The Narrative: July 15, 2023

“Censorship” and Social Media A U.S. District Court has issued a landmark ruling that would block the federal government from encouraging or influencing the suppression of content by social media companies. Citing the First Amendment, the court issued a sweeping injunction that would stop agencies such as the White House,...

The Digital Assets Series: Part 2 | Digital Asset Classification

The 118th Congress is set on addressing the regulatory vacuum around digital assets. Its April 19 inaugural session on “payment stablecoins” was covered in part 1 of this series, which also explained what stablecoins are and their implications for the larger macroeconomic system. With the debt ceiling controversy behind us...

The Digital Assets Series: Part 1 | Stablecoins

"Digital" is often coupled with "transformation," and one area where its transformative powers are increasingly manifest is in finance and money. In this ongoing series, we will report on the US Congress's efforts to formulate digital assets policy. We use the term "digital assets" rather than digital money because it...

The Basic Fallacy Underlying the AI Panic

For the past two months, we've seen a sudden burst of panic about the social implications of Artificial Intelligence. One cannot help but note, with a mix of resignation and amusement, that the loudest noises are coming from computer scientists involved in AI. To some people, these sources lend an...

The Narrative: Panic over Generative AI Risks; WebPKI GIG-ARTS conference; Oversight Board consultation

15 May, 2023 More Wrong Thinking on Generative AI Risks Civil society is in trouble if the musings of an anonymous philosopher on the LESSWRONG website, most likely by a national security official with access to a closed CISA meeting, reflects the current zeitgeist inside governments concerning generative AI. The...

The Narrative: VLOPs and VLOSErs; .NET Renewal; Stablecoins

1 May, 2023 Who’s a VLOP and who’s a VLOSER? Alibaba, Amazon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Wikipedia are among the entities that have been designated "Very Large Online Platforms'' (VLOPs) by the European Commission. Google search and Bing have been designated Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSErs). All will...