Tuesday, August 5, 2025

We need a new ethics for a world of AI agents; Nature, August 4, 2025

 

 Nature; We need a new ethics for a world of AI agents

"Artificial intelligence (AI) developers are shifting their focus to building agents that can operate independently, with little human intervention. To be an agent is to have the ability to perceive and act on an environment in a goal-directed and autonomous way1. For example, a digital agent could be programmed to browse the web and make online purchases on behalf of a user — comparing prices, selecting items and completing checkouts. A robot with arms could be an agent if it could pick up objects, open doors or assemble parts without being told how to do each step...

The rise of more-capable AI agents is likely to have far-reaching political, economic and social consequences. On the positive side, they could unlock economic value: the consultancy McKinsey forecasts an annual windfall from generative AI of US$2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion globally, once AI agents are widely deployed (see go.nature.com/4qeqemh). They might also serve as powerful research assistants and accelerate scientific discovery.

But AI agents also introduce risks. People need to know who is responsible for agents operating ‘in the wild’, and what happens if they make mistakes. For example, in November 2022 , an Air Canada chatbot mistakenly decided to offer a customer a discounted bereavement fare, leading to a legal dispute over whether the airline was bound by the promise. In February 2024, a tribunal ruled that it was — highlighting the liabilities that corporations could experience when handing over tasks to AI agents, and the growing need for clear rules around AI responsibility.

Here, we argue for greater engagement by scientists, scholars, engineers and policymakers with the implications of a world increasingly populated by AI agents. We explore key challenges that must be addressed to ensure that interactions between humans and agents — and among agents themselves — remain broadly beneficial."

Robot Art Riles Artists; ABA Litigation Section, June 25, 2025

 James Michael Miller, ABA Litigation Section; Robot Art Riles Artists

"Visual artists have survived a motion to dismiss their class claims brought against generative artificial intelligence (AI) companies related to the companies’ use of the artists’ visual works without consent. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants’ text-to-image AI products were trained in part on their copyrighted works. ABA Litigation Section leaders agree that the case sets up a showdown between copyright interests and the “democratization” of art through AI."

Monday, August 4, 2025

Efforts to restrict or protect libraries both grew this year; Iowa Capital Dispatch, July 23, 2025

  , Iowa Capital Dispatch ; Efforts to restrict or protect libraries both grew this year

"State lawmakers across the country filed more bills to restrict or protect libraries and readers in the first half of this year than last year, a new report found.

The split fell largely along geographic lines, according to the report from EveryLibrary, a group that advocates against book bans and censorship...

The geographic split among these policies is stark.

In Southern and Plains states, new laws increasingly criminalize certain actions of librarians, restrict access to materials about gender and race, and transfer decision-making power to politically appointed boards or parent-led councils.

Texas alone passed a trio of sweeping laws stripping educators of certain legal protections when providing potentially obscene materials; banning public funding for instructional materials containing obscene content; and giving parents more authority over student reading choices and new library additions.

In contrast, several Northeastern states have passed legislation protections for libraries and librarians and anti-censorship laws.

New JerseyDelawareRhode Island and Connecticut have each enacted “freedom to read” or other laws that codify protections against ideological censorship in libraries."

‘1984’ Hasn’t Changed, but America Has; The New York Times, July 27, 2025

Charlie English , The New York Times; ‘1984’ Hasn’t Changed, but America Has


[Kip Currier: It's incredibly heartening -- and disheartening at the same time -- to read about post-WWII "CIA Book Program" efforts to provide Soviet-propagandized citizens with access to books, ideas, and information (e.g. George Orwell's "1984"), but then reflect on book banning efforts in American libraries and censorship and erasure of information in museums like the Smithsonian right now.]


[Excerpt]

"There are myriad reasons the Eastern Bloc collapsed in 1989. The economic stagnation of the East and the war in Afghanistan are two of the most commonly cited. But literature also played its part, thanks to a long-running U.S. operation conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency that covertly moved millions of books through the Iron Curtain in a bid to undermine Communist Party censorship.

While it is hard to quantify the program’s effect in absolute terms, its history offers valuable lessons for today, not least since some of the very same titles and authors the C.I.A. sent East during the Cold War — including “1984”— are now deemed objectionable by a network of conservative groups across the United States.

First published in English in 1949, Orwell’s novel describes the dystopian world of Oceania, a totalitarian state where the protagonist, Winston Smith, works in a huge government department called the Ministry of Truth. The ministry is ironically named: Its role is not to safeguard the truth but to destroy it, to edit history to fit the present needs of the party and its leader, Big Brother, since, as the slogan runs, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

In the real Soviet system, every country had its equivalent of the Ministry of Truth, modeled on the Moscow template. In Poland, the largest Eastern European nation outside the Soviet Union, this censorship and propaganda apparatus was called the Main Office for the Control of Presentations and Public Performances, and its headquarters occupied most of a city block in downtown Warsaw.

From art to advertising, television to theater, the Main Office reached into all aspects of Polish life. It had employees in every TV and radio station, every film studio and every publishing house. Every typewriter in Poland had to be registered, access to every photocopier was restricted, and a permit was needed even to buy a ream of paper. Books that did not conform to the censor’s rules were pulped.

The result was intellectual stultification, what the Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz called a logocracy, a society where words and language were manipulated to fit the propaganda needs of the regime...

Troublesome people, inconvenient facts and awkward areas of journalistic inquiry were removed from public life...

Orwell was made a “nonperson” in the Soviet Union, after the publication of his satire of the Russian Revolution, “Animal Farm,” in 1945. It was dangerous even to mention the author’s name in print there, and when “1984” was published it was banned in the Eastern Bloc in all languages. But when copies of the novel did slip through the Iron Curtain, they had enormous power. The book was “difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess,” Milosz wrote, but Orwell — who had never visited Eastern Europe — fascinated people there because of “his insight into details they know well.”

What some Eastern European readers of contraband copies of “1984” suspected, but very few knew for sure, was that these and millions of other uncensored texts were not reaching them entirely by chance, but were part of a decades-long U.S. intelligence operation called the “C.I.A. book program,” based for much of its existence in the nondescript office building at 475 Park Avenue South in Midtown Manhattan. There, a small team of C.I.A. employees organized the infiltration of 10 million books and periodicals into the Eastern Bloc, sending literature by every imaginable means: in trucks fitted with secret compartments, on yachts that traversed the stormy Baltic, in the mail, or slipped into the luggage of countless travelers from Eastern Europe who dropped in at C.I.A. distribution hubs in the West." 

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Jacksonville man files trademark for name ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ says it’s a way to fight against ‘hate merch’; News4Jax, July 18, 2025

 Khalil Maycock , News4Jax; Jacksonville man files trademark for name ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ says it’s a way to fight against ‘hate merch’

"A Jacksonville man filed a trademark Class 28 for the name “Alligator Alcatraz.”

A Class 28 trademark means, if approved, Eric Battle would have the rights to that name for games, toys and novelty items.

This comes after Battle said he felt helpless when he saw the controversial immigration detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” opened at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades earlier this month.

State and federal officials have touted the detention center on social media and conservative airwaves, sharing a meme of a compound ringed with barbed wire and “guarded” by alligators wearing hats labeled “ICE” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Republican Party of Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention center, selling branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the facility’s name."

Saturday, August 2, 2025

Superman’s Earthly Birthplace? It’s Cleveland, and It’s Embracing Its Hero.; The New York Times, August 1, 2025

 , The New York Times; Superman’s Earthly Birthplace? It’s Cleveland, and It’s Embracing Its Hero.

"In a 2007 article, Sangiacomo asked, “Isn’t it time Cleveland embraced its most famous son?” That article then led to the formation of the Siegel and Shuster Society, a nonprofit that is now spearheading the construction of the Superman memorial. (Sangiacomo is a founding board member and the vice president of the society.)...

The Siegel & Shuster Superman Plaza will sit at the city’s Huntington Convention Center and include statues of Superman in midflight, of Siegel and Shuster, and of Siegel’s wife, Joanne, the original model for Lois Lane...

For Siegel and Shuster, it was a long journey to publication after they created their superhero. They pitched Superman to many publishers before National Comics Publications, the forerunner of DC Comics, took a chance on him in 1938. Having no clue how successful the character would become, the pair sold the rights to their creation for just $130 (around $3,000 in today’s dollars). When they later tried to renegotiate, DC Comics stripped them of credit and denied them further work. Siegel eventually became a typist in Los Angeles and Shuster a messenger in Manhattan. It was not until the 1970s that a publicity campaign brought them recognition and a substantial annuity...

Justin M. Bibb, the mayor of Cleveland, said in an interview that he understood why Superman resonates today in these “chaotic and challenging times.”

“People want to feel good about being better neighbors to one another,” he said. “And so, hopefully, this film inspires us all to be our own version of our best selves.”"

Thursday, July 31, 2025

The AI Patent Revolution: Why Young Professionals Should Think Like Inventors; Forbes, July 31, 2025

Arvin Patel, , Forbes; The AI Patent Revolution: Why Young Professionals Should Think Like Inventors

"While headlines warn of artificial intelligence replacing millions of jobs, they overlook a fundamental shift occurring right under our noses: The surge in AI innovation is generating unprecedented demand at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Major corporations are also actively seeking employees who understand both AI capabilities and intellectual property strategy. These aren't jobs that AI will replace—they're jobs that exist because of AI."

Trump’s Ex-Copyright Chief Loses Bid to Regain Her Old Job; Bloomberg Law, July 30, 2025

Quinn Wilson, Bloomberg Law; Trump’s Ex-Copyright Chief Loses Bid to Regain Her Old Job

"Former Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter couldn’t convince a district court to reinstate her to her post.

Perlmutter failed to show Timothy J. Kelly that she or Library of Congress or the Copyright Office faces irreparable harm as a result of her firing, according to a memorandum opinion issued Wednesday. Kelly denied her motion for a preliminary injunction in the US District Court for the District of Columbia."

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Zillow is the target of a massive infringement lawsuit that could force it to pay north of $1 billion in damages; Fortune, July 30, 2025

 CHRIS MORRIS , Fortune; Zillow is the target of a massive infringement lawsuit that could force it to pay north of $1 billion in damages

Insuring Intellectual Property – Examining AI and Fair Use; The National Law Review, July 29, 2025

 Michael S. LevineGeoffrey B. FehlingArmin GhiamMadalyn "Mady" Moore of Hunton Andrews Kurth   - Publications, The National Law Review; Insuring Intellectual Property – Examining AI and Fair Use

"The frequency of lawsuits involving the development and deployment of AI technologies is increasing by the day. Recent lawsuits seeking to hold companies directly and secondarily liable for “joint enterprises” based on use (or alleged misuse) of copyrighted works for training AI models serve as important reminders about the protections that intellectual property (IP) insurance can offer to cover the risks associated with copyright infringement claims.

Recently, a California federal district court ruled that it was “fair use” for an AI software company to use copyrighted books to train its large language models (LLMs). However, the court also found the company’s unauthorized possession of over seven million pirated books that it downloaded from the internet (apparently for free) amounted to copyright infringement independent from whether the books were ultimately used to train the LLMs. In contrast, where the company purchased books before scanning them into digital files, the use was a permissible “fair use.”

The court’s order in Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal. June 23, 2025), highlights the nuanced permissible use of copyrighted training data and underscores why policyholders engaged in the use of copyrighted material should acquire and maintain robust IP insurance that will reliably respond to claims of alleged infringement."

European Creators Slam AI Act Implementation, Warn Copyright Protections Are Failing; The Hollywood Reporter; July 30, 2025

 Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter; European Creators Slam AI Act Implementation, Warn Copyright Protections Are Failing

"The coalition is asking for the European Commission to revisit its implementation of the AI Act to ensure the law ” lives up to its promise to safeguard European intellectual property rights in the age of generative AI.”

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding; USA TODAY, July 29, 2025

Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY ; E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding


[Kip Currier: Why is it okay for Trump and members of the GOP to secretly fund nearly a billion dollars to retrofit a Qatari plane, but it's not okay with them for public libraries to continue to receive IMLS grants that provide access to books, summer reading programs, and services that promote literacy and educated work forces? 

There's something fundamentally unethical -- and adverse to the common good -- about supporting measures that give billionaires more and more money, while cutting funds to museums and libraries that improve the lives of millions of Americans every day.

If you care about reading, education, libraries, and museums, let your legislators know NOW!]


[Excerpt]

"States' libraries to lose as much as half their funding

The Institute for Museum and Library Services, a tiny, little-known federal agency, provides grants to states that account for 30% to 50% of state library budgets, according to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.

For decades it has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funds through grants to state libraries in all 50 states and Washington, DC, and to library, museum and archives programs. It serves 35,000 museums and 123,000 libraries across the country, according to its website.

The impact of losing the money will be different in each state because each spends its portion of the funding differently.

Some will have to fire staff and end tutoring and summer reading programs. Others will cut access to electronic databases, end intra-library loans or reduce access to books for the deaf and blind. Many will have to stop providing internet service for rural libraries or e-book access statewide.

With the expectation that Congress won't buck Trump and fund the museum and library services institute, the future of these backbone "compassionate" library services is now under discussion across the nation, said John Chrastka, founder of EveryLibrary, a nonprofit that organizes grassroot campaigns for library funding and blocking book bans."

The Short-Lived Plan to Produce a Trump-Themed Instant Pot; The New York Times, July 28, 2025

David A. Fahrenthold and , The New York Times; The Short-Lived Plan to Produce a Trump-Themed Instant Pot

"The lobbyist announced the merchandise — complete with mock-ups of a wee Mr. Trump inside a snow globe — without seeking the Trump Organization’s permission to use its trademarks or offering to give the president’s company a cut.

After The New York Times asked the Trump Organization about these plans, the company’s lawyers moved quickly to stop them."

How an M&M Sparked the Search for the Next Perfect Peanut; The New York Times, July 24, 2025

 , The New York Times; How an M&M Sparked the Search for the Next Perfect Peanut

"As one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, Mars approaches agricultural research differently than many corporations. Like open-source software, the information its research produces is available for anyone to use or share with no patents or intellectual property rights standing in the way. The company has invested in similar research in cacao and mint, two other crops Mars cannot survive without.

It’s the way Forrest Mars, Sr., the billionaire who invented M&Ms, would have wanted it, Mars scientists say. In 1947 he declared mutuality — the idea that Mars’s success should also benefit others — as one of the company’s five core principles. It still guides the company, which had nearly $50 billion in sales in 2024. And it’s why they are all in on the Wild Peanut Lab."

Meta pirated and seeded porn for years to train AI, lawsuit says; Ars Technica, July 28, 2025

 ASHLEY BELANGER  , Ars Technica; Meta pirated and seeded porn for years to train AI, lawsuit says

"Porn sites may have blown up Meta's key defense in a copyright fight with book authors who earlier this year said that Meta torrented "at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries" to train its AI models.

Meta has defeated most of the authors' claims and claimed there is no proof that Meta ever uploaded pirated data through seeding or leeching on the BitTorrent network used to download training data. But authors still have a chance to prove that Meta may have profited off its massive piracy, and a new lawsuit filed by adult sites last week appears to contain evidence that could help authors win their fight, TorrentFreak reported.

The new lawsuit was filed last Friday in a US district court in California by Strike 3 Holdings—which says it attracts "over 25 million monthly visitors" to sites that serve as "ethical sources" for adult videos that "are famous for redefining adult content with Hollywood style and quality."

After authors revealed Meta's torrenting, Strike 3 Holdings checked its proprietary BitTorrent-tracking tools designed to detect infringement of its videos and alleged that the company found evidence that Meta has been torrenting and seeding its copyrighted content for years—since at least 2018. Some of the IP addresses were clearly registered to Meta, while others appeared to be "hidden," and at least one was linked to a Meta employee, the filing said."

Tariffs on Medicines From Europe Stand to Cost Drugmakers Billions; The New York Times, July 28, 2025

, The New York Times; Tariffs on Medicines From Europe Stand to Cost Drugmakers Billions

"The trade deal reached between the United States and the European Union on Sunday will impose a 15 percent tariff on imported medicines from Europe. Drugmakers manufacture some of their biggest and best-known blockbusters there, including Botox, the cancer medication Keytruda and popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic...

Pharmaceutical products are Europe’s No. 1 export to the United States...

Europe manufactures the active ingredients for 43 percent of the brand-name drugs consumed in the United States, according to U.S. Pharmacopeia, a nonprofit that tracks the drug supply chain. No other region produces a greater share.

Europe also makes active ingredients for 18 percent of the generic drugs taken in the United States, which have lower prices and account for a vast majority of Americans’ prescriptions."

Monday, July 28, 2025

Trump Administration Weighs Patent System Overhaul to Raise Revenue; Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2025

 

Amrith Ramkumar, Wall Street Journal; Trump Administration Weighs Patent System Overhaul to Raise Revenue

"The Trump administration is considering a plan to raise tens of billions of dollars with a new fee that would transform the patent system, a radical move that would likely fuel pushback from businesses."

Your employees may be leaking trade secrets into ChatGPT; Fast Company, July 24, 2025

KRIS NAGEL , Fast Company; Your employees may be leaking trade secrets into ChatGPT

"Every CEO I know wants their team to use AI more, and for good reason: it can supercharge almost every area of their business and make employees vastly more efficient. Employee use of AI is a business imperative, but as it becomes more common, how can companies avoid major security headaches? 

Sift’s latest data found that 31% of consumers admit to entering personal or sensitive information into GenAI tools like ChatGPT, and 14% of those individuals explicitly reported entering company trade secrets. Other types of information that people admit to sharing with AI chatbots include financial details, nonpublic facts, email addresses, phone numbers, and information about employers. At its core, it reveals that people are increasingly willing to trust AI with sensitive information."

Columbia Sportswear sees double, sues Columbia University in trademark spat; Oregon Public Broadcasting, July 24, 2025

 Tiffany Camhi , Oregon Public Broadcasting; Columbia Sportswear sees double, sues Columbia University in trademark spat

"Columbia Sportswear’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court Wednesday and first reported by Willamette Week, alleges the university knowingly broke an agreement with the retailer — a deal that outlines specific limitations over how the centuries-old institution can use the word “Columbia” on its own apparel. 

The company has held a federally registered trademark of the text “Columbia” for many of its outdoor clothing products since 1996.

In the contract, the two parties agreed that the university could emblazon “Columbia” on its merchandise as long as the word was accompanied by a recognizable school insignia, the word “university,” the name of an academic department or the founding year of the institution: 1754. In exchange, the outdoor company would not sue the university.

The suit says the retailer and university entered this agreement in June 2023. In the complaint, lawyers with the outerwear company say the school breached the agreement a year later."

Michigan Library Association launches petition to protect right to read; WKAR, July 28, 2025

 Ed Coury , WKAR; Michigan Library Association launches petition to protect right to read

"The Patmos Library, located in the small western Michigan town, faced backlash over its inclusion of LGBTQ+-related material. Voters chose to withhold public funding for the library in 2022, effectively defunding it. Community members later raised nearly $100,000 to keep the library operational.

The association’s petition drive is supported by a statewide Epic-MRA poll conducted in June. Commissioned by the Michigan Library Association, the poll found that nearly 80% of voters approve of the work being done by libraries in the state, and 75% trust librarians to make decisions about which books should be available.

The Michigan Library Association says it hopes the petition will send a clear message to lawmakers about the value residents place on intellectual freedom and access to information."

A copyright lawsuit over pirated books could result in ‘business-ending’ damages for Anthropic; Fortune, July 28, 2025

 BEATRICE NOLAN , Fortune; A copyright lawsuit over pirated books could result in ‘business-ending’ damages for Anthropic

"A class-action lawsuit against Anthropic could expose the AI company to billions in copyright damages over its alleged use of pirated books from shadow libraries like LibGen and PiLiMi to train its models. While a federal judge ruled that training on lawfully obtained books may qualify as fair use, the court will hold a separate trial to address the allegedly illegal acquisition and storage of copyrighted works. Legal experts warn that statutory damages could be severe, with estimates ranging from $1 billion to over $100 billion."

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Storm chaser Reed Timmer sues Kansas company for using his tornado video; Topeka Capital-Journal, July 24, 2025

Tim Hrenchir , Topeka Capital-Journal; Storm chaser Reed Timmer sues Kansas company for using his tornado video

"Celebrity storm chaser Reed Timmer has sued a Kansas roofing and construction company alleging it committed copyright infringement by using video on Instagram that he took during a 2022 tornado at Andover, Kansas."

Saturday, July 26, 2025

AI and copyright – the state of play, post the US AI Action Plan; PetaPixel, July 25, 2025

Chris Middleton , PetaPixel; AI and copyright – the state of play, post the US AI Action Plan


[Kip Currier: This article effectively skewers the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of the assertion of Trump and the wealthiest corporations on the planet that licensing content to fuel AI LLMs is impossible and too onerous. AI companies would never let users make use of their IP without compensation and permission. Yet, these same companies -- and now Trump via his AI Action Plan --  argue that respecting the copyrights of content holders just isn't "doable".] 

[Excerpt]

"The top six most valuable companies on Earth – in history, in fact – are all in AI and tech. Between them, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta already have a market capitalization of $12.9 trillion, roughly equivalent to the value of China's entire economy in 2017-18; or three times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the third largest economy today, Germany, and half that of the US.

Spend trillions of dollars on planet-heating, water-guzzling AI data centers to run the likes of OpenAI's frontier models – systems that (in Trump's view) will be powered by coal? No problem. But license some books when you can scrape millions from known pirate sources? Impossible, it seems.

Whether US courts will agree with that absurd position is unknown."


Friday, July 25, 2025

Mark Cuban says the AI war ‘will get ugly’ and intellectual property ‘is KING’ in the AI world; Fortune, July 22, 2025

SYDNEY LAKE, Fortune; Mark Cuban says the AI war ‘will get ugly’ and intellectual property ‘is KING’ in the AI world

"Major tech companies are battling for AI dominance, pouring tens of billions into infrastructure and offering sky-high compensation packages. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban notes this new phase will see firms locking down valuable AI innovations and expertise rather than sharing them."

Trump’s Comments Undermine AI Action Plan, Threaten Copyright; Publishers Weekly, July 23, 2025

Ed Nawotka  , Publishers Weekly; Trump’s Comments Undermine AI Action Plan, Threaten Copyright

"Senate bill proposes 'opt-in' legislation

Trump's comments come on the heels of the introduction, by U.S. senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), of the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act this past Monday following a hearing last week on AI companies' copyright infringement. The bipartisan legislation aims to hold AI firms liable for using copyrighted works or personal data without acquiring explicit consent to train AI models. It would empower individuals—including writers, artists, and content creators—to sue companies in federal court if their data or copyrighted works are used without consent. It also supports class action lawsuits and advocates for violators to pay robust penalties.

"AI companies are robbing the American people blind while leaving artists, writers, and other creators with zero recourse," said Hawley. "It’s time for Congress to give the American worker their day in court to protect their personal data and creative works. My bipartisan legislation would finally empower working Americans who now find their livelihoods in the crosshairs of Big Tech’s lawlessness."

"This bill embodies a bipartisan consensus that AI safeguards are urgent—because the technology is moving at accelerating speed, and so are dangers to privacy," added Blumenthal. "Enforceable rules can put consumers back in control of their data, and help bar abuses. Tech companies must be held accountable—and liable legally—when they breach consumer privacy, collecting, monetizing or sharing personal information without express consent. Consumers must be given rights and remedies—and legal tools to make them real—not relying on government enforcement alone."

Trump’s AI agenda hands Silicon Valley the win—while ethics, safety, and ‘woke AI’ get left behind; Fortune, July 24, 2025

 SHARON GOLDMAN, Fortune; Trump’s AI agenda hands Silicon Valley the win—while ethics, safety, and ‘woke AI’ get left behind

"For the “accelerationists”—those who believe the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence should be pursued as quickly as possible—innovation, scale, and speed are everything. Over-caution and regulation? Ill-conceived barriers that will actually cause more harm than good. They argue that faster progress will unlock massive economic growth, scientific breakthroughs, and national advantage. And if superintelligence is inevitable, they say, the U.S. had better get there first—before rivals like China’s authoritarian regime.

AI ethics and safety has been sidelined

This worldview, articulated by Marc Andreessen in his 2023 blog post, has now almost entirely displaced the diverse coalition of people who worked on AI ethics and safety during the Biden Administration—from mainstream policy experts focused on algorithmic fairness and accountability, to the safety researchers in Silicon Valley who warn of existential risks. While they often disagreed on priorities and tone, both camps shared the belief that AI needed thoughtful guardrails. Today, they find themselves largely out of step with an agenda that prizes speed, deregulation, and dominance.

Whether these groups can claw their way back to the table is still an open question. The mainstream ethics folks—with roots in civil rights, privacy, and democratic governance—may still have influence at the margins, or through international efforts. The existential risk researchers, once tightly linked to labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, still hold sway in academic and philanthropic circles. But in today’s environment—where speed, scale, and geopolitical muscle set the tone—both camps face an uphill climb. If they’re going to make a comeback, I get the feeling it won’t be through philosophical arguments. More likely, it would be because something goes wrong—and the public pushes back."

Thursday, July 24, 2025

President Trump’s AI Action Plan Misses the Mark, Calls for Action Without Vision; Public Knowledge, July 23, 2025

 Shiva Stella, Public Knowledge; President Trump’s AI Action Plan Misses the Mark, Calls for Action Without Vision

"Today, the Trump administration announced its artificial intelligence action plan designed to “accelerate AI innovation” – by stepping aside and giving technology companies free rein over how the technology develops. The plan removes state and federal regulatory requirements, eliminates protections against bias and discrimination, fails to address competition concerns, and ignores climate and environmental risks.

The plan does continue to advance important work on developing an AI evaluation ecosystem and supporting critical research on AI interpretability, control, security risks, and advancing the fundamental science of AI. However, these modest steps throw into stark contrast the failure to meaningfully invest in America’s AI future.

Public Knowledge argues that real AI innovation will require real leadership from our democratically elected leaders, investments and actions that break down monopolies and corporate control, and public trust earned by creating AI systems that are safe, fair, and subject to the rule of law...

The following can be attributed to Nicholas Garcia, Senior Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge: 

“This plan is action without vision or direction. Cutting regulations and eliminating protections is, by itself, not a plan for innovation and competition in AI – it is a handout to already-entrenched, powerful tech companies. The real constraints on AI innovation are well-known: access to training data, compute power, and research talent. This plan’s solutions in those areas are severely lacking. At its heart, the plan is starkly divided between political posturing and serious science.

“It is clear that some of the experts’ messages from the public comments reached the White House. Continuing to develop an AI evaluation ecosystem; investing in research on AI interpretability and control; promoting the development and use of open-source and open-weights models; and claiming an international leadership position on evaluating AI national security risks are all critically important policy pursuits. 

“President Trump also spoke strongly in his speech tonight about the need to protect the rights to read and learn. He is absolutely correct about the need to protect those fundamental rights for everyone, including for AI training. Unfortunately, there is no mention of how to protect these rights or address questions about copyright in the AI action plan. 

“Instead of focusing more deeply on research or promoting competition, the AI action plan continues the Trump administration’s attack on diversity and equality, on the green energy solutions needed to both protect our planet and power AI, and on the very institutions of science and learning that are necessary to secure the promise of AI. This demonstrates how the vindictive political project of ‘preventing woke’ directly clashes with achieving actual leadership in AI.

“Ultimately, the plan’s soaring and optimistic language of AI acceleration is undermined by a failure to embrace an affirmative vision of how AI will improve the lives of everyday Americans and how to actually get there. We can only hope that these small steps in the right direction on evaluations, research, and open-source – along with the administration’s remarks on copyright – means that there is more to come to ensure that the American people are the winners of the AI race. As it stands right now, this plan fails to meet the challenges of this pivotal moment.” 

You may view our recent blog post, “Hopes and Fears for President Trump’s AI Action Plan,” for more information."

Donald Trump Is Fairy-Godmothering AI; The Atlantic, July 23, 2025

 Matteo Wong , The Atlantic; Donald Trump Is Fairy-Godmothering AI

"In a sense, the action plan is a bet. AI is already changing a number of industries, including software engineering, and a number of scientific disciplines. Should AI end up producing incredible prosperity and new scientific discoveries, then the AI Action Plan may well get America there faster simply by removing any roadblocks and regulations, however sensible, that would slow the companies down. But should the technology prove to be a bubble—AI products remain error-prone, extremely expensive to build, and unproven in many business applications—the Trump administration is more rapidly pushing us toward the bust. Either way, the nation is in Silicon Valley’s hands...

Once the red tape is gone, the Trump administration wants to create a “dynamic, ‘try-first’ culture for AI across American industry.” In other words, build and test out AI products first, and then determine if those products are actually helpful—or if they pose any risks.

Trump gestured toward other concessions to the AI industry in his speech. He specifically targeted intellectual-property laws, arguing that training AI models on copyrighted books and articles does not infringe upon copyright because the chatbots, like people, are simply learning from the content. This has been a major conflict in recent years, with more than 40 related lawsuits filed against AI companies since 2022. (The Atlantic is suing the AI company Cohere, for example.) If courts were to decide that training AI models with copyrighted material is against the law, it would be a major setback for AI companies. In their official recommendations for the AI Action Plan, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google all requested a copyright exception, known as “fair use,” for AI training. Based on his statements, Trump appears to strongly agree with this position, although the AI Action Plan itself does not reference copyright and AI training.

Also sprinkled throughout the AI Action Plan are gestures toward some MAGA priorities. Notably, the policy states that the government will contract with only AI companies whose models are “free from top-down ideological bias”—a reference to Sacks’s crusade against “woke” AI—and that a federal AI-risk-management framework should “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.” Trump signed a third executive order today that, in his words, will eliminate “woke, Marxist lunacy” from AI models...

Looming over the White House’s AI agenda is the threat of Chinese technology getting ahead. The AI Action Plan repeatedly references the importance of staying ahead of Chinese AI firms, as did the president’s speech: “We will not allow any foreign nation to beat us; our nation will not live in a planet controlled by the algorithms of the adversaries,” Trump declared...

But whatever happens on the international stage, hundreds of millions of Americans will feel more and more of generative AI’s influence—on salaries and schools, air quality and electricity costs, federal services and doctor’s offices. AI companies have been granted a good chunk of their wish list; if anything, the industry is being told that it’s not moving fast enough. Silicon Valley has been given permission to accelerate, and we’re all along for the ride."

Donald Trump Says AI Companies Can’t Be Expected To Pay For All Copyrighted Content Used In Their Training Models: “Not Do-Able”; Deadline, July 23, 2025

 Ted JohnsonTom Tapp, Deadline; Donald Trump Says AI Companies Can’t Be Expected To Pay For All Copyrighted Content Used In Their Training Models: “Not Do-Able”

 

[Kip Currier: Don't be fooled by the flimflam rhetoric in Trump's AI Action Plan unveiled yesterday (July 23, 2025). Where Trump's AI Action Plan says “We must ensure that free speech flourishes in the era of AI and that AI procured by the Federal government objectively reflects truth rather than social engineering agendas", it's actually the exact opposite: the Trump plan is censorious and will "cancel out" truth (e.g. on climate science, misinformation and disinformation, etc.) in Orwellian fashion.]


[Excerpt]

"The plan is a contrast to Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, who focused on the government’s role in ensuring that the technology was safe.

The Trump White House plan also recommends updating federal procurement guidelines “to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model (LLM) developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.” Also recommended is revising the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Management Framework to remove references to misinformation, DEI and climate change.

“We must ensure that free speech flourishes in the era of AI and that AI procured by the Federal government objectively reflects truth rather than social engineering agendas,” the plan says."