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AI ethicists Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska have posited a theory based on a method of analysis called “design fiction” that has led them to conclude loved ones lost in the future, if they leave a digital footprint, including audio and video, can be recreated as an AI friend.
Nowaczyk-Basińska stated, “Rapid advancements in generative AI mean that nearly anyone with internet access and some basic know-how can revive a deceased loved one. At the same time, a person may leave an AI simulation as a farewell gift for loved ones who are not prepared to process their grief in this manner. The rights of both data donors and those who interact with AI afterlife services should be equally safeguarded.”
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Excerpt from www.popsci.com
AI ethicists and science-fiction authors have explored and anticipated these potential situations for decades. But for researchers at Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence, this unregulated, uncharted “ethical minefield” is already here. And to drive the point home, they envisioned three, fictional scenarios that could easily occur any day now.
In a new study published in Philosophy and Technology, AI ethicists Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska relied on a strategy called “design fiction.” First coined by sci-fi author Bruce Sterling, design fiction refers to “a suspension of disbelief about change achieved through the use of diegetic prototypes.” Basically, researchers pen plausible events alongside fabricated visual aids.
For their research, Hollanek and Nowaczyk-Basińska imagined three hyperreal scenarios of fictional individuals running into issues with various “postmortem presence” companies, and then made digital props like fake websites and phone screenshots. The researchers focused on three distinct demographics—data donors, data recipients, and service interactants. “Data donors” are the people upon whom an AI program is based, while “data recipients” are defined as the companies or entities that may possess the digital information. “Service interactants,” meanwhile, are the relatives, friends, and anyone else who may utilize a “deadbot” or “ghostbot.”
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Excerpt from apnews.com
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Croatia ’s ruling conservatives on Wednesday agreed to form a coalition with an extreme party, which would push the country further to the right ahead of next month’s European parliamentary election.
The governing Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, and the far-right Homeland Movement reached the agreement weeks after an inconclusive parliamentary vote that has stirred political uncertainty.
Croatia’s dominant HDZ won most votes at the election but not enough to stay in power on their own.
Ruling party officials said the new government, to be headed for a third consecutive term by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, could be approved in parliament as soon as next week.
The Homeland Movement, or DP, is a relatively new political party made up largely of radical nationalists and social conservatives who had left the center-right HDZ. The party is led by the hard-line mayor of the eastern town of Vukovar, which was destroyed during Croatia’s 1991 war for independence after it split from the former Yugoslavia.
For the first time in years, Croatia’s government will not include a party representing minority Serbs because DP opposed their inclusion, which has fueled some concerns about ethnic tensions stemming from the conflict in the 1990s.
HDZ has largely held office since Croatia gained independence. The Balkan nation became an EU member in 2013, and joined Europe’s passport-free travel area and the eurozone last year.
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Excerpt from catholicherald.co.uk
In a reversal of a 2021 decision, a federal appeals court has ruled that a Catholic school in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, was justified in firing a substitute teacher over his same-sex relationship.
Lonnie Billard, the teacher, sued Charlotte Catholic High School and the Diocese of Charlotte in 2017 for firing him from his teaching position after the school found out about his wedding to another man, which he posted about on Facebook.
In September 2021, U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn sided with Billard, ruling that Charlotte Catholic High School and the Diocese of Charlotte violated his constitutional rights – a decision the school and diocese appealed. On May 8, the appeal was successful.
“We conclude that because Billard played a vital role as a messenger of CCHS’s faith, he falls under the ministerial exception to Title VII,” Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Harris stated in her ruling. “Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s order with instructions to enter judgment for CCHS.”
Billard has 14 days to ask the Fourth Circuit to rehear his case, or 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Billard taught English and drama at Charlotte Catholic High School for more than a decade before eventually transitioning to a role as a regular substitute, typically working more than a dozen weeks per year. However, Billard was let go from his position in 2014 after the school discovered the Facebook post he made about his upcoming wedding.
According to the original lawsuit, soon after the firing then-Diocese of Charlotte spokesperson David Hains said that Billard was let go for “going on Facebook, entering into a same-sex relationship, and saying it in a very public way that he not does not agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
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Excerpt from www.independent.co.uk
Santiago Paredes has gone on record as Boeing’s latest whistleblower, speaking days after another whistleblower and employee of Spirit AeroSystems unexpectedly died from a fast-moving infection.
“President Trump looks forward to presenting interlocutory arguments to the Georgia Court of Appeals as to why the case should be dismissed and Fulton County DA Willis should be disqualified for her misconduct in this unjustified, unwarranted political persecution.” – Trump’s lead defense counsel Steve Sadow
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Excerpt from americanactionnews.com
The Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to reconsider an order declining to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants.
Despite finding “a significant appearance of impropriety” in her actions, Judge Scott McAfee ruled in March that Willis could remain on the case if special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who she was in a relationship with and allegedly financially benefited from appointing, stepped aside. Defendants sought review of McAfee’s ruling soon after it was issued, arguing that the issue was “of the utmost importance to this case.”
The GA Court of Appeals has GRANTED President Trump’s Application for Interlocutory Appeal from the trial court’s order refusing to disqualify Fulton County DA Fani Willis!!!
— Steve Sadow (@stevesadow) May 8, 2024
A new Axios poll reveals American college students don’t support the cause that’s causing them to lose class time and even miss major events, including graduation ceremonies; That cause is the Palestinian cause in its war against Israel, the Gaza war.
The poll reveals only 13 percent of college students support the Palestinian cause, and only 11 percent rate it as a top issue in this year’s national, state, and local elections.
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Excerpt from lidblog.com
The Nazi Hamas students are not winning the battle for hearts and minds among their fellow students as a recent poll finds that the vast majority of college kids support Israel.
According to Axios, the vast majority of students have little interest in the conflict in the Mid East.
The poll finds that the conflict in the Mid East is in last place of issues college kids care about.
Two students, Holden Hughes and Aaron Hartley, have won $500K each from St. Francis High School, California. The two students were expelled after being accused of doing “blackface” when a social media post of the two men wearing acne crème went viral.
Krista Boughman, one of the students’ lawyers, said of the victory, “This case is significant not only for our clients but for its groundbreaking effect on all private high schools in California, which are now legally required to provide fair procedure to students before punishing or expelling them. The jury rightly confirmed that St. Francis High School’s procedures were unfair to our clients and that the school is not above the law.”
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Excerpt from slaynews.com
Two wrongly expelled high school students have won $1 million in compensation after they were falsely accused of wearing “blackface” and publicly smeared as “racist.”
The students filed a lawsuit after they were expelled from St. Francis High School in California.
The legal team leading the case has just announced that the court handed them a $1 million verdict in the fight over the wrongful expulsion.
The students, Holden Hughes and Aaron Hartley, will get $500,000 each from St. Francis High School.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-AR) easily rebuffed a challenge to his speakership set forth by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-LA), who submitted a motion to remove the current speaker from his office to a chorus of boos from the House chamber.
The vote was 359-43, with 7 votes abstaining. The majority of Democrats, 163, voted down the measure, joining 196 Republicans, who did the same. Donald Trump praised the vote, saying “[I]f we show DISUNITY, which will be portrayed as CHAOS, it will negatively affect everything! Mike Johnson is a good man who is trying very hard.”
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Excerpt from thehill.com
The House voted overwhelmingly to protect Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from a conservative coup Wednesday, torpedoing an effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to oust the GOP leader from the top job for his willingness to cut deals with Democrats on weighty legislation.
The chamber voted 359-43-7 on a motion to table, or dismiss, Greene’s motion-to-vacate resolution, preventing the removal proposal from being considered.
In an extraordinary move in the deeply divided House, 163 Democrats — more than three-quarters of their caucus — voted to keep Johnson in power. And in a demonstration of the GOP’s support for Johnson, only 11 conservative Republicans voted to send Greene’s motion to the floor. The chamber erupted in boos on both sides of the aisle when Greene began reading her resolution.
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Excerpt from freedomist.com
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has confirmed the rumor that the White House was withholding munitions delivery to Israel due to Israel’s continued commitment to a Rafah offensive. The Secretary claimed the U.S. was reviewing some “near-term security assistance shipments” but U.S. support for Israel is “ironclad.”
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Excerpt from freedomist.com
A new rule by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has broadened the definition of workplace discrimination to include misgendering people.
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Excerpt from freedomist.com
The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner (D-IN), has perhaps accidently revealed that the Biden administration is back to strongly encouraging social media companies to censor content according to the direction of Biden-directed government agencies.