Late last week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned Trump against the EO, advising him to “leave AI to the states” to preserve federalism and allow local protections.

Since Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza in 2023, several nations – including Japan, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain – have moved to enact various arms embargoes against Israel. The US, which has supported, supplied, and financed Israel’s assault, could now help backfill any weapons that Israel may be missing, under the defense bill released Sunday night.

A provision buried deep in the proposed National Defense Authorization Act calls for the “continual assessment of [the] impact of international state arms embargoes on Israel and actions to address defense capability gaps.”

The measure can be found more than 1,000 pages into the 3,000-page NDAA. The bill is considered a piece of must-pass legislation, and is expected to move quickly. The massive bill typically passes with bipartisan support.

The EU Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse, first published in May 2022, has become the "most criticized law of all time". Here's how to stop it now!

Unlike his other products, it’s not powered by Steam.

The European Union is investigating Google for potential antitrust violations related to its AI models.

'User Alignment Critic' will review agentic actions so bots don't do things like emptying your bank account

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed an executive order designating one of the country’s most prominent Muslim civil rights groups, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), as a “foreign terrorist organisation,” citing their alleged support for the Palestinian group Hamas.

DeSantis became the second high-profile Republican governor to make a similar move in recent weeks. The designation, which triggers heightened oversight by state law enforcement agencies and establishes financial and operational restrictions, was also declared against the Muslim Brotherhood last month.

CAIR, which has denied any ties to Hamas, was expected to announce a lawsuit against Florida.

TLDR: It's compatible with other copy-left licenses like GPLv3. However, it's available in multiple languages, which technically makes it more applicable.

I started using it for my own project. If you want a practical example: https://github.com/TimoKats/emmer

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12537

Consumer advocates on Tuesday called on the Federal Trade Commission and state officials to investigate artificial intelligence-enabled pricing experiments used by Instacart, the grocery shopping app millions of Americans rely on, that charge up to 23% more for some shoppers than others when they buy the same item at the same store.

Consumer Reports joined the advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative and the labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union to uncover Instacart's pricing experiments enabled by Eversight, an AI pricing software that Instacart acquired in 2022. The company's CEO said last year that the experiments have helped the company “to really figure out which categories of products our customers [are] more price sensitive on"—in other words, to tailor prices based on a customer's shopping habits, whether they're near a competing store, and other factors.

The groups' study, Same Cart, Different Price, describes how researchers ran five tests with 437 participants, studying the prices of a basket of items bought at two Target stores and three Safeway stores using Instacart.

In one test at a Safeway in Washington, DC, shoppers logged on to the app to buy a carton of eggs from the same brand at the same time and found that the price they were given varied widely. Some shoppers were charged just $3.99 for the eggs, while others saw a price as high as $4.79—20% higher.

Shoppers at a Safeway in Seattle saw a 23% difference in prices for Skippy peanut butter, Oscar Mayer turkey, and Wheat Thins crackers. At two different Safeways in Washington, DC, Instacart quoted shoppers at one store a price that was 23% higher than at another for Signature Select Corn Flakes.

"It’s time for Instacart to close the lab. Americans shopping for groceries aren’t guinea pigs and shouldn't have to pay an Instacart tax.”

For the same basket of groceries, shoppers at the Seattle store were asked to pay as much as $123.93, while others were charged just $114.34.

"The average price variations observed in the study could cost a household of four about $1,200 per year," said Groundwork.

Justin Brookman, director of tech policy at Consumer Reports, said Instacart's tactics "hurt families who are simply trying to purchase essential groceries."

"At a time when everyday Americans are struggling with high prices, it is particularly egregious to see corporations secretly conducting individual experiments to see how much a person is willing to pay," said Brookman. "Companies must be transparent and upfront with people about pricing, so that they can make informed choices and keep more of their hard-earned money. We encourage the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to investigate Instacart’s pricing tactics."

Groundwork noted that Instcart's website acknowledges that it runs price tests, but states that "shoppers are not aware that they’re in an experiment" and are having their grocery prices selected for them via algorithm.

While Instacart has claimed its price experiments are "negligible," the groups emphasized that they're being used "against the backdrop of the fastest increase in food prices since the late 1970s."

After previous reporting on companies' use of "shrinkflation," "dynamic pricing," and other practices that keep prices high even as pandemic-era labor and supply chain issues have subsided, "today’s report shows Instacart’s experiments are yet another way corporate pricing tactics are squeezing American families," said Groundwork.

The study did not find evidence that Instacart is giving shoppers different prices based on their ZIP code or income, as companies like Amazon, Delta Air Lines, and Home Deport have been accused of doing.

But the groups said Eversight gives the company the capability to use that data to make pricing decisions tailored to particular shoppers.

“Instacart is quietly running pricing experiments on millions of shoppers during the worst grocery affordability crisis in a generation, and it’s costing households as much as $1,200 a year,” said Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens. “They have turned the simple act of buying groceries into a high-tech game of pricing roulette. When the same box of Wheat Thins can jump 23% in price because of an algorithm, that’s not innovation or convenience, it’s unfair. It’s time for Instacart to close the lab. Americans shopping for groceries aren’t guinea pigs and shouldn't have to pay an Instacart tax.”

The groups credited some state and federal lawmakers who have begun to take notice of pricing practices like Instacart's; US Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) introduced the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act in July with the aim of prohibiting the use of automated systems to set prices. New York has enacted the first-of-its-kind Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act, which requires companies to prominently disclose to customers, "This price was set by an algorithm using your personal data" when they use methods like Instacart's. Other state legislation has been introduced in Colorado, California, and Pennsylvania to ban the use of surveillance to set prices.

The groups called on the FTC to take action under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which bans "unfair methods of competition." Those could include “'price discrimination not justified by differences in cost or distribution,' which appears to match Instacart’s pricing experiments and fluctuations," the report reads.

The FTC could also bring enforcement cases or initiate rulemaking to officially label AI-enabled pricing strategies as an "unfair or deceptive practice," affirming that companies who use them are breaking a consumer protection standard.

"Fair and honest markets are the bedrock of a healthy economy," reads Tuesday's report. "Companies like Instacart offer great convenience, but they are increasingly pursuing corporate pricing practices that unfairly decouple the price of a product from its true cost. As more consumers learn about, and decry, these practices, perhaps companies will change course. But if they do not, policymakers should intervene and require them to change their practices."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

Meta's Facebook redesign elevates Marketplace, refreshes profiles, and aims to win back Gen Z users.

Rachel Reeves has received over £200k from the Zionist lobby over the years - how the fuck is this a functioning democracy?

Anthropic, Block, and OpenAI are backing the Linux Foundation’s new Agentic AI Foundation, donating MCP, Goose, and AGENTS.md to standardize AI agents, boost interoperability, and curb proprietary fragmentation.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43319573

Web archive link

Over 1,000 documented TNR [Transnational Repression] cases have occurred since 2014, affecting individuals across 100 countries and involving at least 44 perpetrator states. Europe has emerged as a critical venue for TNR, with a growing number of targeted journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and whistleblowers seeking safety and protection on European soil.

Despite the scope of the problem, there is currently no binding European or international legal instrument specifically addressing TNR. Existing human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), while applicable in principle, do not offer comprehensive safeguards tailored to the realities of TNR.

Web archive link

Over 1,000 documented TNR [Transnational Repression] cases have occurred since 2014, affecting individuals across 100 countries and involving at least 44 perpetrator states. Europe has emerged as a critical venue for TNR, with a growing number of targeted journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents, and whistleblowers seeking safety and protection on European soil.

Despite the scope of the problem, there is currently no binding European or international legal instrument specifically addressing TNR. Existing human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), while applicable in principle, do not offer comprehensive safeguards tailored to the realities of TNR.

If Discovery Global doesn’t spin off until April, whoever buys CNN gets it after the primaries are effectively decided. Too late to shape anything that matters. But if someone could accelerate that timeline to Q1? CNN would change hands before March.