Perspective.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/30/mary-meeker-trends-report-openai

Q&A with Mary Meeker on the AI revolution

Mary Meeker, the famed internet analyst turned venture capitalist, on Friday published her first Trends report since 2019 — focused on the AI revolution.

Silicon Valley execs and investors are sure to pour over all 340 pages, but Axios chatted with Meeker this morning to distill some top takeaways.

Perhaps DOGE fired all the proofreaders?

https://retractionwatch.com/2025/05/31/weekend-reads-maha-report-cites-nonexistent-studies-rfk-jr-threatens-publishing-access-can-zombie-papers-be-killed/

Weekend reads: MAHA report cites nonexistent studies; RFK Jr. threatens publishing access; can ‘zombie papers’ be killed?

Perspective.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/world/asia/north-korea-russia-weapons.html

North Korea Gets a Weapons Bonanza From Russia

Kim Jong-un seized on Russia’s need for support in its war against Ukraine. His reward is a rapidly modernizing military that threatens the delicate balance of power on the Korean Peninsula.

Interesting how many ways Trump attracts lawsuits.

https://www.bespacific.com/judge-chutkan-lets-case-against-trumps-shadow-government-proceed/

Judge Chutkan Lets Case Against Trump’s Shadow Government Proceed

LegalAF By Michael Popok: “A blockbuster ruling out of federal court just put the brakes on Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to bypass Congress and install a shadow government headed—at least in part—by none other than Elon Musk.  Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has ruled that a lawsuit brought by 14 states challenging the legality of Trump’s so-called “Doge” agency will not be dismissed. The lawsuit alleges that Elon Musk—through his de facto control of the Doge agency—has been exercising power over at least 17 federal departments and agencies, wielding sweeping executive authority without Senate confirmation, without proper legal appointment, and in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. Judge Chutkan, in a 50-page ruling, said the plaintiffs had alleged a valid injury and sufficiently stated a claim that must now proceed to the next stages of litigation, including discovery. In denying the motion to dismiss, she rejected arguments that Musk is some sort of “temporary special government worker”—a kind of Uber-style advisor with no real power. In her words, he “wields considerable power,” and the allegations that Trump effectively created an unauthorized agency with Musk at the helm were more than enough to get past this early hurdle… A Separation of Powers Crisis – The central constitutional issue raised by the 14-state coalition is that Trump—via executive order—illegally created a federal agency and appointed Musk (and possibly others) to lead it, bypassing both Congressional authorization and Senate confirmation. Judge Chutkan made clear: only Congress has the power to create federal agencies. The president may nominate individuals to lead those agencies, but only with Senate confirmation.

In her opinion, Chutkan wrote: “The Constitution divides and balances power across the three branches—the Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary—as a vital check against tyranny and to promote effective governance.” She zeroed in on the “Appointments Clause” of the Constitution, which embodies this principle of separated powers. It prevents a president from unilaterally creating new offices and staffing them with loyalists—precisely the concern voiced by the Framers in their efforts to prevent the rise of tyranny.

Finally, a grasp of the obvious!

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/29/china_preparing_war_mcmaster/

Why is China deep in US networks? 'They're preparing for war,' HR McMaster tells lawmakers

Chinese government spies burrowed deep into American telecommunications systems and critical infrastructure networks for one reason, according to retired US Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

"Why is China on our systems? Because I think they're preparing for war," McMaster told lawmakers during the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security field hearing.

Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/the-new-dark-age-the-trump-administration-has-launched-an-attack-on-knowledge-itself/

The New Dark Age – The Trump administration has launched an attack on knowledge itself

The Atlantic no paywall: “The warlords who sacked Rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions. The same cannot be said of the sweeping attack on human knowledge and progress that the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall. Every week brings fresh examples. The administration is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack. Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression. Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects. Entire databases of public-health information collected over decades are at risk of vanishing. Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical. These various initiatives and policy changes are often regarded as discrete problems, but they comprise a unified assault.

The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science. If this assault is successful, it will undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us. Like the inquisitors of old, who persecuted Galileo for daring to notice that the sun did not, in fact, revolve around the Earth, they believe that truth-seeking imperils their hold on power…”

Perspective.

https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/press-release/mass-facial-recognition-roll-out-exists-in-legal-grey-area/

Mass facial recognition roll-out exists in ‘legal grey area’ due to inadequate governance, says the Ada Lovelace Institute

• The use of biometric surveillance technologies is rapidly expanding across the public and private sector – including in shops, train stations and schools.

• But there is no specific legal basis for their use, and the UK’s fragmented governance framework is failing in practice, creating legal uncertainty and undermining public trust.

• New, risk-based legislation is urgently needed to establish clear rules alongside an independent regulator to enforce them.

How could you not expect a strong reaction?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-court-blocks-trumps-liberation-day-tariffs-2025-05-28/

US court blocks most Trump tariffs, says president exceeded his authority

… "The court does not pass upon the wisdom or likely effectiveness of the President's use of tariffs as leverage," a three-judge panel said in the decision to issue a permanent injunction on the blanket tariff orders issued by Trump since January. "That use is impermissible not because it is unwise or ineffective, but because [federal law] does not allow it."

… The judges also ordered the Trump administration to issue new orders reflecting the permanent injunction within 10 days. The Trump administration minutes later filed a notice of appeal and questioned the authority of the court.

Will this escalate?

https://www.bespacific.com/judge-strikes-down-another-big-law-eo/

Judge Strikes Down Another Big Law EO

TMP: “U.S. District Judge John Bates of Washington, D.C. just awarded summary judgment to Jenner & Block, finding President Trump’s executive order against it unlawful and declaring it null and void. This is remarkably strong language from a George W. Bush appointee who served on Special Counsel Ken Starr’s team:

This case arises from one of a series of executive orders targeting law firms that, in one way or another, did not bow to the current presidential administration’s political orthodoxy. Like the others in the series, this order—which takes aim at the global law firm Jenner & Block—makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed. Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the Constitution. Most obviously, retaliating against firms for the views embodied in their legal work—and thereby seeking to muzzle them going forward—violates the First Amendment’s central command that government may not “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.” More subtle but perhaps more pernicious is the message the order sends to the lawyers whose unalloyed advocacy protects against governmental viewpoint becoming government-imposed orthodoxy. This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers. It thus violates the Constitution and the Court will enjoin its operation in full.”

Are we getting something wrong?

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/video/nobel-laureate-busts-the-ai-hype/

Nobel Laureate Busts the AI Hype

Many analysts predict that AI will transform the global economy, but MIT economist Daron Acemoglu offers a contrasting view. In this brief video, he explains why AI might automate only 5% of tasks and add just 1% to global GDP over the next decade, and he shares his perspective on how business leaders should approach AI investments.

What is compliance worth?

https://9to5mac.com/2025/05/27/apple-dma-30-days-deadline/

EU ruling: Apple’s App Store still in violation of DMA, 30 days to comply

The European Commission has officially published its full ruling against Apple’s App Store practices in the European Union, and the message is clear: the company’s new “DMA-compliant” terms… still aren’t compliant.

A good start, but far from perfect.

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-disappear/

How to Disappear

The Atlantic [no paywall] “Inside the world of extreme-privacy consultants, who, for the right fee, will make you and your personal information very hard to find. You could easily mistake Alec Harris for a spy or an escaped prisoner, given all of the tradecraft he devotes to being unfindable. Mail addressed to him goes to a UPS Store. To buy things online, he uses a YubiKey, a small piece of hardware resembling a thumb drive, to open Bitwarden, a password manager that stores his hundreds of unique, long, random passwords. Then he logs in to Privacy.com, a subscription service that lets him open virtual debit cards under as many different names as he wishes; Harris has 191 cards at this point, each specific to a single vendor but all linked to the same bank account. This isolates risk: If any vendor is breached, whatever information it has about him won’t be exploitable anywhere else…

Harris is the CEO of HavenX, a firm that provides its clients with extreme privacy and security services. It was spun off from Halo, which focuses on government clients, in 2023. HavenX customers, some of whom pay tens of thousands of dollars a month, typically face serious threats. Some are celebrities or ultra-wealthy families. Others are business executives—interest from this group has risen since the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year. The recent Signal leak, too, in which the editor in chief of this magazine was erroneously added to a high-level Trump administration group chat, triggered more than a few corner-office freak-outs. Many HavenX clients come from the cryptocurrency world: Some made a fast fortune and, because they can’t park their crypto in a bank, are unusually vulnerable; some run crypto companies and are seen, accurately or not, as controlling access to other people’s digital wealth. The recent crypto-market boom has brought a wave of kidnappings, in which some crypto owners have even been held for ransom or tortured into surrendering the keys to their coins. Harris said the first quarter of this year was HavenX’s busiest since the spin-off…”

Did I miss this earlier?

https://www.insideprivacy.com/artificial-intelligence/european-commission-publishes-qa-on-ai-literacy/

European Commission Publishes Q&A on AI Literacy

On May 7, 2025, the European Commission published a Q&A on the AI literacy obligation under Article 4 of the AI Act (the “Q&A”).  The Q&A builds upon the Commission’s guidance on AI literacy provided in its webinar in February 2025, covered in our earlier blog here.  Among other things, the Commission clarifies that the AI literacy obligation started to apply from February 2, 2025, but that the national market surveillance authorities tasked with supervising and enforcing the obligation will start doing so from August 3, 2026 onwards.

I thought there was an easy way to check bogus citations. Was I wrong?

https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/25/ai-hallucination-cases/

AI Hallucination Cases (via) Damien Charlotin maintains this database of cases around the world where a legal decision has been made that confirms hallucinated content from generative AI was presented by a lawyer.

That's an important distinction: this isn't just cases where AI may have been used, it's cases where a lawyer was caught in the act and (usually) disciplined for it.

It's been two years since the first widely publicized incident of this, which I wrote about at the time in Lawyer cites fake cases invented by ChatGPT, judge is not amused. At the time I naively assumed:

I have a suspicion that this particular story is going to spread far and wide, and in doing so will hopefully inoculate a lot of lawyers and other professionals against making similar mistakes.

Damien's database has 116 cases from 12 different countries: United States, Israel, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago.

20 of those cases happened just this month, May 2025!

I get the impression that researching legal precedent is one of the most time-consuming parts of the job. I guess it's not surprising that increasing numbers of lawyers are returning to LLMs for this, even in the face of this mountain of cautionary stories.

A detour in the debate? (If you can’t define ‘person’ perhaps you can define ‘nonperson.)

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5263669

Legislating Nonpersonhood

Recently, two state legislatures – Idaho’s and Utah’s – passed statutes that preclude courts, agencies, and lawmakers from recognizing the legal personhood of nonhuman animals, nature, artificial intelligence, and inanimate objects. These “nonpersonhood statutes” are responses to social, political, and legal efforts to expand the concept of personhood to recognize the rights of nature, animals, and sentient artificial consciousnesses, as well as the duties of artificially intelligent machines. As social movements continue to advocate for more robust moral and legal status for various nonhuman entities, this kind of legislative backlash is virtually inevitable. Idaho and Utah’s nonpersonhood statutes are thus harbingers of legislative debates to come.

This Article evaluates the nonpersonhood statutes against the backdrop of jurisprudential theories of legal personhood. It describes the social context in which these laws have arisen and critically interrogates the rationales and discursive practices of the laws’ sponsors and proponents. It argues that the nonpersonhood statutes conflict with leading jurisprudential theories of personhood, illustrating the malleability and indeterminacy of the “legal person.” The nonpersonhood statutes show how personhood is a vehicle for social, political, and axiological beliefs about who should – and should not – matter before the law. The nonpersonhood statutes demonstrate the ways in which the concept of the human person is defined in contradistinction to its Others: the animal, the natural, the artificial, and the material. This kind of abjection justifies the relegation of nonhuman others to the status of nonpersons, which in turn justifies and enables acts of violence, especially against animals and nature.

This Article’s analysis of the nonpersonhood statutes makes several novel contributions to the literature on personhood, ecology, animal rights, and artificial intelligence. First, it collects and describes the legislative histories of these first-of-their-kind laws. Second, it analyzes the discourse of personhood in the context of legislators, who are an underexplored source for theorizing personhood compared to existing scholarship, which has focused on the opinions of judges and the theories of scholars. Third, it explores the gap between jurisprudential theories and legislative practice, illustrating the indeterminate and political nature of complex legal concepts such as “personhood.” Ultimately, it critiques these laws as impediments to the much-needed process of rethinking the human person and its relations to the rest of existence.

Could be useful…

https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/journal-of-property-law/vol11/iss4/1/

Foreword: The ‘Why’ & How’ of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Scholarship

In the course of publishing the 2024–25 Volume of the Texas A&M Journal of Property Law, we, the Editorial Board, were presented with the opportunity to publish a collection of articles drafted explicitly with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). After some consideration, we made the decision to do so. The following is our endeavor to share with our peers and colleagues—who may soon find themselves in similar situations—what we have learned in this process and, separately, contribute some forward-looking standards that can be implemented in the arena of legal scholarship for the transparent signaling and taxonomizing of AI-assisted works.