Josh Taylor, The Guardian ; A uni professor admitted using AI to write an opinion piece. Here’s what it revealed about trust in the technology
"When a pro vice-chancellor at a university this week admitted to using AI in writing an opinion piece for a major Australian masthead, but did not disclose that use prior to publication, it highlighted the growing gap between people’s use of AI and trust in the technology."
Elisabeth Egan , The New York Times; How a Throwaway Line Turned Writers Against a Cheerleader for Children’s Books
"Barnett was thrilled when he got word in the summer of 2024 that Carla Hayden, then the librarian of Congress, had named him national ambassador for young people’s literature...
He is the ninth author in the role. The program is a partnership between the Library of Congress and the literary nonprofit Every Child a Reader; previous honorees include Jon Scieszka, Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds and Meg Medina...
“Make Believe” sparked a firestorm with a single line.
On Page 22 of the 102-page book, Barnett explains Sturgeon’s Law, in which the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon stated that “90 percent of everything is crud.”
Building on this idea, Barnett writes: “I have a nagging fear that children’s literature suffers from a slightly higher crud percentage than literature as a whole. So I now offer Barnett’s Addendum to Sturgeon’s Law: Maybe more like 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud.”
Fellow children’s authors were aghast: How could their national ambassador say such a thing?...
Later I texted one final question: “Do you think you were wrong to say 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud?”
Barnett responded, simply, “Yes, I should have used a different argument.”"
Matt Sledge, Sam Biddle , The Intercept; PHILLY COPS ADMIT THAT THEY’RE TRACKING “FIRST AMENDMENT ACTIVITY” CRITICAL OF AI
"AMERICANS SPEAKING OUT against artificial intelligence data centers on social media are falling under police surveillance, a confidential law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Intercept reveals.
A fusion center in Philadelphia combed through spicy internet comments from AI critics and concluded there is a growing risk of physical violence against data centers from “domestic violent extremists,” ranging from white supremacists to anarchists.
“Domestic violent extremists (DVEs) are likely interested in targeting artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, posing a physical and cyber threat to infrastructure in the Philadelphia regional area,” the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center wrote in a December alert.
The fusion center distributed its warning, marked “for official use only,” through the national fusion center network of state, local, and federal police agencies.
Like many of the reports produced by fusion centers, the bulletin points to news reports and social media posts, but cites little in the way of tangible threats. It acknowledges “a lack of specific information on plans to target AI data centers in the Philadelphia area,” but warns law enforcement that three planned data center facilities in the region could become targets of future protests."
Pesala Bandara, PetaPixel; Who Took This JFK Photo? Museum and Collector Clash in Copyright Case
"The photograph in question shows a smiling President Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in their motorcade on the day of his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963. In the case, which was first reported by Plagiarism Today, private collector Cade Campbell filed a claim with the Copyright Claims Board (CCB), alleging that the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas was unlawfully displaying this photograph...
In the end, the CCB found in favor of the museum. It concluded that, based on the greater weight of evidence, the photograph Campbell owned was a later copy of the Titus image, not the original. As such, the board dismissed the claim with prejudice."
The Economist; How to share the AI windfall. Are taxes enough?
"Should artificial intelligence cause mass unemployment, workers will not be thrilled. But neither will the taxman, even if he hasn’t been automated. For most of the past century, rich countries have had simple rules for sharing prosperity: raise money mostly by taxing work and consumption, sprinkle in some borrowing and hand out the proceeds. That model may collapse if ai advances as quickly as its boosters suggest. Hence, many say, a new approach is needed, in which government makes its money primarily from the new technology."
Michael DeLashmutt , Religion News Service (RNS); Why Protestants should read the pope’s encyclical
"Bookending the text is a striking biblical contrast between Babel and Jerusalem. The question, the encyclical insists, is not whether humanity should embrace or reject technology altogether. The deeper question concerns what kind of technological civilization we are constructing. Are we building systems ordered toward domination, uniformity, surveillance and self-magnification, like in Babel? Or are we building systems that strengthen communities, preserve human dignity and serve the common good, like in the Bible’s Jerusalem?
The fight, in other words, is not really against the algorithms. It is against the oligarchs.
I have been studying theology and technology for more than 20 years, often using science fiction as a dialogue partner for questions that can otherwise feel abstract or distant from ordinary life. Reading “Magnifica Humanitas,” I repeatedly found myself thinking of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson: posthumanism, autonomous warfare, transnational corporate sovereignty and technologically mediated forms of salvation and domination.
There is something genuinely surreal about reading a papal encyclical over morning coffee and encountering discussions of autonomous weapons systems and posthumanism on the Vatican website. Twenty years ago, this would have sounded absurd. Today, it sounds descriptive.
And perhaps that is what struck me most while reading the document. The questions of speculative fiction have become the questions of our lived political reality.
But rather than leaving us trapped inside a techno-dystopia, the encyclical concludes on a note of solidarity and hope that refuses the fantasy that history is ultimately decided only by those behind the code.
Near the end of the document, Leo XIV quotes J.R.R. Tolkien: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set.”
Cyberpunk fiction often imagines salvation or damnation arriving through systems so large that ordinary people become irrelevant. Tolkien’s moral imagination works in almost exactly the opposite direction. The real work of preserving the world happens locally, concretely and relationally — not by mastering history, but by tending the fields nearest to us. And not by escaping creaturely limits, but by inhabiting them faithfully.
That may be the deepest challenge “Magnifica Humanitas” poses both to Silicon Valley triumphalism and to AI apocalypse rhetoric alike. The problem is not simply the machine. It is the temptation toward Babel: the concentration of language, power, capital and imagination into systems that no longer recognize human beings except as inputs, outputs, consumers or data points.
Against that temptation, the encyclical proposes something almost stubbornly unfashionable: subsidiarity, solidarity, shared discernment, limits, community and the common good.
In other words, the answer to AI is neither anti-technology retreat nor surrender to technological inevitability. It is the recovery of politics, moral responsibility and theological imagination at a human scale.
And perhaps that is why Tolkien appears at the end of the document. The Shire is not important because it is powerful. It matters because it is worth protecting from those who believe that power itself is greatness.
In the end, the encyclical circles back to one of the oldest theological questions imaginable: What kind of world are we building, and who is it for? That question cannot be answered by engineers alone, markets alone or even states alone. And Leo XIV’s deepest warning may simply be this: Christians are not free to leave the answer to the oligarchs.
(The Rev. Michael W. DeLashmutt is dean of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd and senior vice president at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where he also serves as associate professor of theology. His most recent book is “A Lived Theology of Everyday Life.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)"
Hallie Rich, Library Journal; Who Is a Library Leader? | Editorial
"Lessons from 25 years of Movers & Shakers
In Library Journal’s 150th year, I find myself stepping back in time to reflect on the wisdom of many “library greats” who advanced the profession to where it stands today. Sometimes their work was highly visible, other times it was a quieter continuation of learning, iteration, and innovation.
In Library Journal’s 150th year, I find myself stepping back in time to reflect on the wisdom of many “library greats” who advanced the profession to where it stands today. Sometimes their work was highly visible, other times it was a quieter continuation of learning, iteration, and innovation.
I’m inspired both by lessons from past library leaders and those who excel at different levels today. This month we celebrate LJ’s 2026 Movers & Shakers, our 25th class. Many who were previously recognized have gone on to lead in the traditional sense of the word. Among our cohorts, we have Movers who became major library system directors, state librarians, school library district administrators, respected academics, ALA presidents, and a few SLJ and LJ Librarians of the Year.
Others have delivered excellent work, charting a path within librarianship that aligns with their individual interests and local, sometimes urgent, needs. Their efforts reflect a form of leadership that emerges while performing their duties with passion.
In his editorial announcing the first class of Movers & Shakers, the late John N. Berry III celebrated the librarians who lead through practical action and a dedication to professional values. He believed that leadership isn’t a skill to be taught nor guaranteed by fancy accolades. Rather, he wrote, “the best of us achieve leadership or have it thrust upon us.” I share his words from March, 2002:
Currently the library field is afflicted with yet another rash of initiatives devised to discover, identify, educate, and/or train leaders. When self-anointed leaders design such efforts, they usually mean ‘we need more librarians like us.’ When those who are not leaders do it, they usually mean ‘more people like us should be leaders.’ That’s why I’m suspicious when some library organization or group sets out, again, to identify ‘up-and-coming leaders,’ or claims it will train or educate the next generation of library leaders. My suspicions deepen when any group refers to itself as ‘the leadership.’
The activities and exercises they invent for developing leaders make me suspicious, too. They have all the earmarks of elites aborning or being strengthened. When they set up ‘retreats’ in the desert of Arizona, or climb to a leadership ‘institute’ on some mountainside in Utah, or gather for a ‘leadership weekend’ at some prestigious campus, I watch the results and wonder where the ‘leaders’ they found went afterwards. I notice that too often what is taught at these gatherings frequently mistakes management and/or administration for leadership. That is probably the most common mistake in leadership education, and it leaves me questioning if it is really possible to ‘educate’ or ‘train’ people to be leaders....
Of course, you can identify the smart, the just, and the articulate. Sure, you can teach the techniques of public speaking. You can explain the fundaments of fairness and justice. You can run courses and offer degrees in management and administration. None of these guarantees leadership or greatness. Indeed, if recent events are any indication, going to the best schools, earning the most money, and holding the top jobs don’t ensure legitimate or legal leadership....
So, when you receive the Movers & Shakers supplement with the March 15 [2002] issue of LJ, look only for ‘potential’ leaders and possible greatness. We have profiled more than 50 library staffers and library-industry workers who surely possess that potential. We’ve noticed them in action, heard about them from colleagues, or seen the results of their efforts. We think many of them are already library leaders, and more will become leaders....
What distinguishes them and what distinguishes leaders from the rest of us is that not only do they have strong convictions, they pursue them on the job. They have the potential for library greatness because they hold passionately strong beliefs about libraries and library service. They are driven by their professional concern that no one should be denied information because of his or her point of view, age, or the nature of the information. In short, their work is defined by our professional core values and our ideology. That is what will make them leaders and great librarians."
Steve Vondran , JD Supra; Factors that may support a finding of "willful copyright infringement"
"In copyright litigation, identifying the facts that may support a finding of willful infringement can be critical in any case, whether you are on the plaintiff or defense side. A willfulness finding may significantly increase the defendant's financial exposure, including the potential for enhanced statutory damages damages ($30,000-150,000), attorneys' fees, and injunctive relief. Just as important, where the infringement is carried out through a corporation, courts may examine whether company officers, directors, owners, or managers personally participated in, directed, authorized, or financially benefited from the infringing activity. For this reason, copyright plaintiffs should carefully evaluate evidence such as prior notice, cease-and-desist letters, continued use after warning, concealment, removal of copyright management information (17 U.S.C. 1202 claims), repeated infringement, and decision-maker involvement. These facts can help establish not only infringement but also whether the conduct was knowing, reckless, or intentional, which could lead to broader liability against the individuals behind the business. This is what we refer to as "officer and director copyright liability," which allows plaintiffs to name both individuals and their corporations notwithstanding the corporate veil!
Federal courts do not apply a single universal test for "willful infringement" in copyright cases. However, courts repeatedly identify certain facts and circumstances that support a finding that infringement was knowing, intentional, reckless, or undertaken with willful blindness. This blog provides some general concepts to consider in your next infringement matter."
"Two advisory board members of Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper that has long enjoyed editorial independence from the government, sued the Defense Department on Wednesday, alleging that an effort to impose new restrictions on the paper was an act of illegal censorship.
The complaint, filed in federal district court in Washington, comes from Susan “Suki” Dardarian and William “Bill” Church, two Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalists on the Stripes advisory board. Dardarian is a former editor and senior vice president of the Minnesota Star Tribune, and Church is the executive editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper...
Stars and Stripes said in a statement that it has a “long-standing mission to provide independent journalism to the military community, and that independence is fundamental to our credibility and our purpose.”"
Penn State University Libraries; Libraries’ summer 2026 webinars teach copyright, fair use basics in an hour
"Penn State University Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright will offer two online workshops on copyright and fair use topics in summer 2026 for Penn State students, faculty and staff and the public.
Danielle Steinhart, interim copyright officer and head of the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright, will teach both workshops online via Zoom. Attendees are asked to please register in advance. Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) program credit, formerly known as Scholarship and Research Integrity credit, will be available for both courses."
David Folkenflik, NPR; Firings at CBS' '60 Minutes' reflect the fight for media control in the age of Trump
"The battle royale over the network's most prestigious and profitable news program is part of a broader fight over the direction of CBS News.
And given CBS's acquisition by a billionaire family whose business interests have become intertwined with the political interests of President Trump, it reflects a larger war over control of the media in the current moment.
That father and son, Larry and David Ellison, bought CBS' parent company, Paramount, last summer. In January, they became co-owners of TikTok's U.S. operations. Now they're seeking approval from Trump's regulators to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN."
City of Boulder; City of Boulder Releases Its First Tribal History Report
"The City of Boulder is pleased to announce the release of the first part of its Tribal ethnographic-education report documenting Indigenous history and cultural connections to the Boulder Valley, now available on the city website. This report marks a significant milestone in Boulder's ongoing commitment to honoring Indigenous history and fostering a more inclusive, historically grounded community.
The report documents the cultural, historical, and ecological connections of Tribal Nations to the Boulder Valley. By centering Tribal perspectives, it provides guidance for education, land stewardship, public interpretation, and community engagement — integrating Indigenous knowledge into the contemporary management of Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) lands. It also seeks to strengthen collaborative partnerships and advance efforts to incorporate Indigenous knowledge systems into environmental management, education, and policy.
“This work represents more than research or documentation — it reflects living histories, enduring cultures, and the ongoing presence of Indigenous Peoples whose connections to this land long predate the City of Boulder and continue today,” said Boulder City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde. “We are deeply grateful to the Tribal Nations, elders, and knowledge holders who chose to share their stories, perspectives, and wisdom. This report is a gift, and we receive it with respect and responsibility.”
Developed in partnership with Tribal Nations, the report is part of a continuing collaboration with the City of Boulder that began in the 1990s, renewed through the 2016 Indigenous Peoples' Day Resolution and subsequent consultations. Grounded in the City-Tribal Memorandum of Understanding, it provides accurate, respectful educational content about each Tribe's history in Boulder and Jefferson Counties and is intended as a resource for city staff and the community at large.
This work was led by Living Heritage Anthropology, LLC (LHA), a woman-owned small business specializing in ethnographic research and Tribal consultation. LHA's Community-Based Participatory Research approach ensures Tribal voices and goals are central to every stage of the process. Additional reports representing more Tribes who share a history in the Boulder Valley are forthcoming.
Read the report and learn more about the city's Tribal consultation work on the city website."
Katia Riddle, NPR; President Trump seeks control of science funding
"The Trump administration is pursuing a bureaucratic rule change that could allow for greater political influence over billions of dollars in federal research grants. The new rule would have a broad impact on research fields, including housing and transportation. Health and science funding would be most significantly affected...
Published in the Federal Register on May 29, experts say the proposed changes would both codify the administration's strategies to dismantle certain fields of study in the U.S. and lend it new authority to "advance the President's policy priorities."...
Under the new rule, peer review would not be eliminated, but political appointees — not necessarily scientists — would be required to review grants before awards are made. Critics say that effectively gives political officials veto power over projects, even when they have passed scientific peer review."
Nate Jones, The Washington Post; Trump library says no Twitter DMs can be found, despite evidence he sent them
Records show that Trump's first administration opted not to save DMs in its library archives, raising questions about compliance with the Presidential Records Act.
"The newly operational Trump Presidential Library, the entity responsible for preserving records from the White House, says that it cannot find a single Twitter direct message sent by a president who tweeted more than 25,000 times during his first administration.
This no-records response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post comes as the Trump administration argues it does not need to follow the Presidential Records Act, a law designed to ensure the public has access to records of the president after he leaves office.
On Jan. 20, The Washington Post filed a FOIA request with the Trump library for all direct messages sent from the president’s Twitter accounts @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS during his first term."
Stephanie Ashe, Stanford Law School; AI Outperforms Law Professors in Stanford Law Study
"A groundbreaking study led by Stanford Law School Professor Julian Nyarko reveals that law professors overwhelmingly prefer AI-generated answers to student questions over responses written by their fellow instructors—a finding that could reshape how legal education is delivered.
The study, titled “Law Professors Prefer AI Over Peer Answers,” was conducted with 16 law professors across U.S. law schools and tested whether large language models could serve as effective tutors for contract law courses. In a blind evaluation of nearly 3,000 anonymized comparisons, professors rated AI responses significantly higher than answers written by other professors, with AI winning 75% of head-to-head matchups.
“This study challenges important assumptions about AI’s role in legal education,” said Nyarko, who leads Stanford Law School’s Legal Innovation through Frontier Technology Lab, or liftlab. He co-authored the paper with colleagues from Yale, NYU, University of Chicago, and other leading institutions. “We focused on law precisely because it requires judgment, nuanced reasoning, and the ability to navigate ambiguity—not just factual recall.”...
Participants created 40 representative contracts law questions that students might ask after class or during office hours, wrote their own answers, and then evaluated responses without knowing whether they came from AI or other participating professors. The AI systems performed comparably to the best human instructor in the study.
Perhaps most striking: professors flagged AI responses as pedagogically harmful only 3.5% of the time, compared to 12% for peer-written answers.
“In most fields where AI gets tested, there’s a right answer. In law, there often isn’t.” said Sarath Sanga, co-author and professor at Yale Law School. “Two opposing arguments can both be good. What we wanted to know is whether AI can meet the latent professional standard that lawyers use to evaluate each other’s arguments. In this case, the answer was yes.”...
The findings arrive as law schools nationwide grapple with integrating AI tools into legal education while maintaining rigorous academic standards. Some institutions have embraced AI experimentation, while others remain cautious about potential risks including hallucinations, overreliance, and the erosion of critical thinking skills."
Kate Knibbs, Wired; We Asked the Future of Truth Author to Explain How He Used AI. It Didn’t Go Well
"EARLIER THIS MONTH, WIRED published an excerpt from Steve Rosenbaum’s buzzy new book, The Future of Truth, which looks at how artificial intelligence warps people’s sense of reality. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times reported that the book contained over a half-dozen made-up or misattributed quotes. In a statement, Rosenbaum, who has a master's degree in "truth" from New York University, admitted that he had accidentally included “a handful” of “improperly attributed or synthetic” quotes. In an ironic twist, the veracity of a book about how AI impacts truth was now under intense scrutiny because of how its author had used AI."
Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times ; CBS News Fires Scott Pelley of ‘60 Minutes’
"CBS News fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday, jettisoning one of the network’s best-known journalists in a clash over the future of “60 Minutes,” the country’s top-rated news program.
Mr. Pelley, 68, a “60 Minutes” correspondent and a former anchor of “CBS Evening News,” joined the network in 1989. At a staff meeting on Monday, he accused the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” citing the ouster last week of the program’s leadership team and two on-air correspondents.
“We have parted ways with Scott Pelley,” Nick Bilton, the tech journalist who was hired last week as the new “60 Minutes” executive producer, wrote in a memo to the show’s staff on Tuesday night.
CBS News declined to comment. In a formal letter to Mr. Pelley, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Bilton wrote that the correspondent had been “terminated for cause effective immediately.”"
Sheera Frenkel and Tripp Mickle , The New York Times; Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models
The order, which signaled a shift from the hands-off approach the White House had previously taken toward A.I., followed debates over how to gain control of A.I. models without disrupting innovation.
"President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that asked technology companies to give the government oversight of new artificial intelligence models before releasing them to the public, a shift for an administration that had promoted a hands-off approach to the powerful technology."
Siobhan Roberts, The New York Times ; As A.I. Makes Strides in Mathematics, Mathematicians Urge Caution
"Among the potential threats that the Leiden Declaration authors articulate are accuracy and reliability: Journal editors are already complaining about a flood of plausible seeming A.I.- generated papers and proofs that have turned out to be incorrect, and in ways that are difficult for mathematicians to discern.
Perhaps most pointedly, the authors raise the question of whether the many A.I. companies tackling mathematics — major players such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic, or start-ups such as Harmonic, Math, Inc. and Axiom Math — are keeping the field’s best interests in mind. “Technology companies’ involvement in research,” they write, “raises the risk that research questions are prioritized and incentivized because of their amenability to A.I. methods and models, rather than their deeper significance to understanding.” In turn, they point out, this disadvantages researchers who choose not to use the technology, and those who do not have access to it.
For Rodrigo Ochigame, a historian and anthropologist of computing and artificial intelligence at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and one of the statement’s authors, the latest OpenAI proof illustrates why this sort of collective reckoning in the discipline is necessary. “The story follows the same pattern as many other announcements by commercial A.I. developers,” Dr. Ochigame said. “The A.I. model is proprietary and unavailable to anyone outside the company. We get a flashy promotional video, while basic information needed to assess the scientific meaning of the result is kept secret. The company disclosed nothing about the methods, human-written prompts, training data, or computational resources consumed.”"
Shafaq Patel , Axios; Houston Public Library appoints first diplomat in residence
"The Houston Public Library announced it is hosting a diplomat in residence, a role library officials say is believed to be the first of its kind at a public library system in the country.
Why it matters: In the new role, former U.S. Ambassador Chase Untermeyer will help build relationships between the library, Houston's consular corps and international communities and organizations, Nicholas Sawicki, executive director of the Houston Public Library Foundation, tells Axios.
Context: Untermeyer's public service career spans more than five decades, including serving as the U.S. ambassador to Qatar and assistant secretary of the Navy.
How it works: Sawicki says they're working on programming, but library leaders envision partnerships that could bring international authors, filmmakers, scholars and other global voices to library programming.
Between the lines: The appointment was inspired by diplomat in residence programs commonly found at colleges and universities, Sawicki says.
The position is voluntary, unpaid and is currently a two-year term."
Oliver Wainwright , The Guardian; ‘Like a Klingon prison’: inside Barack Obama’s audacious, near-windowless, $850m presidential library
"It faces on to the sledging hill, which was originally to house a subterranean archive, until it was decided that this would be the first presidential library that wasn’t actually a library. (This may be why its official title is the Obama Presidential Center.) To the concern of some historians, Obama’s is the first entirely digital presidential archive, the centre run not by the National Archives, but by his own private foundation, raising concerns over its objectivity. Where once there would have been stacks, there are now 400 parking spaces (despite Obama’s promotion of public transit, this is still the US).
The physical records might not be on site, but the professed aim to transform the presidential library from a scholarly research centre to a bustling hub of community activity is an admirable ambition. “We didn’t build [the centre] to celebrate my ability to bring about change,” Obama declares in a promotional video. “We did it to unlock yours.” It is not just a library, but a “campus dedicated to supporting future change makers”.
The transformational change, he hopes, will happen inside the enigmatic tower where, for $30 a ticket, visitors are transported through four floors of an immersive, interactive Obama experience – a vertical Obamarama. Designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, it is an action-packed romp through the couple’s life story, beginning with the civil rights movements that inspired them, their political campaigns, achievements in office, life in the White House, and how you too can “bring change home” (a motto printed on the gift shop bag)...
Just like his presidency, the Obama campus was no doubt conceived with the best of intentions. And, as with his time in office, the impact of this mighty stone monument to hope looks set to be equally mixed."
