Policy – Page 20

Stung by customer losses, Comcast says all its new plans have unlimited data

Comcast, data caps, Policy / Tim Belzer / June 28, 2025

With Comcast trying to figure out how to stop losing broadband customers, the cable firm yesterday announced new plans that are available nationwide and do not have data caps.

Comcast said it is offering “four simple national Internet tiers that include unlimited data and the advanced Xfinity WiFi Gateway for one low monthly price.” Customers whose current plans have data caps won’t automatically get unlimited data and would have to switch to a new plan to remove that annoying limit from their accounts.

“Customers can repackage into one of our new plans that include unlimited data if they don’t have it already with their existing plan,” a Comcast spokesperson told Ars today.

Comcast’s press release said there is a five-year price guarantee in which the plan costs range from $55 to $115 a month, before taxes and fees, for download speeds ranging from 300Mbps to 2Gbps. There’s also a one-year guarantee in which the prices for the same plans range from $40 to $100.

The Comcast Xfinity website today indicated that the one- and five-year price guarantees are only available to new customers. However, the Comcast spokesperson indicated to us that existing customers can get the price guarantee when switching to an unlimited data plan. Getting promised deals can often be difficult, particularly while a cable company is changing its offerings, so we wouldn’t be surprised if customers have difficulty obtaining the unlimited plan at the lowest advertised prices.

Stung by customer losses, Comcast says all its new plans have unlimited data Read More »

Judge: Pirate libraries may have profited from Meta torrenting 80TB of books

AI, AI training, BItTorrent, copyright, copyright infringement, libgen, LLaMA, Meta, online piracy, Policy, shadow libraries, torrenting / Paul Patrick / June 27, 2025

It could certainly look worse for Meta if authors manage to present evidence supporting the second way that torrenting could be relevant to the case, Chhabaria suggested.

“Meta downloading copyrighted material from shadow libraries” would also be relevant to the character of the use, “if it benefitted those who created the libraries and thus supported and perpetuated their unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted works,” Chhabria wrote.

Counting potential strikes against Meta, Chhabria pointed out that the “vast majority of cases” involving “this sort of peer-to-peer file-sharing” are found to “constitute copyright infringement.” And it likely doesn’t help Meta’s case that “some of the libraries Meta used have themselves been found liable for infringement.”

However, Meta may overcome this argument, too, since book authors “have not submitted any evidence” that potentially shows how Meta’s downloading may perhaps be “propping up” or financially benefiting pirate libraries.

Finally, Chhabria noted that the “last issue relating to the character of Meta’s use” of books in regards to its torrenting is “the relationship between Meta’s downloading of the plaintiffs’ books and Meta’s use of the books to train Llama.”

Authors had tried to argue that these elements were distinct. But Chhabria said there’s no separating the fact that Meta downloaded the books to serve the “highly transformative” purpose of training Llama.

“Because Meta’s ultimate use of the plaintiffs’ books was transformative, so too was Meta’s downloading of those books,” Chhabria wrote.

AI training rulings may get more authors paid

Authors only learned of Meta’s torrenting through discovery in the lawsuit, and because of that, Chhabria noted that “the record on Meta’s alleged distribution is incomplete.”

It’s possible that authors may be able to show evidence that Meta “contributed to the BitTorrent network” by providing significant computing power that could’ve meaningfully assisted shadow libraries, Chhabria said in a footnote.

Judge: Pirate libraries may have profited from Meta torrenting 80TB of books Read More »

After a week, Trump Mobile drops claim that Trump phone is “made in the USA”

Policy, Tech, trump mobile, trump phone / Mike M. / June 26, 2025

The Trump phone was announced last week with a claim that the device would be made entirely in America, and people were rightly skeptical. Trump Mobile’s $500 T1 Phone “is a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier,” the Trump Organization said in a press release.

But with electronics supply chain experts casting doubt on the feasibility of designing and building an American-made phone in a short span of time, Trump Mobile’s website doesn’t currently promise an American-made phone. The website says the T1 is “designed with American values in mind,” that it is “brought to life right here in the USA,” and that there are “American hands behind every device.”

The Trump Mobile website previously said, “Our MADE IN THE USA ‘T1 Phone’ is available for pre-order now.” The phone was initially supposed to be available in August, but the date was changed to September, and now the website simply says it will be available “later this year.”

The Verge pointed out the website’s vague claims in an article today. “One of the phone’s main selling points was that it was to be made in America,” but “sometime in the last several days, the Trump Mobile site appears to have been scrubbed of all language indicating the phone is to be made in the USA,” the article said, adding that the website previously had a “huge banner on the homepage that says the T1 is ‘MADE IN THE USA.'”

When contacted by Ars today, a Trump Mobile spokesperson said, “The T1 phones are proudly being made in America. Speculation to the contrary is simply inaccurate. We’re excited to launch the phones later this year.” Trump Mobile did not explain why it removed the “made in the USA” claim from its website. We also contacted the Trump organization and will update this article if we get a response.

After a week, Trump Mobile drops claim that Trump phone is “made in the USA” Read More »

Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it.

department of government efficiency, doge, Donald Trump, elon musk, Policy / Tim Belzer / June 26, 2025

Trump wants $45M to continue DOGE’s work. Critics warn costs already too high.

Federal workers and protestors spoke out against US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk and their push to gut federal services and impose mass layoffs earlier this year. Credit: Pacific Press / Contributor | LightRocket

Critics are increasingly branding Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a failure, including lawmakers fiercely debating how much funding to allot next year to the controversial agency.

On Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats sparred over DOGE’s future at a DOGE subcommittee hearing, according to NextGov, a news site for federal IT workers. On one side, Republicans sought to “lock in” and codify the “DOGE process” for supposedly reducing waste and fraud in government, and on the other, Democrats argued that DOGE has “done the opposite” of its intended mission and harmed Americans in the process.

DOGE has “led to poor services, a brain drain on our federal government, and it’s going to cost taxpayers money long term,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) argued.

For now, DOGE remains a temporary government agency that could sunset as soon as July 4, 2026. Under Musk’s leadership, it was supposed to save the US government a trillion dollars. But so far, DOGE only reports saving about $180 billion—and doubt has been cast on DOGE’s math ever since reports revealed that nearly 40 percent of the savings listed on the DOGE site were “bogus,” Elaine Kamarck, director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institute, wrote in a report detailing DOGE’s exposed failures.

The “DOGE process” that Republicans want to codify, Kamarck explained, typically begins with rushed mass layoffs. That’s soon followed by offers for buyouts or deferred resignations, before the government eventually realizes it’s lost critical expertise and starts scrambling to rehire workers or rescind buyout offers after “it becomes apparent” that a heavily gutted agency “is in danger of malfunctioning.”

Kamarck warned that DOGE appeared to be using the firings of federal workers to test the “unitary executive” theory, “popular among conservatives,” that argues that “the president has more power than Congress.” Consider how DOGE works to shut down agencies funded by Congress without seeking lawmakers’ approval by simply removing critical workers key to operations, Kamarck suggested, like DOGE did early on at the National Science Foundation.

Democrats’ witness at the DOGE hearing—Emily DiVito of the economic policy think tank Groundwork Collaborative—suggested that extensive customer service problems at the Social Security Administration was just one powerful example of DOGE’s negative impacts affecting Americans today.

Some experts expect the damage of DOGE’s first few months could ripple across Trump’s entire term. “The rapid rehirings are a warning sign” that the government “has lost more capacities and expertise that could prove critical—and difficult to replace—in the months and years ahead,” experts told CNN.

By codifying the DOGE process, as Republicans wish to do, the government would seemingly only perpetuate this pattern, which could continue to be disastrous for Americans relying on government programs.

“There are time bombs all over the place in the federal government because of this,” Kamarck told CNN. “They’ve wreaked havoc across nearly every agency.”

DOGE spikes costs for Americans, nonprofit warns

Citizens for Ethics, a nonpartisan nonprofit striving to end government secrecy, estimated this week that DOGE cuts at just a few agencies “could result in a loss of over $10 billion in US-based economic activity.”

The shuttering of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alone—which Musk allegedly stands to personally benefit from—likely robbed American taxpayers of even more. The nonprofit noted that agency clawed back “over $26 billion in funds” from irresponsible businesses between 2011 and 2021 before its work was blocked.

Additionally, DOGE cuts at the Internal Revenue Service—which could “end or close audits of wealthy individuals and corporations” due to a lack of staffing—could cost the US an estimated $500 billion in dodged taxes, the nonprofit said. Partly due to conflicts like these, Kamarck suggested that when it finally comes time to assess DOGE’s success, the answer to both “did federal spending or the federal deficit shrink?” will “almost surely be no.”

As society attempts to predict the full extent of DOGE’s potential harms, The Wall Street Journal spoke to university students who suggested that regulatory clarity could possibly straighten out DOGE’s efforts now that Musk is no longer pushing for mass firings. At the DOGE hearing, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested the only way to ensure DOGE hits its trillion-dollar goal is to “make sure these cuts aren’t just temporary” and pass laws “to streamline agencies, eliminate redundant programs and give the president the authority to fire bureaucrats who don’t do their jobs.”

But one finance student, Troy Monte, suggested to WSJ that DOGE has already cost the Trump administration “stability, expertise, and public trust,” opining, “the cost of DOGE won’t be measured in dollars, but in damage.”

Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told CNN that when DOGE borrowed the tech industry tactic of moving fast and breaking things, then scrambling to fix what breaks, it exposed “the mosaic of incompetence and a failure on the part of this administration to understand the critical value that the breadth of government expertise provides.”

“This is not about a single incident,” Stier said. “It’s about a pattern that has implications for our government’s ability to meet not just the challenges of today but the critical challenges of tomorrow.”

DOGE’s future appears less certain without Musk

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) had hoped to subpoena Musk at the DOGE hearing to testify on DOGE’s agenda, but Republicans blocked her efforts, NextGov reported.

At the hearing, she alleged that “all of this talk about lowering costs and reducing waste is absolute BS. Their agenda is about one thing: making the federal government so weak that they can exploit it for their personal gain.”

Just yesterday, The Washington Post editorial board published an op-ed already declaring DOGE a failure. Former DOGE staffer Sahil Lavingia told NPR that he expects DOGE will “fizzle out” purely because DOGE failed to uncover as much fraud as Musk and Trump had alleged was spiking government costs.

Beyond obvious criticism (loudly voiced at myriad DOGE protests), it’s easy to understand why this pessimistic view is catching on, since even from a cursory glance at DOGE’s website, the agency’s momentum appears to be slowing since Musk’s abrupt departure in late May. The DOGE site’s estimated savings are supposed to be updated weekly—and one day aspire to be updated in real-time—but the numbers apparently haven’t changed a cent since a few days after Musk shed his “special government employee” label. The site notes the last update was on June 3.

In addition to Musk, several notable Musk appointees have also left DOGE. Most recently, Wired reported that one of Musk’s first appointees—19-year-old Edward “Big Balls” Coristine—is gone, quitting just weeks after receiving full-time employee status granted around the same time that Musk left. Lavingia told Wired that he’d heard “a lot” of people Musk hired have been terminated since his exit.

Rather than rely on a specific engineer spearheading DOGE initiatives across government, like Coristine appeared positioned to become in Musk’s absence, Trump cabinet members or individual agency heads may have more say over DOGE cuts in the future, Kamarck and Politico’s E&E News reported.

“The result so far is that post-Musk, DOGE is morphing into an agency-by-agency effort—no longer run by a central executive branch office, but by DOGE recruits who have been embedded in the agencies and by political appointees, such as cabinet secretaries, who are committed to the same objectives,” Kamarck wrote.

Whether Trump’s appointees can manage DOGE without Musk’s help or his appointees remains to be seen, as DOGE continues to seek new hires. While Musk’s appointed DOGE staff was heavily criticized from day one, Kamarck noted that at least Musk’s appointees appeared “to have a great deal of IT talent, something the federal government has been lacking since the beginning of the information age.”

Trump can extend the timeline for when DOGE sunsets, NextGov noted, and DOGE still has $22 million left over from this year to keep pursuing its goals, as lawmakers debate whether $45 million in funding is warranted.

Despite Trump and Musk’s very public recent fallout, White House spokesperson Kush Desai has said that Trump remains committed to fulfilling DOGE’s mission, but NPR noted his statement curiously didn’t mention DOGE by name.

“President Trump pledged to make our bloated government more efficient by slashing waste, fraud, and abuse. The administration is committed to delivering on this mandate while rectifying any oversights to minimize disruptions to critical government services,” Desai said.

Currently, there are several court-ordered reviews looking into exactly which government systems DOGE accessed, which could reveal more than what’s currently known about how much success—or failure—DOGE has had. Those reviews could expose how much training DOGE workers had before they were granted security clearances to access sensitive information, potentially spawning more backlash as DOGE’s work lurches forward.

Kamarck suggested that DOGE was “doomed to face early failures” because its “efforts were enacted on dubious legal grounds”—a fact that still seems to threaten the agency’s “permanence.” But if the next incoming president conducts an evaluation in 2029 and finds that DOGE’s efforts have not meaningfully reduced the size or spending of government, DOGE could possibly disappear. Former staffers hope that even more rehiring may resume if it does, E&E reported.

In the meantime, Americans relying on government programs must contend with the risk that they could lose assistance in the moments they need it most as long as the Musk-created “DOGE process” continues to be followed.

“Which one of these malfunctions will blow up first is anyone’s guess, but FEMA’s lack of preparedness for hurricane season is a good candidate,” Kamarck said.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it. Read More »

Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models

AI, AI companies, AI development, AI ethics, AI law, AI research, AI training, Anthropic, Biz & IT, book scanning, Claude, copyright, fair use, google books, Internet Archive, legal rulings, machine learning, Policy, scanning, training data / Kris Guyer / June 26, 2025

But if you’re not intimately familiar with the AI industry and copyright, you might wonder: Why would a company spend millions of dollars on books to destroy them? Behind these odd legal maneuvers lies a more fundamental driver: the AI industry’s insatiable hunger for high-quality text.

The race for high-quality training data

To understand why Anthropic would want to scan millions of books, it’s important to know that AI researchers build large language models (LLMs) like those that power ChatGPT and Claude by feeding billions of words into a neural network. During training, the AI system processes the text repeatedly, building statistical relationships between words and concepts in the process.

The quality of training data fed into the neural network directly impacts the resulting AI model’s capabilities. Models trained on well-edited books and articles tend to produce more coherent, accurate responses than those trained on lower-quality text like random YouTube comments.

Publishers legally control content that AI companies desperately want, but AI companies don’t always want to negotiate a license. The first-sale doctrine offered a workaround: Once you buy a physical book, you can do what you want with that copy—including destroy it. That meant buying physical books offered a legal workaround.

And yet buying things is expensive, even if it is legal. So like many AI companies before it, Anthropic initially chose the quick and easy path. In the quest for high-quality training data, the court filing states, Anthropic first chose to amass digitized versions of pirated books to avoid what CEO Dario Amodei called “legal/practice/business slog”—the complex licensing negotiations with publishers. But by 2024, Anthropic had become “not so gung ho about” using pirated ebooks “for legal reasons” and needed a safer source.

Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models Read More »

Key fair use ruling clarifies when books can be used for AI training

AI, AI models, Anthropic, Artificial Intelligence, Claude, copyright, copyright infringement, copyright law, large language models, LLMs, Policy / Kris Guyer / June 25, 2025

“This order doubts that any accused infringer could ever meet its burden of explaining why downloading source copies from pirate sites that it could have purchased or otherwise accessed lawfully was itself reasonably necessary to any subsequent fair use,” Alsup wrote. “Such piracy of otherwise available copies is inherently, irredeemably infringing even if the pirated copies are immediately used for the transformative use and immediately discarded.”

But Alsup said that the Anthropic case may not even need to decide on that, since Anthropic’s retention of pirated books for its research library alone was not transformative. Alsup wrote that Anthropic’s argument to hold onto potential AI training material it pirated in case it ever decided to use it for AI training was an attempt to “fast glide over thin ice.”

Additionally Alsup pointed out that Anthropic’s early attempts to get permission to train on authors’ works withered, as internal messages revealed the company concluded that stealing books was considered the more cost-effective path to innovation “to avoid ‘legal/practice/business slog,’ as cofounder and chief executive officer Dario Amodei put it.”

“Anthropic is wrong to suppose that so long as you create an exciting end product, every ‘back-end step, invisible to the public,’ is excused,” Alsup wrote. “Here, piracy was the point: To build a central library that one could have paid for, just as Anthropic later did, but without paying for it.”

To avoid maximum damages in the event of a loss, Anthropic will likely continue arguing that replacing pirated books with purchased books should water down authors’ fight, Alsup’s order suggested.

“That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the Internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft, but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,” Alsup noted.

Key fair use ruling clarifies when books can be used for AI training Read More »

Media Matters sues FTC, says agency is retaliating on behalf of Elon Musk

elon musk x, media matters, Policy / Rejus Almole / June 25, 2025

Media Matters for America sued the Federal Trade Commission yesterday, alleging that the FTC’s ongoing investigation into the group “has violated Media Matters’ First Amendment rights by retaliating against the organization for its reporting on Elon Musk and X.”

“The investigation is the latest effort by Elon Musk and his allies in the Trump administration to retaliate against Media Matters for its reporting on X, the social media site Musk controls, and it’s another example of the Trump administration weaponizing government authorities to target political opponents,” Media Matters said in a press release. The group said it has suffered financially because of “the cascade of litigation launched by Musk and his allies.”

The FTC’s investigative demand “makes no secret of its connection to Musk’s vindictive lawsuits,” and “probes Media Matters’ finances, editorial process, newsgathering activities, and affiliations with likeminded entities that monitor extremist content and other third parties,” Media Matters said in the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Media Matters is a nonprofit journalism organization that has been targeted by Musk and Republicans for articles such as one showing that X placed advertisements next to pro-Nazi posts. Media Matters has faced probes from the Texas and Missouri attorneys general and a lawsuit filed by X. In the case involving Texas, a federal appeals court found in May that “Media Matters is the target of a government campaign of retaliation.”

Lawsuit: FTC “snoops into newsgathering activities”

The FTC sent a civil investigative demand (CID) on May 20, “apparently seeking to revive the state government investigations that had been blocked by this Court,” Media Matters said in its lawsuit yesterday. “The CID’s first substantive demand makes clear its connection to Musk’s lawsuits, seeking ‘all documents that Media Matters either produced or received in discovery in any litigation between Media Matters and X Corp. related to advertiser boycotts since 2023.'”

Media Matters sues FTC, says agency is retaliating on behalf of Elon Musk Read More »

UK looking to loosen Google’s control of its search engine

antitrust, cma, competition, competition and markets authority, Google, Policy, syndication, UK / Kris Guyer / June 24, 2025

Other conduct rules that the CMA is considering include requirements in how it ranks its search results and for Google’s distribution partners such as Apple to offer “choice screens” to help consumers switch more easily between search providers.

The CMA said Alphabet-owned Google’s dominance made the cost of search advertising “higher than would be expected” in a more competitive market.

Google on Tuesday slammed the proposals as “broad and unfocused” and said they could threaten the UK’s access to its latest products and services.

Oliver Bethell, Google’s senior director for competition, warned that “punitive regulations” could change how quickly Google launches new products in the UK.

“Proportionate, evidence-based regulation will be essential to preventing the CMA’s road map from becoming a roadblock to growth in the UK,” he added.

Bethell’s warning of the potential impact of any regulations on the wider UK economy comes after the government explicitly mandated the CMA to focus on supporting growth and investment while minimizing uncertainty for businesses.

Google said last year that it planned to invest $1 billion in a huge new data center just outside London.

The CMA’s probe comes after Google lost a pair of historic US antitrust cases over its dominance of search and its lucrative advertising business.

UK looking to loosen Google’s control of its search engine Read More »

Ted Cruz can’t get all Republicans to back his fight against state AI laws

AI, Policy, ted cruz / Rejus Almole / June 24, 2025

Cruz plan moves ahead but was reportedly watered down amid Republican opposition.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) presides over a subcommittee hearing on June 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla

A Republican proposal to penalize states that regulate artificial intelligence can move forward without requiring approval from 60 senators, the Senate parliamentarian decided on Saturday. But the moratorium on state AI laws did not have unanimous Republican support and has reportedly been watered down in an effort to push it toward passage.

In early June, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) proposed enforcing a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation by making states ineligible for broadband funding if they try to impose any limits on development of artificial intelligence. While the House previously approved a version of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” with an outright 10-year ban on state AI regulation, Cruz took a different approach because of the Senate rule that limits inclusion of “extraneous matter” in budget reconciliation legislation.

Under the Senate’s Byrd rule, a senator can object to a potentially extraneous budget provision. A motion to waive the Byrd rule requires a vote of 60 percent of the Senate.

As originally drafted, Cruz’s backdoor ban on state AI laws would have made it impossible for states to receive money from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program if they try to regulate AI. He tied the provision into the budget bill by proposing an extra $500 million for the broadband-deployment grant program and expanding its purpose to also subsidize construction and deployment of infrastructure for artificial intelligence systems.

Punchbowl News reported today that Cruz made changes in order to gain more Republican support and comply with Senate procedural rules. Cruz was quoted as saying that under his current version, states that regulate AI would only be shut out of the $500 million AI fund.

This would seem to protect states’ access to the $42 billion broadband deployment fund that will offer subsidies to ISPs that expand access to Internet service. Losing that funding would be a major blow to states that have spent the last couple of years developing plans to connect more of their residents to modern broadband. The latest Senate bill text was not available today. We contacted Cruz’s office and will update this article if we get a response.

A spokesperson for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told Ars today that Cruz’s latest version could still prevent states from getting broadband funding. The text has “a backdoor to apply new AI requirements to the entire $42.45 billion program, not just the new $500 million,” Cantwell’s representative said.

Plan has opponents from both parties

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that several parts of the Republican budget bill are subject to the Byrd rule and its 60-vote requirement, but Cruz’s AI proposal wasn’t one of them. A press release from Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) noted that “the parliamentarian’s advice is based on whether a provision is appropriate for reconciliation and conforms to the limitations of the Byrd rule; it is not a judgement on the relative merits of a particular policy.”

Surviving the parliamentarian review doesn’t guarantee passage. A Bloomberg article said the parliamentarian’s decision is “a win for tech companies pushing to stall and override dozens of AI safety laws across the country,” but that the “provision will likely still be challenged on the Senate floor, where stripping the provision would need just a simple majority. Some Republicans in both the House and Senate have pushed back on the AI provision.”

Republicans have a 53–47 edge in the Senate. Cantwell and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) teamed up for a press conference last week in which they spoke out against the proposed moratorium on state regulation.

Cantwell said that 24 states last year started “regulating AI in some way, and they have adopted these laws that fill a gap while we are waiting for federal action. Now Congress is threatening these laws, which will leave hundreds of millions of Americans vulnerable to AI harm by abolishing those state law protections.”

Blackburn said she agreed with Cantwell that the AI regulation proposal “is not the type of thing that we put into reconciliation bills.” Blackburn added that lawmakers “are working to move forward with legislation at the federal level, but we do not need a moratorium that would prohibit our states from stepping up and protecting citizens in their state.”

Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have also criticized the idea of stopping states from regulating AI.

Cruz accused states of “strangling AI”

Cruz argued that his proposal stops states “from strangling AI deployment with EU-style regulation.” Under his first proposal, no BEAD funds were to be given to any state or territory that enforces “any law or regulation… limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.”

The Cantwell/Blackburn press conference also included Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat; and Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican. Brown said that “Washington has a law that prohibits deep fakes being used against political candidates by mimicking their appearance and their speech,” another “that prohibits sharing fabricated sexual images without consent and provides for penalties for those who possess and distribute such images,” and a third “that prohibits the knowing distribution of forged digital likenesses that can be used to harm or defraud people.”

“All of those laws, in my reading, would be invalid if this was to pass through Congress, and each of those laws are prohibiting and protecting people here in our state,” Brown said.

Skrmetti said that if the Senate proposal becomes law “there would be arguments out there for the big tech companies that the moratorium does, in fact, preclude any enforcement of any consumer protection laws if there’s an AI component to the product that we’re looking at.”

Other Republican plans fail Byrd rule test

Senate Democrats said they are pleased that the parliamentarian ruled that several other parts of the bill are subject to the Byrd rule. “We continue to see Republicans’ blatant disregard for the rules of reconciliation when drafting this bill… Democrats plan to challenge every part of this bill that hurts working families and violates this process,” Merkley said.

Merkley’s press release said the provisions that are subject to a 60-vote threshold include one that “limits certain grant funding for ‘sanctuary cities,’ and where the Attorney General disagrees with states’ and localities’ immigration enforcement,” and another that “gives state and local officials the authority to arrest any noncitizen suspected of being in the US unlawfully.”

The Byrd rule also applies to a section that “limits the ability of federal courts to issue preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders against the federal government by requiring litigants to post a potentially enormous bond,” and another that “limits when the federal government can enter into or enforce settlement agreements that provide for payments to third parties to fully compensate victims, remedy harm, and punish and deter future violations,” Merkley’s office said.

The office of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said yesterday that the provision requiring litigants to post bonds has been struck from the legislation. “This Senate Republican provision, which was even worse than the similar House-passed version, required a plaintiff seeking an emergency court order, preliminary injunction, or a temporary restraining order against the Trump Administration or the federal government to pay a costly bond up front—essentially making the justice system pay-to-play,” Schumer’s office said.

Schumer said that “if enacted, this would have been one of the most brazen power grabs we’ve seen in American history—an attempt to let a future President Trump ignore court orders with impunity, putting him above the law.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

Ted Cruz can’t get all Republicans to back his fight against state AI laws Read More »

To avoid admitting ignorance, Meta AI says man’s number is a company helpline

AI, AI hallucination, Artificial Intelligence, chatbots, Meta, Meta AI, Online Privacy, Policy, whatsapp / Paul Patrick / June 21, 2025

Although that statement may provide comfort to those who have kept their WhatsApp numbers off the Internet, it doesn’t resolve the issue of WhatsApp’s AI helper potentially randomly generating a real person’s private number that may be a few digits off from the business contact information WhatsApp users are seeking.

Expert pushes for chatbot design tweaks

AI companies have recently been grappling with the problem of chatbots being programmed to tell users what they want to hear, instead of providing accurate information. Not only are users sick of “overly flattering” chatbot responses—potentially reinforcing users’ poor decisions—but the chatbots could be inducing users to share more private information than they would otherwise.

The latter could make it easier for AI companies to monetize the interactions, gathering private data to target advertising, which could deter AI companies from solving the sycophantic chatbot problem. Developers for Meta rival OpenAI, The Guardian noted, last month shared examples of “systemic deception behavior masked as helpfulness” and chatbots’ tendency to tell little white lies to mask incompetence.

“When pushed hard—under pressure, deadlines, expectations—it will often say whatever it needs to to appear competent,” developers noted.

Mike Stanhope, the managing director of strategic data consultants Carruthers and Jackson, told The Guardian that Meta should be more transparent about the design of its AI so that users can know if the chatbot is designed to rely on deception to reduce user friction.

“If the engineers at Meta are designing ‘white lie’ tendencies into their AI, the public need to be informed, even if the intention of the feature is to minimize harm,” Stanhope said. “If this behavior is novel, uncommon, or not explicitly designed, this raises even more questions around what safeguards are in place and just how predictable we can force an AI’s behavior to be.”

To avoid admitting ignorance, Meta AI says man’s number is a company helpline Read More »

Trump suggests he needs China to sign off on TikTok sale, delays deal again

bytedance, Donald Trump, national security, Policy, rare earths, semiconductors, tariffs, tiktok, TikTok ban, us-china trade war / Tim Belzer / June 20, 2025

For many Americans, losing TikTok would be disruptive. TikTok has warned that US businesses could lose $1 billion in one month if TikTok shuts down. As these businesses wait in limbo for a resolution to the situation, it’s getting harder to take the alleged national security threat seriously, as clinching the deal appears to lack urgency.

On Wednesday, the White House continued to warn that Americans are not safe using TikTok, though, despite leaving Americans vulnerable for an extended period that could now stretch to eight months.

In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt only explained that “President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark” and would sign an executive order “to keep TikTok up and running” through mid-September. Leavitt confirmed that the Trump administration would focus on finishing the deal in this three-month period, “making sure the sale closes so that Americans can keep using TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” Reuters reported.

US-China tensions continue, despite truce

Trump’s negotiations with China have been shaky, but a truce was reestablished last week that could potentially pave the way for a TikTok deal.

Initially, Trump had planned to use the TikTok deal as a bargaining chip, but the tit-for-tat retaliations between the US and China all spring reportedly left China hesitant to agree to any deal. Perhaps sensing the power shift in negotiations, Trump offered to reduce China’s highest tariffs to complete the deal in March. But by April, analysts opined that Trump was still “desperate” to close, while China saw no advantage in letting go of TikTok any time soon.

Despite the current truce, tensions between the US and China continue, as China has begun setting its own deadlines to maintain leverage in the trade war. According to The Wall Street Journal, China put a six-month limit “on the sales of rare earths to US carmakers and manufacturers, giving Beijing leverage if the trade conflict flares up again.”

Trump suggests he needs China to sign off on TikTok sale, delays deal again Read More »

Senate passes GENIUS Act—criticized as gifting Trump ample opportunity to grift

Binance, Cryptocurrency, Donald Trump, genius act, memecoin, Policy, stablecoin, world liberty financial / Rejus Almole / June 19, 2025

“Why—beyond the obvious benefit of gaining favor, directly or indirectly, with the Trump administration—did you select USD1, a newly launched, untested cryptocurrency with no track record?” the senators asked.

Responding, World Liberty Financial’s lawyers claimed MGX was simply investing in “legitimate financial innovation,” CBS News reported, noting a Trump family-affiliated entity owns a 60 percent stake in the company.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the MGX deal, ABC News reported. However, Warren fears the GENIUS Act will provide “even more opportunities to reward buyers of Trump’s coins with favors like tariff exemptions, pardons, and government appointments” if it becomes law.

Although House supporters of the bill have reportedly promised to push the bill through, so Trump can sign it into law by July, the GENIUS Act is likely to face hurdles. And resistance may come from not just Democrats with ongoing concerns about Trump’s and future presidents’ potential conflicts of interest—but also from Republicans who think passing the bill is pointless without additional market regulations to drive more stablecoin adoption.

Dems: Opportunities for Trump grifts are “mind-boggling”

Although 18 Democrats helped the GENIUS Act pass in the Senate, most Democrats opposed the law over concerns of Trump’s feared conflicts of interest, PBS News reported.

Merkley remains one of the staunchest opponents to the GENIUS Act. In a statement, he alleged that the Senate passing the bill was essentially “rubberstamping Trump’s crypto corruption.”

According to Merkley, he and other Democrats pushed to remove the exemption from the GENIUS Act before the Senate vote—hoping to add “strong anti-corruption measures.” But Senate Republicans “repeatedly blocked” his efforts to hold votes on anti-corruption measures. Instead, they “rammed through this fatally flawed legislation without considering any amendments on the Senate floor—despite promises of an open amendment process and debate before the American people,” Merkley said.

Ultimately, it passed with the exemption intact, which Merkley considered “profoundly corrupt,” promising, “I will keep fighting to ban Trump-style crypto corruption to prevent the sale of government policy by elected federal officials in Congress and the White House.”

Senate passes GENIUS Act—criticized as gifting Trump ample opportunity to grift Read More »