Whistleblower complaint says the DOGE engineer "told another colleague, who refused to help him upload the data because of legal concerns, that he expected to receive a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed to be illegal."
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Speaking of the public sentiment on AI — look at that complete lack of trust in both parties (and the industry) on the topic… What else polls like this? www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...
From the NY AI chatbot liability bill’s author, on X. Couldn’t find her here.
The AI/tech industry mostly stayed on X, and partly as a result of that and partly due to their money raising method plus their wealth, they are in a very insular, distorted mindset on public sentiment on AI.
NYT reports pardons going to the wealthy and politically connected who can pay $$ for insider lobbyists.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/u...
I think this is not false, hence complexity. Many professions gatekeep in a mixed manner: to protect their own self-interest but also to regulate/limit liability from malpractice and/or negligence amongst their own field.
So what happens if the latter is all gone?
bsky.app/profile/beth...
They seem to want to switch between speech rights, product protections and Section 230 immunity as it fits the moment, but I don’t see how that will fly in the medium to long-term given the public sentiment.
Can they get some broad legal immunity now using their standard techniques? Maybe, for now.
But given their broad detachment from public sentiment (AI industry mostly stayed on X, dismisses regular media), they may well have a bigger bubble problem than the one about the capex/stock valuation.
If you read the bill, it attaches liability to the chatbot answer ONLY IF the same answer would attach liability to the person making the same statement.
Complicated new issue but seems AI companies want Section 230 type immunity. I don’t think that’s where the public (and juries) are, at all.
Thank you!
Some of the most beautiful hand-drawn diagrams i've ever seen. Turkish "Justice Gazette", 1920, artist: Cerîde-i Adliyye.
Source [substack] casualarchivist.substack.com/p/poetic-jus...
#türkiye #infographics #stunning
As in cryptographic methods being integrated into our systems to preserve verification while being privacy preserving. I know crypto currently means “coins” but think Diffie-Hellmann, zero-knowledge proofs, federated machine learning etc.
Citrini piece doesn't say much new and has issues.
DoorDash works b/c driver reliability is the hard part.
Travel is already dynamically priced.
MLS data is already useable via RedFin.
People use brands b/c reliability, not just cost.
Folks won't trust comps to auto-spend money, esp not w/ crypto.
They think they’re going to vibe code Mastercard? Doordash? They think the ability to wave a small plastic rectangle almost anywhere in the world and be loaned a car is just about some code?
Come on. Fraud, compliance, infrastructure, etc. etc.
bsky.app/profile/rupe...
My Princeton AI and society team is at the AI Safety summit in Paris.
My Neurips keynote for our approach:
slideslive.com/39055698/are...
Our paper:
ai.sociology.princeton.edu
Say hi especially if you are *utterly* unimpressed by the current doom or hype models.
Wrong nightmares!
NEWS:
Meta is about to start a $65 million midterms push — its biggest political effort in its 20 years in business.
Meta is standing up two super PACs that this week will drop money in races in Texas and Illinois to push A.I.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/t...
Stephen Colbert said that the FCC and CBS - which is in no way a compromised or complicit organization - wouldn’t allow him to broadcast an interview with Democratic State Rep James Talarico. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/a...
New story up on the Homeland Security Department’s new tactic: flood social media companies with subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts that criticize ICE or monitor the movements of ICE agents.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
When the subtitle is actually the headline:
“In an internal memo last year, Meta said the political tumult in the United States would distract critics from the feature’s release.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
BREAKING: Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media tycoon and a fierce critic of Beijing, is sentenced to 20 years in prison in one of the most prominent cases prosecuted under a China-imposed national security law.
Last week's New Yorker did a scary deep dive. She's on the hook for $1 million in legal fees, leaving her little for her reelection campaign. #unrigthesystem www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
“agents told hospital staff that Castaneda Mondragon was “laying down in handcuffs when he attempted to flee, and then, for unknown reasons, purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.’”
sahanjournal.com/health/ice-d...
Scoop: Federal agents were told this week that they have broader power to arrest people without a warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo reviewed by The New York Times.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...
A second journalist was arrested by federal agents because she covered the anti-ICE church protest in St. Paul. Georgia Fort is an independent journalist and three-time Midwest Emmy Award winner.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested, a Justice Department official said. Lemon livestreamed a demonstration that interrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month that protested Trump's immigration crackdown in the area reut.rs/4q3X1FL
FBI searching Fulton County elections office, per Reuters
www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi...
Peer review science relies, more than we care to admit, on what @zey.bsky.social calls "load bearing frictions" that make it difficult to fake good science, and on trust that most ppl also value science itself & won't cheat just for personal gain. This creates the wrong environment for that to hold.
New: Amid the escalating situation in Minneapolis, ICE posted in the Federal Register asking companies to provide info about “commercial Big Data and Ad Tech” products that would “directly support investigations activities”
www.wired.com/story/ice-as...
Top of NYT homepage: “Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minnesota Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun”.
Incredible headline.
Wrote a summary of a great keynote by @zey.bsky.social at NeurIPS, arguing that we’re having the wrong nightmares about AI: not AGI or superhuman benchmarks, but good-enough genAI at scale threatens "load bearing frictions" society relies on to signal effort, authenticity, sincerity, credibility.
