OUR PICKSThe FBI Director Is MIA | America Wakes Up to AI’s Dangerous Power | It Is Time to Ban the Sale of Precise Geolocation, and more

America Wakes Up to AI’s Dangerous Power  (Economist)
Should a handful of men be entrusted with the world’s most potent new technology? Five geeks so famous that they can be identified by their first names—Dario, Demis, Elon, Mark and Sam—exercise almost godlike command over the artificial-intelligence models that will shape the future. The Trump administration has stood aside even as those models have gained jaw-dropping capabilities, convinced that unfettered competition between private firms is the best way to ensure America wins the AI race against China.
Until now. Suddenly, America’s free-wheeling treatment of AI looks as if it is coming to an end. The reason is that the models’ dizzying progress also poses a threat to America’s own national security, unnerving members of the Trump administration previously more inclined to worry about overregulation. At the same time, growing resentment among American voters is turning AI into a political lightning-rod. A laissez-faire approach is no longer politically tenable or strategically wise.

The FBI Director Is MIA  (Sarah Fitzpatrick, The Atlantic)
Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.

MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged  (David Gilbert, Wired)
Conspiracy theories about the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting have ramped up in recent weeks as once steadfast Trump supporters turn on the president.

The Film That Explains Contemporary America  (David A. Graham, The Atlantic)
The Sorrow and the Pity has lessons for how authoritarianism takes root—and how to fight against it.

It Is Time to Ban the Sale of Precise Geolocation  (Tom Uren, Lawfare)
According to leaked training manuals, government and commercial customers can search for keywords and personal identifiers like names, email addresses, phone numbers, and usernames to identify online accounts and then analyze what they post, their interactions, relationships, activities, event attendances, and interests. They can monitor and profile individuals, create “target cards,” receive alerts, analyze geolocation information extracted from posts and photos, and perform network analyses, for example, to identify groups based on their mutual friends or workplaces.

One Emergency After Another  (Ben Diamond, Lawfare)
As President Trump’s use of emergency powers outstrips his predecessors, Congress and the courts must act to rein him in.