All Research

All Research

Trump vs Biden on Science Integrity
Article
The Honest Broker

Trump vs Biden on Science Integrity

Since the George W. Bush administration and under both parties, the White House has focused on scientific integrity. However, Republicans and Democrats have conflicting views on what that means.  For Democrats,…

UN abandons science and hires climate change zealots who damn the facts
Article
New York Post

UN abandons science and hires climate change zealots who damn the facts

Life would be impossible without experts — doctors help us when we get sick, mechanics fix our cars when they break down, farmers produce our food, to name just a…

Secrecy in Tension with Democracy and Privacy
Article
AEIdeas

Secrecy in Tension with Democracy and Privacy

When someone attacks your democracy, it tends to stick in your craw. I don’t know that democracy is the last, best way to arrange human affairs, but if we’re going…

AI Is Changing—Not Stealing—Our Jobs and Lives
Article
AEIdeas

AI Is Changing—Not Stealing—Our Jobs and Lives

There was much angst surrounding AI as it loomed as a potential part of daily life, even among the so-called AI experts. But is it warranted? Physicist Niels Bohr is…

What Does Agentic AI Mean for Interoperability, User Freedom, and Privacy?
Article
AEIdeas

What Does Agentic AI Mean for Interoperability, User Freedom, and Privacy?

Agentic AI, or automated systems that are capable of completing tasks and making decisions without human intervention, requires interoperability to remain innovative and competitive. But what does this degree of…

Article
The Honest Broker

A Takeover of the IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just released the names of its authors for its seventh assessment report (AR7). The author list for its Chapter 3 — Changes in regional climate…

Prison Call Order Delays Reform of Market Ripe for Disruption
Article
AEIdeas

Prison Call Order Delays Reform of Market Ripe for Disruption

Earlier this summer, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unexpectedly delayed implementation of its 2024 prison call order until 2027. The order, which was mandated by Congress and had bipartisan support…

When Fact Checkers Stop Checking Facts
Article
AEIdeas

When Fact Checkers Stop Checking Facts

A recent Washington Post headline claimed its tech columnist, Geoffrey Fowler, had shown that “Meta’s new crowdsourced system to fight falsehoods [has] failed to make a dent.” The claim would…

Article
The Honst Broker

Too Big to Fail

In 2024, Nature published “The Economic Commitment of Climate Change,” by Kotz et al. (KLW24). A press release accompanying the paper’s publication announced that it projected enormous future GDP losses due to climate change,…

Dial-Up Internet May Be History, but It Still Conditions Our Current Internet Experience
Article
AEIdeas

Dial-Up Internet May Be History, but It Still Conditions Our Current Internet Experience

This week’s announcement that AOL will be discontinuing its dial-up internet access service on September 30 triggered a bout of nostalgia in me—an internet dinosaur who first dialed up to…

Illinois Bans AI Therapy. Questions about Enforcement Remain.
Article
AEIdeas

Illinois Bans AI Therapy. Questions about Enforcement Remain.

Last week, my home state of Illinois became one of the first in the nation to ban AI therapy when Governor Pritzker signed the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources…

Who Owns Information? Governments Are Asking the Wrong Question.
Article
AEIdeas

Who Owns Information? Governments Are Asking the Wrong Question.

Who should control data? The question is increasingly central to policy debates in Washington, Brussels, and Silicon Valley. It’s being asked in antitrust lawsuits, AI regulation proposals, and sweeping data…

Reading the Mind of the Machine: Why GPT-5’s Chain-of-Thought Monitoring Matters for AI Safety
Article
AEIdeas

Reading the Mind of the Machine: Why GPT-5’s Chain-of-Thought Monitoring Matters for AI Safety

When OpenAI released GPT-5 last week, most coverage focused on the model’s performance gains, including fewer hallucinations, stronger multilingual abilities, and state-of-the-art results in health tasks. But buried deep in…

Understanding Why the Supreme Court’s Ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton Is Narrow
Article
AEIdeas

Understanding Why the Supreme Court’s Ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton Is Narrow

With the US Supreme Court now considering in NetChoice v. Fitch whether to reinstate an injunction blocking enforcement of Mississippi’s online age-verification and parental-consent law, it’s vital to understand the…

The Climate Beat Goes On
Article
The Honest Broker

The Climate Beat Goes On

Last week I was contacted by two reporters at the Associated Press with a request to comment on the Department of Energy’s Climate Working Group (DOE CWG) report and the proposal by the…