A spokesperson for Cognitec says they could not comment on their work with the Home Office; however, they point out that “demographic differences” in performance apply to all face scanning algorithms. “The reasons for bias are extremely complex and often related to image quality issues,” the spokesperson says.

“The bias of Cognitec algorithms is low compared to other algorithms of similar overall accuracy, and be assured that we are diligently and continuously working on reducing bias by developing specific testing methodologies, designing loss functions in our network training, and by diversifying the training and testing data,” the spokesperson says.

Stress test

Even if accuracy can be improved, technology is rarely operated exactly how its creators intend. Bugs, technical flaws, and user error mean systems frequently produce errors. When coupled with sensitive decisions that may change people’s lives, those risks can be exacerbated.

For years, according to previous reports from the UK’s Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, the Home Office’s human-led age estimations have included problems. There have been instances of “poor” recording keeping, “perfunctory” visual assessments, and at times a lack of explanation from border staff about existing processes. Staff conducting age assessments were not provided with any specific training for the task until 2023, according to the last inspection report.

“Making initial age decisions is a difficult and complex job, with immigration officers working in challenging circumstances, often under pressure to quickly process lots of new arrivals,” the Home Office says in recently published guidance about the potential use of face age estimation AI. “It allows immigration officers to test their judgment against the technology’s estimate.”

Yet in the leaked report from last year, the Home Office said how the face scanning technology would be used in an “operational context” was still being explored. The report, which the government previously declined to release in records requests, also highlights the testing found that “temporary aging” relating to trauma and the “stress of travel” appeared to impact the accuracy of face age estimation systems, raising further questions about the use of the technology in the asylum process.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/the-uk-will-scan-asylum-seekers-faces-for-age-checks-despite-knowing-the-tech-is-flawed/

Bernie Sanders has unveiled an aggressive plan to transfer trillions from leading AI firms to the public, and, to the likely horror of AI firms, it goes even further than expected to give Americans more control over the AI industry.

Sanders shared a summary of his legislation with AP News. If passed, the law would create a sovereign wealth fund “financed through a one-time 50 percent tax on the stock of the largest AI companies,” AP News reported. Any AI firm that does $200 million in annual AI sales would be subject to the tax, as would any new firm once it reaches that revenue level.

In total, Sanders estimated the fund could be worth $7 trillion, generating “hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct payments to Americans and programs such as health care, education and housing,” AP News reported. Each American would likely receive more than $1,000 annually in 5 percent annual dividends, Sanders estimated.

“The benefits cannot simply go to the handful of wealthy corporations,” Sanders said. “They will be shared by the American people.”

Beyond the payouts and support for critical US programs, the legislation would also ensure that Americans have “direct influence over corporate decision-making,” Sanders said. Seven members of a newly created, bipartisan Independent Commission for Democratic AI—nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate—would oversee the fund. Using voting shares, the commission could block any decisions companies may move to make that could harm the public, The Hill reported.

“The public has got to have a significant seat at the table to make sure that terrible things do not happen to ordinary people, and that in fact, AI benefits ordinary people, not hurts them,” Sanders told AP News.

AI industry unlikely to embrace Sanders’ plan

Although some CEOs like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have shown support for some public benefits from AI, their ideas are not as bold as Sanders’.

In a meeting with Sanders, Altman remained “far apart” from the senator on how much stake in OpenAI the American public should have, sources in the room told AP News. However, Sanders insists that his legislation transfers a fair amount of wealth while critically ensuring that AI benefits humanity. He confirmed that he intends to campaign on creating the fund, and during the meeting, he cast AI firms that expect to transfer significantly less than 50 percent as greedy.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/bernie-sanders-unveils-7-trillion-plan-to-give-americans-control-of-ai-industry/

The Trump administration is trying to help Elon Musk’s xAI Corp. beat a Clean Air Act lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The US said the NAACP lawsuit threatens an xAI data center that powers Grok systems needed by the military.

The NAACP sued xAI and subsidiary MZX Tech in April, alleging that they violated the Clean Air Act by operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit in Southaven, Mississippi. The number of unpermitted turbines rose to 57 by mid-May and there were plans to install two more, the NAACP said in a June 12 filing.

“Defendants’ Colossus Gas Plant powers xAI’s nearby Colossus 2 data center, which in turn powers the chatbot ‘Grok,’” the lawsuit said. The gas turbines have fueled both health concerns and noise complaints.

US Department of Justice lawyers urged a federal judge to dismiss the case in a filing yesterday. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality determined that the turbines don’t require permits, the US filing said.

The lawsuit “threaten[s] artificial-intelligence innovation, plus the energy needed to power it,” the US filing said. “The NAACP’s attempt to cut off the power that supports Grok also threatens national security because… Grok provides critical support for the Department of War’s military operations.” The US court filing said xAI’s Grok Gov Model aided targeted strikes in Iran during Operation Epic Fury.

Grok was used with Maven Smart System to help US forces “deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury, a testament to the greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model,” according to a declaration by Cameron Stanley, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for the Department of War. The Grok Gov Model has unique features not found in any other AI model, he wrote.

US helping xAI break the law, group says

The US is arguing “that xAI should be allowed to break the law solely because the Trump administration says so,” said the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which represents the NAACP in the case.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/trump-admin-helps-xai-fight-pollution-lawsuit-says-military-needs-grok-for-war/

UK regulators today ordered Google to put clearer attributions and links to publishers’ content in its AI-generated search features. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also said Google must give publishers a way to opt out of AI features in search.

“In a world first, publishers will now have effective tools to prevent their content being used to power AI features in search, such as AI Overviews,” the CMA said today. “This will put publishers, like news organizations, in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google. To boost consumer trust, Google is also now required to make sure that publisher content is properly attributed, using clear links, in AI‑generated search results.”

The CMA ruled that Google may not penalize publishers for opting out of AI, meaning that Google can’t downrank opted-out publishers in general search results. The CMA said Google will have nine months to comply with all requirements but that the agency “expects important parts of the controls to become available to publishers well before that deadline. Google will also be required to submit and publish compliance reports, supported by key data and metrics, explaining changes it has made and how it has complied.”

Google’s AI Overviews tend to give confident-sounding responses to search queries, but the links to sources in the AI Overviews may or may not support those confident responses. Clearer attribution and links could make it easier for searchers to determine the accuracy of AI Overview summaries.

The CMA applied the rules to Google after determining that it has “strategic market status” in general search services, and has ongoing investigations into Apple and Microsoft. Google today said it will comply with the CMA decision.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/google-ordered-to-put-clearer-links-in-ai-search-and-let-uk-publishers-opt-out/

Once covered models are defined, Nguyen then warned that the effectiveness of the safety testing will likely depend on whether AI firms are fully transparent and treat the process as a “genuine collaboration.”

“Underneath the definitional problem sits an observability problem,” Nguyen wrote. “The government cannot assess what it cannot see, and frontier capabilities are visible only to the labs that build them.”

Ferren suggested that “the window for erecting proper cyber defenses to new AI models may also close quickly,” and that even a well-designed government program may struggle to properly vet frontier models in such a short timeframe. “Even when well implemented, pre-deployment testing has limits,” Ferren said, noting that Google’s threat intelligence team has found state-aligned actors using frontier models to automate cyberattacks and “researchers have shown that Mythos-style vulnerability reasoning can be reproduced with open-weight systems.”

So while AI may voluntarily submit to testing, they may be financially motivated to seek a rubber-stamp, rather than work with the government to test known frontier capabilities to their fullest extent.

“It will likely prove difficult to develop models that are incapable of malicious hacking yet remain commercially compelling,” Ferren said.

He concluded that the EO “may yield short-term cybersecurity benefits,” but the “long-term effect” remains “unclear.”

Nguyen suggested the EO takes necessary steps to create “classified cyber benchmarking, voluntary prerelease evaluation, and coordinated vulnerability scanning” that “the national security community will need for decades” to “continuously evaluate systems that are probabilistic rather than deterministic, autonomous rather than directed, and whose capabilities change with every update.”

But the safety testing will have to evolve as fast as the technology does, Nguyen said, otherwise we risk assessing emerging models against “yesterday’s risks.”

That’s why, at its core, the process will depend on an honest exchange between stakeholders with deep technical expertise and confidential national security insights. It’s the only way to ensure the US focuses its energies on protecting the public from the most credible and consequential AI risks, rather than just providing “performative reassurances,” Nguyen wrote.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/trumps-ai-executive-order-may-not-prevent-dangerous-deployments/

Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by Ars today.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote in November that Ring’s Familiar Faces will scan “many people who have not consented to a face scan, including friends and family, political canvassers, postal workers, delivery drivers, children selling cookies, or maybe even some people passing on the sidewalk.” The EFF said Amazon seems to be “try[ing] to unload some consent requirements onto individual camera owners themselves” with messages reminding customers to comply with applicable laws.

“But Amazon—as a company itself collecting, processing, and storing this biometric data—could have its own consent obligations under numerous laws,” the EFF said, urging regulators to “investigate, protect people’s privacy, and test the strength of their laws.”

Senator urged Amazon to end Familiar Faces

US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has urged Amazon to discontinue the Familiar Faces feature. Markey sent Amazon a letter in October 2025 asking how Familiar Faces works, and summarized Amazon’s responses in a February 2026 letter that repeated his call to end Familiar Faces.

Markey said that Amazon revealed in its response to his first letter “that Ring’s privacy protections apply only to device owners who may ‘opt in’ to the Familiar Faces feature, while providing no comparable consent mechanism for individuals unknowingly subjected to facial recognition, leaving members of the public with no right to consent to a facial scan and no control over their biometric data.”

According to Markey’s follow-up letter, Amazon also revealed that “individuals seeking deletion of their biometric data [must] request removal from each individual Ring device owner, forcing people to make separate deletion requests for every home they visit,” and “that the number of law enforcement agencies on its Neighbors Public Safety Service has grown from 2,161 in 2022 to 2,723 today.”

Amazon last year introduced an AI-powered “Search Party” feature advertised as being useful for finding lost pets, which led to backlash after a Super Bowl ad. Amazon subsequently ended a deal with Flock Safety that would have sent Ring customer videos to Flock, which is used by police departments.

Ring posed privacy risks before the Familiar Faces and Search Party features were launched. In 2023, the FTC filed a lawsuit accusing Ring of invading users’ privacy by “allowing thousands of employees and contractors to watch video recordings of customers’ private spaces.” Amazon did not admit any wrongdoing but agreed in a settlement to pay $5.8 million for customer refunds, delete certain types of data, and implement privacy and security controls.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/amazon-owned-ring-should-pay-americans-for-scanning-their-faces-lawsuit-says/

By early March, a government program director was telling UCAR that he needed to “get this done quickly” and that documentation of the supercomputing center needed to be handed over “yesterday.” Even now, months after the deadline for public feedback on the decision, the government admits it hasn’t fully evaluated the comments it received. “The sequence of events strongly suggests that the outcome was predetermined,” the decision notes.

For all of those reasons, he concluded that the NSF had already reached a final decision on the transfer of the supercomputing center, and that decision was subject to review under the Administrative Procedures Act, which is what the rest of the case hinged on.

Blocked

As in so many other cases that have made their way into the courts, the government does not seem to have been prepared to offer much of a defense of its actions. The Administrative Procedures Act prohibits actions that are “arbitrary and capricious,” and Jackson found that there was a “failure to articulate any rationale” for the decision to relieve UCAR of its management role.

He noted that some internal documents introduced as evidence indicated that there was dissatisfaction with NCAR’s pursuit of climate research and hosting of scientific programs intended to improve minority participation. But the government chose not to use those as arguments, so the court didn’t need to evaluate them. UCAR, in contrast, introduced significant evidence that the decision to harm NCAR was part of a range of measures meant to pressure Colorado’s Democratic governor about an unrelated matter.

Given that, the court concluded that forcing UCAR to give up its supercomputing center was arbitrary and capricious, and thus violated the Administrative Procedures Act.

UCAR was also able to demonstrate that it was suffering irreparable harm due to the uncertainty about its future. It has experienced unusually high levels of attrition among its staff, who have a rare set of technical skills and require additional training after hiring. And it expects it will be difficult to find replacements for them.

Given those circumstances, Jackson has issued an injunction blocking the government from forcing NCAR or UCAR to give up any resources related to the supercomputing center.

There are still additional threats to NCAR, including breaking it up, transferring other resources, and even selling its Boulder headquarters. So, this victory is far from the end of the threats. But the legal issues that decided the case are likely to apply to the additional threats, unless the government has a defense that it simply chose not to present here.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/06/judge-blocks-part-of-trump-admins-effort-to-hurt-colorado-research-center/

Recommendations for humans

So what is a human mathematician to do during the AI boom? The Leiden Declaration recommends that individual mathematicians transparently disclose their use of AI tools, retain responsibility for the correctness of their mathematical work, continue crediting human authors while properly attributing work even if AI tools make that difficult, and consider using only AI tools that align with the values articulated in the declaration

The declaration also reminds mathematicians that mathematics has “applications in the development of technology for use in warfare, oppression, mass surveillance, and the undermining of democracy,” and so mathematicians should make ethical decisions accordingly when choosing external partnerships with tech companies.

Professional mathematical organizations can develop guidelines for the use of AI and other automated tools in publication and review, protect the rights of researchers as authors through licensing agreements that prevent their work from being used as training data without consent, and support the role of peer-reviewed publications. The declaration also suggests such organizations “actively prepare to become involved if major mathematical results are claimed using unconventional means.”

The authors of the declaration also offer straightforward recommendations for policymakers, including “protect the rights of authors,” “regulate the artificial intelligence industry,” and “invest in public computational infrastructure.” Under “don’t believe the hype,” the declaration warns about how “there is currently a strong commercial incentive on the part of the technology industry to overstate the capabilities of their products.”

Lastly, the declaration acknowledges that the tech industry “has offered lucrative jobs, monetary rewards, computing resources, and intellectually stimulating opportunities that some mathematicians have found attractive… in an era of underfunding of higher education and precarious academic employment.” It calls on such collaborations between mathematicians and the tech industry to abide by the standards laid out in the declaration.

“By endorsing the declaration, the IMU affirms that the future of mathematical research must be guided by human judgment, fair and transparent practices, and the shared values of the global mathematical community,” said Ulrike Tillmann, vice president of the International Mathematical Union, in a statement. “Mathematics is, and should always remain, a profoundly human endeavor.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/mathematicians-warn-of-ai-threats-to-profession-as-industry-encroaches/

Altman accused of making ChatGPT unsafe

The lawsuit joins prior suits accusing Altman of callously deploying AI systems without regard for user safety.

In his complaint, Uthmeier recalled how Altman told TED2025 attendees that right now “the stakes are relatively low” for OpenAI to safety-test its products on real users, which he claimed is the only way to iteratively improve them.

“But the stakes aren’t low,” Uthmeier said. “Floridians—including our vulnerable children—have suffered monetary loss, mental health harms, cognitive decline, and physical harm from Defendants’ deceptive, unethical, and recklessly dangerous conduct. Defendants must be held accountable for the harm they have caused and the dangers they and ChatGPT continue to pose to Floridians.”

In a press release, Uthmeier claimed that in rushing products like ChatGPT model 4o to market, OpenAI “ignored internal and external safety warnings, put children at great risk, and allowed a dangerous product to reach millions of Floridians.”

Similarly, the complaint said that Altman must be held “personally liable for the harm he has caused Floridians through his reckless and willful conduct as founder and CEO of OpenAI, including his utter disregard for the risk to human life caused by his firm’s conduct.”

In a loss, OpenAI could face pressure to implement remedies like age-gating free ChatGPT accounts to protect kids, shutting down conversations that discuss violence and suicide, and removing features that the state says deceptively make ChatGPT feel like talking to a human.

Without more parental controls, the state could push for a ban on teens accessing ChatGPT.

“ChatGPT is not safe for teenagers in Florida to use; its use can lead to self-harm, cognitive decline, and behavioral addiction,” the complaint said.

At a press conference live-streamed on X, Uthmeier vowed to work with other states that want to protect kids to hold OpenAI accountable and fielded questions from reporters. When asked if the state planned to pursue all AI companies—not just OpenAI—Uthmeier said Florida is “certainly” looking at other platforms, but “ChatGPT appears to be the most egregious,” with Altman “central” to pushing features that are dangerous to kids.

“Get ready for a fight, and there’s not one more important than this right now,” Uthmeier said.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/florida-sues-openai-sam-altman-after-multiple-chatgpt-linked-murders/

Cassel has been working on protecting communities from coal ash pollution for 15 years and said rain and hurricanes amplified by climate change have exacerbated these threats. And those who live near coal ash dumps, she said, continue to discover cancer at a rate that makes them think, “This cannot be normal.”

“EPA, you know the record,” Cassel said. “You made the record.”

Kristina Zierold, a professor at the University of Mississippi, said she has found that children exposed to coal ash are more likely to suffer from depression and have poorer school performance than children who aren’t exposed.

Zierold said she has been researching the health impacts of coal ash on children since 2011 and was awarded a National Institutes of Health grant in 2015 to investigate coal ash and neurobiological health in children 6 to 14 years old.

She and her research team utilized air pollution and dust sampling in the homes of children to collect coal ash and tested children for neurobehavioral and mental health conditions in multiple ways.

If a child performs poorly in school, that can have cascading effects through adulthood, Zierold said. Depression in children can lead to poor social interaction, lack of learning, and in some cases suicide, she said.

“Do you want your children playing on coal ash in parks and playgrounds?” Zierold asked. “Do you want them breathing it in and ingesting it? I don’t.”

Brianna Knisley, the director of public power campaigns at Appalachian Voices, said the 2008 Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill was one of the worst industrial disasters in US history. It’s an example of what happens when the EPA leaves coal ash management up to state regulators and utilities, she said.

The 900 workers who cleaned up the spill were denied protective gear and told the coal ash they were working to remove was clean enough to eat. Hundreds of workers became sick and dozens are dead, Knisley said.

Aerial view of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Cumberland Fossil Plant in Cumberland City, Tenn.

Angie Mummaw, an organizer with Appalachian Voices who lives near the Cumberland Fossil Plant in Tennessee, said she’s tired of communities like hers being treated as sacrifice zones while the coal industry asks for permanent loopholes instead of cleaning up the messes they’ve created.

Knisley has worked with communities where coal ash was used to fill children’s ball fields and seen Tennessee Valley Authority waste piles of the toxic ash piled up behind a public playground, open to the wind. The Tennessee Valley Authority did not immediately respond to questions from Inside Climate News.

“This is coal ash management without strong federal regulation and enforcement,” Knisley said. “States and utilities are not going to keep communities safe.”

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/environmentalists-turn-out-in-force-to-oppose-trump-coal-ash-rollbacks/