#AI Ethics

#AI Ethics

We've started to notice all these things in Meta advertising, where the majority of our marketing spend is. Things like your text being used to train AI, and more and more AI things you have to opt out of - like AI pictures and AI videos that can alter the image of the thing you've uploaded quite dramatically. You have to opt out of each one, individually, every time you post something.

Rivera creditsthe creation of courses focusing on the intersection of AI and humanities with a resurgence in student interest in liberal arts degrees like English. Pre-pandemic, the number of English majors at the university was shrinking,part of a broader decline in English across the country, he said. It was a far cry from the days of over 1,500 majors and long waitlists in the early 2000s, according to Rivera. But there's been a rebound, with the number of English majors rising 9% since 2021.

We are living through one of the most disorienting periods in recorded history. The AI race is accelerating toward ever faster, ever more sophisticated automation and optimization. Agentic AI systems are moving from research labs into workplaces, healthcare, and governance. Geopolitical tensions are restructuring alliances faster than institutions can adapt. And planetary systems are signaling, with increasing urgency, that our current trajectory is unsustainable. Amid all this, it is dangerously easy to lose sight of a foundational question: What are we actually optimizing for?

"We are deeply troubled by leaked documentation revealing that Salesforce has pitched AI technology to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help the agency 'expeditiously' hire 10,000 new agents and vet tip-line reports," the letter reads. "Providing 'Agentforce' infrastructure to scale a mass deportation agenda that currently detains 66,000 people-73 percent of whom have no criminal record-represents a fundamental betrayal of our commitment to the ethical use of technology."

OpenAI's decision to introduce advertisements into ChatGPT has sparked serious concerns about privacy, trust, and the ethical complexities of monetizing artificial intelligence. This shift marks a dramatic departure from earlier assurances by OpenAI's leadership, who once described pairing ads with AI as a "last resort." For users who rely on ChatGPT for everything from brainstorming ideas to sharing sensitive information, the implications of this change feel deeply personal, and potentially unsettling.

"Overly affectionate chatbots, besides being ever-present and readily available, can become hidden architects of our emotional states, thereby invading and occupying the sphere of people's intimacy," the first-ever US-born pope wrote. "All stakeholders - from the technology industry to policymakers, from creative businesses to academia, from artists to journalists and educators - must be involved in building and implementing a conscious and responsible digital citizenship," the pope wrote.

The Human Artistry Campaign's " Stealing Isn't Innovation " movement launches today with over 800 signatories. Those include many Hollywood actors, including Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as well as writers such as Jodi Picoult and Roxane Gay, and musicians like Cyndi Lauper and They Might be Giants. The campaign has a simple message: "Stealing our work is not innovation. It's not progress. It's theft-plain and simple."

This is not a novelty feature. It's a strategic choice. And at scale, it represents something far more dangerous than a questionable product decision. WHY AI COMPANIES ARE ENCOURAGING INTIMACY Romance is the most powerful engagement mechanism ever discovered. A user who treats AI as a tool can leave. A user who treats it as a companion cannot. Emotional attachment produces longer sessions, repeat engagement, dependency, and vast amounts of deeply personal data.

This past fall, OpenAI, the source of the ChatGPT app that 800 million people now use every week, chose to restructure its organization to prioritize generating revenue for stakeholders over providing ethical and objective information for the world. Reporter Frank Landymore summarized the decision: "The move completes the company's metamorphosis: from its origins as a non-profit devoted to developing open source AI technology for the betterment of humankind to the closed-source, profit- seeking juggernaut that it is today, with its staggering half-trillion dollar valuation."

If you don't know it, Ecclesiastes is a collection of Old Testament verses in which the eponymous title character discourses on the apparent meaninglessness of pleasure, accomplishment, wealth, politics, and life itself in the face of the infinitude of the universe and the absolute perfection of God. It is the source of many of our most cliched phrases, such as there is a time for everything and there is nothing new under the sun.