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New report outlines risks of artificial intelligence in early
Court Line |
2025/01/26 02:03
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Advanced artificial intelligence systems have the potential to create extreme new risks, such as fueling widespread job losses, enabling terrorism or running amok, experts said in a first-of-its-kind international report Wednesday cataloging the range of dangers posed by the technology.
The International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI is being released ahead of a major AI summit in Paris next month. The paper is backed by 30 countries including the U.S. and China, marking rare cooperation between the two countries as they battle over AI supremacy, highlighted by Chinese startup DeepSeek stunning the world this week with its budget chatbot in spite of U.S. export controls on advanced chips to the country.
The report by a group of independent experts is a “synthesis” of existing research intended to help guide officials working on drawing up guardrails for the rapidly advancing technology, Yoshua Bengio, a prominent AI scientist who led the study, told the Associated Press in an interview.
“The stakes are high,” the report says, noting that while a few years ago the best AI systems could barely spit out a coherent paragraph, now they can write computer programs, generate realistic images and hold extended conversations.
While some AI harms are already widely known, such as deepfakes, scams and biased results, the report said that “as general-purpose AI becomes more capable, evidence of additional risks is gradually emerging” and risk management techniques are only in their early stages.
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Man Charged with Stalking Caitlin Clark Declares Guilt
Court Line |
2025/01/22 02:04
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A Texas man, Michael Thomas Lewis, 55, faces felony stalking charges for allegedly harassing Caitlin Clark, the WNBA rookie of the year and Indiana Fever star. During his initial court appearance on Tuesday, Lewis shouted, "guilty as charged," before exhibiting erratic behavior, including laughing and joking, as reported by WISH-TV Indianapolis. He also disclosed he had not been taking his medication while in custody or living in his car.
Prosecutors allege Lewis began harassing Clark on December 16, repeatedly contacting her and posting disturbing messages on social media. Some posts were sexually explicit and included threats, which authorities say caused Clark to feel terrorized and intimidated. In one post, Lewis mentioned driving by Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the Fever play, and joked about being close to a stalking charge.
Lewis allegedly traveled from Texas to Indianapolis to be near Clark, prompting prosecutors to request a higher bond. The court set his bond at $50,000, with conditions requiring him to wear an ankle monitor and stay in Indiana if released. He is also barred from coming within 500 feet of the Fever’s home arenas.
The court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, with Judge Angela Davis advising him to remain silent and communicate only with his attorney. A remote pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 31. |
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Americans’ trust in nation’s court system hits record low, survey finds
Court Line |
2025/01/14 01:42
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At a time of heightened political division, Americans’ confidence in their country’s judicial system and courts dropped to a record low of 35% this year, according to a new Gallup poll.
The United States saw a sharp drop of 24 percentage points over the last four years, setting the country apart from other wealthy nations where most people on average still express trust in their systems.
The results come after a tumultuous period that included the overturning of the nationwide right to abortion, the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the subsequent withdrawal of federal charges, and his attacks on the integrity of the judicial system.
The drop wasn’t limited to one end of the political spectrum. Confidence dropped among people who disapproved of the country’s leadership during Joe Biden’s presidency and among those who approved, according to Gallup. The respondents weren’t asked about their party affiliations.
It’s become normal for people who disapprove of the country’s leadership to also lose at least some confidence in the court system. Still, the 17-point drop recorded among that group under Biden was precipitous, and the cases filed against Trump were likely factors, Gallup said.
Among those who did approve of the country’s leadership, there was an 18-point decline between 2023 and 2024, possibly reflecting dissatisfaction with court rulings favoring Trump, Gallup found. Confidence in the judicial system had been above 60% among that group during the first three years of Biden’s presidency but nosedived this year.
Trump had faced four criminal indictments this year, but only a hush-money case in New York ended with a trial and conviction before he won the presidential race.
Since then, special counsel Jack Smith has ended his two federal cases, which pertained to Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and allegations that he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. A separate state election interference case in Fulton County, Georgia, is largely on hold. Trump denies wrongdoing in all.
Other Gallup findings have shown that Democrats’ confidence in the Supreme Court dropped by 25 points between 2021 and 2022, the year the justices overturned constitutional protections for abortion. Their trust climbed a bit, to 34%, in 2023, but dropped again to 24% in 2024. The change comes after a Supreme Court opinion that Trump and other former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution.
Trust in the court among Republicans, by contrast, reached 71% in 2024.
The judicial system more broadly also lost public confidence more quickly than many other U.S. institutions over the last four years. Confidence in the federal government, for example, also declined to 26%. That was a 20-point drop ? not as steep as the decline in confidence in the courts.
The trust drop is also steep compared with other countries around the world. Only a handful of other countries have seen larger drops during a four-year period. They include a 46-point drop in Myanmar during the period that overlapped the return of military rule in 2021, a 35-point drop in Venezuela amid deep economic and political turmoil from 2012 to 2016 and a 28-point drop in Syria in the runup and early years of its civil war.
The survey was based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,000 U.S. adults between June 28 and August 1.
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Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to murder and weapons charges
Court Line |
2024/12/24 11:46
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The man accused of fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare pleaded not guilty on Monday to state murder and terror charges while his attorney complained that comments coming from New York’s mayor would make it tough to receive a fair trial.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was shackled and seated in a Manhattan court when he leaned over to a microphone to enter his plea. The Manhattan district attorney charged him last week with multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism.
Mangione’s initial appearance in New York’s state trial court was preempted by federal prosecutors bringing their own charges over the shooting. The federal charges could carry the possibility of the death penalty, while the maximum sentence for the state charges is life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first. One of Mangione’s attorneys told a judge that the “warring jurisdictions” had turned Mangione into a “human ping-pong ball” and that New York City Mayor Eric Adams and other government officials had made him a political pawn, robbing him of his rights as a defendant and tainting the jury pool.
“I am very concerned about my client’s right to a fair trial,” lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said.
Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stood among a throng of heavily armed officers last Thursday when Mangione was flown to a Manhattan heliport and escorted up a pier after being extradited from Pennsylvania.
Friedman Agnifilo said police turned Mangione’s return to New York into a choreographed spectacle. She called out Adams’ comment to a local TV station that he wanted to be there to look “him in the eye and say, ‘you carried out this terroristic act in my city.’”
“He was on display for everyone to see in the biggest stage perp walk I’ve ever seen in my career. It was absolutely unnecessary,” she said.
She also accused federal and state prosecutors of advancing conflicting legal theories, calling their approach confusing and highly unusual.
In a statement, Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus wrote: “Critics can say all they want, but showing up to support our law enforcement and sending the message to New Yorkers that violence and vitriol have no place in our city is who Mayor Eric Adams is to his core.”
“The cold-blooded assassination of Brian Thompson — a father of two — and the terror it infused on the streets of New York City for days has since been sickeningly glorified, shining a spotlight on the darkest corners of the internet,” Mamelak Altus said.
State trial court Judge Gregory Carro said he has little control over what happens outside the courtroom, but can guarantee Mangione will receive a fair trial.
Authorities say Mangione gunned down Thompson as he was walking to an investor conference in midtown Manhattan on the morning of Dec 4.
Mangione was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s after a five-day search, carrying a gun that matched the one used in the shooting and a fake ID, police said. He also was carrying a notebook expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and especially wealthy executives, according to federal prosecutors.
At a news conference last week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the application of the terrorism law reflected the severity of a “frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation.”
“In its most basic terms, this was a killing that was intended to evoke terror,” he added.
Mangione is being held in a Brooklyn federal jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried.
During his court appearance Monday, he smiled at times when talking with his attorneys and stretched his right hand after an officer removed his cuffs.
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TikTok asks Supreme Court to temporarily block law that could ban site in U.S.
Court Line |
2024/12/15 22:51
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TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agreed to sell it.
Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged the justices to step in before the law’s Jan. 19 deadline. A similar plea was filed by content creators who rely on the platform for income and some of TikTok’s more than 170 million users in the U.S.
“A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,” lawyers for the companies told the Supreme Court.
President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported a ban but then pledged during the campaign to “save TikTok,” said his administration would take a look at the situation.
“As you know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. His campaign saw the platform as a way to reach younger, less politically engaged voters.
Trump was meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, according to two people familiar with the president-elect’s plans who were not authorized to speak publicly about them and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The companies have said that a shutdown lasting just a month would cause TikTok to lose about a third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.
The case could attract the court’s interest because it pits free speech rights against the government’s stated aims of protecting national security, while raising novel issues about social media platforms.
The request first goes to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals from courts in the nation’s capital. He almost certainly will seek input from all nine justices.
On Friday, a panel of federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied an emergency plea to block the law, a procedural ruling that allowed the case to move to the Supreme Court. |
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