An international agreement about developing "artificial intelligence" to be "safe by design" strikes me as alarmingly unsafe.

I fear that the plan presumes that AI systems will never be released as free software -- that the software will be available only in the form of servers controlled by some company or other, running software that the users cannot ever obtain copies of, let alone change.

Using a server controlled by someone else to do your own computing (which we call SaaSS, Service as a Software Substitute) is never safe -- it is even more unsafe than running a nonfree program.

But the people who negotiated this agreement have no concept of that issue.

If what I hear is correct, machine-learning AI systems have already been used to disrupt democracy. I refer to the recommendation algorithms that many platforms use to decide what to show each user. Reportedly these operate by machine learning and are designed to learn how to make the platform's useds want to stay on the platform longer.

These platforms have promoted the spread of disinformation, which has had the effect of helping violent extremists spread hatred.

The Australian Capital Territory plans to punish jurors if they try to learn anything on their own about the case under trial.

What this suggests to me is a plan to make damned sure that whistleblowers get the sort of trial that makes jurors ashamed afterward of voting to convict.

The International Day Against DRM is Dec 9 -- do something to call for the abolition of Digital Restrictions Management.

*US university presidents to testify before Congress over claims of antisemitic protests on campuses.*

Antisemitism is a vicious attitude, just like antimuslimism, racism and sexism. However, the right to express those attitudes is part of freedom of speech.

Many countries other than the US have prohibited expression of those attitudes. Whether that reduces them is not at all clear, but it certainly infringes on freedom of speech.

Binance and its CEO pled guilty to disregarding financial rules, such that money was sent to Iran and Syria, to ransomeware, and various other criminals.

However, the large fine will not necessarily make this change.

At the very least, Binance (and each of its divisions even if sold to some other company) should be required to have an independent compliance monitor forever, and these monitors should be paid directly by the federal government (not by Binance) using money that Binance will pay each year as a fine. That will make it hard for Binance to exert improper influence over them.