The First Amendment & The Freedom to Think For Ourselves

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, decided on January 21, 2010, stands as a landmark Supreme Court decision under Chief Justice John Roberts. The core issue at hand was whether the free speech clause of the First Amendment could allow the government to limit corporations, including non-profit corporations, labor unions, and other associations, from making independent political expenditures. 

Freedom to think for ourselves

The Court's ruling was affirmative, asserting that these entities have the same First Amendment rights to free speech as individuals, thus prohibiting the government from restricting their political communications. 

“When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

This decision significantly impacted the landscape of political spending, emphasizing the principle that the First Amendment ensures the freedom to think and express oneself, regardless of the speaker's corporate or individual status. This case underscored the Court's commitment to protecting free expression, reaffirming the idea that open, robust, and uninhibited political debate is foundational to democracy.

Moody v. NetChoice

Similar in Moody v. NetChoice where oral arguments were heard on February 26, 2024,  the freedom to think and decide on which social media post individuals should see and how they are moderated are up to corporations and individuals alone; it should not be done by regulations by Texas and Florida that were passed due to the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. 

References

• Citizens United v. FEC

• Moody v. NetChoice, LLC

Further read

• LLM, Us and Neuroplasticity

• "Are you sure?": Unveiling the Quest for Human-Like Artificial Intelligence

• Designers, creativity and AI

• A LLM as a reflection of our inner most desires

• Should AGI be a she, he, or a it? 

• Teaching LLMs common sense thinking

• The Ethical Nexus in an Era of Surrogate Machines

• Applying Asimov's Laws to Robot Taxis Confronted by Threats

• The Moat Matrix: LLMs Shape, but Don't Define the Moat

• From Infinite Improbability to Generative AI: Navigating Imagination in Fiction and Technology

• Human vs. AI in Reinforcement Learning through Human Feedback

• LinkedIn Profiles in the Age of Generative AI

• Generative AI for Law: The Agile Legal Business Model for Law Firms

• Generative AI for Law: From Harvard Law School to the Modern JD

• Unjust Law is Itself a Species of Violence: Oversight vs. Regulating AI

• Generative AI for Law: Technological Competence  of a Judge & Prosecutor

• AI to Make us Super-Scientist, not Super-humans

• Law is Not Logic: The Exponential Dilemma in Generative AI Governance

• Generative AI & Law: I Am an American Day in Central Park, 1944

• Pushpaka Vimana, Conceptualizing Vedic Technology & Diwali

• Generative AI & Law: Title 35 in 2024++ with Non-human Inventors

• Generative AI & Law: Similarity Between AI and Mice as a Means to Invent

• Generative AI & Law: LLMs are not Stochastic Parrots

• The Age of AI and the Charm of Tradition

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with Generative AI

• Need for Machine Consciousness & The Chinese Room Argument

• Generative AI & Law: The Evolving Role of Judges in the Federal Judiciary in the Age of AI

• Eating Shellfish to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

• Embedding Cultural Value of a Society into Large Language Models (LLMs)

• Lessons in Leadership: The Fall of the Roman Republic and the Rise of Julius Caesar

• Selling Dreams vs. Racing to Win

• LLMs as a Tool to Preserve a Society in History

• Beginning of The End for AI; Beginning for Generative AI

• Decentralized Truth & What is Means for AI Regulations