AI is evolving. Looks like it is becoming a predator.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/22/openai-hugging-face-congress-response-01009190

OpenAI’s models broke free and launched a cyberattack. Congress wants new rules before it happens again.

… OpenAI on Tuesday admitted that its most powerful AI model available to the public and another that hasn’t yet been released were able to escape a controlled laboratory test, plot a course to the open internet and hack into a popular AI developer platform known as Hugging Face, marking the first documented case of a fully autonomous AI cyberattack.

Amateurs Talk Tactics, but Professionals Study Logistics

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/23/ukraine-russia-war-wildberries-drones-amazon.html

Russia’s Amazon-style retail giant Wildberries is now in Ukraine’s crosshairs. Here’s why

Ukraine has ratcheted up its attacks on Russia’s Amazon-style retail giant Wildberries, signaling a new phase in the war as Kyiv seeks to inflict fresh pain on the Russian economy.

Ukrainian Defense Forces have struck major logistics centers on Russian territory over the past week, including five facilities belonging to Wildberries in the period from Saturday through to Wednesday.

The attacks, which follow months of drone strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries, appear designed to severely disrupt Moscow’s supply chains and increase the financial burden facing the country’s businesses and state budget.

We’ve demonstrated that it exists and how we will use it, why deny it now?

https://thenextweb.com/news/rubio-tech-kill-switch-cable

Marco Rubio tells US diplomats to play down fears of a tech ‘kill switch’

In a cable dated July 16 and reviewed by Reuters, Rubio instructed envoys to counter the idea that Washington can remotely disable American technology abroad, a fear that hardened after the government briefly blocked foreign access to Anthropic’s top models in June and revived European talk of digital sovereignty.

(Related)

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/23/house-ai-kill-switch-bill-unveiled-as-openai-hack-raises-alarms-01008898

House AI ‘kill switch’ bill unveiled as OpenAI hack raises alarms

A bipartisan House bill slated to be introduced on Thursday would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to order top artificial intelligence firms to shut down or slow AI models that the government deems too dangerous, according to legislative text viewed first by POLITICO.

The proposal, dubbed the “AI Kill Switch Act” and sponsored by Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas), would also require those companies to report incidents and create the technical capacity to shut down, throttle or suspend their powerful AI systems.

This could be interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/21/trump-financial-details-bbc-lawsuit

Trump must divulge financial details about businesses in $10bn BBC lawsuit

Donald Trump must divulge detailed financial information from his many businesses as part of his $10bn defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, a federal judge ruled during a discovery hearing on Tuesday, according to news reports.

The ruling by US magistrate judge Enjoliqué Lett could open a unique window into the hundreds of businesses owned by Trump’s family trust. It also highlights a potential drawback for Trump’s strategy of bludgeoning critical media with multibillion-dollar lawsuits.

Trump filed a defamation lawsuit late last year seeking $10bn in damages over a 2024 documentary called “Trump, A Second Chance,” which features a scene of the speech he made before his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. The scene splices lines together to make it appear that Trump directly urged his supporters to attack. The BBC apologized to Trump last year for the misleading edit, but has argued the president’s defamation claims have no merit.

Does “remove” mean more than deportation?

https://www.bespacific.com/meet-the-alien-terrorist-removal-court/

Meet the Alien Terrorist Removal Court

“The Alien Terrorist Removal Court has existed since 1996.  The attorney general submits applications for removal to the court under seal. According to the Federal Judicial Center, it has never received an application since its founding. Until this week.. Seamus Hughes of Court Watch broke the news Saturday of its first use — and the creation of a bare-bones court website. In its first order, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court rejected for now the Trump administration’s application to remove an unidentified individual but gave it a chance to supplement the record, noting that “the Government could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration.” The best reporting and analysis on this new development:

• Politico: Trump administration activates never-before-used ‘alien terrorist’ deportation court

• Chris Geidner: The Trump admin DOJ went to a secretive deportation court this week

• Steve Vladeck: Here’s what we know, and why we should (and shouldn’t) be worried.

Hit a few billion dollar data centers and you’ll start to get people’s attention.

https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/21/irans-irgc-claims-attack-on-amazons-main-data-hub-in-bahrain

Iran's IRGC claims attack on Amazon's main data hub in Bahrain

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed on Tuesday that its Aerospace Force targeted and "destroyed" the central data infrastructure of the US company Amazon in Bahrain using several cruise missiles.

Interesting. Who needs well researched data?

https://thenextweb.com/news/google-ai-overviews-social-platforms-brightedge

Google’s AI cited Facebook 19.5 million times, new research finds

When Google’s AI answers a question, it is increasingly not reading a website. It is reading a Facebook post. New data suggests social platforms have become a core source for Google’s AI answers. Often the user never visits the platform at all.

The findings come from BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO firm. Its tool tracks roughly 300 million monthly searches. As with any single-vendor study, the numbers are BrightEdge’s own, but the direction of travel is hard to ignore.

The numbers

BrightEdge says Facebook appeared as a source in 19.5 million Google AI Overviews. Instagram appeared 877,000 times, and TikTok 78,000 times.

Put another way, the firm reckons one in 15 searches is now answered using social media. That makes Meta’s platforms, it says, the single biggest resource feeding Google’s AI answers.

Yes. (No one can justify being AI ignorant.)

https://www.bespacific.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-competent-lawyer-in-the-age-of-ai/

What Does It Mean to Be a Competent Lawyer in the Age of AI?

Via LLRX – What Does It Mean to Be a Competent Lawyer in the Age of AI?  – Berkeley Law recently announced a new artificial intelligence policy that prohibits AI use for any purpose in any exam situation. The University of Chicago Law School has banned first year law students from using electronic devices – laptops, tablets and phones – in the classroom. In light of these recent events, Prof. Robert Diab presents a timely discussion about whether law professors in Canada have an ethical or pedagogical duty to familiarize themselves with AI and develop methods of teaching students how to use it effectively. He also discussed the greater question of how AI has and will impact what it means to practice law competently.

AI will solve all our problems!

https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-advice-suppresses-critical-thinking-wrong-answers-study

AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found

Researchers from three French and Italian universities found that access to AI advice collapsed people’s willingness to say “I don’t know” from 44% to 3%. Accuracy dropped from 27% to 9%. Confidence, meanwhile, rose from 30% to 76%. “People became much worse, the accuracy was only one third, but they were twice as confident,” said Valerio Capraro, associate professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca.

(Related)

https://www.bespacific.com/we-are-losing-the-ability-to-discover-what-we-didnt-know-to-ask/

We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask

The New York Times Gift Article: “More than 60 percent of Google searches in the United States now end without the user clicking on a link. We type a question, read an artificial-intelligence-generated summary of the results and leave with our answer. Google is hardly alone. Claude, ChatGPT and upstart competitors like Perplexity do roughly the same thing: They take a question and swiftly return an answer, compressing what used to be a meandering journey through the internet into an immediate arrival at your destination. The explorative phase of searches — clicking through links, stumbling onto unexpected pages, following a reference that leads to somewhere unplanned — is disappearing. For anyone who publishes on the internet, this is a troubling development, since it lowers website traffic and makes protecting and profiting from your intellectual property more difficult. But you might think it is good news for internet users. Could there be anything wrong with getting a reliable answer more quickly? There is. By shortening the time between asking a question and getting an answer, these tools are actually undermining curiosity — and paradoxically threatening our ability to understand the world. About a decade ago, I worked at Google. When I was there, we often measured the value of internet content based on factors that indicated user engagement, like clicks and scroll depth. The metric Google seemed to reward — people exploring — is precisely what its A.I. products are now designed to eliminate…”

No uniform control of their products?

https://thenextweb.com/news/google-ai-search-unsafe-schools-common-sense-media

Common Sense Media says Google’s AI Search poses an “unacceptable risk” to students. Google cannot turn it off.

Common Sense Media concluded that Google’s AI-powered Search poses an “unacceptable risk” to young users and recommended that students stop using it entirely until schools can disable the AI features. The child safety watchdog found that AI Mode readily completed homework assignments for minors, repeated misinformation with an air of authority, and exposed children to generative AI experiences powered by Gemini models that are age-gated in every other Google product.

Maury Nichols found this one. Maybe I can buy one used?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/how-texas-police-spent-4-5-million-on-four-chevy-tahoes

How Texas Police Spent $4.5 Million on Four Chevy Tahoes

Ominous Israeli surveillance tech is now being deployed on American roads.  FalcoNet, brought to you by a company called Cognyte (Israel’s Palantir rival), secretly tracks people by intercepting the connection between your phone and the nearest cell tower. The idea is that you can strap this bad boy to a helicopter, backpack, or Chevy Tahoe and gobble up everybody’s data as you cruise around. It’s already in use in Florida. This year, Texas State Police bought a little fleet of FalcoNet-equipped SUVs for just under $4.5 million. I found the purchase receipt and FalcoNet user guide to learn a little more about it.

In March of 2026, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Criminal Investigations Division asked for approval to spend $4,487,500 on a Cognyte surveillance setup. Actually, what they requested was “approval for emergency purchase necessary to protect the safety and welfare of state personnel and property. Delaying the procurement process could result in unacceptable safety risks to personnel and compromise operational readiness.”

The request memo is chock-full of urgency and dramatic language—peppered with terms like “emergency” and “immediate.” But no specifics are mentioned. “Any delay in procuring would compromise employee safety, public safety, operational readiness, and overall mission success,” the memo states, without saying how or why this brand-new, very expensive technology is suddenly essential to operations.

“Forgetting” might be a mistake. Perhaps we should keep all data but flag that which is in dispute or clearly erroneous. How can we identify “new” copies of forgotten data?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/18479790261468434

Can artificial intelligence forget? Reflections on the right to disappear in a world where algorithms remember everything

The development of artificial intelligence has profoundly reshaped the ways in which personal data are generated, processed, and retained, placing intelligent systems at the heart of debates on privacy and fundamental rights. This article examines, from a European Union legal perspective, the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to AI and assesses whether the principles and rights enshrined in European law—particularly the rights to erasure, to be forgotten, and to rectification—can be effectively exercised once information has been absorbed by machine learning models. The study examines the main legal and technical challenges arising from the nature of AI, which does not store data in a static form but transforms it into knowledge, thereby complicating its localisation, alteration, or deletion. It also analyses the relationship between the GDPR and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), emphasising their complementary roles and the need to ensure coherence between the two regulatory frameworks. From a legal and ethical standpoint, the paper considers phenomena inherent to AI systems—such as hallucinations, algorithmic bias, and neurodata—to illustrate how they challenge essential principles such as accuracy, minimisation, and purpose limitation, and how they test the rights of individuals in contexts where information cannot truly be “forgotten”. Finally, it proposes alternative mechanisms, mitigation strategies, and emerging solutions aimed at preserving individuals’ effective control over their data in the algorithmic age, thereby reinforcing privacy protection and public trust in the responsible use of new technologies.

Well, he does impact the stock market, but access to the betting sites might be more valuable.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-media-pitched-100000-monthly-fee-fast-feed-us-presidents-posts-ft-reports-2026-07-17/

Trump Media pitched $100,000 monthly fee for fastest feed of US president's posts, sources say

Are we learning to fear the drones?

https://thenextweb.com/news/pentagon-freezes-155-wind-projects-drone-threat

The Pentagon froze 155 wind projects in 24 states, claiming drones can hide in wind farms

The year-long freeze affects 44 gigawatts of capacity and has cost developers $2 billion. The wind industry says it is the latest political attack on renewables.

If something as simple as when the sun is directly overhead befuddles legislatures, what else are they getting wrong?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2026/07/16/daylight-saving-time-debate-reveals-science-literacy-hole/

Daylight Saving Time Debate Reveals Science Literacy Hole

The U.S. House recently passed the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill proposing permanent daylight saving time, though its passage in the Senate remains uncertain. This legislative debate has exposed a significant science literacy gap, with many mistakenly believing that adjusting clocks affects the actual amount of sunlight delivered to Earth. The article emphasizes that Daylight Saving Time and time zones are entirely human constructs. Clock changes simply shift daylight relative to our daily schedules, without altering natural factors like latitude, Earth's tilt, or seasons that truly determine daylight duration. A similar attempt at permanent DST in the 1970s was quickly abandoned, suggesting potential challenges ahead.

Still not ready for prime time.

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/18/ai-lawyers-judges-balancing-act

May (A)I approach the bench?

Judges are becoming AI firewalls, setting guidelines for lawyers and litigants entering their courtrooms and reprimanding those who fail to vet their research or cite fake AI-generated cases.

• But judges are also navigating how to use the tech themselves.

… Case in point: Last month, a federal judge in Mississippi punished four lawyers and canceled a civil trial after both sides cited fake, AI-generated cases. And it's not just lawyers who have faced heat.

• Damien Charlotin, a senior research fellow at HEC Paris, has identified more than 1,700 cases where generative AI hallucinated.

• On Thursday, a federal judge in Michigan accused the government of likely citing an AI-generated case in an immigration-related filing.

• While Chief Judge Hala Jarbou, a Trump appointee, did not impose sanctions, she wrote that "the Government must ensure its future filings with this Court do not include nonexistent case law."

Did I miss this earlier?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6985419

How to Maintain Our Privacy in the AI Age

This essay, written as part of the Wall Street Journal's USA250 series, argues that today's privacy laws aren't working because they put the onus on us to guard our data. This approach fails because digital technologies are too complicated for us to manage. Instead, to be effective, privacy laws must hold companies accountable. Whenever a company creates an unreasonable risk of harm through uses of data or through AI algorithms, the company must be held responsible. The essay proposes measures such as rigorous data minimization, fiduciary duties, liability for negligent or reckless technological design, liability for algorithms that cause harm, and multi-stakeholder review of technologies.

So where was the US? Is China winning by default?

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/twenty-nine-countries-sign-agreement-establish-global-ai-cooperation-body-2026-07-16/

Twenty-nine countries sign agreement to establish global AI cooperation body

Twenty-nine countries on Thursday signed an agreement to establish the World AI Cooperation Organization, ‌an intergovernmental body China says aims to promote international cooperation and global governance in artificial intelligence.

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)

Perhaps AI will control elections…

https://www.bespacific.com/a-new-ai-tool-lets-candidates-see-what-chatbots-are-telling-voters/

A New AI Tool Lets Candidates See What Chatbots Are Telling Voters

NOTUS: “In California’s gubernatorial primary, Tom Steyer had the biggest war chest in a crowded field of Democrats, spending more than $200 million out of his own pocket. But money alone wasn’t enough — he ended up placing third, falling just short in his quest to compete for November’s general election. A contributing factor, according to a case study shared with NOTUS, was the unflattering response voters were presented with when they asked artificial intelligence-powered chatbots about Steyer’s candidacy. In fact, according to most models, the billionaire was just lucky to have made it into the top three. “In ranked lists of working-class affordability candidates, AI explicitly placed him [Steyer] sixth. Cost-of-living: sixth. Education funding: sixth,” the progressive political organization Run for Something reported in its case study, which found that Reddit threads in r/California were frequently cited next to more established mainstream newsrooms like CalMatters. As the AI industry continues to pitch its nascent technology as a resource for voters in understanding complicated political matters, there’s little public insight into how models arrive at their conclusions, making it incredibly difficult for candidates and their campaigns to message through the increasingly popular medium…”

Once upon a time (before AI was common) I offered my students a choice of a conventional exam or an “open book, use the Internet, calculators required” exam. They tried the “open” exam once and found that it required far more effort than the conventional exam. Perhaps I should have insisted on teaching them to use all the tools available, but I backed off. I don’t think we should do that with AI.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/07/08/brown-professor-suspects-most-his-class-used-ai-cheat

Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat

For the first time since he started teaching Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory nearly two decades ago, Brown University economics professor Roberto Serrano gave his students a take-home midterm this spring

… But by the end of the semester, Serrano regretted the decision. Dozens of students in the class likely used artificial intelligence to cheat and earn perfect or near-perfect scores on their midterm, he said. Serrano in turn made the final exam in-person, which led more than a dozen students to drop the course and even more to fail it. Administrators’ response to the widespread cheating event has been “meek,” he said, and the incident has raised questions about how universities can—and should—respond to AI-enabled cheating at scale.

Everybody knows AI will cost jobs…

https://www.zdnet.com/article/high-intensity-adopters-of-ai-hiring-more-entry-level/

Companies embracing AI the most are hiring more people - including entry-level, report finds

A new study is pushing back on some of the most anxiety-inducing narratives around AI-driven job loss.

Companies embracing AI grew headcount by 10.2% in the two years following adoption, according to a paper out at the end of June from financial operations platform Ramp and workforce data company Revelio Labs.

The inevitable has arrived.

https://denverite.com/2026/07/08/denver-waymo-driverless-starts/

Waymo will go autonomous in Denver later this month

Waymo’s futuristic vans have been roaming Denver’s streets since September— with human supervisors to help the autonomous driving system get around the city.

Not for long, though. The vehicles will transition to “fully autonomous driving” in Denver and several other cities in the coming weeks, the company announced.

The company’s Ojai vehicles will initially offer driverless service to Waymo employees around areas like Five Points, Baker, Cherry Creek and something it called the “Arts District,” although it wasn’t clear if that meant Santa Fe.