Tag: technology

Anthropic broke the law by using pirated books to train its AI and agrees to create $1.5 billion fund to compensate authors

AI upstart Anthropic has agreed to create a $1.5 billion fund it will use to compensate authors whose works it used to train its models without seeking or securing permission.

News of the settlement emerged late last week in a filing [PDF] in the case filed by three authors – Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson – who claimed that Anthropic illegally used their works.

We’re going to see a lot more of this. AI companies wIll create ‘slush funds’

Anthropic admitted to having bought millions of physical books and then digitizing them. The company also downloaded millions of pirated books from the notorious Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror troves of stolen material.

The company nonetheless won part of the case, on grounds that scanning books is fair use and using them to create “transformative works” – the output of an LLM that doesn’t necessarily include excerpts from the books – was also OK. But the decision also found Anthropic broke the law by knowingly ingesting pirated books.

Plaintiffs intended to pursue court action over those pirated works, but the filing details a proposed settlement under which Anthropic will create a $1.5 billion fund which values each pirated book it used for training at $3,000. Anthropic also agreed to destroy the pirated works.

In the filing, counsel observes that this is the largest ever copyright recovery claim to succeed in the USA and suggest it “will set a precedent of AI companies paying for their use of alleged pirated websites.”

This settlement is indeed significant given that several other major AI companies – among them Perplexity AI and OpenAI – face similar suits. It may also set a precedent that matters in Anthropic’s dispute with Reddit over having scraped the forum site’s content to feed into its training corpus.

The filing asks the court to approve the settlement, a request judges rarely overrule.

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Josh Hawley Proposes AI Regulations, Section 230 Repeal, and Digital ID Checks for Chatbots

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is pushing for broad new regulations on artificial intelligence, including age verification for chatbot access, data ownership rights, and the full repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

While the proposals are framed as efforts to curb corporate overreach in the tech industry, they will ignite concern among digital rights advocates who warn that such measures could undermine online privacy and freedom of expression.

At the National Conservatism Conference, Hawley accused AI developers of building their systems by collecting and using copyrighted material without permission. “The AI large language models [LLMs] have already trained on enough copyrighted works to fill the Library of Congress 22 times over,” he said.

“Let me just put a finer point on that — AI’s LLMs have ingested every published work in every language known to man already.” He claimed that creators were neither consulted nor compensated.

In July, Hawley introduced the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act, which would allow individuals to sue companies that use personal data without consent and would establish property rights over certain categories of digital information.

However, two key components of Hawley’s platform are raising some alarm. His call to repeal Section 230 has been criticized for potentially damaging the open internet.

Section 230 currently shields online platforms from legal liability for content created by users. Without it, many sites could be forced to preemptively remove user content out of legal risk, resulting in widespread over-moderation and silencing of lawful speech.

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AI: False Savior of a Hollowed-Out Economy

The real story of the US economy isn’t about AI, it’s about an economy that’s run out of rope. AI is being hyped not just by promoters reaping billions of dollars in stock market gains, it’s being hyped by the entire status quo because it’s understood to be the last chance of saving an economy doomed by the consequences of decades of artifice.

The real story of the US economy is that decades of “financial innovations” finally caught up with us in 2008, when the subprime mortgage scam–a classic example of “financial innovations” being the cover story for greed and fraud running amok–pulled a block from the global financial Jenga Tower that nearly collapsed the entire rickety, rotten structure.

Our political leadership had a choice: clean house or save the scam. They chose to save the scam, and that required not just institutionalizing moral hazard (transferring the risks of fraud and leveraged speculation from the gamblers to the public / Federal Reserve) but pursuing policies–zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), quantitative easing, increasing the money supply, and so on–that had only one possible outcome:

An economy permanently dependent on inflating asset-bubbles that enriched the top 10% while the bottom 90% who depend on earned income fell behind.

The desired goal of permanent asset-bubbles is the “wealth effect,” the cover story for transferring all the gains into the hands of the top 10%, who can then go on a spending spree which ‘trickles down” to the bottom 90%, who are now a neofeudal class of workers serving the top 10% who account for 50% of all consumer spending and collect 90% of the unearned income and capital gains.

This arrangement is inherently unstable, as “financial innovations” suffer from diminishing returns. Eventually the debt-serfs can no longer borrow more or service the debt they already have, and every bubble being bigger than the previous bubble guarantees the next implosion will be larger and more devastating than the previous bubble-pop.

So what does a system that’s run out of rope do? Seek a savior. The rope has frayed, and the rocks are far below. The impact is going to be life-changing, and not for the better.

The choice remains: clean house, end the bubble-dependent frauds and scams, or find a way to inflate yet another credit-asset bubble. Clean house and lose all our bubble-wealth? You’re joking. The solution is to blow an even bigger bubble. Hey, it’s worked great for 17 years.

Never mind that the precarity of the bottom 90% is accelerating as both the state and Corporate America have offloaded risks onto households and workers; they have OnlyFans, 24% interest credit cards, zero-day-expiration options and side hustles to get by. Never mind that for many Americans, basic services are on the same level as impoverished developing-world economies. What matters is maintaining the wealth of the few at the expense of the many, by any means available.

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AI Isn’t Free. The First Costs Are On Your Bill, And More Are Coming…

“The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence. Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits.”

– America’s AI Action Plan, July 25, 2025

That’s the U.S. government’s own language. An arms race.

Artificial intelligence is no longer framed as a research project or an economic opportunity. It is being cast as a struggle for survival and global power, a modern Manhattan Project.

Yet just last week, on Aug. 26, the Congressional Research Service released a Frequently Asked Questions memo designed to help lawmakers get on the same page about the basics: what a data center is, how many exist, and how much electricity data centers consume.

If even government institutions are still in the process of aligning their understanding, it’s clear that citizens will need to move quickly to understand what is happening and to understand what it means for their daily lives.

The memo laid out in plain language what many assumed lawmakers already understood.

A data center is a specialized building that houses thousands of servers. There are about seven thousand worldwide, with the largest concentration in the United States, especially in Northern Virginia and Texas. In 2022, American data centers consumed about 176 terawatt-hours of electricity—roughly 4 percent of all U.S. demand, more than many entire states. Projections suggest an additional 35 to 108 gigawatts of demand by 2030. The midpoint estimate, 50 gigawatts, is enough to power every home in California. 

The very fact that such a memo was necessary highlights a structural reality: the pace of technological build out is outstripping the pace of legislative comprehension. If institutions themselves are still catching up, it underscores how important it is for citizens to get informed now, before the costs mount even higher.

While Congress is being briefed on “Data Centers 101,” the executive branch has been preparing all year for the AI race that is already underway:

On January 20, 2025, the White House declared a National Energy Emergency.

On April 8, an order was issued to strengthen grid reliability, with the Department of Energy (DOE) tasked to model how AI demand would reshape the grid.

Four months later, on July 2, DOE’s report warned bluntly: “Retirements plus load growth increase risk of outages by 100x. Status quo is unsustainable.”

Just weeks later, on July 23, a new order accelerated federal permitting of data centers, opening federal lands to construction. And on July 25, the White House released America’s AI Action Plan, framing AI as the next great geopolitical race.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright put it plainly: “We are taking a bold step to accelerate the next Manhattan Project—ensuring U.S. AI and energy leadership.” So on one side of our government, institutions are receiving crash courses on the fundamentals. On the other, the executive branch is already issuing a call to arms.

For many Americans, the gap between government priorities and local realities shows up in one place: the monthly electric bill. Reports are now showing how in Columbus, Ohio, households on standard utility plans saw increases of about 20 dollars a month (roughly $240 a year) linked directly to AI data centers. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio this summer, bills jumped by ten to 27 dollars a month.

In Oregon last year, utilities warned regulators that consumers needed protection from rate hikes caused by data centers.  And in the Mid-Atlantic, regulators cited data centers as one of the main reasons for projected 20 percent increases in household electricity costs by 2025. 

The complaints about rising bills suggest something deeper. Citizens are starting to connect the dots before Washington fully has. If households can feel the costs already, then citizens cannot wait for official briefings, they must demand clarity and prepare themselves. Part of the confusion comes from the nature of artificial intelligence itself. To most people, AI feels intangible. It lives in the “cloud.” You type a question, get an answer, and never see the machinery behind it. No one sends you a receipt for the power you used to get your answer. 

But AI is not weightless. It runs on football-field-sized data centers, packed with servers that must run day and night. These machines use staggering amounts of electricity and water to stay cool. A Google search consumes about 0.3 watt-hours of electricity. An AI chatbot query can use up to ten times more—around three watt-hours.

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Russia Attacks Ukraine Overnight With Record 1,000 Drones

Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with an estimated over 1,000 drones and missiles, possibly a record.

Since the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, the bombing campaign from Moscow has intensified, with Russia sensing complete victory as the Ukrainian army slowly retreat in the face of the Russian onslaught.

Kyiv has resorted to increasing long-range attacks against the Russian Federation via its growing high-tech capability to produce drones and other projectiles.

The conflict now seems to be a numbers game.

Europe is feckless, although continues to provide aid to Kyiv, militarily and financially.

Arms deals are being consummated between the U.S. and Europe, destined for Ukraine. Although, it is becoming murky as to the exact money flows being routed.

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Japan Builds Coin-Sized Generator That Pulls Power from Air

Japan has unveiled a breakthrough that could reshape the way we think about energy. Engineers at Kyoto University have developed a coin-sized generator that harvests electricity from moisture in the air. Unlike solar panels or turbines, this tiny device works 24/7, rain or shine, producing a continuous flow of clean power.

The secret lies in a layered nanofilm that absorbs water vapor and converts it into an electric current. Early field tests in Southeast Asia’s rice paddies proved the generator could power sensors and transmitters for months without maintenance—an achievement that traditional batteries or solar setups often fail to match.

Public reaction has been filled with awe, with many calling it a glimpse of the future. Energy analysts say the technology could be revolutionary for remote communities, disaster relief, or even wearable tech. One social media user described it as “free Wi-Fi energy, but for electricity.”

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Google ordered to pay over $425 million in damages for smartphone privacy violations

Tech giant Google has been ordered to pay over $425 million for improperly snooping on the data of smartphone users and invading users’ privacy from 2016-2024.

It’s a violation of public trust,” said attorney & political analyst Madeline Summerville.

The class action lawsuit, initially filed in 2020, accused the company of collecting data from 98 million devices that had turned off a tracking feature in their Google account.

Even though I’ve shutoff all the different apparatuses that would keep Google from monitoring me, they’re still doing it because they were doing it through third party apps,” Summerville said.

The jury found Google spied on users and was in violation of California privacy laws. But Google denied it was improperly accessing devices. A Google spokesperson told Reuters, this decision misunderstands how its products work and it plans to file an appeal. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”

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Scientists Fear “Mirror Life” Synthetically Produced in the Lab Could Create a Dangerous New Form of Biology

Scientists are warning that creating “mirror life,” a radical new concept in synthetic biology, could potentially have dangerous repercussions if such organisms escaped the lab, where they may cause irreversible damage to humans and the world around us.

The concerns were detailed in a recent report that warned that mirror cells—artificially constructed living systems assembled from reversed molecular building blocks—might pose “unprecedented and irreversible harm” if they were ever created.

The concept, initially born out of an ambitious laboratory challenge, now has scientists and ethicists warning that the pursuit of such creations could represent one of the most dangerous frontiers in biology, which experts say should prompt global restrictions before further experiments are conducted.

What Is Mirror Life?

When it comes to life on Earth, all organisms share a fundamental and rather peculiar property: what scientists call chirality, or “handedness.”

DNA and proteins are assembled from molecules that fit together in a consistent orientation, much like right and left-handed gloves. With this in mind, a “mirror” cell would essentially flip these orientations, with its DNA and proteins becoming versions of our own, albeit reversed as though being viewed in a mirror.

In theory, a mirror cell would function much like a normal one, in that it grows, reproduces, and essentially thrives in the same ways our cells would do. However, since its molecular structure would be functionally alien to the biology of other living things on our planet, scientists warn that there could be grave consequences if it were ever created.

“The first mirror bacterium would likely be a fragile microbe exhibiting metabolic defects, which would limit its growth and durability outside the laboratory,” the authors of the recent report write. “Once created, however, mirror bacteria could be readily engineered to become more robust by using standard techniques to deliver mirror versions of existing bacterial genes.”

“This could confer new capabilities or even transform them into 1 Summary mirrored versions of robust existing bacteria,” the report states.

Why Scientists Are Concerned

At the outset, the premise for creating mirror life seemed promising. Since our immune systems wouldn’t recognize these cells, one might assume that they could one day be used for medical applications such as medicines that wouldn’t trigger harmful immune responses.

However, it is this same quality that experts are now warning could make them so dangerous.

Imagine, for instance, a mirror bacterium that was essentially invisible to our immune systems. Such an organism could feasibly infect the human body, where it could grow undetected, allowing it to spread rapidly throughout the body without it recognizing anything was amiss.

Going beyond the worrying possibility of such “stealth infections,” mirror life could also have devastating implications for our environment. If ever freed into the wild, mirror bacteria would be able to thrive with no natural predators, which may allow them to outcompete ordinary microbial organisms, eventually leading to their infestation of ecosystems where their proliferation could advance unchecked.

Overall, mirror life would represent a global invasive threat, and if they were to begin adapting to the environment, they could potentially infect not only humans but also plants and animals throughout ecosystems worldwide.

“It therefore appears plausible,” the report states, “even likely, that sufficiently robust mirror bacteria could spread through the environment unchecked by natural biological controls and act as dangerous opportunistic pathogens in an unprecedentedly wide range of other multicellular organisms, including humans.”

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ICE Reactivates Contract With Israeli-linked Spyware Firm Paragon

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reactivated a $2 million spyware contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli-founded firm now owned by a U.S. private equity group. The move lifts a Biden-era freeze and signals a deeper embrace of invasive surveillance tools in domestic immigration enforcement.

It is also only the latest sign of how far the federal government’s surveillance apparatus has grown under the banner of “immigration enforcement.” ICE has become one of its most powerful nodes — a conduit through which cutting-edge spyware, data analytics, and AI-driven tools are deployed inside U.S. borders.

Contract Reborn

On September 1, journalist Jack Poulson, citing the official procurement note, reported that ICE quietly lifted a stop-work order on the Paragon contract. The order had been in place since October 2024, after the Biden administration paused the deal under Executive Order 14093. That order barred agencies from buying foreign spyware tied to human rights abuses.

Paragon

Paragon is an Israeli spyware company founded in 2019 by veterans of Israel’s cyberwarfare Unit 8200, the equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Among the early backers is Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a longtime political heavyweight and known associate of Jeffrey Epstein. From the start, it marketed itself as the “ethical” alternative to Pegasus, another notorious Israeli spyware.

Citizen Lab reports that by 2021 Paragon had launched a U.S. subsidiary and staffed it with former CIA, Air Force, and defense contractor officials. That gave it a foothold in Washington. Within two years, ICE had signed a $2 million contract for its spyware; U.S. Special Operations Command disclosed more than $11 million in related purchases.

In late 2024, ownership shifted. All shares in Paragon Israel were transferred to Paragon Parent Inc., a new Delaware corporation. The deal, reportedly led by Florida-based private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, was valued at $500 million up front, with another $400 million tied to performance goals. Soon after, Paragon was folded into REDLattice, a Virginia contractor already known for offensive cyber tools. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show REDLattice’s parent company then added ex-CIA and U.S. Army chiefs to its board.

Once Paragon became “American-owned,” ICE lifted the freeze on its spyware contract. In effect, the U.S. government blocked the deal when the company was Israeli but allowed it once Americans — many with intelligence and military ties — took control. The spyware itself did not change, only the ownership structure, and it is far from clear how much influence Israeli intelligence veterans still wield inside the company.

Graphite

Graphite is Paragon’s flagship spyware. Unlike Pegasus, which can take full control of a phone, Graphite focuses on breaking in to encrypted messaging apps. It can pull data from WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage without seizing the entire device.

Investigators have shown that Graphite often relies on “zero-click” exploits. These attacks require no action from the target. Once inside, the spyware extracts texts, call logs, photos, videos, and even microphone input. All of it is sent to remote servers controlled by the operator. Citizen Lab’s forensic report from this June confirmed the tool had been deployed against journalists in Europe. Their devices were fully updated yet still compromised until Apple patched the flaw in iOS 18.3.1.

This technical profile explains why Graphite is so attractive to governments. It is stealthy, precise, and hard to detect. But its use has raised alarms well beyond Israel and the United States.

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Navy SEALs Reportedly Killed North Korean Fishermen and Mutilated Their Bodies To Hide a Failed Mission

You are a fisherman in one of the poorest, most repressed countries in the world. About 20 years ago, your country was suffering from a famine that is still forbidden to discuss frankly. The streets are filled with living reminders of starvation, people whose bodies are marked by childhood malnutrition. Food is precious to you.

So today, as other days, you woke up before dawn with your companions to go diving in the freezing cold ocean, in hopes of putting some mussels on your family’s table. But suddenly, you die. A man you have never met and whose presence you did not know about has shot you with his rifle. His companions stab your lungs so that your body will sink to the bottom of the sea. Your family will likely never know what happened to you.

That is what happened to a group of unnamed North Korean fishermen who accidentally stumbled upon a detachment of U.S. Navy SEALs in 2019, according to a Friday report by The New York Times. The commandos had set out to install a surveillance device to wiretap government communications in North Korea. When they stumbled upon an unexpected group of divers on a boat, the SEALs killed everyone on board and retreated.

The U.S. government concluded that the victims were “civilians diving for shellfish,” sources told the Times. Officials didn’t even know how many, telling the Times that it was “two or three people,” even though the SEALs had searched the boat and disposed of the bodies. The mission wasn’t just an intelligence failure. It was a failure that killed real people through no fault of their own.

The mission was carried out during the first Trump administration. The U.S. government wanted insight into North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his high-stakes nuclear negotiations with President Donald Trump. Matthew Cole, one of the reporters who broke the story, wrote on his Substack that he first caught wind of the story in 2023 from a source who wanted him to know “how the SEALs involved in the mission had avoided any accountability because of how secret the mission was.”

The broader point of the story, according to the Times, was that the U.S. government “often” hides the failures of special operations from policymakers. Seth Harp, author of The Fort Bragg Cartel, roughly estimates that Joint Special Operations Command killed 100,000 people during the Iraq War “surge” from 2007 to 2009. The secrecy around America’s spying-and-assassination complex makes it impossible to know how many of those people were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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