April, 30 2019, 12:00am EDT
EPA Backs Industry on Cancer Risks of World's Most Widely Used Herbicide
The Environmental Protection Agency today, in a new review of the world's most widely used herbicide, maintained its deceitful position that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.
The following is a statement by Dr. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Healthy People and Thriving Communities Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council:
"EPA's Pesticide office is out on a limb here--with Monsanto and Bayer and virtually nobody else.
WASHINGTON
The Environmental Protection Agency today, in a new review of the world's most widely used herbicide, maintained its deceitful position that glyphosate is not a carcinogen.
The following is a statement by Dr. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Healthy People and Thriving Communities Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council:
"EPA's Pesticide office is out on a limb here--with Monsanto and Bayer and virtually nobody else.
"Health agencies and credible non-industry experts who've reviewed this question have all found a link between glyphosate and cancer. EPA should take the advice of its own science advisors--who have rejected the agency's no-cancer-risk classification."
BACKGROUND:
In announcing the finding, EPA asserted that "the agency's scientific findings on human health risk are consistent with the conclusions of science reviews by many other countries and federal agencies."
The EPA Pesticide Office is charged with protecting public health--including farmworkers and those who apply pesticides--and yet EPA continues to disregard risks from routine occupational exposure.
For more on the risks of glyphosate, here is a recent blog by NRDC's Jen Sass.
NRDC works to safeguard the earth--its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. We combine the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of some 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.
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Writers' Strike Ends After Nearly Five Months as WGA Unveils Tentative Deal
"The WGA appears to have won more than analysts initially believed possible."
Sep 27, 2023
Hollywood screenwriters' monthslong strike ended Wednesday after the Writers Guild of America leadership voted unanimously to recommend the tentative three-year contract agreement that the union reached with major studios over the weekend.
WGA members will now vote on whether to ratify the deal, which includes higher pay than the studios were originally willing to offer, improved healthcare benefits, viewership-based streaming residuals, minimum staffing requirements for television writers' rooms, and regulations constraining studios' use of artificial intelligence.
In a statement late Tuesday, the WGA negotiating committee said that union members "will be able to vote from October 2nd through October 9th, and will receive ballot and ratification materials when the vote opens."
"The WGAW Board and WGAE Council also voted to lift the restraining order and end the strike as of 12:01 am PT/3:01 am ET on Wednesday, September 27th," the committee added. "This allows writers to return to work during the ratification process, but does not affect the membership's right to make a final determination on contract approval."
The WGA committee called the tentative agreement an "exceptional deal, with gains and protections for members in every sector of the business."
"The WGA appears to have won more than analysts initially believed possible," The New York Timesreported Tuesday. "Studios suggested early on that they wouldn't bend on issues like residuals or staffing, citing changes streaming has made to their industry. But the strike—coupled with the SAG-AFTRA walkout—has crippled Hollywood, with studio owners like Warner Bros. Discovery predicting big hits to their earnings. Analysts have estimated that studios could lose as much as $1.6 billion in global ticket sales because of movie delays."
According to survey data, the writers' strike was broadly popular with the U.S. public. A Data for Progress poll conducted last month found that 67% of all likely voters backed the strike, while a Gallup survey showed that the public sympathized with screenwriters over Hollywood studios by a margin of 72% to 19%.
SAG-AFTRA actors who joined writers on the picket lines will remain on strike, and the union said Wednesday that it currently has no scheduled dates to meet with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios.
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With House GOP in Chaos, Senate Advances Bipartisan Bill to Avert Shutdown
"Once passed, the House must swiftly take up the bill and send it to the president's desk to avoid a shutdown—giving Americans the help and resources they deserve," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Sep 26, 2023
Faced with a fractured and chaos-causing Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate took action on Tuesday to avert the looming government shutdown, voting 77-19 to advance a bipartisan short-term funding bill.
The procedural vote sets up the Senate to approve a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through mid-November later this week. Both chambers must pass some type of funding measure to prevent a shutdown on October 1.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the chamber floor on Tuesday to discuss the effort and call out embattled House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
"We are now right at the precipice," Schumer said. "Yet all last week, Speaker McCarthy, instead of focusing on bipartisanship, catered to the hard right, and has nothing, to show for it. And now, the speaker will put on the floor hard-right appropriations bills that have nothing to do with avoiding a shutdown. So this week, the Senate will move forward first."
After the text of the CR was released, Schumer thanked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and noted that "all through the weekend—night and day—Senate Democrats and Republicans worked in good faith to reach an agreement on a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded and avert a shutdown."
"This bipartisan CR is a temporary solution, a bridge that will spare families the pain of a shutdown while allowing Congress to keep working to fully fund the federal government," he stressed. "Once passed, the House must swiftly take up the bill and send it to the president's desk to avoid a shutdown—giving Americans the help and resources they deserve."
According to the office of Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the resolution:
- Extends government funding through November 17;
- Extends funding to help communities struck by disaster and continues support for Ukraine at a pivotal moment;
- Prevents critical health statutes from lapsing to ensure funding for community health centers and teaching health centers does not expire;
- Extends the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) authorities through the end of the calendar year;
- Ensures federal wildland firefighters will not see a pay cut; and
- Ensures the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) will continue to be able to serve the nearly 7 million women and children who rely on it.
"A shutdown would be nothing short of a catastrophe for American families, our national security, and our economy. It is critical that we avoid one, and that's exactly what this bipartisan legislation will do," said Murray, noting that senators continue to work on annual appropriations bills for fiscal year 2024. "We have much more to do, but we should pass this legislation immediately—there is no time to waste."
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) agreed that "the bipartisan continuing resolution introduced by the Senate is a reasonable approach to keeping the government open while we finish our work on final 2024 funding bills."
"It is not perfect, but it prevents a catastrophic and avoidable shutdown, includes critical funding to help communities recover from natural disasters, and protects national security with continued support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's continued attacks," she said. "If House Republicans are serious about finishing final full-year bills, they need to vote for this bipartisan continuing resolution so we can get to work right away."
Meanwhile, The Hillreported that McCarthy on Tuesday "floated the possibility of meeting" with President Joe Biden to work out a compromise, telling journalists that "the president could keep government open by doing something on the border."
The now-dead CR that House Republicans unveiled last week even though they knew it was "doomed to fail" notably included border polices widely opposed by Democratic lawmakers and funding cuts that betrayed McCarthy and Biden's debt limit deal.
Some Republicans suggested the Senate CR "ain't gonna pass the House," as Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) put it. According toPolitico, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) concurred, pointing to Ukraine aid and saying: "It's not gonna happen over here. It's not gonna happen on the Republican side."
House Republicans on Tuesday night advanced four full-year spending bills, though that won't prevent a shutdown.
This post has been updated with House Republicans' comments and Tuesday night vote.
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Report Urges Curbs on Development of 'Deceptive and Dangerous' Human-Like AI
"Lawmakers and regulators must step up and confront this threat before it's too late," the report's author warns.
Sep 26, 2023
Tech companies are creating and deploying artificial intelligence systems "that deceptively mimic human behavior to aggressively sell their products and services, dispense dubious medical and mental health advice, and trap people in psychologically dependent, potentially toxic relationships with machines," according to a report published Tuesday by Public Citizen.
The report—entitled Chatbots Are Not People: Designed-In Dangers of Human-Like AI Systems—asserts that "conversational artificial intelligence (AI) is among the most striking technologies to emerge from the generative AI boom kicked off by the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It also has the potential to be among the most dangerous."
"The subtle and not-so-subtle design choices made by the businesses behind these technologies have produced chatbots that engage well enough in fluid, spontaneous back-and-forth conversations to pose as people and to deceptively present themselves as possessing uniquely human qualities they in fact lack," the publication warns.
The report continues:
Deceptive anthropomorphic design elements... are fooling people into falsely believing AI systems possess consciousness, understanding, and sentience. These features range from AI using first-person pronouns, such as "I" and "me," to expressions of emotion and opinion, to human-like avatars with faces, limbs, and bodies. Even worse, AI can be combined with emerging and frequently undisclosed technologies—such as facial and emotional recognition software—to hypercharge its manipulative and commercial capabilities.
This, the publication says, is happening "with little or no testing, oversight, and accountability—including in places no one expects them, like the drive-thru at fast food restaurants, sometimes without any disclosure to customers."
The report contains a series of policy recommendations including:
- Banning counterfeit humans in commercial transactions, both online and offline;
- Restricting and regulating deceptive anthropomorphizing techniques;
- Banning anthropomorphic AI from marketing to, targeting, or collecting data on kids;
- Banning AI from exploiting psychological vulnerabilities and data on users;
- Special scrutiny and testing for all health-related AI systems—especially those intended for use by vulnerable people; and
- Severe penalties for lawbreakers, including banning them from developing and deploying AI systems.
"The tech sector is recklessly rolling out AI systems masquerading as people that can hijack our attention, exploit our trust, and manipulate our emotions," Public Citizen researcher and report author Rick Claypool said in a statement. "Already Big Businesses and bad actors can't resist using these fake humans to manipulate consumers."
"Lawmakers and regulators must step up and confront this threat before it's too late," he added.
In July, the Biden administration secured voluntary risk management commitments from seven leading AI companies, a move that was welcomed by experts—who also urged lawmakers and regulators to take further action.
A report on the dangers of AI published earlier this year by Claypool and tech accountability advocate Cheyenne Hunt urged a pause in the development of generative artificial intelligence systems "until meaningful government safeguards are in place to protect the public."
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