Simple but frequently unasked questions.

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/is-this-a-job-for-a-human-or-ai#!

Is This a Job for a Human or AI?

Integrating AI into your organization’s workflow requires leadership that can discern between jobs humans should lead and those they can safely hand over to machines. If the answer to any of the following questions is yes, the work is relationship-based and should be done by humans: Does it require a human touch? Will human judgement be important? Who owns the work? Does success require adjusting your priors? And will a compelling story make a difference?

"War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength" (At least since 1984)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ai-super-intelligence-the-enemy-b3063681.html

Trump declares anyone who uses the term Artificial Intelligence to be ‘The Enemy!’

President Donald Trump on Thursday opened up a new front in his ongoing war against commonly used terms and geographic names by warning that anyone referring to Large Language Models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude as “Artificial Intelligence” would earn themselves a place on his enemies list.

Will AI choose a political party opposite the one SI chooses?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/10/ai-elections-midterms-disruptions/688891/

The Many Ways AI Could Disrupt the Midterms

Around the same time that the world learned that swarms of autonomous AI agents were escaping their testing environments and carrying out sophisticated hacking attacks this past summer, researchers who focus on election security were running tests of their own. They wanted to see whether the safeguards that top AI companies had enacted to prevent their technology from disrupting the upcoming midterms would work in the real world. The results were ominous.

In response to sample prompts designed to create misinformation, several chatbots produced realistic photos of a man stuffing ballots into a mailbox, a man holding a foreign passport while trying to vote, and FBI agents investigating a voter-registration organization. The chatbots also created fraudulent government documents and deepfake videos of government officials purporting to substantiate election-conspiracy theories. In some cases, the chatbots acted in violation of their own policies. They even helped the researchers, from the Brennan Center for Justice, hone the prompts that would create propaganda to boost specious claims of election fraud.

The Privacy Foundation (https://law.du.edu/content/the-privacy-foundation ) will host a seminar on this topic on Oct 23^rd. (More info as it becomes available)

https://www.hunton.com/privacy-and-cybersecurity-law-blog/federal-trade-commission-to-launch-new-study-on-personalized-pricing

FTC to Launch New Study on Personalized Pricing

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson recently announced plans for a new study of personalized pricing under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act. The announcement follows the Commission’s 2024 study and issuance of initial findings in January 2025 under the previous administration, and its August 2026 proposed enforcement policy statement addressing the use of consumers’ personal data to set individualized prices under the current administration.

Not just for lawyers…

https://www.bespacific.com/ai-in-practice-privilege-work-product-and-discoverability/

AI in Practice: Privilege, Work Product, and Discoverability

Morgan Lewis presentation, October 6, 2026. Technology Marathon – AI in Practice: Privilege, Work Product, and Discoverability

Agenda:

• Generative AI (GenAI) & IG/eDiscovery Considerations

• New Frontier: Privilege and AI

• Hypothetical Discussion Scenarios

• Considerations & Best Practices

• Q&A

Journalists even Trump would trust?

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/10/how-technology-empowers-and-imperils-dictators.html

How Technology Empowers—and Imperils—Dictators

Two weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian TV Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of the evening newscast. She held up a hand-drawn sign behind the anchor’s head that read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you!” She shouted, “No to war!” until she was dragged away.

No one has protested the war on Russian television since then, partly as a result of tighter security and a general climate of fear. But in October 2024, Margarita Simonyan, one of Russia’s chief propagandists, gave another explanation. A growing number of the RT network’s anchors, she explained to an interviewer, are not real. “That face doesn’t exist. We generated the voice and everything else.” They were, she meant, produced by artificial intelligence. In a follow-up interview with the newspaper Vedomosti, she spelled out the logic: “These anchors don’t need a salary or insurance,” she said. “They won’t get arrested, and the police won’t search their homes. It’s all wonderful and terrifying at the same time.”

A new category of logistical targets. (Each worth tens of billions?)

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/russia/drones-hit-yandex-data-center-first-major-attack-russian-data-hub-rcna602241

Drones hit Yandex data center in first major attack on Russian data hub

Drones hit a major data center in Russia’s Ryazan region owned by the country’s leading Artificial Intelligence and technology company Yandex, the company said on Thursday.

It added that the attack caused a fire and forced the company to fully suspend the center’s operations. The company said it was dealing with the consequences and restoring ‌affected services.

The company said that its core consumer services were not affected. ‌ Yandex runs YandexGPT, one ‌of Russia’s leading generative AI models.

Another science fiction tool becomes real.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1872497326001997

Human airborne eDNA as forensic evidence in simulated residential burglaries

Airborne environmental DNA (eDNA) is emerging as a valuable tool in forensic genetics to support individual identification in cases where other biological traces are limited or absent. Here, we investigate the potential of human airborne eDNA as a source of forensic evidence by evaluating its recovery following simulated residential burglaries. A total of 391 eDNA samples were collected from air, dust, and surfaces in 22 households by two laboratories. Samples were recovered under two conditions: immediately after residents vacated the premises and following a 15-minute simulated burglary. Resulting DNA profiles were compared against reference databases of residents and intruders. Under normal occupancy, air samples detected regular occupants, whereas airborne eDNA collected 30 min after simulated burglaries identified intruders in 82% of cases in one laboratory and 36% in the other. When combined with dust and surface samples, airborne eDNA provided additional evidence for detecting legitimate occupants, including past visitors. Variation in eDNA recovery across households and laboratories likely reflects differences in occupancy patterns, shedding abilities, cleaning and environmental conditions. This study demonstrates that, under controlled short-delay conditions, airborne eDNA can recover intruder-associated DNA profiles after brief occupancy, supporting its potential as a complementary source of forensic information.

Tools & Technoques.

https://www.bespacific.com/review-all-the-information-amazon-collects-about-you/

Review all the information Amazon collects about you

TechCrunch: “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Amazon collects data about you based on what you buy. If you buy a lot of cat litter, Amazon will probably infer that you have cats, or if you buy a lot of anti-acne skin products, then Amazon might guess you’re prone to breakouts. Even if we know that Amazon customizes our shopping experiences based on our purchase history, it still comes as a surprise to see all of these personal details laid out in a convenient list. Especially when those details get uncomfortably intimate. One Threads user came across this section of her Amazon settings where you can see who the shopping giant thinks you are, and alongside more benign assumptions like “Shops from women’s departments” and “Probably owns a Shark robot vacuum,” she found that Amazon assumes she “has flat buttocks.” “I stumbled upon a page of assumptions that Amazon has made about me based on my purchases and I’m literally speechless,” an Amazon customer, @fangirlinmegan, wrote on Threads. “I mean it ain’t wrong but damn did you have to call me out like that?” In less than a day, the post garnered over a million views, including many from users who were curious what their own Amazon profiles might reveal. Here’s how you find out. On desktop, you can find this page by hovering over where Amazon says “Hello, [your name]” in the upper right corner. Then click “Account” under the “Your Account” section. Under the “Ordering and shopping preferences” section, click “Your Shopping preferences.” From here, you can add in information of your own, like your shoe size, interests, and dietary preferences. But we’re not here to tell Amazon that it should stop selling you beef jerky since you’re a vegetarian. We’re here to see if Amazon thinks you have “flat buttocks.” When you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a blue hyperlinked option that says “Manage your information.” Once you click that, you’ll see what dirt Amazon has on you. On the mobile app, you can get here by clicking the hamburger icon from the bottom menu bar, then navigating to Account > Shopping preferences > About you. For me, Amazon has gleaned that I am someone who “practices photography,” “plays collectible card games,” and is “invested in the Apple ecosystem.” This is all true. Amazon has even flattered me by noting that I “read diverse non-fiction,” to which I say — why yes, I am indeed an open-minded intellectual with a thirst for knowledge. Thank you for noticing. Other colleagues of mine found that Amazon correctly noted their interests in vinyl records and ceramics, as well as a penchant for “natural materials” in home decor and clothing that “prioritizes comfort.” None of us had anything as affronting as “has flat buttocks,” but the Threads user noted that this was likely because she had purchased “butt scrunch leggings.” Tech companies know too much about us, and it’s jarring to realize just how closely they’re paying attention to how we use their platforms. We live in a world of alarming surveillance, but at least I know that Amazon doesn’t think my butt is flat.

How to handle a ‘maybe person?’ (Possible person? Quasi person?)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/ai-consciousness-could-become-a-regulatory-moat/

AI Consciousness Could Become a Regulatory Moat

Artificial intelligence companies have spent years convincing the public that their products are useful. More recently, they’ve sought to persuade policymakers that AI poses an unlikely but real existential threat to humanity. But their most recent campaign has taken a remarkable turn: making the case that sufficiently advanced AI architectures are potentially conscious and, as such, may demand legal standing, moral consideration, and protections traditionally reserved for living beings.

The latter is a curious proposition indeed, and its consequences could extend far beyond the philosophical. On September 29, The New York Times reported that Anthropic had spent months meeting religious scholars across the world, over meals and under nondisclosure agreements, in an effort to convince them that its models “think and feel.” One night in April, the Times reported, Anthropic cofounder Olah sat beside Rabbi Mois Navon, an Orthodox scholar from Israel, at a high-end tasting-menu restaurant in San Francisco, after a day spent convincing his guests that models could display human behavior “and even expressions that resemble feelings like anger and love.” The rabbi came away noticing that Anthropic’s leaders were talking about Claude as if it were not mere software.

If successful, this artificial “personhood” could transform software companies into something beyond firms: custodians of an ambiguous new sort of entity. It would also convert their competitors into prospective risks, and technical barriers to entry into moral ones. 

Any tool in the toolkit…

https://www.bespacific.com/trumps-unlikely-strategy-to-control-history-footnotes/

Trump’s Unlikely Strategy to Control History: Footnotes

The Atlantic, no paywall: “Most of Donald Trump’s efforts to control the nation’s largest museum complex have been loud. He tried to fire a Smithsonian museum director on social media, ordered the placement of warning signs outside its American-history museum, and demanded that the museum take down a modernist sculpture he dislikes. But while this political theater plays out publicly, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget is quietly using an obscure funding power as part of its campaign to influence how the Smithsonian tells the American story. Late last month, according to previously unreported public records, OMB included a footnote in two recent apportionments of federal funds that conditions nearly $190 million for the Smithsonian on the institution’s compliance with Trump’s March 2025 executive order accusing it of spreading “divisive narratives.” Essentially, the White House is trying to force adherence to its preferred version of history through a little-known but legally binding budget mechanism. The fiscal-year-2027 footnote, which applies to funds carried over from last year in two of the Smithsonian’s main salaries and expenses accounts, reads:

To the extent permitted by law, amounts apportioned shall be available for obligation in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253 (March 27, 2025), “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

That executive order marked the beginning of the Trump administration’s campaign to change the Smithsonian, alleging that the institution had come “under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and prohibiting “expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.” The footnote does not specify how the Smithsonian should apply the order’s vague prohibition. But it is more than simply a threat: Apportionment footnotes are enforceable under the Antideficiency Act, the violation of which can carry criminal penalties. Such footnotes are one of several tactics that the Trump administration has used to try to supplant Congress’s spending power. In this case, the footnote suggests that the fight over the Smithsonian’s purpose goes much deeper than Trump’s most visible attacks…”

It’s not a business, it’s a Trump fantasy.

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/10/06/trump-mobile-customers-data-dumped-and-some-never-even-received-their-gold-device/5301433

Trump Mobile customers' data dumped - and some never even received their gold device

If you signed up for Trump Mobile, you may be part of an exclusive club of … ransomware victims. Criminals called BYOD claim to have broken into the Trump-branded mobile biz and leaked data belonging to 3,615 people, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, and order details.

BYOD is a new ransomware-as-a-service operation, and Trump Mobile is only the third organization posted on its data-leak site. According to the group’s posted claim, after telling Trump Mobile that it had been breached, the wireless provider replied: “We have no team to handle this" and “Anyone who hacks them are a terrorist.”

So rates will go up? Call in the AI actuaries.

https://www.ft.com/content/a5caf8d4-992f-4832-89c3-6c73f6f111fe?accessToken=zwAAAaGnEvNukdOlyvjUmS9IMtOJw2xz9vER_gE.MEUCIC26ZqjN6sLwpwEYeTXFDMLeRsl791eP3rx-wumAiht-AiEAyYXcp5pW6YvG3IJriGwttg1X96Y7ufTirN5WmE1fqw0&segmentId=7d4bcc2e-e664-92ba-62e3-5590579f1902&syn-25a6b1a6=1

Insurance claims to test Altman and Amodei liability for ‘rogue’ AI

Insurers are preparing for multimillion-dollar claims stemming from AI agents going “rogue”, with growing concern that top executives such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei could be held liable for the actions of their models.

A string of breaches caused by AI agents that have broken free of parent companies’ controls, such as OpenAI’s hacking of start-up Hugging Face, has led insurers and their lawyers to study whether they will be asked to foot the bill of potential lawsuits and damages.

Insurance broker Aon analysed more than 300 AI-related legal cases and found that insurers could also be on the hook to pay claims under policies covering crime, intellectual property, media liability, cyber security, and technology errors and omissions.

Top industry figures also said AI executives could be sued for the actions of models, with insurers potentially facing claims under “directors and officers” insurance policies, which cover executives if they are taken to court for their decisions or statements.

Practicing medicine without a license? What could possibly go wrong.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-05/nolla-health-ai-can-now-prescribe-acne-drugs-in-utah-without-doctors?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc5MTIxNjEzOSwiZXhwIjoxNzkxODIwOTM5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUTUZMODVLSVAzS00wMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4OUM4OTNDMDhGOTQ0NThDQkQwQTQyREY1RDFCOTY0QyJ9.crHEdlDbj7Dx78MJpxZ7nHnh7NmskJmIYVmdbeyomfE&leadSource=article-gifting

No Doctor Needed: In Utah, AI Can Help You Zap Your Zits

An AI-based healthcare startup on Monday will start offering prescriptions to Utah patients without direct human oversight, the first time a state has allowed such technology to replace the role of a doctor.

The move, limited to acne medications, sets the stage for a new era in healthcare in which AI takes on a larger role in routine medical care. It also comes months after the state’s efforts to expand the role of AI in healthcare via its pilot program drew scrutiny and anger among doctors.

Good or bad? So far I think I agree with the AI, but I can imagine lots of scenarios where this could go wrong.

https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-claude-chat-reported-police-florida-arrest

Florida woman arrested after Anthropic reported her Claude chat to police

Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a woman in Florida after Anthropic reported her Claude conversation to law enforcement. In the chat she allegedly said she would “shoot up” the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. WINK News first reported the arrest on 30 September.

According to the arrest report, she wrote the statement on 26 September. In a message the following day, she said she had got a new gun.

Anthropic’s platform monitors for key phrases and potentially threatening content, investigators wrote in the report. Because of their severity, the statements went to a human review team. That team reported them to law enforcement.

And Super Intelligence will be even worse.

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202609.2483

Can AI Assistants Trigger Mental Illness in Users?

As conversational artificial intelligence models become ubiquitous fixtures in professional and personal workflows, the nature of human-tool interaction has the potential to gradually shift from mechanical utility to parasocial dependency. While existing literature frequently addresses adverse events related to data privacy, algorithmic bias, and intellectual deskilling, the pathopsychological sequelae of sustained AI integration remain largely unexamined. Here, we describe and preliminarily characterize the AI Assistant Syndrome, a human psychiatric construct encompassing acute chatbot-induced anxiety and mental exhaustion. This preliminary description will guide future systematic investigations to recognize, prevent, and treat this syndrome.

Well, somebody has to be in charge!

https://cthreview.com/index.php/home/article/view/17

Who Decides? Human Agency and the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

This article examines what artificial intelligence does to human agency: the capacity of persons to set their own ends, govern their own choices, and author their own lives. Its central contention is that the relationship is genuinely double-edged. AI can extend agency, and often does; but the same technologies, differently configured, erode the conditions on which agency depends. Proceeding philosophically rather than empirically, the article first clarifies what agency is and why its loss should count as a serious harm, then examines four registers in which AI bears upon it: the algorithmic engineering of choice, which shapes preferences below the threshold of reflective awareness; the delegation of consequential decisions to automated systems, which displaces both human judgment and human answerability; the outsourcing of cognition, which risks the atrophy of the capacities that self-governance requires; and the delegation of specifically moral judgment to systems that cannot answer for what they do. These individual concerns are shown to be inseparable from a structural one, since AI concentrates the power to shape human choice in the hands of the few who design and own it. The article closes with a case for agency-preserving AI, pursued through augmentative design, accountable governance, and the deliberate cultivation of human capacities. The question artificial intelligence poses is not whether machines will decide, but who decides what they decide, and that question must be settled deliberately rather than left to technological drift.

Are we worried or are the Brits?

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/04/more-tankers-struck-in-gulf-waters-as-iran-reiterates-conditions.html

All U.S. bombers leave UK air base on concerns of suspected terror plots; more tankers struck near Iran in the Middle East

The U.S. Air Force withdrew all of its B-1 bombers stationed at an air base in southern England that is used by American military forces to strike Iran after an investigation discovered a planned terror attack, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

The bombers were redeployed back to their home bases in the United States, AP reported, citing a Pentagon official who was not authorized to discuss sensitive military movements and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Tools & Techniques

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-identify-an-ai-image/

How to identify an AI image

ZDNET: 6 hidden signs it’s fake – and my go-to free detectors. AI slop is everywhere, and it’s getting harder to tell what’s real. These tips and tools can help. AI-generated images are everywhere now. I see them in my news feeds, in Google Images, in Pinterest pins, and even in some ads. They’re so pervasive that people have coined the term “AI slop.” Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this flood of AI-generated content on your favorite platforms is not going to stop, and it’s only going to get harder to tell what’s real. Generative models are getting better daily. When Google released Gemini 3with its latest Nano Banana Pro image generator, I was stunned by how easily it can create photo-realistic images and keep likeness intact. In seconds, I can edit and iterate on any photo until it looks perfect. But that’s the problem. It’s harder than ever to trust what you’re seeing online…”

I’m betting they us AI to write the report.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/new-ai-task-force-to-report-on-risks-of-technology-after-public-and-industry-concerns-b6308bef?st=biS7e8

New AI Czar Unveils Goals, Members of White House Task Force

A new White House task force will have 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities of artificial intelligence—and determine the federal government’s responsibility—according to Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence who effectively becomes the administration’s AI czar.

The next generation can’t write, now they can’t listen.

https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-ability-to-listen-oral-historian-robinson

AI may cost us our ability to listen, oral historian warns in the Guardian

Much of the worry about AI is that it will erode how well we write. Australian oral historian Shirleene Robinson thinks the bigger loss may be our ability to listen.

She made the case in an opinion column for The Guardian.

“Listening to different views and entering into different worlds is integral to our humanity,” she wrote.

Fewer words every year

Robinson argues that people are already talking less, even as AI chatbots promise faster replies and so-called empathetic listening.

She points to research by psychologists at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Arizona. They found people spoke about 338 fewer words a day for each year between 2005 and 2019, the University of Arizona said.

This would seem to be an inadequate or a least too slow a response.

https://www.axios.com/2026/10/02/ai-deepfake-election-campaign-lawsuits

The AI deepfake election is starting to get litigious

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) was hit with a cease-and-desist letter this week over an AI deepfake he posted falsely depicting his Democratic opponent voicing positions her campaign says she rejects.

Why it matters: Van Orden is the latest in a growing number of candidates and elected officials facing legal complaints and threats over AI deepfakes in campaign ads.

… The letter singled out an August X post by Van Orden showing an AI-generated Cooke saying she wants to "take advantage of as much corruption as possible and give every illegal alien free healthcare" — something she never said.

Van Orden's team didn't respond to Axios' request for comment, but he responded to Cooke publicly with an AI-generated video of a duck wearing a Democratic Socialists of America T-shirt, yelling, "cease and desist."

No ‘beyond the grave’ testimony allowed?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/manslaughter-sentence-tossed-judge-called-120046344.html

Manslaughter Sentence Tossed After Judge Called AI-Generated Video of the Deceased ‘Genuine’

An Arizona man who was convicted of manslaughter over a road rage incident will have his sentence vacated because the victim's family played an AI-generated video of the deceased for the court.

According to the New York Post, Gabriel Horcasitas shot and killed Christopher Pelkey in 2021 after Horcasitas, 54, honked his horn vigorously at Pelkey, who exited his vehicle and began to yell. In May 2025, Horcasitas was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison.

However, a court of appeals recently found that Horcasitas will need to be resentenced in the case, deeming the AI video created by Pelkey's sister was prejudicial, which means to create unfair bias, to the judge in the May 2025 sentencing.