Latest news with #KeithEllison
5 days ago
- Politics
Minnesota AG Ellison ‘not fearful' after learning he was on shooter's hit list
ABC News' Linsey Davis is joined by Minnesota's Attorney General Keith Ellison, who explains how he found out he was one of the many Democrats on the suspected Minnesota shooter's hit list. June 17, 2025
Politico
5 days ago
- Business
- Politico
What to do when an AI lies about you
As AI chatbots spread throughout American life — from personal assistants to romantic partners — one of the biggest puzzles is what to do when they misbehave. They're famous for making things up, or 'hallucinating,' to use the industry term. And when those hallucinations hurt people, it's not clear how they can fight back. One tool, of course, is existing defamation law — and a new federal lawsuit in Minnesota could start to answer the question of whether a company can be held liable for what an AI does. The suit was filed by a 200-employee solar panel company called Wolf River Electric, which alleges Google's AI Overview hurt its business by offering made-up, defamatory facts about the company. Assuming that Wolf River Electric can back up its complaint, this may be a telling test for whether existing law can rein in AI that harms people's reputations — or whether it falls short, and lawmakers need to step in. 'This might be one of the first cases where we actually get to see how the courts are going to really dig down and apply the basic principles of defamation law to AI,' said Ari Cohn, lead counsel for tech policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). So, what did the AI get wrong? According to Wolf River Electric's complaint, employees were Googling the company when they discovered problems with the search engine's AI Overview, which summarizes the results for a particular query. A screenshot in the exhibits appears to show an AI Overview inaccurately stating that the company was being sued by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for deceptive sales practices, among other legal violations. The screenshotted overview cites multiple sources, but if you go back and read through them, none of webpages actually say Wolf River Electric is being sued. Some other solar companies are being sued, and Wolf River Electric is named in an article — but the connection appears to have been made up entirely by the AI. The screenshotted AI Overview warns at the end of its summary: 'Generative AI is experimental. For legal advice, consult a professional.' Wolf River Electric did, indeed, consult a professional — and sued Google. Google generally denied the defamation allegations in a filing last week, though it's yet to fully elaborate on its defense. In a statement to DFD, Google said, 'The vast majority of our AI Overviews are accurate and helpful but like with any new technology, mistakes can happen. As soon as we found out about the problem, we acted quickly to fix it.' In its own statement, Wolf River said: 'We've earned our reputation one customer and one project at a time. Now, that decade of hard work is at risk.' Wolf River's lawsuit adds to a small but growing roster of cases trying to pin some responsibility on companies when AI makes up defamatory information. Nationally syndicated radio host Mark Walters filed a lawsuit in 2023 against OpenAI, accusing ChatGPT of falsely claiming that he was being sued for embezzlement. A Georgia court dismissed Walters' suit in May, though the ruling isn't a binding precedent for the Minnesota case. Robby Starbuck, an anti-DEI activist with more than 800,000 X followers, sued Meta in April alleging that its chatbot inaccurately identified him as a participant in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The case is ongoing. Wolf River's case is different for a couple of important reasons, say legal experts. One is that it purports to show actual harm from the defamation — lost business from particular clients. 'Wolf River Electric claims they've got the receipts,' UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh told DFD. 'They've got what a lot of people who've been libeled have a hard time proving.' More importantly, the company doesn't have as much name recognition as Walters or Starbuck, which gives it a different status under First Amendment law. Well-known people have to meet a higher 'actual malice' standard to prove they've been defamed — whereas if the judge agrees that Wolf River Electric is a private figure, which the company asserted in a statement to DFD, then it would only have to show that Google was negligent. Assuming the company's argument holds up, the case will steer into uncharted and important territory: What counts as 'reasonable' or 'negligent' in AI design? Yale Law professor Robert Post, who specializes in the First Amendment, said product liability laws are a helpful analogy for navigating these murky issues. 'If you're marketing a toaster, you're responsible that it doesn't burst into flames,' he told DFD. 'What precautions did you take?' Because tools like ChatGPT have only become more popular over the past few years, it's hard to tell what the industry's standard is for preventing defamatory hallucinations — if AI companies have widely adopted one at all. Without these standards, courts and juries may be left to decide whether an AI developer acted reasonably, making judgments on a whole new kind of product without many helpful signposts to guide them. AI software is arguably the most complex in the world, so some regulation may be merited to help juries make sense of negligent design, regardless of how these cases turn out. 'It's not the kind of issue that you'd want different juries deciding on throughout the country,' said Post. 'You'd want national standards laid out by people who are technically well informed about what makes sense and what doesn't.' OpenAI builds out its Stargate vision Ambitions for Stargate are getting pretty lofty — and political. OpenAI released a policy paper titled 'Ideas to Power Democratic AI' on Tuesday, which puts its 'Stargate' data center initiative at the core of its aims to catalyze U.S. reindustrialization, ward off repressive governments abroad and build education-based communities across the country. Reading through this aspirational to-do list, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that Stargate was initially conceived as a data center construction project. President Donald Trump announced the initiative in January, as OpenAI entered into a $100 billion deal with SoftBank and Oracle to build the data centers that power AI systems like ChatGPT. The White House pledged to expedite permitting processes to aid the venture. OpenAI's policy paper brings Stargate to the forefront of the day's buzziest policy debates. The company promotes plans to develop infrastructure based on Stargate abroad, to ensure that global AI ecosystems are built on 'democratic rails' to counteract China's 'autocratic version of AI.' It pushes for data centers to be fixtures of their communities, with 'Stargate Academies' to train high-skilled workforces, and endowments for local governments. The company further trumpets Stargate as an important component in industrial policies like modernizing the energy grid. Stargate, it seems, is no longer just a construction deal – it's quickly becoming a political platform. Phone subsidies lead to mass privacy protections Roughly 1.4 million Californians rely on phones subsidized by the state's Lifeline program, and a leading proposal to expand its services now includes measures to shield all user data from the federal government. POLITICO's California Decoded team reported on Tuesday that Democratic Assemblymember Avelino Valencia is broadening privacy protections in AB 1303, a bill that would make undocumented immigrants without Social Security numbers eligible for state Lifeline subsidies. The bill's initial privacy measures restricted certain Lifeline data from being shared with the federal government, out of concern that undocumented users would unintentionally disclose their immigration statuses to the Trump administration. The amendment expands those protections to all customers, prohibiting telecom companies from sharing such data with federal officials without a warrant or subpoena. These privacy-oriented modifications to the bill come as Democrats and immigration advocates raise concerns about the administration wielding government databases to further its deportation efforts. An Associated Press investigation last weekend found that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shared data on Medicaid enrollees, including immigrants, with the Department of Homeland Security. The Internal Revenue Service and Department Housing and Urban Development have also entered data-sharing agreements with Homeland Security for immigration enforcement. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak (amak@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Fox News
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Ex-Vikings player blames Tim Walz for Minnesota lawmaker killings: 'Example of a weak, emasculated leader'
Former Minnesota Vikings and University of Minnesota football player Jack Brewer spoke out about the early-morning shootings that left one state lawmaker and her husband dead and a second lawmaker and his wife injured. Brewer, who played four seasons with the Golden Gophers before starting his NFL career with the Vikings in 2002, criticized Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for allowing the state to become "the capital of chaos." "We need to start calling this what it is. These people have lost their minds. I am heartbroken to see one of the most amazing states in America completely turned around under Gov. Tim Walz. Minnesota is confused," Brewer told Fox News Digital. "I played for the Vikings. I played for the Gophers. I lived in Minnesota for years. It was not like this. People were respectful. People could disagree and still have conversations. I still have a lot of family there, and it hurts to see what they're living through. "Minnesota has become the capital of chaos in America. That's not right. It's not a reflection of the true people of Minnesota. There are a lot of good people there. But the liberal hub around Minneapolis and St. Paul has taken over, and it's dangerous. Tim Walz is the leader of that. His attorney general, Keith Ellison, is right there with him." Vance Luther Boelter, 57, is wanted in the shootings, two sources familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. Boelter reportedly earned his Ph.D. in leadership for the advancement of learning and service from Cardinal Stritch University and was appointed to the state's Workforce Development Board by two Minnesota governors, according to Fox 9. He was reportedly initially appointed by Gov. Mark Dayton in 2016 before being reappointed by Gov. Tim Walz in 2019 as a private sector representative to the council. Boelter's term expired in 2023. The Minnesota Workforce Development Board and Walz's administration did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Boelter allegedly posed as a police officer when he shot Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in their Champlin home early Saturday, leaving them seriously injured before moving on to former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman's house, where he allegedly killed her and her husband. This morning, Walz told reporters the attack was clearly a "politically motivated assassination," but he did not reveal that the suspect was his own appointee. Brewer believes the incident is a result of Democrats and Walz's leadership and called for a "return to masculinity." "On this Father's Day, I wish Minnesota would focus on restoring fatherhood — protecting women, protecting families. Tim Walz is the example of a weak, emasculated leader. That is not what God made fathers to be. It's pathetic," Brewer said. "It's terrible. The root cause of all of this is evil. When you're willing to attack, ridicule, riot and protest anyone who believes something different — even in your own party — you've gone too far. The Democrats have gone so far left that if you're not a raging liberal, you're under attack. They are forcing everyone in the party to conform. "Whenever you give Satan power, he shows his face. That's what we're witnessing now." Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Live updates: No Kings protest in Minnesota
The Brief No Kings protests are planned across Minnesota on Saturday, including an event featuring Gov. Tim Walz in St. Paul. The St. Paul No Kings protest begins at 11 a.m. and includes a march to the Minnesota State Capitol and rally. Nearly 2,000 protests are planned in cities across the United States on Saturday, which is the same day as President Donald Trump's birthday. ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A No Kings protest against President Donald Trump's policies is planned for Saturday in St. Paul, and will include Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Attorney General Keith Ellison, among others. Watch live FOX 9 will bring you live coverage of the No Kings protest in St. Paul, and from around the country, on Saturday. Coverage will begin Saturday morning, with local coverage starting at noon in the player above, on FOX LOCAL and on FOX 9's YouTube channel. READ MORE: No Kings protest: List of Minnesota rallies Local perspective Here's the schedule for the No Kings protest in St. Paul: 11 a.m.: Attendees will meet at St. Paul College. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is expected to speak. Noon: Attendees will march down John Ireland Boulevard to the Minnesota State Capitol 1 p.m.: Rally at the Minnesota Capitol, where Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison are among the speakers. Dig deeper These protests are planned in nearly 2,000 cities across the United States on Saturday, the same day a military parade is planned to happen in Washington, D.C. for the Army's 250th birthday. Saturday also marks Flag Day and President Trump's birthday. The protests, organized by the 50501 national movement, are meant to counter what organizers call a day for Trump to feed his own ego as he turns 79 years old. "The flag doesn't belong to President Trump. It belongs to us," the No Kings website says. "On June 14th, we're showing up everywhere he isn't — to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings." The No Kings theme was orchestrated by the 50501 Movement, a national movement made up of everyday Americans who stand for democracy and against what they call the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration. The name 50501 stands for 50 states, 50 protests, one movement. The No Kings Day of Defiance has been organized to reject authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics and the militarization of the country's democracy, according to a press release from No Kings. The No Kings Day of Defiance is expected to be the largest single-day mobilization since Trump returned to office, organizers said. Organizers said they are preparing for millions of people to take to the streets across all 50 states and commonwealths. People of all ages are expected to come together in nearly 2,000 protest locations for speeches, marching, carrying signs and waving American flags. The movement says it is committed to keeping their protests nonviolent. You can learn more and see a map of scheduled protests here. Earlier protests organized by 50501 have rallied against Trump and his former billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who led Trump's Department of Government Efficiency to cut federal spending. Big picture view The nationwide demonstrations will coincide with the Army's 250th anniversary celebration — which Trump has ratcheted up to include an expensive, lavish military parade. The event will feature hundreds of military vehicles and aircraft and thousands of soldiers. The Army birthday celebration had already been planned. But earlier this spring, Trump announced his intention to ratchet up the event – which falls on Trump's birthday – to include 60-ton M1 Abrams battle tanks and Paladin self-propelled howitzers rolling through the city streets. He has long sought a similar display of patriotic force. The other side Trump said Tuesday that any protesters in Washington, D.C., would be "met with heavy force," but the White House later clarified that Trump supports "peaceful protests."
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Stewartville home park community operator agrees to pay $135,000 in settlement
Jun. 12—ST. PAUL — The former owner and operator of a manufactured home park community in Stewartville agreed to pay $135,000 after facing allegations that it submitted false claims to the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. The state alleged that Sun Communities, Inc. violated three counts of the Minnesota False Claims Act, an act that works to combat fraud against the government. The civil complaint, filed in March 2024, alleged that Sun Communities attempted to evict several tenants for not paying their rent. However, in these instances, Sun Communities received the tenants' payments through RentHelpMN, a federally funded program created after COVID-19 that provides financial support to help Minnesota families pay rent. According to the complaint, Sun Communities "repeatedly affirmed" that it would not evict tenants for not paying rent after receiving their rent payments through the program. RentHelpMN required landlords like Sun Communities to comply with the "statutory and regulatory prohibition on evicting tenants." The state alleged that Sun Communities applied RentHelpMN to pay for "unlawful late fees, pet fees" and other unauthorized fees. Hennepin County District Judge Susan Burke ordered that $33,824.09 of the $135,000 be paid as restitution, which will be credited to the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. "What Sun Communities did was unlawful," Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a release. "The pandemic created economic hardship, so the government stepped up and helped struggling families make rent payments. It is disappointing that any property owner would accept those payments and then still try to evict their tenants. Today, we are holding one of those property owners accountable. I am grateful to the whistleblower who helped bring this wrongdoing to light, and I encourage other Minnesotans who believe government funds are being misused to contact my office." Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, who represented Sun Communities, did not immediately respond for comment. Sun Communities, Inc. previously owned and operated the community located at 105 20 St. NW, Stewartville.
