Day archives: September 23rd, 2025

The 22 Very Online Upstarts Changing the Face of Politics

Wired [no paywall] – subscription access: “Donald Trump’s second term has ushered in a new era in American politics. It’s brasher, crueler, more direct, more super online, and certainly more dystopian. Democrats and sometimes even Republicans have struggled to compete with Trump’s monopoly on the attention market. But the leaders of both parties are only …

Subjects: Congress, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

A history of the Internet, part 3: The rise of the user

Ars Technica: “Welcome to the final article in our three-part series on the history of the Internet. If you haven’t already, catch up with part one and part two. As a refresher, here’s the story so far: The ARPANET was a project started by the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Project Agency in 1969 to network …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines

Dive Into the Most Breathtaking Ocean Photos of the Year

Gizmodo – The winners of the 2025 Ocean Photographer of the Year competition captured the ocean and its wildlife like you’ve never seen before. “While floating in the crystal-clear waters of the northern Great Barrier Reef, a sleek, dark shape glided toward Marcia Riederer. The Brazilian-born wildlife and underwater photographer watched as the dwarf minke …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence

Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence, Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, Ruyu Chen. August 26, 2025. This paper examines changes in the labor market for occupations exposed to generative artificial intelligence using high-frequency administrative data from the largest payroll software provider in the United States. We present …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Economy, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

From Googlebot to GPTBot: who’s crawling your site in 2025

Cloudflare: “A new category, AI crawlers, has emerged in recent years. These bots collect data from across the web to train AI models, improving tools and experiences, but also raising issues around content rights, unauthorized use, and infrastructure overload. We aimed to confirm the growth of both search and AI crawlers, examine specific AI crawlers, …

Subjects: AI, Copyright, E-Records, Intellectual Property, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

Launch of a new database of domestic case-law on human trafficking

The Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Division has launched a new database of human trafficking case-law as part of the HUDOC-GRETA Database. It contains selected cases which have been identified during GRETA’s evaluations or submitted by members of the Council of Europe Network of specialised lawyers and NGOs providing legal assistance to victims of human trafficking. …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Government, E-Records, Legal Research

AI models are using material from retracted scientific papers

MIT Technology Review: “Some AI chatbots rely on flawed research from retracted scientific papers to answer questions, according to recent studies. The findings, confirmed by MIT Technology Review, raise questions about how reliable AI tools are at evaluating scientific research and could complicate efforts by countries and industries seeking to invest in AI tools for …

Subjects: AI, Education, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Medicine, Search Engines

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity

Harvard Business Review: “A confusing contradiction is unfolding in companies embracing generative AI tools: while workers are largely following mandates to embrace the technology, few are seeing it create real value. Consider, for instance, that the number of companies with fully AI-led processes nearly doubled last year, while AI use has likewise doubled at work …

Subjects: AI, Education, Knowledge Management

Access To Stochastically Approximate Information

Access To Stochastically Approximate Information – “Through a series of public records requests, Cascade PBS and KNKX obtained thousands of pages of ChatGPT conversation logs from city officials in Washington. The volume of the records suggests widespread use of the technology in local government.” When government officials use generative AI chatbots those ‘conversations’ are considered public …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research