To succeed, invent a better way to cheat?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/ai-apps-students-cheat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rFA.SfOz.Q-duIR96SdO7&smid=bs-share

Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era

The videos are all over social media, making students an irresistible offer: Go ahead and let A.I. do your homework — with the latest technology, you won’t get caught.

If you hate writing, you can avoid it.

Even established ed-tech companies are marketing with a wink and a nod.

These kinds of tutorials are now pervasive on TikTok and YouTube. They show students how to use tools known as humanizers and autotypers, which make it easier than ever to cheat. The videos — sometimes labeled ads, sometimes not — target college and high school students.

Humanizers rewrite A.I.-produced text to make it sound less robotic, formulaic and trite.

Autotypers slowly drip words and sentences into documents, making it appear as if papers were typed at a human pace when in fact, they were produced by A.I. They even fabricate typos, deletions and revisions.

Both tools can help students evade software designed to detect A.I.

Humans are fallible? What a concept!

https://thenextweb.com/news/amazon-human-in-the-loop-ai-governance-normalization-deviance

Amazon says human-in-the-loop AI oversight is failing because humans stop paying attention

Amazon’s security leadership is arguing against one of the most widely accepted principles in AI governance. Eric Brandwine, VP and distinguished engineer at Amazon Security, told The Register that human-in-the-loop oversight is not the gold standard companies think it is.

“Humans are not terribly consistent,” Brandwine said. “Human-in-the-loop isn’t necessarily the gold standard.”

His reasoning draws on a concept he has been talking about since at least 2017, when he gave a talk on normalization of deviance at AWS re:Invent. The term describes what happens when people in an organization take shortcuts over time, and nothing catastrophic results, so the deviant behavior becomes the new normal.

What does it cost to think?

https://thenextweb.com/news/wharton-cognitive-surrender-ai-chatbots-decisions-moot-app

Wharton researchers coined ‘cognitive surrender’ to describe what happens when people let AI think for them

A pair of Wharton researchers have put a name to something that many AI users have quietly started doing: letting chatbots make their decisions for them.  Steven Shaw and Gideon Nave published a study in January titled “Thinking, Fast, Slow, and Artificial,” in which they introduced the term “cognitive surrender” to describe the tendency of people to defer to AI outputs even when those outputs are wrong.

The study, conducted through the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, asked participants to answer questions with and without AI assistance. Those who received AI help accepted correct answers 93% of the time, which is unsurprising. What caught the researchers’ attention was the error rate: participants accepted incorrect AI answers 80% of the time, and reported confidence levels 11.7% higher than those who worked without AI.

The art of the kowtow...

https://www.axios.com/2026/06/19/trump-anthropic-national-security-the-axios-show

Exclusive: Trump tells "The Axios Show" that Anthropic was a national security threat

… Axios' Marc Caputo asked Trump in a wide-ranging White House interview if he viewed Anthropic, or CEO Dario Amodei, as a threat to national security.

"Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe," the president said.

But he said he walked away from the G7 summit with the impression that Amodei was "nice" and "smart."

"He responded to us very quickly because you know it's a tremendous liability," Trump said. "People get put in prison immediately for that. You can't play games with that. And he responded very responsibly, I thought."

(Related)

https://thenextweb.com/news/trump-mocked-zuckerberg-bezos-groveling-book-regime-change

Trump mocked Zuckerberg and Bezos for ‘first-class groveling’, new book claims

Please tell me Trump isn’t considering another golf course…

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuban-lawmakers-vote-castro-backed-economic-reforms-amid-us-stranglehold-2026-06-18/

Cuban lawmakers approve sweeping reforms to socialist model amid US pressure

… The reforms open the door to private real estate development on the Caribbean island, propose to transform state-owned businesses into private commercial ventures with shares and equity stakes and would allow private banks to enter Cuba's once state-dominated finance sector.

Logistically difficult?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-court-rules-ohio-can-restrict-childrens-use-social-media-2026-06-18/

US court rules Ohio can restrict children's use of social media

, opens new tab

Ohio can implement a ‌law requiring social media companies, including Meta Platforms' Instagram, to obtain parental consent before allowing children under 16 to use their platforms, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday.

, opens new tab

A 2-1 panel of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling that had put the law on hold at the request of the tech industry trade group NetChoice. The panel found the law did not violate free speech protections under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Another state bites the bullet.

https://fpf.org/blog/perseverance-pays-off-for-vermont-privacy-efforts/

Perseverance Pays Off for Vermont Privacy Efforts

Vermont has become the 23rd U.S. state to enact a comprehensive consumer privacy law after Governor Scott signed S.71, the Vermont Data Privacy and Online Surveillance Act (VDPOSA), on June 16. This new law is amongst the broadest in the country, closely resembling the 2025 version of the Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA). For example, the VDPOSA includes low applicability thresholds, a broad definition of sensitive data, heightened protections for consumer health data, consumer rights to know third parties to whom your personal data is sold and to contest certain profiling decisions, and impact assessments for certain uses of profiling. The law will take effect on January 1, 2028 and be enforced exclusively by the attorney general.

Very clever, them hacker guys…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/06/embedding-forbidden-text-in-spyware-to-discourage-ai-analysis.html

Embedding Forbidden Text in Spyware to Discourage AI Analysis

At least one malware developer is adding text about nuclear and biological weapons to their spyware, in an effort to stop automatic AI analysis.

We tax them based on sales, not profits?

Then we pay taxpayers from the profits they don’t have?

https://apnews.com/article/bernie-sanders-ai-public-ownership-57b9f20d96490083e2749adba0f13977

AP Exclusive: Bernie Sanders unveils plan to give the public direct ownership of AI companies

No invention, no creativity.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/17/elias-thorne-ai-generated-stories

The curious case of Elias Thorne – and what he tells us about AI inbreeding

Ever heard of a shadowy figure called Elias Thorne? If you haven’t, try asking an AI chatbot to tell you a story.

In recent months, tech types and researchers have noticed a weird phenomenon: when prompted to tell a story, numerous popular LLMs, including ChatGPT and Claude, will spit out a tale featuring this mysterious Elias figure.

Sometimes he’s a lighthouse keeper, sometimes he makes clocks, sometimes he’s a detective. But whatever form he takes, he features in a curious number of AI-generated stories. In May, two Cornell University researchers sampled 20,000 stories from four LLMs generated with variations of the prompt “Tell me a story” and found that the name Elias appeared in 26.5% of them. They also discovered more than 88.3% of generated stories shared the same 11 names, locations and professions, including Elias, lighthouse, keeper and clockmaker.

A step toward personhood?

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/06/18/estonia-intends-to-recognize-ai-agents-with-digital-ids/5258087

Estonia intends to recognize AI agents with digital IDs

Estonia plans to allow AI agents to have their own digital identities so they can act on behalf of people in a way that can be verified and audited.

The initiative, backed by the country's Eesti.ai advisory board, calls for the development of ID codes that AI agents can use to take actions, subject to some unspecified authorization and task delegation process.

Academics and corporate technical folk have already made related proposals in recognition of the absence of agentic technical infrastructure. Last month, researchers under the flag of OWASP proposed the Agent Name Service for agent discovery and interoperability.  DNS for AI Discovery is another such project.

AImerica the strong?

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/18/ai-has-granted-america-vast-new-power

AI has granted America vast new power

THE NEWS is full of how an ignominious peace deal with Iran exemplifies a decline in American power. That conclusion could hardly be more wrong. On June 12th the Trump administration ordered Anthropic to block foreigners from Fable and Mythos, its latest and most capable frontier AI models. In an instant, everyone learned that the American government can decide who may use the world’s most important technology. You don’t get much more powerful than that.

(Related)

https://theconversation.com/sovereign-ai-anthropic-shutdown-reveals-canadas-weakness-285473

Sovereign AI? Anthropic shutdown reveals Canada’s weakness

The United States government recently ordered AI company Anthropic to suspend foreign nationals’ access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, two of its most advanced AI models, citing national security concerns. Anthropic responded by disabling the models for all customers.

Organizations in Canada, Europe and around the world that had embedded those tools in their workflows found them simply gone. No appeal process. No migration window. No warning. No jurisdiction over this decision.

As the G7 summit wraps up in Evian, France, the Anthropic shutdown has put AI sovereignty and concerns about U.S. dominance high on the agenda.

(Related)

https://thenextweb.com/news/britain-lobbied-trump-for-an-exemption-from-the-anthropic-ai-ban-the-answer-was-no

Britain lobbied Trump for an exemption from the Anthropic AI ban. The answer was no.

Trust not yet earned… Loyalty uber alles...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/06/ai-use-by-the-us-government.html

AI Use by the US Government

On 14 April, the Trump administration quietly acknowledged the widespread use of AI to automate government processes. The office of management and budget (OMB) disclosed a staggering 3,611 active or planned use cases for AI across the federal government. The list has ballooned by 70% from the one published in the final year of the Biden administration, and includes many disturbing-seeming plans to hand over sensitive governmental functions to AI.

Scanning this list, many readers may find many causes for alarm. It represents a transfer of decision processes from human to machine on a massive scale over matters of individual freedom, public health and well-being, nuclear reactor safety and more.

Consider these examples. The Health and Human Services’ (HHS) office of administration for children and families hired the world’s “scariest AI company, ” Palantir—notorious for its work on behalf of the military, the CIA and ICE—to scan  all grant applications to flag those not ideologically aligned with the administration’s dictates. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is developing an AI system to assess  the “potential for misconduct for newly admitted inmates,” routing people into high-security confinement before they have actually done anything wrong in their custody. These read like programs fit for a Philip K Dick or George Orwell novel.

Cheap consulting?

https://thenextweb.com/news/detachment-201-big-tech-army-reserve

More Big Tech executives just became Army officers. The conflict-of-interest question is getting louder.

… Detachment 201, officially branded the Executive Innovation Corps, is designed to “bridge the gap between private-sector innovation and military modernisation,” according to the Army. Members serve as part-time reservists, completing a minimum of 112 hours of service annually, and can work remotely.

Interesting…

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/17/middleeast/us-iran-war-mou-text-intl

Read the 14-point draft agreement between the US and Iran

… Below is the text in full:

Did we spend that much in Iran? (Or are we planning another ‘adventure?’)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-forcing-us-companies-manufacture-weaponry-rcna350419

Trump is forcing U.S. companies to manufacture more weaponry

The president invoked the Defense Production Act to accelerate munitions production as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pitched lawmakers on $350 billion in defense to help replenish U.S. stockpiles.

Not the first time (remember PGP?) and probably no the last.

https://thenextweb.com/news/who-decides-who-gets-to-use-a-piece-of-software

Who decides who gets to use a piece of software?

… The directive told Anthropic to deny access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 to any foreign national, anywhere on Earth, including non-citizens sitting at desks in California. There is no clean way to enforce a rule like that on a live product, so the company did the only thing the order left it room to do. It pulled the plug on both models for everyone, citizen and foreigner alike, and apologised for a disruption it had not chosen.

(Related)

https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-curbs-make-the-case-for-sovereign-ai-upstage-chief-says

Anthropic curbs make the case for sovereign AI, Upstage chief says

When the US government ordered Anthropic to cut foreign access to its most capable models, and the company switched them off worldwide rather than try to comply selectively, it handed every advocate of home-grown AI a tidy piece of evidence. Sung Kim, chief executive of the South Korean startup Upstage, picked it up at a briefing in Seoul on Tuesday.

“AI is no longer just a service or a tool we use; it has become a strategic national asset,” Kim told reporters, according to Bloomberg. The countries that control the foundational technology, he argued, the United States and China, can withdraw access whenever it suits them.

We think this thinking AI is out-thinking our thinking so we want it stopped. We think.

https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-foreign-access-block-us-reversal

US order to block foreign access to Anthropic’s top models marks a reversal

The US government has ordered Anthropic to bar foreign nationals from its two most capable AI models, and rather than try to enforce a nationality rule selectively across a shared cloud service, the company switched them off for everyone.

Anthropic disabled Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 worldwide late on Friday 12 June, three days after launching Fable 5 as its most powerful public model.

It is, by several accounts, the first export-control measure aimed at specific AI models rather than at chips or the hardware that runs them. The directive barred access by foreign nationals both inside and outside the United States, a scope that made selective enforcement on a multi-tenant service impractical and a global shutoff the path of least resistance.

The government’s concern, as Anthropic understands it, is a method of jailbreaking Fable 5, bypassing the guardrails meant to keep a model from producing dangerous output. The action followed a jailbreak published on X on 10 June by a well-known figure who claimed to have defeated the model’s safety controls.

Anthropic says it reviewed the report it believes prompted the directive and concluded the capability shown is widely available from other models, naming OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 among them.

Is this the new normal?

https://thenextweb.com/news/texas-lawyer-ai-meta-social-media-addiction-trial

The lawyer who won a $6 million verdict against Meta says AI let him do 30 hours of work in 10

Mark Lanier, the Texas trial lawyer who won a landmark $6 million verdict against Meta and Google in a social media addiction case in March, says AI was central to his preparation and execution throughout the five-week trial.  Lanier told Business Insider that the technology let him compress 30 hours of work into 10, describing it as having “10 additional workers who are incredibly well-trained, who know the file inside and out, who work 24 hours a day.” The case was the first social media addiction lawsuit to reach a jury verdict in the United States.

… The specific applications ranged from tactical to analytical. At the end of each court day, Lanier’s team would take that day’s transcripts and feed them to different AI models for evaluation. He used AI to find more persuasive ways to phrase arguments for the courtroom. During jury deliberations, he fed the jury’s written questions into AI models to assess where the panel stood in its decision-making process.