¶The Munich Regional Court preliminarily ruled that Google is liable for a series of false statements generated by its AI Overviews feature, requiring the company to prevent the dissemination of erroneous or inaccurate claims through its search engine.

¶Something tells me this will shake out differently in the United States, where companies literally sell products with warnings that effectively say “If you use our product correctly, it will kill you.” Indeed, Google’s denial of liability in this German case seems to reveal a “we warned you” defense:

¶Google denied liability, arguing that its automatic summary feature warns users that the information may contain errors and should be independently verified.

¶Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. I think this area of the law is about to get really interesting.

¶The AP concluded that it was “possible” Ut took the photo, but it was unable to be proven conclusively due to the passage of time, absence of key evidence, limitations of technology and the deaths of several key people involved.

¶At the same time, AP found no proof that Nguyen took the photo, the report said.

¶I’d love to watch this documentary on the authorship of the famous Napalm Girl photo, but I can’t find it on any streaming service.

¶After reading her insightful piece in The Atlantic about a potential way forward, I talked to Danielle Allen, a professor at Harvard University who studies political science, democracy, and philosophy. She argues for a new social contract between higher education and the federal government that simultaneously calls for a firm commitment to academic freedom and what she calls a “horizontal” relationship between universities and the American people—one that is based on mutual respect and reciprocity.

¶I’ve seen Dr. Allen (Harvard bio; Wikipedia page) mentioned a couple times over the last couple weeks, in different contexts (first in a New Yorker article on how universities are pivoting toward pluralism and away from DEI), and now in this Science editorial about how the social contract between universities and the federal government. I don’t know much about her work or positions, but I’m going to learn more about both as she seems to be leading new thought on the future of universities.

¶But two of its authors say the correction is insufficient and the study should be retracted. Henry Legg, a quantum physicist at the University of St. Andrews, also has concerns. “This is the latest in a long line of issues we have seen with Microsoft-funded research,” he says. “It seems when they turn up with funding, standard research practices can go out the window.”

¶So maybe don’t take the money next time.

¶Donald Trump has offered his latest sharp criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, complaining during an Oval Office press conference on Thursday that dealing with the central banker is like “talking to a wall.”

¶Good. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.

¶The big blunder was that Trump was holding a red lightsaber, which just about everyone knows is the weapon used by the very same evil Sith lords named in the post and in the Star Wars movies – not the good guys.

¶It’s funny to me that people actually think the inclusion of a red lightsaber was unintended. He’s rattling your sabers, folks. That’s what he does.

¶“Consistent with many national polls, we find that Trump has lost considerable support over his first 100 days, suggesting his honeymoon was short-lived,” Bowling Green State University political scientist Robert Alexander said. “Having a net negative favorability rating in a state he won by 11 points should be of concern for Trump nationwide.”

¶I haven’t felt this in Ohio yet, as most of the Trump supporters I know seem to be taking a buried-head, blind faith strategy so far.

¶The European Union and France on Monday announced half a billion euros worth of incentives to lure scientists to the continent, seeking to profit from U.S. President Donald Trump’s federal funding cuts and clashes with top U.S. universities.

¶Von der Leyen announced the 500 million euros ($566.6 million) incentive package and said she also wanted EU member states to invest 3% of gross domestic product in research and development by 2030.

¶“We could well see a reverse brain drain…not just to Europe, but scholars are moving to Canada and Asia as well.”

¶There’s no “giant sucking sound” yet, but this certainly has the potential to become one.

¶A smattering of automakers are slowly admitting that some smart screens are dumb. Last month, Volkswagen design chief Andreas Mindt said that next-gen models from the German automaker would get physical buttons for volume, seat heating, fan controls, and hazard lights. This shift will apply “in every car that we make from now on,” Mindt told British car magazine Autocar.

¶I think the race to move all controls in a car to a smart screen squarely falls in the “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” department of innovation. We have two Teslas and the lack of physcial controls is one of our biggest complaints about the cars. Having to go to the correct page on the screen and then hunt to find the icon for opening the glovebox has to be the height of absurdity for the smart screen trend.

¶Moving back to buttons and other physical controls could be a difference maker for the traditional automakers, too. They have decades and decades of experience with human-car interface and have produced some amazing innovations in that space. Tesla literally has…a few (the scroll controls on the steering wheel are nice). Combining that history of innovation with advances in electric powertrains could be a difference maker as the GM’s and Ford’s of the world compete with Tesla and other electric-only manufacturers.

¶Frustration with the lack of physical controls in modern cars has been growing for some time. John Siracusa has been fighting this battle on Accidential Tech Podcast since before it was ATP (or at least since the day ATP launched its first epiosode).

¶US President Donald Trump has denied that he is considering running for a third presidential term, a move which experts agree is banned under the US Constitution.

¶I hate that I feel relieved by this. I suppose we couldn’t stop him from running, but the 22nd Amendment prevents him from being elected more than twice. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see him leverage the gap between running and being elected to raise money from his base. To wit, “....The Trump Organization, has been selling ‘Trump 2028’ hats.…”

¶Specifically, their comments centered first on human authorship and AI’s impact on human creativity. Second, labor effects—they fear that rapidly generated AI content could overwhelm human-authored works in the marketplace. Third, they want control and compensation for the use of both their personas and copyright-protected works. Fourth, they recognize innovation aspects—that AI can assist the creative process and even enable performances by deceased artists. Finally, regarding licensing, they consider what type should be preferred: voluntary, collective, or compulsory. In short, should they have to opt in or opt out?

¶The Library of Congress received and considered more than 10,000 comments from the public for its report on AI and copyright for Congress. The comments largely fell into the categories listed in the quote. Hopefully Congress approaches the issue with the same level of attention as the LoC.

¶Trump and his cheerleaders want to go beyond neoliberalism, which maintains that a minimal state is ideal for economic prosperity, and establish hypercapitalism by dissolving any controls the state has over the accumulation of wealth by the extremely rich.

¶They understand that we are living in times when extracting profit from society is not as easy, so they want to free capitalism from the hindrances of democracy and the demands of the people that their rights – political, social and human – be protected by the law and by the state.

¶The tech bros that Trump has surrounded himself with have wrapped this hypercapitalism in a technological cover, claiming that technology can solve all woes and unlimited growth – read unlimited profits for the rich – is the only way to progress.

¶I’m not sayin’ hypercapitalism is a movement by the billionaire class to accumulate enough wealth to leave the planet, I’m just sayin’.

¶Vietnam seems to be a big winner of the US-China trade war. This report from Tamron (lens manufacturer) shows it plans to decrease the China portion of its “production ratio” from 65% to 45% between now and 2028, while increasing the Vietnam portion from 25% to 45%.

¶The USA TODAY Network asked Microsoft Copilot AI to simulate the order of finish for the 2025 Kentucky Derby field based on the latest, odds, predictions and race factors on Thursday, May 1. Journalism came out on top in its projection.

¶The irony of AI picking Journalism to win the Kentucky Derby is bested only by the sad reality of the actual results – Sovereignty beating Journalism for the win.

¶“Moving Pictures was the most fun record we ever made. It was such a great energy and a great vibe,” [Lifeson] said.

¶This article is really about Lifeson’s new work but it has some interesting Rush-related info, too. Moving Pictures is such a great album…one of my all time favorites.

¶“[Local radio is] what made Detroiters different from Clevelanders or Bostonians.”

¶“The old way is over. Gone. Extinct. Swept away. Shattered into a million little pieces. The Digital Age has brought us an incomprehensible number of choices and has parked us into our own, self-defined worlds. To the extent we share it, we might be in synch with someone in, say, Cleveland or Boston.”

¶“With podcasts, with iPhone libraries, with satellite radio, the Golden Age of Audio has replaced the Golden Age of Radio.”

¶This is an interesting piece on local radio in Detroit. It touches on something I’ve thought about before — the social graph created by audio has shifted from local networks created by local radio to nationally and even internationally connected ones created by a mix of streaming services, satellite radio, and podcasts (among other things). That’s amazing from a consumer choice point of view (you can find content on anything!), but the shared local experience, and the local identity that flows from that, is being slowly muffled in the process.

¶Gen Z parents are more likely than millennial or Gen X parents to say that children’s reading is “more a subject to learn than a fun thing to do”. HarperCollins said that parents in this age group grew up with technology themselves, so may think “fun comes more from digital entertainment than from books”.

¶We’re still learning the downstream effects of omnipresent computers – smartphones and tablets, etc. I’m glad to be on the backside of this generational divide.