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For those who may be curious about this amendment, PolitiFact has a pretty decent piece about its implementation.

The amendment’s principal author, Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., embraced an understanding that presidential inability would encompass both physical and mental inability, Joel K. Goldstein, professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University, previously told PolitiFact. The formulation Bayh adopted was offered by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., who said presidential inability "involves physical or mental inability to make or communicate his decision regarding his capacity and physical or mental inability to exercise the powers and duties of his office." Another important architect of the amendment, Rep. Richard Poff, R-Va., said section four not only applied when the president, because of accident or illness, was unconscious or otherwise unable to make or communicate a decision, but also when "the President, by reason of mental debility, is unable or unwilling to make any rational decision, including particularly the decision to stand aside." On July 6, 1965, Congress approved the 25th Amendment, and the necessary 38 states ratified it Feb. 10, 1967. Legal experts told us the drafters used intentionally vague and open-ended language (i.e., a president who is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office") because they recognized they couldn't predict every scenario in which a president could be deemed disabled.

For what it's worth, the operator I spoke to agreed with my sentiments about all this; same with many other anecdotes I'm reading.

Anyway, obligatory ACLU mention!

Add your zip, select an option. Read the information the site gives you. Your reps phone number and the script will be at the bottom of the page, so scroll.

Some simple (but hopefully helpful) motivation today! Sometimes the simplest of ideas can be the most powerful motivators. Let’s keep going because we still have plenty of mountains we want to climb!

On 23 October last year (2024) the New York Times published an interview with former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji who worked on organising and gathering data for OpenAI until 2022 when he begun thinking about the morality of it. He eventually came to the conclusion that what OpenAI is doing blatantly violates copyright law and decided to leave the company altogether in August 2024.

After he came out with this accusation he was set to appear in court to testify against OpenAI’s data-gathering practices, something which had the potential of being a complete disaster for the company and the generative AI industry as a whole.

That was until 26 November, just days before he was due to appear in court, when he suddenly and mysteriously was found dead inside his own apartment. Investigators concluded that the death was self-inflicted, something which his family has disputed.

There was also “sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like someone hit him in the bathroom based on blood spots”, and his apartment showed signs of having been ransacked for evidence: “The pin drive is missing. His computer was messed up.”.

Overall it feels pretty clear-cut what happened, that is to say that OpenAI had him killed because he was a legitimate threat to their business, indicating that they are fully aware that the way they’re gathering data is completely illegal.

Sources:

Alys Davies, 14.12.2024, OpenAI whistleblower found dead in San Francisco apartment. BBC News

Barney Davis, 16.1.2025, Suchir Balaji’s family demand outside investigation into OpenAI whistleblower’s death. The Independent

GREGORY and HYACINTH BRIDGERTON