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The federal government will stop working with Anthropic and designate the artificial intelligence company a supply-chain risk, a dramatic escalation of the government’s clash with the company over how its technology can be used by the Pentagon.

The company’s red lines had been domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, areas the Pentagon said Anthropic didn’t need to worry about because the military would never break the law with AI. Defense Department officials said Anthropic needed to fully trust the Pentagon to use the technology responsibly and relinquish control.

“We cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said on Thursday.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of-anthropics-ai-models-ff3550d9

Right now, workers are potentially training AI how to make them obsolete. And they often don’t realize it.

The kind of AI used by companies, called an enterprise AI system, can capture everything you do at work and use that information to train itself. These systems can record your interactions within the platform—the prompts you write, the documents you create, the queries you run.

In other words, the company can potentially track—and claim ownership of—every keystroke you make within the system, every idea you document there, every tool you build using that platform.


This dynamic may fundamentally change the relationship between employer and employee. The stakes are so high and so urgent that both sides are rushing to position (or protect) themselves. Executives are rapidly implementing enterprise AI systems, seeking productivity gains and competitive advantage—and they often aren’t disclosing the implications for job security and privacy. Meanwhile, at least some employees are secretly adopting personal AI tools, sometimes violating corporate policies, so that their employers can’t capture everything they know and do.

Individual opt-out of AI is often impossible, so unions and professional associations need to pay attention. With collective bargaining, workers could demand transparency about the use of enterprise AI and demand fair compensation for the knowledge it gathers. Without collective power, individual employees will keep clicking “accept” on agreements that restructure their jobs simply because they have no alternative.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/ai-knowledge-capture-employees-a69a0e1c

Miller was influential in Trump’s first term, but his power has expanded in the second one. He personally drafted or edited every executive order the president signed, and faced little opposition from administration officials to his work to reshape immigration policy.

His authority, officials said, derives from his ability to manage the president.

Early in Trump’s second term, Miller told federal agents in a meeting at the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the president was disappointed in their numbers. Miller urged the agents to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” without bothering with targeted lists, according to people familiar with the meeting.

He demanded 3,000 arrests a day—a number deemed unrealistic by many federal agents—and came up with the idea of offering recruitment bonuses as high as $50,000 for thousands of new ICE agents.

Miller rarely leaves a written trail of his orders, using Signal, an encrypted voice and text-messaging app, to communicate.

Unlike most of his colleagues, Miller has Secret Service protection. He moved his family to a military base after protests outside his Arlington, Va., home.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/ice-stephen-miller-pretti-trump-2448e779

...
As Pretti and the two other civilians walk away, one of the agents follows them.

That agent then shoved someone who appeared to be with Pretti.

Pretti immediately puts himself between the fallen person and the officer, who appears to spray a nonlethal chemical agent on all three of them.

As a struggle ensues, agents pull Pretti from the others; at least five masked DHS agents surround him and force him to the ground.

Bystander footage shows one agent drawing his firearm and pointing it at Pretti.

Around the same time, a different video verified by the Journal shows Pretti pinned to the ground and agents appear to discover a firearm on him.

In a statement, DHS said, “The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted.”

Less than a second later, one of the agents fires his weapon toward Pretti—the first of at least 10 shots within 5 seconds.

As shots are fired, bystander footage shows another officer raising his firearm.

A preliminary analysis of the video’s audio suggests a total of 10 shots were fired from a single semiautomatic firearm, according to Robert Maher, a forensic audio analyst at Montana State University.

About a minute after the shooting, bystander footage shows officers shouting, “Where is the gun?” as they attempt to apply first aid to Pretti.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/videos-contradict-u-s-account-of-minneapolis-shooting-by-federal-agents-fbe1e488

The Journal identified 13 shootings involving ICE or CBP agents and civilian vehicles since July, using court records, news reports and gun-violence databases.

Footage verified by the Journal and a video shared on Friday by DHS show Ross moving in front of the vehicle while its engine was running, which former and current DHS agents say they are trained not to do.

The Minneapolis shooting shares characteristics with others the Journal reviewed: Agents box in a vehicle, try to remove an individual, block attempts to flee, then fire.

Footage from the shootings also shows officers approaching civilian vehicles with their engines still running—a situation police are trained to avoid. According to Kerlikowske, such training is designed to keep officers out of harm’s way.

Videos reviewed by the Journal show officers trying to open vehicle doors, reaching into vehicles and smashing windows, followed by drivers fleeing.

Police are trained to break a window only in specific circumstances, such as if the driver is armed or there is a medical emergency, said Alpert. In footage from the four cases closely reviewed by the Journal, none of the drivers had firearms, but DHS insists they were still dangerous.

Obstructing a moving vehicle
In at least three of the shootings, officers pursued a vehicle on foot. Footage also shows officers moving into the potential path of the vehicle or clinging on to it while it moved.

“It’s like policing 101. Don’t get in front of a car or in their potential pathway, especially if the engine is running,” said Jon Blum, a former North Carolina officer who now develops police training curricula.

Firing into a moving vehicle also creates its own danger, according to Alpert.

“If I shoot you, and I’m successful, now we’ve got an unguided missile,” said Alpert. “What if there are kids playing in the street?”

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/videos-show-how-ice-vehicle-stops-can-escalate-to-shootings-caf17601

Research shows real names curb toxicity. While not immune to misinformation and scams, LinkedIn lured people leaving X and Facebook as content moderation and fact-checking there declined. Many concluded it was worth trading rage bait on other platforms for earnest monologues about why getting laid off was a blessing in disguise.

The real-name rule doesn’t just stop jerks. It also pressures people to perform... the need to look professional has a hidden upside: smarter conversations.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/three-reasons-we-cant-get-enough-of-linkedin-31333eff

A new crop of AI coaches promise the kind of personalization, expertise and encouragement that would come from a personal trainer, without the high price tag. I was intrigued. Could a robot fix my very human issues?
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My ideal digital fitness platform would combine all of the above: Fitbit’s personalization and flexibility, Peloton’s accountability and Apple’s motivation. That perfect mix doesn’t exist yet, but workout apps have only just begun to embrace AI.

For now, the new Peloton AI is the best bot-powered system of the bunch, if you can stomach the economics.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/ai-fitness-coach-1ca345ec

Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real-estate developer and longtime golfing partner of Donald Trump, was just days into his job as the new president’s special envoy to the Middle East when he received a tantalizing message from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Vladimir Putin was interested in meeting Witkoff—so interested that he might consider releasing an American prisoner to him. The invitation came from a Kremlin moneyman named Kirill Dmitriev, using the de facto Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, as an intermediary.

There was just one thing: Witkoff would be expected to come alone, without any CIA handlers, diplomats or even an interpreter, a person familiar with the outreach said.

This month, Witkoff concluded his sixth trip to Russia, talking with Putin for five hours through midnight. Not since the U.S. allied with Joseph Stalin during the Lend Lease Act has a White House official enjoyed such frequent, personal access to a Russian or Soviet leader. Witkoff has yet to visit Ukraine. Its leaders—and European capitals—complain he is urging them to give Russia territory in return for a peace deal they aren’t sure will hold. This weekend, Dmitriev is scheduled to visit Witkoff in Miami, for another round of talks.

The emergence of Witkoff as envoy to the Kremlin is partly a story of Putin maneuvering to nudge aside America’s diplomats and clasp hands with its billionaires.

A White House official said that the decision to appoint Witkoff was Trump’s decision alone. “Suggesting that foreign countries had any input on this is absurd*,” the official said.
https://www.wsj.com/world/putin-witkoff-russia-envoy-04da229d

The ballyhooed Alaska summit seems to have come to nothing, except let Mr. Putin stave off further sanctions pressure. Mr. Trump now says he needs another two weeks to figure out what to do. He puts the onus on both sides. “I’ll see whose fault it is,” he said. “We’re going to see whether or not they have a meeting.”

The same error was captured in Mr. Vance’s interview on NBC this weekend. “We are trying to negotiate as much as we can with both the Russians and the Ukrainians to find a middle ground to stop the killing,” he said. “We’re effectively mediating.”

How much more evident can it be that Russia is the obstacle to peace? Mr. Putin’s intent is to wipe out a relatively free and Western neighbor whose existence threatens his vision of a Greater Russia. What is the compromise position for that project? It won’t be settled by choosing parcels of land to swap.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-russia-ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-vladimir-putin-sergei-lavrov-185b324d