... So if AI is transforming your industry, work out what the jobs of the future will be. Coin a new title. Plant a flag. Winning attention is one of the hardest challenges for businesses today. If your market associates a winning concept with your company, you are much closer to winning yourself.
Artificial intelligence matters from a moral perspective long before it ever potentially becomes conscious or autonomous. Although AI may or may not confront us with dramatic ethical dilemmas, it does change our moral lives in a far subtler way in that it reshapes our habits. Habits, more than principles, are where moral development actually lives. ...
When moral decisions become easier, faster, and more optimized, they also become less formative. Wisdom does not develop in the absence of uncertainty. Responsibility does not develop without the felt weight of consequence. These qualities do not emerge automatically from well-designed systems. They emerge through practice.
The danger, then, is not that artificial intelligence will make us immoral. The danger is that it will make morality thinner. From the outside, everything may appear functional and well ordered. From the inside, something essential may be missing: the sense that this is my judgment, my responsibility, and my doing. ...
Writers, actors and other musicians have come out in support of the Human Artistry Campaign’s “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” push for licensing and opt-out mechanisms for human-created works. ...
“Big Tech is trying to change the law so they can keep stealing American artistry to build their AI businesses — without authorization and without paying the people who did the work. That is wrong; it’s un-American, and it’s theft on a grand scale,” one of the campaign’s message proclaims. “The following creators all agree. Do you? If so, come join us.”
In addition to Johansson, Blanchett and Gordon-Levitt, industry figures David Lowery, Fran Drescher, Jennifer Hudson, Kristen Bell, Michele Mulroney, Olivia Munn, Sean Astin and Vince Gilligan all signed their names as backing the campaign. Musicians such as Cyndi Lauper, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride and Questlove and the groups MGMT, One Republic, R.E.M. and OK Go have also given their support, as did the authors George Saunders, Jodi Picoult, Roxane Gay and Jonathan Franzen.
The Human Artistry Campaign is composed of a mix of unions representing creators, artists’ rights groups and trade associations like the Writers Guild of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, The NewsGuild, the NFL Players Association and SAG-AFTRA. ...
... Eleven Music lets artists “use AI to expand their creative range while maintaining full authorship and commercial rights,” according to ElevenLabs. The artists who participated in “The Eleven Album” project released their tracks through their own streaming channels, which ensures “all streaming revenue goes back to the artists, reflecting ElevenLabs’ commitment to creator control, consent and fair compensation.”
“The Eleven Album” project spans multiple genres, including rap, pop, R&B and EDM. The album includes original tracks from Liza Minnelli; Art Garfunkel; Patrick Patrikios; Willonius; IAMSU!; Demitri Leiros; Emily Falvey; Sunsetto; Kondzilla; Chris Lyons; Michael Feinstein; and AI music artists Kai and Angelbaby. ...
Minnelli, 79, in a statement provided by ElevenLabs, said, “I’ve always believed that music is about connection and emotional truth. What interested me here was the idea of using my voice and new tools in service of expression, not instead of it. ...
There are essentially two topics dominating conversations in Davos this week: AI and President Donald Trump.
The tech presence at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting has always been sizable, but this year it feels bigger, louder, and more embedded in the Swiss alpine town.
Anthropic, a little-known AI lab just a few years ago, for the first time set up its own office on the main drag — a clear sign of how aggressively it’s courting enterprise customers. Google, meanwhile, hosted its press event for the fourth straight year, drawing what appeared to be its largest crowd yet.
Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, said the path to human-level artificial general intelligence is becoming clearer — but still has “missing ingredients.” He put AGI at five to ten years away, longer than timelines floated by peers at Anthropic and OpenAI, where executives have suggested it could arrive as early as 2026 or 2027. ...
If Davos is any guide, AI’s future still looks enormous — but could be far less linear than the confident forecasts shared on these same stages 12 months ago. ...
OpenAI is expanding its efforts to convince global governments to build more data centers and encourage greater usage of artificial intelligence in areas such as education, health and disaster preparedness.
The initiative – called OpenAI for Countries – will expand the reach of its products and help close the gap between countries with broad access to AI technology and nations that do not yet have the capacity, the company said. ...
OpenAI started the international initiative last year and appointed former British finance minister George Osborne to oversee the project in December. Osborne and Chris Lehane, OpenAI chief global affairs officer, are pitching government officials on the project this week in Davos.
The initiative is part of a broader strategy that has helped cement ChatGPT creator OpenAI at the vanguard of the modern AI boom. ...
Italy’s message is simple and deliberate: AI should support human decision-making, not replace it. Responsibility always stays with people.
What the Law Actually Does
Italy’s AI framework reinforces several core principles that will shape how organizations deploy AI:
Transparency and accountability AI systems must be explainable, traceable, and aligned with fundamental rights.
Human oversight by design Individuals must be able to understand, monitor, and intervene at every stage of an AI system’s lifecycle.
No automation without responsibility AI can assist decisions, but it cannot absorb or replace human accountability.
A foundation for future rules The law authorizes additional decrees over the next year to define liability, procedures, and coordination with the EU AI Act.
FaiBLE Media Inc., a new Silicon Valley startup working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and storytelling, on Tuesday announced its launch with a mission to decode the science behind why stories resonate with audiences and to develop new kinds of media experiences.
The company is co-founded by Sharad Devarajan, an award-winning creator and producer who will serve as CEO, and Dr. Mark Sagar, a two-time Academy Award-winning technologist and pioneer in virtual beings, who will serve as Chief AI Officer.
FaiBLE brings together AI scientists, storytellers, and technologists to study the deep structures that make stories emotionally compelling. A central initiative is what the company describes as “The AlphaFold of Storytelling,” a long-term research effort aimed at identifying scientific patterns behind aesthetic and emotional resonance, inspired by how AlphaFold revealed the structures governing protein folding. ...
During the 2024 Culver City council elections there was a lot of talk about outside money and outside influence. But no one was asking where the candidates themselves were getting their money.
So last January, after all of the candidates completed their campaign finance filings, I downloaded all of their FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) filings from the public portal, converted the pdf files to spreadsheets, aggregated the data on individual candidates into master spreadsheets, and analyzed the data by geographic area. All of this, from FPPC pdf through resulting graphs, is posted on www.CulverCityElectionDonationData.com for anyone to verify and use.
The bar charts show total dollar donations by geographic area, and the pie charts show percentage of donations by geographic area. All of the 2024 candidate bar charts use the same vertical scale, topping out at $90,000.
The most important color is dark blue. Dark blue represents donations from people who enter Culver City as their address. It is safe to assume that most of the people who did so are actual residents of Culver City.
The maximum donation any citizen could make to a 2024 Culver City council candidate was $1,120. Because of this limit, the dark blue total dollar donation bar and percentage of donations pie chart wedge are an excellent proxy for how much effort each candidate put in to convincing the citizens of Culver City that their ideas and candidacy were worth supporting.
The full geographic area breakdown is;
- Culver City (dark blue)
- Nearby Cities (orange); the surrounding cities are Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Venice, Inglewood, West Hollywood, Pacific Palisades, Marina del Rey, Playa del Rey, Brentwood, View Park – Windsor Hills (near Inglewood)
- Southern California (grey); the rest of southern California up to Santa Barbara
- Northern California (yellow); the rest of the state beyond southern California
- Out Of State (light blue); the other 49 states
The three winning candidates were Albert Vera, Yasmine-Imani McMorrin, and Bubba Fish.
The next logical question was; how do the fundraising patterns of these three candidates compare to those of the other two Council members. So I repeated the process for the 2022 election campaign filings of Dan O’Brien and Freddy Puza. (Note that Dan O’Brien’s bar chart has a different vertical scale.)
I presented the above data as a non-agenda item at the January 12, 2026 City Council meeting because I wanted to make a general point. I began by saying; at the last governance sub-committee meeting I asked the co-chairs Yasmine-Imani McMorrin and Bubba Fish what they were doing to socialize their ideas among the citizens of Culver City – especially among people who might not agree with them.
The governance committee is working to update Culver City government processes and to find ways to increase citizen engagement and participation in our local government activities.
Some of the co-chairs’ ideas will require funding by the city at a time when the city is deeply in debt.
All new ideas can have unintended consequences. The value of engaging with people who have diverse opinions and backgrounds is that they may identify and mitigate the impact of unintended consequences that you may personally be blind to in the proposed solution.
Since the co-chairs’ goal is to increase citizen engagement in government activities, it stands to reason that the co-chairs should have a strategy for engaging Culver City residents in this process; especially those who may not agree with the co-chairs or whom the co-chairs may not agree with.
When I asked the co-chairs about this, Bubba Fish politely suggested that we talk about it later. When I looked to Yasmine-Imani McMorrin for a response, she remained silent.
One of the take-aways from the campaign donation data above is that Councilpersons McMorrin and Fish put the least effort into connecting with and understanding the Culver City community as a whole of any of the candidates during their campaigns. Their fundraising statistics for donations from Culver City residents (McMorrin: $23,056 / 22% of total raised, Fish: $28,081 / 33% of total raise) pale in comparison to not only the highest vote-getter Albert Vera ($54,059 / 60% of total raised), but also to two of the three losing candidates. Put the other way, Bubba Fish received $57,149 / 67% of his campaign funding and Yasmine-Imani McMorrin received $84,130 / 78% of her campaign funding from people outside of Culver City.
Councilpersons McMorrin and Fish fare just as poorly in comparison to their fellow Councilmembers Dan O’Brien ($83,895 / 56% of total raised from Culver residents) and Freddy Puza ($31,883 / 55% of total raise from Culver residents).
If the co-chairs had a quick answer to my question, this data could be considered an historic behavior pattern that they were working to overcome. Because they did not have a ready answer, I can only assume that nothing in their Culver City community outreach strategy has changed. That they are focused on serving their political base and the outside groups who support them and whom they support. That they are not concerned with engaging with and winning over the community as a whole.
Culver City has gone through multiple cycles of 3:2 voting blocks on the City Council where the majority has downplayed – and in some cases demonized - the concerns of the minority.
Proactive outreach to communicate with, understand, and incorporate the concerns of “the other side” will lead to better solutions. It will reduce the chance of community outrage when citizens who normally pay no attention of local politics are suddenly impacted by a Council decision. And it could positively impact the effort and cost in the City Council campaigns of people working to flip the 3:2 majority to 2:3 majority every two years.
An easy shortcut to achieving this would simply be to work on compromises that both sides of the 3:2 divide on the council can support. Given that in their respective elections Dan O’Brien and Albert Vera received the most money from Culver City residents of any candidate, received the highest percentage of their campaign funding from Culver City residents than any winning candidate, and got the greatest number of votes in the election of any candidate, the electorate has signaled that Councilmembers O’Brien and Vera represent ideas and positions support by a significant portion of Culver City’s citizens. Crossing the 3:2 divide and finding compromise would result in more popular and sustainable solutions from the council.
Working towards more 5:0 council votes may be asking too much. But asking elected officials to make a proactive effort to incorporate the concerns of the entire electorate in their activities so that their decisions are more supported and more sustainable seems reasonable to me.
Hegseth said his vision for military AI systems means that they operate “without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications,” before adding that the Pentagon’s “AI will not be woke.”
Musk developed and pitched Grok as an alternative to what he called “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In July, Grok also caused controversy after it appeared to make antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler and shared several antisemitic posts.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions about the issues with Grok.
