AI* engine optimization is as gross and corrosive as it sounds. www.404media.co/it-is-trivia...
Who's Who of AI
Jeffrey Vagle
Why they matter
Policy with public evidence across Policy & governance, Safety & security, AI research.
- AI signals
- 11 past 30d
- Sources
- 6 distinct domains
- Discusiones
- 25 past 30d
- Latest signal
- 17h ago
Law professor | Privacy, AI*, Cybersecurity, Technology and Society | Veteran | There is music yet to play | https://tractatus.org
What they're sharing
It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search, Research Suggests 404media.co
Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender theguardian.com
nytimes.com
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Meta's Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping Me wired.com
Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains 404media.co
Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026) vatican.va
Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat insidehighered.com
washingtonpost.com
Articles & links
The dangers associated with AI* come not from the software per se but from the humans building/using it. We can start by talking about our tendency toward automation bias. Excellent essay from @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and @emilymbender.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commenti…
AI Weekly's analysis
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- A US special operations analyst used a chatbot to assess intel on a Chinese ship, and the AI falsely claimed it carried nuclear weapon components.
- Military planes were in the air and personnel were preparing to board before officials caught the hallucination and stood down, per CNN sources.
- Gebru and Bender argue the real AI risk is error-prone deployment in high-stakes settings today, not speculative superintelligence.
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We need to have a long talk about the function and purpose of education. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/22/b...
Fully autonomous weapons with no human in the loop is torment nexus level stupidity and a path that leads nowhere good. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/w...
Once again, software does not “go rogue,” as it has no intent or agency. OpenAI’s management and employees, however, have both, and are where investigations for liability should immediately begin. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/t...
“Mark Zuckerberg says Meta’s A.I. push is a tremendous success…But when Meta files its taxes, it tells the Internal Revenue Service a different story.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...
AI Weekly's analysis
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How many times must we say this? AI* software does not “go rogue” any more than your printer “got religion” when it stopped working Sunday. Software does not have intent or agency. People do. And this feels like some people might be exposed to liability. www.nytimes.com/2026/0…
“After a few days with Muse, I’m convinced this AI tool is more obsessed with collecting data about me than actually getting stuff done.” www.wired.com/story/metas-...
AI Weekly's analysis
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Cognitive surrender to AI* takes many forms, all of them with negative consequences. www.404media.co/software-dev...
"Disinformation did not begin with AI, yet today it finds a powerful amplifier in AI...Only the shared pursuit of the veracity of facts, perceived as a common good, can provide a solid foundation for just communication." -- Pope Leo XIV www.vatican.va/content/leo-...
AI Weekly's analysis
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- Pope Leo XIV's 42,300-word Magnifica Humanitas, signed May 15 and published May 25, addresses AI as the central challenge to human dignity.
- The encyclical states AI systems are 'cultivated' not 'built' and explicitly denies they possess experience, a body, or the capacity to feel pain.
- Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah spoke at the Vatican's May 25 presentation alongside theologians and three cardinals.
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AI* is turning higher education into a prisoner's dilemma exercise. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
Jeffrey Vagle reposted
This is so funny to me. Because, yes, you can use ChatGPT to spit out 200 papers a year if you want. But to what end? What is the point? Did you spend all those years studying and working to make AI button pressing your entire career? www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
AI Weekly's analysis
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- SSRN removed 257 papers written or co-written by University of Chicago Booth professor Nicholas Polson and froze the accounts used to upload them.
- Polson posted roughly 200 papers over nine months of 2026 and also published 14 books, most focused on statistics and mathematics.
- SSRN said Polson's papers did not disclose AI use, but framed 'the unusual pattern of paper submissions' as the bigger issue.
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Their own posts
Recent commentary
I propose a moratorium on news stories describing AI* tools as “going rogue” as if they have intent and moral agency. Instead, let’s describe the events in terms of the companies’ negligence.
Putting together syllabus and materials for this fall's AI Law & Policy course, and the first two classes will be introducing the (very) basic math behind ML models, and I'm trying to find a way to get law students not to immediately tune out when the see things like x, y, and \Sigma.
My annoyance turns to irritation turns to anger at Adobe's CONSTANT offers to "help" when I open a PDF. "This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading an AI-generated summary." I opened the document because I want to read the freaking document. Your app should do just that.
At a campground and the folks in the neighboring site (with the $500k+ RV) are loudly playing an AI* booster podcast.
AALS, I can't say I'm in love with this framing. AI* (as the term is being used here) is not an inevitability, and I wish our educational institutions (and associated entities) would stop treating it as such.
Currently writing a section of my book on the AI industry's full-court press on educational institutions, and my anger is starting to affect my usual throughput.
Made the mistake at taking a peek at LinkedIn and was almost instantly assaulted by sweaty AI* sales pitches desperately trying to find use cases for their increasingly expensive infrastructure.
In today’s AI* Law & Policy class, I couldn’t get my students to accept—even just for the sake of argument—an AI* tool somehow having moral agency. My work here is done.
The AI* agent "hacking" stories going around are more about the pathetic current state of cybersecurity than anything close to computer intelligence.
I completely revamped my AI Law & Policy course this year, and we've started off this week with an introduction to the (basic) mathematics of ML. The students are really picking it up quickly, and nobody seemed to be scared off yet.
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