Could AI be conscious?; The Guardian, July 19, 2026

 William MacAskill and Lucius Caviola, The Guardian; Could AI be conscious?

Experts believe it’s at least possible. We urgently need a plan to navigate the ethical implications 

"In building ever more advanced AI, we may be creating a new type of being – and this could be the most consequential thing our species has ever done. Yet we have essentially no plan for how to navigate this process ethically. That, by any reckoning, is insane. Are we creating a kind of being that matters morally? Are AI systems conscious, in some way? And, if they aren’t now, might they become so soon?

Such questions might strike you as premature. But according to surveys we and fellow researchers have conducted, most experts consider AI consciousness possible in principle (though there is considerable disagreement about what form it would take). A major interdisciplinary report by a team that included pioneering computer scientist Yoshua Bengio examined leading neuroscientific theories of consciousness and asked what they implied about AI. The conclusion: there appear to be no obvious technical barriers to creating AI systems whose computational and architectural features could give rise to consciousness.

And even if AI systems are not conscious, they could still be moral patients. Some may have sophisticated long-term preferences and a kind of identity over time. It might be important for us to honour their preferences. And unlike other non-living things, AI systems can form relationships with humans. This, too, might be a reason to treat them well. Alternatively, perhaps they are such intricate creations that they deserve care and respect for that reason alone, like a cathedral or a coral reef.

What does this all mean? The honest answer is: we do not know for sure whether or not current AI systems are conscious or moral patients, and we do not know when or whether future systems will be. Our scientific understanding of AI consciousness and moral patienthood is still fundamentally underdeveloped. The state of the field feels like physics before Newton: full of competing frameworks, probably confused in ways we cannot yet see, and lacking the kind of unifying breakthrough that would make these questions clearly tractable. That breakthrough will not come in the next few years. Perhaps we will eventually make progress, and perhaps AI itself will help us get there. That progress will take time, very plausibly more time than we have."

Trump administration replaces slavery exhibition at Washington’s Philadelphia home; The Hill, July 15, 2026

 TARA SUTER , The Hill; Trump administration replaces slavery exhibition at Washington’s Philadelphia home

"The Trump administration has removed a slavery exhibition at the home of former President George Washington in Philadelphia, according to The Associated Press.

A slavery-focused exhibit at Washington’s home was swapped out Wednesday by the administration with another version, which historians have said isn’t historically accurate, according to the AP."

Indonesia's copyright rewrite puts Google, AI platforms on notice; Reuters, July 17, 2026

 Stanley Widianto, Reuters; Indonesia's copyright rewrite puts Google, AI platforms on notice

"Indonesia is preparing sweeping changes to its copyright law, ​including granting copyright privileges to people who use artificial intelligence to help them generate content, a draft bill reviewed by Reuters showed, setting up a ‌potential showdown between the government and major tech platforms.

If passed, Indonesia could become the first country in Southeast Asia to incorporate AI in its copyright law, as governments globally grapple with the impact of the technology on copyright rules, including the use of work created by humans to train AI models."

Ethics Panel Recommends Censure for Rep. Spillane for ‘Demeaning’ Comments; InDepthNH.org, July 17, 2026

 Nancy West , InDepthNH.org; Ethics Panel Recommends Censure for Rep. Spillane for ‘Demeaning’ Comments

"The Committee charged Spillane with violations of the Ethics Guidelines, Section 1, Principles of Public Service, Paragraph III, Principle of Accountability, which provides that legislators “shall ensure that government is conducted openly, equitably and honorably in a manner that permits the citizenry to make informed judgments, have confidence in the integrity of the legislature, and hold government officials accountable” and Paragraph IV, Principle of Conduct, which provides that legislators “shall treat each other, legislative employees, and the public with dignity and respect.”

It will be up to the House to vote on the committee’s recommendation. The next time the House is expected to be in session will be Veto Day in September or October.

The report said Spillane admitted to making the postings identifying him as a state Representative at a hearing on the matter, but said they weren’t made in the performance of his official duties so his conduct didn’t fall within the jurisdiction of the Committee. Spillane also argued that his comments in the social media posts are protected speech under the federal and New Hampshire constitutions.

“While the right of freedom of speech is fundamental, it is not absolute. Certain categories of speech such as defamation and harassment can be restricted. In this case Rep. Horrigan testified that the offensive statements made in the posts were not true and. Rep. Harvey testified that she had legitimate concerns about her safety,” the report said.

In 2020, the civil rights unit of the Attorney General’s Office investigated a social media post by Spillane that stated “Public Service Announcement: If you see a (Black Lives Matter) sign on a lawn it’s the same as  having the porch light on for Halloween. You’re free to loot and burn that house.” Spillane said at the time he meant that post as “tongue-in-cheek” political commentary and the investigation was suspended with no action taken."

Jayson Conner, 48, and Jeffrey Newman, 58, Die; Gave Thousands of Backpacks to Those in Need; The New York Times, July 11, 2026

 Clay Risen, The New York Times ; Jayson Conner, 48, and Jeffrey Newman, 58, Die; Gave Thousands of Backpacks to Those in Need

The couple, who died within a few days of each other, provided needed supplies, like socks and wet wipes, to people living on New York City’s streets.

"Jayson Conner and Jeffrey Newman, a couple who spent years walking the streets of New York and handing out tens of thousands of backpacks filled with supplies — toiletries, socks, notebooks — to people in need, died within days of each other...

Once a week, a few dozen people would gather at a rental space in Queens, and Mr. Conner and Mr. Newman would lead them in organizing items into more than 100 backpacks that were loaded onto a moving van.

They would then drive the van to Manhattan, and, over the next several days, the volunteers would fan out, backpacks slung over their shoulders. Mr. Conner and Mr. Newman trained the volunteers on the best way to approach and engage with people who might be experiencing extreme physical or emotional pain — or might just want to talk to a friendly face.

“It was fascinating to see how well they managed to communicate with people on the streets,” Kristina Kashtanova, who began volunteering with them in 2020, said in an interview. “They taught me how to be a better human and how to talk to people who were so different from me.”

Giving away the backpacks was initially a side project of their nonprofit, Together Helping Others, which provided a range of social services. In moving from place to place, they discovered, unhoused people often lacked something as simple as a container to hold their belongings. What people in that situation needed, the two men figured, was sturdy backpacks."

Data centers have united Americans of both parties in a shared hatred; The Washington Post, July 18, 2026

 Shira Ovide , The Washington Post; Data centers have united Americans of both parties in a shared hatred

"Kyle Schmidt ticked through what makes him irate about the massive Google data center slated for construction about a mile away from his home near Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

He didn’t like that residents were kept in the dark about what would be built on a pristine tract of mostly forested land. He’s worried about the data center’s potential impact on the community’s water supply and on the dream home that his family moved into last year.

But Schmidt said what really bothers him is the powerlessness he felt as the project advanced and elected officials, Google representatives and bigwig data center backers belittled or misled people who raised concerns...

Opposition in both red and blue regions continued to build to the point where he has tracked about 65 state data center restrictions enacted since the start of 2025, and dozens of cities that have imposed temporary halts to data center development. This week, New York became the first state in the nation to impose a temporary pause on large new data center projects...

Tech giants and other data center backers have been caught off guard by the rapid rise of public opposition, arguing that the hubs are essential for modern digital services and to keep the United States ahead of China on AI."

What comes after book bans? One school district questions traditional libraries; WUSF, July 16, 2026

  Douglas Soule, WUSF; What comes after book bans? One school district questions traditional libraries

"After removing hundreds of books, Clay County is debating the purpose of high school libraries. School officials called it modernization. Critics see it as the next phase of the book debate targeting fiction books."

MLB restricts using dugout iPads for AI-assisted in-game strategy; Associated Press via ESPN, July 17, 2026

 Associated Press via ESPN; MLB restricts using dugout iPads for AI-assisted in-game strategy 

"Major League Baseball is restricting iPad usage in dugouts to prevent the tablets from running artificial intelligence to help make strategy decisions, and former reliever Adam Ottavino said the New York Mets' use of technology helped prompt the move.

The tablets have access to video and league-provided data, and also included a custom tab where teams could access other programs. MLB made the custom tabs inaccessible to teams starting Wednesday night, when the second half of the season started.

"In many cases, the custom tab had expanded the use of the dugout iPads beyond their originally intended purpose to include recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches," MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword wrote in a June 11 memo to general managers, assistant GMs and video coordinators.

The memo, first reported by The Athletic, was obtained by The Associated Press.

"I read the article and I was like, I can't believe what I'm seeing," New York Yankees captain Aaron Judge said. "Teams are making decisions off of AI? Man, that's just crazy."

Hackers Expose How AI Music App Suno Stole Decades Worth of Copyrighted Music; Futurism, July 17, 2026

 Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism; Hackers Expose How AI Music App Suno Stole Decades Worth of Copyrighted Music

The evidence is damning.

"A hack revealed in detail how AI music generating app Suno scraped millions of songs, likely including copyrighted ones, from across the web to feed into its AI model, 404 Media reports.

Suno, which is currently embroiled in multiple ongoing copyright lawsuits, has already admitted in response to legal action that it used “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet” to train its music-generating AI."

An Ohio woman took in two strangers. Then she saw their ‘wanted’ photos.; The Washington Post, July 18, 2026

 Dan Morse, The Washington Post, ; An Ohio woman took in two strangers. Then she saw their ‘wanted’ photos.

"Just 25 percent of Americans say most people can be trusted, down from 47 percent in the early 1970s, according to the long-running General Social Survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. In a Pew Research survey of 25 countries last year, Americans ranked last in their likelihood of viewing fellow citizens as “morally good,” hitting just below 50 percent.

“In a country in which trust has been experiencing a long-term decline, here was this extraordinary act of trust,” said sociologist Bruce Carruthers of Northwestern University after being told of the case.

Social scientists have long studied why and how people trust. One big factor: People are more likely to trust those who reflect themselves. Carruthers said other characteristics of Behrman tilted toward trust, including an innate desire to help others and normally reliable street smarts."

I Got Slopped; The New York Times, July 16, 2026

  Kashmir Hill, The New York Times; I Got Slopped

"Amazon does not mind if people hawk A.I.-generated books on its platform, unless they are truly and deeply terrible."

A Spectacular Theodore Roosevelt Library Deep in the Badlands; The New York Times, July 17, 2026

 

Michael Kimmelman

Visuals by Will Warasila

, The New York Times; A Spectacular Theodore Roosevelt Library Deep in the Badlands

"You’d be hard-pressed not to like the new $450 million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It’s an easy charmer and a spectacular work of ecologically minded architecture in the drop-dead gorgeous North Dakota Badlands.

The firm Snohetta in New York designed it. The building is 93,000 square feet of mass-timber and rammed-earth — a huge Hobbit house hugging the precipice of a grassy butte overlooking the tiny town of Medora, N.D.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is five minutes away."

People of faith are finding a new moral guide in AI; The Washington Post, July 17, 2026

 David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University., The Washington Post; People of faith are finding a new moral guide in AI

"Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed the way we get information. If you have questions about the factors that underlie a medical diagnosis or how best to invest your savings, asking an AI chatbot for guidance can give you quick, easy and often surprisingly accurate information in a conversational form. But people are also turning to AI to explore deeper questions than they might ask a physician, financial adviser or professor — questions that, for millennia, were the province of religion."

Rutgers University investigates ethics complaint against dean who billed the university for services offered by her company; WHYY, July 15, 2026

 P. Kenneth Burns , WHYY; Rutgers University investigates ethics complaint against dean who billed the university for services offered by her company

"Rutgers University is investigating a dean at its Newark campus for allegedly making thousands of dollars by doing business with the university through a company she co-owns with her sister.

Jacqueline S. Mattis, dean of the Rutgers-Newark School of Arts and Sciences, SASN, was paid $142,515 for services provided to Rutgers by her company, Easton’s Nook LLC, since she began her job in July 2020, according to records reviewed by WHYY News. The funds went to pay for writing workshops and retreats, some of which took place in Jamaica."

A24 Addresses Copyright Strikes on Backrooms Fan Art After Director Kane Parsons Promises to Investigate; IGN, July 17, 2026

 VIRGINIA GLAZE, IGN; A24 Addresses Copyright Strikes on Backrooms Fan Art After Director Kane Parsons Promises to Investigate

'We will continue to support the artists.'

"A24 has issued a statement clarifying the numerous takedown notices filed on behalf of its brand after Backrooms director Kane Parsons promised he’d investigate.

A24 published their statement via Instagram on July 17, just two days after Parsons responded to a Reddit post from a user claiming their wallpaper pattern had been pulled from Redbubble over copyright infringement."

Multiple Investigations Refuted Trump’s Claims That Fraud Altered the Outcome in 2020; The New York Times, July 16, 2026

 Luke Broadwater, The New York Times ; Multiple Investigations Refuted Trump’s Claims That Fraud Altered the Outcome in 2020

Dozens of investigations, audits, recounts and court proceedings examined the 2020 election. None found the widespread voter fraud that President Trump claimed tilted the vote.

"After he lost the 2020 election, President Trump and his allies promoted a series of conspiracy theories about the integrity of the vote, claiming that the election was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud.

They alleged that China hacked voting machines through thermostats. They floated the notion that Italian satellites were directed to flip votes. They accused election officials of smuggling in votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in suitcases.

Each of these fantastical claims was debunked.

In fact, there were dozens of investigations, audits, recounts and court proceedings at the local, state and federal levels that examined the 2020 election, which experts said may have been the most scrutinized election in U.S. history. None uncovered the extensive voter fraud that Mr. Trump alleged had tilted the outcome of the election.

The Department of Justice and Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, William P. Barr, found the claims lacking. Cybersecurity agencies declared the 2020 election the most secure in history. States undertook audits and hand recounts, with none finding what Mr. Trump was alleging."

HOW THE SMITHSONIAN COULD FALL; The Atlantic, July 16, 2026

 Kelsey Ables, Photographs by Caroline Gutman, The Atlantic ; HOW THE SMITHSONIAN COULD FALL

"The Trump administration wants to control the Smithsonian, but it won’t be so easy."

White House Teleprompter Operator Bet on Trump Speeches, Kalshi Says; The New York Times, July 16, 2026

   Lauren McCarthy, The New York Times; White House Teleprompter Operator Bet on Trump Speeches, Kalshi Says

"A White House teleprompter operator used his position to win around $100,000 by placing bets on the prediction market Kalshi about what President Trump would say in his speeches, the company said on Thursday.

It was the latest accusation that someone had used inside information to make a profit on a prediction market like Kalshi and Polymarket, which have grown rapidly and transformed into cultural phenomena.

In this case, Kalshi said Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to Mr. Trump, had placed wagers on common words that would appear in the president’s speeches, such as country names and economic terms. In March, when Kalshi’s surveillance systems flagged some of Mr. Perez’s trades, the company froze the funds in his account and referred the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets."

FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals; ProPublica, July 15, 2026

 Corey G. Johnson , ProPublica; FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals

"Reporting Highlights

• Expensive Gifts: Despite regulating broadcast media, FCC commissioners have accepted pricey tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala from CBS or its parent company, now Paramount.
• 
  
• Conflict of Interest: Ethics experts say that by accepting the gifts, FCC commissioners are compromising the agency’s impartiality and should avoid acting on Paramount’s pending merger.
• 
  
• Mixing Business and Pleasure: After voting for a Paramount merger, Commissioner Olivia Trusty took tickets worth over $12,000. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has accepted tickets worth at least $63,000.
• 
  

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story."

'Copyright trolls' pounce on Hawaiʻi arts social media accounts; Hawai'i Public Radio, July 13, 2026

 Cassie Ordonio, Hawai'i Public Radio; 'Copyright trolls' pounce on Hawaiʻi arts social media accounts

"Porter had signed an agreement with BVIRAL, a Tennessee-based licensing company that helps promote content creators but also monitors the internet to ensure its clients' videos are not being shared without their permission.

What Porter signed up for was not what he expected.

“I was under the impression that I was giving them the rights to use the videos for promoting my artwork on their pages,” he said.

In actuality, Porter gave BVIRAL rights to pursue copyright claims on his behalf.

Now, people who typically support artists by posting those artists' works on social media are getting hit with takedown notices.

The issue illustrates unintended consequences when artists sign contracts with companies like BVIRAL that file copyright claims against businesses that also work with artists."

Current and former employees sue Meta, alleging discrimination in using AI to conduct layoffs; CNBC, July 14, 2026

 Jonathan Vanian, CNBC ; Current and former employees sue Meta, alleging discrimination in using AI to conduct layoffs

"A coalition of current and former Meta employees have sued the social media giant, alleging that the company used artificial intelligence in its latest round of layoffs in a way that was discriminatory.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, plaintiffs allege that Meta violated various protected-leave laws and discrimination acts related to pregnancies and disabilities, among others, and said they wish to pursue their claims individually in arbitration."

City Bar Urges Senate Judiciary Committee to Reject Todd Blanche as U.S. Attorney General; New York City Bar, July 13, 2026

 New York City Bar; City Bar Urges Senate Judiciary Committee to Reject Todd Blanche as U.S. Attorney General

"In a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the New York City Bar Association urges the Committee to reject the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General of the United States.

“Mr. Blanche has taken actions that we believe make him unfit to lead an ethical and independent department of justice that is essential to our nation’s democracy,” the City Bar writes. “Mr. Blanche’s record – particularly the actions he has undertaken as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General – conclusively demonstrates his lack of commitment to the integrity, professionalism and independence that the Senate should require and the American people should expect of the highest law enforcement official in the land.”

The City Bar writes that despite Mr. Blanche’s formal credentials, his actions, both as Deputy Attorney General and as Acting Attorney General, have “repeatedly demonstrated that his primary loyalty is not to the United States Constitution or the rule of law but to President Donald J. Trump, whom Mr. Blanche previously represented as a private attorney and whose personal interests he has continued to protect. As a result, his actions have been detrimental to the Department of Justice and the rule of law. Specifically, Mr. Blanche has compromised the integrity and independence of the Department he has been nominated to lead.”"

Book publishers sue Google for copyright infringement over Gemini AI training; The Guardian, July 14, 2026

 Emma Loffhagen , The Guardian; Book publishers sue Google for copyright infringement over Gemini AI training

Group of major publishers accuses the tech giant of ‘one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history’

"A group of major publishers have filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of illegally using millions of copyrighted books to help build its Gemini artificial intelligence models, in “one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history”.

The case, filed in federal court in New York, has been brought by three publishers – Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier – and bestselling American author Scott Turow.

The publishers argue that Google repurposed books that had been supplied for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. Those services allowed Google to use the works in specific ways – for example, to display searchable snippets or sell ebooks – but not, the lawsuit claims, to copy them for training commercial AI products."