Monthly archives: July, 2025

Handbook of the Law, Ethics and Policy of Artificial Intelligence

The Cambridge University Press & Assessment Handbook of the Law, Ethics and Policy of Artificial Intelligence (2025), edited by Nathalie Smuha, KU Leuven – is a comprehensive 600-page resource that brings together 30+ leading scholars across law, ethics, philosophy, and AI policy [Open Access – PDF and HTML]. It’s structured into three parts: AI, Ethics & …

Subjects: AI, Defense, Financial System, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Data manipulation within the US Federal Government

Data manipulation within the US Federal Government, Freilich, Janet et al. The Lancet. Published July 3, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01249-8 – “A US Department of Veterans Affairs dataset compiling veteran health-care use in 2021 was quietly amended on March 5, 2025. A column titled gender was renamed sex, and the words were also switched in the …

Subjects: Censorship, E-Government, E-Records, Education, Government Documents, Health Care, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Medicine

Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food

The Atlantic – no paywall – “Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste. Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough …

Subjects: Food and Nutrition, Government Documents, Legal Research

The historical tech tree

“The historical tech tree is a project by Étienne Fortier-Dubois to visualize the entire history of technologies, inventions, and (some) discoveries, from prehistory to today. Unlike other visualizations of the sort, the tree emphasizes the connections between technologies: prerequisites, improvements, inspirations, and so on. These connections allow viewers to understand how technologies came about, at …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management

A comparative view of tariffs and sanctions

Beefeater Fella Reports: With a focus on how US measures may impact on Russia – “Here’s a comparative view of the key differences and effects between U.S. sanctions, secondary sanctions, and trade tariffs, with a focus on how they impact Russia: U.S. Sanctions (Primary Sanctions) Definition: Legal restrictions imposed by the U.S. government (usually via …

Subjects: Economy, Energy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

Judges Don’t Know What AI’s Book Piracy Means

Follow up to Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI model and Copyrighted books to train AI? Fair. Storing them? See also The Atlantic – no paywall – Can AI companies keep stealing books to train their models? What Two Judicial Rulings Mean for the Future of Generative AI – “Should tech …

Subjects: AI, Copyright, Courts, Government Documents, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

Using Signal groups for activism

Micah Lee: “Things are heating up. Millions of people are taking to the streets against Trump’s rising authoritarianism. Communities around the US are organizing to defend against ICE raids, to protest Israeli genocide, for mutual aid, and for other forms of fighting fascism. Signal can help people safely organize in all of these contexts. Signal …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work

404 Media: “…Despite the fact that generative AI has been a destructive force against their businesses, their industry, and the truth more broadly, media executives still see AI as a business opportunity and a shiny object that they can tell investors and their staffs that they are very bullish on. They have to say this, …

Subjects: AI, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Improving Climate Modeling

Improving Climate Modeling – “Researchers from the University of Chicago and ETH Zurich have created a global dataset of extreme weather events to support better storm detection and climate modeling. The dataset includes over 49,000 examples of events such as intense rain bands, powerful cyclones, and persistent atmospheric blocks that can trigger floods, heatwaves, and …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

A New Kind of AI Model Lets Data Owners Take Control

Wired – no paywall: “A new kind of large language model, developed by researchers at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), makes it possible to control how training data is used even after a model has been built. The new model, called FlexOlmo, could challenge the current industry paradigm of big artificial intelligence companies slurping …

Subjects: AI, Copyright, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Real-Time Crime Index

“Welcome to the Real-Time Crime Index – The RTCI is a sample of reported crime data from hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide which mimics national crime trends with as little lag and the most accuracy possible. Crime statistics are inexact, but sampling agencies in this way is a proven method for accurately measuring trends …

Subjects: Legal Research