Tiffany C. Li

Why is this restaurant playing music from my youth? I thought they only played oldies—Oh. Oh, right…

The Bygone Era of Supreme Court Support for Voting Rights Sixty years after upholding the Voting Rights Act, the Court has dismantled most of it.

Tomorrow marks the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. It also marks the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court first upholding the Voting Rights Act.

We have gotten so, so far away from a Court that cares about democracy.

New from me at @brennancenter.org:

Just casually reminding everyone that my book comes out in a few weeks, it REALLY helps if you preorder, and if you want a signed copy, you can get one shipped to you from Loyalty Books in DC 🖖🏽

lol at everyone replying “same” but also … same.

Economic incentives as usual. I imagine there could be significant career benefits if use of AI allows you to publish more (and more quickly). Who cares if the article is any good?

The Dean 😬

I never use AI to write my law review articles. I earn every rejection on my own 😊

Congrats! Great hire on their part!

The thing about Trump is he just does things openly. I miss the polite fictions of democracy and international law.

Anthropic: We lost a contract because we refuse to build Skynet.

OpenAI: We'll do it

Southern California air board rejected pollution rules after AI-generated flood of comments The opposition appeared overwhelming: Tens of thousands of emails poured into Southern California's top air pollution authority as its board weighed a June proposal to phase out gas-powered appliances...

They were going to pass rules to phase out gas stoves, until they received 20,000 public comments against the regulations. Except, oops, it turns out the comments were generated by AI.

A notable new comment from California AG Rob Bonta: He says "I'm in conversation with my AG colleagues about Paramount/Warner Bros," meaning he is talking with other state attorneys general about possibly suing to block the deal

Sam Altman says OpenAI shares Anthropic's red lines in Pentagon fight But he still wants a Pentagon deal.

OpenAI claims it's joining Anthropic to say the DOD can't use their AI for surveillance/autonomous weapons. As DOD starts an embargo of any military contractor using their products, will they do the same to OpenAI? Wild this happens on a day a report is out about how Grok for government is awful....

The Mournful Ballad Of Punch The Monkey | Defector When I first heard rumblings that the world had assembled a conclave to elect a new celebrity zoo animal, I felt preemptively wary, partly due to world events and partly because we still don’t know th...

I wrote about Punch the monkey and who, if anyone, is really to blame for the suffering of primates
defector.com/the-mournful...

"Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die," the Pope reportedly said. "The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity."

The holy father drew a fascinating line in the sand, declaring that despite Al's capabilities now or in the future, a chatbot could never stand-in for a flesh-and-blood priest. "To give a homily is to share faith," he said, and Al "will never be able to share faith."

The Pope warns against using AI to write sermons, both because it weakens priestly skills and because AI “will never be able to share faith”

futurism.com/artificial-i...

They beat a blind refugee who speaks no English for failing to obey police commands he could not understand. Then instead of apologizing, they charged him with possession of a “weapon”—HIS WALKING STICK. Then they dumped him miles from home without notifying anyone, after which he was found dead.

Please read this article to the end. Even before ICE got involved, this started because this *blind man who speaks no English and uses a curtain rod as a walking stick* got lost on a walk and some Karen called the police on him and they tasered and beat him bc he didn’t drop the rod. WTF

Border Patrol released Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56 yo man, nearly blind with serious medical conditions, at "an old address & his family had since moved" in Buffalo, NY in the winter. "His family was not initially notified." He was found dead. @news4buffalo.bsky.social

www.wivb.com/news/local-n...

What the Defense Production Act Can and Can’t Do to Anthropic The legal answer depends on what the government is actually demanding—and the statute's ambiguities cut both ways.

The Pentagon is threatening to use the Defense Production Act against Anthropic. It's a terrible policy, but legally it depends on whether they're seeking to avoid Anthropic's terms of service or have Anthropic retrain Claude. My latest for @lawfaremedia.org. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what...

I joke about the internet being a mistake, but it still matters that we have a way to communicate, almost effortlessly, with people all around the world. If only there were more options for social media that weren’t tied to attention-seeking algorithms and data-hungry tech corporations…

When you have a baby, it’s important to make friends with other new parents. So you have someone to text with at 2AM. And 4:15. And 5:45. And…

Italki, preply, or a similar service for live tutoring sessions. You can focus on conversations. 1:1 class forces you to talk a lot

case of gelly roll pens

don’t let anyone tell you your dreams are too big

My human brain says this is bad. But let’s ask ChatGPT

The problem when ppl in a panoptic surveillance paradigm say they want to "do better than this" is that they mean they want perfect, error-free surveillance tech & not only is that functionally impossible, it's not morally desirable, even if it were. It'd still be a panoptic surveillance paradigm…

Gen Z is reviving DVDs and Blu-rays, with local video rental shops reporting record months and membership numbers as young people embrace physical media.

Read more: www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Great idea! In fact, let’s take this a step further and infect everyone with chickenpox and measles, but just a tiny bit, maybe in repeated doses, over time? Just thinking aloud here.

Horrific.

“The more people recognize that an elected leader is trying to destroy democracy from within, the less likely it is that said leader will succeed.”

The implication here is straightforward: that people with platforms, including Democratic politicians and media, need to keep highlighting the threat to democracy specifically — centering democracy as an issue in both word and deed.

To save democracy, you have to actually talk about democracy.