iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Fifth Circuit oral argument today on whether use of Flock cameras is a Fourth Amendment search, an issue on which federal district courts have recently divided in the wake of Chatrie. Link to oral argument audio, and an AI-generated transcript, here. www.courtlistener.com/audio/106726...

courtlistener.com

Oral Argument for United States v. Brownlee – CourtListener.com

Oral Argument for United States v. Brownlee

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 7h

Note than no contract with Peregrine Technologies was provided to the San Leandro City Council or the public. The agenda item was amended to include an annual performance and access control audits and having the Rules subcommittee will look at AI and information sharing policies.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 7h

San Leandro City Council approves no-bid contract for Peregrine Technologies 4-3, with Councilmembers Aguilar, Boldt, and Viveros-Walton voting no. Mayor votes yes despite raising concerns about lack of clarity on efficiency. Concerns about community engagement, AI, and data sharing were shared.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

San Leandro to spend $405,000 in no-bid contract for consulting from Peregrine Technologies and its Peregrine Pro Software platform, which is used for "real-time" crime centers to enhance mass surveillance. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social sanleandro.legistar.com/LegislationD...

Text from slice deck of presentation to city council on October 5, 2026:

Peregrine is a data integration platform for public for public-safety agencies.

- Unifies information from existing agency systems.

- Cleans and organizes authorized data.

- Makes information easier to search and understand.

- Identifies connections across people, locations, incidents, and records.

- Supports secure collaboration and information sharing.

- Key Principle: When critical information is easier to access and understand, agencies can make better operational decisions and get residents the help they need faster.

- Peregrine helps personnel make informed and accurate decisions more quickly.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Richmond (CA) looks to spend $20,000 with Police Strategies for an objective analysis of automated license plate readers. Police Strategies' staff are former law enforcement, so I'm skeptical of any "objective" analysis from the firm. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social

Tex from agenda item N.7.a for October 6, 2026, Richmond City Council meeting in Richmond, California.

N.7.a Contract Amendment No. 1 with Police Strategies, LLC to Provide an
Objective Analysis of Automated License Plate Readers
953
APPROPRIATE $20,000 to the Police Department’s General Fund
budget and APPROVE a contract amendment with Police Strategies
LLC to expand the scope of work to provide objective statistical
analysis of Richmond data regarding the effectiveness of Automated
License Plate Readers in reducing crime, recovering stolen vehicles,
supporting criminal investigations, and making arrests that lead to
conviction, as well as information regarding data retention and
information sharing for license plate reader systems under
consideration, and increase the contract not-to-exceed amount by
$20,000 – Police Department (Chief Timothy Simmons 510-620-
1802).

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Richmond (CA) looks to spend additional $3.5 million to switch from Flock to Axon AI-powered license plate and surveillance cameras and $500,000 on Verkada surveillance cameras at its Oct. 6 meeting. Continued from Sept. meetings. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social

Text from agenda item O.1 for Richmond City Council meeting on October 6, 2026.

Contract Amendment with Axon Enterprise and Contract with Assure MSP, Inc. for Law Enforcement and City Facility Video Technology, Surveillance, and Support Services

APPROVE a contract amendment with Axon Enterprise to continue servicing body-worn cameras, taser devices, interview room equipment, and virtual reality training equipment, and to add license plate reader and surveillance equipment, increasing the contract amount by $3,500,000, for a total amount not to exceed $12,000,000, for the term of October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2029, with two one-year extension options through September 30, 2031;
APPROVE a contract with Assure MSP, Inc. for Verkada closed-circuit
television camera equipment and related services at various City facilities, in an amount not to exceed $500,000, for the term of October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2029; AUTHORIZE the City Attorney’s Office to negotiate and finalize the contracts; and AUTHORIZE the city manager, or their designee, to execute the contracts – Police Department (Chief Timothy Simmons 510-621-1802). This item was continued from the September 15, and September 22, 2026, meetings.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Mendocino County to vote on temporary moratorium prohibiting new data centers at its October 6 meeting. mendocino.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=...

mendocino.legistar.com

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Contra Costa Sheriff clarifies its purchase of a Lenco Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck (BEARCAT) armored personnel carrier for $450,000 funded from the Law Enforcement Capital Projects (CLEEP) Fund. Originally approved 6/9/2026. contra-costa.legistar.com/LegislationD...

Photograph of Lenco Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck personnel carrier

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Here is mass surveillance vendor employee Lily Ho answering questions about Flock at a Santa Rosa PD Community meeting on Sept. 17, 2026. youtu.be/ilF82qPES1Y?... Lily Ho is also a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. www.lilyhosf.com 😱

youtu.be

SRPD Flock Camera Community Meeting 9/17/26

YouTube video by Santa Rosa Police Department

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Sherrod Brown @sherrodbrownoh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Ban congressional stock trading; stop the corruption.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Mike Hixenbaugh @mikehixenbaugh.com · 02/10/2026

Scoop: At a secret meeting this summer, an aide to Stephen Miller laid out Trump administration's plan to make it easier for states to round up and institutionalize mentally ill homeless people — by pushing a drastic policy change that would weaken the rights of millions of disabled Americans.

nbcnews.com

How Trump’s homelessness crackdown became a sweeping retreat from disability rights

After issuing a memo making it easier to institutionalize homeless people, the Justice Department began abandoning cases protecting disabled people’s right to live in the community.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

This was only a matter of time. In a very real way, the net effect of networked license plate readers is more like putting a GPS device on a car than it is like driving past individual security cameras. And if police wanted to track you over time w/ GPS device or your phone---they'd need a warrant.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

BREAKING: A federal judge has ruled for the first time that a Flock search was unconstitutional and violated a woman's Fourth Amendment rights. Oklahoma cop pulled over a woman and searched her in Flock "because he saw her license plate was from California" www.404media.co/federal-judg...

404media.co

Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’ and Unconstitutional

Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

NEW: DHS agents tracked people observing ICE arrests, photographed them, ran their plates, pulled personal information, and added them to a Palantir database, according to newly unsealed court filings. w/ @regret.bsky.social

wired.com

ICE Has Been Dumping Protester Photos Into a Palantir Database

DHS agents not only tracked and intimidated people observing ICE activity in Maine, but stored information about them in a Palantir-built database, newly unsealed court filings say.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

BREAKING: Bernie Sanders, AOC, and Jeff Merkley are introducing the Ban Flock Act. This bill would effectively put an end to AI surveillance cameras that track Americans. /1

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Today, 8 years ago, my friend, Saudi Journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

David Greene @davidgreene.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Win! Judge Hellerstein just denied the government's motion to dismiss the UAW v State Dept case challenging the social media surveillance of in-country visa holders. Analysis and a link to the decision coming soon!

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

ACLU of Northern California @aclu-norcal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

In 2022, we settled a lawsuit against the Marin County Sheriff's Office for illegally sharing millions of drivers’ license plates and locations with federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies, including ICE. Two years later, they reportedly did it again. We’re calling for an investigation.

aclunorcal.org

Marin County Sheriff's Office Shared Automated License Plate Reader Information with Outside Law Enforcement Agencies - ACLU of Northern California

The California ACLUs and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the county in 2021 for illegally sharing drivers' locations with federal and out-of-state agencies.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

The American Prospect @prospect.org · 01/10/2026

To temper the backlash, communities have been switching out Flock cameras for different ALPRs with nearly identical capabilities, merely evading the negative connotation of the brand name while maintaining the surveillance. buff.ly/E60kN30

buff.ly

License Plate and Switch - The American Prospect

Cities are succumbing to public pressure and removing Flock license plate readers. But they are substituting alternatives with the same capabilities.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You could just post the video here as well. Just sayin'......

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yehonatan Ovadia – a Hasidic Jew and Israeli citizen who has lived in the U.S. on a visa since 2022 – is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (a notorious federal prison) and facing deportation … for his criticism of Israel on religious grounds.

nytimes.com

A Hasidic Jew Protested Against an Israeli Flag. He May Be Deported.

Yehonatan Ovadia, who opposed the mounting of the flag in a small New York town, belongs to a Hasidic branch that is anti-Zionist. He is now in ICE custody.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

California Privacy Protection Agency @calprivacy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Want to help Californians understand privacy? Join CalPrivacy as an Outreach Specialist and lead internal comms, partnerships, and statewide engagement. Apply: calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/...

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

More people need to listen to @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and learn about her work. It will make us all better. Congratulations and well-deserved!

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

404 Media @404media.co · 30/09/2026

BREAKING: The Trump administration is using a grant program from the 1980s to force cities around the US to funnel their ongoing collection of Flock, Axon, and other ALPR data into large federal surveillance centers that fall under the White House’s jurisdiction, 404 Media has learned

404media.co

How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program

How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Annie Waldman @anniewaldman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

NEW: As Trump’s White House and influencers keep touting the unproven benefits of raw milk, hundreds across the country are falling ill from outbreaks. Some people get severe indigestion. And some nearly die. Here's the story of one toddler who drank it. 🧵👇 www.propublica.org/article/cali...

propublica.org

A Girl Nearly Died After Drinking Raw Milk. The State Did Little to Punish the Unlicensed Farmer Who Sold It.

California is teeming with black-market dairies, propped up by consumer demand fueled by misinformation. With evidence against one raw goat milk farm, regulators could have sought punitive action. But...

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

David Greene @davidgreene.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Win! CA Court of Appeal rules that the First Amendment protects to republish legally obtained police records even if they had been ordered sealed, affirms anti-SLAPP motion. law.justia.com/cases/califo... We @eff.org represented Jack Poulson who reported on the domestic violence arrest of a tech CEO

law.justia.com

Blackman v. Substack, A173244 (Cal. Ct. App. 2026)

Blackman v. Substack, California Court of Appeals 2026

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026

“This is what mass surveillance looks like when it reaches the shoulder of the highway…An AI-powered camera flagged Alek’s plate. An anonymous law enforcement agent decided his completely ordinary trip looked suspicious. And a deputy went out and found a violation that never happened.”

houstonchronicle.com

Texas driver wins lawsuit over surveillance-triggered traffic stop

Jury rules in favor of driver in a case that uncovered unsettling facts about how a vast and secretive network is being used to track people across Texas.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Russell Brand, who's awaiting trial in London next month on rape and sexual assault charges, will moderate a panel at DC's MAHA summit tomorrow on reforming a U.S. health agency

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

new: A third-party surveillance company is telling cops that it wants to add facial recognition to Flock footage and ALPR reads to help them "close the gap" in what Flock offers. Company offers racial analysis, gender analysis, behavior analysis www.404media.co/surveillance...

404media.co

Surveillance Company Tells Cops It Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras

A surveillance company wants to "close the gap" that Flock won't do, by pitching facial recognition on its cameras.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

HUGE: Autozone workers just won the first ever union at the company. Despite Autozone spending an estimated $210,696 and using every tactic in the book to stop just 11 workers from forming a union, the small shop in New York chose to unionize today. These workers will now join the @uaw.org.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 28/09/2026

EFF’s @Maassive.bsky.social joins Spectacles to discuss the AI integrated surveillance towers that line the US-Mexico border – and that could be coming soon to a city near you.

youtu.be

Something Worse than Flock is Coming.

YouTube video by Spectacles

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Marc Schuilenburg @marcschuilenburg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My article "Turning a private surveillance service into a public disclosure: The case of Amazon's ring doorbell" is out in Infomation, Communication & Society. On: mass surveillance, presumption of innocence, perceived privacy, and a permanent sense of alertness by owners. Open access: ap.lc/eXPfr

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

More comprehensive coverage on innocent people being jailed because of Flock AI-powered license plate readers from @businessinsider.com, including a report from Roseville (CA), where Flock misreads accounted for 71% of alerts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDAv...

youtube.com

Misuse Of Flock's Cameras Is Sending Innocent People To Jail | Dispatch

YouTube video by Business Insider

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

An innocent man spent 30 days in jail because of an AI-powered license plate reader. This will keep happening if we don't put a stop to the mass surveillance enabled by Flock, Axon, and other vendors. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZTR...

youtube.com

Wrongful arrest sparks Flock camera questions

YouTube video by 11Alive

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

FOIANate @foianate.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Do you trust AI to redact FOIA requests? New Revealing Records column below.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Kern County Sheriff is selling a Glock model 47 to a retiring officer and ensuring more guns on our streets. itsapps.kerncounty.com/clerk/minute...

Text from agenda item:

AUTHORIZATION FOR THE KERN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE TO SELL DUTY WEAPON AND OPTIC EACH VALUED AT LESS THAN $500

(Fiscal Impact: $510 Revenue; Not Budgeted; Discretionary)

The Sheriff's Office is requesting your Board's authorization to sell retiring Commander Raul Murillo his duty weapon and optic upon retirement.

Commander Raul Murillo's duty weapon is a Glock model 47; serial number CBXT810, valued at $305. The optic is an Aimpoint ACRO; serial number W5524631, valued at $205. Commander Raul Murillo will retirement [sic] on January 8, 2027.

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Mike Katz-Lacabe @mlacabe.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Kern Co. Sheriff to buy two more unspecified drones for not more than $21,000. itsapps.kerncounty.com/clerk/minute...

Text from agenda item:

REQUEST FOR APPROVAL OF MID-YEAR CAPITAL ASSET ACQUISITION OF TWO DRONES

(Fiscal Impact: $30,000; Cal-MMET Asset Forfeiture Fund; Not Budgeted; Discretionary)

The Kern County Sheriff's Office is requesting Board approval for a mid-year capital asset acquisition of two drones in an amount not to exceed $21,000 and purchase of eighteen ballistic vests in an amount not to exceed $9,000 from the California Multi-Jurisdictional Methamphetamine Enforcement Team (Cal-MMET) State Asset Forfeiture Fund. The funding was approved by the Cal-MMET Executive Committee on July 30, 2026. The Sheriff's Office is the fiduciary agent for asset forfeiture funds maintained by the CAL-MMET Task Force.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

An $11,000 golf cart. More than $7,000 on TV subscriptions. $1.5 million in office renovations. Those were among the expenses that one sheriff’s office billed to a settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling in the department. (Published May with @azluminaria.org)

propublica.org

This Sheriff’s Office Says Racial Profiling Reforms Are Too Costly. Auditors Found It Misused $163 Million.

Since 2013, Maricopa County officials have approved $226 million in sheriff’s office spending related to a settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling. Auditors found that more than 70% of it was...

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Ami Fields-Meyer @fieldsmeyer.com · 25/09/2026

Dr. Oz is on my flight right now. He is sitting in the very first seat, front row. I saw him get on the plane. So when I stepped off the jetway onto the plane I approached him and put my hand out. What the man in charge of healthcare for the people on the very margins of society said…was revealing

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Use of a cell-site simulator is a Fourth Amendment search under Chatrie and Carpenter, Fourth Circuit holds, agreeing w/ Maryland courts. (But also, there is QI here, as no federal court of appeals has reached the issue yet and this occurred back in 2014.) www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/181...

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Dave Maass 🔦 @maassive.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Police, vendors and elected leaders have promised policy safeguards for ALPRs for more than a decade--and cops just adopted meaningless Lexipol boilerplate policies. Then they ignored those policies. 1/

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

bubbe yaga @ellearmageddon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

these are not “autonomous” attacks: they are failures by humans to implement appropriate controls for the computers acting on their behalf, and we must not forget it.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Josh Sternberg @joshsternberg.com · 24/09/2026

“ In a letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said that it’s “possible to search for humans in images taken by Flock cameras.” Which contradicts everything on Flock’s website. Huh. www.techbrew.com/stories/floc...

techbrew.com

How do you solve a problem like Flock?

In a statement to Tech Brew, Flock says that “it’s possible to search for the presence of people” but “not a biometric template.”

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I do think you basically charge a few of them with the cybercrimes they're committing and the "alignment" problem does suddenly start to disappear.

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Reposted by Mike Katz-Lacabe

AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026

Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.

apnews.com

https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d

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