Efforts to influence President-elect Donald Trump’s policies via Elon Musk are already beginning. On Friday, nonprofit AI advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) launched a public petition asking Trump to make Musk his special adviser on AI, saying he is well positioned to protect the US lead on the technology while ensuring it’s rolled out safely.

“No one is better equipped to help the Trump Administration make America lead on AI than Elon Musk,” reads the petition circulated by ARI, which is led by former Democratic representative Brad Carson and says it doesn’t take corporate funding.

Musk has been a leading critic of OpenAI, a company he cofounded but more recently has distanced himself from and made into an...

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People across the country received racist text messages in the days after Donald Trump was elected to a second term for president, and now federal authorities are investigating.

“In multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Black women, men, and students have reported receiving racist text messages from an unknown source, urging them to report to a plantation to pick cotton,” the NAACP said in a press release. Messages said variations of, “You have been selected to be a house slave,” or “You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” according to screenshots and news reports. They also often instruct recipients on where to go or when to be ready “With all of your belongings.”

CBS...

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Donald Trump’s second term means significant changes for AI, crypto, and EV policy.

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The technology that powers Election Day has hit some expected hiccups, but as of early afternoon on Tuesday, nonpartisan groups say that the voting system is mostly holding up. Where it has faltered, they stress, there are robust backup plans that will ensure voters can still cast their ballots and that their votes will be counted.

Members of the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, which runs a hotline for voters seeking information or help at the polls, said they’re so far seeing reports of pretty standard tech issues. That includes spotty Wi-Fi connections impacting electronic poll books used to check voters in more efficiently, imprecise calibration on voting machine touchscreens, and ballot scanners that are down. These...

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