If you agree with this article, AI is gaining on personhood one right at a time.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/machine-first-amendment-rights

A Machine With First Amendment Rights

We have created the first machines with First Amendment rights.

Don’t take that sentence literally, but take it very seriously.

I spent yesterday at the Verify 2023 conference, an annual gathering on cybersecurity and journalism put on by the Hewlett Foundation and Aspen Digital. The conference included this conversation on artificial intelligence trust and safety, at which Jim Baker—former FBI general counsel and former Twitter deputy general counsel—spoke. In response to the suggestion that the area of content moderation and large language models needs regulation, Baker made the apparently common-sense point that any time you’re talking about regulating content, you’re going to run into major First Amendment problems.

And all of a sudden, it hit me: Bard and ChatGPT and all these other large language AI models, at least in functional terms, have free speech rights.

Before you cry out your instinctive objections, let me walk through the logic behind this bold claim—each step of which is based on black-letter law but which cumulatively lead to a very peculiar place that, in my judgment, simply can’t be correct.

… the government can only regulate ChatGPT’s expressive content in a fashion consistent with the First Amendment’s narrow tolerance for government regulation of speech: for situations involving defamation, incitement, copyright infringement, and other non-protected content. From a doctrinal point of view, of course, the government has to stay its hand not because ChatGPT has rights but because OpenAI has the right to operate ChatGPT and OpenAI has constitutional rights. But from a regulatory point of view, this is a distinction without a difference. The result, whether in a formal sense the First Amendment right attaches to the company in operating the machine or to the machine itself, is the same: the government can only regulate the autonomous expressive conduct of the machine in a fashion that satisfies the First Amendment.

A bit stronger that Elon Musk’s suggestion that AI work be halted for a time.

https://hyperallergic.com/811493/iran-issues-fatwa-against-ai/

Iran Issues Fatwa Against AI

In an extraordinary move, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa against Artificial Intelligence, calling it “satanic.” Anyone using the quickly developing technology would be punished by hanging, Iranian officials said.

(Related)

https://www.makeuseof.com/why-has-italy-banned-chatgpt/

Why Italy Has Banned ChatGPT “With Immediate Effect”

OpenAI's ChatGPT has been widely praised—there's hardly any question we haven't seen it answer. Yet, the Italian enforcer of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has placed an immediate, temporary embargo on ChatGPT use in Italy.

This means that if you're in Italy, you'll now be unable to use the AI chatbot. Here's why.

Another try at privacy…

https://www.insideprivacy.com/state-privacy/iowa-enacts-comprehensive-consumer-privacy-law/

Iowa Enacts Comprehensive Consumer Privacy Law

On March 28, Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law SF 262, making Iowa the sixth state to enact a comprehensive consumer privacy law. The new law will take effect on January 1, 2025.

As we discuss here, Iowa’s privacy law shares a number of key similarities to existing state privacy frameworks, including providing consumers with the rights to access, delete, obtain a copy of their data in a portable format, and opt out of sale of their personal information. The law does not provide a private right of action, instead empowering the state attorney general to bring enforcement actions and seek injunctions if controllers or processors do not cure alleged violations after 90 days.

Inevitable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65143479

Trump and Stormy Daniels cash in on merchandise after indictment

… The message asked people for money, offering a T-shirt with the words "I stand with Trump" for donations of $47 (£38) or more, which his campaign team claimed were "flying off shelves".

… Her website features a range of merchandise, including $20 T-shirts with the words "#TEAMSTORMY", signed posters of herself posing in lingerie, and a $30 dog chew toy that looks like Mr Trump.

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.makeuseof.com/best-sites-for-cheat-sheets-shortcuts-quick-reference/

6 Best Sites for Cheat Sheets, Shortcuts, and Quick Reference Cards

The internet loves making cheat sheets for everything from programming languages to recipes and cooking ratios. These websites create their own from scratch or collect the best of the internet's advice to give you easy access to shortcuts and quick reference cards.