stategovernments
This month, the California State Assembly will vote on whether to pass Senate Bill 1047, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act. While proponents tout amendments made "in direct response to" concerns voiced by "the open source community," critics of the bill argue that it would crush the development of open-source AI models. As written, S.B. 1047 would disincentivize developers from open-sourcing their models by mandating complex safety protocols and holding developers liable for harmful modifications and misuse by bad actors. The bill offers no concrete...
Reason
The California Supreme Court deserves two cheers for its unanimous decision last month upholding the constitutionality of Proposition 22—the 2020 ballot initiative that exempted ride-sharing and delivery drivers from the state's ban on independent contracting and provided drivers with a few benefits. The ruling is a huge win for the gig economy, thus allowing Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and others to continue offering their valuable services. Why am I withholding that cherished third cheer? Well, the state high court in 2018 sparked this disruptive fracas over independent contracting with its overre...
Reason
Now that he's been named Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is getting a fresh round of scrutiny. And for good reason. As Reason's Robby Soave detailed yesterday, Walz was a "tyrant" during the pandemic who forced masks onto children as young as five, placed strict limits on even outdoor gatherings, and encouraged Minnesotans to report their neighbors for violations of social distancing rules—rules that we now know were not backed by science. Another aspect of Walz's pandemic record also deserves a closer look: how Minnesota ...
Reason
This week's featured article is "A Baby Dies in Virginia" by Eric Boehm. This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward. Music credits: "Deep in Thought" by CTRL and "Sunsettling" by Man with Roses The post <I>The Best of Reason Magazine</I>: A Baby Dies in Virginia appeared first on Reason.com.
Reason
Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. Since I'm on vacation this week, I'm afraid readers will have to suffice with a slightly more abbreviated—but hopefully still valuable—newsletter looking at why it's so hard to build a new city in California. California Forever—Delayed or Doing Fine? This past Monday, California Forever announced it would not ask Solano County voters to approve zoning changes it needs to proceed with its planned 17,500-acre, 400,000-person community this year, as it had initially planned. Instead, the development company would work with the county gove...
Reason
The drinks world has been rocked by dramatic media stories about barren patches of California countryside, abandoned vineyards, and scores of wineries closing their doors. Photos show tens of thousands of vineyard acres being bulldozed and then pulverized into wood chips by large industrialized grinders across the Golden State. This "Grape Apocalypse" (Grape-pocalypse?) is being framed as the sad but inevitable result of declining consumer interest in wine. That's true, but it's not the full picture. Unsurprisingly, the wine industry has been hit by inflation. However, the market has also been...
Reason
In 2021, Manistee County, Michigan, took the title on Chelsea Koetter's family home, which she shared with her two sons, in response to a small debt she owed on her 2018 property taxes. It was April Fools' Day. The "gotcha" never came. Her situation instead only grew more absurd. Four months after seizing her home, the government auctioned it off for $106,500. Then it kept the profit. All told, Koetter owed the government $3,863.40, which included her initial tax debt, as well as penalties, interest, and fees. She does not contest she was obligated to pay that. At issue is whether or not the c...
Reason
Newly released state revenue data shows that Massachusetts taxpayers played a major role in funding a mid-budget Hollywood movie about climate change. The dark comedy Don't Look Up premiered on Netflix in December 2021. In the film, a team of scientists discovers that an asteroid will soon hit the Earth and destroy all human life, but they find that nobody wants to heed their warnings. A blunt allegorical tale, the movie tries to do for climate change what Dr. Strangelove did for nuclear war. The film grossed less than $800,000 worldwide against a budget estimated between $75 million and $110 ...
Reason
Utah is known for many things—beautiful mountains, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mitt Romney—but it truly distinguishes itself when it comes to notoriously ridiculous alcohol laws. While the state's so-called "Zion Curtain" has widely been considered one of the dumbest booze rules in America, it turns out there is no limit on inane drinks laws in the Beehive State. In fact, state regulators have recently upped their bureaucratic ante by cracking down on bartenders who use a "straw test" to sample cocktails before serving. As one might notice when visiting a cocktail bar, the...
Reason
"Sacramento County drivers are likely unaware that, as they travel on county streets and highways, their vehicles are being tracked by an intricate network of stationary and mobile cameras." That was the conclusion of a report released last week by the Sacramento County Grand Jury, a 19-member panel billed as "the independent watchdog over public entities" within the California county. Worse yet, Sacramento authorities are not only collecting drivers' information but sharing it with law enforcement agencies in other states—including states that criminalize abortion—all without a warrant. The C...
Reason
閲覧を続けるには、ノアドット株式会社が「プライバシーポリシー」に定める「アクセスデータ」を取得することを含む「nor.利用規約」に同意する必要があります。
「これは何?」という方はこちら