Google rolls out Gmail end-to-end encryption on mobile devices www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/...

New: France said it plans to move its government computers currently running Windows to the open-source software Linux to further reduce its reliance on U.S. tech. Comes at a time of growing instability and unpredictability on the part of the Trump administration and weaponization of sanctions, etc.

On the impact of #AI tools on collective decisions: "When practitioners grapple with how uncertainties should be expressed, they are also deciding what counts as professional judgements and which values should guide their work": nature.com/articles/d41... #ethics #design #tech

"The #government has admitted that the FBI failed to follow statutory requirements for an entire category of U.S. person queries.... [T]he total number of backdoor searches in 2024 and 2025--as well as the overall compliance rate--remains unknown": justsecurity.org/135283/truth... #law #privacy

"We have centuries of accumulated pedagogical wisdom telling us that the attempt, including the failed attempt, is where the learning lives. And yet, somehow, when it comes to #AI agents, we've collectively decided that maybe this time it's different": ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma... #ethics #tech

"Dad stuck in support nightmare after #teen lied about age on Discord": arstechnica.com/tech-policy/... #ethics #law #internet #tech #business

ICYMI: on #AI #ethics literacy: www.scu.edu/ethics/focus...

This week on the newsletter: "How not to mandate device-based age assurance" educatedguesswork.org/posts/device... In this post, we examine a number of enacted or proposed requirements for device-based age assurance and some of the ways they can go wrong.

As one datapoint: note the fact that OpenAI is still getting hit with major vulnerability findings as of… today. www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/chatgpt...

The notice to Congress said the system "contained 'returns from legal process, such as pen register and trap and trace #surveillance returns, and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of FBI investigations.'" www.politico.com/news/2026/04... #ethics #law #internet #cybersec #gov

ICYMI: A new post in our blog "Internet #Ethics: Views from #SiliconValley"--this one authored by our colleague Eric Goldman: scu.edu/ethics/inter... #law #education #highered

"AI in #Schools"--a prescient blog post from 2019: scu.edu/ethics/inter... #ethics #AI #tech #data #education

2/3 of respondents said "the #government isn’t doing enough to regulate #AI. The sentiment comes as states push to maintain their authority over AI rules, even as federal officials... and industry leaders advocate for limiting state-level regulation": techcrunch.com/2026/03/30/a... #ethics #law

"We are seeing that boys often arrive in this community through gore forums, girls through eating-disorder communities": nytimes.com/2026/03/17/o... #ethics #internet #tech #socialmedia #contentmoderation

One research team "found that beginning a question with 'You are an independent thinker' instead of 'You are a helpful assistant' helped"; another researcher "found that writing a question from a third-person point of view reduced social sycophancy'" spectrum.ieee.org/ai-sycophancy #ethics #tech #AI

Major AI labs are investigating a security incident that impacted Mercor, a leading data vendor. The incident could have exposed key data about how they train AI models.

#ethics #law #gov #access

One research team "found that beginning a question with 'You are an independent thinker' instead of 'You are a helpful assistant' helped"; another researcher "found that writing a question from a third-person point of view reduced social sycophancy'" spectrum.ieee.org/ai-sycophancy #ethics #tech #AI

"We are seeing that boys often arrive in this community through gore forums, girls through eating-disorder communities": nytimes.com/2026/03/17/o... #ethics #internet #tech #socialmedia #contentmoderation

2/3 of respondents said "the #government isn’t doing enough to regulate #AI. The sentiment comes as states push to maintain their authority over AI rules, even as federal officials... and industry leaders advocate for limiting state-level regulation": techcrunch.com/2026/03/30/a... #ethics #law

On the impact of #AI tools on collective decisions: "When practitioners grapple with how uncertainties should be expressed, they are also deciding what counts as professional judgements and which values should guide their work": nature.com/articles/d41... #ethics #design #tech

"AI in #Schools"--a prescient blog post from 2019: scu.edu/ethics/inter... #ethics #AI #tech #data #education

ICYMI: A new post in our blog "Internet #Ethics: Views from #SiliconValley"--this one authored by our colleague Eric Goldman: scu.edu/ethics/inter... #law #education #highered

The notice to Congress said the system "contained 'returns from legal process, such as pen register and trap and trace #surveillance returns, and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of FBI investigations.'" www.politico.com/news/2026/04... #ethics #law #internet #cybersec #gov

From 2025 IEA report: "By the end of the decade, the [U.S.] is set to consume more electricity for data centres than for the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined": iea.org/reports/ener... #ethics #AI #tech #sustainability

'Hundreds' of Iranian hacking attempts have hit surveillance cameras since the missile strikes

The EU seems to be going in the right direction when it comes to mass message scanning. Unfortunately, the fact that this vote was necessary proves that we’re still in the dark timeline. cyberinsider.com/eu-votes-to-...

A big tell is the statement by Meta in this article: “very few people were opting in.” Meta knows opt-in encryption doesn’t get adoption, which is why their original strategy was to make encryption on by *default* in WhatsApp, Messenger and their other products.

Meta appears to be reversing its strong stance on encryption. The first obvious casualty is that they’re abandoning and disabling end-to-end encryption in Instagram DMs.

We are absolutely rewriting grants, because using the word “censorship” (as in “censorship-resistant networking that allows people in Iran to bypass filters and access the Internet) gets your grants cancelled by the idiots at DOGE.

"The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s deepfake of James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race in Texas, is only the latest in a series of AI-generated creations from the... GOP campaign organization in the past year" cnn.com/2026/03/13/p... #ethics #gov

From 2025 IEA report: "By the end of the decade, the [U.S.] is set to consume more electricity for data centres than for the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined": iea.org/reports/ener... #ethics #AI #tech #sustainability

Many #AI systems use #LLMs but also "hand-written-rules, deterministic... programs, various algorithms, and non-language models. This means that 'AI', broadly, is not equivalent to a large language model; it is not 'just a stochastic parrot'" medium.com/@margarmitch... #ethics #tech #language

"Gracenote's entire Programs Database, which includes its metadata and the proprietary relational map its editors use..., is registered with the U.S. #Copyright Office. ... [T]he company is suing OpenAI for statutory damages, in addition to actual damages": www.axios.com/2026/03/10/n... #ethics #law

"The City of Fresno is facing scrutiny in court after a judge found serious problems in a legal filing submitted in an eminent domain case, including citations to cases that do not exist": kmph.com/news/local/j... #ethics #law #gov #business #tech #AI

"The biggest issues elected officials have focused on so far are not #jobs but electricity bill hikes tied to the rapid expansion of #AI data centers, child safety and the use of AI in the #military": nbcnews.com/politics/ele... #ethics #law #tech #gov #business

"No court has yet applied products doctrine to a generative #AI system in this context.... It requires only the application of existing products liability doctrine to a developer who knew, or should have known, the foreseeable use case" law.stanford.edu/2026/03/07/d... #ethics #law #tech

Calling Cormac McCarthy’s authorial style a “mistake” that AI no longer makes is so funny

BREAKING: Grammarly is pulling down its explosively controversial feature that impersonates writers without their consent futurism.com/artificial-i...

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.

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...

"No court has yet applied products doctrine to a generative #AI system in this context.... It requires only the application of existing products liability doctrine to a developer who knew, or should have known, the foreseeable use case" law.stanford.edu/2026/03/07/d... #ethics #law #tech

"The biggest issues elected officials have focused on so far are not #jobs but electricity bill hikes tied to the rapid expansion of #AI data centers, child safety and the use of AI in the #military": nbcnews.com/politics/ele... #ethics #law #tech #gov #business

"The City of Fresno is facing scrutiny in court after a judge found serious problems in a legal filing submitted in an eminent domain case, including citations to cases that do not exist": kmph.com/news/local/j... #ethics #law #gov #business #tech #AI

"Gracenote's entire Programs Database, which includes its metadata and the proprietary relational map its editors use..., is registered with the U.S. #Copyright Office. ... [T]he company is suing OpenAI for statutory damages, in addition to actual damages": www.axios.com/2026/03/10/n... #ethics #law

Many #AI systems use #LLMs but also "hand-written-rules, deterministic... programs, various algorithms, and non-language models. This means that 'AI', broadly, is not equivalent to a large language model; it is not 'just a stochastic parrot'" medium.com/@margarmitch... #ethics #tech #language

"To date, the Berkeley #Cybersecurity Clinic has trained more than 300 students across nearly two dozen academic disciplines and served over 50 #nonprofit and social-sector organizations on four continents.": ischool.berkeley.edu/news/2026/uc... #ethics #highered #education #internet #tech

"The interesting part is not the payload. It is how the attacker got the npm token in the first place: by injecting a prompt into a #GitHub issue title, which an #AI triage #bot read, interpreted as an instruction, and executed": grith.ai/blog/clineje... #ethics #internet #tech #privacy #cybersec

"The interesting part is not the payload. It is how the attacker got the npm token in the first place: by injecting a prompt into a #GitHub issue title, which an #AI triage #bot read, interpreted as an instruction, and executed": grith.ai/blog/clineje... #ethics #internet #tech #privacy #cybersec

Who could possibly have predicted that a company whose slogan is "cheat on everything" would cheat? techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/c...