Big Tech wants you to share your private thoughts with chatbots — while backing a government with contempt for privacy.
Interim US Attorney for Washington, DC Ed Martin is officially out of consideration for a permanent gig in the role thanks to pushback from Republican Senator Thom Tillis in particular. He may still resurface elsewhere at the Department of Justice, but for now, his threatening missives to DOGE critics and Wikipedia will not be missed.
Two congressional Republicans are introducing a bill that would essentially ban pornography from the internet by rewriting the legal definition of obscenity — but it’s not the first time it’s been tried. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act at least twice before, once in 2022 and again in 2024, and it’s failed to advance so far. Donald Trump’s Project 2025 blueprint also promised to ban porn, but without a detailed roadmap.
Miles Klee at Rolling Stone reported out a widely circulated Reddit post on “ChatGPT-induced psychosis”:
Sycophancy itself has been a problem in AI for “a long time,” says Nate Sharadin, a fellow at the Center for AI Safety ... What’s likely happening with those experiencing ecstatic visions through ChatGPT and other models, he speculates, “is that people with existing tendencies toward experiencing various psychological issues,” including what might be recognized as grandiose delusions in clinical sense, “now have an always-on, human-level conversational partner with whom to co-experience their delusions.”
For anyone who caught some of our stories about Trump’s first 100 days in office this week, I went on Decoder to talk a little more about the issues that six of our writers explored. For anyone who didn’t, I make the case for why you should check them out!
Turns out the number Pete Hegseth keeps using to chat about military strikes isn’t all that secret:
“On Aug. 15, 2024, he used his personal phone number to join Sleeper.com, a fantasy football and sports betting site, using the username “PeteHegseth.” Less than two weeks later, a phone number associated with his wife, Jennifer, also joined the site. She was included in one of the two Signal chats about the strikes.”
[nytimes.com]
