Justice Department Finds ‘Deeply Disturbing’ and Illegal Policing in Minneapolis

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A report by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division concluded that the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) used unreasonable and excessive force, discriminated against black and Native American residents, and retaliated against reporters and citizens who recorded the police, violating their First Amendment rights.”

California’s Latest Tax-the-Rich Scheme: Electric Bills Based on Income

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Electric power customers typically pay more if they use more. Under a new law, customers of California’s three largest private utilities will be charged a fixed fee based on their incomes, not just how much power they use. The chief motivation behind this scheme is to provide some relief to low-income customers who are being hammered by escalating electricity rates as the Golden State transitions from fossil fuels to wind and solar power.”

…

“the value of the investments in energy efficiency already made by millions of Californians will be undercut. For example, consider a high income customer who has put in better insulation, bought energy-sparing appliances, or even installed a solar energy system and thereby cut his monthly electric bill to $50 per month. His cost for electricity is now $600 annually. The 42 percent cut in his rates lowers that to $348 per year, but the total fixed fee is $1,536. That results in more than tripling his bill to $1,884 annually.*”

A.I. Needs Section 230 To Flourish

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Sens. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.) want to strangle generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) infants like ChatGPT and Bard in their cribs. How? By stripping them of the protection of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which reads, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
“Section 230 embodies that principle that we should all be responsible for our own actions and statements online, but generally not those of others,” explains the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The law prevents most civil suits against users or services that are based on what others say.” By protecting free speech, Section 230 enables the proliferation and growth of online platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yelp and allows them to function as robust open forums for the exchange of information and for debate, both civil and not. Section 230 also protects other online services ranging from dating apps like Tinder and Grindr to service recommendation sites like Tripadvisor and Healthgrades.

Does Section 230 shield new developing A.I. services like ChatGPT from civil lawsuits in much the same way that it has protected other online services? Jess Miers, legal advocacy counsel at the tech trade group the Chamber of Progress, makes a persuasive case that it does. Over at Techdirt, she notes that ChatGPT qualifies as an interactive computer service and is not a publisher or speaker. “Like Google Search, ChatGPT is entirely driven by third-party input. In other words, ChatGPT does not invent, create, or develop outputs absent any prompting from an information content provider (i.e. a user).”

One commenter at Techdirt asked what will happen “when ChatGPT designs buildings that fall down.” Properly answered: “The responsibility will be on the idiots who approved and built a faulty building designed by a chatbot.” That is roughly the situation of a couple of New York lawyers who recently filed a legal brief compiled by ChatGPT in which the language model “hallucinated” numerous nonexistent precedent cases. And just as he should, the presiding judge is holding them responsible and deciding what punishments they may deserve. (Their client might also be interested in pursuing a lawsuit for legal malpractice.)”

The Rail Safety Act Is About Union Handouts, Not Safety

Posted on by Lone Candle

“After many years of working in the policy world, I have concluded that politics is at most 10 percent about making the world better and safer. The rest is at least 45 percent theater and 45 percent catering to special interest groups. Further evidence for my assessment comes from the recent grandstanding in the U.S. Senate on rail safety.
One reason why so much of what comes out of Congress is useless, if not straight up destructive, boils down to incentives. Politicians need something they can brag about when they seek reelection or election to higher office. Meanwhile, legislators are constantly surrounded by special interests who plead for government-granted privilege such as subsidies, loan guarantees, tariffs, or regulations cleverly designed to hamstring competitors. Politicians rarely hear from the victims of their policies. Few voters can trace the origin of the higher prices they pay and the lower living standards they suffer.”

The Vast Majority of People Who Want To Immigrate to the U.S. Have No Legal Option

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Today’s legal immigration system is drastically different than what it was historically. Post-independence, the U.S. took a broadly liberal approach to welcoming newcomers. “Even when it finally adopted some rules in the late 19th century, immigrants were presumed eligible for permanent residence unless the government showed that they fell into specific and usually narrow ineligible categories,” writes Bier.
Now, would-be migrants have to prove their eligibility based on strict prerequisites that vanishingly few can fulfill. That shift hasn’t reduced demand for migration pathways—it’s just created a black market, much like other forms of prohibition. Rather than looking to a sensible, straightforward, and sanctioned visa application process, migrants of many stripes look to smugglers and illegal entry to reach American soil. This has made their journeys far more dangerous (and, in many cases, deadly).”