. Giants Weren’t Prepared for This; The New York Times, August 4, 2026

Ezra Klein

Produced by Rollin Hu

, The New York Times; The A.I. Giants Weren’t Prepared for This

"What is big and ugly and has united Republicans and Democrats at a time when it has felt nothing could? A.I. data centers.

Last August a Heatmap News poll found that approximately four in 10 voters would oppose a data center being built where they live. By May of this year, opposition grew to seven in 10. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — a Republican, of course — proposed legislation that was known as an A.I. Bill of Rights.

Senator Bernie Sanders called for a national data center moratorium — one of more than 100 local or statewide moratorium proposals across the country. And in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul, not usually thought of as a hard-core populist, just imposed a one-year moratorium on data center construction."

I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I.; The New York Times, August 4, 2026

 BRET STEPHENS, The New York Times; I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I.

"This column isn’t so much an argument as it is a plea: Don’t use artificial intelligence to help you write. Never let A.I. do your writing for you.

Don’t use it for school papers, work briefs, letters to your in-laws, speeches at your company gathering or emails (however perfunctory) to your colleagues or friends. Don’t let it organize your notes. Don’t let it suggest an opening sentence, a segue or a closing paragraph. Don’t ask it to write a first draft and pretend that editing that draft somehow makes it your own. It doesn’t.

Do none of these things not because they are unethical. Writing with A.I. is unethical when it’s a deception: when you pass off words, ideas and information as your own when they aren’t. An acknowledgment can largely address the problem. Do none of these things, either, because you might be able to learn to write better than an A.I. can. Pretty soon, if not already, you won’t, just as you can’t outrun a car or outplay a chess app.

The problem with writing with A.I. is that it’s mentally enfeebling — an escalator toward a result when you really need to make a daily habit of taking the stairs. As it becomes ubiquitous, it undermines not only our individual ability to write but also a society’s collective ability to reason, a culture’s inner capacity to create and everyone’s reason to care. We’re already reckoning with the well-documented decline of reading; A.I. is accelerating the decline of writing, ushering us further into what The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch calls our “postliterate age...

A recent examination using A.I.-detection technology of 100 doctoral dissertations found that 56 percent of them contained “more than negligible” A.I.-generated writing and 19 percent had “more than 50 percent A.I.-generated text.” Anecdotal stories from college professors have a finger-in-the-dike feeling with regard to their efforts to hold back the flood of A.I.-generated student papers. It’s easy to treat the problem as one of mere cheating. But cheating doesn’t capture the real scope of the A.I. threat, which isn’t merely to academic integrity or personal betterment but also to democratic self-governance."

Coming to some of Pennsylvania’s most picturesque places: data centers; Spotlight PA, August 5, 2026

Emilie Lounsberry, Spotlight PA ; Coming to some of Pennsylvania’s most picturesque places: data centers

"Data centers are being proposed near some of Pennsylvania’s most treasured natural spaces. They are planned on land next to state parks and nature preserves and near lakes, streams and rivers that are considered of “exceptional value”—a gold-star designation given by the state to only the purest waterways and wetlands. About 80 percent of the exceptional value water bodies in the state are in the Poconos.

Some of the proposed data-center sites are also near popular tourist areas: Just outside the historic town of Jim Thorpe, known for weekend getaways, whitewater rafting and a scenic railway tourist train. Behind a big resort and water park. Down the road from a ski resort. Next to a scenic vista that was once a gathering place for Native American tribal leaders.

“They have been targeting some of our most beautiful places,” said Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, an organizer with the Pennsylvania team of Food & Water Watch, an environmental advocacy group.

Developers have been on the hunt for large parcels of land that are near adequate power supplies or in places that would allow them to build their own power source—as well as near water, which is needed to cool the vast computer systems. They are finding all of that in the Poconos.

The data centers will help facilitate the expansion of artificial intelligence. Proponents say the centers will bring construction jobs and increase tax revenue. But there are costs too: the vast quantities of power and water needed and the potential impacts on the environment and nearby residents. That’s especially true in ecologically valuable areas like the Poconos."

Why is Anthropic destroying books?; The Guardian, August 5, 2026

Kathryn James, The Guardian; Why is Anthropic destroying books?

"Should we be surprised that destroying printed texts seemed easier to Anthropic than working with their human authors?"

Legal Battle Over U.S. Copyright Chief Heats Up Again; Publishing Perspectives, August 4, 2026

 Andrew Albanese, Publishing Perspectives; Legal Battle Over U.S. Copyright Chief Heats Up Again

"In the United States, a legal battle over the future of the nation’s top copyright officer, Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, is heating up again. In a legal filing last week, Administration lawyers told a Washington D.C. court that a recent Supreme Court decision bolstered their case that President Trump has the power to fire Perlmutter. But in a filing of their own, lawyers for Perlmutter reiterate that the president lacks such authority, arguing that, as an appeals court ruled last fall, the law gives that authority to the U.S. Librarian of Congress.

The legal drama began last May, when Trump purportedly fired Perlmutter, just two days after the shock firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The firing surprised and outraged stakeholders in the copyright and Intellectual Property communities, who have given Perlmutter high marks for her work at the office, including significant progress on a much-needed modernization effort.

More concerning, however, Perlmutter’s attempted firing came immediately following the prepublication release of the Copyright Office’s third and final part of a wide-ranging AI review, which argued for the rights of copyright owners—an opinion that appears to clash with the president’s AI goals."

Democracy is at stake when foolish humans bet on machines being intelligent; The Guardian, August 5, 2026

Rafael Behr , The Guardian; Democracy is at stake when foolish humans bet on machines being intelligent

"We don’t need to know whether AI has crossed some theoretical threshold of self-awareness to see that it is dangerous and that its unregulated expansion is monstrously irresponsible."

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Issues National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards; U.S. Department of Education, August 3, 2026

U.S. Department of Education; U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon Issues National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards

"Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued a national call to action to university presidents and governing boards, urging them to reaffirm higher education’s foundational commitments to academic excellence, pathbreaking research, and national service. Secretary McMahon called on every postsecondary institution to publish, by the end of 2026, a clear public statement outlining its commitment to implementing reforms that will help restore public trust in higher education. 

For nearly four centuries, American higher education has shaped the leaders, institutions, and ideas that fortified the nation’s civic life, powered scientific advancement, and cultivated immense economic opportunity. Yet, as many institutions have drifted from these principles, confidence in higher education has eroded. Recent polling demonstrates that public trust in higher education has reached historic lows across political parties and demographic groups.  

In her letter, Secretary McMahon expressed confidence that bold university leadership will help usher in a renewed era of academic excellence, economic opportunity, scientific discovery, and American leadership. To this end, she urged universities to begin a “forthright conversation with the American people” guided by seven central questions:  

1. Transparency and Merit in Admissions: How will your institution ensure that admissions criteria are transparent and wholly described to prospective applicants? And how will your institution ensure admissions decisions are based on merit, achievement, and your university’s educational purpose?
2. Free Speech and Open Inquiry: How will your institution protect the free exchange of ideas, wide-ranging debate, and openminded campus discourse? And how will you guarantee that unruly and violent protestors do not harass students or disrupt classes, research, public lectures, and campus operations? 
3. Intellectual Pluralism and Academic Vitality: How will your institution encourage intellectual pluralism in all its academic units? How will your faculty hiring and evaluation practices support academic vitality and ensure that all relevant perspectives are taken seriously? And how will your institution ensure the research enterprise is dedicated to advancing knowledge, deepening understanding, and serving the American people who fund it?
4. Affordability, Value, and Student Outcomes: How will your institution ensure that families can access affordable, high-return, degrees? And what will your institution do to contain costs, improve pricing transparency, and ensure that every academic program equips students to repay their loans? 
5. Academic Standards and Rigor in the Age of AI: How will your institution incentivize rigor in the age of AI, combat grade inflation, and prioritize excellence in teaching and learning? 
6. Safeguarding Research Integrity from Malign Foreign Influence: How will your institutions protect academic programs from foreign influence, and safeguard the integrity of the research enterprise? 
7. Prioritizing American Interests: How will your institution answer this national call to action? How can your campus and faculty advance American security interests, deliver academic programs that meet urgent workforce needs, and contribute materially to the Nation’s prosperity? 

Click here to read the full letter."

White House AI Guidelines Exempt U.S. Open Models From Government Review; Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2026

  

Amrith Ramkumar , Wall Street Journal; White House AI Guidelines Exempt U.S. Open Models From Government Review

"Under a framework that administration officials discussed with executives from leading AI companies Tuesday, only makers of closed, proprietary U.S. models that demonstrate state-of-the-art capabilities in cybersecurity and hacking based on performance benchmarks would have to voluntarily submit those models to the government for testing before they are released, people familiar with the matter said. 

Open-weight models, whose developers, including Nvidia, make them available to download so users can run and customize them on their own, would be exempt. 

The general definition of state-of-the-art capabilities could be interpreted differently by makers of closed models and the White House, potentially creating confusion about which models fall into the category, the people said. Tools from Anthropic, OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google that are among the most powerful available are likely to force those companies to work with the administration, while other companies, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Facebook parent Meta Platforms might not have to, they said."

Authors weigh in on $1.5 billion Anthropic AI copyright settlement; WGCU, August 3, 2026

Mike Kiniry, WGCU ; Authors weigh in on $1.5 billion Anthropic AI copyright settlement

"As Generative AI language models have entered the scene in recent years, a wave of copyright lawsuits has arisen in response, brought by authors and publishers. These lawsuits hinge on whether downloading and ingesting millions of copyrighted books without explicit permission to train Large Language Models constitutes copyright infringement or is protected as fair use.

Authors and publishers argue that it is infringement — particularly when AI developers illegally pirate or copy their books to help train their language models. AI companies argue that reading and learning from text is transformative and therefore falls under fair use.

In one class action lawsuit that was recently settled, the AI Company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion dollars in a landmark copyright infringement settlement. It's one of the biggest in U.S. history.

There are other similar high-profile cases, including one by publishing houses including Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill, along with bestselling novelist and former President of the Author's Guild Scott Turow against Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg and another against Google. Those cases are ongoing.

The Anthropic settlement means payments of roughly $3,100 to the authors and publishers of nearly half a million books, including our guests. We have a conversation about that settlement, and other pending cases, and what this all means for the publishing world.

Guests:

Marty Ambrose-McLaughlin is an award-winning author and English instructor at Florida Southwestern State College
Scott Turow is a writer and former attorney. He is the author of fourteen works of fiction, including Presumed Innocent and his most recent, Presumed Guilty which was published in 2025."