Lawyers using AI must heed ethics rules, ABA says in first formal guidance; Reuters, July 29, 2024

Sara Merken, Reuters; Lawyers using AI must heed ethics rules, ABA says in first formal guidance

"Lawyers must guard against ethical lapses if they use generative artificial intelligence in their work, the American Bar Association said on Monday.

In its first formal ethics opinion on generative AI, an ABA committee said lawyers using the technology must "fully consider" their ethical obligations to protect clients, including duties related to lawyer competence, confidentiality of client data, communication and fees...

Monday's opinion from the ABA's ethics and professional responsibility committee said AI tools can help lawyers increase efficiency but can also carry risks such as generating inaccurate output. Lawyers also must try to prevent inadvertent disclosure or access to client information, and should consider whether they need to tell a client about their use of generative AI technologies, it said."

Joe Biden: My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law; The Washington Post, July 29, 2024

 Joe Biden , The Washington Post; Joe Biden: My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law

"That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy.

First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is noimmunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.

Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.

All three of these reforms are supported by a majority of Americans — as well as conservative and liberal constitutional scholars. And I want to thank the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States for its insightful analysis, which informed some of these proposals.

We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.

In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule."

Who will control the future of AI?; The Washington Post, July 25, 2024

 Sam Altman, The Washington Post; Who will control the future of AI?

"Who will control the future of AI?

That is the urgent question of our time. The rapid progress being made on artificial intelligence means that we face a strategic choice about what kind of world we are going to live in: Will it be one in which the United States and allied nations advance a global AI that spreads the technology’s benefits and opens access to it, or an authoritarian one, in which nations or movements that don’t share our values use AI to cement and expand their power?"

What Is The Future Of Intellectual Property In A Generative AI World?; Forbes, July 18, 2024

Ron Schmelzer, Forbes; What Is The Future Of Intellectual Property In A Generative AI World?

"Taking a More Sophisticated and Nuanced Approach to GenAI IP Issues

Clearly we’re at a crossroads when it comes to intellectual property and the answers aren’t cut and dry. Simply preventing IP protection of AI-generated works might not be possible if AI systems are used in any significant portion of the creation process. Likewise, prohibiting AI systems from making use of pre-existing IP-protected works might be a Pandora’s box we can’t close. We need to find new approaches that balance the ability to use AI tools as part of the creation process with IP protection of both existing works and the outputs of GenAI systems.

This means a more sophisticated and nuanced approach to clarifying the legal status of data used in AI training and developing mechanisms to ensure that AI-generated outputs respect existing IP rights, while still providing protection for creative outputs that have involved significant elements of human creativity in curation and prompting, even if the outputs are transformative recombinations of training data. Clearly we’re in the early days of the continued evolution of what intellectual property means."

This might be the most important job in AI; Business Insider, July 21, 2024

Lakshmi Varanasi , Business Insider; This might be the most important job in AI

"Generative AI can hallucinate, spread misinformation, and reinforce biases against marginalized groups if it's not managed properly. Given that the technology relies on volumes of sensitive data, the potential for data breaches is also high. At worst, though, there's the danger that the more sophisticated it becomes, the less likely it is to align with human values.

With great power, then, comes great responsibility, and companies that make money from generative AI must also ensure they regulate it.

That's where a chief ethics officer comes in...

Those who are successful in the role ideally have four areas of expertise, according to Mills. They should have a technical grasp over generative AI, experience building and deploying products, an understanding of the major laws and regulations around AI, and significant experience hiring and making decisions at an organization."

Corporate directors weigh AI ethics at first-of-its-kind forum; Harvard Gazette, July 11, 2024

 Harvard Gazette; Corporate directors weigh AI ethics at first-of-its-kind forum

"As artificial intelligence surges, corporate directors face a set of urgent ethical considerations. What role can they play in fostering responsible practices for using AI in the workplace? Are they already using the bias-prone technology to sort through job applications?

At the inaugural Directors’ AI Ethics Forum, leaders from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors pondered these questions and more. Convening the group on the Harvard Business School campus was the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics’ Business AI Ethics research team, an initiative that promotes thoughtful approaches to the rapidly evolving technology."

Peter Buxtun, whistleblower who exposed Tuskegee syphilis study, dies aged 86; Associated Press via The Guardian, July 15, 2024

  Associated Press via The Guardian; Peter Buxtun, whistleblower who exposed Tuskegee syphilis study, dies aged 86

"Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the US government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86...

Buxtun is revered as a hero to public health scholars and ethicists for his role in bringing to light the most notorious medical research scandal in US history. Documents that Buxtun provided to the Associated Press, and its subsequent investigation and reporting, led to a public outcry that ended the study in 1972.

Forty years earlier, in 1932, federal scientists began studying 400 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were infected with syphilis. When antibiotics became available in the 1940s that could treat the disease, federal health officials ordered that the drugs be withheld. The study became an observation of how the disease ravaged the body over time...

In his complaints to federal health officials, he drew comparisons between the Tuskegee study and medical experiments Nazi doctors had conducted on Jews and other prisoners. Federal scientists did not believe they were guilty of the same kind of moral and ethical sins, but after the Tuskegee study was exposed, the government put in place new rules about how it conducts medical research. Today, the study is often blamed for the unwillingness of some African Americans to participate in medical research.

“Peter’s life experiences led him to immediately identify the study as morally indefensible and to seek justice in the form of treatment for the men. Ultimately, he could not relent,” said the CDC’s Pestorius."

10 Things Every Board Member Needs to Know; American Libraries, July 1, 2024

Sanhita SinhaRoy, American Libraries ; 10 Things Every Board Member Needs to Know

Kip Currier: Preparing Board members for effective, ethical service is vital for all organizations. Surprisingly, the word "ethics" is never specifically mentioned in this article, though ethics is implicated with the words "abiding by the duties of care, loyalty, and honesty" at the very end. Board members need to be aware of ethics principles/codes of organizations where they serve, as well as legal requirements and fiduciary responsibilities that have ethical dimensions in states where their organizations are located. 

[Excerpt]

"As libraries and library workers face censorship attempts, campus protests, and budget cuts, among other challenges, Harrington—a consultant and current president of the Timberland Regional (Wash.) Library board of trustees—led the program “Top 10 Things Every Library Board Member Should Know—but Often Doesn’t.”...

#10 There are specific attributes of an effective nonprofit board member.

They include a commitment to the mission of the organization; understanding of the board’s governance roles; active involvement in board activities and committees; thinking and acting strategically; not being involved in day-to-day management of the organization; abiding by the duties of care, loyalty, and honesty; and supporting the organization financially and through advocacy."

Five Questions to Ask Before Implementing Generative AI; Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, July 3, 2024

Ann Skeet, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University ; Five Questions to Ask Before Implementing Generative AI

"While you don’t want to get too far into the weeds, you can ask for the sources of data that the system is being trained on, says Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and coauthor of Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap. “[Directors] can also advise proactively choosing an AI system that has an identifiable training data set.”"

New York’s First Black Librarians Changed the Way We Read; The New York Times, June 19, 2024

  Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times; New York’s First Black Librarians Changed the Way We Read

"Today, figures like Schomburg and the historian and activist W.E.B. Du Bois (another collector and compiler of Black books) are hailed as the founders of the 20th-century Black intellectual tradition. But increasingly, scholars are also uncovering the important role of the women who often ran the libraries, where they built collections and — just as important — communities of readers.

“Mr. Schomburg’s collection is really the seed,” said Joy Bivins, the current director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, as the 135th Street library, currently home to more than 11 million items, is now known. “But in many ways, it is these women who were the institution builders.”

Many were among the first Black women to attend library school, where they learned the tools and the systems of the rapidly professionalizing field. On the job, they learned these tools weren’t always suited to Black books and ideas, so they invented their own.

At times, they battled overt and covert censorship that would be familiar in today’s climate of rising book bans and restrictions on teaching so-called divisive concepts. But whether they worked in world-famous research collections or modest public branch libraries, these pioneers saw their role as not just about tending old books but also about making room for new people and new ideas."

Navigate ethical and regulatory issues of using AI; Thomson Reuters, July 1, 2024

Thomson Reuters ; Navigate ethical and regulatory issues of using AI

"However, the need for regulation to ensure clarity, trust, and mitigate risk has not gone unnoticed. According to the report, the vast majority (93%) of professionals surveyed said they recognize the need for regulation. Among the top concerns: a lack of trust and unease about the accuracy of AI. This is especially true in the context of using the AI output as advice without a human checking for its accuracy."

Channeling Courage; American Libraries, June 30, 2024

 Diana Panuncial , American Libraries ; Channeling Courage

"While discussing his book, Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2024), he highlighted key moments in his vast family history, shared his thoughts on book banning, and emphasized the importance of fostering immigrants in society...

Velshi noted that he chose the title of his book to “emphasize that we can save democracy in small ways, with each of us doing it, but they require a little courage.”

“I only exist because other people before me took up small acts of courage that said, ‘My responsibility is not to do my job and earn a paycheck. It is to leave the place better than I found it.’ And that should always be your responsibility,” Velshi continued. He added that librarians likely initially didn’t choose to become librarians to fight book banning, but became dedicated to advocating for intellectual freedom as a necessity: “The courage is in deciding to do that.”

Imploring librarians to remain strong in their fight against censorship, Velshi said: “Think of the individuals who become smarter, who follow an area of study, who stay alive because of books and libraries.”"