What the source record composition reveals is that this week's AI ethics volume is borrowed from a different conversation entirely. Threads about judicial independence [2], phantom deals from the executive branch [3], and ICE enforcement patterns carried the spike — not new model deployments, not leaked safety memos, not research controversies. The AI ethics label became a container for anxieties about concentrated power and unaccountable institutions, which are real concerns about AI too, but the source of the urgency this week was political. Labs that monitor ethics sentiment as…