Showing posts with label Trump DEI purges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump DEI purges. Show all posts

Thursday, July 24, 2025

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."

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Bill Clinton says he wondered if Trump administration might try to ban his latest book; The Hill, June 18, 2025

  JUDY KURTZ , The Hill; Bill Clinton says he wondered if Trump administration might try to ban his latest book

"Maya Angelou, who read the inaugural poem at my first inauguration — wrote it, and read it and was a great human being — the first thing the White House did was to ban her book, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,'” Clinton recalled.

Angelou’s 1969 autobiography was reportedly one of nearly 400 books that was pulled from the U.S. Naval Academy library in April as part of an effort to remove titles containing diversity, equity and inclusion content. 

Calling it a “magnificent book,” Clinton reflected on Angelou’s personal story about a child who “loses the ability to speak for a couple of years because she was abused, and then she blooms.”

“I couldn’t figure out why that was a problem,” Clinton said.

“I don’t like book banning,” the 42nd president added.

“I wasn’t ever for banning books that were full of things they said about me that weren’t true,” Clinton said.

“It never occurred to me that I should stop you from reading them.”"

Trump administration could change the way we read, from book bans to author talks; USA TODAY, June 18, 2025

 Clare Mulroy , USA TODAY; Trump administration could change the way we read, from book bans to author talks

"Hazelwood's tour snag sparked a discussion on book communities about how President Donald Trump's recent policies would trickle down to publishing. Amid book banning, border policies, new anti-DEI sentiments and federal library grant cuts, these are the ways the new administration may impact readers. 

Trump administration's policies shake author tour plans...

Authors worry about impact of Trump, DEI backslide...

Grant cuts threaten libraries, public spaces for readers...

Book banning continues in libraries, classrooms"

Monday, April 7, 2025

List of Books Removed from USNA Library; America's Navy, April 4, 2025

America's Navy; List of Books Removed from USNA Library


[Kip Currier: The freedoms to read, speak, and think are fundamental American values enshrined by our Constitution. Libraries should and must have books and resources that represent a wide range of information, views, and lived experiences. Whether or not we as individuals or members of groups agree or disagree with every book in a library is immaterial and contrary to our freedoms. As the late Robert Croneberger, Director of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (1986-1998), aptly observed, a library is not doing its job if it doesn't have at least one book that offends every person.

Military service members have served, fought, and died to preserve our freedoms and core values. Enlisted persons and their families should and must have access to a broad continuum of ideas and information. Anything less is blatant censorship that is antithetical to the American way of life.]


[Excerpts from list]

     "How to be an antiracist / Ibram X. Kendi.

Uncomfortable conversations with a black man / Emmanuel Acho.

Why didn't we riot? : a Black man in Trumpland / Issac J. Bailey.

Long time coming : reckoning with race in America / Michael Eric Dyson.

State of emergency : how we win in the country we built / Tamika D. Mallory as told to Ashley A. Coleman ; [forewords, Angela Y. Davis and Cardi B].

How we can win : race, history and changing the money game that's rigged / Kimberly Jones.

My vanishing country : a memoir / Bakari Sellers.

The gangs of Zion : a Black cop's crusade in Mormon country / Ron Stallworth, with Sofia Quintero.

American hate : survivors speak out / edited by Arjun Singh Sethi.

The rage of innocence : how America criminalizes Black youth /
Kristin Henning.

Our time is now : power, purpose, and the fight for a fair America /
Stacey Abrams.

What's your pronoun? : beyond he & she / Dennis Baron.

Rainbow milk : a novel / Paul Mendez.

The genesis of misery / Neon Yang.

The last white man / Mohsin Hamid.

Light from uncommon stars / Ryka Aoki.

Everywhere you don't belong : a novel / by Gabriel Bump.

Evil eye : a novel / Etaf Rum.

Lies my teacher told me : everything your American history
textbook got wrong / James W. Loewen.

Gender queer : a memoir / by Maia Kobabe ; colors by Phoebe
Kobabe.

The third person / Emma Grove."