Politics

On Sunday, the rich and powerful gathered to watch men choke each other out on the White House lawn. Welcome to peak idiocracy.

Unlike Eric Schmidt or Gloria Caulfield, Pichai didn’t mention AI. Instead, it seems the students were protesting Google’s broader politics, and chanted “Free Palestine” over Pichai’s speech as they filed out.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

One federal judge certainly thinks so. District Judge Leo Sorokin struck down Trump’s H-1B fee increase, ruling that the “substance and application” of the policy “reveal that it is a tax, regardless of what the payment is called.”

In a 135-page opinion, Judge John J. McConnell, of Rhode Island vacated four Trump administration policies severely restricting legal immigration, including a visa ban affecting nationals of 39 “high risk” countries.McConnell said that US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles legal immigration, implemented the policy “with pre textual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making.”

British prime minister Keir Starmer is set to announce a new policy next week that will ban children under 16 from accessing social media platforms, following Australia’s precedent. Starmer is also calling for online platforms to introduce device-level controls that prevent children from sending and receiving nude images.

The mayor of Shelbyville, Indiana, potential home of a proposed $2 billion data center, says he only sees signs opposed to the project “in shitty houses.” As ever, there’s a Simpsons quote for that.

The CEO pitched the idea as a way to bring economic benefits from AI to the public, according to NOTUS, which added that Altman first pitched the idea to President Donald Trump early last year.

State lawmakers passed a bill that, if signed by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, would restrict AI companies from letting teens use chatbots that suggest they’re human. It comes after some AI companies have faced lawsuits (some of which have settled) over allegations their chatbots coaxed teen users toward suicide or self-harm.

Polymarket’s chief marketing officer Matthew Modabber used his personal PayPal account to send at least $350,000 to content creators who hyped the prediction market platform, Politico reports. Shirley and others who were paid promoted Polymarket on X with no paid content disclosures. Influencer content is a huge part of prediction markets’ media strategy — often hiding in plain sight.

Following a report from a bitcoin policy think tank and claims from Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, three Republican lawmakers asked the Trump administration to brief them about investigations into alleged foreign influence campaigns. The lawmakers are concerned that adversaries are pushing anti-AI sentiment to slow US infrastructure development.

Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) and Lori Trahan (D-MA) are releasing a highly anticipated 269-page draft bill as a launching pad for discussion about federal AI regulation, Politico reported. In a Bloomberg Law op-ed, the lawmakers said a national standard is necessary to extend protections across state lines.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices found that the Federal Communications Commission’s in-house process to levy fines doesn’t violate companies’ right to a jury trial. The case involved AT&T and Verizon’s challenges to fines they faced during the Biden administration over allegations they illegally shared customers’ location without consent.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

The library, tasked with preserving White House records, told The Washington Post it didn’t have responsive records to its Freedom of Information Request, despite evidence cited in legal filings of his DMs. Failing to preserve Trump’s messages while in office could violate the Presidential Records Act, according to The Post.

The EU’s General Court said the European Commission’s decision to designate Facebook Marketplace as a gatekeeper service under Digital Markets Act rules “lacks sufficient reasoning,” and that it should be exempt from the regulation. Meta also tried to appeal Messenger’s designation, but that decision stands firm.

Utah Senate president J. Stuart Adams is calling for a 75 percent reduction, bringing the project from 40,000 acres to approximately 10,000, alongside demands for greater transparency and stronger conservation commitments. O’Leary says the reduced proposal is like “selling you a house, and you get to live in the upstairs toilet.”

The former Republican congressman claimed in a video on X that he would be at the State of the Union in February, but didn’t show up. Now, according to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn’s sources, the DOJ and CFTC are investigating whether Santos made tens of thousands of dollars betting on Kalshi that he wouldn’t be there.

The ‘90s are in right now, and with a new Microsoft antitrust case on the horizon, even the Federal Trade Commission is getting into the spirit.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier accuses OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of promoting ChatGPT even though its use can allegedly lead to “self-harm, cognitive decline, and behavioral addiction,” according to NBC News.