President Joe Biden on Thursday said he “strongly, strongly disagree[d” with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the use of affirmative action programmes in college admissions decisions and condemned the six-justice majority that did so as “not a normal court”. Mr Biden’s harsh words for the highest court in the land came in response to a reporter’s query on whether the court was acting as a “rogue court,” just after he addressed the landmark decision in brief remarks before departing the White House for New York. Speaking from the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing, the president echoed the dissenting Justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in his reaction to the ruling, which ends the long-standing precedent that allowed colleges and universities to use affirmative action to help establish a diverse group of accepted students. “Discrimination still exists in America. Today’s decision does not change that,” Mr Biden said in a brief press conference. He added: “I believe our colleges are stronger when they’re racially diverse. Our nation is stronger because we are tapping into the full range of talent in this nation. We cannot let this decision be the last word.” The rulings come from two consolidated cases, Students for Fair Admissions v University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard College. Both cases were brought forth by the anti-affirmative action organisation Students for Fair Admissions. That group, which is headed by conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, has for years made attempts to give the court’s GOP-appointed majority a chance to gut previous court precedents which have been used to justify limited use of race-based preferences in college admissions. While the court upheld such programmes in a decision nearly two decades, ago, the newly-emboldened conservative majority swept away any legal justification for them in Thursday’s opinions. In a 6-3 and 6-2 decision, the Court’s conservative majority sided with Students for Fair Admissions claiming the use of race-conscious admissions was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Now, higher education institutions will no longer be allowed to consider race as a factor in admissions. Instead, students who wish to have their race or culture considered in their application will have to volunteer the information like in their personal essay. At the end of the press conference, Mr Biden responded to a question about the court’s decision to strike down a long-standing precedent: “This is not a normal Court.” Leaders from Harvard said in a letter that they would “comply” with the court’s decision but emphasised that “deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences.” Mr Biden said he is directing the Department of Education to analyse best practices for high education institutions to create more inclusive and diverse student bodies without using race as a conscious factor in admissions and recruiting. The Harvard Black Students Association called the court’s decision, “detrimental”, adding that it “poses a significant threat to the future of the Black community on and beyond our campus.” “It is evident that the college application system cannot maintain holistic evaluation without taking into consideration how race profoundly influences our experiences, perspectives, and identities in multifaceted ways,” the Harvard Black Students Association wrote. Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement: “In a society still scarred by the wounds of racial disparities, the Supreme Court has displayed a willful ignorance of our reality.” Discussions around affirmative action have generated debate among Republicans and Democrats for years. Those in support of it believe it is necessary to create fair and equal opportunity for students of color because higher education institutions have failed at creating diverse student bodies. Those against affirmative action believe it puts other students, like white or Asian American students, at a disadvantage. Former president Donald Trump celebrated the ruling calling it “everyone was waiting for” in a post on Truth Social. “We’re going back to all merit-based – and that’s the way it should be!” Mr Trump wrote. Mr Trump appointed three of the six conservative Justices on the Court while serving as President of the United States – Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Mr Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, also expressed support for the Court’s decision, writing on Twitter, “I am honored to have played a role in appointing three of the Justices that ensured today’s welcomed decision.” He added: “There is no place for discrimination based on race in the United States, and I am pleased that the Supreme Court has put an end to this egregious violation of civil and constitutional rights in admissions processes, which only served to perpetuate racism.” The ruling will likely have repercussions beyond higher education institutions, extending to elementary, middle and high schools as well as workplaces and more as it opens a door for challenges to racial diversity programs. Read More Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers searing civil rights lesson in dissent to affirmative action ruling How the government that promised to ‘stop the boats’ has lost control of its immigration policy Clarence Thomas says he doesn’t have a ‘clue’ what diversity means as Supreme Court takes aim at affirmative action One year after the anti-abortion ruling, the White House keeps a spotlight on the issue

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One of the pioneers of artificial intelligence has warned the government is not safeguarding against the dangers posed by future super-intelligent machines. Professor Stuart Russell told The Times ministers were favouring a light touch on the burgeoning AI industry, despite warnings from civil servants it could create an existential threat. A former adviser to both Downing Street and the White House, Prof Russell is a co-author of the most widely used AI textbook and lectures on computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He told The Times a system similar to ChatGPT – which has passed exams and can compose prose – could form part of a super-intelligence machine which could not be controlled. “How do you maintain power over entities more powerful than you – forever?” he asked. “If you don’t have an answer, then stop doing the research. It’s as simple as that. “The stakes couldn’t be higher: if we don’t control our own civilisation, we have no say in whether we continue to exist.” In March, he co-signed an open letter with Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak warning of the “out-of-control race” going on at AI labs. The letter warned the labs were developing “ever more powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators, can understand, predict or reliably control”. Prof Russell has worked for the UN on a system to monitor the nuclear test-ban treaty and was asked to work with the Government earlier this year. “The Foreign Office … talked to a lot of people and they concluded that loss of control was a plausible and extremely high-significance outcome,” he said. “And then the government came out with a regulatory approach that says: ‘Nothing to see here… we’ll welcome the AI industry as if we were talking about making cars or something like that’.” He said making changes to the technical foundations of AI to add necessary safeguards would take “time that we may not have”. “I think we got something wrong right at the beginning, where we were so enthralled by the notion of understanding and creating intelligence, we didn’t think about what that intelligence was going to be for,” he said. We've sort of got the message and we're scrambling around trying to figure out what to do Professor Stuart Russell “Unless its only purpose is to be a benefit to humans, you are actually creating a competitor – and that would be obviously a stupid thing to do. “We don’t want systems that imitate human behaviour… you’re basically training it to have human-like goals and to pursue those goals. “You can only imagine how disastrous it would be to have really capable systems that were pursuing those kinds of goals.” He said there were signs of politicians becoming aware of the risks. “We’ve sort of got the message and we’re scrambling around trying to figure out what to do,” he said. “That’s what it feels like right now.” The government has launched the AI Foundation Model Taskforce which it says will “lay the foundations for the safe use of foundation models across the economy and ensure the UK is at the forefront of this pivotal AI technology”. Read More ChatGPT creators try to use artificial intelligence to explain itself – and come across major problems Artificial intelligence could ‘transform’ heart attack diagnosis, scientists say Hackers aim to find flaws in AI - with White House help ChatGPT user in China detained for creating and spreading fake news, police say Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

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