AI and society Archive

Dec 15, 2025

Trump attempts to block state AI laws by withholding broadband billions, but faces shaky legal ground.

"I think the administration has a 30 to 35% chance of this working legally," says Dean Ball, a former White House official who contributed to the administration's AI Action Plan.

The executive order directs the Commerce Department to block states with onerous AI regulations from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program (BEAD), reports Reuters in an analysis of the new order. However, experts doubt whether Congress intended to give the administration authority over state AI regulation when it authorized broadband funding. Furthermore, the move risks political blowback from within the party: Republican governors like Ron DeSantis have previously spoken against federal interference, and withholding funds would impact rural voters—a key demographic that supported Trump by wide margins.

Comment Source: Reuters

Matthias Bastian

Dec 14, 2025

AI and society

The Center for Humane Technology (CHT), a nonprofit organization advocating for ethical technology, has criticized a new executive order from the Trump administration that aims to undermine state AI laws.

According to the CHT, the regulation puts public safety at risk by preventing states from meaningfully regulating AI. At the same time, it offers no national replacement framework, creating what the organization calls a vacuum in accountability.

Americans understand the potential benefits and dangers of this technology. They believe government should help regulate AI, not provide a regulatory shield to an industry that prioritizes growth at any cost. (CHT)

The CHT points to documented AI harms, including deepfakes, fraud, and chatbot-related suicides among young people. Social media already showed what happens when technology goes unregulated, the organization argues. The government should protect the public instead of caving to the tech industry.

Trump argues that varying state regulations are slowing down the industry. AI companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google support national regulation.

Comment Source: CHT

Matthias Bastian

Dec 14, 2025

AI and society

Deepmind co-founder Shane Legg puts the odds of achieving "minimal AGI" at 50 percent by 2028. In an interview with Hannah Fry, Legg lays out his framework for thinking about artificial general intelligence. He describes a scale running from minimal AGI through full AGI to artificial superintelligence (ASI). Minimal AGI means an artificial agent that can handle the cognitive tasks most humans typically perform. Full AGI covers the entire range of human cognition, including exceptional achievements like developing new scientific theories or composing symphonies.

Legg believes minimal AGI could arrive in roughly two years. Full AGI would follow three to six years later. To measure progress, he proposes a comprehensive test suite: if an AI system passes all typical human cognitive tasks, and human teams can't find any weak points even after months of searching with full access to every detail of the system, the goal has been reached.

Comment Source: YouTube

Matthias Bastian

Dec 13, 2025

AI and society

AI is reshaping the media landscape. Some companies are striking partnerships, others are fighting back against alleged copyright infringement, and some are doing both. To keep track of this shifting terrain, Columbia University's Tow Center has launched an "AI Deals and Disputes Tracker." The tool, part of the center's "Platforms and Publishers" project, monitors the evolving relationship between news publishers and AI companies by documenting lawsuits, business deals, and financial grants based on publicly available information.

The tracker lists major agreements and disputes between publishers and AI companies. | Image: Tow Center

The Tow Center says the overview gets updated at the start of each month, with the most recent data from December 12, 2025. The goal is to give readers a clear picture of the legal and economic shifts happening across the industry. Klaudia Jaźwińska compiles the data and welcomes tips on missing developments to keep the tracker up to date.

Comment Source: Tow

Matthias Bastian

Dec 12, 2025

AI and society

Pangram 3.0 AI text detector claims up to 99.98% accuracy, even for subtly AI-assisted content

Maximilian Schreiner

Dec 12, 2025

AI and society

On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from states whose AI regulations impede American innovation. Speaking to reporters, Trump argued that a patchwork of state-level rules slows down the industry.

The order directs the Secretary of Commerce to review state laws and, in cases of conflict, block access to the $42 billion broadband fund. Previous attempts to enforce such bans had failed.

The directive specifically targets anti-discrimination rules in states like Colorado, which the administration claims lead to "ideological bias." While tech giants like Google and OpenAI welcomed the move toward national standards, Representative Don Beyer warned that the order could create a "lawless Wild West" and potentially violates the Constitution by undermining state-level safety reforms.

Comment Source: Reuters