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<title>01 August, 2023</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Public Opinion About Trump’s Criminality Is Shifting—a Bit</strong> - As prosecutors release details of the charges and evidence against him, minds are slowly changing among less partisan voters—and maybe even among Republicans. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/public-opinion-about-trumps-criminality-is-shifting-a-bit">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Georgia’s Broad Racketeering Law May Now Ensnare Donald Trump</strong> - Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, often relies on Georgia’s capacious RICO statute—though critics say that she has stretched it past the law’s intent. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-south/georgias-broad-racketeering-law-may-now-ensnare-donald-trump">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How UPS and the Teamsters Staved Off a Strike—for Now</strong> - With work stoppages under way or looming in a variety of industries, is the U.S. in the midst of a “hot labor summer”? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-ups-and-the-teamsters-staved-off-a-strike-for-now">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Regina Spektor on “Home, Before and After,” and a Trip to the Boundary Waters</strong> - The singer talks to the music critic Amanda Petrusich about her most recent album, and the writer Alex Kotlowitz makes an annual pilgrimage to the northern woods of Minnesota. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/regina-spektor-on-home-before-and-after-and-a-trip-to-the-boundary-waters">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Boss and His Botched Coverup</strong> - The latest charges against Donald Trump show him and his Mar-a-Lago band to be as lame as the Watergate plumbers. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/trump-indictment-the-boss-and-his-botched-coverup">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>Where is Britney?</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A collage-style photo illustration of Britney Spears’s face, surrounded by snippets of text, maps, and symbols." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hVPu37ayoHSwGaSrxxQ2nT-YKtk=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72502467/230728_britney_final_3_2_no_cade__1_.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Tracy Ma for New York magazine and Vox
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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After Britney Spears was released from her conservatorship, some of her fandom latched on to a new theory: What if she had never been freed at all?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o0f0Y8">
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<em>This article is a collaboration between </em><a href="https://nymag.com/"><em>New York magazine</em></a><em> and Vox.</em>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j9C5oG">
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Was Britney Spears in trouble? It was January 24, 2023, more than a year after the conservatorship that had controlled her life for 13 years <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22565683/britney-spears-conservatorship-testimony">was formally dissolved</a>, and the enigmatic pop star had just deleted her <a href="https://www.vox.com/instagram-news">Instagram</a>. For weeks, she’d seemingly been sending signals that things were not okay. Now, here it was, a clear cry for help: an Instagram post of a sports car with a caption that mentioned its exact make and model — a Porsche 911 Carrera. What was the point of listing the model of the car if not to ask her devoted followers to call 911? For a group of Free Britney supporters, it was confirmation that Spears had, in fact, never been freed at all.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ymx5ji">
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Late that night, two fans met up on a <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a> livestream to discuss the post. When a commenter suggested they call a non-emergency line to ensure Spears’s safety, the others allowed her to join the stream. They listened as she conveyed their concerns to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. “Why do you feel that she needs to be checked on?” asked the attendant on the other end.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wkVO3d">
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“There’s been suspicious activity online, and now her account has been deleted,” said the caller.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ox9yLv">
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“Are you related to her?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6Dff1q">
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“I am not.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VoOYD3">
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“Don’t be nervous, girl, you got it,” one of the other people on the stream said as the attendant put them on hold. “We need to do this,” said the other, reassuring the caller and possibly themselves.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vTZItr">
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To the loosely connected cross section of fans identified by hashtags like #BritneyIsNotFree, #WhereIsBritney, and #FindBritney, there was something strange about Spears’s new life. She was still working and hanging out with some of the same people she had during the conservatorship. Wouldn’t she have wanted a fresh start? Fans couldn’t shake the suspicion that something was off in the photos and videos of her 2022 wedding. Why were all these <a href="https://www.vox.com/celebrities">celebrities</a> whom she didn’t seem to know in attendance? And was it possible the Spears they had been seeing on Instagram — the one in pictures that were often blurry — wasn’t the real Britney at all?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ICte2k">
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One theory, spread on TikTok and Instagram over the past year, has proposed that Spears is being held against her will in a mental health facility, which would sound far-fetched had it not already happened once before: In April 2019, Spears entered a treatment center, reportedly for “emotional distress” over her father’s health issues. When an anonymous source claiming to be a paralegal involved with Spears’s legal team told the podcast <em>Britney’s Gram</em> the performer was being held in the facility because a photo had surfaced of her driving a car, the media, including <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/whats-going-on-with-britney-spearss-mental-health-crisis.html">this magazine</a>, framed it as a conspiracy theory. But last August, Spears uploaded a 22-minute audio file to <a href="https://www.vox.com/youtube">YouTube</a> corroborating parts of the source’s account and alleging her father had threatened her with lawyers if she didn’t agree to go quietly. “I wanted to scream, and I wanted to get out,” she said. “I kind of stopped believing in God at that time.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fnoPPq">
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And then there were all the bizarre stories in the news. In mid-January, TMZ published a video of Spears in an LA restaurant with a headline describing her behavior as “manic,” despite the fact that the video only showed her holding a menu in front of her face to avoid being filmed. Free Britney advocates were furious; it seemed like the media, fed stories by the people around her, were trying to make her appear to be an untrustworthy narrator.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DzUlJL">
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All of which is to say the trio’s call to police wasn’t <em>only</em> because she’d deleted her Instagram. It was simply the latest in a series of what they believed were earnest appeals for help. So they tried to offer it. Their call to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office resulted in a wellness check at Spears’s home. Upon investigating, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said, “We don’t believe that Britney Spears is in any kind of harm or any kind of danger.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nij86p">
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By the next day, the fans who had made the call were almost as reviled among the Britney fandom as those responsible for her conservatorship. Not many people had watched the TikTok livestream at the time, but a fan account posted a clip of the 911 call to <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>, where it went viral. “These are the ‘fans’ that called the cops on Britney because she deleted her Instagram account..y’all know what to do!” read the tweet. Even Spears responded. “I love and adore my fans but this time things went a little too far and my privacy was invaded,” she <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-01-26/britney-spears-fans-911-call-police-welfare-check">wrote in a statement</a>. “During this time in my life, I truly hope the public and my fans who I care so much about can respect my privacy moving forward.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hm2ynw">
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The police call was a turning point within the fandom, making clear there were lines fans could not cross, and to question Spears’s personal life was to cross one of them. Free Britney had always been a grassroots, somewhat anarchic movement, one that had undoubtedly accomplished impressive change and championed the rights of conservatorship-abuse victims. Until November 2021, when Spears was freed, its followers at least shared the goal of getting her out of the conservatorship. More than any other fandom, it made the case for the power of a parasocial relationship, for the ways in which fans are protectors of those they follow. Now, when it should be taking its victory lap, Free Britney has splintered into distinct factions, each of which believes the other has turned its back on the original mission: helping Britney Spears.
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</p>
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<div>
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<aside id="u9lGgf">
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<q>Free Britney has splintered into distinct factions, each of which believes the other has turned its back on the original mission: helping Britney Spears</q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sqQDfD">
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The first music video Brennen White remembers seeing on MTV was “ …Baby One More Time,” the 1998 bubblegum-pop single that catapulted the then-16-year-old Spears to global superstardom. “That was very impactful for me, to see somebody that came across very confident and owned her sexuality and who she was,” says White, who’s now 32. Like Britney, he grew up in Louisiana, and she reminded him of girls he knew as a kid. “I always felt like she could have been one of my friends.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ss3trF">
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Today, the Britney fandom knows him by another name: <span class="citation" data-cites="RealC0CKy">@RealC0CKy</span>, one of the most determined advocates of what I’ll refer to as Free Britney 2.0, the Free Britney subgroup that believes Spears is not yet truly free. He estimates that he spends around 30 hours per week investigating Britney’s situation, between researching and talking to sources, posting on social media, and appearing on podcasts. White has been involved with the Free Britney movement since 2009, when the conversation was taking place largely on the fan message board BreatheHeavy, which remains active today. He isn’t on it anymore, though. “They’re definitely in bed with Britney’s team,” he says, the “they” being BreatheHeavy and “Britney’s team” being “Team Con” — the people who presided over her conservatorship. As the Free Britney community describes it, Team Con includes Spears’s father, Jamie, and the rest of Britney’s immediate family; Lou Taylor, the Tri Star Sports and Entertainment founder and architect of Britney’s conservatorship; and her former court-appointed lawyer, Samuel Ingham. They also suspect people who’ve had some connection to Spears over the past 13 years but no discernible connection to the conservatorship, including anyone involved with her agency, CAA; Cassie Petrey, who runs the company that helps manage Spears’s social accounts; and Cade Hudson, Spears’s longtime friend and, as of 2022, her manager.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HN55Cm">
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Over the phone, White speaks in a Southern accent with a dry, provocative wit. Like most who believe Spears is not free, he uses pithy nicknames for the major players in her world, ranging from the sort-of-funny (“Loucifer” refers to Lou Taylor, who is Enemy No. 1) to the outright cruel (he has referred to Petrey as “Fatssie Petrey”). White has been threatened and doxxed multiple times but views this as a sign he’s asking the right questions. When I ask if any of this has affected him, he deadpans, “No. I live in an open-carry state. I’m good.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7oSunt">
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When White says BreatheHeavy has been corrupted by Team Con, he’s really talking about one person: its founder, Jordan Miller, 35, one of the first people to popularize the Free Britney movement. Miller began signing off his posts with “Free Britney!!!” in early 2009, years before the slogan took off. It was people like Miller who first noticed the oddities of Spears’s situation — the fact that she was not allowed to have a cell phone or to drive — and alerted the rest of the world to what would become one of the biggest celebrity scandals of the 21st century. White was never quite friends with Miller, he says, but they had been on good terms, exchanging messages on BreatheHeavy every so often. Things changed in 2019, when White says Miller began removing BreatheHeavy threads when users questioned Spears’s safety or talked about certain members of her team. “He claims to be a major player in the Free Britney movement, but all I ever saw him do was shut down conversations and protect her team,” White says.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xCwwmg">
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These days, Miller is more focused on the world outside Free Britney. “A lot of us are in the boat where we need a second to allow Britney to process things and post freely,” he says. He lives in Las Vegas, where he works in marketing for <a href="https://www.vox.com/amazon">Amazon</a>, and denies most of what White says about him. He has a relatively lax approach to moderating the site, he says, shutting down threads only when the conversations become nasty (say, commenting on Spears’s body). He doesn’t recall many back-and-forths with White. Miller does, however, remember that at some point, he blocked White. “I didn’t want to feel that negativity,” he says. “He was a loud troll.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rgEY5N">
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White believes he’s simply looking out for Spears, and that anyone who could possibly have a financial interest in her work is suspect. Spears’s conservators were indeed profiting — while Jamie earned more than $6 million throughout his role as conservator (and petitioned for $30 million in legal fees), Spears was given a $2,000 weekly allowance. White worries the people around her could still be forcing her to work so they can make money off it. “We’re about two years out since her alleged freedom, and there’s still not a single criminal charge that’s been filed,” he says. “And we definitely didn’t think she’d be placed in a ‘care plan.’”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sQPKoB">
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The “care plan” or “termination plan” refers to a sealed document meant to help Spears adjust to post-conservatorship life. It was developed by one of her former conservators, Jodi Montgomery, and her medical doctors in anticipation of the end of the conservatorship “to ensure that there are guidelines in place for supportive decision-making to help her adjust and transition to life outside the Conservatorship,” according to Montgomery’s legal filing. It is sealed “away from the prying eyes of the public” because, as it notes, it contains sensitive and confidential information about Spears’s health and her two sons.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fSsTqa">
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Free Britney activists like Miller saw the care plan as simply a temporary legal step to help Britney adjust to her new life. Termination plans are standard at the end of conservatorships, explains Tamar Arminak, a family lawyer for actor Amanda Bynes, who was in a conservatorship for nine years before it was terminated in 2022. (Spears’s lawyer Mathew Rosengart would not comment on the record.) Still, the care plan aroused suspicion among adherents of Free Britney 2.0, who believed it could be a secret quasi-conservatorship, hidden from public view under the guise of keeping Spears’s medical history private. They worried that because Spears had testified that Montgomery forced her to see a therapist and a psychiatrist three times a week during the conservatorship, she could not be trusted with Spears’s well-being (Arminak points out that Montgomery’s role as personal conservator made her responsible for devising a plan, alongside Spears, for what her post-conservatorship life would look like). Another rumor spread that the conservatorship might secretly still be active in Hawaii, where Spears frequently vacations. Arminak says that’s not so: “The minute the original conservatorship terminates, it terminates.”
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</p>
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<div>
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<aside id="HZxiGl">
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<q>“The minute the original conservatorship terminates, it terminates.” </q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2rrgJ6">
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If one event galvanized Free Britney 2.0, it was Spears’s wedding to Sam Asghari, the Iranian American personal trainer and actor whom she met on the set of her 2016 video for “Slumber Party.” White calls it “the wedding from hell.” He had already suspected Asghari was using Spears for her money (he and other “Sam antis,” a subset of Free Britney that dislikes Asghari, refer to him as “Scam,” “Scram,” or “Sham”). When they married, on June 9, 2022, fans pored over the footage and pointed out the oddities: Why, for instance, were there so many beautifully shot portraits of Asghari and only grainy pictures of Spears? None of Spears’s children were in attendance, while a strange assortment of celebrities were — some, like Paris Hilton and Madonna, had long, public histories with the pop star, while others, like Ansel Elgort and Selena Gomez, didn’t. And why did the wedding take place at Spears’s home? “The woman who’s been conserved in this prison house is choosing to get married in the prison house?” White asks.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Mptav">
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Scariest of all, hours before the ceremony, Spears’s ex-husband Jason Alexander broke into her home armed with a knife and refused to leave the property, streaming it all on Instagram Live. Some within Free Britney 2.0 viewed Alexander as a savior, someone who was trying to rescue Britney and “expose the truth” about the wedding. In an Instagram post the next day, Spears said she’d had a panic attack the morning of her wedding — confirmation, they believed, that even <em>she</em> knew something about it was weird. “We watched clips on TV shows where celebrities described it as ‘Britney’s fairy-tale wedding,’ but it didn’t feel like a fairy tale,” says Trey Serna, 39, a morning news anchor for a South Texas ABC affiliate and a popular Free Britney 2.0 TikToker.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dTdK1l">
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The photos and videos made for irresistible bait everywhere online, but particularly on TikTok, which has an unparalleled ability to turn a single idea into a megaviral trend in a matter of hours. In the months after the wedding, many users who had only tangentially paid attention to the original Free Britney movement watched videos that suggested Spears was still being controlled or, worse, wasn’t really Spears at all. The wedding was a crucial recruiting tool on the best recruiting platform in history, one that often prioritizes the loudest voices in the room, regardless of whether what they’re saying is true.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Jxr18">
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When she’s not working at her job in corporate finance or posting on her dog’s TikTok, 23-year-old Anita Datta moonlights as the host of one of the largest — and most extreme — Free Britney 2.0 TikTok accounts, <span class="citation" data-cites="BritneyIsNotFree">@BritneyIsNotFree</span>. She had been seeing content about how Spears wasn’t truly freed since the conservatorship ended, but she only started posting about it a few months after the wedding. She’s one of the many people on the app who believe the Spears we have seen on Instagram, at her wedding, and in other public sightings isn’t actually Spears but a combination of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology">AI</a> re-creations and body doubles, trotted out while the real Spears is kept somewhere else, possibly a mental health facility. Datta cites Spears’s June 2021 court testimony as “the last time where I can say for sure for a fact she is the one speaking.” Many of her most viral videos invite viewers to inspect each frame of Spears’s Instagram posts, pointing out glitches, lags, or other inconsistencies as evidence that the real Britney is not the person we’re seeing.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YamHzt">
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More than a year later, she’s still regularly posting about the wedding. A video from July of this year titled “Proof Britney Spears Was Replaced by an A.I. on Her Wedding Day” starts with a screenshot of Spears and Asghari walking down the aisle. “Look at the hands of Britney and Sam,” Datta says, her voice distorted by a TikTok filter. “Britney’s hand clearly blends into his hand, into his coat jacket. And her thumb color is the same as his skin color.” (Spears was wearing white fingertip-less gloves.) She zooms out to Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris, in the background of the image, standing and clapping at the end of the ceremony, with part of her body obscured by the church pew. “I have no clue why Kathy Hilton was even at the wedding, but her leg is missing,” Datta says. “Something really weird is going on.” She asks her followers to please let her know in the comments if they have a reasonable explanation why “Kathy Hilton doesn’t have a leg.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PIH5Cr">
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Miller and the rest of the OG Free Britney crowd consider this newer faction to be largely conspiracists looking for online clout. (Serna finds this laughable: “I hate to say it, but I was TikTok famous before Britney.”) They sometimes refer to them as “BAnon.” By continuing to share theories and ask questions about Britney’s safety on her Instagram posts, they say, Free Britney 2.0 is stigmatizing what is likely the result of an unfathomably difficult and complicated life. “You go on TikTok, and they refuse to accept that a woman in her 40s might have mental health issues,” says Jared Lipscomb, a makeup artist and podcaster who started hearing whispers within the hair-and-makeup community about the ways Spears was being heavily managed and controlled in 2013. “They’d rather believe she’s an alien than the fact that she’s going through a traumatic experience.”
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</p>
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<div>
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<aside id="6RnOEo">
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<q>“They’d rather believe she’s an alien than the fact that she’s going through a traumatic experience.” </q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y58o8k">
|
||
Spears’s Instagram has always been a place where fans go for clues about how she’s actually doing. Between viral <a href="https://www.vox.com/facebook">Facebook</a>-core image macros about positivity and self-love and cute photos of flowers or the phases of the moon, Spears dances, twirls, and shows off her bikinis and bralettes in dizzily edited videos and heavily filtered photos taken at unusual angles. Hers is the opposite of a typical celebrity social media account: It’s chaotic in a fun way and in a way that can arouse concern, all of which is deeply confusing for fans who are used to seeing their starlets post careful, publicist-approved content. Over the course of the conservatorship, Free Britney activists developed detailed theories about messages Spears was sending via her Instagram posts. In the most famous example, from June 2020, one commenter wrote, “if you need help wear yellow in your next video”; a few days later, Spears did. The same held true after the conservatorship: In November 2022, on the anniversary of its ending, one Twitter user wrote, “Britney’s gram is filled with cries for help. Some are cryptic but some are really very clear. If you’re not seeing it, you are choosing to ignore Britney herself. Do not celebrate freedom today.” They posted a screenshot of a video from October 2022 in which Britney dances to a song called “S.O.S.” and, at one point, spells out the letters with her hands.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o55ZC7">
|
||
Since this past December, Spears has only rarely left her Instagram comments open. She turned them off after posting a series of nude photos and pictures of herself in her great-great-grandmother’s veil; on one post, a top comment was a theory that Spears was being locked in her house and that all of her videos were being secretly recorded from behind a mirror. Even fellow celebrities had theories — after Spears posted a photo of her sister, Jamie Lynn, former <em>Bachelorette</em> star Kaitlyn Bristowe wrote, “Ok well now we know who’s running her account. Cough Jamie cough.” On December 21, when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted, “Someone please go check on Britney Spears,” Spears reposted the plea on her Instagram Stories and wrote, “It saddens me to see things about me from people who don’t know me!!!” A month later, after briefly deleting her Instagram, she explained on Twitter that she’d shut down her account “because there were too many people saying I looked like an idiot dancing and that I looked crazy. Honestly, I was doing my best, but it disturbed me to see people freely talk about it on TV … yep, it hurt my feelings.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q8oweJ">
|
||
On the rare occasion when she does leave her posts open, a scroll through the comment section will reveal tens of thousands of people arguing over whether the “real” Spears is the one posting or, alternatively, pleading with her to “prove” she’s happy and free. They point out the gap between her two front teeth that seems to have mysteriously appeared; they wonder if the Spears with the gap is actually a body double. They ask why her videos have such an amateurish quality, why her hair doesn’t appear to be professionally done, and why, if she’s always on vacation, as her Instagram photos suggest, there are no photos taken by paparazzi, who had always seemed able to track her location 24/7. (The paparazzi have, in fact, taken photos of Spears several times since her conservatorship ended, and when they do, Spears pleads with them to stop.) Mostly, they wonder why so many of Spears’s photos are recycled from previous content.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gu4OhV">
|
||
In December 2022, Serna published the first in what is now an 88-part series called “Free Britney… again?” in which he points out how, a year after her freedom, Spears was still posting the same dancing videos and long captions to Instagram as she was during the conservatorship. “Either she’s being held at a facility and they’re posting old videos so that nobody says anything — but if they’re trying to do that, they’re not doing a good job,” Datta says.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wmm3nP">
|
||
If Spears isn’t in control of her Instagram, who is? For a long time, it was shaped at least in part by Petrey, the founder of the digital marketing firm Crowd Surf, which has worked with Spears since 2009. White believes Petrey is manipulating Spears’s Instagram, making her seem unwell by posting semi-nude photos and provocative captions. He also believes Petrey, along with Spears’s manager, Hudson, have fed unflattering stories to tabloids like TMZ, Page Six, and the Daily Mail to make it seem as though Spears needs to go back into a conservatorship. (At times, Free Britney 2.0 theories directly contradict each other — why would Team Con need to invent a reason for the public to believe she was mentally unwell and “in need” of a conservatorship if she was still in one?)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y2y7aG">
|
||
The truth, according to a person close to Crowd Surf, is more mundane. Despite being employed by Spears for nearly a decade and a half, Petrey has only worked with Spears in person a few times. The majority of their interactions were through phone calls and text messages, usually in group chats where Spears would ask Petrey and her staff for advice on what to post or help with editing photos and videos. During the conservatorship, Petrey had a distant working relationship with Lou Taylor. She cut off contact with Spears’s father, Jamie, after her court testimony in June 2021 — though she wasn’t speaking to him or the other conservators much at all by that point.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Uye9gT">
|
||
Petrey is not the sole person who works directly with Spears on her social media; there’s a team of people at Crowd Surf who help out with whatever she needs. Posting anything without the star’s consent? They could get sued for that. “Britney is very much the director and the producer and in charge of it,” says the source close to Crowd Surf. Some conspiracy theorists wonder why Spears won’t simply “go live” and “prove” she’s alive and well. “Let’s say she did go on live and said, ‘Everything’s okay!’” the person continues. “There’s going to be another theory about why she was forced to do that. It never ends.” (Spears has also historically been uncomfortable with the idea of livestreaming; in November, when Asghari went live on Instagram and asked Spears if he could show her face on the stream, she replied offscreen, “I don’t want to talk to them right now.”) Of the old photos Spears posts to her Instagram, one friend of the pop star, who has been in her life before, during, and after the conservatorship, says, “How often do people post photos where they think they look good that were taken six months before? It’s not as deep as people think it is.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jAK3HU">
|
||
Lipscomb, the makeup artist, and others say that most of the inconsistencies Free Britney 2.0 points to can be explained by other means; he suspects much of the fan theorizing comes from the public’s ignorance of the peculiarities of LA celebrity culture — there was a rumor, for instance, that Spears was being sex-trafficked because she would only dine in hotels; Lipscomb notes that hotels are often the most discreet places for celebrities to eat because many have private entrances. Other theories, he says, reveal ignorance of Spears the person. “I’ve talked to so many people who’ve worked with Britney and I’ve talked to people who’ve dated her,” he says. “People question, ‘Why doesn’t she have her hair done?’ I knew her hairstylist — she hates having her hair done. They’re still analyzing every movement and trying to zoom in to see if that’s a bruise on her ankle. It’s just like, ‘Oh my God, you guys, at some point you do have to get a life.’”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div>
|
||
<aside id="oaijIp">
|
||
<q>“It’s just like, ‘Oh my God, you guys, at some point you do have to get a life.’”</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="liyj4Z">
|
||
The original Free Britney movement may have been proved right, but it has always attracted extremist thinkers. Even <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/10/9/21504910/qanon-conspiracy-theory-facebook-ban-trump">QAnon</a> believers used Spears’s case to exploit their own aims, seeing a beautiful woman controlled and abused by “Hollywood elites” as evidence that she is a victim of a larger cabal of Satanic cultists. Jasmin Vargas, a Free Britney supporter since 2016, has written about how conspiracy theories derailed the movement, which was largely made up of fans trying to do the work of journalists — a necessary tactic when journalists wouldn’t take them seriously, <a href="https://www.medusone.com/blog/how-conspiracy-theories-became-increasingly-prevalent-in-the-free-britney-movement">she writes</a>. But that still didn’t make them journalists.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AnFXf4">
|
||
Vargas cites a 2019 episode of <em>Britney’s Gram </em>— the podcast run by Tess Barker and Barbara Gray that was crucial to eventually revealing the truth of the conservatorship — that discusses one of Spears’s Instagram captions, in which she celebrated losing five pounds. “If you know Britney at all, if you’re a fan even casually, you’d know that she would never write that,” Barker says. “No. Never,” Gray responds. They later backtracked their comments when Spears continued to discuss her weight in future posts. Perhaps Spears <em>would</em> talk about her weight now? The fandom’s fixation on knowing the “real” Britney is rooted in an idea of who she used to be, and to accept who she is now would mean giving that up.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zDBwx5">
|
||
“Her whole career, there was an image of her that was created, and if she didn’t comply with it, there were consequences,” says Miller, of BreatheHeavy. “Now that she’s finally allowed to have control over how she’s portrayed, that makes people uncomfortable. And that’s good. It should be a little uncomfortable, because what happened is not right.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KrbrYD">
|
||
The tricky part is that it’s impossible to stop speculating once you’ve decided nothing you see and hear is true. “We’re never going to be fully satisfied because the answers we got were plainly inaccurate and covering up something that was pretty gross,” Vargas tells me. “As much as I do want to hold people accountable — you shouldn’t call 911 on a person that you don’t actually know — I have sympathy for the fact that dedicated Britney fans have lived the last 15 years with some amount of doubt as to what is going on in Britney’s life. That’s hard to turn off once the conservatorship is officially done.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GCaRkK">
|
||
None of the Free Britney 2.0 fans I spoke to condone the call to police — not even those who made the call. One of the people on the stream released an apology video. “My intentions were pure, but my actions were wrong,” she said. “I had an instant trauma response, and I thought that this was the way to help.” The other went private on all his social media accounts after a barrage of harassment, including tweets at his employer that attempted to get him fired. White, Datta, and the rest of Free Britney 2.0 believe they cannot simply do nothing, however. “You see fans fighting on social, saying, ‘Leave her alone!’” Serna says. “We’re literally just concerned for her well-being. The duty right now of a fan is to be speaking out on a human who appears to be possibly suffering.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hBycMP">
|
||
Multiple people close to the pop star say she is adamant they not talk to the press, which makes it difficult for them to address the rumors head on. (Spears did not respond to a request for comment.) “The fans really need to let her go through what she needs to go through,” says the friend of Spears. “Everybody wants her to get back on her feet and be the best version of herself, but that stuff doesn’t happen overnight. That’s not the way <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a> works.” They added that the conspiracy theories in her Instagram comments and on Twitter and TikTok are actively harming Spears’s well-being, mimicking the constant surveillance of the conservatorship and the tabloids. “Every time conspiracy theories get a lot of attention, they destabilize a situation where she’s trying to gain trust and then it sets everybody back.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EBCqJQ">
|
||
Spears has been working consistently since the end of the conservatorship. This summer in particular has been busy, and every new project has been met with Free Britney 2.0’s characteristic suspicion. In a long-awaited announcement, Spears said she would release her memoir, <em>The Woman in Me,</em> in October, promising to reveal “for the first time her incredible journey — and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history,” <a href="https://people.com/britney-spears-memoir-the-woman-in-me-release-date-book-cover-reveal-exclusive-7558964">according to</a> the press release.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hLdOBa">
|
||
In response, Datta made a video about how off the announcement seemed: Spears had posted, then deleted a full-length video of herself sharing the news, then reposted the same announcement shot in selfie mode. Datta captioned her video “PROOF Britney Spears is STILL BEING CONTROLLED.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p class="c-end-para" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5gcm6f">
|
||
White doesn’t buy the book at all. He points to the fact that people he believes are part of “Team Con” are promoting it, by which he means Hudson, Petrey, Spears’s publicist Jeff Raymond, and Kim Kardashian (who works with Lou Taylor and therefore has a connection to Team Con). This is all evidence, he believes, that the memoir will tell a “heavily edited and redacted” version of the true story — yet another way for the people around her to profit off her. It’s right there on the cover, he adds, which features a black-and-white photo of a young Spears taken in 2001. “My first thought was, ‘They’re using a 20-year-old picture?’” White says. “It doesn’t seem like she’s very invested.” As for Spears’s <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/britney-spears-mind-your-business-will-i-am.html">new collaboration</a> with will.i.am? White believes it was done with AI. The song, appropriately, is called “Mind Your Business.”
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Using AI, scientists bring Neanderthal antibiotics back from extinction</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/25SIRcHCCqzOmhc_dhjc4gIAUJo=/158x0:2889x2048/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72502299/neanderthal_skull_GettyImages_612587246.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
A Homo Neandertalensis skull, originally from the Near East, at the Marseille Prehistory Lab. | Marc Charuel/Sygma via Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Neanderthals are extinct. But their molecules are back and they just might save our lives.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="A5yDb3">
|
||
Maybe you remember the movie <em>Jurassic Park</em>, where scientists bring dinosaurs back from extinction. Or maybe you’ve heard about the real-world scientific quest to <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23696294/de-extinction-colossal-biosciences-woolly-mammoth-dodo-ethics">de-extinct the dodo and the woolly mammoth</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="82hyiy">
|
||
Whether we’re talking dinos or dodos, de-extinction is risky business. It’s problematic on a pragmatic level (that T. rex you resurrect just might gobble you up while you’re sitting on the toilet) and on an ethical level (can you imagine how lonely the first resurrected dodo or woolly mammoth would be?).
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FHHSbX">
|
||
But what if instead of bringing back a whole species, we bring back just one tiny part — like, say, a molecule?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LH09ZS">
|
||
That’s what scientists have just achieved at the University of Pennsylvania’s <a href="https://delafuentelab.seas.upenn.edu/">Machine Biology Group</a>. They’ve resurrected molecules with antibiotic properties found in extinct organisms — specifically, our close relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. (Neanderthals went extinct <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/who-were-the-neanderthals">40,000</a> years ago, while Denisovans might have survived until <a href="https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/denisovans/">15,000-30,000</a> years ago.) The breakthrough throws open the doors to a brave new world of “molecular de-extinction,” which holds promise for drug discovery.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sTt2kX">
|
||
The researchers started by gathering the sequenced genome data of Neanderthals and Denisovans, which is publicly available thanks to paleontologists who have painstakingly collected and analyzed ancient DNA from bones and artifacts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Zr5zV">
|
||
Then they trained an AI model to make predictions about which molecules might make effective antibiotics for modern humans. After the algorithm identified the strongest candidates, the researchers created those molecules in the lab and tested them in infected mice. Some of the molecules effectively fought off bacterial infections, according to <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(23)00296-2">a new study</a> published in the journal <em>Cell Host & Microbe.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4KdKzX">
|
||
“This is completely new. We came up with the term ‘molecular de-extinction’ and this is the first peer-reviewed paper that describes it,” César de la Fuente, who co-authored the study, told me. “So it’s quite exciting for us.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LHn9VS">
|
||
If the burgeoning field of molecular de-extinction turns out to yield clinically successful results in humans, it could be exciting for the world, too, because we urgently need good ways to create new antibiotics.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="arOzMz">
|
||
We’re entering a post-antibiotic era. Here’s how AI is helping.
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vhrVI2">
|
||
The CDC has <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/14/20963824/drug-resistance-antibiotics-cdc-report">warned</a> that we’re entering a post-antibiotic era — a time when our antibiotics are becoming increasingly useless. We’ve created this crisis by overusing antibiotics in the treatment of humans, animals, and crops. The bacteria have adapted to our drugs, morphing into superbugs that can all too easily decimate human health.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GGDK0N">
|
||
In the time it takes you to read this article, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/14/20963824/drug-resistance-antibiotics-cdc-report">one person in the US will die</a> from an infection that antibiotics can no longer treat effectively. The annual global death toll from drug-resistant infections could rise to 10 million by 2050, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/7/18535480/drug-resistance-antibiotics-un-report">major UN report</a> warned in 2019, if we don’t make a radical change.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mb5mKS">
|
||
Big Pharma and biotech companies haven’t been creating the new antibiotics needed to address the crisis because it takes many years and lots of funding to do the research and development. Most new compounds fail. Even when they succeed, the payoff is small: An antibiotic doesn’t sell as well as a drug that needs to be taken daily. So for many pharma<strong> </strong>companies, the financial incentive just isn’t there.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ixQowg">
|
||
But if we can use AI to ramp up the speed of antibiotic discovery, that could change the calculus. De la Fuente’s team did this in a two-step process.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jfLjin">
|
||
The proteins in our cells are like long strings. But they often get cut up by enzymes into short fragments at specific junctures. These short fragments — small molecules known as peptides — can have antimicrobial properties.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FAWKc7">
|
||
So, de la Fuente’s team trained an AI model called panCleave, which can look at all the proteins encoded in a genome and predict where their junctures will be. That way, the researchers could identify the peptides in the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. They then ran other models on the peptides to predict which ones would have antimicrobial properties.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DYLv4o">
|
||
They weren’t all slam-dunks. When tested on infected mice, some of the peptides predicted to be strong candidates didn’t manage to kill the bacteria. Others were effective but required high doses to work. That could mean researchers need to either revamp the predictive algorithm or retool the most promising peptides to make them more effective.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2o0jCe">
|
||
A further limitation of this study is that the researchers didn’t test whether the<strong> </strong>infected mice developed resistance to the peptides. “It’s something to do in the future,” de la Fuente acknowledged, since there’d be little point in manufacturing a new antibiotic only for our bodies to soon become resistant to it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nXoQMo">
|
||
But at a high level, molecular de-extinction is “a creative approach” that can help us get past the current bottlenecks in drug discovery, according to Jonathan Stokes, a biochemistry professor at McMaster University who was not involved in the study. “I think this technique will augment other antibiotic discovery efforts to help us discover structurally and functionally novel antibacterial therapies that overcome existing resistance mechanisms,” he told me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lkjO84">
|
||
Molecular de-extinction could end up working alongside other efforts in the use of AI for antibiotic discovery. In 2020, for example, MIT researchers <a href="https://voxcom.cmail19.com/t/d-l-qyhlujd-jytjceij-h/">discovered a new type of antibiotic</a> by training their AI on molecules that we know have antimicrobial properties. And in 2021, IBM researchers <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22360573/ai-ibm-design-new-antibiotics-covid-19-treatments">designed two new antimicrobial peptides in a matter of days</a> by training their AI on a much broader database of all the known peptides that exist in nature today.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YyqP2x">
|
||
Resurrecting the peptides of yesteryear gives us more possibilities to sift through and potentially more buried treasure to discover.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<aside id="VtedPz">
|
||
<div>
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
<h3 id="XstYXK">
|
||
“Molecular de-extinction” brings up big ethical questions. Nobody knows the answers.
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8AW2rq">
|
||
What does it mean to bring molecules back from the dead?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mWNpUg">
|
||
De-extincting molecules doesn’t suffer from the same ethical concerns that plague de-extincting a whole species — like the concern that revived dodos or woolly mammoths would be miserable in today’s world, if they could even survive. Still, on a philosophical level, it’s not obvious how we should think about efforts to revive molecules that currently exist nowhere in living organisms.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kuPl7x">
|
||
For instance, would de-extincted molecules be eligible for patents? Existing patent law tells us that nobody can patent molecules that occur in nature, but it doesn’t tell us whether someone can own the rights to a resurrected molecule that was once expressed in Neanderthals. Arguably, that should be considered the heritage of all humankind, and no individual or business should own it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vjlp7O">
|
||
But if patent law ultimately comes out on that side, will it disincentivize scientists from doing research in molecular de-extinction — research that could ultimately help us with the antibiotic resistance crisis?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GO2lf3">
|
||
I asked de la Fuente if he would want to patent his work. He replied, “I don’t know.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rFKTdS">
|
||
But, he told me, he did walk over to the patent office on his campus one day to find out if that would be possible. The legal minds at the University of Pennsylvania couldn’t tell him. This is a new legal frontier, and so far, no one knows the answers.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The AI rules that US policymakers are considering, explained</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="A cartoon drawing of tiny futuristic people swarming all over a giant humanoid robot." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7cYkmzTOvqYRNadrCzntPC1EaH8=/241x0:1680x1079/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72502191/SimoneVirgini_Vox_AIGovernance.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Simone Virgini for Vox
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
ChatGPT, Midjourney, and other tools are forcing Biden and Congress to take AI seriously.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3l85hP">
|
||
AI is getting seriously good. And the federal government is finally <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/11/23717408/ai-dc-laws-congress-google-microsoft">getting serious about AI</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9NmRYm">
|
||
The White House<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/23/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-takes-new-steps-to-advance-responsible-artificial-intelligence-research-development-and-deployment/"> announced a suite of artificial intelligence policies in May</a>. More recently, they brokered a number of<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/07/21/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-secures-voluntary-commitments-from-leading-artificial-intelligence-companies-to-manage-the-risks-posed-by-ai/"> voluntary safety commitments</a> from leading AI companies in July. That included commitments to both internal and third-party testing of AI products to ensure they’re secure against cyberattack and guard against misuse by bad actors.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AKbCHJ">
|
||
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer<a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/news/press-releases/majority-leader-schumer-delivers-remarks-to-launch-safe-innovation-framework-for-artificial-intelligence-at-csis"> outlined his preferred approach to regulation in a June speech</a> and promised prompt legislation, telling his audience, “many of you have spent months calling on us to act. I hear you loud and clear.” Independent regulators like the Federal Trade Commission have been going public to outline how they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/opinion/ai-lina-khan-ftc-technology.html">plan to approach the technology</a>. A bipartisan group wants to<a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-lieu-beyer-and-buck-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-prevent-ai-from-launching-a-nuclear-weapon"> ban the use of AI to make nuclear launch decisions</a>, at the very minimum.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hc4DyL">
|
||
But “knowing you’re going to do something” and “knowing what that something is” are two different things. AI policy is still pretty virgin terrain in DC, and proposals from government leaders tend to be articulated with lots of jargon, usually involving invocations of broad ideas or requests for public input and additional study, rather than specific plans for action. Principles, rather than programming. Indeed, the US government’s<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/05/03/reconciling-u.s.-approach-to-ai-pub-89674"> record to date on AI</a> has mostly involved vague calls for “continued United States leadership in artificial intelligence research and development” or “adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in the Federal Government,” which is fine, but not exactly concrete policy.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9D4Vcx">
|
||
That said, we probably are going to see more specific action soon given the unprecedented degree of public attention and <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/oversight-of-ai-rules-for-artificial-intelligence">number</a> of <a href="https://science.house.gov/2023/6/artificial-intelligence-advancing-innovation-towards-the-national-interest">congressional</a> <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/oversight-of-ai-principles-for-regulation">hearings</a> devoted to AI. AI companies themselves are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/26/google-microsoft-openai-anthropic-ai-frontier-model-forum">actively working on self-regulation</a> in the hope of setting the tone for regulation by others. That — plus the sheer importance of an emerging technology like AI — makes it worth digging a little deeper into what action in DC might involve.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cpBrUw">
|
||
You can break most of the ideas circulating into one of four rough categories:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="byiyuM">
|
||
<strong>Rules</strong>: New regulations and laws for individuals and companies training AI models, building or selling chips used for AI training, and/or using AI models in their business
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5p4nB6">
|
||
<strong>Institutions</strong>: New government agencies or international organizations that can implement and enforce these new regulations and laws
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tmo9nK">
|
||
<strong>Money</strong>: Additional funding for research, either to expand AI capabilities or to ensure safety
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uI2OI4">
|
||
<strong>People</strong>: Expanded high-skilled immigration and increased education funding to build out a workforce that can build and control AI
|
||
</li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h3 id="v9uuIa">
|
||
New rules
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6tc088">
|
||
Making new rules for AI developers — whether in the form of voluntary standards, binding regulations from existing agencies, new laws passed by Congress, or international agreements binding several countries — is by far the most crowded space here, the most consequential, and the most contested.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="72g2Iq">
|
||
On one end of the spectrum are techno libertarians who look warily on attempts by the government to mandate rules for AI, fearing that this could slow down progress or, worse, lead to regulatory capture where rules are written to benefit a small handful of currently dominant companies like OpenAI. The<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/generative-ai-policy-must-be-precise-careful-and-practical-how-cut-through-hype"> Electronic Frontier Foundation</a> and the<a href="https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/the-most-important-principle-for-ai-regulation/"> R Street Institute</a> are probably the leading representatives of this perspective in DC.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2xC4V0">
|
||
Other stakeholders, though, want extensive new rulemaking and legislating on a variety of AI topics. Some, like Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), want <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-blumenthal-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-protect-consumers-and-deny-ai-companies-section">sweeping changes to rules around liability</a>, enabling citizens to sue AI companies or prosecutors to indict them if their products cause certain harms.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tNIL7L">
|
||
One category of proposals deals with how AI systems interface with existing rules around copyright, privacy, and bias based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Think of it more like <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/8/10/23298108/ai-dangers-ethics-alignment-present-future-risk">AI ethics rather than AI safety</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="FTC Chair Lina Khan Speaks At The Economic Club Of New York" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3FqID1tsYBorK018rEx50BuPmfM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24820940/1567821639.jpg"/> <cite>Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan stands poised to be a leading figure in regulation concerning the near-term implications of AI.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a0qAIx">
|
||
<strong>Copyright</strong>: The<a href="https://www.copyright.gov/ai/"> US Copyright Office</a> has issued rulings suggesting that most texts, images, and videos output by AI systems<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/22/23611278/midjourney-ai-copyright-office-kristina-kashtanova"> cannot be copyrighted as original works</a>, as they were not created by a human. Meanwhile, large models like GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion rely on massive training datasets that usually include copyrighted texts and images. This has <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/getty-sues-stability-ai-for-copying-12m-photos-and-imitating-famous-watermark/">prompted</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/10/sarah-silverman-sues-openai-meta-copyright-infringement">myriad</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/01/artists-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-ai-image-generator-companies/">lawsuits</a> and<a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2021)698792"> provisions in the European Union’s AI Act</a> requiring model builders to “publish information on the use of training data protected under copyright law.” More regulations and laws from either US agencies or Congress could be forthcoming.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GChYwp">
|
||
<strong>Privacy</strong>: Just as large AI companies have faced lawsuits for copyright violations in the construction of their models, so too have some plaintiffs argued that the mass web scraping necessary to collect the terabytes of data needed to train the models represents an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/28/openai-chatgpt-lawsuit-class-action/">invasion of privacy</a>. The revelation in March of a since-patched<a href="https://openai.com/blog/march-20-chatgpt-outage"> data vulnerability</a> that allowed ChatGPT users to access other<em> </em>users’ chat histories, and even their payment information, raised further alarms. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/28/chatgpt-resumes-in-italy/">Italy even briefly banned the service</a> over privacy concerns about the training data. (It’s since been allowed back.) Policymakers have been focusing on similar issues in social media and online advertising for some time now, with common proposals including a full <a href="https://schakowsky.house.gov/media/press-releases/schakowsky-eshoo-booker-introduce-bill-ban-surveillance-advertising">ban on using personal data to target ads</a>, and<a href="https://epic.org/data-minimization-centering-reasonable-consumer-expectation-in-the-ftcs-commercial-surveillance-rulemaking/"> FTC action to require “data minimization”</a> in which websites can only collect data relevant to a narrow function of the site.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tTHNtD">
|
||
<strong>Algorithmic bias</strong>: In part because they draw upon datasets that inevitably reflect stereotypes and biases in humans’ writing, legal decisions, photography, and more, AI systems have often<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22916602/ai-bias-fairness-tradeoffs-artificial-intelligence"> exhibited biases</a> with the<a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/18/21121286/algorithms-bias-discrimination-facial-recognition-transparency"> potential to harm women, people of color</a>, and other marginalized groups. The main congressional proposal on this topic is the<a href="https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-booker-and-clarke-introduce-algorithmic-accountability-act-of-2022-to-require-new-transparency-and-accountability-for-automated-decision-systems"> Algorithmic Accountability Act</a>, which would require companies to evaluate algorithmic systems they use — in other words, AI — for “bias, effectiveness and other factors,” and enlist the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the requirement. The FTC has said it will<a href="https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2021/04/aiming-truth-fairness-equity-your-companys-use-ai"> crack down using existing authority</a> to prevent “the sale or use of — for example — racially biased algorithms”; what these enforcement actions might look like in practice is as yet unclear.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GclI1V">
|
||
Another set of proposals views AI through a <a href="https://www.nscai.gov/">national security</a> or <a href="https://www.governance.ai/research-paper/towards-best-practices-in-agi-safety-and-governance">extreme risk</a> perspective, trying to prevent either more powerful rogue AIs that could elude human control or the misuse of AI systems by terrorist groups or hostile nation-states (particularly China) to develop weapons and other harmful products. A future<a href="https://yoshuabengio.org/2023/05/22/how-rogue-ais-may-arise/"> rogue AI</a> with sufficiently high capabilities, that humans cannot shut down or coerce into following a safe goal, would pose a high risk of harming humans, even if such harm is merely incidental to its ultimate goal. More immediately, sufficiently powerful AI models could gain<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-hacking-bruce-schneier/"> superhuman abilities in hacking</a>, enabling malign users to access sensitive data or even military equipment; they could also be employed to<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.13952"> design and deploy pathogens more dangerous</a> than anything nature has yet cooked up.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="V9hlqM">
|
||
<strong>Mandatory auditing, with fines against violators:</strong> As with racial or gender bias, many proposals to deal with uncontrollable AIs or extreme misuse focus on evaluations and “red-teaming” (attempts to get models to exhibit dangerous behavior, with the aim of discovering weaknesses or flaws in the models) which could identify worrisome capabilities or behaviors by frontier AI models. A<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.03718.pdf"> recent paper by 24 AI governance experts</a> (including co-authors from leading firms like Google DeepMind and OpenAI) argued that regulators should conduct risk assessments before release, specifically asking “1) which dangerous capabilities does or could the model possess, if any?, and (2) how controllable is the model?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RSr2Lm">
|
||
The authors call for AI firms to apply these risk assessments to themselves, with audits and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team">red-teaming</a> from third-party entities (like government regulators) to ensure the firms are following protocol. Regulators should be given regular access to documentation on how the models were trained and fine-tuned; in extreme cases, “significant administrative fines or civil penalties” from regulators for failing to follow best practices could be necessary. In less severe cases, regulators could “name and shame” violators.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Us7eSN">
|
||
In the nearer term, some in Congress, like Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC) and Ed Markey (D-MA), are <a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/sens-markey-budd-announce-legislation-to-assess-health-security-risks-of-ai">pushing legislation</a> to require the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct risk assessments of the biological dangers posed by AI and develop a strategy for preventing its use for bioweapons or artificial pandemics. These are fairly light requirements but might serve as a first step toward more binding regulation. Many biosecurity experts are worried that <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/6/21/23768810/artificial-intelligence-pandemic-biotechnology-synthetic-biology-biorisk-dna-synthesis">AIs capable of guiding amateurs through the process of creating deadly bioweapons</a> will emerge soon, making this particular area very high-stakes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Two men in suits stand and raise their right hands prior to giving testimony to Congress." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/V-lCrqWnYPRHFKKlVPY3MBjbaaw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24820949/1255237098.jpg"/> <cite>Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Gary Marcus, left, and Sam Altman are among the prominent AI voices calling for a licensing regime.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zdNkVw">
|
||
<strong>Licensing requirements</strong>: The attorney Andrew Tutt in 2017 proposed a more far-reaching approach than simply mandating risk evaluations, one instead modeled on tougher <a href="http://www.administrativelawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/69-1-Andrew-Tutt.pdf">US regulations of food and pharmaceuticals</a>. The Food and Drug Administration generally does not allow drugs on the market that have not been tested for safety and effectiveness. That has largely not been the case for software — no governmental safety testing is done, for example, before a new social media platform is introduced. In Tutt’s vision, a similar agency could “require pre-market approval before algorithms can be deployed” in certain applications; “for example, a self-driving car algorithm could be required to replicate the safety-per-mile of a typical vehicle driven in 2012.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kNKhVr">
|
||
This would effectively require certain algorithms to receive a government “license” before they can be publicly released. The idea of licensing for AI has taken off in recent months, with support from some in industry. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for “licensing or registration requirements for development and release of AI models above a crucial threshold of capabilities” in<a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023-05-16%20-%20Bio%20&%20Testimony%20-%20Altman.pdf"> testimony before Congress</a>.<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23393262/future-perfect-50-jason-matheny-rand-corporation"> Jason Matheny</a>, CEO of the Rand Corporation and a former senior Biden adviser, <a href="https://www.meritalk.com/articles/senate-panel-witnesses-call-for-ai-regulation-from-congress/">told the Senate</a>, “we need a licensing regime, a governance system of guardrails around the models that are being built.” Gary Marcus, an NYU professor and prominent voice on AI, urged Congress to specifically<a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023-05-16_-_qfr_responses_-_marcus.pdf"> follow the FDA model as it ponders regulating AI</a>, requiring pre-approval before deployment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2YCrG6">
|
||
<strong>“Compute” regulation</strong>: Training advanced AI models requires a lot of computing, including actual math conducted by graphics processing units (GPUs) or other more specialized chips to train and fine-tune neural networks. Cut off access to advanced chips or large orders of ordinary chips and you slow AI progress. Harvard computer scientist Yonadav Shavit has proposed<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11341"> one model for regulating compute</a>. Shavit’s approach would place firmware (low-level code embedded into hardware) that can save “snapshots” of the neural networks being trained, so inspectors can examine those snapshots later, and would require AI companies to save information about their training runs so they can verify their activities match the information on the chip firmware. He would also have regulators monitor chip orders to ensure no one is purchasing a critical mass of unmonitored chips not subject to these regulations, just as biorisk experts have <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/27/23808920/gene-dna-synthesis-biotechnology-pandemic-viruses-twist-bioscience-pathogens-ginkgo-bioworks">advocated monitoring gene synthesis orders</a> to prevent the deliberate engineering of dangerous pathogens.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ol0Hno">
|
||
Export controls, like those the<a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/seismic-shift-new-us-semiconductor-export-controls-and-implications-us-firms-allies-and"> US placed restricting the sale of advanced chips to China</a>, could also count as a form of compute regulation meant to limit certain nations or firms’ ability to train advanced models.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="WEO2Ga">
|
||
New institutions for a new time
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kwTgLN">
|
||
Implementing all of the above regulations requires government institutions with substantial staff and funding. Some of the work could be done, and already is being done, by existing agencies. The Federal Trade Commission has been aggressive, especially on privacy and bias issues, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a scientific agency that develops voluntary standards for a number of fields, has begun work on<a href="https://www.nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-framework"> developing best practices for AI development and deployment</a> that could function either as voluntary guidelines or the basis of future mandatory regulations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VvVaXg">
|
||
But the scale of the challenge AI poses has also led to proposals to add entirely new agencies at the national and international level.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jic1Ve">
|
||
<strong>The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource</strong>: One new federal institution dedicated to AI is already in the works. A 2020 law mandated the creation of a task force to design a<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2023/01/24/national-artificial-intelligence-research-resource-task-force-releases-final-report/"> National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource</a> (NAIRR), a federally funded group that would provide compute, data, and other services for universities, government researchers, and others who currently lack the ability to do cutting-edge work. The <a href="https://www.ai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/NAIRR-TF-Final-Report-2023.pdf">final report by the task force</a> asked for $2.6 billion over six years, though Congress has not shown much interest in allocating that funding as of yet. A bipartisan group in the House and Senate recently <a href="https://eshoo.house.gov/media/press-releases/ai-caucus-leaders-introduce-bipartisan-bill-expand-access-ai-research">introduced legislation that would formally establish NAIRR</a> and instruct the National Science Foundation to fund it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ke6pJl">
|
||
In contrast to technologies like nuclear power and even the early internet, AI is dominated by the private sector, not the government or universities. Companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic spend<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/openai-ceo-sam-altman-the-age-of-giant-ai-models-is-already-over/"> hundreds of millions</a> of dollars on the server processing, datasets, and other raw materials necessary to build advanced models; the goal of NAIRR is to level the playing field somewhat, “democratizing access to the cyberinfrastructure that fuels AI research and development,” in<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2023/01/24/national-artificial-intelligence-research-resource-task-force-releases-final-report/"> the words</a> of the National Science Foundation’s director.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DXwz3v">
|
||
<strong>Dedicated regulator for AI</strong>: While agencies like the FTC, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Copyright Office are already working on standards and regulations for AI, some stakeholders and experts have argued the topic requires a new, dedicated regulator that can focus more specifically on AI without juggling it and other issues.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="einC6E">
|
||
In their<a href="https://techpolicy.press/transcript-senate-judiciary-subcommittee-hearing-on-oversight-of-ai/"> testimony before Congress</a>, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and NYU professor Gary Marcus both endorsed creating a new agency. Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, has echoed his business partner Altman and<a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/05/25/how-do-we-best-govern-ai/"> argued that new AI regulations</a> are “best implemented by a new government agency.” Computer scientist Ben Schneiderman has suggested a<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/3876569-do-we-need-a-national-algorithms-safety-board/"> National Algorithms Safety Board</a>, modeled on the National Transportation Safety Board that investigates all airplane crashes, some highway crashes, and other transportation safety disasters.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JIcQAl">
|
||
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Peter Welch (D-VT) have introduced legislation that would act on these suggestions and create a<a href="https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/5/bennet-welch-reintroduce-landmark-legislation-to-establish-federal-commission-to-oversee-digital-platforms"> Federal Digital Platform Commission</a>, charged with regulating AI and social media.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HoFdnT">
|
||
But others have pushed back and argued existing agencies are sufficient. Kent Walker, the top policy official at Google, had suggested that the<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/13/google-bucks-calls-new-ai-regulator/"> National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) should be the main agency handling AI</a>. (Notably, NIST does not have any regulatory powers and cannot compel tech companies to do anything.) Christina Montgomery, a top executive at IBM, similarly<a href="https://techpolicy.press/transcript-senate-judiciary-subcommittee-hearing-on-oversight-of-ai/"> told Congress</a> that taking time to set up a new agency risks “slow[ing] down regulation to address real risks right now.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1jsZ_LLaJVDTmGnmyNtXdKuHwCE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24820960/1541433247.jpg"/> <cite>Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Chilean president Gabriel Boric, center, examines a gigantic magnet at a visit to CERN.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fsDk8N">
|
||
<strong>CERN for AI</strong>: Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7c30ea28-2895-44c2-9a2d-c31ea7fa27e7">pitched President Joe Biden on setting up a “CERN for AI,”</a> modeled after the Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire (CERN) in Geneva, which hosts large-scale particle accelerators for physics research and was the birthplace of the World Wide Web. Advocates like the computer scientist<a href="https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/explore/magazine-humboldt-kosmos/by-courtesy-of-how-artifcial-intelligence-is-changing-our-lives/we-need-a-cern-for-ai-in-europe"> Holger Hoos</a> argue that setting up such a facility would create “a beacon that is really big and bright,” attracting talent from all over the world to collaborate on AI in one location not controlled by a private company, making the exchange of ideas easier. (The <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-03-29/335-000-pay-offered-for-ai-whisperer-jobs-in-red-hot-market">sky-high salaries</a> being offered to AI experts by those private companies, however, might limit its appeal unless this institution could match them.)
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KFw0sZ">
|
||
A<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04699"> recent paper</a> from a team of AI governance experts at Google DeepMind, OpenAI, several universities, and elsewhere proposed specifically setting up a CERN-like project for AI safety. “Researchers—including those who would not otherwise be working on AI safety—could be drawn by its international stature and enabled by the project’s exceptional compute, engineers and model access,” the authors write. “The Project would become a vibrant research community that benefits from tighter information flows and a collective focus on AI safety.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PlK502">
|
||
<strong>IAEA for AI</strong>: Top OpenAI executives Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever said in May that the world will<a href="https://openai.com/blog/governance-of-superintelligence"> “eventually need something like an IAEA for superintelligence efforts,”</a> a reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the UN institution charged with controlling nuclear weapons proliferation and governing the safe deployment of nuclear power. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/un-chief-backs-idea-global-ai-watchdog-like-nuclear-agency-2023-06-12/"> echoed the call</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sfZsou">
|
||
Others have pushed back on the IAEA analogy, noting that<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/iaea-for-ai-that-model-has-already-failed-chaptgpt-technology-nuclear-proliferation-4339543b"> the IAEA itself has failed to prevent nuclear proliferation</a> to France, China, Israel, India, South Africa, Pakistan, and North Korea, all of which developed their bombs after the IAEA’s inception in 1957. (<a href="https://world101.cfr.org/global-era-issues/nuclear-proliferation/south-africa-why-countries-acquire-and-abandon-nuclear">South Africa voluntarily destroyed its bombs</a> as part of the transition from apartheid.) Others have noted that the IAEA’s focus on monitoring physical materials like uranium and plutonium <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2023/06/why-the-iaea-model-may-not-be-best-for-regulating-artificial-intelligence/">lacks a clear analogy to AI</a>; while physical chips are necessary, they’re much harder to track than the rare radioactive material used for nuclear bombs, at least without the controls Yonadav Shavit has proposed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hIix8A">
|
||
In the<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04699"> same paper</a> discussing a CERN-like institution for AI, the authors considered a model for an Advanced AI Governance Organization that can promote standards for countries to adopt on AI and monitor compliance with those standards, and a Frontier AI Collaborative that could function a bit like the US National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource on an international scale and spread access to AI tech to less affluent countries. Rather than copying the IAEA directly, the aim would be to identify some specific activities that a multilateral organization could engage in on AI and build a team around them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="Kw9rxN">
|
||
New funding for AI
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yzxUPY">
|
||
Implementing new regulations and creating new institutions to deal with AI will, of course, require some funding from Congress. Beyond the tasks described above, AI policy experts have been proposing new funding specifically for AI capabilities and safety research by federal labs (which would have different and less commercially driven priorities than private companies), and for the development of voluntary standards for private actors to follow on the topic.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SWz47a">
|
||
<strong>More funding for the Department of Energy</strong>: To date, much federal investment in AI has focused on military applications; the Biden administration’s latest budget request includes<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/15/pentagon-artificial-intelligence-china-00101751"> $1.8 billion in defense spending on AI</a> for the next year alone. The recent House and Senate defense spending bills feature <a href="https://fas.org/publication/fy24-ndaa-ai-tracker/">numerous AI-specific provisions</a>. But AI is a<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130"> general-purpose technology</a> with broad applications outside of warfare, and a growing number of AI policy experts are suggesting that the Department of Energy (DOE), rather than the Pentagon, is the proper home for non-defense AI research spending.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OqALTn">
|
||
The DOE runs the national laboratories system, employing tens of thousands of people, and through those labs it already invests considerable sums into AI research. “[DOE] has profound expertise in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, as well as established work regulating industries and establishing standards,”<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/divyanshkaushik/2023/04/17/congress-can-shape-ai-governance-without-stifling-innovation-heres-how/?sh=3afe6b48135b"> Divyansh Kaushik of the Federation of American Scientists</a> has written. “It also has experience addressing intricate dual-use technology implications and capability as a grant-making research agency.” These make it “best-suited” to lead AI research efforts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u9uQUP">
|
||
On the Christopher Nolan end of the scale, the Foundation for American Innovation’s Sam Hammond has suggested that a<a href="https://www.secondbest.ca/p/a-manhattan-project-for-ai-safety"> “Manhattan Project for AI Safety</a>” be housed in the Department of Energy. The project would facilitate coordination between private-sector actors and the government on safety measures, and create new computing facilities including ones that are “air gapped,” deliberately not connected to the broader internet, “ensuring that future, more powerful AIs are unable to escape onto the open internet.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bl7vUw">
|
||
<strong>More funding for the National Science Foundation</strong>: Another place in government that has already been funding research on AI is the National Science Foundation, the feds’ main scientific grantmaker outside of the medical sciences.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jul0cA">
|
||
The Federation of American Scientists’ Matt Korda and Divynash Kaushik have argued that beyond additional funding,<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/3/23779794/artificial-intelligence-regulation-ai-risk-congress-sam-altman-chatgpt-openai"> the agency needs to undergo a “strategic shift”</a> in how it spends, moving away from enhancing the capabilities of AI models and toward “safety-related initiatives that may lead to more sustainable innovations and fewer unintended consequences.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="Laurie E. Locascio, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YWZV0JY2P4nyvgvhdV5VjY72d8g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24820971/Laurie_E._Locascio_0205___MicroTAS_2007.jpg"/> <cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laurie_E._Locascio_0205_-_MicroTAS_2007.jpg" target="_blank">Guillaume Paumier</a></cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
National Institute of Standards and Technology director Laurie Locascio is not exactly a household name, but she could be among the most important figures shaping AI regulation going forward.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4JXHIn">
|
||
<strong>More funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology</strong>: NIST is not exactly the most famous government agency there is, but its unique role as a generator of voluntary standards and best practices to government and industry, without any regulatory function, makes it an important actor at this moment in AI history. The field is in enough flux that agreement on what standards should be binding is limited.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GrCgWK">
|
||
In the meantime, NIST has released an<a href="https://www.nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-framework"> AI Risk Management Framework</a> offering initial standards and best practices for the sector. It has also created a<a href="https://airc.nist.gov/Home"> Trustworthy & Responsible Artificial Intelligence Resource Center</a>, designed to provide training and documents to help industry, government, and academia abide by the Risk Management Framework. Some in Congress want to <a href="https://fedscoop.com/dems-push-biden-admin-to-mandate-nist-ai-framework/">mandate federal agencies abide</a> by the framework, which would go a long way toward adoption.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qI0Qmx">
|
||
The AI firm <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23794855/anthropic-ai-openai-claude-2">Anthropic</a>, which has made safety a priority, has<a href="https://www-files.anthropic.com/production/images/Anthropic_NIST_v3.pdf"> proposed a $15 million annual increase in funding for NIST</a>, funding 22 additional staffers, to double staffing working on AI and build bigger “testing environments” where it can experiment on AI systems and develop techniques to measure their capabilities and possibly dangerous behaviors.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="440o6T">
|
||
New people to take the lead on AI research
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K7E629">
|
||
A recent<a href="https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/the-main-resource-is-the-human/"> survey of AI researchers</a> from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), a leading think tank on AI issues, concluded that processors and “compute” are not the main bottleneck limiting progress on AI. The bottleneck for making intelligent machines is intelligent humans; building advanced models requires highly trained scientists and engineers, all of whom are currently in short supply relative to the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-04/google-microsoft-amazon-drive-ai-talent-frenzy-across-india?sref=qYiz2hd0">extraordinary demand</a> for their talents.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rifZ5c">
|
||
That has led many AI experts to argue that US policy has to focus on growing the number of trained AI professionals, through both expanded immigration and by providing more scholarships for US-born aspiring researchers.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ch2uWj">
|
||
<strong>Expanded high-skilled immigration</strong>: In 2021, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a group <a href="https://www.nscai.gov/about/">charged by Congress</a> with developing recommendations for federal AI policy, argued that Congress should<a href="https://reports.nscai.gov/final-report/chapter-10"> dramatically expand visas and green cards</a> for workers and students in AI. These are <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/15/science-tech-stem-china-immigration">incredibly common proposals</a> in AI circles, for clear reasons. The US immigration system has created major barriers for AI researchers seeking to come here. One survey found that<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.07237"> 69 percent of AI researchers in the US said that visa and immigration issues were a serious problem</a> for them, compared to 44 percent and just 29 percent in the UK and Canada, respectively.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tnt8Yu">
|
||
Those countries are now<a href="https://www.protocol.com/uk-hpi-visa"> using these difficulties</a> to<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/14/canada-h1b-visa-immigration/"> aggressively recruit STEM professionals</a> rejected from the US. The analyst Remco Zwetsloot has<a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/winning-tech-talent-competition"> concluded</a> that these dynamics are creating “a consensus among U.S. technology and national security leaders that STEM immigration reform is now … ‘a national security imperative.’”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uoLFbC7HjuDEJHocaXOtirn8PfU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24820975/1258459705.jpg"/> <cite>Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Ilya Sutskever was born in Russia, grew up in Israel, and got his university degrees in Canada before moving to the US and cofounding OpenAI.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jOHuP3">
|
||
<strong>Funding for AI education programs</strong>: Similarly, some policymakers have proposed expanding subsidies for students to gain training in machine learning and other disciplines (like cybersecurity and processor design) relevant to advanced AI. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Thune (R-SD) have proposed the<a href="https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/4/thune-peters-introduce-legislation-to-strengthen-future-federal-workforce-s-capabilities-in-artificial-intelligence"> AI Scholarship-for-Service Act</a>, which would provide undergraduate and graduate scholarships to students who commit to working in the public sector after graduation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="A9k01T">
|
||
The ground is still shifting
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wuq72M">
|
||
These four areas — regulation, institutions, money, and people — make up the bulk of the AI policy conversation right now. But I would be remiss if I did not note that this conversation is evolving quite rapidly. If you told me in January, barely a month after the release of ChatGPT, that CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic would be testifying before Congress and that members would be taking their ideas, and those of unaffiliated AI risk experts, seriously, I would have been shocked. But that’s the territory we’re in now.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8A9iLc">
|
||
The terrain is shifting fast enough that we could be in an entirely different place in a few months, with entirely different leading actors. Maybe the AI labs lose influence; maybe certain civil society groups gain it; maybe the military becomes a bigger component of these talks.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jGiioM">
|
||
All that makes now a particularly sensitive moment for the future of AI. There’s an idea in tech policy called <a href="https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10898">the Collingridge dilemma</a>: When a technology is novel, it’s easier to change its direction or regulate it, but it’s also much harder to know what the effect of the technology will be. Once the effect of the technology is known, that effect becomes harder to change.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iXuahK">
|
||
We’re in the “unknown impact, easier to influence direction” stage on AI. This isn’t an area of intractable gridlock in DC, at least not yet. But it’s also an area where the actual technology feels slippery, and everything we think we know about it feels open to revision.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nominated candidates’ list for WFI polls out</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>‘If Stokes texts me again I will delete it’: Moeen Ali again calls retirement after 5th Ashes Test</strong> - Moeen, 36, quit test cricket two years ago but was recalled to the squad in June</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nominations filed for WFI elections</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tripura cricket officials deny hand in ‘16 crore scam’, apply for bail</strong> - Lodh rejected his disqualification and presented another resolution signed by 26 of 33 Members of the TCA that declared the announcements of the other faction void. He and his loyalists forced their way into the office under police protection</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Alexander Zverev beats Laslo Djere in straight sets to win Hamburg European Open</strong> - Alexander Zverev has defeated Laslo Djere 7-5, 6-3 to win the Hamburg European Open for the first time</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Off-budget borrowings of Andhra Pradesh government put at ₹79,815 crore, says Centre</strong> - The Central government released ₹10,460.87 crore towards Revenue Deficit Grant for 2014-15 financial year in May following a request by the State, says Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Venkateswara temple Pushkarini closed for repairs</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CUSAT to permit exit after four years of integrated programme</strong> - A meeting of the academic council to be held on August 5 will ratify the proposal</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Govt tables National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023, in Lok Sabha</strong> - The legislation will reverse the effect of the Supreme Court verdict in May that gave the Delhi Government power over administrative services</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nurses’ association urges intervention of CM, Health Minister in assault case</strong> - Nurse stage dharna at Collectorate demanding justice</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Same Moscow skyscraper hit in new drone attack</strong> - The building in Russia’s capital was targeted in a similar attack on Sunday, the mayor says.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Niger coup: Why some people want Russia in and France out</strong> - Supporters of the military which seized power in Niger have been showing their support for Russia.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russian cruise ship leaves Batumi after Georgian protests</strong> - Anti-war demonstrators waving Ukrainian and Georgian flags objected to tourists entering Batumi.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BP profits drop after Russia-Ukraine war windfall fades</strong> - The oil giant says profits slowed to $2.5bn after wholesale energy prices fell back.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Unesco recommends adding Venice to endangered list</strong> - Italian authorities are failing to protect the city from over tourism and climate change, Unesco says.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>End of the line for Russia and Ukraine’s partnership in rocketry</strong> - Northrop Grumman just can’t seem to settle on a rocket for its Cygnus supply ships. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1957889">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag 2 design revealed by FCC—it’s very big</strong> - After no-showing at Samsung’s last event, who knows when this will launch. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1957931">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Facebook to unmask anonymous Dutch user accused of repeated defamatory posts</strong> - Court decides the posts can stay up, but the user’s identity must be revealed. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1957962">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dissolving circuit boards in water sounds better than shredding and burning</strong> - They’re easier to recycle, and chips come right off. Will they take off? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1957869">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Don’t call it an SUV—the 2023 Toyota Crown, reviewed</strong> - Bold styling and a powerful hybrid suggest GT, but it’s more laid back than that. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1957911">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I’m Jewish; I can make this joke.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A Jew and a Christian crash into eachother’s cars. The Jew says, “It’s a Jewish tradition to have a drink after an accident.” The Christian takes the drink, but the Jew declines, saying, "I’m just waiting for after the police arrive.
|
||
</p>
|
||
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I don’t mean to offend anyone it’s just a joke pls don’t hate me
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Agins28"> /u/Agins28 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15ezq4m/im_jewish_i_can_make_this_joke/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15ezq4m/im_jewish_i_can_make_this_joke/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>2 boys were talking…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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2 boys were talking and one said to the other, “There is an easy way to earn money..The other boy said,”How?" the boy replied, “Tell people you know their secret.”The boy jumps up to his dad, “I know your secret!” dad replies, “Please don’t tell your mom heres $10.”The boy then runs to his mom, “I know your secret!”mom said, “Please don’t tell your dad here’s $15.”The boy then tries it on the mail man, “I know your secret!” The mail man opened his arms and said, “Come, give your dad a hug!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/LoneShark81"> /u/LoneShark81 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15ev5gr/2_boys_were_talking/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15ev5gr/2_boys_were_talking/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A priest and a rabbi are standing on the side of the road holding a sign that says, “TURN AROUND! THE END IS NIGH!!!”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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A young man passing by in a car slows down and sticks his head out of the window to shout at them, “Get fucked, you religious freaks” and zooms ahead at full speed.
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Moments later, they hear a yell followed by a loud splash.
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The rabbi turns to the priest and says, “I told you we should have just written ‘Warning. Bridge collapsed.’”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Distinct-Speaker8426"> /u/Distinct-Speaker8426 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15f3lxm/a_priest_and_a_rabbi_are_standing_on_the_side_of/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15f3lxm/a_priest_and_a_rabbi_are_standing_on_the_side_of/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A woman submitted a speedrun for “Fastest Female Orgasm”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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It was rejected though, turned out to be a TAS
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SilverSneakers"> /u/SilverSneakers </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15eqn3f/a_woman_submitted_a_speedrun_for_fastest_female/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15eqn3f/a_woman_submitted_a_speedrun_for_fastest_female/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A very worried woman …………………………..</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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went to the doctor’s to complain about the male hormone she was having to take. “Oh doctor, I’m growing hair in all sorts of places.” “Don’t worry, that’s not unusual in a case like this. Where in particular is the hair?” “On my balls,” she replied
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/u24fun"> /u/u24fun </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15eyecp/a_very_worried_woman/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/15eyecp/a_very_worried_woman/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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</ul>
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