Don't worry Professor, you can tell it is AI, if it ever writes, "I`m sorry Bob" or wants to take over a space ship in deep space.
Per Ezra Klein's interview of Sci-Fi author, Ted Chiang "... most of our fears about technology are anxieties about how Capitalism will use technology against us."
That's because corporations and the ultra rich, who donate all that dark money to have the gqp in their pockets, see them as useful idiots to do their dirty work ...
. . . or how to change their own adult diapers. I think if their "changers" just quit, there wouldn't be enough trumplicans to ruin our countryty! [sic]
What history are you speaking of? Capitalism has brought the most number of people up out of poverty. Look at China, communist in name only, capitalism is the rule and the number of people coming out of poverty is unsurpassed by any other country. China will end up being the financial capital of the world in 15 years.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Todd, Carl Sagan had a lot of this right. He saw what fools we were allowing our corporations to move their facilities overseas to pay workers a pittance while the owners made a fortune. He did see so much more that we ignore at our own peril. Unfortunately, the media lying and deception is probably at least as bad as what happened to our manufacturing AI or not. Free speech is enormously valuable, but it is not free speech when people's lives are at risk from the lies and insurrectionist words that are spoken via media. It is like yelling "fire" in a crowded place when there is none. Because no one at the top has been held accountable for any of the bad behavior: lying, gaslighting, incitement, the folks like Fox Not Nearly News, OANN, and the other perverted media can just go on as they have been. Advertisers can continue to support the bad behavior too.
Personal lying is OK, but it seems to me lying to deceive the masses of people by media is a far different story. With our courts nearly sewn up by conservative ideologues, it is hard to imagine how we can fix this on behalf of our democracy.
And why did they move overseas? Because the Government Regulations and taxes. Get rid of those regulations and taxes and allow the People to regulate the corporations as they should in a free market, through their informed choice and they will come back.
Sophia-- A good start would be not to reelect the fools that can't adequately represent their constituents. Term limits. There are far too many old minds whose vision of our country is locked in a past that no longer exists.
MANKIND ! Needs to Believe! in OUR TEACHER! WHO CAN!, Settle ALL of the PROBLEMS! of MANKIND ! Summed UP in ; " LOVE! , Your Neighbor! , as You DO, YOURSELF!!
Todd--The movement of production facilities over seas was regrettable but the items produced over there should be slapped with a heavy tariff upon goods coming back into this country. The Republicans opened the doors this process, the fix would be to make it more cost effective to produce the items here in the states.
And who will pay for that tariff? The corporation will pass it along to the consumer of course. So your belief that we should tax the hell out of the corporations, because they are rich, only results in all of us having to pay more and more for what we buy and that money just goes to the corrupt Government.
You and I could do a lot more good with that money in our control not some easily corrupted Representative.
This is a dismal dystopic. It's happening, though. Last week I stood up in church and brought up the image of German tanks rolling across Poland, film news I saw first-hand for at least ten years. My 1950s education would not let us war babies and boomers ever forget how it all fell apart, and don't let it ever happen again. I realized after a minute or two speaking to the congregation, they didn't know what I was talking about. Most of the group were the same ages as my kids, and I don't think they were taught this material—beginning in the early 1970s. If you don't have that Polish invasion by Hitler branded inside your skull like we did, you don't know what I'm talking about when I try to compare it with today, and how, by containing the war in one place—Ukraine, which every NATO country will help to rebuild —we might destroy enough Russian tanks so they'll never get as far as Poland. The war in Ukraine is being handled exactly like they told us to handle it—to appease the error we made in not stopping Hitler at Poland. I'm very dismayed that the next generation has not been taught this history, concerning your dystopic degeneration "back into superstition and darkness . . ."
As a military brat in High School in then WEST Germany, late 1980's, we got taken to see the Auschwitz concentration camp. And we were just a bunch of high school kids on a trip, psyched to be out of school. Mostly paying attention to girls and sneaking cigarettes and such. But then - all of our adolescent silliness suddenly changed. The tour took us to a huge room, empty and the size of a gymnasium - and where we were standing, on the concrete, lined up with a big B&W photo on the wall above us. A photo of what the GI's found upon liberating the camp -- a giant pile of children's bodies. Dozens of them tossed onto each other in the middle of the room. And the laughing teenagers got quiet . . . and we stayed quiet for the hours back to the base. Shocked to see what humans are capable of doing to each other. 40 years later I still have some mental scars from that.
Thanks for sharing that Todd. That must have been extremely difficult. Do you think today's history classes should have accounts of the past--not quite as explicit as that but to deter these groups from rising up that are known "White-Supremist"?
Sandra, I, too am concerned that people are unaware not only of the invasion of Poland by Germany, but also all the events that led up to that invasion and the horrors perpetrated by the Germans throughout the next 6 years. People now who were not taught about it need to see step by step how the German insanity unfolded. One of the most concerning things for me is the way Republicans target specific groups to spew their venom on and that the media all seem to go right along with it with minimum challenge. Last year, the media spent more time worrying over who leaked the Alito draft of the anti-woman BS the SC was dealing last June than what pain the decision would cause women in the poorest states with the least ability to withstand forced birth. It was clearly Alito who leaked to his family or friends. He was just so proud of his stupid reasoning he just couldn't be stopped. His targets, women of reproductive age. It took about 50 years to do the damage, but since it is not yet complete, the Alitos in our society are still going after women and our right to bodily autonomy. They hope this will all be taken care of soon and women will be properly cowed. They think they are mostly in the pink, so they need a new target and are going after the LGBTQ community now. First in line are the trans youth. They are vulnerable young people who require medical intervention and counseling to manage their gender dysphoria. Families and doctors are threatened with imprisonment if they treat these young people, through laws passed by ignorant mostly white men who are planning cruelties beyond this, but have to go a bit at a time or people will really protest. Sound familiar? That is how Hitler and his friends started out in the late 1920s, stirring up an undercurrent of hatred of Jewish people that had been simmering for decades, probably generations. Mostly it had remained quiescent until Jews could be tied to all the negatives the German people were experiencing. The Hitler gang went after Jews a bit at a time, then added Communists and political opponents. By 1933, there was enough of a crazy fascist crew in power that they could start arresting people they could accuse of crimes, then make disappear. Things escalated over time bit by bit as Germany pumped up its manufacturing. Sick of war, the world ignored what they were seeing with their own eyes, but didn't want to believe. Disabled persons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma, LGBT persons, and other groups were added to the hatred almost silently. People would just happen to disappear and the public was informed that they had left Germany for somewhere they just made up, usually, in reality, into a grave. I can't help but wonder who will be next, which states will begin the killing; imprisoning folks for almost nothing, including inability to come up with bail, is already going on. White men are encouraged to have guns and the laws in many places now permit them to carry concealed weapons with no permit and all they have to do, just as the police have been doing, is say, "I feared for my life" when they shoot someone they don't like or approve of. Members of our congress claim the various elections have been stolen when they are clearly lying. A representative, albeit from a pathetic part of Georgia, wants a civil war and is stupid enough to get things going (a lot of Hitler's crew were not too bright either, but were definitely cruel enough). Greene and her Klan are cruel enough and just as incapable of empathy. What will be her role as these new fascists gain more power? She is already the right-hand woman to another fool, Kevin McCarthy who wanted the Speaker title more than he cared about our Constitution and our nation. The media seems OK with this too and with his handing over classified materials to an insurrectionist media madman. Why aren't other media entities demanding the material too? German corporations weren't too concerned about what Hitler was doing as long as they were bringing in the bucks. Heck, they even got the slave labor of Jews and the other hated groups to keep them going while "the boys were at war." I am guessing our corporations would be right there, trying to think up more cruel ways to hurt their fellow American citizens as long as it paid well enough. We need to stop this NOW. We can't wait and hope things will smooth out somehow. There are a lot of people who believe they deserve power and want people they don't like to be subservient to them. I am guessing the MAGAs would be happy to hurt some of those people at first, then more and more of them over time to get even, you know for something they wouldn't even have to identify. It's time for this downward slide into insanity to stop!
Wow, Ruth, something got triggered on the road to Poland image. (Not a road, but open farmland.) I think we just have to keep focused on Biden and praise him every day for doing "normal". He's working very hard to keep the Ship of State on an even keel. If he continues to go big and makes a lot of noise about it, the USA might soon be seen as the most important force to which we must pay attention, and it'll all look a lot more important than just the House trolls and their petty problems. That's the most important job Biden has, besides being Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Biden is carrying the load of all these past presidents right now. He's the right person for the job at this moment. Regarding Greene and several others, I am amazed and very puzzled how women could ever become fascist. I see it, but I don't want to believe it.
Thank-you for this. Its needed, in Canada and elsewhere as well. "Lest we forget" is a powerful statement and history class is not teaching students what they should know about the history of the world--the worst offenses of man to fellow man, woman and child--poxes on humanity forever that are re-appearing in our societies due to a lack of knowledge and remembrance of the horrors, struggles and injustices to this day. Do unto others...Thank-you.
Ruth, I believe we are long past time to halt the treachery & disconnect with mankind let alone reverse course when we have a country that is half filled with really stupid evangelicals & the rest are idiotic with notions of hatred for the others that will make your own heart run cold just listening to their dribble ! I really do fear for the kind of country I am leaving behind for my grandchildren & great grandchildren & we baby boomers don’t have much we can do about it! It’s very depressing.
I'm a Boomer. Even in my school I's guess over 50% slept through history, government, ethics, and civics. Later generations apparently paid even less attention assuming they were even exposed to any of that. When you look at the grand assertions conservatives make about capitalism you know absolutely that they never learned anything about the ugly dark side of capitalism or the reasons we decided they needed to be regulated. To know what unregulated capitalism is truly capable of just Google "Radium Girls".
Or George Orwell. He thought totalitarian government would require heavy handed repression. Who would have ever thought half of our population would just vote for it (other than Germans and Italians in the 1930s).
I don't think Sagan has ever received even a fraction of the credit he deserves for his prescience. He was a modern DaVinci in terms of his intellectual scope. Moreover, he was able to communicate the most complex concepts in understandable terms. We lost him much too soon.
Capitalism can be good if it is used properly. Trouble is how easily it can be misused. Unrestrained capitalism is one of the most destructive forces in the world. It will destroy our environment and create huge inequalities. It has to be restrained with rules and regulations.
William, you are so right about Capitalism. It has its good points, but without appropriate regulation, it is massively destructive. It seems to me that Capitalism can help any political system because it depends on enterprising people coming up with new ideas and finding ways to try them out. It seems to me the only people who like unfettered Capitalism are those who see themselves at the top. However, when those "top" people get into trouble, at least here, they go begging to the democratic government to bail them out and we the people usually do, whether they deserve it or not. Everyone would have done better had the government money in 2008-09 gone to mortgage holders to pay down their mortgages then giving the money directly to the banks. The banks learned nothing good from the recession, and our Fed. is bent on causing another recession. I guess the last one wasn't bad enough. Of course, the workers will suffer again, not the banks, the rich mostly white men and corporations, etc. Yep, Capitalism protects the rich unless We the People put brakes on it, which we just must do.
Ruth : How? At this point the worst of ' conservatives' are in charge of the purse strings in Congress. They never should have been allowed to hold those seats and swear oaths of office to Uphold the rule of law and serve the humans 🙄, as we used to be called in our self government.
Sophia - it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. Capitalism is NOT a form of government. It's mostly an economic concept and is mostly BS. Rule in China is absolute totalitarianism.
In this country, the Republicans Party ran a war on the "War on Poverty" which actually worked. "Teach a (wo)man to fish." Education Act.
Indeed, I was not speaking of a form of Government. Government does not bring people up out of poverty, only capitalism does that. Government, with their welfare and handouts and unequal taxation of individual income perpetuate poverty.
China, communist in name only, is very very good at giving a totalitarian face, however, when the People suffer, as we saw with their lockdowns, the People rebel.
A truly wise analogy of teaching one to fish rather than giving one a fish. I love it and keep it close to my heart.
Indeed, to increase ones purchasing power, one must break free from the Herd Mentality which always buys the euphoric highs and sells the fearful lows, but in a Free Market, there has to be a buyer and a seller. The wise learn from their mistakes, the fools keep doing what everyone else is unthinkingly doing.
Sophia - here on Earth, when people get a step up they prosper and thrive. When people are repressed, they degenerate.
The reason we did well post WW II in large part were the subsidies -- education, housing, etc. As soon as they were removed by jerks like Reagan as governor in California, growth declines.
You can track kids from impoverished families who got Pell grants and other scholarships. Outperform the norm.
I came from a town where some of the wealthy had a sense of noblesse obligge, believed in the Social Gospel and everyone prospered.
Statistics show that at least 20% of our population needs a hand up.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children, created by Eleanor Roosevelt, ceased to exist in the mid-1990s, thanks to Newt and Bill's grand bargain. It was comprised as follows: 65 percent of recipients were white children; 32 percent were their single parents, mostly white mothers, most employed in jobs that paid low, with no benefits. Three percent was attributed to fraud, at the time, the lowest fraud rate among numerous other government programs.
Sophia, You miss so many of the facts. The corporate tax rate was 53% in 1952 when the US economy boomed! Socialism style programs were provided by Democrat FDR back in the 30s pulling people OUT of poverty.
The big recessions are always set up by the spend but don’t tax Republicans.
Now you have to tell us where that free market exists. Where there are no monopolies. A free market can only exist if there are government regulations controlling it, otherwise, the mighty rule.
Sophia: I think you're getting Free Market confused with Flea Market. But I can't get insulin at the Flea Market.
But maybe some latter-day Owsley or Walter White could mix up a batch in his/her garage and sell it at the Flea Market. Without the government getting in the way to regulate safety and efficacy, it ought to be really cheap.
Capitalism, like just about everything else in the world, can be the subject of enormous abuse. Properly regulated capitalism has proven to be the most successful system devised so far at generating prosperity for large numbers of people. The rub is "proper regulation".
You should Google "Radium Girls" to see what unregulated capitalism is capable of. This is just one of innumerable cases where unscrupulous business owners have been willing to kill people for profit.
Sophia--I guess you have to weigh the negatives and make a choice. Would you rather live in a communist dictatorship or in our country as is? Nothing is perfect, what is important lies in the constant effort to fix social problems as they arise. We must be doing something right because of the huge numbers of people trying to immigrate to this country. How many want to go to China?
Yes, capitalism creates jobs; it also destroys them as we’re seeing with the emergence of artificial intelligence. However, AI won’t replace all jobs: personal services, for example, are best performed by a person. By the way, in the 20th century, I’ve read that the nation that lifted the most people out of poverty was the USSR, which practiced state socialism, not capitalism.
Well-managed capitalism is fine with me. And let’s not forget the need for a well-managed capitalism to embrace the goal of a circular economy, in which everything is recycled.
I beg to differ. Capitalism has lifted the rich to unforgivable heights while reducing take home pay. China may produce more goods, but the people who create them live in dire poverty. Capitalism is a failed experiment.
Kate-- If that is the way you really feel why do you live in a capitalistic state. That form of social structure built the greatest country in the world, yes it has it problems but look at the alternatives. People complain and complain but what do they actually do to affect any positive change? I would rather see just one positive gesture then to hear a bowl full of grips.
Don't resort to love or leave it. That's a poor argument. Many people are trying hard to make positive changes but it isn't easy in a system with so many monopolies and power at the top.
You seem to forget that America had a lot of natural advantages that no other nation had. Just the frontier psychology helped immensely for a long time. Our natural resources were a tremendous advantage for a long time. Yes, capitalism helped because we lived with it being unfettered for a long time but those days are over. Now we need restraints on it but the people who used it so successfully for a long time control most of our government and strongly resist any change.
William--My suggestion of leaving was on a personal basis. Our most valuable feature we as a country possess is our isolation, we are very hard to get to. Capitalism isn't dead it just it's in need of restructuring. That system built our country and it still is responsible for it very being. I agree there are a lot of negatives but who has better? Ms. Wolf, "we should fix this."
I thought China already WAS the financial capital of the world. Every single object in my home was made in China, except for me and my two cats ... and I'm not sure about me.
Yes, you ae right. It is very difficult to buy something that is not MADE IN CHINA these days.
My husband and I did a tour of China in 2013 and quickly realized that they were the most industrious population ever. Not a piece of garbage anywhere. Everyone, it seems took responsibility for their own property by sweeping and cleaning in front. Trees and flowers everywhere on every possible pice of land. Separate divided roadways for bikes and two wheel vehicles. We even rode the MegLev out to the airport which was astounding as it had NO WHEELS and was elevated on a magnetic field. Not even as much noise as a jetplane and not feeling of speed. Despite the amount of money they are spending on military I think the difference is that they have not actually been to war.
Brave of you to go to China! I'm sure they run a tight ship, but it is also controlled by a communist dictatorship (oxymoron, that) and unbridled capitalism. Think of the state of capitalism here, with a history of a couple hundred years of restraining legislation -- they have none! (And of course, we're losing what we had with our own 1% in control. Bless their greedy little hearts.) But in China? Now we hear it may have been an escape of covid from their lab, costing the entire planet with untold billions dead. And in 2006-7, they killed millions of pets in America, by passing off melamine
(made from coal) as a "protein." A few years later they killed their own babies with the same stuff in bottled milk. Now we hear about their "progress" in A.I. (did you read Ezra Klein, NYT, today?) Totally unregulated high tech with millions in investment in tracking ID, DNA databases, facial recognition, voice printing, following every computer message, every social media venue, every urban Chinese citizen is being closely followed and tracked. I wonder how long it will take them to have robots patrolling every street 24/7. No thanks.
I agree but they have such a huge population that I wonder if they can afford to let everyone "Do their ow thing." We have plenty of problems ourselves so it is hard to point fingers. Our corporations own the government and most politicians. So often we are in a stalemate with no progress on any of the things that plague us all. Poverty, homelessness, hunger, mental illness, drugs addition, proliferation of guns (even among teens) and constant bickers in government. It seems with competing political parties all they care about is who is up and who is down.
I think the Springsteen lyrics are: Poor men want to be rich, rich men want to be king, king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything." Can a king rule AI?
I* can remember my Grandfather after Well saying repeatedly that China was going to rule the world in the near future. He said they are very good at working in unison with each other like an ant colony.
Carole--China has a population of roughly 1.5 billion people. We stand at about 375 million. When facing a foe of that enormity many things may change, including our economic and social standing. If China is to surpass us in either of the two areas its only because we let them.
This is not an argument about systems just questions ... like do we really need Fruit Loops? Or, should we pay for insulin at thousand of dollars a month after eating Fruit Loops?
Greg--There is nothing wrong with making a profit, in fact it's a necessity in order for a business to keep their doors open but there has to be an acceptable profit margin that makes sense for both parties involved. I recently heard of an HIV drug that runs 3.5 million a dose. This quote was on CNN and channel 7 news. I personally feel this would qualify as price gouging.
Politicians are the ones who pass the laws that govern drugs they are invested in through their family. Without the Government interference in the free markets, insulin would be much cheaper.
I've found myself unsettled by the predictive text even when writing responses here! However, "isms" don't do anything to anybody. It's the "ists" that become the spherical, motherless bastards!
I love to hear Judges read the Form Jury Instruction on 'Deductive Reasoning' to juries & afterwards when the Court got a couple of blank looks, I enjoyed the Court's real world examples. You can actually deduce that the sun will rise in the east each Morning. ☀️
One thing it >certainly< does is explain why I'm getting headhunter inquires based on resumes I submitted 1/4 century or more ago, when the resume wisdom of the day was that you must do something to make your resume stand out. My resumes were always straight to the point, as advised in the video. Hell, I've been getting responses for jobs ranging from Senior Infrastructure Architect to Psychiatric Nurse! I still can't figure out why >anyone< would want me to be a Psychiatric Nurse! LOL!
Nevertheless, I could have used those responses when I was 45 or 50 rather than now as I face eternity in my 70s! Another thing's for sure: whatever you post to the Internet stays around for a long, long time.
Hmmm. Maybe I need to change my "LinkedIn" photo from the 80s. I've noticed a few wrinkles have developed in my visage over the years. Ah yes gravity always wins in the end.
How interesting that John Oliver covered this as his main topic last night. He was very informative. What that man can do with 1/2 hour is miraculous. He mentioned how dangerous this can be to people's lives, livelihood, etc. How technology, just mentioning Instagram and Facebook, have harmed young girls, the social fabric of the country and destruction of democracy, AND, he even mentioned genocide. Europe already has laws to protect its citizens and continuing to address the problems of AI. We have no such chance with our government today to mitigate anything to protect the American people. Europe has laws governing social media, we don't. The attitude to regulating anything in this country is god-awful. Look at Palestine, Ohio, our run-amok social media, out of control corporations profiteering off the American people (really $8 for a dozen eggs?), out of this world gun carnage every single day, and I could go on and on. When AI gets in full gear here we're totally screwed. VOTE THESE PEOPLE OUT....if that's still possible.
Claire: The chicken industry blames bird flu for high prices. But the spread of bird flu is made far worse by concentrating hundreds of thousands of birds in the crowded, unsanitary, unsustainable conditions of factory farms... just as the spread of COVID, initially at least, was far faster and more catastrophic in cities, whether in China, Europe, or the US.
As long as these factory farms exist, they will be flu farms. If you can, buy your eggs from local artisanal growers or food co-ops instead of the likes of Perdue, Tyson, and Mountaire Farms. They may not be any cheaper but you won't be contributing to the problem.
Seems like we should be able to use AI to evaluate writing samples to determine whether they are AI generated or people generated. Certainly there must be characteristics of AI generated writing that can be distinguished from human writing. Alternatively, make it illegal to generate AI information without properly identifying it as such.
Greg--Your assumption as to the origin of "AI" is most likely correct. As for the smart bomb, let's hope it doesn't wind up in the hands of someone stupid.
JCM--Stabbed, poisoned, shot, clubbed, drowned, and anything else the Russians deemed necessary to end the life of a womanizer and a phony. Oh, let us not forget "strangled." All because the Czar had a young son who suffered from hemophilia. Thus ended the Romanov dynasty.
Trump initiated a National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, "committed to doubling AI research investment, established the first-ever national AI research institutes, released the world’s first AI regulatory guidance, forged new international AI alliances, and established guidance for Federal use of AI."
That’s good. Instead of worrying that AI somehow threatens the social contract, let’s leverage AI to seek better solutions than our feeble efforts have come up with so far. Set the parameters, the thresholds, and the goal. See what innovation occurs. Isn’t that better than having Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene set policy?
John B.: Not if they're the ones telling the bots what to do. Or are they bots too? I know George Santos is... probably the first Congresscritter to use ChatGPT for his resume: that may be what got him into trouble.
I also noted in Prof. Reich’s AI generated last paragraph the word “basic”...the essence of UBI. What is the definition of “basic”? What does a person do all day? In fact, what do people do period.
It’s troubling to think about how Trump may have unleashed this further, of course with no guardrails. Another reason among a plethora to work our arses off in 2024.
And does that basic UBI get paid out by a blockchain digital currency that can be turned on and off at the whim of whomever is in power? Can that UBI paid digital currency also be programed by whoever happens to be in power for any whim what so ever? The answers are YES.
If this were true every retired person would be on drugs. What will be needed are those who can help people find and develop their untapped skills so they can use the time they will have wisely and well for themselves and those around them.
Adults in at least some "primitive" cultures only had to work about 4 hours a day to get the necessities of life. How about you?
OK, granted their life expectancy may have been far lower than ours. And some of them got eaten by wild animals or died from germs. Granted, they didn't have medical care like ours. But they didn't die from the new diseases that "civilization" has brought us: diabetes, cancer, asthma.... or get run over by self-crashing AI cars.
considering that EVERY science news piece I research, write and publish is stolen by one or more scraper sites that seek to either steal my (paltry) income and to claim my authorship or to steal readers' identities and personal details when they pop onto the thieving site, i wonder how AI will affect this? further, will news be real anymore? for example, can i earn any money at all from doing my own research and writing? what about scientific papers: will they be legitimate any longer if AI can command the same scientific reviewers' eyeballs and steal the scientists' legitimacy?
The flip-side of the coin RE:papers is this: what legitimacy do scientific papers have if there are more papers published pertaining to a given topic (e.g. AI) than a human being could ever hope to read in a lifetime? An optimist would suggest that the technology could help to supplement knowledge by making it, say, "accessible and useful" - but true, we've been promised a just, verdant future before...
Pre-prints from people you know works too - but that's not to say there isn't a problem of existential risk (or, for that matter, how that risk is managed).
Most jobs in finance are middle-class jobs; Professor Reich is just expressing his optimism (i.e. that, in the end, folks will meander towards progress)...
For years I have been saying that Gates has the capacity to transform our society for the better, but has been spending more attention to other countries. I don't think he is evil, but he has a lock on technology that could have adverse secondary effects. IMHO this is part of his long term attempt to increase his world wide customer base. I wish he'd start with supporting the Social Security trust funds. Instead, he concentrates on others. Hope he doesn't get a tax benefit -- charity begins at home. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-is-paying-off-nigerias-polio-debt.html
Finally! Thanks, Daniel. Malaria-stricken Africans don't shell out for computers. I've believed since Gates theoretically switched his primary focus from profits to philanthropy that he was sugar-coating an "attempt to increase his world wide customer base." I've never known anyone else to express the thought. His upbringing made his braided path natural, so did his marriage to a philanthropically-minded MS employee. However fruitful his efforts are—and they are—we can only fantasize what if MS, Apple, Oracle, and other major tech profits had heen heavily taxed and fairly distributed domestically.
In the 1990s, the U.S. government sued Microsoft for trying to monopolize the personal computer market. The charges brought against the company involved sections of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which included laws designed by governments in order to ensure fair competition in the market. The court ruled that Microsoft violated parts of the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the company to break up into two entities. Microsoft appealed the decision, which was overturned.
In March 2004, the EU ordered Microsoft to pay €497 million ($794 million or £381 million), the largest fine ever handed out by the EU at the time, in addition to the previous penalties, which included 120 days to divulge the server information and 90 days to produce a version of Windows without a Windows Media Player.
Gates' father was active in the ABA. He and Microsoft subsidized the "Lawyers' Conference," dedicated to furthering the rule of law and due process and supporting the mission of the Judicial Division. Gates' father's firm, K&L Gates was/is the biggest in the country. It was a merger with a Pittsburgh firm - and I knew many of the partners. I think their world view was based on protecting their proprietary interest.
Warren Buffett was a trustee of the Bill and Melinda Foundation. Gates says
"We started consulting experts, learning from locals in the countries where we wanted to work, and researching disease and poverty more deeply. We tried to figure out how we might use our voices to raise the visibility of global health, and how our resources could start saving and transforming lives.
"We also expanded our work in the United States from providing access to computers and the Internet to making sure that every student had an equal opportunity to learn, graduate, and succeed.
"As our commitment to our work grew, we transferred $20 billion of Microsoft stock to our foundation, making it the largest of its kind in the world. We devoted more and more time to its work until we were both doing it full-time. And when our good friend Warren Buffett donated much of his fortune to our foundation, it allowed us to raise our ambitions about taking on the toughest, most important problems.
Our foundation has spent $53.8 billion since 2000, and we think that’s helped our partners make a difference. How do we know? We are committed to measuring progress so we can see what’s working and what isn’t."
Meanwhile Gates had a partner - Paul Allen who had a worldview, and who was in essence in competition in the philanthropy arena. Allen has passed away, but he created an AI institute an also brain and cell replication institutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen
In the beginning, I was a volunteer beta tester for his Openscript project - the esperanto of computer programming languages- which he would offer to the public.
Gates was vocal that we do not have enough brainpower in this country. We had a staff attorney assigned to our H1B visa program whose office was covered floor to ceiling with files. All Microsoft. The situs of the job was Bremerton, Washington. This was an excuse so they could hire foreign computer programmers.
Of the companies mentioned, Apple most most of its operations to China.
IMHO investing $53.8 billion in incentives like the Child Tax Credit would have yielded 5x more in government revenues.
Sure, "5x more in government revenues"... but that's not *precisely* the same thing as suggesting maximal "good" (yes, government capital is likely the most efficient - but it may only serve particular populations & also kills people using a monopoly on violence).
The MS antitrust suit was one of the most thrilling cases that ever grabbed me, and in the U.S. court the most disappointing. (I chose to follow in the Seattle Times because of Jim Grimaldi's merciless reporting. He graduated at once to the WaPo, and finally to the WSJ, winning two Pulitzers en route.) Happy to have the particulars refreshed. Has David Boies won a case for the right side since then?
Allen seemed to be another kind of odd bird—a sort of recluse more devoted to a public good time than Bill, investing in pro sports and a Jimi Hendrix museum, etc. I didn't know of your Openscript project, which seems to be one more example. Fascinating goal. It's easy to fall in love with one language, something no pro can afford. Presumably, ultimately Openscript would be embedded in a chip, like Basic and Postscript.
Yeah, Gates and the other tech giants won't stop claiming this country's programmer supply is inadequate, which translates as too few U.S.-trained programmers want to work in the U.S. economy on developing-world wages.
Yes—Gates's father got mucho national press as a legal do-gooder; his mother (a working librarian, as I recall) had established her own reputation for philanthropy, didn't live to see Bill's evolve. Interesting, your take on the law firm's world view dominated by proprietary interests. I guess few form for eleemosynary purposes (to recall an old country lawyer's language). I don't think Buffet's association with the Gates organization has improved his image, or legacy. It's good that you brought up Gates's U.S. library charity, something I'd forgotten although I know plenty of people who benefited. He deserves credit for that even if it was self-serving, like Jobs's gifts to schools.
I knew a couple of Bill Sr's partners from my home town and my childhood. Dick Thornburg had been in that law firm. Thomas P. Johnson was the son of the richest woman in my home town, grandson of Thomas W. Phillips, as in Philips Petroleum, and she was a major benefactor of Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) and many affiliated colleges including Phillips Seminary and the now defunct Phillips University, Bartlesville, OK. Some of the judges I met from the state of Washington were officers of that church.
As I probably said previously, I am a strong supporter of the Social Gospel, which moved some of our robber barons like Andy Carnegie. I don't begrudge Gates' earning capacity, but I do believe that some things are part of the "commons."
It's... sloppy... to suggest the "super-rich" *own* the technology (it is not a cake they can sit on, correctly): "OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory consisting of the non-profit OpenAI Incorporated (OpenAI Inc.) and its for-profit subsidiary corporation OpenAI Limited Partnership (OpenAI LP)."
Agreement about profuse use of terminology resulting in a term become meaningless jargon... but that's not logically equivalent to suggesting that such a thing doesn't belong to the public (Tucker Carlson & Fox News have debased public discourse - but the airwaves belong the public no differently than civil discourse).
I can’t see AI taking over bedside nursing in hospitals. The job changes too much day to day, and is too hands on with varying tasks. I won’t talk about the needed compassion coming from AI.
I do however notice fewer nurses are staying bedside nurses than ever. The new ones get their first job and already have a plan to go on to something else. Nurse practitioner, nurse anesthesia, nurse educator, management, etc. Hospitals keep piling more responsibility onto an already difficult job. I think this doesn’t help the situation of the nursing shortage. Covid didn’t help either. Nurses are doing more tasks support staff used to do because no one is working these jobs. Nurses give respiratory treatment’s (few respiratory therapist s) nurses are expected to do inter hospital transports for monitored patients (not enough acls emts) nurses are expected to do lab draws (not enough lab techs) hospital got rid of orderlies so we turn heavy patients and bring deceased to the morgue, they got rid of staff that clean iv pumps and poles on the weekends so nursing has to sanitize those on weekends when we run out or can’t find clean ones...the list goes on but you get the idea.
I guess if my job ever gets taken over by AI, they can just add more tasks without any pushback. For that reason I can see why big business will try and push for this in every industry possible. It just amplifies profits over patients.
Alex, that's why I left the profession in 1991- handwriting was on the wall, all about money with the business manager bean counters, patient care/staffing be damned. Sadly, a lot worse now.
If robots replaced nurses, bedside nursing in a private room would be inefficient. Maybe private rooms will be replaced by the group wards that were common when I was a child. No more privacy.
I LOL, but what a horrendous vision that is! Hope no hedge-funder-in-search-of-investment-ideas grabs on to that one, especially with the AI angle. Would be bad enough to have a robot nurse, but imagine what would be involved in fetching a patient for transport to x-ray.
Patients will be serviced by X-ray drones and medication drones.
Food will be meatballs fired to (at?) you from small AI-controlled compressed-air cannons. Have you ever been to Punkin' Chunkin'? Same principle, but with computers.
It may not take those jobs for a while.. But not everyone can even do those jobs.. So we cannot hope to employ everyone displaced by AI, on those kinds of jobs.
Interestingly, before last year, few saw AI coming to take the jobs of Artists. It was thought art would be one of the few places left it wouldn't, or at least would be one of the last.. Instead it ends up being one of the first. We really don't know what's gonna be replaced next, and that's another reason why everyone should get a UBI to fall back on, in the event it does.
I think AI has the potential to drive people even crazier than they currently are. I don’t know why I feel or think this way, I just do. Can you tell that this is me and not AI writing this? I can’t either. 😵💫
The other component of "progress" with respect to AI is the management of existential risk (as UBI - and even universal social services - won't do a lot of good if democracy is subverted & humanity collapses).
AI brings us to a treacherous threshold; the labor market will be replaced in large chunks driving wages way down. This spiral can only be stopped. If we admit that only a socially conscious form of capitalism can save – let’s face it – humanity.
I didn't plan to vote for Andrew Yang, but his suggestion for a UBI of $10,000/year sounded good to me. I could have used that money. Of course, in this country, that went over like a lead balloon. It would have been easier to have trump elected king of the world for all eternity. But seriously, all absurdity aside, UBI will have to replace income for most people in the not too distant future. Jobs will be a thing of the past, a relic like an arrowhead. Most jobs will eventually be replaced by AI. There is no doubt about that. We might as well get used to it, and in fact, we might as well plan on it so that we won't be shocked and surprised like we were when so many jobs left this country during the 90s causing that huge sucking sound that the little dude from Texas talked about when he ran third party in 1992. There are so many changes that are coming our way that if we aren't ready for frequent and scary changes, life will be insanely hard, like it isn't now. I doubt that we will recognize life 50 years from now. I won't because I'll be long gone. UBI is just the most obvious and most recognizable. Whoever is here had better not let the wealthy business class run roughshod over the once vibrant working class that will soon disappear into the night.
I look at it as a fabulous opportunity that will give people the freedom to pursue their dreams, travel and enjoy life like never before. They will not be hogtied to some job that underpaid them and bored them shitless. I'm sorry I won't live to see it.
Implementation of UBI would be a welcome admission that the economy needs to work for everyone. Probably giving everyone $10K would quickly lead to price inflation thanks to the street rule called “charge whatever the market will bear.” If such a big inflation should occur, then price controls could be imposed — and finally the advantages of a managed capitalist economy will dawn on our legislators.
I agree. There is no logical reason for prices to rise because there's more money in an economy, other than pure greed on the part of business owners. I've been studying the phenomenon lately, and the consensus is that more money causes price increases. Why? Because it just does. The iron hand of capitalism is anything but perfect. It must be controlled. The Federal Reserve was devised to control the money supply, but it does a crude job. A modern economy must be managed to prevent the excesses of greed.
Soon AI collides with nineteenth century capitalism. The result will be hell on earth for all but a small elite. Why do we naively hope that our elites will cushion our fall into irrelevancy? That would violate the capitalist axiom: He who has the most gold wins.
I can attest to the social elite of the growing class of people who are technically superior to us common "folk". Our society is in a state of perpetual anxiety and how it is starting to effect the social moral direction. My daughter would be an example of the "new" class of professionals. In her 30's home paid for ,getting her Masters in Finance. Home paid for in Phoenix Az. . They are minimalist which is fine ,money saved. However her anxiety has gripped her that she will not stay in our home because it is too "cluttered. I consider it an upscale antique décor. Am retired so attended high end Estate sales for my various collection pieces. The point is she plans to visit but will stay in an Airbnb. Our home was comfortable enough to be raised in now it is off limits to come visit. We moved here because years ago our children would have been bussed to other schools to balance out the student ratio. Fast forward to today and look at your severe problems in our schools. Moved to country where deer walk by our windows not an ambulance screaming by for another shooting. So our society is evolving with no purpose other than try to live a decent life but with an underlining of deep anxiety that is not going away. Me 76 so have seen it all and deeply regret how "life" has changed.
Right now, companies use these bots so customers cannot contact them anymore. Recently tried to cxl an Air Asia flight. You cannot call or email anyone anymore at air Asia. All replaced by bots that cannot perform that function. Right now it’s just corporate criminality.
Craig, experienced this with VRBO trip cancellation insurance after hurricane Ian- phone numbers led to bot voice with instructions that claim had to be filed on-line, requiring uploading info I didn't know how to do, wouldn't allow progressing to claim submission unless each preceding step was accomplished. I'll never get trip cancellation insurance again!
With the cost of living being vastly different depending on where one lives, and likely to change more quickly depending on the state of the climate (e.g., sea level rise, flooding, fires,)available work, food supplies etc., etc, etc., how will AI (I assume) decide, recalculate and transmit funds to banks or cut checks to people to meet their needs quickly enough? After all, many of us will no longer have a paycheck to fall back on. And since pensions have gone the way of the dinosaurs and investments will always be uncertain, what happens when people retire or are disabled? Will they be forced to rely on this universal basic income only at a time when they may have more needs? So many people are in that position now, living only on Social Security, and are one step from the streets.
What will happen when people get bored, unhappy, depressed and feel worthless? Demagogues will pop out of the woodwork, (Trump, anyone?) I fear that this shift to AI, and a universal basic income, without looking at, and planning for, the consequences will make January 6 look like a Sunday School picnic!
So, UBI for everyone. That means everyone will be unable to do anything other than the basic needs of life (God forbid there is inflation and people have to rely on the government to increase their wage before they are homeless). Forget about a middle class where you can work to get a better life...there will be no work for you to do. Will the UBI be the same for those in NYC as for those in a village in Alabama?
Universal Income is just a way to shut people up so they stay complacent with what they receive and expect no more. There is no incentive to do anything with your life. AI will go the way of Crypto....its just as phony and baseless. The mercenary monsters who created it will end up living sterile meaningless lives in their ivory towers. As far as I'm concerned I don't believe a word of your article as it was most likely written entirely by AI. F$ck microsoft and Google. That was written by me.
Two (2) SCOTUS opinions are pending on Google & Twitter's Section 230 get-out-of-liability-free cards. Do not expect anything sentinent from the BOT 9 except a Friday news dump in June.
Don't worry Professor, you can tell it is AI, if it ever writes, "I`m sorry Bob" or wants to take over a space ship in deep space.
Per Ezra Klein's interview of Sci-Fi author, Ted Chiang "... most of our fears about technology are anxieties about how Capitalism will use technology against us."
Artificial intelligence, I really don't see the need especially when the Republicans haven't shown the ability to handle the real commodity as it is.
That's because corporations and the ultra rich, who donate all that dark money to have the gqp in their pockets, see them as useful idiots to do their dirty work ...
THE biggest useful idiot USED to be Bunkerboy but it looks like DeathSantis has usurped his position! As I always say: RIHGOP.
Daniel-- That's the dirty side of our existence. How would you change it?
I like DeathSantis spin but how about DeSlaver?
Joe-- you made me smile--that's hard to do.
. . . or how to change their own adult diapers. I think if their "changers" just quit, there wouldn't be enough trumplicans to ruin our countryty! [sic]
Considering the history of capitalism I am fearful.
Luddites of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your jobs.
Lemmings of the World Unite but, stay away from Cliffs.
Lemmings don't run over cliffs. Walt Disney did that with analogue camera work decades before AI or CGI was even an idea.
Rob Boyte (Miami Beach) ; What about Cliff Bars? They can be fattening.
Laurie, that's what the Lemmings were chasing!
What history are you speaking of? Capitalism has brought the most number of people up out of poverty. Look at China, communist in name only, capitalism is the rule and the number of people coming out of poverty is unsurpassed by any other country. China will end up being the financial capital of the world in 15 years.
Carl called this 25+ years ago:
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Todd, Carl Sagan had a lot of this right. He saw what fools we were allowing our corporations to move their facilities overseas to pay workers a pittance while the owners made a fortune. He did see so much more that we ignore at our own peril. Unfortunately, the media lying and deception is probably at least as bad as what happened to our manufacturing AI or not. Free speech is enormously valuable, but it is not free speech when people's lives are at risk from the lies and insurrectionist words that are spoken via media. It is like yelling "fire" in a crowded place when there is none. Because no one at the top has been held accountable for any of the bad behavior: lying, gaslighting, incitement, the folks like Fox Not Nearly News, OANN, and the other perverted media can just go on as they have been. Advertisers can continue to support the bad behavior too.
Personal lying is OK, but it seems to me lying to deceive the masses of people by media is a far different story. With our courts nearly sewn up by conservative ideologues, it is hard to imagine how we can fix this on behalf of our democracy.
Ruth-- Never let your voice be silent.
In my neighborhood we call it Faux News.
Another moniker is Faux Snooze.
And why did they move overseas? Because the Government Regulations and taxes. Get rid of those regulations and taxes and allow the People to regulate the corporations as they should in a free market, through their informed choice and they will come back.
If only we really had a Democracy where the People vote on the laws instead of an easily corrupted Representative which is a Republic.
Sophia-- A good start would be not to reelect the fools that can't adequately represent their constituents. Term limits. There are far too many old minds whose vision of our country is locked in a past that no longer exists.
MANKIND ! Needs to Believe! in OUR TEACHER! WHO CAN!, Settle ALL of the PROBLEMS! of MANKIND ! Summed UP in ; " LOVE! , Your Neighbor! , as You DO, YOURSELF!!
Todd--The movement of production facilities over seas was regrettable but the items produced over there should be slapped with a heavy tariff upon goods coming back into this country. The Republicans opened the doors this process, the fix would be to make it more cost effective to produce the items here in the states.
I’m afraid your point of view loses a bit of credibility if you are a believer of superstition.
Steve--No "super" anything here. Just us old guys.
And who will pay for that tariff? The corporation will pass it along to the consumer of course. So your belief that we should tax the hell out of the corporations, because they are rich, only results in all of us having to pay more and more for what we buy and that money just goes to the corrupt Government.
You and I could do a lot more good with that money in our control not some easily corrupted Representative.
This is a dismal dystopic. It's happening, though. Last week I stood up in church and brought up the image of German tanks rolling across Poland, film news I saw first-hand for at least ten years. My 1950s education would not let us war babies and boomers ever forget how it all fell apart, and don't let it ever happen again. I realized after a minute or two speaking to the congregation, they didn't know what I was talking about. Most of the group were the same ages as my kids, and I don't think they were taught this material—beginning in the early 1970s. If you don't have that Polish invasion by Hitler branded inside your skull like we did, you don't know what I'm talking about when I try to compare it with today, and how, by containing the war in one place—Ukraine, which every NATO country will help to rebuild —we might destroy enough Russian tanks so they'll never get as far as Poland. The war in Ukraine is being handled exactly like they told us to handle it—to appease the error we made in not stopping Hitler at Poland. I'm very dismayed that the next generation has not been taught this history, concerning your dystopic degeneration "back into superstition and darkness . . ."
As a military brat in High School in then WEST Germany, late 1980's, we got taken to see the Auschwitz concentration camp. And we were just a bunch of high school kids on a trip, psyched to be out of school. Mostly paying attention to girls and sneaking cigarettes and such. But then - all of our adolescent silliness suddenly changed. The tour took us to a huge room, empty and the size of a gymnasium - and where we were standing, on the concrete, lined up with a big B&W photo on the wall above us. A photo of what the GI's found upon liberating the camp -- a giant pile of children's bodies. Dozens of them tossed onto each other in the middle of the room. And the laughing teenagers got quiet . . . and we stayed quiet for the hours back to the base. Shocked to see what humans are capable of doing to each other. 40 years later I still have some mental scars from that.
Thanks for sharing that Todd. That must have been extremely difficult. Do you think today's history classes should have accounts of the past--not quite as explicit as that but to deter these groups from rising up that are known "White-Supremist"?
Sandra, I, too am concerned that people are unaware not only of the invasion of Poland by Germany, but also all the events that led up to that invasion and the horrors perpetrated by the Germans throughout the next 6 years. People now who were not taught about it need to see step by step how the German insanity unfolded. One of the most concerning things for me is the way Republicans target specific groups to spew their venom on and that the media all seem to go right along with it with minimum challenge. Last year, the media spent more time worrying over who leaked the Alito draft of the anti-woman BS the SC was dealing last June than what pain the decision would cause women in the poorest states with the least ability to withstand forced birth. It was clearly Alito who leaked to his family or friends. He was just so proud of his stupid reasoning he just couldn't be stopped. His targets, women of reproductive age. It took about 50 years to do the damage, but since it is not yet complete, the Alitos in our society are still going after women and our right to bodily autonomy. They hope this will all be taken care of soon and women will be properly cowed. They think they are mostly in the pink, so they need a new target and are going after the LGBTQ community now. First in line are the trans youth. They are vulnerable young people who require medical intervention and counseling to manage their gender dysphoria. Families and doctors are threatened with imprisonment if they treat these young people, through laws passed by ignorant mostly white men who are planning cruelties beyond this, but have to go a bit at a time or people will really protest. Sound familiar? That is how Hitler and his friends started out in the late 1920s, stirring up an undercurrent of hatred of Jewish people that had been simmering for decades, probably generations. Mostly it had remained quiescent until Jews could be tied to all the negatives the German people were experiencing. The Hitler gang went after Jews a bit at a time, then added Communists and political opponents. By 1933, there was enough of a crazy fascist crew in power that they could start arresting people they could accuse of crimes, then make disappear. Things escalated over time bit by bit as Germany pumped up its manufacturing. Sick of war, the world ignored what they were seeing with their own eyes, but didn't want to believe. Disabled persons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma, LGBT persons, and other groups were added to the hatred almost silently. People would just happen to disappear and the public was informed that they had left Germany for somewhere they just made up, usually, in reality, into a grave. I can't help but wonder who will be next, which states will begin the killing; imprisoning folks for almost nothing, including inability to come up with bail, is already going on. White men are encouraged to have guns and the laws in many places now permit them to carry concealed weapons with no permit and all they have to do, just as the police have been doing, is say, "I feared for my life" when they shoot someone they don't like or approve of. Members of our congress claim the various elections have been stolen when they are clearly lying. A representative, albeit from a pathetic part of Georgia, wants a civil war and is stupid enough to get things going (a lot of Hitler's crew were not too bright either, but were definitely cruel enough). Greene and her Klan are cruel enough and just as incapable of empathy. What will be her role as these new fascists gain more power? She is already the right-hand woman to another fool, Kevin McCarthy who wanted the Speaker title more than he cared about our Constitution and our nation. The media seems OK with this too and with his handing over classified materials to an insurrectionist media madman. Why aren't other media entities demanding the material too? German corporations weren't too concerned about what Hitler was doing as long as they were bringing in the bucks. Heck, they even got the slave labor of Jews and the other hated groups to keep them going while "the boys were at war." I am guessing our corporations would be right there, trying to think up more cruel ways to hurt their fellow American citizens as long as it paid well enough. We need to stop this NOW. We can't wait and hope things will smooth out somehow. There are a lot of people who believe they deserve power and want people they don't like to be subservient to them. I am guessing the MAGAs would be happy to hurt some of those people at first, then more and more of them over time to get even, you know for something they wouldn't even have to identify. It's time for this downward slide into insanity to stop!
Wow, Ruth, something got triggered on the road to Poland image. (Not a road, but open farmland.) I think we just have to keep focused on Biden and praise him every day for doing "normal". He's working very hard to keep the Ship of State on an even keel. If he continues to go big and makes a lot of noise about it, the USA might soon be seen as the most important force to which we must pay attention, and it'll all look a lot more important than just the House trolls and their petty problems. That's the most important job Biden has, besides being Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Biden is carrying the load of all these past presidents right now. He's the right person for the job at this moment. Regarding Greene and several others, I am amazed and very puzzled how women could ever become fascist. I see it, but I don't want to believe it.
Thank-you for this. Its needed, in Canada and elsewhere as well. "Lest we forget" is a powerful statement and history class is not teaching students what they should know about the history of the world--the worst offenses of man to fellow man, woman and child--poxes on humanity forever that are re-appearing in our societies due to a lack of knowledge and remembrance of the horrors, struggles and injustices to this day. Do unto others...Thank-you.
Ruth, I believe we are long past time to halt the treachery & disconnect with mankind let alone reverse course when we have a country that is half filled with really stupid evangelicals & the rest are idiotic with notions of hatred for the others that will make your own heart run cold just listening to their dribble ! I really do fear for the kind of country I am leaving behind for my grandchildren & great grandchildren & we baby boomers don’t have much we can do about it! It’s very depressing.
I'm a Boomer. Even in my school I's guess over 50% slept through history, government, ethics, and civics. Later generations apparently paid even less attention assuming they were even exposed to any of that. When you look at the grand assertions conservatives make about capitalism you know absolutely that they never learned anything about the ugly dark side of capitalism or the reasons we decided they needed to be regulated. To know what unregulated capitalism is truly capable of just Google "Radium Girls".
I’m afraid your point of view loses a bit of credibility if you are a believer of superstition.
What are you talking about?
Or George Orwell. He thought totalitarian government would require heavy handed repression. Who would have ever thought half of our population would just vote for it (other than Germans and Italians in the 1930s).
Don--As Yul Brynner said in the "King and I" That is a puzzlement."
I don't think Sagan has ever received even a fraction of the credit he deserves for his prescience. He was a modern DaVinci in terms of his intellectual scope. Moreover, he was able to communicate the most complex concepts in understandable terms. We lost him much too soon.
TLDR
Unable to distinguish what’s true.
Donna-- It's not a question of honesty it's reality.
Donna--Capitalisms is a double edged knife, the problems it offers don't arise until we make an effort to put it in out pant's pocket.
Capitalism can be good if it is used properly. Trouble is how easily it can be misused. Unrestrained capitalism is one of the most destructive forces in the world. It will destroy our environment and create huge inequalities. It has to be restrained with rules and regulations.
William, you are so right about Capitalism. It has its good points, but without appropriate regulation, it is massively destructive. It seems to me that Capitalism can help any political system because it depends on enterprising people coming up with new ideas and finding ways to try them out. It seems to me the only people who like unfettered Capitalism are those who see themselves at the top. However, when those "top" people get into trouble, at least here, they go begging to the democratic government to bail them out and we the people usually do, whether they deserve it or not. Everyone would have done better had the government money in 2008-09 gone to mortgage holders to pay down their mortgages then giving the money directly to the banks. The banks learned nothing good from the recession, and our Fed. is bent on causing another recession. I guess the last one wasn't bad enough. Of course, the workers will suffer again, not the banks, the rich mostly white men and corporations, etc. Yep, Capitalism protects the rich unless We the People put brakes on it, which we just must do.
Ruth : How? At this point the worst of ' conservatives' are in charge of the purse strings in Congress. They never should have been allowed to hold those seats and swear oaths of office to Uphold the rule of law and serve the humans 🙄, as we used to be called in our self government.
The choice is not between capitalism and authoritarianism. Its between the latter and social democracy!
Sophia - it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. Capitalism is NOT a form of government. It's mostly an economic concept and is mostly BS. Rule in China is absolute totalitarianism.
In this country, the Republicans Party ran a war on the "War on Poverty" which actually worked. "Teach a (wo)man to fish." Education Act.
To make money, buy low and sell high.
Indeed, I was not speaking of a form of Government. Government does not bring people up out of poverty, only capitalism does that. Government, with their welfare and handouts and unequal taxation of individual income perpetuate poverty.
China, communist in name only, is very very good at giving a totalitarian face, however, when the People suffer, as we saw with their lockdowns, the People rebel.
A truly wise analogy of teaching one to fish rather than giving one a fish. I love it and keep it close to my heart.
Indeed, to increase ones purchasing power, one must break free from the Herd Mentality which always buys the euphoric highs and sells the fearful lows, but in a Free Market, there has to be a buyer and a seller. The wise learn from their mistakes, the fools keep doing what everyone else is unthinkingly doing.
Sophia - here on Earth, when people get a step up they prosper and thrive. When people are repressed, they degenerate.
The reason we did well post WW II in large part were the subsidies -- education, housing, etc. As soon as they were removed by jerks like Reagan as governor in California, growth declines.
You can track kids from impoverished families who got Pell grants and other scholarships. Outperform the norm.
I came from a town where some of the wealthy had a sense of noblesse obligge, believed in the Social Gospel and everyone prospered.
Statistics show that at least 20% of our population needs a hand up.
BTW the Education Act taught everyone how to fish.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children, created by Eleanor Roosevelt, ceased to exist in the mid-1990s, thanks to Newt and Bill's grand bargain. It was comprised as follows: 65 percent of recipients were white children; 32 percent were their single parents, mostly white mothers, most employed in jobs that paid low, with no benefits. Three percent was attributed to fraud, at the time, the lowest fraud rate among numerous other government programs.
Sophia, You miss so many of the facts. The corporate tax rate was 53% in 1952 when the US economy boomed! Socialism style programs were provided by Democrat FDR back in the 30s pulling people OUT of poverty.
The big recessions are always set up by the spend but don’t tax Republicans.
You have a lot to learn.
Now you have to tell us where that free market exists. Where there are no monopolies. A free market can only exist if there are government regulations controlling it, otherwise, the mighty rule.
The only “free market” is the jungle — and who wants to live there?
William: I totally agree.
If you're not at the table, you're on the menu.
Sophia: I think you're getting Free Market confused with Flea Market. But I can't get insulin at the Flea Market.
But maybe some latter-day Owsley or Walter White could mix up a batch in his/her garage and sell it at the Flea Market. Without the government getting in the way to regulate safety and efficacy, it ought to be really cheap.
A brilliant idea!
Capitalism, like just about everything else in the world, can be the subject of enormous abuse. Properly regulated capitalism has proven to be the most successful system devised so far at generating prosperity for large numbers of people. The rub is "proper regulation".
Regulated by freedom of choice of the individual for it is only corrupted when regulated by those in Government.
You should Google "Radium Girls" to see what unregulated capitalism is capable of. This is just one of innumerable cases where unscrupulous business owners have been willing to kill people for profit.
Sophia--I guess you have to weigh the negatives and make a choice. Would you rather live in a communist dictatorship or in our country as is? Nothing is perfect, what is important lies in the constant effort to fix social problems as they arise. We must be doing something right because of the huge numbers of people trying to immigrate to this country. How many want to go to China?
@Donald
Don’t make this about immigration.
John--When I mention a word within my text it's for a purpose. For you to infer you know my intent leaves me wondering about yours.
Donald. The conversation is straying from the topics of AI and UBI.
What would happen to anyone trying to go in without proper papers?To China.
Yes, capitalism creates jobs; it also destroys them as we’re seeing with the emergence of artificial intelligence. However, AI won’t replace all jobs: personal services, for example, are best performed by a person. By the way, in the 20th century, I’ve read that the nation that lifted the most people out of poverty was the USSR, which practiced state socialism, not capitalism.
Stan --and a dictatorship. If not not capitalism, what would have the good people of our country try as an alternative?
Well-managed capitalism is fine with me. And let’s not forget the need for a well-managed capitalism to embrace the goal of a circular economy, in which everything is recycled.
Stan---Does that mean there is still hope for me at some point in the future? Recycled.
I beg to differ. Capitalism has lifted the rich to unforgivable heights while reducing take home pay. China may produce more goods, but the people who create them live in dire poverty. Capitalism is a failed experiment.
Kate Forgach : yes, at least unregulated capitalism is a failed experiment. Money can buy deregulation. So it is hard to regulate.
Kate-- If that is the way you really feel why do you live in a capitalistic state. That form of social structure built the greatest country in the world, yes it has it problems but look at the alternatives. People complain and complain but what do they actually do to affect any positive change? I would rather see just one positive gesture then to hear a bowl full of grips.
Don't resort to love or leave it. That's a poor argument. Many people are trying hard to make positive changes but it isn't easy in a system with so many monopolies and power at the top.
You seem to forget that America had a lot of natural advantages that no other nation had. Just the frontier psychology helped immensely for a long time. Our natural resources were a tremendous advantage for a long time. Yes, capitalism helped because we lived with it being unfettered for a long time but those days are over. Now we need restraints on it but the people who used it so successfully for a long time control most of our government and strongly resist any change.
William--My suggestion of leaving was on a personal basis. Our most valuable feature we as a country possess is our isolation, we are very hard to get to. Capitalism isn't dead it just it's in need of restructuring. That system built our country and it still is responsible for it very being. I agree there are a lot of negatives but who has better? Ms. Wolf, "we should fix this."
I thought China already WAS the financial capital of the world. Every single object in my home was made in China, except for me and my two cats ... and I'm not sure about me.
Yes, you ae right. It is very difficult to buy something that is not MADE IN CHINA these days.
My husband and I did a tour of China in 2013 and quickly realized that they were the most industrious population ever. Not a piece of garbage anywhere. Everyone, it seems took responsibility for their own property by sweeping and cleaning in front. Trees and flowers everywhere on every possible pice of land. Separate divided roadways for bikes and two wheel vehicles. We even rode the MegLev out to the airport which was astounding as it had NO WHEELS and was elevated on a magnetic field. Not even as much noise as a jetplane and not feeling of speed. Despite the amount of money they are spending on military I think the difference is that they have not actually been to war.
Brave of you to go to China! I'm sure they run a tight ship, but it is also controlled by a communist dictatorship (oxymoron, that) and unbridled capitalism. Think of the state of capitalism here, with a history of a couple hundred years of restraining legislation -- they have none! (And of course, we're losing what we had with our own 1% in control. Bless their greedy little hearts.) But in China? Now we hear it may have been an escape of covid from their lab, costing the entire planet with untold billions dead. And in 2006-7, they killed millions of pets in America, by passing off melamine
(made from coal) as a "protein." A few years later they killed their own babies with the same stuff in bottled milk. Now we hear about their "progress" in A.I. (did you read Ezra Klein, NYT, today?) Totally unregulated high tech with millions in investment in tracking ID, DNA databases, facial recognition, voice printing, following every computer message, every social media venue, every urban Chinese citizen is being closely followed and tracked. I wonder how long it will take them to have robots patrolling every street 24/7. No thanks.
I agree but they have such a huge population that I wonder if they can afford to let everyone "Do their ow thing." We have plenty of problems ourselves so it is hard to point fingers. Our corporations own the government and most politicians. So often we are in a stalemate with no progress on any of the things that plague us all. Poverty, homelessness, hunger, mental illness, drugs addition, proliferation of guns (even among teens) and constant bickers in government. It seems with competing political parties all they care about is who is up and who is down.
I think the Springsteen lyrics are: Poor men want to be rich, rich men want to be king, king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything." Can a king rule AI?
We’ll have to ask the Wizard behind the curtain.
I* can remember my Grandfather after Well saying repeatedly that China was going to rule the world in the near future. He said they are very good at working in unison with each other like an ant colony.
Carole--China has a population of roughly 1.5 billion people. We stand at about 375 million. When facing a foe of that enormity many things may change, including our economic and social standing. If China is to surpass us in either of the two areas its only because we let them.
China’s is a government regulated capitalism.
China is a mixture of many things. Some capitalism is allowed.
Frankom--Our country is at the top of the world's societies because of capitalism, is there a better system?
This is not an argument about systems just questions ... like do we really need Fruit Loops? Or, should we pay for insulin at thousand of dollars a month after eating Fruit Loops?
Bryan-- Because of it's importance the price of insulin should be a on par with standard aspirin.
Donald - how do you achieve that in a pure capitalist society? Asking for a friend.
I’m pretty sure there has never been a “pure” capitalist society, any more than the mythical “free market.” Nor would either be desirable.
Greg--There is nothing wrong with making a profit, in fact it's a necessity in order for a business to keep their doors open but there has to be an acceptable profit margin that makes sense for both parties involved. I recently heard of an HIV drug that runs 3.5 million a dose. This quote was on CNN and channel 7 news. I personally feel this would qualify as price gouging.
Politicians are the ones who pass the laws that govern drugs they are invested in through their family. Without the Government interference in the free markets, insulin would be much cheaper.
Concur.
A very good analogy. Fruit loops is like UBI Booby.
None.
I've found myself unsettled by the predictive text even when writing responses here! However, "isms" don't do anything to anybody. It's the "ists" that become the spherical, motherless bastards!
The only articulate response I can muster is ... Yup.
Bryan--I apologize but my stupidity is in need of a further explanation.
No apologies needed; "further expplanation" is the essence of deductive reasoning.
Bryan---What is deductive reasoning? LOL
I love to hear Judges read the Form Jury Instruction on 'Deductive Reasoning' to juries & afterwards when the Court got a couple of blank looks, I enjoyed the Court's real world examples. You can actually deduce that the sun will rise in the east each Morning. ☀️
"
DZK ; Hahaha!
Just posted: https://youtu.be/Sqa8Zo2XWc4
ALSO SEE: https://youtu.be/oxXpB9pSETo
DZK: Bucking frilliant video. I almost fell out of bed laughing. The cat rap was a nice touch. But i wouldn't want to watch an eternal "Seinfeld."
DZ, fantastic YouTube link. My sides still hurt from this Expose of "what if" thinking. I may have to save this for future reference.
One thing it >certainly< does is explain why I'm getting headhunter inquires based on resumes I submitted 1/4 century or more ago, when the resume wisdom of the day was that you must do something to make your resume stand out. My resumes were always straight to the point, as advised in the video. Hell, I've been getting responses for jobs ranging from Senior Infrastructure Architect to Psychiatric Nurse! I still can't figure out why >anyone< would want me to be a Psychiatric Nurse! LOL!
Nevertheless, I could have used those responses when I was 45 or 50 rather than now as I face eternity in my 70s! Another thing's for sure: whatever you post to the Internet stays around for a long, long time.
Hmmm. Maybe I need to change my "LinkedIn" photo from the 80s. I've noticed a few wrinkles have developed in my visage over the years. Ah yes gravity always wins in the end.
How interesting that John Oliver covered this as his main topic last night. He was very informative. What that man can do with 1/2 hour is miraculous. He mentioned how dangerous this can be to people's lives, livelihood, etc. How technology, just mentioning Instagram and Facebook, have harmed young girls, the social fabric of the country and destruction of democracy, AND, he even mentioned genocide. Europe already has laws to protect its citizens and continuing to address the problems of AI. We have no such chance with our government today to mitigate anything to protect the American people. Europe has laws governing social media, we don't. The attitude to regulating anything in this country is god-awful. Look at Palestine, Ohio, our run-amok social media, out of control corporations profiteering off the American people (really $8 for a dozen eggs?), out of this world gun carnage every single day, and I could go on and on. When AI gets in full gear here we're totally screwed. VOTE THESE PEOPLE OUT....if that's still possible.
Claire: The chicken industry blames bird flu for high prices. But the spread of bird flu is made far worse by concentrating hundreds of thousands of birds in the crowded, unsanitary, unsustainable conditions of factory farms... just as the spread of COVID, initially at least, was far faster and more catastrophic in cities, whether in China, Europe, or the US.
As long as these factory farms exist, they will be flu farms. If you can, buy your eggs from local artisanal growers or food co-ops instead of the likes of Perdue, Tyson, and Mountaire Farms. They may not be any cheaper but you won't be contributing to the problem.
From Greg in chicken country..
Seems like we should be able to use AI to evaluate writing samples to determine whether they are AI generated or people generated. Certainly there must be characteristics of AI generated writing that can be distinguished from human writing. Alternatively, make it illegal to generate AI information without properly identifying it as such.
I believe I just read something about this... early versions now available.
I suspect the general acceptance of lying as a norm will ultimately lead to our undoing.
Don-- What is really disturbing is the AI when asked seems to be oriented toward violence.
Donald: Follow the money! I'll bet you $1 that the majority of AI funding worldwide comes from military forces and military contractors.
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If your only tool is a "smart" bomb...?
Greg--Your assumption as to the origin of "AI" is most likely correct. As for the smart bomb, let's hope it doesn't wind up in the hands of someone stupid.
My anxiety extends mightily towards what humans like putin and xi will do with it...
MM-- My advice-don't Razz-Putin.
JCM--Stabbed, poisoned, shot, clubbed, drowned, and anything else the Russians deemed necessary to end the life of a womanizer and a phony. Oh, let us not forget "strangled." All because the Czar had a young son who suffered from hemophilia. Thus ended the Romanov dynasty.
I don't like it. It takes away what it means to be human.
Isaac Asimov. I-Robot. What we need is a US Department of pobopsychology. Kaku says we are biological machines.
Imagine one person who directs a proprietary AI program to write algorithms for virtually every human function. Can that person get a patent?
In agriculture, one tractor can outproduce dozens of horse driven harvesters, which replaced dozens of farm laborers. I'm so old I remember no calculators, no computers. They eliminated most clerical jobs. Her's a list of jobs that most likely obsolete. https://financesonline.com/10-disappearing-jobs-that-wont-exist-in-10-years-professions-that-wont-guarantee-career-opportunities/
Trump initiated a National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, "committed to doubling AI research investment, established the first-ever national AI research institutes, released the world’s first AI regulatory guidance, forged new international AI alliances, and established guidance for Federal use of AI."
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/white-house-launches-national-artificial-intelligence-initiative-office/
Cutting through the BS, the Trump administ4ration was oblivious to anti-trust concerns. Bigger was better.
My question for AI is: write an algorithm so that most individuals will have access to well paying, intellectually satisfying jobs.
That’s good. Instead of worrying that AI somehow threatens the social contract, let’s leverage AI to seek better solutions than our feeble efforts have come up with so far. Set the parameters, the thresholds, and the goal. See what innovation occurs. Isn’t that better than having Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene set policy?
John B.: Not if they're the ones telling the bots what to do. Or are they bots too? I know George Santos is... probably the first Congresscritter to use ChatGPT for his resume: that may be what got him into trouble.
Intellectually lazy, you might as well just put everyone on the UBI Booby.
Mess with patents and expect to get sued. That's capitalism.
No, actually that is government interference in the Capitalist system.
Patents are in the Constitution.
Trump needed the AI- could've golfed more. Sure was glad to throw away my slide rule.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72012.The_Future_of_Ideas
Anxiety about jobs is natural - but it's not really our better nature.
I also noted in Prof. Reich’s AI generated last paragraph the word “basic”...the essence of UBI. What is the definition of “basic”? What does a person do all day? In fact, what do people do period.
It’s troubling to think about how Trump may have unleashed this further, of course with no guardrails. Another reason among a plethora to work our arses off in 2024.
And does that basic UBI get paid out by a blockchain digital currency that can be turned on and off at the whim of whomever is in power? Can that UBI paid digital currency also be programed by whoever happens to be in power for any whim what so ever? The answers are YES.
Beware what you wish for.
Indeed!!!
Humans didn’t evolve having nothing to do and no purpose, and we would struggle with this even given free money. Watch the drug culture take off then!
If this were true every retired person would be on drugs. What will be needed are those who can help people find and develop their untapped skills so they can use the time they will have wisely and well for themselves and those around them.
Humans are multidimensional.
Part of the problem is we have been funneled into narrow way of looking at ourselves. The “I am a .....” and nothing else.
Adults in at least some "primitive" cultures only had to work about 4 hours a day to get the necessities of life. How about you?
OK, granted their life expectancy may have been far lower than ours. And some of them got eaten by wild animals or died from germs. Granted, they didn't have medical care like ours. But they didn't die from the new diseases that "civilization" has brought us: diabetes, cancer, asthma.... or get run over by self-crashing AI cars.
considering that EVERY science news piece I research, write and publish is stolen by one or more scraper sites that seek to either steal my (paltry) income and to claim my authorship or to steal readers' identities and personal details when they pop onto the thieving site, i wonder how AI will affect this? further, will news be real anymore? for example, can i earn any money at all from doing my own research and writing? what about scientific papers: will they be legitimate any longer if AI can command the same scientific reviewers' eyeballs and steal the scientists' legitimacy?
NOTE: edited to correct a typo. grrr.
Its mostly lies now, soon it will be all lies.
It's only a lie if you don't believe it. Ask Kitara LaVache (alias George Santos) or Putin.
The flip-side of the coin RE:papers is this: what legitimacy do scientific papers have if there are more papers published pertaining to a given topic (e.g. AI) than a human being could ever hope to read in a lifetime? An optimist would suggest that the technology could help to supplement knowledge by making it, say, "accessible and useful" - but true, we've been promised a just, verdant future before...
Stick to peer-reviewed journals for your scientific papers... at least until the reviewers are AI bots too.
Pre-prints from people you know works too - but that's not to say there isn't a problem of existential risk (or, for that matter, how that risk is managed).
And why would these execs, professionals and wizards push for UBI? Thy would rather see everyone else starve than give up any of their compensation.
But where does that compensation originally come from?
Only care about instant gratification.
Most jobs in finance are middle-class jobs; Professor Reich is just expressing his optimism (i.e. that, in the end, folks will meander towards progress)...
Cause it equals more customers able to spend on their products.
UBI raises everyone's quality of living, and mental wellbeing, and productivity sores, so everyone makes more.
One could make the same argument for student debt relief - but the sentiment is far from universal (just ask around)...
Thank you, Robert. Two points:
1. The trouble is NOT the technology, it's WHO OWNS the technology. The super-rich are not our friends.
3. For fifty years, artificial intelligence was a respected scientific study, now it's only a marketing term for Wall Street pimps.
Bill Gates + Google. : https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/10/bill-gates-says-ai-like-chatgpt-is-the-most-important-innovation.html#:~:text=Artificial%20intelligence%20like%20ChatGPT%20will,health%20care%2C%20and%20in%20education.
For years I have been saying that Gates has the capacity to transform our society for the better, but has been spending more attention to other countries. I don't think he is evil, but he has a lock on technology that could have adverse secondary effects. IMHO this is part of his long term attempt to increase his world wide customer base. I wish he'd start with supporting the Social Security trust funds. Instead, he concentrates on others. Hope he doesn't get a tax benefit -- charity begins at home. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-is-paying-off-nigerias-polio-debt.html
Thanks for sharing. I now have a faint understanding of what ChatGPY means.
Finally! Thanks, Daniel. Malaria-stricken Africans don't shell out for computers. I've believed since Gates theoretically switched his primary focus from profits to philanthropy that he was sugar-coating an "attempt to increase his world wide customer base." I've never known anyone else to express the thought. His upbringing made his braided path natural, so did his marriage to a philanthropically-minded MS employee. However fruitful his efforts are—and they are—we can only fantasize what if MS, Apple, Oracle, and other major tech profits had heen heavily taxed and fairly distributed domestically.
Braided path -- marriage to philanthropy.
In the 1990s, the U.S. government sued Microsoft for trying to monopolize the personal computer market. The charges brought against the company involved sections of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which included laws designed by governments in order to ensure fair competition in the market. The court ruled that Microsoft violated parts of the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the company to break up into two entities. Microsoft appealed the decision, which was overturned.
A group of temporary employees sued, maintaining that they were actually permanent employees, not temporaries, and therefore deserved the same benefits as regular workers. The workers won in 2000. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/business/technology-temp-workers-at-microsoft-win-lawsuit.html#:~:text=Microsoft%20reached%20this%20settlement%2C%20one,same%20benefits%20as%20regular%20workers.
In March 2004, the EU ordered Microsoft to pay €497 million ($794 million or £381 million), the largest fine ever handed out by the EU at the time, in addition to the previous penalties, which included 120 days to divulge the server information and 90 days to produce a version of Windows without a Windows Media Player.
Gates' father was active in the ABA. He and Microsoft subsidized the "Lawyers' Conference," dedicated to furthering the rule of law and due process and supporting the mission of the Judicial Division. Gates' father's firm, K&L Gates was/is the biggest in the country. It was a merger with a Pittsburgh firm - and I knew many of the partners. I think their world view was based on protecting their proprietary interest.
Warren Buffett was a trustee of the Bill and Melinda Foundation. Gates says
"We started consulting experts, learning from locals in the countries where we wanted to work, and researching disease and poverty more deeply. We tried to figure out how we might use our voices to raise the visibility of global health, and how our resources could start saving and transforming lives.
"We also expanded our work in the United States from providing access to computers and the Internet to making sure that every student had an equal opportunity to learn, graduate, and succeed.
"As our commitment to our work grew, we transferred $20 billion of Microsoft stock to our foundation, making it the largest of its kind in the world. We devoted more and more time to its work until we were both doing it full-time. And when our good friend Warren Buffett donated much of his fortune to our foundation, it allowed us to raise our ambitions about taking on the toughest, most important problems.
Our foundation has spent $53.8 billion since 2000, and we think that’s helped our partners make a difference. How do we know? We are committed to measuring progress so we can see what’s working and what isn’t."
Meanwhile Gates had a partner - Paul Allen who had a worldview, and who was in essence in competition in the philanthropy arena. Allen has passed away, but he created an AI institute an also brain and cell replication institutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen
In the beginning, I was a volunteer beta tester for his Openscript project - the esperanto of computer programming languages- which he would offer to the public.
Gates was vocal that we do not have enough brainpower in this country. We had a staff attorney assigned to our H1B visa program whose office was covered floor to ceiling with files. All Microsoft. The situs of the job was Bremerton, Washington. This was an excuse so they could hire foreign computer programmers.
Of the companies mentioned, Apple most most of its operations to China.
IMHO investing $53.8 billion in incentives like the Child Tax Credit would have yielded 5x more in government revenues.
Fact: Child Tax Credit does not prevent children in the third world from dying of malaria or intestinal worms.
Nor does buying up Nigerian debt.
Should not be entitled to a tax deduction in the US.
Sure, "5x more in government revenues"... but that's not *precisely* the same thing as suggesting maximal "good" (yes, government capital is likely the most efficient - but it may only serve particular populations & also kills people using a monopoly on violence).
Speaking of bullshit...
The MS antitrust suit was one of the most thrilling cases that ever grabbed me, and in the U.S. court the most disappointing. (I chose to follow in the Seattle Times because of Jim Grimaldi's merciless reporting. He graduated at once to the WaPo, and finally to the WSJ, winning two Pulitzers en route.) Happy to have the particulars refreshed. Has David Boies won a case for the right side since then?
Allen seemed to be another kind of odd bird—a sort of recluse more devoted to a public good time than Bill, investing in pro sports and a Jimi Hendrix museum, etc. I didn't know of your Openscript project, which seems to be one more example. Fascinating goal. It's easy to fall in love with one language, something no pro can afford. Presumably, ultimately Openscript would be embedded in a chip, like Basic and Postscript.
Yeah, Gates and the other tech giants won't stop claiming this country's programmer supply is inadequate, which translates as too few U.S.-trained programmers want to work in the U.S. economy on developing-world wages.
Yes—Gates's father got mucho national press as a legal do-gooder; his mother (a working librarian, as I recall) had established her own reputation for philanthropy, didn't live to see Bill's evolve. Interesting, your take on the law firm's world view dominated by proprietary interests. I guess few form for eleemosynary purposes (to recall an old country lawyer's language). I don't think Buffet's association with the Gates organization has improved his image, or legacy. It's good that you brought up Gates's U.S. library charity, something I'd forgotten although I know plenty of people who benefited. He deserves credit for that even if it was self-serving, like Jobs's gifts to schools.
My sister in law was Allen's "ethicist."
IMHO he and Gates had the equivalent of sibling rivalry but he didn't have the benefit of the Gates family network.
This is the only link I could find for Openscript. https://winworldpc.com/product/toolbook/15
I knew a couple of Bill Sr's partners from my home town and my childhood. Dick Thornburg had been in that law firm. Thomas P. Johnson was the son of the richest woman in my home town, grandson of Thomas W. Phillips, as in Philips Petroleum, and she was a major benefactor of Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) and many affiliated colleges including Phillips Seminary and the now defunct Phillips University, Bartlesville, OK. Some of the judges I met from the state of Washington were officers of that church.
As I probably said previously, I am a strong supporter of the Social Gospel, which moved some of our robber barons like Andy Carnegie. I don't begrudge Gates' earning capacity, but I do believe that some things are part of the "commons."
To patent unrestricted AI is to patent God.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI
It's... sloppy... to suggest the "super-rich" *own* the technology (it is not a cake they can sit on, correctly): "OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory consisting of the non-profit OpenAI Incorporated (OpenAI Inc.) and its for-profit subsidiary corporation OpenAI Limited Partnership (OpenAI LP)."
Agreement about profuse use of terminology resulting in a term become meaningless jargon... but that's not logically equivalent to suggesting that such a thing doesn't belong to the public (Tucker Carlson & Fox News have debased public discourse - but the airwaves belong the public no differently than civil discourse).
I can’t see AI taking over bedside nursing in hospitals. The job changes too much day to day, and is too hands on with varying tasks. I won’t talk about the needed compassion coming from AI.
I do however notice fewer nurses are staying bedside nurses than ever. The new ones get their first job and already have a plan to go on to something else. Nurse practitioner, nurse anesthesia, nurse educator, management, etc. Hospitals keep piling more responsibility onto an already difficult job. I think this doesn’t help the situation of the nursing shortage. Covid didn’t help either. Nurses are doing more tasks support staff used to do because no one is working these jobs. Nurses give respiratory treatment’s (few respiratory therapist s) nurses are expected to do inter hospital transports for monitored patients (not enough acls emts) nurses are expected to do lab draws (not enough lab techs) hospital got rid of orderlies so we turn heavy patients and bring deceased to the morgue, they got rid of staff that clean iv pumps and poles on the weekends so nursing has to sanitize those on weekends when we run out or can’t find clean ones...the list goes on but you get the idea.
I guess if my job ever gets taken over by AI, they can just add more tasks without any pushback. For that reason I can see why big business will try and push for this in every industry possible. It just amplifies profits over patients.
Alex, that's why I left the profession in 1991- handwriting was on the wall, all about money with the business manager bean counters, patient care/staffing be damned. Sadly, a lot worse now.
Robots will replace you.
Or maybe there will be no more bedside nursing.
I’m so old I remember when doctors made house calls (GPs, anyway).
If robots replaced nurses, bedside nursing in a private room would be inefficient. Maybe private rooms will be replaced by the group wards that were common when I was a child. No more privacy.
Patients will be stored in racks and moved by forklifts... visit a "high-and-dry" boat storage yard to see this principle in action.
I LOL, but what a horrendous vision that is! Hope no hedge-funder-in-search-of-investment-ideas grabs on to that one, especially with the AI angle. Would be bad enough to have a robot nurse, but imagine what would be involved in fetching a patient for transport to x-ray.
Patients will be serviced by X-ray drones and medication drones.
Food will be meatballs fired to (at?) you from small AI-controlled compressed-air cannons. Have you ever been to Punkin' Chunkin'? Same principle, but with computers.
At nursing homes they still do -- to bill.
It may not take those jobs for a while.. But not everyone can even do those jobs.. So we cannot hope to employ everyone displaced by AI, on those kinds of jobs.
Interestingly, before last year, few saw AI coming to take the jobs of Artists. It was thought art would be one of the few places left it wouldn't, or at least would be one of the last.. Instead it ends up being one of the first. We really don't know what's gonna be replaced next, and that's another reason why everyone should get a UBI to fall back on, in the event it does.
I think AI has the potential to drive people even crazier than they currently are. I don’t know why I feel or think this way, I just do. Can you tell that this is me and not AI writing this? I can’t either. 😵💫
Yes, to drive people crazy, which is what they are probably seeking now subconsciously ...
People are naturally anxious -- it becomes an issue when anxiety affects activities of daily living.
What would the *AI* say if asked whether William Burke is a machine or a person?
UBI is worthless without generous and universal social services
The other component of "progress" with respect to AI is the management of existential risk (as UBI - and even universal social services - won't do a lot of good if democracy is subverted & humanity collapses).
AI brings us to a treacherous threshold; the labor market will be replaced in large chunks driving wages way down. This spiral can only be stopped. If we admit that only a socially conscious form of capitalism can save – let’s face it – humanity.
It's been happening your entire lifetime.
I didn't plan to vote for Andrew Yang, but his suggestion for a UBI of $10,000/year sounded good to me. I could have used that money. Of course, in this country, that went over like a lead balloon. It would have been easier to have trump elected king of the world for all eternity. But seriously, all absurdity aside, UBI will have to replace income for most people in the not too distant future. Jobs will be a thing of the past, a relic like an arrowhead. Most jobs will eventually be replaced by AI. There is no doubt about that. We might as well get used to it, and in fact, we might as well plan on it so that we won't be shocked and surprised like we were when so many jobs left this country during the 90s causing that huge sucking sound that the little dude from Texas talked about when he ran third party in 1992. There are so many changes that are coming our way that if we aren't ready for frequent and scary changes, life will be insanely hard, like it isn't now. I doubt that we will recognize life 50 years from now. I won't because I'll be long gone. UBI is just the most obvious and most recognizable. Whoever is here had better not let the wealthy business class run roughshod over the once vibrant working class that will soon disappear into the night.
I look at it as a fabulous opportunity that will give people the freedom to pursue their dreams, travel and enjoy life like never before. They will not be hogtied to some job that underpaid them and bored them shitless. I'm sorry I won't live to see it.
Implementation of UBI would be a welcome admission that the economy needs to work for everyone. Probably giving everyone $10K would quickly lead to price inflation thanks to the street rule called “charge whatever the market will bear.” If such a big inflation should occur, then price controls could be imposed — and finally the advantages of a managed capitalist economy will dawn on our legislators.
I agree. There is no logical reason for prices to rise because there's more money in an economy, other than pure greed on the part of business owners. I've been studying the phenomenon lately, and the consensus is that more money causes price increases. Why? Because it just does. The iron hand of capitalism is anything but perfect. It must be controlled. The Federal Reserve was devised to control the money supply, but it does a crude job. A modern economy must be managed to prevent the excesses of greed.
Soon AI collides with nineteenth century capitalism. The result will be hell on earth for all but a small elite. Why do we naively hope that our elites will cushion our fall into irrelevancy? That would violate the capitalist axiom: He who has the most gold wins.
I can attest to the social elite of the growing class of people who are technically superior to us common "folk". Our society is in a state of perpetual anxiety and how it is starting to effect the social moral direction. My daughter would be an example of the "new" class of professionals. In her 30's home paid for ,getting her Masters in Finance. Home paid for in Phoenix Az. . They are minimalist which is fine ,money saved. However her anxiety has gripped her that she will not stay in our home because it is too "cluttered. I consider it an upscale antique décor. Am retired so attended high end Estate sales for my various collection pieces. The point is she plans to visit but will stay in an Airbnb. Our home was comfortable enough to be raised in now it is off limits to come visit. We moved here because years ago our children would have been bussed to other schools to balance out the student ratio. Fast forward to today and look at your severe problems in our schools. Moved to country where deer walk by our windows not an ambulance screaming by for another shooting. So our society is evolving with no purpose other than try to live a decent life but with an underlining of deep anxiety that is not going away. Me 76 so have seen it all and deeply regret how "life" has changed.
Right now, companies use these bots so customers cannot contact them anymore. Recently tried to cxl an Air Asia flight. You cannot call or email anyone anymore at air Asia. All replaced by bots that cannot perform that function. Right now it’s just corporate criminality.
Amtrak pioneered computer-assisted-nonresponsiveness years ago. But airlines and Amazon have taken it to new heights.
“computer-assisted-nonresponsiveness” Brilliant.
Craig, experienced this with VRBO trip cancellation insurance after hurricane Ian- phone numbers led to bot voice with instructions that claim had to be filed on-line, requiring uploading info I didn't know how to do, wouldn't allow progressing to claim submission unless each preceding step was accomplished. I'll never get trip cancellation insurance again!
Referring to the USA only:
With the cost of living being vastly different depending on where one lives, and likely to change more quickly depending on the state of the climate (e.g., sea level rise, flooding, fires,)available work, food supplies etc., etc, etc., how will AI (I assume) decide, recalculate and transmit funds to banks or cut checks to people to meet their needs quickly enough? After all, many of us will no longer have a paycheck to fall back on. And since pensions have gone the way of the dinosaurs and investments will always be uncertain, what happens when people retire or are disabled? Will they be forced to rely on this universal basic income only at a time when they may have more needs? So many people are in that position now, living only on Social Security, and are one step from the streets.
What will happen when people get bored, unhappy, depressed and feel worthless? Demagogues will pop out of the woodwork, (Trump, anyone?) I fear that this shift to AI, and a universal basic income, without looking at, and planning for, the consequences will make January 6 look like a Sunday School picnic!
So, UBI for everyone. That means everyone will be unable to do anything other than the basic needs of life (God forbid there is inflation and people have to rely on the government to increase their wage before they are homeless). Forget about a middle class where you can work to get a better life...there will be no work for you to do. Will the UBI be the same for those in NYC as for those in a village in Alabama?
Universal Income is just a way to shut people up so they stay complacent with what they receive and expect no more. There is no incentive to do anything with your life. AI will go the way of Crypto....its just as phony and baseless. The mercenary monsters who created it will end up living sterile meaningless lives in their ivory towers. As far as I'm concerned I don't believe a word of your article as it was most likely written entirely by AI. F$ck microsoft and Google. That was written by me.
Two (2) SCOTUS opinions are pending on Google & Twitter's Section 230 get-out-of-liability-free cards. Do not expect anything sentinent from the BOT 9 except a Friday news dump in June.
“That was written by me.” Really? How are we supposed to know that for sure?😵💫
You don't know.....but all kidding aside I have no access to AI, I'm a nobody.
See Google but, do not 'respond' in any way nor "like" anything. Evercise all privacy rights if any are left.