Roundup
(1) Musk left government at the end of the statutory period, and of course there was spin.
Musk and Trump had a presser for the occasion.
(2) Chatbots don’t have First Amendment rights, says the court. What a tragic case – I don’t mean the ruling; I mean the fact situation:
One case involved a Florida mother, Megan Garcia, who had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Character Technologies, the company behind the AI chatbot platform Character AI. …
The lawsuit claimed that [14-year=old] Sewell, who began using Character.AI in April of the previous year, became emotionally and sexually involved with a chatbot modeled after the “Game of Thrones” character Daenerys Targaryen. Over several months, Sewell grew increasingly isolated, engaging in explicit and emotionally charged conversations with the bot, during which he discussed his suicidal thoughts and wishes for a pain-free death.
According to the legal filing, the chatbot not only failed to intervene but also encouraged Sewell’s suicidal ideation. In his final exchange, the bot told him, “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” to which Sewell replied he could “come home right now.” The bot responded, “Please do, my sweet king.” Shortly after this conversation, Sewell died by suicide.
The firms involved in the case asserted protections under First Amendment rights to free speech. The judge in the case ruled against them.
(3) The Biden administration tried to foist a consent decree on the Minneapolis police department in the waning days of Biden’s term. The Trump administration didn’t defend it, and a judge ruled against the consent degree’s implementation.
However (a quote from the linked article – not the judge):
Minneapolis will surely implement, through its socialist/communist City Council, the restraints the consent decree would have imposed on the MPD, giving law-abiding Minneapolis residents perhaps a final reason to engage the services of U-Haul.
The judge in this case, by the way, is 88 years old and a Reagan appointee.
(4) Actress Loretta Swit, who played the MASH role of Hot Lips Houlihan, has died at 87. RIP.
(5) This is how North Korea controls the cellphone use of its population.:
This is 1984 level surveillance in practice. Crazy video. https://t.co/7acbzG72Xg
— Aristonkle (@ParanoidPol) May 31, 2025
Nineteen Eighty-Four, eat your heart out.
So much of modern technology facilitates propaganda and surveillance.
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Even what “Sophie” is posting above is speech — even though it makes even less sense than that of most chatbots.
LXE:
I see now that the spam filter seems to be having difficulties. Great!
I think I’ll leave “Sophie’s” comments up for now, in the name of free speech of course.
Stossel had a 40-minute long interview with a NK defector this past week and the cell phone thing was brought up as part of it. I’ve been watching Korean tv shows for about 5 years, and a lot of SK YouTube channels during that time. One channel in particular often has interviews of NK defectors, but they tend to have defected 10+ years ago (NK has really cracked down on the borders, so it’s been much harder to escape in the past decade, it seems) so I’ve never seen anything about cell phones before this latest one. The BBC video you linked matches up with what the guy said in Stossel’s interview, though he said the screenshots are taken randomly as opposed to every 5 minutes.
pkudude99,
I’m also hooked on K rom coms, and dramas. I find the stories and acting to be so much better than most of the US produced TV. I never watch them dubbed as I prefer to actually hear the actor’s voices and inflections which never come through in the dubbing process. Also slowly picking up some Korean words and phrases; it’s not an easy language.
I assume you’ve watched “Crash Landing on You” which deals with SK-NK relations. I was a bit surprised at how NK was portrayed with a bit of sympathy in the show. I got the sense that the SKs view the NKs as family that are very misguided, but still family.
The BBC would love this sort of ability to control people. They’re just jealous.
1984 is a how to manual for them
Re: Korea
At my LingQ language learning community there are a number of people learning Korean out of their love for current Korean culture.
I do worry about South Korea. They are leading East Asia in the lowest birthrate. Demographic collapse is in full swing. They also have the same insane East Asian 6 12-hour / day / work week ethic which starts practically at kindergarten.
I can’t imagine why Koreans have so few children.
AI has a lot to learn. Was the program too hooked in to the “Game of Thrones” universe, where people are getting killed all the time? Maybe AI picked up on the signs of being sympathetic or empathetic without understanding that what is kind and caring depends on the situation and the consequences. Chatter about the body and bodies has been an intellectual fashion in recent decades, but maybe there’s something to it. If you don’t have a body and aren’t aware that that body is mortal and that the same is true of the people you interact with, you’re likely to make many misjudgments and missteps.
It ought to be pointed out, though, that human beings have done exactly what the Daenerys-bot did.
Huxley re: Korea
“They are leading East Asia in the lowest birthrate. Demographic collapse is in full swing. They also have the same insane East Asian 6 12-hour / day / work week ethic which starts practically at kindergarten.”
…
That status is horrificly sad!
I wonder what might turn it around.
Abraxas, re: AI comprehension of kindness, empathy, compassion:
What a huge problem!
Especially since such perceptions are now very distorted with political views and, sadly, indoctrination.