“Cobots” are framed as collaborators—but in practice, automation reorganizes workers around machines. This is augmentation-washing: empowerment language concealing less agency and more labor. Sarah Fox and Samantha Shorey for @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/how-augmenta...

"...voice generating bots are also becoming a boon to another unlikely corner of the internet: extremist movements that are using them to recreate the voices and speeches of major figures in their milieu, and experts say it is helping them grow."

"More than half a dozen people closely involved...told POLITICO that Sacks undercut the tech industry’s effort on Capitol Hill to craft a more permanent federal solution on state AI rules, instead ramming through unilateral action that could turn AI law into a national political fight."

Queen Elizabeth stopped by police. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting. 'Leaked conversations’ from elections. A wave of deceptive media circulating during conflicts. 2025 saw AI-generated media cross a threshold, write Zuzanna Wojciak and shirin anlen from WITNESS. What lessons can we learn?

Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli and I just wrapped her special podcast series, Through to Thriving, with insights from Ellen Pao, Jerrel Peterson, Alice Hunsberger, Vaishnavi J, Desmond Patton, Nora Benavidez, Mimi Ọnụọha, Timnit Gebru, Jasmine McNealy, Naomi Nix, and Chris Gilliard:

Waymo has halted service in San Francisco after numerous videos & images showed its autonomous cars snarling traffic during the blackout. With traffic lights down, Waymos across the city stopped dead in their tracks at intersections. missionlocal.org/2025/12/sf-w...

This month, OpenAI announced "up to $2 million" in funding for research on AI safety and well-being. This may seem generous, write J. Nathan Matias and Avriel Epps, but following in the footsteps of other tech giants facing scrutiny over mental health impacts, it's nothing more than grantwashing.

My newest piece in @techpolicypress.bsky.social is live: Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That! This piece builds on a recent convening by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Check it out here: www.techpolicy.press/why-platform...

tired: a federal moratorium blocking states from regulating AI wired: local moratoriums blocking tech companies' AI-fueled resource grabs me for @techpolicypress.bsky.social with a big thanks to the folks I talked to and everyone in these fights across the US www.techpolicy.press/the-real-rac...

Experts working on policy regulating nonconsensual intimate images — AI-generated and otherwise — say they will now have to fight this new executive order on top of everything else. @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/how-might-tr...

Tech Policy Press Fellow Ariana Aboulafia highlights the perspectives of four professors teaching at the intersection of disability rights and technology on their experiences under the Trump Administration’s policies targeting higher education, including lost research support and chilled classrooms.

CATO INSTITUTE: Despite DOGE slashing jobs, government spending in every month of 2025 “was greater than in every other year .. An observer who did not know when DOGE started could not identify it” on a chart. 🤡 www.cato.org/blog/doge-pr...

Trump's attack on civil rights protections seems to be more of a vehicle for the president to expand his assault on disparate impact liability than it is about AI regulation, argues Leah Frazier, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

"Skeptics, revisionists and conspiracy theorists have long challenged facts and figures supplied by the U.S. government, sometimes with more justification than others. Now doubters oversee much of the government’s vast research and information machinery..."

"Beachside luxury resorts. High-speed rail. AI-optimized smart grids. Welcome to 'Project Sunrise,' the Trump admiistration’s pitch to foreign governments and investors to turn Gaza’s rubble into a futuristic coastal destination."

This should put an end to all the conspiracy theories.

This month, OpenAI announced "up to $2 million" in funding for research on AI safety and well-being. This may seem generous, write J. Nathan Matias and Avriel Epps, but following in the footsteps of other tech giants facing scrutiny over mental health impacts, it's nothing more than grantwashing.

Tech Policy Press fellow Jasmine Mithani reached out to a variety of legal and policy experts for their reactions to how the newest Trump executive order on AI will impact the movement against digital sexual violence.

My latest for @techpolicypress.bsky.social looks at the drive for European tech sovereignty that took place this year - and what's likely to happen in 2026 www.techpolicy.press/europe-tried...

Great piece on how OpenAI is pouring huge sums into mental‑health research — what researchers call "grantwashing" — even as lawsuits claim its products contributed to child suicides and the company withholds records about its systems and user behavior that could shed light on harms. #AI

Trump's attack on civil rights protections seems to be more of a vehicle for the president to expand his assault on disparate impact liability than it is about AI regulation, argues Leah Frazier, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

"TikTok has signed an agreement to create a US joint venture under a deal brokered by President Donald Trump that leaves the app’s Chinese owner ByteDance with direct control of its core business operations in America."

"...super PACs backed by Trump-supporting tech moguls and the social network giant Meta" will "try to use the 2026 midterms to reengineer Congress and state legislatures in favor of their ambitions for artificial intelligence."

An important critique for education researchers thinking of taking money from OpenAI or otherwise providing cover for the company by working with them👇🏻

"Faced with this mounting record of secrecy and entitlement, and with stories about data centers’ local impacts finally being reported more widely, communities are escalating their responses." - @ruddock.bsky.social via @techpolicypress.bsky.social

Amid the AI investment boom, cities and counties across the US are pulling the emergency brake on data centers, writes Jenna Ruddock. From Maryland to Missouri, at least fourteen states are home to towns or counties that have implemented moratoriums: a complete pause on data center development.

From @timbernard.me:

Very important piece. "Whether or not OpenAI leaders intend to muddy the waters of science, grantwashing hinders technology safety ... It adds uncertainty and debate in areas where companies want to avoid liability and that uncertainty gives the appearance of science."

Should scientists apply to OpenAI's fund for research on AI & mental health? Should policymakers consider it a credible safety effort? Avriel Epps & I see it as "grantwashing," and it's an insult to anyone whose loved one's death involved chatbots. We explain: www.techpolicy.press/beware-of-op...

This month, OpenAI announced "up to $2 million" in funding for research on AI safety and well-being. This may seem generous, write J. Nathan Matias and Avriel Epps, but following in the footsteps of other tech giants facing scrutiny over mental health impacts, it's nothing more than grantwashing.

On Tuesday, a US House hearing framed the DMA as protectionist. Brazil shows how EU digital rules have real power but exporting them without local fit risks eroding democratic rights and legitimacy, writes Kati Cseres from the Amsterdam Center for European Law and Governance.

More details on why 2026 is shaping up to be an epic battle over AI infrastructure development in this post from @gabbymiller.bsky.social.

"President Trump’s media company Trump Media & Technology Group agreed to merge with fusion-power company TAE Technologies in an all-stock deal worth more than $6 billion." Deal "intends to combine Trump Media’s access to capital and TAE’s fusion technology to supply power" for the AI boom.

Ireland has one of the world's highest concentrations of data centers. The expansion has reshaped the grid & deepened fossil fuel use. As the EU pushes to triple data center capacity, Ireland offers a warning, writes Louis Boyd-Madsen. Read our investigation with @algorithmwatch.org:

Pleased to contribute to this, many excellent observations and reading recs!

What a cool project from @jenny-l-davis.bsky.social and her students documenting xAI's data centers in Memphis. The website is "a targeted lens on a specific locale and a window into AI’s infrastructural expansion" and has a "StoryMap, providing a place-based account of the story and its stakes."

“.. From Maryland to Missouri, at least fourteen states are home to towns or counties that have implemented moratoriums: a complete pause on data center development.” @techpolicypress.bsky.social @justinhendrix.bsky.social techpolicy.press/the-real-rac...

Amid the AI investment boom, cities and counties across the US are pulling the emergency brake on data centers, writes Jenna Ruddock. From Maryland to Missouri, at least fourteen states are home to towns or counties that have implemented moratoriums: a complete pause on data center development.

BREAKING on MS NOW: Jack Smith, in his opening statement to House Judiciary, says: "Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power."

If US investors maintain a client base with the infamous NSO Group, the country becomes complicit in its privacy abuses, turning a blind eye to authoritarian surveillance while losing moral authority to condemn it, David Hatami argues.

"The gaffe occurred because an artificial-intelligence-powered surveillance system used by Lawton Chiles Middle School mistakenly flagged the clarinet as a weapon, according to ZeroEyes, the security company that runs the system and contracts with Lawton Chiles’s school district."

Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, major platforms must assess and mitigate risks like gender-based violence. CDT Europe's Marie Seck and David Klotsonis take a first look at how Aylo, Stripchat, and XVideos approach GBV in their risk assessment reports.

"...68% of CEOs plan to spend even more on AI in 2026, according to an annual survey of more than 350 public-company CEOs from advisory firm Teneo. Less than half of current AI projects had generated more in returns than they had cost, respondents said." www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ceos...

Queen Elizabeth stopped by police. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting. 'Leaked conversations’ from elections. A wave of deceptive media circulating during conflicts. 2025 saw AI-generated media cross a threshold, write Zuzanna Wojciak and shirin anlen from WITNESS. What lessons can we learn?

It is international law 101 that a military blockade is not just a violation of the UN Charter, but a crime of aggression. Unless that blockade is in response to an 'armed attack.' None of President's Trump's list of complaints come close to an armed attack. 1/

This week’s podcast guest is Olivier Sylvain, a professor of law at Fordham Law School and a senior policy research fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. He's the author of "Why Trump’s AI EO Will be DOA in Court," a perspective published on Tech Policy Press.

New from me @techpolicypress.bsky.social: How far did tech firms' 2025 realignment with the Republican party reach into their systemic risk reports to the European Commission (which hardly anyone even reads)? A fair bit, it turns out. www.techpolicy.press/platforms-re...

By the logic the Court is applying here ,your web browsing activities, your emails, your photos you store on a cloud web service, all your texts and private messages on apps become freely available for the government to grab up.

OpenAI has hired former UK chancellor George Osborne to lead the start-up’s work building “democratic” artificial intelligence for the world. He will head of "OpenAI for Countries, an overseas expansion of the $500bn 'Stargate' initiative to build data centers in the US."

Spoke to @npr.org about facial recognition in New Orleans www.npr.org/2025/12/16/n...