MelanAI is coming for your kids<\/p>\n
\u201cThe robots are here,\u201d proclaimed<\/a> Melania Trump during an AI event at the White House on Thursday. It can be hard to parse the first lady\u2019s poker face and expressionless voice, but this certainly wasn\u2019t a statement of regret. Rather Trump, reading from a script encased in a very analogue binder, was taking it upon herself to help America\u2019s children navigate AI, which she touted as the \u201cgreatest engine of progress in the history of the United States of America\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAs leaders and parents, we must manage AI\u2019s growth responsibly,\u201d she said in her speech. \u201cDuring this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children.\u201d<\/p>\n Does that mean foisting them off to a nanny<\/a> or, as Donald Trump once did with Donald Trump Jr, abandoning them at the airport<\/a> because they\u2019re five minutes late? No, it means \u201cempowering, but with watchful guidance\u201d, apparently.<\/p>\n Melania Trump doesn\u2019t grace the White House with her presence particularly often. The first lady has made clear that she is not beholden to things like \u201cduty\u201d or \u201ctradition\u201d like her predecessors. She does what she wants, when she wants. And Thursday\u2019s roundtable on AI is the latest indication that she wants to position herself as a leading figure in the future of technology. Like the rest of her family, the first lady has enthusiastically embraced NFTs and cryptocurrency \u2013 and their amazing ability to rapidly generate the Trumps an immense amount of wealth<\/a>. She\u2019s also boasted<\/a> about using an AI version of her voice to narrate the audiobook version of Melania. And last month<\/a> she launched an AI contest for kids in grades K-12.<\/p>\n The first lady isn\u2019t just positioning herself as a leading voice in technology; she\u2019s trying to brand herself as the face of responsible innovation. While announcing her AI contest for kids, for example, she boasted that she\u2019d \u201cchampioned online safety through the Take It Down Act<\/a>\u201d (TDA). It\u2019s true that Melania advocated for the TDA, which passed Congress with bipartisan support earlier this year and criminalizes the nonconsensual distribution of intimate imagery (NDII, once known as \u201crevenge porn\u201d.) Nevertheless, the legislation is rather more complicated than she\u2019d have it seem.<\/p>\n Image-base sexual abuse (both authentic imagery and AI-generated content) is a serious problem that scholars and activists have been trying to address via legislation for a long time<\/a>. While it\u2019s commendable that Trump wanted to get involved with the TDA, some people believe she swooped in at the last minute and put her name to a dangerously bastardized version of a model statute that experts developed. Numerous civil rights activists have warned<\/a> that the TDA has been broadened so much that it will be weaponized against free speech.<\/p>\n \u201cI am gratified that the [TDA] incorporates much of the language of the model federal statute against NDII I first drafted in 2013,\u201d wrote Dr Mary Anne Franks, president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, in a statement<\/a> earlier this year. \u201cBut the Take It Down Act also includes a poison pill: an extremely broad takedown provision that will likely end up hurting victims more than it help.\u201d<\/p>\n The Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a> has similarly warned that the TDA is so broad that it gives the \u201cpowerful a dangerous new route to manipulate platforms into removing lawful speech that they simply don\u2019t like\u201d. Indeed, the president has said as much himself. \u201cI\u2019m going to use that bill for myself too if you don\u2019t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody,\u201d he told<\/a> a joint session of Congress.<\/p>\n All of which to say: Melania Trump may not be the best person to help manage AI\u2019s growth responsibly and shield children from potential harm from the technology. But if she is keen on doing this work then I suggest she stop convening taskforces on how to integrate AI into childhood education, and simply ask her husband to stop gutting public education<\/a> instead. The Trump administration is, for example, attempting to defund Head Start<\/a>, a federally funded early childhood program for low-income families, and cancelled<\/a> a grant program that has historically funded educational children\u2019s programs like Sesame Street. The Trump administration is also trying to curtail education<\/a> about slavery and Republicans are waging war on Wikipedia to try to remove criticism<\/a> of Israel. More broadly, book bans<\/a> and censorship<\/a> are flourishing under Trump.<\/p>\n Melania Trump is right that the robots are here, and they\u2019re here to stay. But I\u2019m not convinced that the Trump administration is going to responsibly integrate AI into our schools in a way that increases equity and the sum of human knowledge. Rather I think it\u2019s more likely that all these AI taskforces will succeed in doing is diverting large sums of taxpayer money towards the tech CEOs who have been busy bowing to Trump.<\/p>\n AI \u201cwill make a few people much richer and most people poorer\u201d, Christopher Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI, told the Financial Times on Friday<\/a>. Which, I suspect, is precisely why Melania Trump and the coterie of billionaires and tech executives gathered around her at the White House are so excited about it.<\/p>\n Accused rapist Conor McGregor wants to be the next president of Ireland<\/p>\n McGregor recently lost an appeal<\/a> over a civil court ruling last year awarding damages to a woman who accused him of rape. He\u2019s also had numerous other brushes with the law<\/a>. Still that sort of thing doesn\u2019t preclude someone from high office anymore, does it? McGregor wants to be president of Ireland<\/a> and Elon Musk is enthusiastically<\/a> supporting him in that bid.<\/p>\n A venture capitalist went to extreme lengths to punish her surrogate<\/p>\n \u201cCompared to natural conception, carrying a genetically unrelated fetus more than triples the risk of severe, potentially deadly conditions, a statistic surrogates are rarely given,\u201d writes Emi Nietfeld for Wired<\/a> in a harrowing feature about a venture capitalist, Cindy Bi, who viciously hounded her surrogate when the baby died in utero. Bi then had a healthy baby via another surrogate \u2013 who had an emergency hysterectomy in the process. It feels like for-profit surrogacy has been normalized by celebrities; this piece is an essential reminder of the ethical issues involved with the womb-for-hire industry.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy<\/p>\n Get\u00a0Arwa Mahdawi\u2019s\u00a0weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Epstein victims say they will compile their own \u2018client list\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWe know the names,\u201d one survivor said during a press conference on Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cNow, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world.\u201d<\/p>\n RFK Jr hints access to abortion pill could be cut back<\/p>\n There is an enormous amount of evidence that shows mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as the abortion pills, are safe and effective<\/a>. The health secretary, however, is claiming otherwise<\/a> and suggested that access may be curtailed. Meanwhile, Texas just passed<\/a> a bill banning abortion pills from being mailed to the state.<\/p>\n Laura Loomer thinks Palestinian kids aren\u2019t innocent<\/p>\n The far-right Trump confidante and \u201cproud Islamophobe\u201d recently used her considerable influence to get the Trump administration to block medical visas<\/a> for sick kids from Gaza. Now she\u2019s justifying this by calling Palestinian kids terrorists. \u201cYou think these kids are so innocent?\u201d Loomer said on her podcast<\/a>. \u201c[Y]ou think little kids are not capable of evil?\u201d I think the real terrorists here may be the people who have created the world\u2019s largest cohort of child amputees<\/a> and are systematically starving<\/a> babies to death.<\/p>\n Google has a $45m contract to spread Israeli propaganda<\/p>\n Loomer is not the only one spreading dehumanizing misinformation that is fueling genocide. Drop Site News reports that Google is a \u201ckey entity\u201d supporting Netanyahu\u2019s messaging<\/a> and amplifying misinformation about the famine in Gaza.<\/p>\n The week in pawtriarchy<\/p>\n