Will you be flagged at the border? Will your mortgage application be approved? During wartime, whose neighbourhood would a weapon system target? These are moral choices — about harm and fairness — and they used to be made by people. Now moral choices like these are made by artificial intelligence (AI) and by the companies developing it. Not government, not the public, but corporations. Chris Olah, co-founder of the AI company Anthropic and a self-described atheist, recently sat beside Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and said his own industry cannot be trusted to govern itself. “Some might believe that matters of AI are best handled by computer scientists like myself,” he said. “They are mistaken.” Olah was echoing the Pope’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, which warns that AI must serve humanity rather than concentrate power. Anthropic co‑founder Christopher Olah speaks at the launch of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. It is clear that AI needs an independent regulator with the power to say no in the same way that authorities can refuse a new drug or block a nuclear reactor. Ordinary people, not just technical experts, need to set the moral standards this regulator enforces. Morality at speed Developers are not necessarily careless or cynical. Our research shows many AI developers deeply question the moral aspects of their work while acknowledging the pressures that can make these concerns more peripheral. It is hard to hold a moral line inside a company built to move fast. As digital technology researchers, we have a name for the staff hired to manage this tension: “ethics owners.” These are the people tasked with responding to outside criticism while remaining wholly inside the company that provokes it. Scholars of technology ethics also argue that corporate AI ethics can harden into an “economy of virtue” — a marketplace of ethical skills, knowledge and approvals that companies must procure to disarm critics and fend off regulation. The launch of Magnifica Humanitas and Olah’s speech were timely. Governments around the world are writing the rules about AI right now. Canada just launched a federal AI for All strategy with little focus on safety or ethics, let alone discussion of who will decide the harder moral questions. The corrective must come from the outside. The public must have a voice. ‘Participation-washing’ risks Experiments already exist. Anthropic invited about 1,000 Americans to help write the rules for a version of its AI chatbot Claude in a project called Collective Constitutional AI. Public engagement researchers have studied citizens’ assemblies — groups of randomly selected people who study an issue and reach shared recommendations — as a way of tackling questions as charged as abortion law and homelessness. They offer promise for public participation in the governance of AI. Citizens’ assemblies: Pioneered in B.C. 20 years ago, they’re a growing pro-democracy tool Yet these exercises rarely shift real decisions. Studies show the public is typically brought in late, asked narrow questions and given no power over the outcome. A corporation or government agency controls the agenda, the data and the decision. When participation is advisory, it can slide into what we call “participation-washing” — the appearance of public voice without the substance of public power. Input that can be overruled is not governance. It is consultation that makes AI governance look more democratic than it is. Drugs and nuclear power How do we handle other technologies that can heal or kill? We do not let a pharmaceutical company alone decide that a drug is safe to sell. An independent regulator weighs the evidence and can say no. We do not let a nuclear facility build a reactor and certify its own safety. Decades ago, we decided some choices are too consequential to leave to those who profit from them. These choices have moral questions hiding inside the technical ones. How safe is safe enough? How much harm do we as a society accept and who is made to bear it — the poor, the elderly, a minority? Iran war shows how AI speeds up military ‘kill chains’ Democratic moral governance moves this choice into public hands. In the case of AI, people should set the standards a regulator applies and should determine where the lines are drawn. An obvious objection is that AI differs from pharmaceuticals and nuclear power. AI innovation is moving faster than any drug trial; there is no single product to approve; it respects no borders. And it is difficult to license AI in the abstract because it covers so many technologies, from targeted marketing to robot navigation and facial recognition. As a society we can, however, make discrete decisions: whether to release a powerful new model or to deploy one in policing, hospitals or courts. A regulator can review issues on a rolling basis. Also, because AI ignores borders, shared international oversight makes sense. The Global Dialogue on AI Governance, created at the United Nations in 2025, is worth taking seriously. Communities matter as well: cities are deploying various kinds of AI at a local scale and are navigating governance issues. Community members have a role in decisions about how AI is used, whether to fix potholes or build housing. Canada illustrates how far this has come and how far it still has to go. The federal Directive on Automated Decision-Making requires the federal government’s automated systems to be transparent and accountable. Its Algorithmic Impact Assessment is a mandatory risk assessment tool for autonomous decision systems used within government. These tools rely on self-reporting from federal agencies and departments. They do their best to govern how Canadian governments use AI. Still, choices have so far involved asking technical experts instead of the public what counts as acceptable and what should be stopped. A voice and a vote This is a gap for democratic moral governance to close. Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making and Algorithmic Impact Assessment are considered to be the gold standard. However, initiatives like Canada’s Digital Charter, the 30-day online public consultation in October 2025 and the recent federal AI strategy, AI for “All,” have demonstrated that Canada should not be heralded as a model for public participation around AI. Canada’s ‘AI for All’ strategy has ambitious growth targets, but it falls short on workers and the environment Democratic moral governance of AI is possible, but only if the public’s moral judgment is accompanied by political power. Anything less is performative. The Pope and Chris Olah agree companies cannot decide what AI should do to us. The unfinished, democratic work involves finding ways for people to decide on moral issues and to have the authority to enforce those decisions. Renée Sieber receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Emmanuelle Vaast does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The acquisition of Cursor gives SpaceX a foothold into the enterprise software development market, where AI-assisted coding has taken off and led large companies to significantly pare back their reliance on human engineers.

Sara Fischer / Axios: Letter: Hightouch, an ad tech startup recently valued at $2.75B, offers to buy LiveRamp's identity business from Publicis for $800M to $1.2B in cash and stock  —  Hightouch, an ad tech startup recently valued at $2.75 billion, has offered to buy LiveRamp's identity business from ad holding group Publicis …

OpenSharing makes it simple to share live data across organizations — but when provider...

The author met a Belgian man on a dating app. Eventually, she learned how to speak Dutch so she could connect with his family and culture. Courtesy of Renate Flanagen. When my husband and I started dating, neither of us expected me to learn his native language. I changed my mind when I realized he wanted our future children to speak Dutch. We now have a 2-year-old and primarily speak Dutch to him at our home in the US. When I first matched with my now-husband on a dating app, his profile said he was from Belgium. At the time, I assumed he spoke French. I had been studying Spanish for a few years, and in the language-learning community, there is a joke that the best way to learn a language is to date someone who speaks it. I had fleeting thoughts that I would finally be able to pronounce the names of high-end French fashion brands. Before our first date, I realized he was actually from the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, and I remember thinking, "Who would want to learn Dutch?" As our relationship progressed and things became more serious, I asked my future husband if he thought I should learn Dutch. His answer was honest, "It's not very useful." Dutch is primarily spoken in the Netherlands and the Flanders region of Belgium, where my husband is from. Most Dutch speakers also speak English, so as an English speaker, learning Dutch isn't all that necessary. We eventually started talking about moving in together, getting married, and having a family one day. I asked my husband if it was important to him that his child speak his native language. Without hesitation, he answered that it was. It was then that I knew that if our yet-to-be-conceived child was going to speak Dutch, their American mother would be the weak link if I didn't learn the language, too. The author said her husband mentioned he would like his future children to speak Dutch before they got married. It was then that she knew that she wanted to learn the language, too. Courtesy of Renate Flanagen. His family has been encouraging Shortly after I moved in with my now-husband, I started studying Dutch. I used a language-learning app with him by my side, coaching me on pronunciation and grammar. Most Dutch language-learning resources I've found are based on Dutch spoken in the Netherlands. Dutch in the Netherlands and Dutch in Belgium are akin to English spoken in England compared to English in the United States. The pronunciation and meanings of some of the words differ. For instance, "lopen" in the Netherlands means "to walk," while in Belgium, it means "to run." I've been fortunate that my efforts to learn Dutch have been met with enthusiasm and encouragement from my husband's family and friends. Because it's uncommon for Americans to learn the language, the expectations are comically low. On my first visit to Belgium, my Dutch was still at a basic level. My vocabulary was limited, and I could only speak in the present tense. Even so, my husband's friends joked that I would make a good "buitenlander," meaning a foreigner, because I spoke more Dutch than some people who had moved to Belgium and had lived there for years. Seeing my son speak Dutch is the greatest reward My husband and I now have a 2-year-old son that we're raising in the United States. One of my greatest fears of being a multicultural family living in the US was that my son wouldn't have any connection to his dad's culture. Even though my Dutch is at an elementary level, my husband and I primarily speak Dutch with our son. The author said her son spoke Dutch with a cousin while they were visiting. Courtesy of Renate Flanagen. During a recent visit from my husband's family, my son got to play with his 2-year-old cousin from Belgium, who only speaks Dutch. It made my heart swell to watch my son and his cousin play "keuken," meaning kitchen. My son pretended to make soup in an empty cooking pot and offered a "lepel" (spoon) for his cousin to pretend to drink from. He asked his cousin, "wat denk je?" meaning "what do you think?" to which she responded, "lekker!" meaning "tasty," and they laughed hysterically. By learning Dutch, I'm honoring my husband's culture and language so that our son can grow up as a Belgian American, no matter where we live. Read the original article on Business Insider

Harry McCracken / Fast Company: A look at Specs, which have a battery life of up to four hours per charge, and an interview with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel about the AR glasses  —  Snap's cofounder and CEO, Evan Spiegel, gave this morning's keynote at AWE, the augmented reality industry's big annual conference.

Weidmann's unique tradition dates back to butter shortages during World War II. Camille F./Yelp; Kelley B./Yelp Weidmann's is regarded as the oldest restaurant in Mississippi. Located in Meridian, it has a tradition of putting peanut butter and crackers on every table. The custom dates back to World War II, when regular butter was harder to come by. Weidmann's restaurant was founded in 1870 by Swiss immigrant Felix Weidmann and has been serving the downtown Meridian, Mississippi, community for over 150 years. As one of the oldest restaurants in the state — many claim it is the oldest — Weidmann's has survived economic downturns, changing dining trends, and even world wars while preserving many of the traditions that helped make it famous. Weidmann's was opened in 1870 by Felix Weidmann, a Swiss immigrant. Ryan G./Yelp One of the restaurant's most distinctive customs is noticeable as soon as customers sit down: a jar of peanut butter and an assortment of crackers on every table. While it may seem unusual to first-time visitors, the practice has become one of Weidmann's signature traditions and a beloved part of the historic steakhouse's dining experience. It dates back to World War II, when butter was scarce because of wartime rationing and supply shortages. According to the restaurant, when a customer mentioned to then-owner Henry Weidmann, Felix's grandson, that they could replace traditional butter with peanut butter, which was more widely available, it took off. Customers quickly embraced the substitute, and what started as a practical response to a wartime shortage became a beloved restaurant tradition. Even after butter became readily available again following the war, customers had grown so fond of the combination that the restaurant decided to continue the practice. Decades later, staff still place a jar of peanut butter and a basket of assorted crackers on every table, preserving a piece of the restaurant's history. They weren't served in a standard-issue peanut butter jar, either Staff still place a jar of peanut butter and a basket of assorted crackers on every table. Jim G./Yelp Back in the 1940s, Henry commissioned a potter in Louisville, Mississippi, to make peanut-butter crocks by hand. Today, diners are encouraged to spread the peanut butter, which is still served in a handmade ceramic crock, onto crackers while they browse the menu and wait for their food. The pre-meal snack is complimentary. Weidmann's is also known for classic steakhouse fare, including crab cakes and hand-cut steaks, as well as Weidmann's World Famous Black Bottom Pie, a dessert with a gingersnap crust topped with a layer of dark chocolate, bourbon custard, and whipped cream, introduced by Henry Weidmann. The famous peanut butter crocks are now handmade by a local potter in Meridian and available for purchase for $27.50, according to the restaurant's website. More than 80 years after World War II ended, a wartime workaround remains a defining feature of the historic restaurant, proving that sometimes the most enduring — and tasty — traditions begin as simple acts of resourcefulness. Read the original article on Business Insider

Jay Peters / The Verge: Snap unveils $2,195 Specs, its first AR glasses that are “fully standalone” and have a 51-degree field of view, expected “this fall” in the US, UK, and France  —  The new Specs are priced at $2,195, and you can preorder them starting today.

NVIDIA RTX technologies are deeply integrated into Unreal Engine 5 through the NVIDIA RTX Branch of Unreal Engine and the NVIDIA DLSS Unreal Engine plugin. This... NVIDIA RTX technologies are deeply integrated into Unreal Engine 5 through the NVIDIA RTX Branch of Unreal Engine and the NVIDIA DLSS Unreal Engine plugin. This provides developers with direct access to advanced rendering, frame generation, and ray-traced lighting. NVIDIA is expanding this integration with new tools for building on-device AI characters and gameplay, as announced at Unreal Fest… Source

Last week’s TPC26 event brought together many of the world’s preeminent experts in using AI for science and engineering. The conference demonstrated that we have come quite far in just […] The post Exploring the Current Boundaries of AI for Science at TPC26 appeared first on BigDATAwire.

Legal victories have dampened the Trump admin’s efforts to halt wind and solar power.

Ina Fried / Axios: Microsoft is moving Copilot Cowork to usage-based pricing and is considering a Microsoft-hosted version of DeepSeek as a cheaper option  —  Microsoft is moving Copilot Cowork to usage-based pricing as it expands access to the enterprise AI tool — and is considering a Microsoft-hosted version of DeepSeek as a cheaper model option.

Separately, neither could compete. Now they hope they can.

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Budgets for AI tokens can’t be infinite, no matter how much hyperscalers wish they were The post Drilling Into AI’s Financial Sustainability appeared first on Towards Data Science.

Courtesy of Nothing Charlie Smith of consumer-tech company Nothing sees AI as a tool for creativity, not a job threat. Smith uses AI to automate daily tasks, reshaping his work routine with apps he built himself. Nothing's AI focus is on utility over hype, Smith said. Charlie Smith thinks a lot of the fear around AI is overblown. "When machines came along, we got new jobs. When computers came along, we got new jobs. And I really believe that we're going to enter a new era of creativity," with the help of AI, he said during an interview on Business Insider's "CMO Insider" podcast. In particular, Smith, who is the chief brand officer of consumer-tech company Nothing, said his interest in AI accelerated after joining Nothing in January and sitting next to the company's founder, Carl Pei, whom he described as "a massive vibe coder." Likewise, Smith has embraced vibe-coding in his everyday routine and recently designed multiple apps that have reshaped how he organizes his workday, manages travel, and communicates. "That's what I find so empowering about AI," he said. "Now, if you have an idea for an app and it's literally only relevant to you, it doesn't matter because you can build it in a few hours and then load it onto your phone." In Smith's view, the most interesting part of AI isn't hypothetical superintelligence. It's the fact that people can already use it to automate small frustrations and build tools tailored to their own lives. Apps he built are changing how he works and thinks Charlie Smith is the chief brand officer of consumer-tech company Nothing. Courtesy of Nothing Smith recently vibe-coded several personal apps, including one that combines his emails, appointments, weather updates, and news coverage into a daily dashboard, and another that organizes his flight and boarding information. "That's been a game changer for me," Smith said. He added that AI-powered voice tools are also changing how he captures ideas throughout the day. For example, Nothing recently launched a suite of AI-powered tools, including "Essential Voice," a dictation tool that removes filler words and restructures spoken thoughts into cleaner written text. "I really have stopped typing since using Essential Voice," Smith said. Why Nothing calls its AI products 'essential' Nothing's AI strategy is focused less on futuristic language and more on utility, Smith said. The company intentionally avoids heavily emphasizing the term "AI" in its product positioning, he added. "We're calling our AI-powered products essential because it's more about what they do," Smith said. Nothing's long-term vision is based on the belief that devices will become "AI native" over the next several years, he added. Smith predicts that computing could gradually shift away from app-based interfaces and toward systems that automatically surface information based on a user's needs. "We're going to move from this kind of app world to a more agentic world," Smith said. The fear around AI is a 'branding problem' Even as Smith embraces AI tools personally, he acknowledged that the technology faces growing skepticism, particularly among younger consumers. He believes much of that backlash comes from how AI companies market the technology. "I really do think it's a branding problem," Smith said. According to Smith, some AI executives have focused heavily on messaging around artificial general intelligence and job displacement. "I think a lot of these leaders in tech of these AI companies are really talking up AGI and the fact that AI is going to take over our jobs in order to inflate the valuation of the company and get more funding," he said. Smith said he does not believe AI will eliminate human creativity or replace all jobs. Instead, he sees AI primarily as a productivity tool that can automate repetitive administrative work. "We are trying to automate everything that we can so that these business-as-usual tasks of analytics and optimization and data reporting can all basically be done no longer manually," Smith said of Nothing's marketing operations. That, he said, could free workers to spend more time developing ideas and solving problems creatively. "How much time do we all waste on email and general admin that could be better spent doing other things?" Smith said. Read the original article on Business Insider

<p><strong>Release:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/datasette/datasette-tailscale/releases/tag/0.1a0">datasette-tailscale 0.1a0</a></p> <p>A very experimental alpha plugin which lets you do this:</p> <pre><code>datasette tailscale mydata.db \ --ts-authkey tskey-auth-xxxx --ts-hostname datasette-preview </code></pre> <p>This starts a localhost Datasette server with a <a href="https://tailscale.com/">Tailscale</a> sidecar that connects it to your Tailnet, such that <code>http://datasette-preview/</code> serves Datasette.</p> <p>It's using the Python bindings for the experimental <a href="https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale-rs">tailscale-rs</a> library. I <a href="https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale-rs/issues/243">filed an issue</a> asking if there's a cleaner way of setting up the proxy mechanism.</p> <p>Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/datasette">datasette</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/tailscale">tailscale</a></p>

Audited accounting shows growing revenues being dwarfed by R&D, other expenses.

On Thursday, June 11, 2026, AI Now Co-Executive Director Dr. Sarah Myers West testified at a Hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on “AI and the American Dream: Promoting Innovation, Affordability, and American Dominance”. In her testimony, Dr. West highlighted the risks the AI industry poses to the US economy and broader public – […] The post AI Now Co-Executive Director Sarah Myers West Testifies Before Senate Banking Committee appeared first on AI Now Institute.

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