(The Center Square) – Minority benefit against the majority giving up “agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills” in what is described as a valley of an artificial intelligence journey is likely in the next few years, says one voice among hundreds in a report from Elon University.

John M. Stuart’s full-length essay, one of 200 such responses in “Being Human in 2035: How Are We Changing in the Age of AI?,” speaks to the potential problems foreseen as artificial intelligence continues to be incorporated into everyday life by many at varying levels from professional to personal to just plain curious. The report authored by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center says “the fragile future of some foundational and unique traits” found only in humans is a concern for 6 in 10.

“I fear – the time being – that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs and the tools will remain too centralized and locked down with interfaces that are simply out of our personal control as citizens,” writes Smart, a self-billed global futurist, foresight consultant, entrepreneur and CEO of Foresight University. “I fear we’re still walking into an adaptive valley in which things continue to get worse before they get better. Looking ahead past the next decade, I can imagine a world in which open-source personal AIs are trustworthy and human-centered.

“Many political reforms will reempower our middle class and greatly improve rights and autonomy for all humans, whether or not they are going through life with PAIs. I would bet the vast majority of us will consider ourselves joined at the hip to our digital twins once they become useful enough. I hope we have the courage, vision and discipline to get through this AI valley as quickly and humanely as we can.”

Among the ideas by 2035 from the essays, Paul Saffo offered, “The first multi-trillion-dollar corporation will employ no humans except legally required executives and board, have no offices, own no property and operate entirely through AI and automated systems.”

Saffo is a futurist and technology forecaster in the Silicon Valley of California, and a consulting professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford.

In another, Vint Cerf wrote, “We may find it hard to distinguish between artificial personalities and the real ones. That may result in a search for reliable proof of humanity so that we and bots can tell the difference.”

Cerf is generally known as one of the “fathers of the internet” alongside Robert Kahn and for the internet protocol suite, colloquially known as TCP/IP.

Working alongside the well-respected Elon University Poll, the survey asked, “What might be the magnitude of overall change in the next decade in people’s native operating systems and operations as we more broadly adapt to and use advanced AIs by 2035? From five choices, 61% said considerable (deep and meaningful change 38%) and dramatic (fundamental, revolutionary change 23%) and another 31% said moderate and noticeable, meaning clear and distinct.

Only 5% said minor change and 3% no noticeable change.

“This report is a revealing and provocative declaration to the profound depth of change people are undergoing – often without really noticing at all – as we adapt to deeper uses of advancing AI technology,” Anderson said. “Collectively, these experts are calling on humanity to think intentionally and carefully, taking wise actions now, so we do not sleepwalk into an AI future that we never intended and do not want.”

In another question, respondents answered whether artificial intelligence and related technologies are likely to change the essence of being human. Fifty percent said changes were equally better and worse, 23% said mostly for the worse, and 16% said mostly for the better.

The analysis predicted change mostly negative in nine areas: social and emotional intelligence; capacity and willingness to think deeply about complex concepts; trust in widely shared values and norms; confidence in their native abilities; empathy and application of moral judgment; mental well-being; sense of agency; sense of identity and purpose; and metacognition.

Mostly positive, the report says, are curiosity and capacity to learn; decision-making and problem-solving; and innovative thinking and creativity.

Anderson and Rainie and those working on the analysis did not use large language models for writing and editing, or in analysis of the quantitative data for the qualitative essays. Authors said there was brief experimentation and human realization “there were serious flaws and inaccuracies.” The report says 223 of 301 who responded did so “fully generated out of my own mind, with no LLM assistance.”

Results were gathered between Dec. 27 and Feb. 1.

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Justice is urging a federal district court judge to deny a motion to dismiss its challenge to Illinois’ migrant sanctuary policies. 

Arguing Illinois’ migrant sanctuary policies “allow criminal illegal aliens to move freely throughout the United States, inflicting harm on victims that would have been averted had the alien been detained,” the DOJ moved Tuesday to deny the motion to dismiss from Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois. 

The DOJ filed its lawsuit shortly after U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi was sworn into office under the Trump administration. 

Wednesday, state Sen. Javier Cervantes, D-Chicago, said the progressives in the General Assembly are going to have to continue to play defense. 

“We’re doing our best right now here to look at what’s happening and then build those policies to be on the defense, because we have to,” Cervantes said during an unrelated news conference in Springfield. “That’s what we’re here for.” 

State Sen. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, said it’s a new day with the Trump administration. 

“The harder they push, they’re going to come up against a guy who is not going to be pushed around in President [Donald] Trump,” Bryant told The Center Square Wednesday at the capitol in Springfield. “We think they’re going to find out that this DOJ under this president is going to push back very hard.” 

In its filing, the DOJ said Illinois’ migrant sanctuary policies “work an extraordinary assault on the Federal Government’s enforcement of the immigration laws at a time when the United States is facing a ‘national emergency’ from the unprecedented ‘illegal entry of aliens’ into the country.”

Illinois’ state and local migrant sanctuary policies are preempted by the Immigration and Nationality Act, the DOJ argues, “because they stand as an obstacle to achieving the full purposes and objectives of that Act.”

In their motions to dismiss filed last month in the case, the state of Illinois said the DOJ’s lawsuit is misguided. 

“Consistent with the Tenth Amendment, federal law preserves Illinois’s sovereign right to opt out of assisting federal immigration agents with their civil immigration enforcement responsibilities,” the filing said. “That is what Illinois has done through its statutes, the TRUST Act and the Way Forward Act.”

The DOJ argued migrant sanctuary policies that prohibit state and local law enforcement cooperation “impede congressionally sanctioned and authorized federal immigration law.”

“Under the Tenth Amendment, Congress must exercise its legislative power over individuals directly and may not commandeer States into enacting a federal regulatory program,” the DOJ said. “Under the Supremacy Clause, ‘when federal and state law conflict, federal law prevails and state law is preempted.’”

Bryant said final resolution to the issue will take time. 

“We are only two months into the Trump administration,” she said. “I think the Pritzker administration is going to get smacked down hard.” 

Cervantes expects the Trump administration to “keep coming.”  

“I want the people of Illinois and our immigrant community to understand that we’re here to be on the defense as much as possible,” he said. 

The DOJ said the state’s policies have the purpose of thwarting federal law enforcement efforts to detain and deport criminal illegal aliens. 

“They deny federal immigration agents access to aliens who are in state and local custody. They prohibit state and local officers from releasing aliens, upon expiration of their state or local custody, into federal custody when federal agents present Congressionally authorized detainers and administrative warrants,” the DOJ said. “The Sanctuary Policies also prevent otherwise willing state and local officers from all communications with federal immigration agents necessary for those agents to carry out their duties.”

The state, Cook County and the city of Chicago are set to reply to the DOJ’s filing April 29. 

(The Center Square) – Burning permits became available and the ban from burning covering all 100 North Carolina counties was lifted Wednesday, the same day three teens were arrested in South Carolina related to the Table Rock fire near Pickens.

Conditions that fueled multiple wildfires in the Carolinas, in part from downed trees caused by Hurricane Helene six months ago, are significantly improved. North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said recent wildfire activity is a reminder “to remain vigilant about burning safely and responsibly.”

In South Carolina, arrests were made by Forestry Commission law enforcement officials of Nyzaire Jah-Neiz Marsh, 19, of Taylors; Tristan Tyler, 18, of Greenville; and Isaac Wilson, 18, of Greenville. The South Carolinians are charged with a single count each of “negligently allowing fire to spread to lands or property of another,” a release says.

A fourth suspect, a juvenile, is also charged with the same offense though he was not booked, the release said.

The Forestry Commission says it has evidence linking the trio to smoking and not extinguishing cigarettes in a proper and safe manner, leading to the Table Rock fire.

Five South Carolina counties – Oconee, Pickens, Greenville, Spartanburg and Horry – remain under an outdoor burning ban.

The Table Rock fire, the commission said, has gotten about 1.5 inches of rain over a two-day period this week. The size is 13,287 acres, with 635 of those in North Carolina. The fire started March 21 and is about 30% contained. The Persimmon Ridge fire, ignited March 22, is about 2,078 acres and 74% contained.

In North Carolina, containment has grown to 100% for the Fish Hook fire, 93% for the Black Cove fire, and 60% for the Deep Woods fire. The three are considered a complex under the name Black Cove, covering 7,670 acres (Deep Woods 3,969 acres, Black Cove 3,502, and Fish Hook 199).

While conditions have been helped by the rain, the North Carolina Forest Service said conditions are slick and slippery for firefighters.