Why Are Americans Wrong About the Economy and How Texas Gerrymandering Silences a Black Community
Read More On My: How to Protect Ourselves from AI, The Joyful Porta Potty Dance, Ella Fitzgerald Sings
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Linus from Peanuts lays down some deep wisdom that will surely resonate with everyone.
The U.S. of AI: AI brings benefits and dangers. What we can do to protect ourselves from the dangers happening now.
Texas Gerrymandering Silences People of Color: After gerrymandering to suppress Black and Brown voters, Republicans justify their action in court. The gist is right out of The Godfather: “It ain't personal, it’s just business.”
This Is Why the Average Person Is Wrong About the Economy: A conservative New York Times columnist blames Biden for his $78 airport meal. An investigation found a different reason for the high price. And shocking misperceptions about the economy.
Kareem’s Video Break: African children dance with pure glee. You’ll want too.
Ella Fitzgerald sings “My Romance”: Is this the most romantic song ever? You decide.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand!!
Linus, Peanuts by Charles Schulz (See the comic strip here.)
That sentiment resonates deep inside many people. Most of us have a love of humanity. In theory. In our heads, humanity (the word “mankind” is too gender specific) is like that snow-dappled small town in Hallmark Christmas movies where everyone is quirky in an amusing and harmless way but would sacrifice everything to help a neighbor. That’s our fantasy of the humanity we want so desperately to love. But like any love story, there are obstacles before the final embrace. Those obstacles are individual people.
While most of us are working together as a community to shoulder that heavy boulder up the steep hill, there are individuals who are working against us. They pretend to push, but just splash water on their faces to look like they’re sweating. They argue that we’re pushing in the wrong direction: downhill is easier. They stand in front of the boulder, blocking progress. They declare that some people are entitled to watch while others, who are less worthy, should do all the hard labor.
While this is generally always true—some people suck—today, I’m especially thinking how each of these obstacles is represented by specific politicians. They make it hard to love humanity. Specifically, the far-right Republicans threatening to shut down the government if they don’t get their way on ending diversity in the military and supporting Ukraine against Russia, among other things. Millions of Americans will be catastrophically impacted by a government shutdown, but not so for these wealthy politicians. They are like street thugs demanding protection money from neighborhood businesses.
But that is the rock we push: staying committed to loving humanity despite the many loathsome members. The challenge of loving thy neighbor is that the neighbor may be a jerk who blasts death metal until 4 a.m. For me, I love what humanity is capable of when it listens to its better angels. For those who get in the way, well, sometimes they get left behind. Or rolled over.
The U.S. of AI?
AI Poses Both a Clear Danger and an Undeniable Boon: What Should We Do?
For many people, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like Chekhov’s loaded gun on the wall: it’s inevitable that sometime during the story it will go off. But will it go off in defense of an innocent person’s life, or will it be used to take an innocent person’s life? Or both?
The dangers of AI are clear: loss of jobs, the proliferation of misinformation to the public, undermining democracy, damaging education, social surveillance concerns, replacement of inspiring art with hackneyed manufactured “art,” etc. But the boon is undeniable: advancements in medicine, efficiency in data gathering, enhancing auto sensors to prevent accidents, and more.
Bottom line: AI is here to stay, so bellyaching about its dystopian potential will do no good. We need to learn how to adapt to it, control its application, and place safeguards that ensure as much protection as possible. It’s pretty much like the use of cars: We drive two tons of metal around daily that injures (5,400,00 per year) and kills (46,980 per year) people while also polluting the environment (1.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases per year). So, we adjust: we try to make cars as safe as possible and as environmentally friendly as possible. But we aren’t banning them.
We have to quit worrying about the dreaded Skynet scenario from Terminator and start focusing on each individual use of AI and how to oversee its use in our daily lives. Each application of AI has to be examined on an individual basis, weighing benefits versus damage, and laws governing each industry’s use of AI need to be enacted.
The EU has already established regulations regarding AI that make a lot of sense (“EU AI Act: first regulation on artificial intelligence”).
Let’s look at a few examples of AI use and abuse: