Judge Bars Trump Administration From Punishing 2 Law Professors for I.C.C. Work; The New York Times, July 30, 2025

  Zach Montague, The New York Times; Judge Bars Trump Administration From Punishing 2 Law Professors for I.C.C. Work

"A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred the Trump administration from imposing penalties on two law professors over their involvement with the International Criminal Court, finding that the threat violated their First Amendment rights...

Judge Furman’s ruling mirrored the conclusions of another judge during President Trump’s first term, who found in January 2021 that a similar executive order Mr. Trump had signed likely forced Mr. Rona and three other professors to abandon or reconsider speech and legal advocacy out of fear that the order could be enforced against them."

Trump’s Ex-Copyright Chief Loses Bid to Regain Her Old Job; Bloomberg Law, July 30, 2025

 Quinn Wilson, Bloomberg Law; Trump’s Ex-Copyright Chief Loses Bid to Regain Her Old Job

"Former Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter couldn’t convince a district court to reinstate her to her post.

Perlmutter failed to show Timothy J. Kelly that she or Library of Congress or the Copyright Office faces irreparable harm as a result of her firing, according to a memorandum opinion issued Wednesday. Kelly denied her motion for a preliminary injunction in the US District Court for the District of Columbia."

Tech giant Palantir helps the US government monitor its citizens. Its CEO wants Silicon Valley to find its moral compass; The Conversation, July 28, 2025

 Noel Castree Professor of Society & Environment, University of Technology Sydney , The Conversation; Tech giant Palantir helps the US government monitor its citizens. Its CEO wants Silicon Valley to find its moral compass

"Critics of those who misuse power tend to be outsiders. So, it’s striking that Alexander Karp, co-founder and CEO of data analytics giant Palantir Technologies, has written a book, with Palantir’s head of corporate affairs Nicholas Zamiska, calling on Silicon Valley to find its moral compass...

Karp has described Palantir’s work as “the finding of hidden things”. The New York Times described its work as sifting “through mountains of data to perceive patterns, including patterns of suspicious or aberrant behavior”.

Palantir has worked closely with United States armed forces and intelligence agencies across Democratic and Republican governments for 14 years. It has been criticised for enabling heightened government surveillance and loss of privacy among US citizens."

Emil Bove Is a Sign of the Times; The Atlantic, July 30, 2025

Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic; Emil Bove Is a Sign of the Times

"Whatever approach Bove takes from here, his path so far has demonstrated that total sycophancy to the president can be a fantastic career move for ambitious lawyers—especially those for whom other avenues of success might not be forthcoming."

Ethics Panel Rebukes Congressman for Wife’s Stock Trade in Firm He Helped; The New York Times, July 25, 2025

 Carl Hulse , The New York Times; Ethics Panel Rebukes Congressman for Wife’s Stock Trade in Firm He Helped

"The House Ethics Committee on Friday rebuked a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and urged him and his wife to sell their holdings in a steel company in his district after a four-year investigation into a stock trade found that he had violated the House’s official code of conduct.

In its report, the committee cited Representative Mike Kelly, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, for a “lack of candor” in its inquiry into 2020 trades by his wife, Victoria, involving a local steel company that was seeking government intervention to prevent layoffs or the closure of its plant in Butler, Pa., in Mr. Kelly’s district.

Mr. Kelly was actively lobbying the Trump administration for trade protections for the plant, newly purchased by the company Cleveland-Cliffs, and learned that the Commerce Department was going to intervene in favor of the firm. The next day — five days before the Commerce action was made public — his wife purchased 5,000 shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock. She later sold the stock at a nearly $65,000 profit, a roughly 285-percent gain.

Members of Congress are prohibited from using confidential information for financial benefit and must disclose transactions by them or close family members valued at more than $1,000, but efforts to tighten those rules or bar lawmakers from trading stocks altogether have so far been unsuccessful. That has created an environment rife with potential conflicts of interest, in which many lawmakers who are active in the stock market have unique insight into or influence over companies whose shares they are buying and selling."

Welcome to the UC Berkeley Library! Here’s what you need to know.; UC Berkeley Library, July 28, 2025

 Library Communications, UC Berkeley Library; Welcome to the UC Berkeley Library! Here’s what you need to know.

"For an incoming student, life can be a whirlwind — a flurry of new people, new classes, and new ideas.

But through it all, the UC Berkeley Library is here for you.

To help support your experience as a new student, we’ve gathered answers to some of the questions you might have, all in one place."

BPL IS YOUR LIBRARY; Virginia Theological Seminary, July 30, 2025

Virginia Theological Seminary; BPL IS YOUR LIBRARY

"That’s right! The library is for you.

For students and faculty, we offer an inviting context for theological exploration. Our collection, both digital and print, contains over a million expertly curated resources, and empowers users to engage with the church’s heritage and contemporary witness. In partnership with our main vendors, we have just released a new, more intuitive, interface for our main OneSearch catalog. Please give it a try and let us know what you think: https://library.vts.edu. Our physical spaces are designed to suit a variety of learning styles, facilitate group work, and host engaging programming. Librarians are always ready and eager to assist student or faculty research, whatever the topic, or however soon the deadline!

For staff, the library offers a collection to inspire professional development, from books on leadership or organizational management, to more practical matters like giving talks or being an effective steward of your time. All VTS staff automatically have full library privileges.

For everyone, we are a quiet, comfortable, air-conditioned (thanks facilities!) place to gather or reflect. Library staff will never judge your reading interests or skills in navigating the library, whether it’s your first or one-hundredth time here. There are nine friendly staff members with whom you can converse, vent, or discuss any issue under the sun. We are all constantly at work to improve your experience of using the library.

As you walk into the library, there is a sign at the circulation desk. It simply reads: “Please interrupt me, I am here to help.” Come and see us soon!

Vincent Williams, MAR, MPhil, MLIS
User Services Librarian"

E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding; USA TODAY, July 29, 2025

 Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY ; E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding

[Kip Currier: Why is it okay for Trump and members of the GOP to secretly fund nearly a billion dollars to retrofit a Qatari plane, but it's not okay with them for public libraries to continue to receive IMLS grants that provide access to books, summer reading programs, and services that promote literacy and educated work forces? 

There's something fundamentally unethical -- and adverse to the common good -- about supporting measures that give billionaires more and more money, while cutting funds to museums and libraries that improve the lives of millions of Americans every day.

If you care about reading, education, libraries, and museums, let your legislators know NOW!]

[Excerpt]

"States' libraries to lose as much as half their funding

The Institute for Museum and Library Services, a tiny, little-known federal agency, provides grants to states that account for 30% to 50% of state library budgets, according to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.

For decades it has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funds through grants to state libraries in all 50 states and Washington, DC, and to library, museum and archives programs. It serves 35,000 museums and 123,000 libraries across the country, according to its website.

The impact of losing the money will be different in each state because each spends its portion of the funding differently.

Some will have to fire staff and end tutoring and summer reading programs. Others will cut access to electronic databases, end intra-library loans or reduce access to books for the deaf and blind. Many will have to stop providing internet service for rural libraries or e-book access statewide.

With the expectation that Congress won't buck Trump and fund the museum and library services institute, the future of these backbone "compassionate" library services is now under discussion across the nation, said John Chrastka, founder of EveryLibrary, a nonprofit that organizes grassroot campaigns for library funding and blocking book bans."

Gold Dust; The Hastings Center for Bioethics, July 28, 2025

 Arthur Caplan, The Hastings Center for Bioethics ; Gold Dust

"There has been a good deal of discussion about President Trump’s executive order calling for gold standard science to be the governing standard for the federal funding of American science. His director of the Office of Science and Technology, Michael Kratsios, a businessman with no substantive training or experience in science or engineering, issued a memorandum to all federal agencies providing guidance as to how to implement the order. 

He wrote: “Gold Standard Science represents a commitment to the highest standards of scientific integrity, defined by nine core tenets: reproducible; transparent; communicative of error and uncertainty; collaborative and interdisciplinary; skeptical of its findings and assumptions; structured for falsifiability of hypotheses; subject to unbiased peer review; accepting of negative results as positive outcomes; and without conflicts of interest. These tenets ensure that federally-supported research, and research used in Federal decision-making, is transparent, rigorous, and impactful, enabling Federal decisions to be informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”

He gave the agencies until August 22 to submit to OSTP and post on their websites reports outlining how they plan to implement gold standard science. 

There are many matters to debate about the content of this memorandum, including how to determine reproducibility, what is meant by being skeptical of findings and assumptions, what constitutes unbiased peer review, and insuring a lack of conflicts of interest. But amid this vast number of trees is a forest that can’t be ignored. Trump’s executive order empowers his political appointees to ultimately validate research outcomes. Instead of independent expert reviews of research, a Trump functionary can look at any peer-reviewed work and declare it to be in violation of the President’s gold standard due to bias, some imagined conflict of interest, skepticism, or simply uncertainty.The United States has never had a situation in which political and ideological nonscientists got the last word about what is credible science. The direct political oversight of science represented in the gold standard currency is not sound. Moving determinations of what scientific evidence is to nonscientists is stepping directly toward the terrible results prior autocratic regimes produced using politically vetted science...

Politics has a role to play in determining what research budgets will be and ultimately whether sound science will be used to drive public policy. But the standards of valid science ought not be subject to political litmus tests."

Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin says "Supes and I are old friends" as he praises James Gunn's DC movie: "This new Superman reminds me of the version I used to read about"; Games Radar, July 26, 2025

 Molly Edwards , Games Radar; Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin says "Supes and I are old friends" as he praises James Gunn's DC movie: "This new Superman reminds me of the version I used to read about"

"Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin has shared his verdict on James Gunn's Superman – and it's very positive.

"Supes and I are old friends, and this is one of the best Superman movies in a long time… maybe ever," Martin shared on his Not a Blog page. "This new Superman reminds me of the version I used to read about when I was a kid, the strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. (And yes, an innocent, of course, he's always been an immigrant. And an illegal immigrant, when you stop to think of it)."

James Gunn Says ‘Superman’ Is An “Immigrant” Story About “Basic Human Kindness”; Deadline, July 6, 2025

 Natalie Oganesyan , Deadline; James Gunn Says ‘Superman’ Is An “Immigrant” Story About “Basic Human Kindness”

"Long established as an allegory for the immigrant experience, especially when viewed through the personal histories of Superman‘s comic book co-creators — second-generation Jewish immigrants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster — DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn said his forthcoming film entry of Kal-El keeps in tune with the original 1938-created vision.

“I mean, Superman is the story of America,” the Superman helmer told The Times U.K. in a new profile. “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”"

'AI models in Vogue?' Guess ad sparks uproar; USA TODAY, July 28, 2025

 Taijuan Moorman,USA TODAY; 'AI models in Vogue?' Guess ad sparks uproar

 "Vogue and Guess are under fire for the label's use of an AI model in an advert within the magazine's latest issue.

In Vogue's latest issue, a two-page Guess ad features a model sitting at a table while wearing a pale blue romper detailed with creme floral mesh appliqué, and the same model leaning against a wall in a black-and-white chevron-patterned maxi dress, with a coordinating handbag. In fine print in the corner of the ad reads: "Produced by Seraphinne Vallora on AI."

Reactions to the use of an artificial intelligence-generated model has been swift. Social media commentary have been harsh, especially toward Vogue, with calls to discontinue support for the magazine."

Your employees may be leaking trade secrets into ChatGPT; Fast Company, July 24, 2025

 KRIS NAGEL , Fast Company; Your employees may be leaking trade secrets into ChatGPT

"Every CEO I know wants their team to use AI more, and for good reason: it can supercharge almost every area of their business and make employees vastly more efficient. Employee use of AI is a business imperative, but as it becomes more common, how can companies avoid major security headaches? 

Sift’s latest data found that 31% of consumers admit to entering personal or sensitive information into GenAI tools like ChatGPT, and 14% of those individuals explicitly reported entering company trade secrets. Other types of information that people admit to sharing with AI chatbots include financial details, nonpublic facts, email addresses, phone numbers, and information about employers. At its core, it reveals that people are increasingly willing to trust AI with sensitive information."

Michigan Library Association launches petition to protect right to read; WKAR, July 28, 2025

 Ed Coury , WKAR; Michigan Library Association launches petition to protect right to read

"The Patmos Library, located in the small western Michigan town, faced backlash over its inclusion of LGBTQ+-related material. Voters chose to withhold public funding for the library in 2022, effectively defunding it. Community members later raised nearly $100,000 to keep the library operational.

The association’s petition drive is supported by a statewide Epic-MRA poll conducted in June. Commissioned by the Michigan Library Association, the poll found that nearly 80% of voters approve of the work being done by libraries in the state, and 75% trust librarians to make decisions about which books should be available.

The Michigan Library Association says it hopes the petition will send a clear message to lawmakers about the value residents place on intellectual freedom and access to information."

Joe Rogan urges progressive Texas Democrat to run for president, calling him a 'good person'; Fox News, July 20, 2025

  Lindsay Kornick, Fox News; Joe Rogan urges progressive Texas Democrat to run for president, calling him a 'good person'

"Podcast giant Joe Rogan suggested on his show Friday that his latest guest, Texas Democratic State Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, run for president as Democrats scramble for a new leader.

"You need to run for president," Rogan told Talarico near the end of the nearly 3-hour conversation. "We need someone who's actually a good person.""

How do we lead moral lives in an age of bullies?; The Guardian, July 28, 2025

 Robert Reich, The Guardian; How do we lead moral lives in an age of bullies?

"We are living in an age of bullies. Those with power are less constrained today than they have been in my lifetime, since the end of the second world war.

The question is: how do we lead moral lives in this era?...

This isn’t a matter of “left” or “right”. It’s a matter of what’s right.

Living a moral life in an age of bullies requires collective action; it cannot be done alone. Each of us must organize and participate in a vast network of moral resistance.

This is what civilization demands. It’s what the struggle for social justice requires. It’s why that struggle is so critical today, and why we all must be part of it."

"Codifying Censorship or Reclaiming Rights: The State-by-State 2025 Legislative Landscape for Libraries; EveryLibrary, July 15, 2025

 EveryLibrary ; Codifying Censorship or Reclaiming Rights: The State-by-State 2025 Legislative Landscape for Libraries

CBS: Caving. Bowing. Scraping.; The New York Times, July 26, 2025

  MAUREEN DOWD, The New York Times; CBS: Caving. Bowing. Scraping.

"CBS is, as Colbert said, “morally bankrupt.” It’s sickening to see media outlets, universities, law firms and tech companies bending the knee. (Hang tough, Rupert!)

Satirists are left to hold people accountable, and they are more than ready." 

The Revolution Will Be Card Cataloged: Dispatches From The Law Librarian Frontlines; Above The Law, July 25, 2025

  Joe Patrice , Above The Law; The Revolution Will Be Card Cataloged: Dispatches From The Law Librarian Frontlines

"In his keynote address, Roosevelt Weeks, the Fort Bend County library director, reaffirmed the core values of the profession to serve the public and preserve knowledge. And that calling requires librarians to be both “strategic and subversive,” prompting a cathartic release from an assembled body battered by an assault of budget cuts and book bans. Step outside the comfort zone to make sure the money people understand the library’s importance and make sure the customer gets the knowledge they seek at a time where powerful interests keep throwing up roadblocks. It sparked the librarian equivalent of running through a wall after a locker room speech: filing out of the room in an orderly fashion."

Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest; The Guardian, July 25, 2025

Clare Considine, The Guardian; Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest

[Kip Currier: It's profoundly disquieting to read how the officers conducted themselves in this incident. The lack of professional conduct we can see and hear with our own eyes and ears is appalling and stomach-churning.

One can't help but wonder about all the other stops and arrests like this that occur every day and which we know nothing about. Without well-maintained democratic systems of checks and balances, rigorous training and oversight, transparency, accountability, ethical guardrails,and personal integrity and honor, we know from this example and many others that unbridled lawlessness like this is occurring and will likely continue to be present unless remedial measures are implemented.

The larger and more concerning issue is that this type of conduct is ostensibly modeled, normalized, and rewarded in the Trump 2.0 organizational culture.

Sadly, in the absence of administration officials speaking out against these kinds of law enforcement excesses, it's reasonable to conclude that these types of incidents are acceptable to, if not suborned, by the leaders in charge. The dehumanization, fear, and cruelty are the point, in order to advance policy aims.]

[Excerpt]

"On the morning of 2 May, teenager Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio was driving to his landscaping job in North Palm Beach with his mother and two male friends when they were pulled over by the Florida highway patrol.

In one swift moment, a traffic stop turned into a violent arrest.

A highway patrol officer asked everyone in the van to identify themselves, then called for backup. Officers with US border patrol arrived on the scene.

Video footage of the incident captured by Laynez-Ambrosio, an 18-year-old US citizen, appears to show a group of officers in tactical gear working together to violently detain the three men*, two of whom are undocumented. They appear to use a stun gun on one man, put another in a chokehold and can be heard telling Laynez-Ambrosio: “You’ve got no rights here. You’re a migo, brother.” Afterward, agents can be heard bragging and making light of the arrests, calling the stun gun use “funny” and quipping: “You can smell that … $30,000 bonus.”"

The Administration Wants Military Women to Know Their Place; The Atlantic, July 22, 2025

 Tom Nichols, The Atlantic; The Administration Wants Military Women to Know Their Place

"President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth seem to be on a mission to erase women from the top ranks of the U.S. armed forces. Last week, they took another step along this path by removing the first female head of the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland."

Virginia teachers learn AI tools and ethics at largest statewide workshop; WTVR, July 23, 2025

 WTVR CBS 6 Web Staff; Virginia teachers learn AI tools and ethics at largest statewide workshop

[Kip Currier: Nothing in this brief article substantively (or even cursorily) talks about the ethics issues of K-12 teachers using AI tools. The piece extolls what can be gained by teachers using AI tools. But what's lost by using these products? What skills do we not gain or hone by relying on AI to think and create for us? What behaviors are teachers modeling for students when they use AI?

Also, was an ethics code or AI code of conduct discussed at all at this two-day gathering of teachers? Does one even exist?

And what about the ongoing problem of AI hallucinations-- i.e. inaccurate and nonexistent information generated by AI? Nowhere in this reporting is the need for proofreading and verification of AI-generated outputs even mentioned.

In the pell-mell rush to adopt AI tools, fueled by AI tech companies, it's vital to remember the need for embracing AI ethics guidelines and guardrails.]

[Excerpt]

"Hundreds of Virginia teachers are getting hands-on experience with artificial intelligence tools, ethics and curriculum integration at the largest statewide professional development workshop focused on AI.

The two-day workshop, hosted by AI Ready RVA, continues Thursday at the VCU School of Business...

"There are tools that allow teachers to create lesson plans or quizzes or rubrics immediately based on a source that they can find online so they don't have to spend hours on Sunday prepping for the week ahead. And so we have a list of various platforms that we're going to be teaching them and practice sessions so that they can master these tools so that way they start the school year really strong," Demetriou said."

Trump’s AI agenda hands Silicon Valley the win—while ethics, safety, and ‘woke AI’ get left behind; Fortune, July 24, 2025

 SHARON GOLDMAN, Fortune; Trump’s AI agenda hands Silicon Valley the win—while ethics, safety, and ‘woke AI’ get left behind

"For the “accelerationists”—those who believe the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence should be pursued as quickly as possible—innovation, scale, and speed are everything. Over-caution and regulation? Ill-conceived barriers that will actually cause more harm than good. They argue that faster progress will unlock massive economic growth, scientific breakthroughs, and national advantage. And if superintelligence is inevitable, they say, the U.S. had better get there first—before rivals like China’s authoritarian regime.

AI ethics and safety has been sidelined

This worldview, articulated by Marc Andreessen in his 2023 blog post, has now almost entirely displaced the diverse coalition of people who worked on AI ethics and safety during the Biden Administration—from mainstream policy experts focused on algorithmic fairness and accountability, to the safety researchers in Silicon Valley who warn of existential risks. While they often disagreed on priorities and tone, both camps shared the belief that AI needed thoughtful guardrails. Today, they find themselves largely out of step with an agenda that prizes speed, deregulation, and dominance.

Whether these groups can claw their way back to the table is still an open question. The mainstream ethics folks—with roots in civil rights, privacy, and democratic governance—may still have influence at the margins, or through international efforts. The existential risk researchers, once tightly linked to labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, still hold sway in academic and philanthropic circles. But in today’s environment—where speed, scale, and geopolitical muscle set the tone—both camps face an uphill climb. If they’re going to make a comeback, I get the feeling it won’t be through philosophical arguments. More likely, it would be because something goes wrong—and the public pushes back."

Immigration courts hiding the names of ICE lawyers goes against centuries of precedent and legal ethics requiring transparency in courts; The Conversation, July 23, 2025

 

1. Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University, The Conversation; Immigration courts hiding the names of ICE lawyers goes against centuries of precedent and legal ethics requiring transparency in courts

[Kip Currier: ICE immigration lawyers intentionally hiding their names, and immigration court judges facilitating this practice, should chill the blood of any lawyer and non-lawyer concerned about accountability, transparency, and ethics in a democratic country. This is not normal practice for free societies that care about public trust. We should not and cannot permit such actions to be normalized: civil watchdogs like the ACLU and legal groups like the American Bar Association (ABA) have a responsibility to publicize their positions on these concerning developments.

The speed at which the U.S. is transitioning into an autocratic police state is both stunning and terrifying.

For more information on these issues, see here and here.]

[Excerpt]

1. "Something unusual is happening in U.S. immigration courts. Government lawyers are refusing to give their names during public hearings.
2. 
   
3. In June 2025, Immigration Judge ShaSha Xu in New York City reportedly told lawyers in her courtroom: “We’re not really doing names publicly.” Only the government lawyers’ names were hidden – the immigrants’ attorneys had to give their names as usual. Xu cited privacy concerns, saying, “Things lately have changed.
4. 
   
5. When one immigration lawyer objected that the court record would be incomplete without the government attorney’s name, Xu reportedly refused to provide it. In another case, New York immigration Judge James McCarthy in July referred to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, attorney as merely “Department” throughout the hearing.
6. 
   
7. New York immigration Judge Shirley Lazare-Raphael told The Intercept that some ICE attorneys believe it is “dangerous to state their names publicly.” This follows a broader pattern of ICE agents wearing masks during arrests to hide their identities. 
8. This secrecy violates a fundamental principle that has protected Americans for centuries: open courts. Here’s how those courts operate and why the principle governing them matters."

President Trump’s AI Action Plan Misses the Mark, Calls for Action Without Vision; Public Knowledge, July 23, 2025

Shiva Stella, Public Knowledge; President Trump’s AI Action Plan Misses the Mark, Calls for Action Without Vision

"Today, the Trump administration announced its artificial intelligence action plan designed to “accelerate AI innovation” – by stepping aside and giving technology companies free rein over how the technology develops. The plan removes state and federal regulatory requirements, eliminates protections against bias and discrimination, fails to address competition concerns, and ignores climate and environmental risks.

The plan does continue to advance important work on developing an AI evaluation ecosystem and supporting critical research on AI interpretability, control, security risks, and advancing the fundamental science of AI. However, these modest steps throw into stark contrast the failure to meaningfully invest in America’s AI future.

Public Knowledge argues that real AI innovation will require real leadership from our democratically elected leaders, investments and actions that break down monopolies and corporate control, and public trust earned by creating AI systems that are safe, fair, and subject to the rule of law...

The following can be attributed to Nicholas Garcia, Senior Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge: 

“This plan is action without vision or direction. Cutting regulations and eliminating protections is, by itself, not a plan for innovation and competition in AI – it is a handout to already-entrenched, powerful tech companies. The real constraints on AI innovation are well-known: access to training data, compute power, and research talent. This plan’s solutions in those areas are severely lacking. At its heart, the plan is starkly divided between political posturing and serious science.

“It is clear that some of the experts’ messages from the public comments reached the White House. Continuing to develop an AI evaluation ecosystem; investing in research on AI interpretability and control; promoting the development and use of open-source and open-weights models; and claiming an international leadership position on evaluating AI national security risks are all critically important policy pursuits. 

“President Trump also spoke strongly in his speech tonight about the need to protect the rights to read and learn. He is absolutely correct about the need to protect those fundamental rights for everyone, including for AI training. Unfortunately, there is no mention of how to protect these rights or address questions about copyright in the AI action plan. 

“Instead of focusing more deeply on research or promoting competition, the AI action plan continues the Trump administration’s attack on diversity and equality, on the green energy solutions needed to both protect our planet and power AI, and on the very institutions of science and learning that are necessary to secure the promise of AI. This demonstrates how the vindictive political project of ‘preventing woke’ directly clashes with achieving actual leadership in AI.

“Ultimately, the plan’s soaring and optimistic language of AI acceleration is undermined by a failure to embrace an affirmative vision of how AI will improve the lives of everyday Americans and how to actually get there. We can only hope that these small steps in the right direction on evaluations, research, and open-source – along with the administration’s remarks on copyright – means that there is more to come to ensure that the American people are the winners of the AI race. As it stands right now, this plan fails to meet the challenges of this pivotal moment.” 

You may view our recent blog post, “Hopes and Fears for President Trump’s AI Action Plan,” for more information."

Donald Trump Is Fairy-Godmothering AI; The Atlantic, July 23, 2025

 Matteo Wong , The Atlantic; Donald Trump Is Fairy-Godmothering AI

"In a sense, the action plan is a bet. AI is already changing a number of industries, including software engineering, and a number of scientific disciplines. Should AI end up producing incredible prosperity and new scientific discoveries, then the AI Action Plan may well get America there faster simply by removing any roadblocks and regulations, however sensible, that would slow the companies down. But should the technology prove to be a bubble—AI products remain error-prone, extremely expensive to build, and unproven in many business applications—the Trump administration is more rapidly pushing us toward the bust. Either way, the nation is in Silicon Valley’s hands...

Once the red tape is gone, the Trump administration wants to create a “dynamic, ‘try-first’ culture for AI across American industry.” In other words, build and test out AI products first, and then determine if those products are actually helpful—or if they pose any risks.

Trump gestured toward other concessions to the AI industry in his speech. He specifically targeted intellectual-property laws, arguing that training AI models on copyrighted books and articles does not infringe upon copyright because the chatbots, like people, are simply learning from the content. This has been a major conflict in recent years, with more than 40 related lawsuits filed against AI companies since 2022. (The Atlantic is suing the AI company Cohere, for example.) If courts were to decide that training AI models with copyrighted material is against the law, it would be a major setback for AI companies. In their official recommendations for the AI Action Plan, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google all requested a copyright exception, known as “fair use,” for AI training. Based on his statements, Trump appears to strongly agree with this position, although the AI Action Plan itself does not reference copyright and AI training.

Also sprinkled throughout the AI Action Plan are gestures toward some MAGA priorities. Notably, the policy states that the government will contract with only AI companies whose models are “free from top-down ideological bias”—a reference to Sacks’s crusade against “woke” AI—and that a federal AI-risk-management framework should “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.” Trump signed a third executive order today that, in his words, will eliminate “woke, Marxist lunacy” from AI models...

Looming over the White House’s AI agenda is the threat of Chinese technology getting ahead. The AI Action Plan repeatedly references the importance of staying ahead of Chinese AI firms, as did the president’s speech: “We will not allow any foreign nation to beat us; our nation will not live in a planet controlled by the algorithms of the adversaries,” Trump declared...

But whatever happens on the international stage, hundreds of millions of Americans will feel more and more of generative AI’s influence—on salaries and schools, air quality and electricity costs, federal services and doctor’s offices. AI companies have been granted a good chunk of their wish list; if anything, the industry is being told that it’s not moving fast enough. Silicon Valley has been given permission to accelerate, and we’re all along for the ride."

Donald Trump Says AI Companies Can’t Be Expected To Pay For All Copyrighted Content Used In Their Training Models: “Not Do-Able”; Deadline, July 23, 2025

 Ted Johnson, Tom Tapp, Deadline; Donald Trump Says AI Companies Can’t Be Expected To Pay For All Copyrighted Content Used In Their Training Models: “Not Do-Able”

 

[Kip Currier: Don't be fooled by the flimflam rhetoric in Trump's AI Action Plan unveiled yesterday (July 23, 2025). Where Trump's AI Action Plan says “We must ensure that free speech flourishes in the era of AI and that AI procured by the Federal government objectively reflects truth rather than social engineering agendas", it's actually the exact opposite: the Trump plan is censorious and will "cancel out" truth (e.g. on climate science, misinformation and disinformation, etc.) in Orwellian fashion.]

[Excerpt]

"The plan is a contrast to Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, who focused on the government’s role in ensuring that the technology was safe.

The Trump White House plan also recommends updating federal procurement guidelines “to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model (LLM) developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.” Also recommended is revising the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Management Framework to remove references to misinformation, DEI and climate change.

“We must ensure that free speech flourishes in the era of AI and that AI procured by the Federal government objectively reflects truth rather than social engineering agendas,” the plan says."

Trump derides copyright and state rules in AI Action Plan launch; Politico, July 23, 2025

 MOHAR CHATTERJEE , Politico; Trump derides copyright and state rules in AI Action Plan launch

"President Donald Trump criticized copyright enforcement efforts and state-level AI regulations Wednesday as he launched the White House’s AI Action Plan on a mission to dominate the industry.

In remarks delivered at a “Winning the AI Race” summit hosted by the All-In Podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, Trump said stringent copyright enforcement was unrealistic for the AI industry and would kneecap U.S. companies trying to compete globally, particularly against China.

“You can’t be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you’ve read or studied, you’re supposed to pay for,” he said. “You just can’t do it because it’s not doable. ... China’s not doing it.”

Trump’s comments were a riff as his 28-page AI Action Plan did not wade into copyright and administration officials told reporters the issue should be left to the courts to decide.

Trump also signed three executive orders. One will fast track federal permitting, streamline reviews and “do everything possible to expedite construction of all major AI infrastructure projects,” Trump said. Another expands American exports of AI hardware and software. A third order bans the federal government from procuring AI technology “that has been infused with partisan bias or ideological agendas,” as Trump put it...

Trump echoed tech companies’ complaints about state AI laws creating a patchwork of regulation. “You can’t have one state holding you up,” he said. “We need one common sense federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody.”"

Trump has fired the head of the Library of Congress, but the 225-year-old institution remains a ‘library for all’ – so far; The Conversation, July 23, 2025

 Alex H. Poole, Associate Professor of Information Science, Drexel University , The Conversation; Trump has fired the head of the Library of Congress, but the 225-year-old institution remains a ‘library for all’ – so far

"A library for all

Following Hayden’s dismissal, Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, as acting librarian of Congress. 

Hayden has contended that her dismissal, which occurred alongside other firings of top civil servants, including the national archivist, represents a broad threat to people’s right to easily access free information. 

“Democracies are not to be taken for granted,” Hayden said in June. She explained in an interview with CBS that she never had a problem with a presidential administration and is not sure why she was dismissed. 

“And the institutions that support democracy should not be taken for granted,” Hayden added. 

In her final annual report as librarian, Hayden characterized the institution as “truly, a library for all.” So far, even without her leadership, it remains just that."