The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health, Part 2 – This is a follow up to Sabrina I. Pacifici’s July 31, 2025 article, The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health. In just one more month the administration has ramped up its use of unsupportable actions to expand …
This is a follow up to Sabrina I. Pacifici’s July 31, 2025 article, The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health. In just one more month the administration has ramped up its use of unsupportable actions to expand the cancellation of billions of dollars of congressionally approved funding for a broad swath of government-funded agencies, institutions, programs and leading edge initiatives. They also relentlessly target and censor academic research in the sciences, public health, medicine, and on the climate crisis. The deliberate collateral damage has purged the leadership in organizations whose subject matter expertise drives vast knowledge acquired through decades of public service. The continued decimation of the country’s long standing support for the sciences impacts every person in America. It has fractured our collective human and technological systems and resources. The scope and specificity of the bare knuckle attacks and the implications are exposed.
This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Five highlights from this post: AI will reshape Wall Street. Here’s how the industry’s biggest firms, from JPMorgan to Blackstone, are adapting it; Algorithmic Coercion with Faster Pricing; Generative AI at the Crossroads: Light Bulb, Dynamo, or Microscope?; Use and Oversight in Financial Services. Report to Congressional Committees.
Jerry Lawson, a master of both IT matters as well as chess, addresses the question – will computers ever achieve the holy grail of artificial general intelligence (AGI)—an intelligence that matches or surpasses human abilities across virtually all cognitive tasks? Experts disagree not only on the feasibility but also on the desirability of such an outcome. Optimists envision an era of abundance. Pessimists fear an existential threat.
Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Meta might be secretly scanning your phone’s camera roll – how to check and turn it off; Shadow IT Is Expanding Your Attack Surface. Here’s Proof; ScamAgent shows how AI could power the next wave of scam calls; FEMA now requires disaster victims to have an email address; and the FCC is Cracking Down on Robo Callers Blocking 1,200 Phone Providers Over Spam Calls.
Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Foundations for OT Cybersecurity: Asset Inventory Guidance for Owners and Operators; How poisoned data can trick AI − and how to stop it; This Is How They Know You’re Using a VPN; Swedish startup unveils Starlink alternative — that Musk can’t switch off; and Burner Phone 101 Workshop.
Iris van Rooij is Professor of Computational Cognitive Science at the School of Artificial Intelligence in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on the computational foundations of cognitive science. Recently she was looking for information on what cognitive scientists mean when they speak of ‘domain-general’ cognition. To her surprise and dismay, she hit upon a ScienceDirect page that ‘defined’ the concept using, as she terms it, AI Slop. She shares the thread of her email communications with the Elsevier Helpdesk that detail her concerns about AI generated definitions, and links within articles, and the fact that authors cannot say ‘no’ to their work being used for AI training and AI generated texts. In addition, she includes references and recommended readings about AI’s impact on education and the future of academia.
Marcus P. Zillman recommends selected sources and sites to help navigate and use the vast Fediverse effectively. Although BlueSky, Threads and Twitter continue to dominate the social media space, Mastodon offers open source connectivity that transverses silos and allows users to seamlessly communicate with users across platforms with little impediment.
Jordan Furlong states that we all know lawyers’ commercial role, to be professional guides for human affairs. But he stresses we also need lawyers to bring the law’s guarantees to life for people and in society. And we need it right now.
Michael G. Wagner, a technology educator with more than 30 years experience in higher education, contends that the nature of AI literacy is largely misunderstood within the education community. Ultimately, the goal of AI literacy should not be to make students better at using AI, but to empower them to be more discerning thinkers, more ethical citizens, and more self-aware human beings in a world where AI exists. Analyzing the relationship between artificial and human intelligence requires two components: understanding how LLMs work, and understanding how human cognition works. Wagner says we understand neither well enough to make informed judgments. The uncomfortable truth is that confident dismissal of AI’s intelligence often just reveals a deeper misunderstanding of our own.