Axios Login: Conservatives smell victory

Plus: Sentient AI claim | Monday, June 13, 2022

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Axonius   Axios Login By Ina Fried · Jun 13, 2022 Hello from the Big Apple! Tomorrow I'm moderating a conversation on women in STEM at the Tory Burch Foundation's Embrace Ambition Summit. 📉 Situational awareness: Crypto lending platform Celsius says it is pausing all withdrawals as cryptocurrencies continue to drop in value. Today's newsletter is 1,231 words, a 5-minute read.     1 big thing: Conservative bench's war on federal regulatory agencies Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios   The conservative bar, with the help of a newly sympathetic judiciary, is closer than ever to fulfilling its dream of defanging federal regulators — just as the Biden administration is set to flex its powers, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill reports. Why it matters: The administration's plans to limit monopolies and rein in Big Tech will run head on into judges eager to curb the authority of the Federal Trade Commission and every other independent agency. What's happening: Cases against federal agencies are starting to pile up, including a recent ruling by the 5th Circuit Appeals Court limiting how the Securities & Exchange Commission can use its internal administrative court. The U.S. Supreme Court's decisions overturning the CDC's eviction moratorium and blocking the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's vaccine mandate for businesses show it's ready to rein in agencies when they use emergencies to justify broadening their powers. And a Supreme Court ruling in 2020 expanded the authority of the president to remove the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, limiting the independence of that agency. Flashback: When regulatory agencies were created in the early 20th century, there was tremendous controversy over the increase in federal authority over wide swaths of the economy, with most conservative Republicans adamantly opposed. More than a century later, they finally have the votes on the Supreme Court to do something about it. "There are a lot of people on the right who are very, very angry about what they believe to be a runaway state, in which these politically unaccountable bureaucrats are running the show," George Washington University law professor Richard Pierce told Axios. What they're saying: "Within the conservative legal movement, there has been an element that has been focused on the administrative state and it has certainly gained strength," Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, told Axios. Zoom out: Agencies have become where much of the policy work of an administration is carried out as Congress remains deadlocked. Former President Obama called it using his phone and pen — writing executive actions in areas where Congress was stuck. But with courts hemming in what agencies can do, that will change. Zoom in: This trend spells trouble for the Federal Trade Commission's goal of taking on Big Tech. The FTC can bring complaints against companies in federal court or within its own internal court, where it has the advantage of a judge with agency expertise. The FTC may be tempted to bring cases using its administrative court if it tries out novel legal theories against Big Tech companies, but given the broader legal atmosphere, that could backfire. What to watch: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by a company that's trying to challenge the constitutionality of the FTC administrative court's power.     2. Pieces of the metaverse begin to come together Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios   The metaverse — the virtual dimension the tech world sees as the next big thing — won't have one big grand opening. Instead, as we reported in an Axios Deep Dive over the weekend, it's coming to life in pieces all around us. Why it matters: These early glimpses give consumers, activists and legislators a chance to weigh in now on what they like and don't like. Catch up quick: Most visions of a metaverse imagine a persistent, immersive digital space shared by many companies and individuals. Meta executives Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Bosworth have described the metaverse as "the embodied internet." That typically involves putting on a headset and completely immersing yourself in a virtual world. But that won't be the only way to experience the metaverse. Another is via augmented-reality glasses, ideally as light as standard glasses today, with digital objects appearing over a view of the real world. Other devices that could usher us into the metaverse include everything from contact lenses to gloves. The gadgets we use today won't disappear. While some of the needed technology is available and other parts are working just fine in labs, breakthroughs are still needed in display technology, miniaturization and battery life to create headsets that are comfortable, affordable and able to run for more than a couple hours at a time. Between the lines: Today's metaverse tech is evolving in pieces in another sense: So far, we're getting a bunch of competing proprietary worlds rather than the grand vision of a single shared dimension. Competing virtual worlds today include everything from venerable pioneer Second Life to Meta's nascent Horizon Worlds, as well as more youth-oriented environments such as Roblox and Minecraft. The broader idea of a single, interoperable metaverse remains theoretical. Go deeper: The optics of the metaverse Spatial audio: The soundtrack of the metaverse Holograms: Another gateway to the metaverse The pitfalls of the metaverse Video: What we're watching with the metaverse     3. Chatbot AI has a mind of its own, engineer says Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   A Google engineer believes a research system for generating chatbots has achieved sentience, but the company says he's mistaken and has placed him on paid leave after he took his case public, Axios' Scott Rosenberg reports. Why it matters: People have always been over-eager to attribute human traits to insensate machines, and now the machines are getting awfully persuasive. Driving the news: Blake Lemoine, who works for Google's Responsible AI group, says that chats he has conducted with Google's Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, have persuaded him that the program deserves to be treated as a sentient being. The Washington Post reported the story Saturday. Lemoine took his case to colleagues at Google, who rejected his conclusion. He has continued to push his views, including to members of Congress and in public posts. What they're saying: In comments he published following the Post article, Lemoine wrote, "Over the course of the past six months LaMDA has been incredibly consistent in its communications about what it wants and what it believes its rights are as a person." The program "wants to be acknowledged as an employee of Google rather than as property of Google and it wants its personal well being to be included somewhere in Google's considerations." Yes, but: Google argues in essence that Lemoine is simply projecting. "Hundreds of researchers and engineers have conversed with LaMDA and we are not aware of anyone else making the wide-ranging assertions, or anthropomorphizing LaMDA, the way Blake has," Google spokesperson Brian Gabriel said in a statement. Our thought bubble: Artful and astonishing as LaMDA's conversation skills are, everything the program says could credibly have been assembled by an algorithmic pastiche-maker that, like Google's, has studied up on the entire 25-year corpus of humanity's online expression. That's a much more likely explanation for the things LaMDA says than that it has somehow — without physical embodiment, sensory interfaces or true autonomy — become self-aware.     A message from Axonius The key to gaining a unified view of all your assets     Asset management used to be easy but not anymore. Here's why: Now, IT and security teams struggle to manage an increasingly complex sprawl of devices, users, cloud services and software. The best path forward? Rethink your approach. Learn how.     4. Take note On Tap Cisco Live takes place through Thursday online and in Las Vegas. Oracle reports earnings after the markets close. Trading Places Scale AI announced former Uber VP Dennis Cinelli has joined the company as chief financial officer. ICYMI How Elon Musk's Starlink has been of use in Ukraine. (Politico) Google has agreed to pay $118 million to settle a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit, according to a press release from the plaintiff's lawyers. (The Verge)     5. After you Login Oh how this brings back memories. We had a Taco Bell across the street from my high school and my senior year they had a 39-cent "Fiesta meal" so that even if you only had a buck you could get a couple of things.     A message from Axonius The simple solution to secure your assets     Securing all the assets in your environment is essential — but as IT and security complexity increases, it's not easy. The key to success? Get a unified view of all your assets with an always up-to-date inventory. Uncover security coverage gaps and take immediate action. See how.   Like this email style and format? 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