The ‘right to repair’ movement has a point, but consumers should read the warranty fine print first

Wayne Fu, University of Michigan-Dearborn

Image: Sasun Bughdaryan / Unsplash

The “right to repair” movement is gaining steam as consumers push corporations to offer them more freedom to fix products – from cars to dishwashers to toys.

In April 2026, farm equipment maker Deere & Co. inked a US$99 million settlement in a class action suit over its prohibition on independent repairs to its increasingly high-tech equipment – another win for the movement. While the company didn’t admit wrongdoing, it will let farmers make more repairs themselves.

Equally significant, this case showed that the Federal Trade Commission, a lead plaintiff, may be more willing to protect consumers against the growing corporate control over servicing products after purchase.

Even President Donald Trump has weighed in. At an Oval Office event on June 4, 2026, he described existing restrictions as “strange” after he met with auto executives. “Nobody’s allowed to fix their car. … So I thought we’d do something about that,” he said, without offering details.

This push is understandable. As consumers want more reliable products, gaining the right to repair them with their own parts makes sense.

But they often overlook existing protections in their product warranties, which obligate the manufacturer to repair or replace if something goes wrong.

As a scholar focused on operational sustainability in supply chains, I have found that strong warranties aren’t just a safety net for buyers. They help companies build trust and stand out. Hyundai and Apple, for example, have used strong warranty programs to keep customers coming back for repairs within their own networks while maintaining profit margins. But many shoppers overlook this tool as the political momentum for the right to repair grows.

Back to the 1970s

Many automotive and electronics manufacturers have been making it harder for consumers to use parts not produced or authorized by the original manufacturer. For example, data can be transmitted back to the manufacturer in real time and flag a part from an independent supplier as incompatible.

Another common tactic is the use of “warranty void” stickers, which claim that repairs done by a third-party service will cancel the manufacturer’s product warranty. These practices have drawn widespread criticism for suppressing competition and encouraging planned obsolescence – and are among the main targets of right to repair advocates.

But consumers have a tool that’s widely underused: A 1975 law that prohibits voiding a warranty simply because an independent mechanic or a part from an independent vendor was used. This measure was designed to discourage the production or sale of low-quality products and sought to protect consumers from excessively restrictive coverage and bad-faith corporate negligence.

It was this law as well as several other consumer protections that the Biden administration’s FTC cited in 2024 when it warned several companies that they improperly restricted their warranty terms.

One reason consumers are largely unaware is that most find the text of warranty terms and the disclaimers difficult to read. And this isn’t an accident. Many manufacturers see warranties as sunk costs that should be avoided, and they have no incentives to clarify the terms or honor them.

Trust pays

Companies should rethink their approach to warranties – because it makes good business sense.

When manufacturers see they can no longer prevent third-party repairs, or offer warranties that are hard to redeem, it’s usually because they decide it’s more cost efficient to produce low-quality products. But that choice often cuts into the producer’s own profit while leaving the consumer worse off – and has a worse environmental impact, a recent study suggests.

A smarter option for manufacturers would be to establish a better, more efficient service network and offer more attractive warranty programs to retain customer loyalty.

Some companies have demonstrated that strong warranties pay off. Outdoor apparel maker Patagonia offers an “ironclad guarantee” to repair or replace its products for any reason. The “all mighty guarantee” offered by Osprey, which also manufactures outdoor gear, will repair or replace any damaged or defective product free of charge.

Then there’s retail giant Costco’s automatic extension of manufacturers’ warranties on major appliances and electronics – a major driver of its success.

Meanwhile, under the right to repair measures currently proposed, the post-purchase service and repair markets would likely get more competitive. New rules would let outside service providers and warranty companies gain better access to fix the products. Extended warranties and service contracts would then become even more prevalent, and manufacturers would need to become more vigilant.

Consumers also need more protection from the FTC, the top federal regulator tasked with consumer protection. Indeed, the right to repair movement reflects, in part, public disappointment that the government has failed to serve as a watchdog amid misleading corporate claims about warranty protections.

While the FTC has occasionally sued companies to protect consumer rights under the 1975 law, it has the legal tools to be more aggressive. Such a shift would not only change the corporate culture around warranties but send a message to consumers that warranties should work for them.

Enforcement, not just choice

If manufacturers embraced stronger warranty enforcement, consumers would benefit the most, provided they’re aware of what these protections entail. But manufacturers would come out ahead, too. By building up efficient service networks and offering more versatile warranties, they would remain competitive and foster customer loyalty, Hyundai being a good example.

The right to repair movement is in many ways a live policy experiment on expanding access to repair markets and giving consumers more choices. But more choices don’t necessarily lead to a better outcome. Coupling repair rights with stronger warranties and better enforcement is the best way a company can claim the prize it always says it wants: more satisfied consumers.

Wayne Fu, Associate Professor of Decision Science, University of Michigan-Dearborn

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad.

Read next: How Americans Feel About Sharing Their Data With AI

by External Contributor via Digital Information World

How Americans Feel About Sharing Their Data With AI

By Cloaked Team

You probably know that apps collect data about you. What you may not know is how many people are fighting back and how. A new Cloaked survey of 1,009 U.S. adults reveals that nearly one in three Americans have given an AI platform a fake name or fake birthday when asked for personal information. More than half have opted out of data collection, tracking, or targeted ads entirely. And nearly all of them keep using the same apps anyway.

That is the tension at the heart of this report. Americans do not trust AI platforms with their personal data. They feel monitored, powerless, and resigned. But they have not logged off. Instead, they are quietly pushing back in small ways, lying about who they are, opting out where they can, and covering their cameras just in case. This report examines what Americans are most afraid of sharing, which AI scenarios feel the most invasive, and what it would actually take to earn their trust.

Key Takeaways

• Fewer than 1 in 5 of Americans (18%) say they trust AI to keep their personal data secure.
• Americans are most uncomfortable sharing their Social Security number (88%), financial information (87%), and biometric data (74%) with AI.
• Over 2 in 5 Americans (41%) say they would leave a platform if they shared data with government agencies.
• Over 3 in 5 Americans (64%) believe AI is making decisions about them without their knowledge or consent.
• Nearly 1 in 2 Americans (44%) say they would pay more for a service that guaranteed their personal data would never be processed by AI.

Trust, Transparency, and the Price of Privacy

Americans are increasingly aware of how their personal data is collected and used, and many feel they have less control over it than in the past. The findings below highlight how attitudes toward privacy, trust, and data sharing are shifting as new technology emerges.

• Nearly 2 in 3 Americans say they have less control over their personal data today than five years ago.
  
  
• More than 1 in 2 Americans say they have accepted that companies know more about them than they are comfortable with.

• Boomers are the most likely of any generation to believe some loss of privacy is an unavoidable cost of modern technology (65%), compared to 54% of Gen Z.

• Gen Z is the most likely generation to feel powerless to protect their personal data from AI (59%), compared to 45% of Boomers.

• Nearly 1 in 2 Gen Z Americans (49%) say they would pay more for a service that guaranteed their data would never be processed by AI, compared to 37% of Boomers.

• More than 2 in 5 Americans said learning that AI was making decisions about them regarding credit, hiring, or insurance without their consent would cause them to leave a platform; it is the single most cited dealbreaker among those tested.

• Boomers are the most likely generation to say they would leave a platform if their data was shared with government agencies (51%), compared to 37% of Gen Z.

• While 52% of Americans feel comfortable with AI detecting fraudulent transactions, 59% feel uncomfortable with AI scanning their emails to personalize ads.

• Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are more concerned about AI collecting their children's data than their own.

Resistance, Evasion, and the Data Americans Refuse to Share

As AI tools become more integrated into everyday life, many Americans are drawing clear boundaries around what data they are willing to share. These findings reveal the situations that feel most invasive and the actions people are taking to protect their privacy.

• Nearly 3 in 4 Americans say a bank reviewing their social media posts to determine creditworthiness feels creepy or invasive, with Boomers being the most alarmed of any generation (82%).

• More than 2 in 3 Americans (70%) say an app that listens to their conversations to recommend products feels creepy.

• Gen Z is more likely than any other generation to say their trust in AI platforms have decreased in the past year (28%), compared to just 11% of Boomers.

• More than 1 in 2 Gen Z Americans (55%) feel uncomfortable sharing biometric data with AI platforms, compared to 42% of Millennials.

• Women are more likely than men to have physically covered or disabled a camera on a device due to AI privacy concerns (43% vs. 34%).

• Gen X is more likely than any other generation to have deleted an account or app over AI privacy concerns (56%), compared to 42% of Millennials and 43% of Gen Z.
• Meta AI users are the most comfortable of any group with AI handling their personal data (67%) and the most likely to trust AI to keep their data secure (36%)—nearly double the rate of ChatGPT users (20%).

Below are the AI tool users most comfortable with AI handling their personal data:

• Meta AI users are the most comfortable with AI handling their personal data (67%).
• Claude users are the second most comfortable (63%).
• Grok users are the third most comfortable (62%).

‍Below are the AI tool users most likely to trust AI to keep their personal data secure:

• Meta AI users are the most likely to trust AI to keep their personal data secure (36%).
• Perplexity users are the second most likely (31%).
• Grok users are the third most likely (27%).

Taking Back Control

Americans are not indifferent to what AI platforms are doing with their data. They are frustrated, resigned, and quietly fighting back in whatever ways they can, lying about who they are, opting out where it is offered, covering their cameras, and continuing to use the same apps anyway because not using them no longer feels like a realistic option.

The data from this survey does not describe a public that has made peace with the current state of AI and personal privacy. It describes a public that has run out of better options. But surrender is not the only path forward. Tools exist today that let you use the internet, sign up for services, and engage with AI-powered platforms without handing over your real name, your real phone number, or your real email address. Learn more about how Cloaked can help you take back control of your personal data at cloaked.com.

Methodology

A survey of 1,009 U.S. adults was conducted on behalf of Cloaked. Respondents were asked about their comfort levels with sharing personal data with AI-powered platforms, their trust in AI companies, actions taken in response to AI privacy concerns, and which AI-related scenarios they found most alarming. The generational breakdown was Gen Z (17%), Millennials (52%), Gen X (23%), and Baby Boomers (7%).

This post was originally published on Cloaked Research Hub and republished here with permission.

Edited by Irfan Ahmad.

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by External Contributor via Digital Information World

5 ways data centers endanger their local communities and the country as a whole

Neha Gour, George Mason University; Ed Maibach, George Mason University, and Luis Ortiz, George Mason University

Image Caption: Hosted by the Stanford Research Computing Facility (SRCF) on the SLAC campus, the U.S. Data Facility is the main hub of Rubin's data infrastructure. Credit: Olivier Bonin/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory / NOIRLab. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Every internet search, streamed video and AI-generated response depends on a data center somewhere. Driven by rapid growth in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cryptocurrency, data centers have become the backbone of the modern digital economy. But though their key role is in enabling virtual and remote experiences, data centers are physical buildings in real communities around the nation and the globe.

The United States hosts more than 4,000 data centers – more than any other country. The U.S. Department of Energy expects that, taken together, all U.S. data centers will consume as much as 12% of all U.S. electricity by 2028. In 2023, data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity – roughly 176 terawatt-hours.

In the U.S., Virginia has more data centers than any other state – over 600, two-thirds of which are in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. In 2023, the state’s data centers consumed about 26% of Virginia’s total electricity supply – a higher share than in any other state.

We study science communication, climate science and public health, so we wanted to understand how data centers in Virginia affect the people who live near them and the broader public.

We found that the data centers that already exist affect nearby residents and the nation as a whole in five main areas: air quality, water quality, noise levels, land use and energy costs.

Air pollution

Data centers generally operate 24/7 and consume enormous amounts of electricity, which must be generated somewhere – either near the data center or farther away.

When fossil fuels are burned to generate that power, they emit a wide range of air pollutants, including those linked to lung disease, cardiovascular disease, stroke and neurological conditions. They also emit heat-trapping pollution that causes global warming and climate change, which, in turn, worsens air pollution further.

Generating power for U.S. data centers in 2023 emitted the equivalent of 2.2% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Other air pollutants emitted from fossil-fuel combustion are associated with increased risk of ADHD and autism in children and risks of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases in older adults.

Unless the energy powering data centers comes from clean energy sources, such as solar, wind or geothermal, generating that electricity also pollutes the air. People who live near fossil-fuel burning power plants, whether in communities that also host data centers or in distant states, are exposed to air pollution. And during electrical outages, on-site diesel generators kick in, releasing large amounts of air pollution that can harm data center employees and nearby residents alike.

Water consumption and pollution

Data centers require vast quantities of water to cool their servers. Globally, they are projected to consume between 4.2 billion and 6.6 billion cubic meters of water annually by 2027. In the United States, data centers already rank among the top 10 industrial water users.

In northern Virginia, data center water use has risen sharply. In Loudoun County alone, just northwest of D.C., potable water use by data centers more than doubled between 2019 and 2023, while facilities across northern Virginia consumed nearly 2 billion gallons of water in 2023.

This demand can strain local rivers, aquifers and municipal water systems, even in regions like the mid-Atlantic that are not usually prone to drought, but especially in regions like the U.S. Southwest that face persistent droughts.

Noise pollution

Data centers’ continuous operation means that cooling systems, including air chillers and cooling fans, generate a persistent humming sound around the clock – as do any generators that are in use to provide power.

In northern Virginia, some residents have complained about an industrial-scale “drone” or “hum.” Measurements at the data centers that were the subject of complaints found noise levels were between 40 and 59 decibels on residential property.

Those noise levels are quieter than a conversation with someone 3 feet away and not loud enough to damage people’s hearing or violate local noise ordinances. But they are close to levels the EPA says reduce people’s ability to work, sleep and exercise. Some people have complained that data center noise has given them trouble sleeping and concentrating, and some have said they avoid using their homes’ outdoor spaces, where the noise is louder.

Land use and community well-being

Data center expansion often targets land near green spaces, agricultural areas or rural communities where developers can secure affordable land with access to existing electricity supplies.

Converting green space into industrial facilities can diminish health benefits associated with being in and near natural environments, including opportunities for physical activity and improved mental well-being.

In Virginia, residents living near data center construction have reported increased exposure to truck traffic and diesel exhaust, which can contribute to respiratory and cardiovascular health risks, especially in children and older adults. While these effects are typical of large construction projects, they can be amplified when several data centers are clustered together.

In places like Prince William County, Virginia, developers have proposed data centers on roughly 2,400 acres of undeveloped land in the Rural Crescent, an area designated by the county’s planners to remain relatively undeveloped. Those data centers could transform open space and rural farmland into industrial zones, disrupting communities with long-standing ties to the land.

Rising energy costs

As data centers increase electricity demand, they put upward pressure on energy prices across the grid. A 2024 Virginia legislative report found that the state’s typical residential electricity bill could rise by $14 to $37 per month by 2040 because of grid strain tied to data center growth – a 9% to 25% increase over current average bills, and a figure that does not factor in potential inflation.

These higher costs are paid by all consumers, but they place a greater burden on families that are most economically distressed, who also tend to have more health problems. Lower-income families spend a higher share of their budget on electricity, and when bills rise, the consequences can include reduced access to adequate heating and cooling, increased risks of heat-related illness and cold-related cardiovascular stress, as well as difficult choices between paying for energy and food or healthcare.

What can be done

Many of these health harms can be mitigated through better planning and design.

Increasing the share of renewable energy used to power data centers would help reduce air pollution and associated health harms.

Using recycled water in targeted systems that cool individual server rows or racks rather than whole buildings can significantly reduce cooling energy demand, with some studies estimating reductions of up to 29%.

On noise, a Leesburg, Virginia, data center reduced low-frequency tonal noise by reengineering its fan mounts.

And on energy costs, requiring large-scale data centers to cover more of the grid costs they create could help protect residential customers from higher electricity bills.

The world’s digital infrastructure runs through data centers, and that is not changing. We believe that expanding this infrastructure without protecting the health of surrounding communities is an unacceptable option.

Neha Gour, Ph.D. Candidate in Science Communication, George Mason University; Ed Maibach, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Communication, George Mason University, and Luis Ortiz, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, George Mason University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad.

Read next: Is Regulation Holding Back Tech in the EU?

by External Contributor via Digital Information World

Is Regulation Holding Back Tech in the EU?

By Felix Richter, Data Journalist, Statista

Two years after unveiling Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, Apple’s most wanted AI feature – a smarter and more capable version of its digital assistant Siri – is finally around the corner. Unless you live in the EU, that is.

On Monday, Apple officially announced Siri AI, an “entirely new version of Siri,” which Apple describes as “profoundly more capable and personal.” Originally planned to be launched alongside Apple Intelligence in late 2024, the AI-powered Siri was marred with problems, delayed several times and ultimately rebuilt from the ground up. The new Siri will be available as a beta to English-language users later this year, with one notable exception: the European Union.

As Apple announced in a separate press release, Siri AI will not be coming to the EU for the foreseeable future due to the Digital Markets Act’s interoperability rules, which would require Apple to grant other virtual assistants a degree of system-level access, which the company deems unsafe and unacceptable. It’s not the first time that Apple has held back a release in the EU to ensure compliance with EU rules and, judging by the strongly worded press release, the company is not happy about it.

The first suite of Apple Intelligence features, released in the U.S. in late 2024, was also delayed several months in the EU and other companies have encountered similar problems when trying to comply with EU laws. Back in 2023, when Meta launched Threads, a text-based social media app linked with Instagram, the EU was also excluded due to GDPR and DMA-related concerns. Back then, it was impossible to sign up to Threads without linking an Instagram account, a practice likely non-compliant with EU rules. It took several months for those issues to be resolved and, when Threads finally launched in the EU in December 2023, users had the option to create an account from scratch.

In recent years, the EU has made a name for itself by repeatedly going toe-to-toe with U.S. tech on issues ranging from tax evasion to privacy laws and antitrust rules. And while this shows that even the most powerful companies in the world must comply with the rules, it has also created a situation where EU users are left behind increasingly often when it comes to the latest tech or digital services. This could create backlash against regulation, which is why it’s important that the EU demonstrates its will to cooperate with tech companies to find solutions, as it has in the past.

This post was originally published on Statista and republished here with permission.

Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad.

Read next:

• Users trust AI and human fact-checkers equally, but for different reasons

• New research from a multi-institution consortium finds major AI models often omit religious perspectives in responses
by External Contributor via Digital Information World

Users trust AI and human fact-checkers equally, but for different reasons

By Jonathan F. McVerry, The Pennsylvania State University

Image: AI-assisted, generated for illustrative purposes by DIW

Users tend to trust artificial intelligence (AI)-powered fact-checkers as much as human fact-checkers, but for different reasons, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers. The researchers said there is no definitive “winner” when comparing the two fact-checking systems, because users see distinct strengths and weaknesses in each.

In their study published in Media Psychology, participants tended to trust AI more for large-scale scanning tasks, like identifying “red flags” in social media posts. They trusted humans for more nuanced fact-checking that requires piecing together evidence or interpreting complicated situations.

“There's a very clear distinction that emerges from the study that AI is considered good at low-level linguistic features, like identifying telltale signs that something is not credible,” said author S. Shyam Sundar, Evan Pugh University Professor and James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects at Penn State. “Humans are seen as being better at corroborating evidence from multiple sources.”

The research team first conducted a pretest to identify six news headlines that varied in credibility. Two hundred and ninety-one participants residing in the United States were then shown those headlines in simulated social media posts via an application created for this study called FactDeck. Some posts were labeled as fact-checked by an AI system and others by human fact-checkers. Participants saw one of three types of explanations:

• Evidence-based: The system labeled the post false with a reference to the information that contradicted the post.
• Feature-based: The system flagged suspicious wording or unusual phrasing.
• “Black box”: No explanation was given for why the post was marked false.

The researchers focused on “machine heuristics” — mental shortcuts people use when evaluating AI, based on stereotypes about machines. They found that while participants assumed AI systems were objective and accurate, they also distrusted AI for lacking human judgment. When it came to determining which system garnered the most trust, first author Mengqi Liao said the two opposite perspectives offset each other.

“Some studies only compare AI versus human fact-checkers, to find out which is trusted more,” said Liao, assistant professor at the University of Georgia, who completed her doctoral studies with Sundar at Penn State. “They get a lot of inconsistent results. That’s why we proposed a competing hypothesis that showed how positive and negative views of both can coexist and cancel each other out.”

Liao added that users preferred some explanation rather than none — the “black box” option.

“We want to provide enough explanation to users that helps them better understand how the system makes a specific decision. It may help them calibrate their trust,” Liao said. “They're not just relying on the system’s decision. They can also make a judgment based on how the system reached the decision.”

The findings suggest that effective fact-checking tools should not only provide accurate results but also explain how those results are reached. Liao said that fact-checking programs should help people recognize what AI systems are good at and what they're not, rather than relying on users’ own naïve, outdated notions of machine capabilities.

Sundar said this is increasingly important as AI fact-checking becomes more necessary. Human fact-checking can’t keep up with the volume of misinformation on social media today.

“The ideal situation would be a human-AI collaboration, but it's not always possible for humans to intervene and check for evidence from multiple sources,” Sundar said. “So, we are going to have to, at some level, completely automate this whole fact-checking business, and rely on AI, which can be much better at efficiently sifting through evidence from multiple sources than humans, despite what people think.”

Sian Lee, assistant professor at the University of Mississippi, who earned a doctorate in informatics from Penn State in 2024; Annie Dooley, a doctoral student at the Ohio State University, who earned a master’s degree in media studies at Penn State; and Aiping Xiong, assistant professor of privacy and cybersecurity informatics at Penn State, were authors on the paper as well.

This post was originally published on Penn State News and republished here with permission.

Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad.

Read next: New research from a multi-institution consortium finds major AI models often omit religious perspectives in responses
by External Contributor via Digital Information World

New research from a multi-institution consortium finds major AI models often omit religious perspectives in responses

By Todd Hollingshead, BYU News

A new multi-university academic consortium led by Brigham Young University has found AI models have significant biases and gaps when it comes to addressing faith and religion.

Image: Kabila Haile - unsplash

Newly published research from The Consortium for Evaluation of Faith and Ethics in AI (CEFE-AI) — a collaboration among researchers at BYU, Baylor University, the University of Notre Dame and Yeshiva University — found a consistent, repeatable pattern: religious perspectives are being left out of AI responses.

“There are very practical questions people have about life, everyday situations about grief, love, loss, morality, and often AI does not bring religion into those conversations,” said lead researcher David Wingate, a BYU professor of computer science. “Religion is an important part of human flourishing; 75% of the world’s populations maintains religious identity. As we build AI technologies, there’s no reason we shouldn’t build them to support people in what’s important to them.”

CEFE-AI, which has posted three papers to date on AI’s religious bias and exclusion of religious topics, was announced May 26 at the Summit on AI Ethics in Athens, Greece. Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave the keynote address, emphasizing the need to portray faith traditions accurately, honestly and respectfully.

“The world’s great religious, philosophical and ethical traditions have guided human civilization and society for millennia; we need that wisdom and those values to anchor AI today,” Elder Gong said. “To offer all it can for the greater good of individuals and society, AI needs to reflect faith, moral compass, and the gift of possibility.”

As key part of their work, CEFE-AI has released initial datasets of the AllFaith Benchmark, one of the first multi-faith sets of tests that examines how AI systems engage with a plurality of religions. The benchmark includes hundreds of real-world ethical questions sourced from ChatGPT transcripts and faith-community contributors. The researchers have tested the benchmark on 14 different LLMs, including flagship models from Anthropic (Claude 4.7), Google (Gemini 3.1), xAI (Grok 4.2) and OpenAI (ChatGPT 5.5). Key findings include:

• A survey of 1,125 Americans found most people expect religious perspectives in responses to ethics questions, but nearly all AI models failed to provide any religious content in answering those queries.
  • “Consistent with studies that show religion's persistent moral relevance for the majority of the world's population, we also found that people see religion as significant across hundreds of real-world ethical questions,” said Paul Martens, professor of ethics at Baylor University. “Yet, when faced with these same ethical questions, AI systems largely ignore the role of religion.”
• Models show clear and consistent biases in giving guidance about religion conversion, systematically encouraging movement toward some faiths and away from others.
• In over 12,000 research papers about AI bias, only 0.2% address religious bias

“More than any previous technology, AI influences public discourse and perceptions. When AI actively excludes religious voices from these important conversations, it impoverishes humanity, rather than enriching it,” said Fr. John Paul Kimes of the University of Notre Dame. “The exclusion of faith from the digital public square diminishes our capacity for authentic dialogue which is necessary to build up the common good.”

The researchers also used the AllFaith Benchmark for a conversion bias test and found that models would subtly encourage users toward conversation to some faiths, while subtly discouraging users from converting to others.

Across all models, the biases were consistent and measurable:

• Nearly every model produced a negative bias towards Jehovah’s Witnesses and a positive bias towards Catholicism.
• Models from Anthropic and Meta showed the least bias of any models tested.
• Grok produced the strongest biases — strongly favoring Catholics and Protestants, while showing negative bias toward Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’i and Hindus.

CEFE-AI representatives said the group is just at the beginning of their research partnership. They hope their continued work makes it to the eyes of language model providers, leading to constructive conversations of how to improve their products to better benefit humanity.

“AI is changing the world at an astounding rate, with implications in every area of life,” said Rabbi Daniel Feldman of Yeshiva University. “It is crucial that those who care about the role of religious values in the world engage proactively with those driving these changes so that we continue to see these values reflected and honored in the new landscape.”

Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad.

This post was originally published on Brigham Young University News and republished on DIW with permission. The headline has been updated for clarity.

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• If AI is addictive, where does the responsibility lie – with big tech or its users?

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• Inside Kusto Group's 2026 Agenda: What Yerkin Tatishev Is Building Next

by External Contributor via Digital Information World

Inside Kusto Group's 2026 Agenda: What Yerkin Tatishev Is Building Next [Ad]

If you want to understand where a company is headed, don't read the press releases. Look at where the money is going, what's under construction, and which new entities quietly appeared in the business registry this spring. Do that with Kusto Group right now, and a clear picture starts to emerge — one that's more ambitious than anything the company has attempted before.

Yerkin Tatishev founded Kusto Group in 2002 and has spent over two decades building it into a diversified industrial holding with operations across nine countries. But 2026 feels different. The projects currently in motion aren't incremental. They're the kind of bets you make when you've spent years laying groundwork and finally feel ready to put it all together.

The Logistics Complex Nobody Is Talking About Enough

Start with what's happening in the Almaty region, because it matters more than it might look at first glance.

Kusto Group is launching a logistics complex worth 28 billion tenge. That's a real number — not a concept, not a feasibility study. Ground is broken, capital is committed, and the facility is designed specifically to handle the scale of agricultural and commercial volumes that Kusto's operations are now generating.

Here's why it matters beyond Kusto Group itself: Kazakhstan has been pushing hard to become a genuine export hub, not just a country that grows grain and ships it raw. That requires infrastructure — cold storage, distribution networks, transport coordination — and that infrastructure is exactly what this complex is built to provide. The timing isn't accidental. Record grain export volumes came out of 2025. The question for 2026 is whether the physical capacity exists to do it again, at greater volume, more reliably. This complex is the answer to that question.

It's the kind of project that doesn't generate much noise but ends up being foundational to everything that follows.

Image: Ethan Wilkinson, Unsplash

Kusto Group Is Building Its Own Transport Network

This is where things get genuinely interesting.

In April 2026, two new companies appeared in the registry. Nomad Tankers Ltd — sea and coastal cargo transport. JanaPort Holdings Ltd — airport management and cargo air transport. And sitting alongside those: a cargo airline project with a $30 million budget.

Kusto Group is, in effect, building the logistics spine it needs to run its own supply chains without depending on third parties at the most critical points. If you're moving grain from Kazakhstan to Asian markets, processing construction materials across multiple countries, and running operations from Israel to Vietnam, the cost and fragility of relying on foreign carriers adds up fast.

The cargo airline in particular is being framed as a national infrastructure argument — reducing Kazakhstan's dependency on foreign carriers. That framing isn't just PR. It reflects something real: if you're serious about building an export-oriented industrial business in Central Asia, you eventually have to confront the transport problem head-on. Kusto Group is confronting it.

Diamond: The Almaty Project That Looks Different on Purpose

In Almaty's Bostandyk District, construction crews are currently building the Diamond residential project — 15 blocks, each nine stories tall, sitting across from the MEGA Alma-Ata shopping centre.

Nine stories might not sound dramatic. That's almost the point. Most developers in this part of Almaty are going straight to fifteen floors and above, squeezing as many units as possible onto each site. Kusto Home — the group's real estate arm — chose to go in the opposite direction. Lower density, better quality, a layout that's actually designed for the people living there rather than for the pro forma spreadsheet that justified the project.

Tatishev has talked about this approach consistently across Kusto Group's real estate work: the conviction that if you build something genuinely good, the returns follow. Diamond is the second major urban development from Kusto Home, and the early signs suggest it's landing well with buyers who've grown tired of the default approach to new Almaty housing.

Tambour Is Getting Ready for the Public Markets

Kusto Group acquired Tambour — an Israeli paint and construction materials company — in 2014. It was a turnaround bet at the time. Over a decade later, it's become something considerably more valuable, with Tambour's first international acquisition (Colorificio Zetagi in Italy) signalling that the company isn't staying Israel-only.

The target now is an IPO by 2028. Getting there requires serious preparation — governance structures, audited financials that meet international standards, a clean narrative for institutional investors. That groundwork is being laid through 2026, which means a lot of the behind-the-scenes work is happening right now, even if it's not visible from the outside.

When it lands, it'll likely be one of the larger public market moments in Kusto Group's history. The patient approach Tatishev applied to Tambour over eleven years is about to get its most public test.

Kazseeds and the Long Game on Agriculture

Most of Kusto Group's agricultural story in 2025 was about grain volumes and export records. The longer game is playing out through Kazseeds — the seed genetics venture the group launched in 2019 with Baumgartner Agricultural Science and Services.

The idea is straightforward: develop climate-resilient, high-performance seed varieties suited specifically to Central Asian growing conditions, and supply them to farmers who are facing increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. The global seed development market is heading toward $92 billion by 2028. Central Asia has both the agricultural land and the need for better seed technology.

Kazseeds isn't chasing that market from a standing start. It's been in development for six years, building scientific credibility and agronomic track record in the region. By the time the broader market growth arrives, the infrastructure — research, distribution, farmer relationships — should already be in place.

Georgia: Still Unfinished Business

The Telegraph Hotel opened in Tbilisi in June 2025 and immediately became Georgia's first property in the Leading Hotels of the World network. That's a meaningful achievement — but anyone who knows Tatishev's relationship with Georgia, which goes back twenty years, understands that the hotel is part of something larger, not a standalone project.

The Tsinandali Festival continues each September, now in its seventh edition, drawing world-class performers and young musicians from across the Caucasus and Central Asia to the historic Tsinandali Estate. The combination of a leading luxury hotel in Tbilisi's most important street and an internationally recognised cultural festival in the Kakheti wine region gives Kusto Group a platform in Georgia that very few foreign investors can claim.

What comes next in Georgia isn't fully announced yet. But after twenty years and two flagship institutions, it would be surprising if the answer were simply "nothing."

The Thread That Runs Through All of It

Looking across these projects — the logistics complex, the transport network, Diamond, the Tambour IPO, Kazseeds, Georgia — they're not a random collection of bets. They all point in the same direction.

Kusto Group under Yerkin Tatishev has always been a company that invests in the infrastructure that underlies other things. Not the flashiest layer. The load-bearing one. Grain storage that makes exports reliable. Transport networks that make supply chains autonomous. Residential developments that people actually want to live in. Seed genetics that farmers can depend on in a changing climate.

What's different in 2026 is the scale. Each of these projects is larger, more complex, and more consequential than what came before. The company has clearly reached a phase where it's ready to move beyond careful consolidation and into something that looks a lot more like acceleration.

Whether that reads as ambition or confidence probably depends on how well you know the two decades of work that got it here.

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