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Osha Vaccination

Investigations Committee Releases COVID Vaccine Adverse Effects Report, Research Debated across Party Lines

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The Ku Klux Klan Returns to Power

Independents and Republicans May Hold the Power in Los Angeles – If They Actually Vote

Independents and Republicans May Hold the Power in Los Angeles – If They Actually Vote

May 5 primary ballot issues affect Ohioans' daily lives

May 5 primary ballot issues affect Ohioans' daily lives

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Prediction Markets Are Gambling, Despite What They Tell The Government

Depolarization in the age of misinformation

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Depolarization in the Age of Misinformation | Jonathan Rauch, David Blankenhorn & Ciaran O'Connor
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The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMar 03, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Braver Angels has never been shy about engaging our nation’s most sensitive political issues. Last year, we held a public debate on the 2020 election exploring themes of voter fraud, voter suppression, and disagreements about the outcome. Recently, we hosted a podcast with a guest who claimed that the January 6th riots were incited by liberal activists working in collusion with the FBI.

After initially taking down the podcast for violating its terms on misinformation, YouTube reinstated the episode after reviewing it in the context of our larger mission. On this episode of the podcast, Ciaran O’Connor hosts David Blankenhorn, president of Braver Angels, and Jonathan Rauch, author of The Constitution of Knowledge, for a wide-ranging discussion on depolarization in the age of misinformation, bridge-building across the epistemological divide, and the Braver Angels approach to controversial content.


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Who’s Responsible When AI Causes Harm?: Unpacking the Federal AI Liability Framework Debate
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Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash

Who’s Responsible When AI Causes Harm?: Unpacking the Federal AI Liability Framework Debate

This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.

Key takeaways

  • The U.S. has no national AI liability law. Instead, a patchwork of state laws has emerged which has resulted in legal protections being dependent on where an individual resides.
  • It’s often unclear who is legally responsible when AI causes harm. This gap leaves many people with no clear path to seek help.
  • In March 2026, the White House and Congress introduced major proposals to establish a federal standard, but there is significant disagreement about whether that standard should prioritize protecting innovation or protecting people harmed by AI systems.

Background: A Patchwork of State Laws

Without a national AI law, states have been filling in the gaps on their own. The result is an uneven landscape where a person’s legal protections depend entirely on which state they live in.

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Explore how China is overtaking the U.S. in the global innovation race, from electric vehicles to advanced research, and why America’s fragmented science policy, talent loss, and weak industrial strategy threaten its technological leadership.

Getty Images, Willie B. Thomas

America’s Greatest Geopolitical Blind Spot

The global hierarchy of innovation is undergoing a structural shift that Washington is dangerously slow to acknowledge. For decades, the prevailing narrative in the United States was that China was merely the "world’s factory"—a nation capable of mass-producing Western designs but inherently lacking the creative spark to invent its own. This assumption has been shattered. Today, Beijing is no longer playing catch-up; in sectors ranging from electric vehicles and next-generation nuclear power to hypersonic missiles, China is setting the pace.

The central challenge is that China has mastered the entire innovation ecosystem, while the United States has allowed its own to fracture. Innovation is not just about a "eureka" moment in a laboratory; it is a relay race that begins with basic scientific research, moves through the training of specialized talent, and ends with the large-scale commercialization of "hard tech." China is currently winning every leg of that race.

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A bold critique of modern democracy and rising authoritarian ideas, exploring how AI-powered swarm digital democracy could redefine participation and governance.

Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko

The Only Radical Move Forward: Swarm Digital Democracy

We are increasingly told that democracy has failed and that its time has passed. The evidence proffered is everywhere, we are told: Gridlock, captured institutions, performative elections, a public that senses, correctly, that its voice rarely translates into real power. Into this vacuum step dystopic movements like the Dark Enlightenment and harder strains of Right-wing populism, offering a stark diagnosis and an even starker cure: Abandon the illusion of popular rule and return to forms of authority that are decisive, hierarchical, and unapologetically exclusionary. They present themselves as bold, clear-eyed, rambunctious, alive, and willing to act where others hesitate. And all to save the world from itself.

But this framing depends on a sleight of hand: It assumes that what we have been living under is, in fact, democracy, and that its failures are the failures of democracy itself. That is the first mistake.

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Elon Musk’s xAI company is challenging AI regulations in Colorado after losing in California, arguing that limits on artificial intelligence violate free speech. As Connecticut enforces its own AI law, this case could shape the future of AI regulation, corporate accountability, and constitutional rights in the United States.

Getty Images, Alexander Sikov

xAI Pushes Free Speech Theory Into New AI Lawsuits

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, is on a legal road trip. After losing in California, it filed suit in Colorado asking a court to declare the state's artificial intelligence regulations unconstitutional. The argument is essentially the same one that already failed. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

For Connecticut residents, this is not just the next state in the alphabet that has passed AI legislation. Connecticut was one of the first states in the nation to adopt an AI law, requiring companies to disclose when AI is being used in critical decisions like employment, housing, credit, or healthcare. That law is already drawing scrutiny from the technology industry. What xAI tried to do in California and now in Colorado is a preview of what we may face in Connecticut.

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