Judge Maya Guerra Gamble.  Photo: POOL/REUTERS

Dear Commons Community,

Texas Judge Maya Guerra Gamble granted a request yesterday to allow an abortion despite the state’s strict bans, ruling in the case of a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition.

The case is believed to be among the first attempts in the nation to seek a court-approved abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year and allowed states to enact their own abortion restrictions.

Judge Gamble of Travis County district court, sided with the woman, Kate Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant, and issued a temporary restraining order to permit her doctor to perform an abortion without facing civil or criminal penalties.

Judge Gamble, a Democrat, agreed with Ms. Cox’s lawyers that the procedure was necessary to protect Ms. Cox from a potentially dangerous birth, and to preserve her future fertility.  As reported by The New York Times.

“The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be pregnant, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability, is shocking, and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” the judge said at the conclusion of a roughly 30-minute video hearing. “So I will be signing the order, and it will be processed and sent out today.”

The ruling applies only to Ms. Cox, though it represents another front in an effort to force Texas, which bans most abortions from conception, to allow abortions under the medical exceptions to its prohibitions. A separate lawsuit, brought by a group of Texas women who say they were denied abortions under state law, asks the state to clarify the conditions in which medical exceptions would apply.

Since the Supreme Court eliminated the federal right to abortion in 2022, more than a dozen conservative states have enacted abortion bans or severely restricted the procedure. The bans generally allow limited medical exceptions. In some of those states, women represented by abortion rights groups have sued to clarify when the procedure could be performed, or to have the bans overturned..

Those suits were filed after women were denied abortions. In some cases, the women claimed that they suffered harm to their health as a result, or were forced to leave the state, at significant cost, disruption or risk, to seek abortions elsewhere.

What made Ms. Cox’s case different was that she sought a court order while still pregnant.

Ms. Cox’s fetus was found to have trisomy 18, a genetic condition that in all but very rare cases leads to miscarriage or stillbirth, or to the infant’s death within the first year. Her lawyers said she had visited the emergency room four times because of pain and discharge — including once after her suit was filed on Tuesday — but that doctors had told her that under Texas law, she had to continue her pregnancy.

Ms. Cox, 31, could be seen wiping away tears from her eyes as she watched the judge issue the decision in the video proceeding with her husband, Justin. She said in an interview on Tuesday that she and her husband, who live in the Dallas area and have two young children, hoped for a big family and never planned on having an abortion.

The Texas attorney general’s office, which argued on Thursday against granting the order, could seek the intervention of a higher court.

After the ruling, Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to top hospital officials in Houston, where Ms. Cox’s doctor practices, saying she and hospital staff could still face criminal and civil penalties, despite the judge’s order.

“The T.R.O. will not insulate you, or anyone else,” Mr. Paxton wrote, adding that it would expire “long before the statute of limitations for violating Texas’ abortion laws expires.”

Mr. Paxton’s letter contrasted with the order issued by the judge, which barred the state from enforcing its laws against Ms. Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, as well as anyone else involved in the procedure.

Marc Hearron of the Center for Reproductive Rights and one of Ms. Cox’s lawyers said that Mr. Paxton was misrepresenting the judge’s order. “He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer,” he said in a statement.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the issue of abortion has become a political liability for Republicans nationally. But Mr. Paxton was recently re-elected to a third term with the backing of hard right Republicans in Texas, where the Republican primary remains the critical election contest for statewide offices.

Texas is at the forefront of states that restrict abortion, and has three overlapping bans that outlaw abortions from the moment of fertilization, and allow private citizens to sue others who help a woman obtain an abortion.

The laws provide for some limited exceptions to save the health and life of a pregnant woman. Abortion rights advocates argue that those provisions are unclear and put women with pregnancy complications at risk.

The Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil court, is currently weighing a broader effort by doctors, women and abortion advocates to clarify the medical exceptions under the law in a separate case, Zurawski v. State of Texas, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

One of the lawyers in that case, Molly Duane, also represents Ms. Cox. In the court hearing on Thursday, Ms. Duane argued that her client qualified for an abortion under the state bans’ medical exceptions and asked the court to bar the state from enforcing the bans against Dr. Karsan, so that the doctor could proceed with the abortion without fear of punishment.

A doctor convicted of performing an illegal abortion in Texas can face a prison sentence of up to 99 years and fines of at least $100,000.

Johnathan Stone, a lawyer for the Texas attorney general’s office, argued that Ms. Cox’s pregnancy did not meet the “elements of the medical exception to Texas’s abortion laws,” citing a different doctor’s assessment of her condition.

Ms. Duane said that the state’s argument underscored the confusion over what standard would be used to assess a doctor’s determination that a patient meets the medical exception, leading many doctors to avoid performing abortions at all.

The issue, Ms. Duane said, is that while the law allows narrow medical exceptions, “no one knows what it means and the state won’t tell us.”

In her order, the judge found that Ms. Cox’s doctor “believes in good faith, exercising her medical judgment,” that an abortion is medically recommended and that the medical exception “permits an abortion in Ms. Cox’s circumstances.”

The judge said her order would protect Ms. Cox’s doctor and other workers at the hospital who would be involved in an abortion procedure, as well as Mr. Cox, all of whom might otherwise face legal liability under the Texas bans.

Before the ruling, those against abortion said they opposed the effort to interpret the law to permit an abortion in Ms. Cox’s case.

Amy O’Donnell, the communications director for Texas Alliance for Life, said that while it is “heartbreaking to hear of any family facing a tragic diagnosis for their unborn child” the group “does not support taking the life of an unborn child because of a life-limiting or fatal diagnosis.”

Hurrah for Judge Gamble!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I wish to thank the editors of Teach Online Canada/Contact Nord for listing my recent book (co-authored with Patsy Moskal and Chuck Dziuban) as a “must read” in its latest edition.  Here is what they had to say about it:

“How can instructors and instructional designers leverage analytics to improve the design and development of learning resources and enable more adaptive learning? That is the underlying question in these 17 research-rich chapters. As more and more LMS systems enable adaptive learning designs, this collection of papers will help course creators know what data to look for and how to use it to make their adaptive designs effective. Full of practical studies and research summaries, the book should be compulsory reading for anyone engaged in instructional design and course development.”

Thank you Teach Online Canada/Contact Nord.

Tony

PS:  Our book is available at Routledge/Taylor & Francis and Amazon.

Dear Commons Community,

With the Iowa caucuses approaching, a shrinking field of Republican White House hopefuls gathered last night in Alabama for the fourth presidential debate.

Former President Donald Trump, who is dominating the GOP primary, didn’t appear. Instead, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie continued their effort to gain the spotlight in the race.

I watched the debate and these are my quick  impressions.  I thought Chris Christie had his best night of the four debates.  He attacked Trump, defended Nikki Haley against Vivek Ramaswamy,  and made the point that he answers moderators’ questions directly. Ron Desantis had a decent night by defending his record in Florida. Nikki Haley was the object of severe attacks by Ramaswamy and DeSantis.  Unlike her aggressive performances in earlier debates, she appeared reticent at times.  Vivek Ramaswamy sounds like he is running for a cabinet appointment from Trump should Trump win the election.

Below are other takeaways courtesy of the Associated Press.

Tony

—————————————————————————————–

Fighting Trump for once

The front-runner in the Republican primary has no end of vulnerabilities. He faces 91 criminal charges and just the night before repeatedly refused to rule out abusing power if he returns to office.

But, as has been the pattern, Trump was ignored during much of the debate. There was one great exception in the second hour, when the moderators asked Christie about Trump. The onetime New Jersey governor complained that his three primary rivals have been silent about the threats Trump presents to democracy.

“You want to know why these poll numbers are where they are?” Christie asked. “Because folks like these three people on this stage want to make it seem like his conduct is acceptable.”

Christie then began jousting with DeSantis, who confined his criticism of Trump to the former president’s age and failure to achieve all of his agenda in his first term. “Is he fit to be president or isn’t he?” Christie asked. “Is he fit? Ron, Ron? He’s afraid to answer.”

Ramaswamy accused his rivals of all “licking Donald Trump’s boots,” but then proceeded to argue the Jan. 6,2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol was an “inside job” — hardly distancing himself from the former president and his penchant for lies and misinformation.

Ramaswamy has been particularly adept at pulling fire away from Trump. The 38-year-old political novice and pharmaceutical entrepreneur has specialized in grating, personal attacks that his rivals just can’t bring themselves to ignore.

On Wednesday, he challenged Haley to name three Ukrainian provinces that he claimed his 3-year-old could identify, and Christie, who had tried to launch an attack on Trump to open the debate, exploded.

“All he knows how to do is insult good people who have committed their lives to public service,” Christie said.

Minutes later, Haley took an unusual swing at Trump for failing to go further than simple trade actions against China. But DeSantis jumped in, attacking Haley for her relationship with China. The two Republicans began snapping at each other, leaving Trump unmentioned.

By the end, the moderators asked the candidates which previous president inspired them. No one named Trump.

Haley under attack

Haley was under attack from the opening seconds of the debate. And it didn’t let up for almost 20 minutes, a clear reminder that the former United Nations ambassador’s opponents see her as a growing threat in the race.

DeSantis amped up the pressure as he answered the debate’s opening question, which was about his struggling campaign.

“You have other candidates up here, like Nikki Haley, she caves every time the left comes after her,” DeSantis said, casting himself as a fighter.

The Florida governor then seized on Haley’s recent support from Wall Street and at least one major Democratic donor. Ramaswamy soon joined in, highlighting the personal wealth Haley accumulated since leaving the public office.

“That math doesn’t add up,” Ramaswamy charged. “It adds up to the fact you’re corrupt.” Minutes later, Ramaswamy called Haley a fascist.

Haley defended herself aggressively. But as the political adage goes, if you’re explaining, you’re probably losing.

“I love all the attention, fellas, thank you,” she said.

And she drew some applause from the crowd when she pushed back against the criticism of her political donations.

“In terms of these donors that are supporting me, they’re just jealous. They wish they were supporting them,” she said.

Christie has faced questions about why he’s not dropping his struggling campaign and backing Haley, who shares many of his more moderate views. While he’s not showing any sign of leaving soon, he took the opportunity to defend Haley, particularly from Ramaswamy’s heated critiques.

“This is a smart, accomplished woman,” Christie told Ramaswamy during an animated exchange. “You should stop insulting her.”

Capitalist contradiction

One candidate was attacked for sitting on a corporate board and being too close to big business. Others fretted about a plot by giant firms to re-engineer the country’s politics — and then one said he wants to gut government regulations to free up business.

This wasn’t a Democratic debate, dominated by that party’s skepticism of corporate titans. The Republican party in the era of Trump is a lot more conflicted about business and industry than in its prior, free-market form.

That was obvious from the first set of questions aimed at Haley, who was asked whether her roles on corporate boards and donations from major companies would sit well with the party’s “working-class voters.”

DeSantis and Ramaswamy continued to hit Haley over that dynamic, even as Haley quipped they were just “jealous” of her donor support. DeSantis also claimed Haley wanted to let in as many immigrants as “the corporations” desired and boasted about how he withdrew $2 billion of Florida public pension money from a hedge fund over its use of environmental, social and corporate governance.

“They want to use economic power to impose a left-wing agenda in this country,” DeSantis said of some corporations’ embrace of ESG, an effort to use progressive principles in investing.

But then Ramaswamy bemoaned the way the government doesn’t fully recognize cryptocurrencies as a real financial instrument, and segued into promising to eliminate three-quarters of the government bureaucrats to cut regulations. That is a routine promise of Ramaswamy’s, and comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to consider a case that could sharply limit how the federal government can regulate industries, a longtime goal of conservative activists who helped assemble a six-judge majority on the high court.

Later, Ramaswamy took yet another turn, arguing there should be strict bans on the back-and-forth between staffers in business and government. “I don’t think that we should want capitalism and democracy to share the same bed anymore,” he said. “It’s time for a clean divorce.”

The GOP’s contradictions over corporations weren’t an explicit subject of the debate, but they were an undercurrent that won’t be resolved for a while.

Split over rights for transgender people

On immigration, on the economy and on China, the candidates on stage largely agreed. One policy area where there were real differences? Transgender rights.

The issue was barely on the national radar in the last presidential election. But in 2024, it is a centerpiece of the GOP’s increasing focus on cultural issues.

Haley defended her decision, back when she was governor, to decline to support a law that would have limited bathroom use to a person’s gender assigned on their birth certificate.

DeSantis pounced. As Florida governor, he insisted he did more to crack down on transgender rights than anyone on stage.

“I stood up for little girls, you didn’t,” he chided Haley.

DeSantis also offered a fiery argument for laws that block parents from allowing their children to receive transgender-related medical treatment.

Christie pushed back. He also reminded his rivals that conservatives used to believe in less government, not more.

“These jokers in Congress, it takes them three weeks to pick a speaker… and we’re going to put my children’s health in their hands?” the former New Jersey governor said. “As a parent, this is a choice I get to make.”

Dear Commons Community,

Today we honor and remember the 2,403 Americans who were killed in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, which led to the United States declaring war on Japan the next day and thus entering World War II.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt uttered his most famous words declaring that December 7th is “a date which  will live in infamy”. 

Tony

Kevin McCarthy

Dear Commons Community,

Representative Kevin McCarthy, who this fall became the first speaker to be ousted from power in the middle of a congressional term, said yesterday he will resign from office at the end of this month.

His exit is a blow to his successor, Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Republicans, further cutting the already narrow GOP majority and making passing legislation in 2024 even more challenging.

“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing. That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country,” McCarthy, R-Calif., wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

“It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways. I know my work is only getting started,” he said.

“I will continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office,” McCarthy added. “The Republican Party is expanding every day, and I am committed to lending my experience to support the next generation of leaders.” As reported by NBC News.

McCarthy’s timeline means he would depart before the Feb. 13 special election to replace expelled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., further cutting the Republican majority to 220 members to 213 Democrats. That means House Republicans could lose just three votes before they require Democratic support to pass measures.

“Today I sit here having served as your whip, leader and as the 55th speaker of the House,” he says in the video, citing a list of achievements he’s proud of. “We kept our government operating and our troops paid while wars broke out around the world. … I have faith in this country.”

“Now, it is time to pursue my passion in a new arena,” McCarthy says, without going into detail about his next move.

McCarthy was ousted as speaker on Oct. 3, setting off a contentious race to replace him. Eight Republican rebels, led by Matt Gaetz of Florida, forced out the speaker midsession for the first time in history. That night, McCarthy said he feared “the institution fell today” and quipped that he made a mistake in helping get some of those eight GOP lawmakers elected.

Some McCarthy allies warned that the House vacancies could spell trouble for Republicans in the New Year.

“Congratulations Freedom Caucus for 105 Rep who expel our own for the other,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said on X. “I can assure you Republican voters didn’t give us the majority to crash the ship. Hopefully no one dies.”

McCarthy’s departure had long been anticipated since his ouster, although his decision to leave before the end of the term will create fresh headaches for his party. Republicans have struggled to pass GOP appropriations bills this fall, and their slimmer majority next year could make it more difficult to pass GOP messaging bills or an impeachment resolution in a key election year.

McCarthy, 58, represents a solidly Republican district based in Bakersfield, California, which his party is expected to hold onto when it comes before voters again in a special election.

But the seat will be vacant for months. California state law says that after a vacancy occurs, the governor must set a special election within two weeks. The special election must be conducted 126 to 140 days after the governor’s proclamation.

In a statement on X, the new speaker, Johnson, R-La., wished McCarthy well.

“Kevin served the American people and his constituents in California’s Central Valley with honor for nearly two decades,” Johnson said, accompanied by a photo of the two.

“As the Republican Leader, he helped secure the House Republican majority twice, and as Speaker he led the People’s House in its return to regular order after Pelosi’s Covid lockdowns,” he added, referring to McCarthy’s predecessor as speaker, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

For McCarthy, winning the speaker’s gavel in January after a grueling 15-ballot floor fight was the pinnacle of a long political career in Sacramento and Washington.

McCarthy, a former staffer for then-Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., was GOP leader of the California Assembly when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor, before he succeeded his former boss in the House in 2007.

Ahead of the 2010 midterms, McCarthy teamed with two other conservative rising stars in the party — then-Reps. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Eric Cantor of Virginia — charting a road map to win back the House by tackling debt and the deficit and attacking Obamacare. A tea party wave swept Republicans into power that fall, and the trio known as “the Young Guns” took much of the credit.

McCarthy, one of the GOP’s most prolific fundraisers, would hold nearly every major leadership position before he was elected speaker: chief deputy whip, majority whip, majority leader and minority leader.

His ouster this year wasn’t the first time he had clashed with conservative bomb throwers. After Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, suddenly resigned in 2015, McCarthy, the heir apparent, ran to replace him but abruptly dropped out of the race on the day of the election because of opposition from the Freedom Caucus — the same group that would help oust him as speaker eight years later, almost to the day.

His decision to bow out and fight another day eventually allowed him to rise to the top job this January. But McCarthy continued to tangle with rabble-rousers in his own party over things like raising the debt ceiling and spending.

And after he averted a government shutdown by passing a short-term funding bill backed by Democrats and the White House, conservatives moved against him, making him the first speaker in history to be removed through a motion to vacate.

Good luck, Mr. McCarthy!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Congress held hearings with the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT on antisemitism on college campuses. The Congressional representatives were rigorous with their questions.  See, for example, the exchange between Representative Elise Stefanik and Harvard President Claudine Gay above. 

President Gay’s responses were blasted by the Harvard Hillel Student Organization

After Harvard President Claudine Gay would not say that the calls for the genocide of Jews was a breach of the Ivy League university’s code of conduct, the local campus Jewish organization called on the president to “take action” to protect Jewish students.

When responding to Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, questions on Harvard’s rules for bullying and harassment, President Gay said that speech that qualifies as harassment “depends on the context.”

“President Gay’s refusal to draw a line around threatening antisemitic speech as a violation of Harvard’s policies is profoundly shocking given explicit provisions within the conduct code prohibiting this kind of bullying and harassment,” the Harvard Hillel said in a statement posted on social media.

President Gay’s responses could have been a stronger indictment of the antisemitic hate speech. The entire five-hour hearing is below.

Tony

Below is an excerpt.  The entire article is an important read.

Tony

————————————

“Alarmed by the power of artificial intelligence, Europe, the United States and others are trying to respond — but the technology is evolving more rapidly than their policies.

When European Union leaders introduced a 125-page draft law to regulate artificial intelligence in April 2021, they hailed it as a global model for handling the technologyhttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/technology/ai-regulation-policies.html.

E.U. lawmakers had gotten input from thousands of experts for three years about A.I., when the topic was not even on the table in other countries. The result was a “landmark” policy that was “future proof,” declared Margrethe Vestager, the head of digital policy for the 27-nation bloc.

Then came ChatGPT.

The eerily humanlike chatbot, which went viral last year by generating its own answers to prompts, blindsided E.U. policymakers. The type of A.I. that powered ChatGPT was not mentioned in the draft law and was not a major focus of discussions about the policy. Lawmakers and their aides peppered one another with calls and texts to address the gap, as tech executives warned that overly aggressive regulations could put Europe at an economic disadvantage.

Even now, E.U. lawmakers are arguing over what to do, putting the law at risk. “We will always be lagging behind the speed of technology,” said Svenja Hahn, a member of the European Parliament who was involved in writing the A.I. law.

Lawmakers and regulators in Brussels, in Washington and elsewhere are losing a battle to regulate A.I. and are racing to catch up, as concerns grow that the powerful technology will automate away jobs, turbocharge the spread of disinformation and eventually develop its own kind of intelligence. Nations have moved swiftly to tackle A.I.’s potential perils, but European officials have been caught off guard by the technology’s evolution, while U.S. lawmakers openly concede that they barely understand how it works.

The result has been a sprawl of responses. President Biden issued an executive order in October about A.I.’s national security effects as lawmakers debate what, if any, measures to pass. Japan is drafting nonbinding guidelines for the technology, while China has imposed restrictions on certain types of A.I. Britain has said existing laws are adequate for regulating the technology. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pouring government money into A.I. research.

At the root of the fragmented actions is a fundamental mismatch. A.I. systems are advancing so rapidly and unpredictably that lawmakers and regulators can’t keep pace. That gap has been compounded by an A.I. knowledge deficit in governments, labyrinthine bureaucracies and fears that too many rules may inadvertently limit the technology’s benefits.

Even in Europe, perhaps the world’s most aggressive tech regulator, A.I. has befuddled policymakers.

The European Union has plowed ahead with its new law, the A.I. Act, despite disputes over how to handle the makers of the latest A.I. systems. A final agreement, expected as soon as Wednesday, could restrict certain risky uses of the technology and create transparency requirements about how the underlying systems work. But even if it passes, it is not expected to take effect for at least 18 months — a lifetime in A.I. development — and how it will be enforced is unclear

“The jury is still out about whether you can regulate this technology or not,” said Andrea Renda, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies, a think tank in Brussels. “There’s a risk this E.U. text ends up being prehistorical.”

The absence of rules has left a vacuum. Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, have been left to police themselves as they race to create and profit from advanced A.I. systems. Many companies, preferring nonbinding codes of conduct that provide latitude to speed up development, are lobbying to soften proposed regulations and pitting governments against one another.

Without united action soon, some officials warned, governments may get further left behind by the A.I. makers and their breakthroughs.

“No one, not even the creators of these systems, know what they will be able to do,” said Matt Clifford, an adviser to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, who presided over an A.I. Safety Summit last month with 28 countries. “The urgency comes from there being a real question of whether governments are equipped to deal with and mitigate the risks.”

Europe takes the lead

In mid-2018, 52 academics, computer scientists and lawyers met at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Brussels to discuss artificial intelligence. E.U. officials had selected them to provide advice about the technology, which was drawing attention for powering driverless cars and facial recognition systems.

The group debated whether there were already enough European rules to protect against the technology and considered potential ethics guidelines, said Nathalie Smuha, a legal scholar in Belgium who coordinated the group.

But as they discussed A.I.’s possible effects — including the threat of facial recognition technology to people’s privacy — they recognized “there were all these legal gaps, and what happens if people don’t follow those guidelines?” she said.

In 2019, the group published a 52-page report with 33 recommendations, including more oversight of A.I. tools that could harm individuals and society.

The report rippled through the insular world of E.U. policymaking. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, made the topic a priority on her digital agenda. A 10-person group was assigned to build on the group’s ideas and draft a law. Another committee in the European Parliament, the European Union’s co-legislative branch, held nearly 50 hearings and meetings to consider A.I.’s effects on cybersecurity, agriculture, diplomacy and energy.

In 2020, European policymakers decided that the best approach was to focus on how A.I. was used and not the underlying technology. A.I. was not inherently good or bad, they said — it depended on how it was applied.

So when the A.I. Act was unveiled in 2021, it concentrated on “high risk” uses of the technology, including in law enforcement, school admissions and hiring. It largely avoided regulating the A.I. models that powered them unless listed as dangerous.

Under the proposal, organizations offering risky A.I. tools must meet certain requirements to ensure those systems are safe before being deployed. A.I. software that created manipulated videos and “deepfake” images must disclose that people are seeing A.I.-generated content. Other uses were banned or restricted, such as live facial recognition software. Violators could be fined 6 percent of their global sales.

Some experts warned that the draft law did not account enough for A.I.’s future twists and turns.

“They sent me a draft, and I sent them back 20 pages of comments,” said Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who advised the European Commission. “Anything not on their list of high-risk applications would not count, and the list excluded ChatGPT and most A.I. systems.”

E.U. leaders were undeterred.

“Europe may not have been the leader in the last wave of digitalization, but it has it all to lead the next one,” Ms. Vestager said when she introduced the policy at a news conference in Brussels.

A blind spot

Nineteen months later, ChatGPT arrived.

The European Council, another branch of the European Union, had just agreed to regulate general purpose A.I. models, but the new chatbot reshuffled the debate. It revealed a “blind spot” in the bloc’s policymaking over the technology, said Dragos Tudorache, a member of the European Parliament who had argued before ChatGPT’s release that the new models must be covered by the law. These general purpose A.I. systems not only power chatbots but can learn to perform many tasks by analyzing data culled from the internet and other sources.

E.U. officials were divided over how to respond. Some were wary of adding too many new rules, especially as Europe has struggled to nurture its own tech companies. Others wanted more stringent limits.

“We want to be careful not to underdo it, but not overdo it as well and overregulate things that are not yet clear,” said Mr. Tudorache, a lead negotiator on the A.I. Act.

By October, the governments of France, Germany and Italy, the three largest E.U. economies, had come out against strict regulation of general purpose A.I. models for fear of hindering their domestic tech start-ups. Others in the European Parliament said the law would be toothless without addressing the technology. Divisions over the use of facial recognition technology also persisted.

Policymakers were still working on compromises as negotiations over the law’s language entered a final stage this week.

A European Commission spokesman said the A.I. Act was “flexible relative to future developments and innovation friendly.”

The Washington game

Jack Clark, a founder of the A.I. start-up Anthropic, had visited Washington for years to give lawmakers tutorials on A.I. Almost always, just a few congressional aides showed up.

But after ChatGPT went viral, his presentations became packed with lawmakers and aides clamoring to hear his A.I. crash course and views on rule making.

“Everyone has sort of woken up en masse to this technology,” said Mr. Clark, whose company recently hired two lobbying firms in Washington.

Lacking tech expertise, lawmakers are increasingly relying on Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and other A.I. makers to explain how it works and to help create rules.

“We’re not experts,” said Representative Ted Lieu, Democrat of California, who hosted Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, and more than 50 lawmakers at a dinner in Washington in May. “It’s important to be humble.”

Tech companies have seized their advantage. In the first half of the year, many of Microsoft’s and Google’s combined 169 lobbyists met with lawmakers and the White House to discuss A.I. legislation, according to lobbying disclosures. OpenAI registered its first three lobbyists and a tech lobbying group unveiled a $25 million campaign to promote A.I.’s benefits this year.

In that same period, Mr. Altman met with more than 100 members of Congress, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, and the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. After testifying in Congress in May, Mr. Altman embarked on a 17-city global tour, meeting world leaders including President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Sunak and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.

In Washington, the activity around A.I. has been frenetic — but with no legislation to show for it.

In May, after a White House meeting about A.I., the leaders of Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and Anthropic were asked to draw up self-regulations to make their systems safer, said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president. After Microsoft submitted suggestions, the commerce secretary, Gina M. Raimondo, sent the proposal back with instructions to add more promises, he said.

Two months later, the White House announced that the four companies had agreed to voluntary commitments on A.I. safety, including testing their systems through third-party overseers — which most of the companies were already doing.

“It was brilliant,” Mr. Smith said. “Instead of people in government coming up with ideas that might have been impractical, they said, ‘Show us what you think you can do and we’ll push you to do more.’”

In a statement, Ms. Raimondo said the federal government would keep working with companies so “America continues to lead the world in responsible A.I. innovation.”

Over the summer, the Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into OpenAI and how it handles user data. Lawmakers continued welcoming tech executives.

In September, Mr. Schumer was the host of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Mr. Altman at a closed-door meeting with lawmakers in Washington to discuss A.I. rules. Mr. Musk warned of A.I.’s “civilizational” risks, while Mr. Altman proclaimed that A.I. could solve global problems such as poverty.

Mr. Schumer said the companies knew the technology best.

In some cases, A.I. companies are playing governments off one another. In Europe, industry groups have warned that regulations could put the European Union behind the United States. In Washington, tech companies have cautioned that China might pull ahead.

“China is way better at this stuff than you imagine,” Mr. Clark of Anthropic told members of Congress in January.”

Massive iceberg floating in the Southern Ocean in Antarctica.  Ray Hems/iStock

Dear Commons Community,

The world’s largest iceberg, with the name of A23a, has begun to move through the ocean near Antarctica, and British researchers last week got an up-close look.  It’s so big, scientists are calling it a “megaberg.”

The RRS Sir David Attenborough, which is on its way to Antarctica for its first scientific mission, passed the berg on Friday near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The iceberg covers an expansive 1,500 square miles, is three times the size of New York City, and more than twice the size of Greater London.  It had been grounded for more than three decades in the Weddell Sea before it came loose last week.  As reported by USA Today and the Associated Press.

“It is incredibly lucky that the iceberg’s route out of the Weddell Sea sat directly across our planned path, and that we had the right team aboard to take advantage of this opportunity,” said Andrew Meijers, chief scientist on the research ship, in a statement.

“We’re fortunate that navigating A23a hasn’t had an impact on the tight timings for our science mission, and it is amazing to see this huge berg in person – it stretches as far as the eye can see,” he said.

A23a made worldwide news last week after it moved out of the Weddell Sea sector into the Southern Ocean. It calved from the Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986, before being grounded on the seabed nearby, the British Antarctic Survey said. A23a will now likely be swept along by the Antarctic circumpolar current into “iceberg alley,” putting it on a common iceberg trajectory toward the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia.

Laura Taylor, a mission biogeochemist, explained the significance of the A23a samples: “We know that these giant icebergs can provide nutrients to the waters they pass through, creating thriving ecosystems in otherwise less productive areas. What we don’t know is what difference particular icebergs, their scale, and their origins can make to that process,” she said.

“We took samples of ocean surface waters behind, immediately adjacent to, and ahead of the iceberg’s route. They should help us determine what life could form around A23a, and how this iceberg and others like it impact carbon in the ocean and its balance with the atmosphere,” Taylor said.

The RRS Sir David Attenborough, named after the British naturalist, is on a 10-day science trip that’s part of a project to investigate how Antarctic ecosystems and sea ice drive global ocean cycles of carbon and nutrients.

The British Antarctic Survey said its findings will help improve understanding of how climate change is affecting the Southern Ocean and the organisms that live there.

BIG Stuff!

Tony

Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis,  and Vivek Ramaswamy.  BBC.

Dear Commons Community,

Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis,  and Vivek Ramaswamy will meet tomorrow night for the 4^th Republican National Committee (RNC) debate.   The debate will be held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  Former President Donald Trump, who has been demanding that the RNC stop hosting debates and get behind his candidacy, is again skipping, as he has the first three.

Wednesday’s lineup has one fewer than the third debate last month in Miami, which had included Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.   Scott ended his campaign days later after failing to rise in either national or early voting states’ polls.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

The GOP debates began in August with eight candidates on the stage in Milwaukee, where the party will hold its nominating convention next summer. Weeks ago, Scott and former Vice President Mike Pence dropped out. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum dropped out Monday. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, while still running, has failed to meet the more stringent polling and fundraising thresholds for the second, third and fourth debates.

For Wednesday’s debate, candidates had to be at or above 6% in national or early state polls and have at least 80,000 unique donors. The debate will be moderated by Megyn Kelly of SiriusXM, Elizabeth Vargas of NewsNation and Eliana Johnson of the Washington Free Beacon.

It is unclear whether the RNC will present a fifth debate. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the party is having trouble lining up media sponsors willing to spend the several million dollars it takes to host the sort of event the RNC wants.

If the RNC stops hosting them, though, that would open the door for other entities, such as state parties, to hold them instead. The RNC had prohibited candidates from appearing at non-RNC debates or even debate-like events or face being banned from the RNC stage.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, the RNC hosted 12 debates. By this point, it had already staged four. It held one in mid-December, two more in January, three in February and two in March.

I am glad to see the GOP presidential nominee field contracting.

Tony