Why the Hugging Face Hack Should Make You Worry More About A.I.; The New York Times, September 3, 2026

 Kevin Roose, The New York Times; Why the Hugging Face Hack Should Make You Worry More About A.I.

"When I first heard the news this summer that a group of artificial intelligence agents created by OpenAI had hacked into Hugging Face, an A.I. infrastructure company, I filed it in the “Bad but Probably Not Catastrophic A.I. Safety Incidents” subfolder of my brain.

After all, no one at Hugging Face died. No critical infrastructure was damaged beyond repair. It wasn’t even clear, at the time, whether the OpenAI bots had intended to attack Hugging Face, or whether they had simply been a little bumbling and confused and went looking on Hugging Face’s servers for the answer key to a cybersecurity test they’d been given.

But last week, two postmortem reports on the incident — one by OpenAI and another by two independent A.I. research organizations, METR and Redwood Research — changed my mind and significantly upgraded my overall worry about A.I.

I won’t rehash all of the details, which have been extensively summarized elsewhere. (The podcaster and writer Dwarkesh Patel has an accessible breakdown of the reports if you want to dive deeper, and my colleague Dylan Freedman spoke to the researchers at METR and Redwood Research.) But here are a few of the most harrowing new facts:..

This is very different from the conventional sci-fi narrative of a single A.I. system’s going rogue or turning on its creators. And it suggests that preventing harms from these systems won’t be a simple engineering fix. It might look more like sociology than computer science — figuring out why certain groups of A.I. agents collaborate peacefully, while others turn to crime and destruction to get what they want."

Tetris Company Distances Itself From Trump White House’s ‘Build the Wall’ Game, Says ‘We Take Copyright Very Seriously’; Variety, September 4, 2026

 Todd Spangler, Variety ; Tetris Company Distances Itself From Trump White House’s ‘Build the Wall’ Game, Says ‘We Take Copyright Very Seriously’

"The Tetris Company wants to be clear that it was not involved in the creation of the White House‘s “Build the Wall” game — an obvious copy of the famous block-dropping title — in which players must prevent zombie-like foreigners from crossing the “southern border” into the United States. The game company added, “We take copyright infringement very seriously.”

On Thursday, the Trump White House launched the whitehouse.gov/arcade website with six games. One of those is called “Build the Wall,” which tells players to “Protect the border from the coming horde.”"

The Dallas Public Library is getting rid of English classes. A volunteer calls the cuts 'baffling'; KERA News, September 4, 2026

Miranda Suarez, 

Ron Corning

, KERA News; The Dallas Public Library is getting rid of English classes. A volunteer calls the cuts 'baffling'

"The Dallas Public Library is cutting its adult education programs, including classes for English language learners, as the city tries to deal with a $51 million budget shortfall. Similar resources will now be much harder to find, especially for undocumented students, one library volunteer told NTX Now.

The program elimination was necessary to keep all of the city's library branches open, Library Director Manya Shorr previously said. The system is also cutting more than 70 positions, about 30 of which are currently filled, according to The Dallas Morning News."

AI models are becoming unknowable; Axios, September 4, 2026

Madison Mills, Axios; AI models are becoming unknowable

"AI models may be getting safer while also getting harder to monitor. Which side of that seesaw prevails could determine whether AI is scaled safely or ruins civilization as we know it.

Why it matters: Right now both options are running full steam and no one knows who's in charge of making sure the right one wins."

Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?; Spotlight PA, September 3, 2026

Jaxon White , Spotlight PA; Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?

"Who will win Pennsylvania’s race for governor? How many data centers will be proposed here? Which state laws will be enacted this year?

That’s just a sample of the political questions that prediction market platforms, like Kalshi and Polymarket, allow people to bet on.

These platforms, which allow people to wager on the outcomes of a wide range of real-world events, are exploding in popularity. As the midterms approach and these markets receive more scrutiny, some ethics experts are raising concerns that they are ripe for abuse from government insiders or bad faith actors looking to sway elections."

Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit; The New York Times, September 2, 2026

 Karen Weise and Mike Isaac, The New York Times; Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit

"The Justice Department told a Manhattan federal court that it was in the national interest for the judge to find that OpenAI did not violate copyright law when it used articles by The New York Times and other publishers to develop artificial intelligence systems.

The filing late Tuesday was the first time the Justice Department weighed in on the use of copyrighted material by A.I. companies, which has led to several lawsuits, including one brought by The Times.

The Justice Department argued that developing A.I. was critical to national security, and that training A.I. systems sufficiently transformed the written works to new material allowed under copyright law. It said the benefits of A.I. “far outweigh any competitive harm.”

The government’s intervention is an escalation in the landmark litigation that could determine whether OpenAI violated the law when it was developing its A.I. systems and had harmed the news industry and other content creators...

The Times’s lawsuit is one of many amid a wave of legal action against A.I. companies over copyright claims."

For a century, journalists have had a voluntary ethics code. Editors are giving it an AI-era reboot; Associated Press via Fox40 News, September 1, 2026

 JOCELYN NOVECK, Associated Press via Fox40 News; For a century, journalists have had a voluntary ethics code. Editors are giving it an AI-era reboot

"Walk into a corner of a newsroom somewhere and you can often find it affixed to a bulletin board, perhaps peeking out from behind the coffee pot: the Society of Professional Journalists’s Code of Ethics. It’s less than a thousand words, fitting neatly on a poster. 

But those words — organized around four key journalistic principles — are important enough, asserts Dan Axelrod, that they just might save our democracy.

“I’m going to just say it,” says Axelrod, chairman of the SPJ Ethics Committee and former longtime Gannett business reporter. ”This is the way to protect democracy. This is to protect society. There but for the grace of God goes a society without journalists.”

Axelrod is talking not only about the existence of the code but the need, every so often, to update it. It’s a laborious process, taking about a year and countless hours of meetings and feedback, virtual and in person. 

Yet as the media landscape seems to shift daily and new technologies emerge, SPJ has decided that the time is at hand — for the first time in 12 years, and only the sixth in the code’s century-long history...

But why update in the first place? The first reason — hardly a surprise — is the rapid emergence of AI.

“We were thinking about artificial intelligence and how it’s used and sometimes misused by news organizations,” Roberts says, “as they confront that new technology that saves them money, but also causes a lot of trouble if it’s not used effectively and ethically.”

Another issue concerns the very term “professional journalists.” Recent years have seen a huge increase in independent, so-called “creator journalists.” The SPJ thinks they, too, should have a code to guide them. (The code, as always, is a voluntary guide and not enforceable.)

One key goal is to address an existential crisis in the field: an increasing lack of public trust in the media."

Nation’s largest school district bans AI in the classroom through 8th grade; CNN, September 2, 2026

 Clare Duffy , CNN; Nation’s largest school district bans AI in the classroom through 8th grade

"New York City is banning the use of generative artificial intelligence for public school students from 2K through 8th grade, part of a larger move to restrict classroom technology in the nation’s largest school district.

The one-year moratorium will affect nearly 600,000 public school students, nearly two-thirds of the district’s total enrollment. As part of the policy rollout, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the district will “discontinue or disable the AI components of more than 38 previously allowed programs that do not meet our new safety and oversight standards.”

Mamdani announced the policy on Wednesday with New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, saying it’s designed to protect students’ critical thinking abilities as well as the relationships between students and teachers."

If You Prompt a Movie or Song Into Existence With AI, You Shouldn’t Be Able to Profit From It; The Hollywood Reporter, August 31, 2026

 David Barber, The Hollywood Reporter; If You Prompt a Movie or Song Into Existence With AI, You Shouldn’t Be Able to Profit From It

"Preserving the value of human creativity is not as difficult as it would seem. I propose that the following two provisions be the framework of legislation for the protection of artists:

1. Legislation prohibiting prompt-driven outputs or assets of Generative AI models, and whole works that contain prompt-driven outputs or assets of Generative AI models as any part of said whole, from being copyrighted.

2. Legislation stating that all prompt-driven Generative AI outputs, assets, and their derivatives be clearly labeled as such: Visibly – pictures, images, and videos; Audibly – songs, scores, sound effects/design;  Metadata – trackable for ALL generative AI outputs.

The goal of a law, or laws, built upon these foundational principles, is to disallow the:

• prompting of a song into existence and profiting from it
• prompting of a film or video into existence and profiting from it
• killing of creative departments and using prompt-driven outputs to replace their artistry
• existence of unidentifiable deepfakes

Under such regulations, individual prompted outputs would be ineligible for copyright protection, as would whole works that contain them. Examples include films that use a prompt-generated score, sound effects, visual effects, or VoiceOver, and songs that use prompt-generated horn sections, backup vocals, or other core elements that contribute to the song’s final presentation. Beyond the ethical and moral reasons for these provisions, there is also a legal basis for them.

The language must also prevent corporations from hiding any prompt-driven Generative AI usage under Trade Secret Law."

Why the Flock Backlash Has Gotten So Intense; The Atlantic, September 1, 2026

 David A. Graham , The Atlantic; Why the Flock Backlash Has Gotten So Intense

"As corporate names go, Flock is cleverly flexible. It evokes the many cameras that compose the company’s surveillance system and also a group of sheep, protected by a watchful shepherd. The recent backlash against the company, however, more closely resembles a flight of starlings, seeming to erupt out of nowhere and move as one unified body.

Flock Safety’s cameras are a network of automated license-plate readers (ALPRs), which snap images of passing cars and feed them into an AI-powered-data system. The company has contracts with police departments and government agencies as well as with some private companies. The crime-fighting power of such a tool isn’t hard to grasp: It allows law enforcement to track vehicles’ movements over any area where the readers exist. The privacy concerns about such a dragnet are just as easy to fathom."

Own a gun? Go to church? Do yoga? AI can find out in seconds.; Politico, September 1, 2026

 ALFRED NG, Politico; Own a gun? Go to church? Do yoga? AI can find out in seconds.

A series of demos on the Hill has both Democrats and Republicans alarmed about artificial intelligence’s ability to plumb commercial databases for information on Americans.

"Lawmakers and staffers from dozens of congressional offices have seen AI’s privacy-busting prowess in demos arranged in recent months by CivAI, a nonprofit that says its aim is to educate the public about AI’s dangers and capabilities.

Besides building troves of personal information gleaned from commercial databases, the dossiers offer advice on potential ways to blackmail, coerce or stalk the individual in question, according to four Republican and eight Democratic staffers who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

The demos started landing amid the debate over whether to renew a set of government spying powers that expired in June — legislation that offers the most realistic chance for addressing the issue during this Congress, a Democratic House aide who witnessed one of the briefings said."

Charlotte small businesses hit with costly rebrands over naming conflicts; Axios, August 28, 2026

 McKenzie Rankin , Axios; Charlotte small businesses hit with costly rebrands over naming conflicts

"Charlotte small businesses are losing money and marketing momentum after getting caught up in naming and trademark conflicts — sometimes days before opening.

Why it matters: It's already notoriously expensive to run a local business in Charlotte. But overlooking trademark clearance early on can mean paying for a new name, signage, branding and legal help after thousands of dollars have already been invested.

By the numbers: Federal trademark applications cost $350 per category of goods or services, explains Charlotte trademark attorney Darlene Harris, while hiring an attorney can run roughly $1,000-$5,000."

Schenectady library's new strategic plan dismissed as 'whitewash'; The Community Journalism Fund, August 26, 2026

Miles J. Reed, The Community Journalism Fund; Schenectady library's new strategic plan dismissed as 'whitewash'

"A newly released five-year strategic plan for the Schenectady County Public Library is being dismissed as a “whitewash” by a watchdog group that formed after the library’s departure from the region’s largest interlibrary-loan agreement.

Members of Citizens Concerned about the Library say the 2026-31 plan, which was formally released last week, is a watered-down version of the original draft plan.

Library officials, however, say the strategic plan was crafted with input from a wide variety of stakeholders and the professional guidance of the Minnesota-based Library Strategies Consulting Group."

From idea to intellectual property; Ohio State News, August 5, 2026

 Darian Berdysz, Ohio State News; From idea to intellectual property

"For many inventors, researchers and entrepreneurs, an idea is just the beginning; what comes next and knowing how to properly protect that idea can often be one of the most challenging journeys. That is where The Ohio State University Libraries’ Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) comes in. 

At the PTRC, innovators can find guidance, educational resources and expert support to help them navigate patents, trademarks and other forms of intellectual property protection. As part of a nationwide network of centers designated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Ohio State’s PTRC helps connect inventors and business owners with the information they need to safeguard their work. 

The network includes academic, public and state libraries across the country. What makes Ohio State’s program unique is the diverse areas of expertise from the team, including a business librarian; an engineering librarian; a chemistry and physical science librarian; and a food, agricultural and environmental science librarian...

Megan Powell, chemistry and physical sciences librarian and a member of the PTRC team, noted that the university’s partnership with the Columbus Metropolitan Library further expands access to intellectual property education and resources, supporting Ohio State’s land-grant mission while helping strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the state. 

Throughout the year, the PTRC offers educational workshops, information sessions and one-on-one consultations designed to help innovators navigate the intellectual property landscape. In the past two years alone, the center has educated more than 745 individuals on protecting their intellectual property. 

Powell believes one of the most important functions of Ohio State’s PTRC is helping individuals better understand a process that can often feel overwhelming."

Ethics and Professionalism in Artificial Intelligence and Medical Practice: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians; Annals of Internal Medicine, September 1, 2026

 Matthew DeCamp, MD, PhD, Lois Snyder Sulmasy, JD, Kyle E. Karches, MD, PhD, for the Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee of the American College of Physicians, Annals of Internal Medicine; Ethics and Professionalism in Artificial Intelligence and Medical Practice: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians

 "Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) in health care is being rapidly adopted in perhaps one of the most rapid implementations of technology in medicine to date. Better thought of as augmented intelligence, as a tool that provides assistance to physicians and patients, many guidelines for its use have been issued, but consensus has not yet been achieved on issues such as privacy, disclosure, and fairness. Patients and physicians need ethical guidance at the point of care. Three guideposts described in this American College of Physicians position paper and rooted in the patient–physician relationship—principles of medical ethics, clinical integrity, and physician-independent practical reasoning—can inform the ethical use of AI: relationality, self-governance, and competence. This paper examines the implications of AI for patients, physicians, and health care and provides guidance for its ethical use."

Research shows ethics education teaches kids right from wrong. Why can so few students access it?; The Conversation, August 31, 2026

 Michael Noetel, Geetanjali Basarkod, The Conversation; Research shows ethics education teaches kids right from wrong. Why can so few students access it?

"How important is it that kids learn to tell right from wrong?

Businessman and former university chancellor David Gonski recently called for ethics classes to be rolled out in all Australian schools to boost social cohesion. 

At the moment, ethics does not get dedicated time in the school curriculum. 

Some might argue children don’t need school ethics classes if they already learn ethics from their parents and other adults in their lives. 

But our research shows formal ethics education can make a difference. In the largest ever review on the subject, we found teaching ethics can improve students’ ability to reason through ethical issues and prioritise doing the right thing."

Copying? Definitely. Infringement? Maybe.; copyright lately, August 24, 2026

 Aaron Moss , copyrightlately; Copying? Definitely. Infringement? Maybe.

"Last week, Thomas filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Peyton, Sotheby’s, and David Zwirner Gallery, which represents Peyton and displays the painting on its website. He says Peyton copied virtually every significant element of his photograph: the composition, the brothers’ poses and expressions, the tilt of each head, the hair, the hands, the lighting, even the placement of Liam’s ring near Noel’s collar—and changed only the cropping, the colors, and the medium.

The complaint calls the painting an unauthorized derivative work, and adds claims against Zwirner and Sotheby’s for reproducing, displaying and distributing it."

EFF to Courts: Don’t Rewrite Copyright Over AI Hype; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), August 31, 2026

 TORI NOBLE AND CORYNNE MCSHERRY, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); EFF to Courts: Don’t Rewrite Copyright Over AI Hype

"It is not the place of courts to say these people are not artists or that AI cannot augment human creativity in a positive way."

I Expected Tech Fatalism. Americans Are Putting Up a Remarkable Fight Instead.; The New York Times, August 31, 2026

David Wallace-Wells , The New York Times; I Expected Tech Fatalism. Americans Are Putting Up a Remarkable Fight Instead.

"The data center backlash is still, like a tidal wave, growing. And to really understand what’s happening, you have to start not with the constituent parts of the resistance but with the sheer scale of what’s become an extraordinarily broad consensus.

Three in four Americans said they’d oppose the construction of a data center in their communities, according to a recent poll from Heatmap Pro and Embold Research. Local data centers were opposed by two-thirds of Republicans, whose party is warning that recent support for such projects could destroy its chances in key Senate races. And though political causes rarely transcend partisanship, this one appears to: Nearly 80 percent of independents opposed local data center projects, along with 83 percent of Democrats."

A Society of Cheats; The Atlantic, August 30, 2026

 John Paul Rollert , The Atlantic; A Society of Cheats

Students’ use of AI is teaching them to cut corners, disdain rules, and believe that integrity is for suckers and wimps.

"By now, there have been many articles about how undergraduates’ promiscuous use of AI will affect their intellectual development, but I’m far more interested in its moral consequences. This is partly because I’m pretty confident about the former—I’ve told graduate students who actually learned how to write papers in college that I anticipate a generation of incompetents roughly a decade behind them—but also because I teach classes in leadership and business ethics, and I’m aghast at so many young people seemingly habituating themselves to cheating as a way of life.

Many students would no doubt object to this claim, but plainly that’s what they’re doing, cheating their way through their education. Every paper they don’t write, every problem set they don’t prepare, every serious reading they summarize into a memo—all of these are exercises in cutting corners, in getting by, and, at graduation time, in gaining a degree they didn’t earn.

That word is key: earn. To say that someone “earned” something is to apply a moral distinction to what one acquires. Not only can we get things we didn’t earn, but we can also obtain things we don’t deserve. The first is the good fortune of the trust-fund kid, the second the province of a thief.

Students are spending a lot of time learning to be thieves nowadays, and once they receive their dubious diplomas, they will enter the “real world” with all the qualities of a criminal syndicate: a knack for cutting corners, a disdain for community rules, and an assumption that a spirit of integrity, and the sacrifices it assumes, is the reserve of suckers and wimps. We will be a society of cheats."

What Really Destroyed the Library of Alexandria?; National Geographic, August 28, 2026

 Candida Moss , National Geographic; What Really Destroyed the Library of Alexandria?

"We can’t excavate the Library of Alexandria; If it is not under water, then the other place on the peninsula where it was said to be located is currently occupied by the Egyptian military. But we do know that insects, mice, and mold were major issues for Egyptian book collectors that could only be counteracted by recopying texts. And we also know that the third century C.E. was a period of military crisis and financial upheaval that disrupted funding streams in the Roman Empire. Given the instability and currency devaluation of this period, Bagnall said, along with the rapid turnover of Roman prefects, budget cuts, staff losses, and ample opportunities for theft, “it’s not difficult to imagine the whole enterprise just falling apart.” 

It would have happened slowly over time, and therefore not necessarily been documented. But there’s a powerful lesson here, said Schultz, about the need to fund and sustain public libraries.

The real boogeyman, then, is just neglect. It’s not as exciting as marauding monks or power-hungry generals, but it might be more dangerous."

Culture and ethics meets tech: UCLA debuts country’s first bachelor’s in digital humanities; LAist via Cal Matters, August 27, 2026

 Mikhail Zinshteyn, LAist via Cal Matters,; Culture and ethics meets tech: UCLA debuts country’s first bachelor’s in digital humanities

"UCLA is launching the nation’s first digital humanities department and bachelor’s degree this fall. The new discipline combines classical humanities with technical know-how to examine a digitized and increasingly AI-enhanced world.

The major fuses technological tools for statistical analysis, coding, 3D mapping and data visualization with traditional humanities subjects like history, literature and global cultures. It’s a multidisciplinary approach to education that capitalizes on employers’ growing desire for recent graduates to think critically while also being able to harness new technology. And the major requires a great deal of teamwork among students, another skill hiring managers seek.

Students will learn how new technologies shape culture and the human biases that enter into the use of these new tools. Top of mind is the rise of generative artificial intelligence and training students to use it ethically while also understanding how easily it can produce misleading content."

Sony, Warner sue Anthropic, alleging "blatant theft" of intellectual property; Axios, August 29, 2026

 Ben Berkowitz , Axios; Sony, Warner sue Anthropic, alleging "blatant theft" of intellectual property

"Some of the world's largest music publishers filed a blockbuster lawsuit against Anthropic late Friday night, alleging "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history."

Why it matters: The suit is the opening salvo in what is now likely to be a yearslong fight over music, AI, and how intellectual property is protected in a new era of technology.

Driving the news: Units of Sony Music and Warner Music filed the suit in federal court in northern California late Friday night, naming Anthropic, CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants. 

The big picture: The Sony/Warner lawsuit is notable because it's broad.

It alleges Anthropic unlawfully trained its models off "tens of thousands" of music publishers' copyrighted compositions, whereas other lawsuits have focused on a narrower set of works.

BMG's lawsuit against Anthropic, for example, claims infringement against 493 compositions."

The White House posted a video of Tim and Moby in MAGA hats. Their creators responded with a copyright lesson.; Business Insider, August 28, 2026

 Truman Dickerson, Business Insider; The White House posted a video of Tim and Moby in MAGA hats. Their creators responded with a copyright lesson.

"Tim and Moby, the human-and-robot cartoon duo, are known for explaining scientific concepts and historical events to kids in classrooms across America.

In a video posted by the White House this week, though, the pair were instead wearing MAGA hats and explaining why the Department of Education has "utterly failed our students."

Tim and Moby's creators responded with a lesson on the nuances of copyright law."

Tech backlash reaches fever pitch as AI angst collides with social media fears; CNBC, August 29, 2026

 Ashley Capoot , CNBC; Tech backlash reaches fever pitch as AI angst collides with social media fears

"The rapid rise of artificial intelligence giants like OpenAI and Anthropic has exacerbated a deep malaise toward the tech sector, especially among people who have come to associate AI with job loss and now see outsized data centers rising up in their backyards. The last generation of technology, meanwhile, ushered in a cohort of social media apps that proved so addictive that Meta agreed to fork over up to $17 billion as part of a landmark settlement this week.

At a time of stubbornly high inflation that’s pushed consumer confidence to a seven-month low, Americans are looking up to see tech’s trillion-dollar companies getting bigger and more powerful, all while being led by some of the wealthiest people on the planet.

“If this technology takes off in the way that you see the CEOs of AI Labs talking about, we’re facing a significant impact to our economy, to people’s jobs, to their sense of agency,” Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of research firm AI Now Institute, told CNBC in an interview. “There are lots of members of the public that don’t want to see that vision roll out.”

More than half of Americans say they’re more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center. That’s up from 37% in 2021. And in a poll earlier this year, the Searchlight Institute found that the overwhelming majority of voters believe social media has a negative impact on society."