Probably a good thing, but what happens if the teens or adults flagged refuse to discuss it? Is there a mandatory psych hold?

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/16/meta-now-alerts-parents-if-their-teen-discussed-suicide-or-self-harm-with-its-ai-chatbot/

Meta now alerts parents if their teen discussed suicide or self-harm with its AI chatbot

Meta announced on Thursday that it will now notify parents if their teen discusses suicide or self-harm with the company’s Meta AI chatbot. Meta says it’s also working on the ability to contact emergency services if someone’s conversations suggest they may be at imminent risk of suicide.

... Meta says it has built a dedicated AI system to identify conversations where a teen makes a clear reference to hurting themselves.

“We understand how distressing these alerts may be for a parent to receive,” Meta wrote in a blog post. “That’s why, as we continue to improve our detection, all chats flagged by our AI will be manually reviewed before an alert is sent. If a teen’s intent is ambiguous, we’ll err on the side of caution and alert the parent.

… Additionally, Meta says it will contact emergency services if someone’s conversation with Meta AI, whether the user is an adult or a teen, suggests someone is at risk of suicide.

Probably not the only country to try this. Should be amusing to watch…

https://thenextweb.com/news/south-korea-free-ai-chatbot-all-citizens-domestic-models

South Korea will give all 52 million citizens free AI access, becoming the first G20 nation to do so

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT opened bidding on July 13 for a free, unlimited AI chatbot and public-service agent available to all 52 million residents.  The programme, called “AI for Everyone,” would make South Korea the first G20 nation to offer AI to its entire population as a public service. Two or three companies will be selected and given up to 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs from the government, with applications open through August 11 and a beta launch in September.

Apparently even lawyers see AI as a useful tool.

https://www.bespacific.com/ai-native-firms-are-luring-frustrated-lawyers-away-from-big-law/

AI-Native Firms Are Luring Frustrated Lawyers Away From Big Law

BloombergLaw  [no paywall ]: “AI-native firms may not be taking Big Law’s market share, but they are making incursions into a valuable asset: talent. “The AI-forward attorneys are chafing at the slow pace of firm adoption and archaic thinking,” said Sam Shaddox, 38, a co-founder of Seattle’s Talairis Law Group. “They’re migrating to the firms that are leading the way on AI, or leaving Big Law entirely to chart their own path.” Shaddox and Matt Souza met at the University of Washington School of Law, cut their teeth at Perkins Coie, and spent years inside legal departments of Seattle-area tech companies. In May, they launched Talairis Law Group to advise startups with the help of AI agents. The number of law firms branded as “AI-native” or “AI-powered” is growing quickly, backed by millions in venture capital. Many of their leaders left major law firms early in their careers to launch businesses aimed at young companies and entrepreneurs. Logan Brown, a 30-year-old Harvard graduate and former Cooley LLP associate, officially launched Soxton AI in New York in December. JP Mohler, 36, was an associate at WilmerHale and Cooley after Harvard Law School and tinkered with AI tools at Casetext and Reuters before forming General Legal through Y Combinator with two co-founders. Some Big Law veterans are also heeding the call. Norm Law appointed Mike Schmidtberger, the former Sidley Austin executive committee chair in January. Moritz, a San Francisco firm whose CEO and co-founder served as OpenAI counsel, has hired attorneys from Cooley, Goodwin Procter, and Fenwick & West. General Legal’s 14 full-time lawyers are almost entirely Big Law alumni. They were recruited in part because mid-level associates are “frustrated” by a partnership track that offers little control and years of deferred reward, Mohler said. All full-time lawyers receive equity in the company, which provides flat-fee contract and employment law services. General Legal has raised $11.5 million and reached $2 million in annualized revenue, Mohler said. That’s a speck of what large firms see in revenue each year and less than one-fifth of what the average Kirkland & Ellis partner earns in annual profits. Still, Mohler has lofty goals. “Ten years, it will be the biggest law firm in the world,” he said. Change will unfold “a lot faster than any previous kind of disruptive cycle.” He says he is aiming for “venture capital scale”—meaning a company ultimately valued between $10 billion to $100 billion…” AI-native law firms like Soxton and Talairis are built around artificial intelligence from the ground up—every workflow, pricing model, and staffing decision is designed assuming AI does the first pass of the work…”

Does AI really cause population decline?

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2026/07/14/2003860695

China can ban AI boyfriends, but cannot make men listen

A man who listens with empathy, offers emotional support and is available whenever you need him? Sounds ideal. As Elon Musk’s Grok serves up pig-tailed, scantily clad anime-girl companions, China’s artificial intelligence romance boom has found a different audience: women.

That might explain why Beijing is moving to rein it in. At a time of plunging marriage and birth rates, China is set to become the first country to impose comprehensive rules aimed at curbing the harms of anthropomorphic AI, with a new regulation taking effect next week.

Too logical to survive?

https://thenextweb.com/news/australia-ai-policy-copyright-energy

Australia tells AI data centres to put back more power than they take out

Anthony Albanese has told the AI industry that Australian books, music, and journalism are not free training data, and that any large data centre built in the country will have to put more electricity into the grid than it draws out. Neither of those things is law yet.

… The energy obligation is the sharpest thing in the speech. Operators of the next generation of large data centres would be required to underwrite new power supply, pay their full share of grid connection so that no costs land on homes or businesses, and put at least as much energy into the grid as they take out of it.

It’s kind of a person for AI that can’t be a person.

https://thenextweb.com/news/delaware-aic-ai-agent-legal-entity-sandbox

Delaware wants to give AI agents their own legal identity

Delaware wants to give AI agents something no one has offered them before: a legal identity of their own. The proposed Delaware AIC would let an autonomous system run a company, sign contracts, and face lawsuits in its own name, all inside a supervised sandbox.

Of course, I don’t agree. Probably because I don’t understand.

https://thenextweb.com/news/economists-ai-transformation-we-must-act-now

200 economists just admitted they can’t see where AI is taking the economy

… On Monday a group of the world’s most decorated economists and AI researchers published a statement called We Must Act Now. It runs to just 88 words. It carries 16 Nobel laureates, the chief economists of both OpenAI and Anthropic, and a supporting cast that includes Eric Schmidt, Reid Hoffman, Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun.

The message is blunt. AI “may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years”, the letter says. It could drive “an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame”. That might mean large-scale job losses, or major gains in living standards. The signatories want economists, policymakers and technology leaders to act now and build the guardrails.

Oh goody, something for nothing.

https://thenextweb.com/news/most-americans-now-say-the-public-should-own-half-of-the-big-ai-companies

Most Americans now say the public should own half of the big AI companies

A Verasight survey of 1,690 US adults found 69% support forcing AI companies to transfer 50% of their stock to a public sovereign wealth fund, the policy at the heart of Bernie Sanders’s American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. The shift tracks a labour market where tech made up nearly a third of US layoffs in H1 2026 while the same firms raised AI capex. The article presents the counterarguments too: property-rights objections, chilled investment, disputed displacement forecasts, and survey-wording effects.

Something I read about…

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/11/nx-s1-5886268/are-we-living-through-the-end-of-reading

Are we living through the end of reading?

… Just the statistics showing how much of a decline there's been in the share of people who read. In America, the share of people who read a book or even an article on any given day has declined by 40% in the past two decades. And currently, gambling is a more popular leisure activity than reading is.

… So it's not just that people are reading less than they used to. It's that the books that they do read, the sentences are much shorter, and the prose is much simpler. We know that New York Times bestsellers have sentences that are about a third shorter than they were a century ago. And in reporting this piece, I spoke with the head of the New York Public Library, and he said that the library's most popular offerings are young adult fiction. And that's even among people who are not young adults.

Beyond the Flock cameras…

https://pogowasright.org/plaintiffs-bar-revs-up-claims-under-the-drivers-privacy-protection-act/

Plaintiffs’ Bar Revs Up Claims Under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act

“License plate numbers themselves generally are not understood to be “personal information from a motor vehicle record” subject to the DPPA, but private companies using ALPR data may match license plates with DMV records to identify vehicle owners for parking, tolling, collection or enforcement-related notices, creating another use case in which DPPA risk may arise.”

Starr Turner Drum and Alexander S. Altman of Polsinelli PC write:

The plaintiffs’ bar is increasingly turning to a once-arcane, three-decade-old federal law regulating state departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) to pursue privacy claims against private businesses that collect, buy, sell or use vehicle- or driver-related data. For legal departments considering privacy-related risks, the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) is notably not limited to businesses that obtain records directly from state DMVs and can pose substantial class action litigation risk for a broad range of entities handling DMV-sourced data — even when the data is obtained through intermediaries. As a result, legal departments, privacy officers and compliance personnel are increasingly assessing how and why their companies process driver-related data and updating their privacy compliance programs to mitigate risk.

In this alert, we explain how the DPPA applies to downstream recipients of DMV-sourced information, highlight emerging litigation trends and outline practical steps businesses can take to assess compliance risk.

Read more at The National Law Review.

Related posts:

• California DMV lies about the REAL-ID Act

Another indication that politicians write laws to apply only to the common folk.

https://pogowasright.org/sherrill-administration-will-suspend-enforcement-of-new-jerseys-new-data-broker-law/

Sherrill administration will suspend enforcement of New Jersey’s new data broker law

David Wildstein reports:

Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration is trying to walk back the impact of a new state law that could shut off political campaigns’ access to key voter-targeting data, a move aimed at preventing the shutdown of a database relied upon by Democratic and Republican candidates, political parties, and advocacy groups.

A senior Sherrill administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly, confirmed that the state would not enforce the law until the legislature fixes certain defects that have come to light over the last few days.

The new law, which was set to take effect immediately upon approval, establishes perhaps the toughest regulatory framework for the consumer data industry in the nation, but it created no exemption for political campaigns.

The state Office of Consumer Protection issued an alert late this afternoon, saying it would launch a registry in the spring of 2027 for data collectors to meet the registration requirements.

“Until then, covered data brokers and data collectors will not be required to register under the law or to pay any registration fees,” the alert stated.

Read more at New Jersey Globe.

I wonder if this ban can last… Glasses are rather obvious, but what of other devices?

https://pogowasright.org/new-york-bans-smart-glasses-from-courthouses-across-the-state/

New York Bans Smart Glasses From Courthouses Across the State

Beth Wang reports:

New York State courts, starting July 20, will require anyone entering their facilities to give up their smart glasses at the door.

The ban applies to all headwear and eyewear — including prescription glasses — that contain a camera, microphone, computer, or other recording technology, the court said in a one-page memo sent to administrative judges and New York City chief clerks and district executives, dated July 1 and obtained Wednesday from the state’s Office of Court Administration.

People with smart glasses, including court employees, who enter any of the more than 1,240 courts will have to hand the devices over to security for “safekeeping by uniformed personnel,” the memo says. “The reason for this prohibition is to ensure that individuals cannot surreptitiously record court proceedings in violation of the New York State Civil Rights Law and applicable court rules.”

Read more at Bloomberg Law.

Any group you thought would never use AI are likely using it just like everyone else.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/us/politics/ai-terrorism-boko-haram-nigeria.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wlA.zOjJ._h4F-7KJwp3D&smid=url-share

How Terrorist Groups Are Using A.I. to Gain an Edge in Battle

A.I. chatbots are not just a propaganda tool for violent extremists but are aiding in bomb construction and attack planning, new research finds.

Apparently AI has more to say than mere humans.

https://www.pangram.com/blog/ai-in-your-feed

AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn

… AI-generated content appeared across all social media platforms in our data set. The average AI rate across all scanned items was 13.8%, but specific rates varied by platform and item length. On four out of five platforms, longer content was more likely to be AI-generated than shortform content. Across all platforms, one in four longform items (25.72% of items over 250 words) were fully AI-generated.

And I thought it was my imagination…

https://www.nationalreview.com/2026/07/putin-has-lost-the-war-in-ukraine/

Putin Has Lost the War in Ukraine

In February 2022, Vladimir Putin unleashed an unprovoked military attack on Ukraine assuming that Kyiv would fold in a week, that its president would flee or be killed by one of Russia’s hit squads, and that a soft, divided West would issue a strongly worded communiqué and get back to buying gas from Russia. Every one of those assumptions was wrong. Four-and-a-half years later, his military has been humiliated, President Volodymyr Zelensky is still in charge, and the West — despite some tenuous moments — has bankrolled the methodical destruction of much of the Russian military. Putin may yet hold a ribbon of scorched Ukrainian soil when the guns fall silent. He has already lost this war; the only question is what the endgame will look like.

Read the entire article…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/07/ai-surveillance-and-social-progress.html

AI Surveillance and Social Progress

Coming soon: Robots will perform your surgery at your home!

https://thenextweb.com/news/humanoid-robots-surgery-live-pigs-uc-san-diego

Humanoid robots just removed organs from live animals for the first time

Surgeons at UC San Diego used two teleoperated humanoid robots to remove gallbladders from live pigs, the first time such machines have operated on living subjects. The robots ran on cheap, off-the-shelf hardware, but a human drove every move.

No doubt it uses AI…

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/09/business/trump-freedom-fuel-stations

Trump promotes ‘Freedom Fuel’ stations that sell cheap gas. How they’re able to do so is unclear

President Donald Trump is heralding a new chain of gas stations that are selling gas for $3.479 a gallon, well below both market prices and wholesale costs.

… But the bargain Trump is promoting is only available at two dozen stations out of the tens of thousands of gas stations of all kinds nationwide. CNN hasn’t been able to confirm all the Freedom Fuel stations are open.

And it’s unclear who is running the discount gas stations and for how long.

Freedom Fuel did not reply to requests for comment. The White House said that Freedom Fuel Network is a private company with no government support or subsidies.

… CNN found an incorporation filing for Freedom Fuel Network in Delaware on June 23, but no owner was listed.

… Some major retailers, like Costco, can sell gas below broader market prices, but that’s because of the sheer volume of fuel the huge retailer is buying nationally. The Costco nearest to the Freedom Fuel in Bristol was also selling gas for $3.479 a gallon.

For your amusement.

https://www.adamsmith.org/books/preview-adam-smiths-the-wealth-of-nations-a-graphic-novel

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations - A Graphic Novel

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Eamonn Butler, Director and Co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute (ASI), is bringing the foundations of modern economics to a whole new medium.

Recognising that Smith’s seminal 1776 work can be a daunting read for the uninitiated, Butler has developed an original graphic novel designed to strip away the complexity. By translating "The Invisible Hand" and the division of labour into a visual narrative, the project makes these world-changing concepts accessible and engaging for a new generation of readers.

Purchase a hard copy (Or read it online)