Latest news with #ThomasPaine
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Business
- New Indian Express
Borne identity: Looming AI threat
This erasure will be deepened if AI culls jobs on a scale not seen for decades―and across the rank and file this time. AI was supposed to take over basic and repetitive tasks, leaving workers free to supervise machines or turn to higher things. Exactly the opposite is happening. AIs can write words and code, create images from words, analyse gigantic datasets and work in mathematics, science and music. Because they learn by mimicry, they can even write poetry and literary fiction in the manner of acclaimed writers. But for want of manual dexterity, AIs are no good for everyday work. They can make fast food because it's standardised, but they can't make a home-cooked meal. Disappointingly, while the household robot has been a stock character in science fiction, intelligent machines can't perform any household function reliably, except for keeping floors somewhat clean. Jobs deemed to be low-quality may prove to be durable while a lot of white-collar roles go to machines. Even industries like the press, which depend heavily on human instincts and originality, are being affected. The buzz is about 'liquid content'―text, graphics and other components formatted to be widely shared, which can be decanted into various formats and channels. Until fairly recently in India, there were curbs on cross-media holdings for fear that media houses would do precisely this, narrowing the variety of news sources and opinion. Besides, it was assumed that the 'nose for news' on which the whole business runs is a uniquely human attribute. But some Nordic media houses are training their own AIs by a simple process: their desk staff give a thumbs up or thumbs down to incoming news to teach the AI to be a news editor. The most persuasive evidence that AIs could take white-collar jobs comes from changing attitudes to universal basic income. The idea dates back to Thomas Paine in the late 18th century and enjoys some popularity in times of economic uncertainty. At other times, it has been dismissed as a handout. But over the last decade, as AI has surged, it is again being talked up. Elites drive policy everywhere, including in technology, and the change could suggest that they know that their own AIs could make them redundant. Speakeasy Pratik Kanjilal | Fellow, Henry J Leir Institute of Migration and Human Security, Fletcher School, Tufts University (Views are personal) (Tweets @pratik_k)
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How To Lead In Difficult Times
Leading through the storm (c) Mark Nevins via AI You may have heard the so-called Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times.' There's no evidence the saying comes from China, but it's memorable and ironic. We are certainly living in 'interesting times' right now. Indeed, as the American Patriot Thomas Paine famously wrote, these may feel like 'the times that try men's souls.' Tough times demand strong leadership. Leaders are forged not when things go well—but when they don't. Warren Bennis, one of the fathers of modern leadership studies, called these 'crucible moments.' I often tell my clients that if there's no change, we don't need leaders—we just need administrators. Change is challenging enough when we initiate it ourselves. It's harder still when it's imposed on us. If you're a fan of the old military acronym 'VUCA'—Volatile, Unpredictable, Chaotic, and Ambiguous—welcome to Q2 of 2025. Right now, many organizations are navigating conditions they didn't anticipate—and probably couldn't even have imagined. We are facing challenges we certainly can't control: economic headwinds and instability, policy shifts, operational uncertainty, and extremely unpredictability. In times like these, leadership requires more than execution. It requires presence. A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a client who's second-in-command at a midsize GovCon firm. As you can imagine given her industry, she was feeling the extreme strain of unclear priorities, financial pressures, and an overwhelmed team. 'I need to step back and figure out what the organization needs from me right now,'she said. That sentence—quiet and clear—was her turning point. In challenging times, the most important work is often internal. Resilience isn't about pushing harder; it's about grounding yourself so you don't get pulled off-center. It's easy to become reactive, to chase the latest fire drill. But great leaders stay focused. As Marcus Aurelius reminded us nearly two millennia ago: You have power over your own mind—even if you don't have power over outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. That strength makes space for discernment. The temptation in crisis is to drop into 'Do' mode—put out fires, solve problems, keep busy. But leadership is about more than doing. It's about prioritizing, aligning, and guiding. I like to use the framework 'Do–Manage–Lead.' Doing has limits. You can't scale yourself as a doer. You can only scale by leading and managing—by setting direction, developing others, allocating resources, and coaching your team. In difficult times, ask: Where should I spend my time? What are the few things only I can do? How can I help others stay calm and focused? One executive I work with sets aside 30 minutes each morning to reflect—no screens, no interruptions. 'If I don't do that,' she said, 'I'm just another firefighter with a bigger hose.' One of the best public company CEOs I've ever worked with instituted daily 30-minute team check-ins at the start of COVID. Priorities shifted quickly, and he knew alignment was critical. Each meeting was short, focused, and anchored in the classic Eisenhower Matrix—a.k.a., urgent vs. important. The cadence brought calm and clarity. But tactics aren't enough. Leadership in hard times is also emotional and demands resilience. Your team is watching how you show up. If you model balance, optimism, and clarity, they'll draw from that. Stay positive—but real. Celebrate small wins. Acknowledge progress. Remind people why their work matters. That kind of affirmation becomes fuel for your people not just to stay in the game but to put points on the board. A few years ago I coached a not-for-profit Executive Director whose organization was struggling through budget cuts. She began each team meeting by highlighting a story of impact: something their work had made possible. These weren't elaborate presentations—sometimes it was a single paragraph. But that reconnected the team to their mission, and it significantly changed the emotional temperature and optimism of her team and reminded them that their work had meaning. Tough times are also the right time to stay close to customers and stakeholders—even if doing so uncomfortable. One of my clients, a truly mission-driven firm in the government contracting space, is dealing with sudden cancellations and budget cuts, with no warning and often no logic. Yet they have committed to staying in touch with their customers— even when projects disappear and payments stop. That kind of loyalty gets remembered. When those clients are ready to re-engage, they'll return to the relationships that stayed strong during the storm. A few years ago I wrote a book with the subtitle 'Reinvent Yourself as a Leader Before Your Business Outruns You.' These days it often feels like the whole world is threatening to outrun us. Stay focused. Remain calm. Lean into what you can control and constantly inquire 'What Happens Now?' The best answer today may be different from yesterday's answer. Remember: you don't have to figure all of this out alone. Invite your team into the conversation. Ask questions. Listen well. Involving others builds commitment—and can surface ideas you may not see on your own. There's no playbook for leading through uncertainty, but there are principles. Stay centered. Lead, don't just Do. Align often and communicate clearly. Keep close connections with all your stakeholders. And when in doubt, ask: What does my organization need from me right now? That question won't always give you the answer. But it will inevitably point you in the right direction.
San Francisco Chronicle
02-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Hands off our courts': S.F. lawyers protest Trump attacks on judges, attorneys
One sign said, 'I (heart) the Constitution.' Another quoted Thomas Paine in 1776: 'In America the law is king.' A third riffed on President Donald Trump's MAGA slogan — it read, 'Making America Greatly Ashamed' — and called for Trump's impeachment. They were on view Thursday as about 1,000 lawyers and supporters gathered outside the federal courthouse on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco for a rally to commemorate Law Day, a national observance since 1958 that is typically low-key, and support the law firms and judges Trump has attacked for litigating and ruling against him. It was sponsored by the Bar Association of San Francisco and was one of more than 40 such events held nationwide. The goal was 'to sound an alarm for our system of government,' Charles Jung, president of the 5,000-member bar association, told the gathering. 'We are the last line of defense that shields against tyranny,' he said, before leading the lawyers in chants of 'Hands off our courts' and 'If lawyers fear, our rights disappear.' Lawyers have sometimes held small educational sessions to mark Law Day in San Francisco, but Thursday marked 'the first-of-its-kind national mobilization,' Jung said afterward. Trump has come under fire in the legal community for his responses to unfavorable court rulings. He has described judges who rule against his administration as 'radical Marxist lunatics' and called for their impeachment. In some cases he has appeared to defy their orders, ignoring a judge's command to return planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants who were being flown to El Salvador. On Thursday, another federal judge, Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of Texas, a Trump appointee, ruled that the president had illegally relied on a 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport Venezuelan migrants based on unsubstantiated claims that they belonged to a gang that was invading the United States. Teresa Statler, an immigration lawyer from Portland who flew to San Francisco for the rally, cited the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who was deported in what the Trump administration admitted was a bureaucratic error. The Supreme Court has told the administration to enable his return but it has not done so. 'The government must obey the law and facilitate his return, which is not happening,' Statler said in an interview. Nearby, Emily Murphy, a law professor at UC College of the Law in San Francisco, held up a sign that read, 'Due Process, Not Disappearances.' Trump has also targeted law firms that have opposed him in court, ordering their government contracts canceled and barring their attorneys from entering federal courthouses. At least nine firms have avoided those penalties by agreeing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on legal work that Trump supports, but four other firms — cheered at Thursday's rally — have fought him in court and won rulings blocking the sanctions. Another sign displayed by Christen Somerville, a San Francisco attorney, sought to remind her colleagues that history would judge their willingness to stand up for justice. It read, 'They will ask, Where were the lawyers? Where were the judges?' San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, a speaker at the rally, said this has been 'the most disturbing first 100 days of the presidency in our country's history,' citing Trump's 'war on transgender' people and his opposition to environmental protections. 'You are dismantling our government and our democracy,' he said. The gathering also included former lawyers such as Lisa Lougee of San Francisco, who said tennis was her current pastime. Her sign showed a racket-holding tennis player with the message, 'Get Out of Our Courts.'
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Rule of Law Has Seen Better Days
Thomas Paine Common Sense, 1776 Aristotle Politics, 4th century B.C. Both of these articulations of the rule of law are referenced in the late Justice Antonin Scalia's classic February 1989 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. lecture at Harvard University, and they are sorely needed today. On Saturday, almost precisely 36 years after Scalia's speech, President Donald Trump offered up a quotation of his own: 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.' Apparently originating with Napoleon Bonaparte, Trump here is brashly embracing the idea of personalistic rule. Just weeks into his second administration, the returning president has made clear that he believes rule-following is a sucker's game in a town where the rules have been set by corrupted interests. With truly astonishing frankness, he is willing to raise the question of whether law is unable to offer the American people the government they deserve, making a resort to personal rule strictly necessary. If America's basic commitment to the rule of law is to survive Trump's challenge to it, it is going to need defenders in many quarters, some of which would be quite unexpected sources of 'resistance.' To understand why Trump believes he can get away with expressing such contempt for our rule of law tradition, we must start by admitting that presidents of both parties have been eroding it for quite a while. The George W. Bush administration gave us 'extraordinary rendition' in response to the horrific September 11 attacks, and a debate raged during his presidency over whether the president was actually bound by the statutes he signed into law. Barack Obama became the 'pen and phone' president once Republicans secured control of the House of Representatives, refashioning immigration law on the basis of his administration's ability to decline prosecution and undertaking an ambitious climate change program on the basis of decades-old law. Trump forced a government shutdown during his first term when Congress refused to allocate funding for his border wall, only to end that standoff because he decided instead to declare a national emergency that allowed him to reprogram defense and homeland security funds. Joe Biden didn't like the legislative prospects for student loan relief, an eviction moratorium, or a vaccine mandate, so he devised plans that went around Congress. As executive power expands, Americans' faith in the lawmaking process as the pillar of a free republic has been ebbing—with disastrous consequences. Take, for example, the national debt. Trump and his allies have been sounding the alarm about America's out-of-control annual deficits—indeed, this is the major justification for the new administration's aggressive, legally dubious firings and apparent unilateral decisions to end various programs established by law—yet their supposed concern about the debt has not resulted in any attempts to seriously tackle our fiscal woes through the exercise of Congress' power of the purse. The congressional budget process, put in place a half century ago with the aim of enabling balanced budgets, has become a ridiculous joke used only to access reconciliation bills that push aside the Senate's filibuster (and often enable greater deficit spending, even if accounting gimmicks paper over this reality). The idea that the budget committees should shoulder the responsibility of charting an actual path toward fiscal responsibility has become a quaint relic of a more innocent time, and appropriators, who used to pride themselves on being the real power brokers in Washington, have mostly resigned themselves to doing their best to maintain the status quo. The situation along the southern border is another crisis demanding congressional action, but here too, executive action has reigned supreme. The Trump administration's use of Title 42 expulsions during the COVID-19 pandemic effectively shut down the border for the latter half of 2020, and Biden continued this policy for his first two years in office before seeking to terminate it. Republican lawmakers furiously denounced the Biden administration for trying to end the measure—warning (correctly) that it would cause a flood of unchecked border crossings—but refused to legislate on the issue, even after a bipartisan group of senators released a framework and Biden became desperate for a deal ahead of the 2024 election. For the GOP, giving political comfort to their opponents in an election year proved to be too much of an ask. Whether Republican control of both chambers of Congress in 2025 will lead to legislative progress on the issue or lawmakers will simply cheer on whatever solutions Trump may fashion out of whole cloth remains to be seen. As the art of legislating falls into disrepair, is there any way to slow the acceleration of executive aggrandizement that has effectively put us into the realm of personalistic government rather than a system in which publicly debated and contested laws are sovereign? James Madison famously predicted that our constitutional separation of powers would be sustained by 'ambition counteracting ambition' rather than 'parchment barriers,' but congressional ambitions on behalf of legislative prerogatives are hard to discern at present. Ironically, the most likely sources of effective 'resistance' to the second Trump administration's attempts to transcend the law—at least in the short term—come from several judicial doctrines that have matured over the past decade, and which progressives have bitterly denounced as opportunistic power grabs by conservative judges: the major questions doctrine, and the end of judicial deference to executive branch interpretations. The Supreme Court beat back several of Biden's most aggressive unilateral executive actions on the basis of the major questions doctrine, which was anticipated by Scalia's pronouncement, in a 2001 concurrence, that Congress does not 'hide elephants in mouseholes.' To have adequate legal authority to launch a major new initiative, the executive branch will now need to be able to point to a clear grant of authority from Congress; open-ended language that can be plausibly twisted into service will not be enough. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court also reversed the decades-old precedent of Chevron deference, under which judges were supposed to defer to all agency interpretations that seemed reasonably consistent with the statutory language. In their decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo last year, the justices made clear they would like to see the executive branch govern by the actual content of the law, hopefully curtailing the typical pattern of policies flipping 180 degrees depending on who is in the White House. One of the most important relationships to watch during the second Trump administration will be between the MAGA enthusiasts who are thrilled by Trump's refusal to be hemmed in by inconvenient laws and the Federalist Society conservatives who prize our constitutional structure and the rule of law. The first Trump administration made enough compromises with the latter group to keep it largely satisfied, at least until after the 2020 election. The Federalist Society was a dominant influence in Trump's selection of judges in his first term, but there are now plenty of Trump supporters eager to suggest that this alliance was a terrible strategic mistake. Trump-appointed judges are going to play a pivotal role in determining whether Trump is allowed to leave the law behind. The most spectacular fights are likely to be those around Congress' power of the purse, which is supposed to be the ultimate safeguard of republican government—the legislature's trump card. Trump apparently wants to push for the power to impound congressional spending, such that Congress would only set ceilings for spending items rather than getting to dictate specific amounts. If such a power were affirmed, the president would effectively get to rewrite every legislative bargain after the fact, and the art of coalition-building in service of those bargains would be seriously degraded. Even so, Congress would retain the power not to fund something—but given the way Trump approached the border wall funding controversy in 2019, that more fundamental check seems likely to be tested as well. What if GOP lawmakers simply cannot manage to pass any significant part of Trump's legislative priorities on a party-line vote—a real possibility given the party's narrow margins in both chambers? In a healthy system, the administration would simply admit the need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to build a winning coalition, including a significant number of Democrats. But the way Trump and many of his allies have talked in recent weeks suggests that they might simply insist that their mandate from the American people entitles them to do what they see fit, such that any compromise with the opposition would be an unacceptable failure to 'save the country.' In that case, legislative irrelevance would become a permanent precedent whenever a president is willing to allege existential stakes. We would have something much closer to plebiscitarian dictatorship than republican rule of law. We are not there yet, but with a president who now openly muses about the virtues of such a regime shift, it is getting easier to imagine.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Life, Liberty, and the Right To Shitpost
Expression has never been more convenient. Censorship has never been easier. From research papers on arXiv to mukbang videos on YouTube, digital content is easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes, enterprising bureaucrats, and the self-appointed speech police work to hide heretical ideas and shape information flows. Expressive freedom is foundational to America. Our forefathers were experts at writing scandalous articles, drawing salacious cartoons, and distributing satirical pamphlets. Some of this was done with their real names, but many preferred anonymity. Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton were some of the original anonymous shitposters. People always bemoan advances in technology, usually claiming that each new medium creates problems requiring the state to step in and protect incumbents. Generative AI is such a technological advance, and many are working to tame its expressive potential. Limiting AI would mean accepting a more sanitized and controlled world, as well as capitulating on America's value of expressive freedom. Efforts to homogenize or hinder generative AI's development or to constrain it must be opposed. Americans must defend their right to shitpost. Generative AI's Promise and Peril Generative AI is a force multiplier for creative expression. Just as earlier technologies such as the printing press lowered barriers to creative endeavors, today's newest expressive tools are cutting the time it takes to illustrate a book or mix a new beat. This follows the trajectory of other software advances such as word processing and grammar checks, video editing, and Photoshop: functional improvements that lower barriers to creating and sharing novel content. Generative models represent a step up from these earlier developments, as they are easy to use, enable skill enhancement, and have the potential for long-term benefits. These tools save time, personalize output, and support expression. Despite its benefits, AI will inevitably be misused. In 2024, deepfaked nude images of Taylor Swift spread like wildfire on social media—an appalling violation that many people experience. We cannot sweep these harms under the rug but we also cannot allow misuse to overshadow enormous potential. Handling the abuses of AI should be focused on mitigating harmful acts rather than imposing controls on speech-promoting technologies. No, It Can't Do That! Polling done by the AI-focused nonprofit Fathom found that the proliferation of AI-generated deepfakes and misinformation are among Americans' greatest concerns about AI. These concerns give legislators an opportunity to lock down these tools in pursuit of fairness and safety. But the most visible threat to the right to shitpost comes not from proposed laws but from lawsuits brought by incumbent industries over the presence of copyrighted materials in datasets used by AI developers. Lawsuits from creatives and corporations could threaten AI model development if courts are receptive to their arguments. A compulsory licensing regime that many rights holders seek would disadvantage U.S. developers and grant the rights holders total control over model training. Considering copyright maximalists' history of bringing lawsuits that stymie speech, this deluge of litigation could, at best, create a system where AI developers would have to pay enormous royalties to rights holders. At its worst, such a push could enable media and creative incumbents to dictate training and even downstream uses of AI, which would inhibit the general public's freedom of expression. Bills that allow people to sue someone for invoking their identity are having a moment. These "right of publicity" laws introduce legal liability for using an individual's name, image, or likeness without their permission. While traditionally limited to commercial use of someone's likeness, legislation has been proposed at the federal level and enacted in some states that would make it much easier for people to sue for any unauthorized use of their likeness. This could create another avenue for chilling speech, particularly for critical forms of expression. Imagine needing President Donald Trump or former Vice President Kamala Harris' permission before generating a satirical cartoon of them. Concerns about deepfakes should be taken seriously, but legislation should focus on tangible harms or acts of illegality. One of the most problematic uses of generative AI is to create synthetic child pornography. Legislation such as the SHIELD Act would make the creation and distribution of this content illegal, extending existing law covering sexual exploitation of real children. A similar approach could be taken for using generative content for other harmful activities such as fraud. In most instances, we should be seeking to clarify the law and provide recourse for those who are tangibly harmed, but not unduly saddle AI developers and users with liability. The most diffuse threat to generative AI's support of speech comes from rules and regulations attacking "algorithmic bias" and extending liability to developers for users' behavior. Legislators at the state and federal levels have proposed laws that would require pre-deployment testing and post-deployment monitoring to ensure AI models are not contributing to discrimination. Similar language permeated the Biden administration's Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which called for model developers to conduct "equity assessments" as well as proactively prevent models from creating harm that is "unintended, but foreseeable." Intent matters. As with concerns about the right to publicity, addressing concerns around discrimination should be grounded in existing law related to identifying discriminatory intent. If a model is designed to intentionally discriminate against a certain protected class, then it would already violate existing civil rights laws. Putting guardrails on how models can respond to queries related to controversial topics—whether through hard law (government legislation or regulation) or soft law (nonbinding codes of conduct or commitments induced by nongovernment organizations)—embraces a paternalism that is unlikely to produce better outcomes. Transparency in how models are built, including around training data and architectural choices, would be a more honest and potentially powerful commitment to fairness. The Right To Shitpost Is the Right to Think America's tradition of free speech stems from a rejection of Old World censorship as the Founders sought to build a society where dissent, debate, and diverse viewpoints could thrive. The right to mock, parody, satirize, and poke fun at those in power—the right to shitpost—is foundational to the American ethos. Currently, the creative and expressive potential of AI is less restrained by some vague principles encoded by developers; the bigger constraint is the person sitting at a keyboard. The utility one can derive from an AI system is dependent on the user's knowledge, creativity, and use of prompting techniques. The iterative improvement of models requires people to use them in ways that may not have been previously envisioned by their developers, which should be celebrated rather than denigrated. There will be downsides. However, rigid laws and top-down controls that impact model capability will necessarily limit the expressive benefits of generative AI. Evolution based on market signals that are informed by user preferences will create a product that is more in line with people's interests. Cutting off the ability for an AI to learn just because it could support heretical speech or ideas goes against the spirit of the First Amendment and allows a select few to hold a veto over technology and, by extension, free expression. In a recent essay, First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh examined the shift between early software development and today's world of algorithms. In the earlier period, developers built products that put users in control, such as word processors and browsers. But today's platform and app developers impose a top-down experience rife with opportunities for jawboning and censorship. He proposes a return to the era of "user sovereignty," where we can use digital tools freely, as opposed to our current environment, where digital tools are controlled by others. The ability to harness language, images, and music in ways that were out of reach for many has the potential to unlock a new era of content production and consumption. Empowering people to leverage generative AI to discover new skills and share their creations is an exciting opportunity to advance humanity's pursuit of knowledge and creativity—two virtues integral to a living and thriving public. Defending people's ability to build and use such technology unencumbered is a path worth following. We must defend the right to shitpost. The post Life, Liberty, and the Right To Shitpost appeared first on
