Category Archives: Free Press Issues

What Happened … and What’s Next at CNN?

Posted on by under Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

Well, Chris Licht lasted just over a year as CNN’s chairman and CEO, and now he’s standing in the unemployment line … okay, probably not, since his net worth is an estimated $15 million, but you get the picture.  What happened?  I think that Robert Reich explains it as well as anyone … and for the record, I never liked Licht or his goals, and nothing I ever read about him made me change my mind, so I just hope the head honchos at Warner Bros. Discovery choose more wisely next time … and bring back Brian Stelter and Don Lemon!!!

Goodbye, CNN’s Chris Licht. But what’s the lesson?

CNN sought to move to a “center” that no longer exists

By Robert Reich

07 June 2023

As I predicted yesterday, Chris Licht is out at CNN.

David Zaslav — CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN — delivered the news this morning to CNN staff, noting that Licht’s job “was never going to be easy” and that Licht had “poured his heart and soul into it.”

What should CNN or any other media enterprise learn from this debacle?

The lesson is that Licht’s goal of shifting CNN from anti-Trump confrontation toward an imagined political center was doomed from the start, because there is no longer a political center.

For years now — since Newt Gingrich took over the House in 1995 — Americans have been moving toward either authoritarianism or democracy.

The old political center of “liberal” Republicans like Jacob Javits and Nelson Rockefeller and “conservative” Democrats like Scoop Jackson and Joe Lieberman (and, some would say, Bill Clinton) has been disappearing.

Before Newt there had been stirrings of rightwing fascism — led by Father Coughlin, Huey Long, and Charles Lindbergh in the 1930s, Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, and by George Wallace, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew in the 1960s.

But Newt turned the growing anger of the non-college white working class into the beginnings of an authoritarian political movement that would undergird the Republican Party for the next thirty years.

By 2016, Donald Trump was helpful to anyone who still had trouble making the choice between authoritarianism and democracy. Trump required they take sides.

Chris Licht’s predecessor at CNN was Jeff Zucker, who understood that the only big pool of viewers available to CNN were those who still believed in democracy. Zucker competed mightily with MSNBC for them.

Trump was helpful to Zucker in the same way he was helpful to Americans who had trouble making the choice. Trump forced viewers to choose between Fox News and the alternative, thereby giving Zucker’s CNN a fitting nemesis.

CNN’s new management came along at a time of establishment confusion over whether the old political center would return after Trump. America’s business establishment — including Warner Bros Discovery billionaire John Malone — hoped it would. But that proved a pipe dream. The division between authoritarianism and democracy is now too deep. If anyone had any doubts, CNN’s Trump town hall should have erased them.

What especially confused Chris Licht and the rest of CNN’s management was the difference between being politically partisan, and standing up against authoritarian demagogues. They assumed that holding Trump accountable for what he did (and continues to do) was inconsistent with so-called “balanced journalism.” 

Wrong. It is not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy. That’s where CNN’s audience wanted — and presumably still wants — CNN to be.

That’s where most Americans want the nation to be.

Thoughts On The ‘F-Word’

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

It is only in the last month or two that I have discovered Joyce Vance and her writings.  Ms. Vance was a United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017. She was one of the first five U.S. Attorneys, and the first female U.S. Attorney, nominated by President Barack Obama.  She is intelligent, knowledgeable, and her writing is clear and concise.  She writes on Substack, which is where I first discovered her, and her latest piece is … chilling.

Can We Call It Fascism Yet?

Joyce Vance

02 June 2023

“Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers,” George Orwell wrote in 1944, “almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.” Although political scientists have crafted more precise definitions in the ensuing years, the enduring image of fascism is that of the hate-fueled bully.

In a September 2020 interview, Joe Biden called his then-opponent, Donald Trump, “sort of like [Joseph] Goebbels,” a reference to Hitler’s propaganda chief during the Nazi regime. “You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge,” Biden explained. One aspect of fascism is repeating the lie until your followers come to believe it, accepting it as an obvious truth, something Trump is the master of.

In 2018, Madeleine Albright said in an interview: “We can’t have a leader that feels that he is above the law. The law and the rule of law is the most essential part of a democratic system.” Trump subsequently advocated for his supporters to use violence but sent federal forces to curb Black Lives Matter protests in American cities. He used the nationalistic slogan “Make America Great Again” and aligned himself with Christian nationalist groups that have little to do with Christianity.

Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in advance of the 2020 election and tried to overthrow it after he lost, claiming it was rife with fraud—it wasn’t—while trying to install fake slates of electors to preempt duly elected ones and running an intimidation campaign against his own vice president to try and secure his cooperation. With the dismissal of his court cases and all his other plans coming apart, Trump tried to subvert DOJ and came close to installing as attorney general an unqualified environmental lawyer whose only credential was his willingness to throw the might of DOJ behind Trump’s claims of election fraud. It was a putsch attempt and Trump sulked like a child when it failed. Instead of ensuring a smooth transition to the new rightful president, he balked and obstructed and, apparently, took classified documents with him on the way out of the White House. He has continued ever since to act as a divisive force, motivated only by self-interest.

So reporting this week that Trump intends to target prosecutors and agents involved in the special counsel’s investigation of him if he regains the White House, identifying and firing them, comes as no surprise. But it seems to have mostly gotten lost in the shuffle of news about developments in the Mar-a-Lago case, despite the fact that it is equally deserving of our attention. Rolling Stone reported, “In recent months, the former president has asked close advisers, including at least one of his personal attorneys, if ‘we know’ all the names of senior FBI agents and Justice Department personnel who have worked on the federal probes into him. That’s according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it.” There you have it, the party of law and order, preparing to exact revenge on people pledged to work for law and order.

If law enforcement officials who are upholding their oaths to the Constitution and doing their job won’t be safe in a new Trump regime, then really, who will be? No one. Because in a country overtaken by a cult of personality, you never know on any given day when you’re going to run afoul of the leader’s whims. You could be the shop assistant who doesn’t have the right size shirt in stock or the chef whose meal Trump doesn’t like. You could be a grandchild’s teacher who gives an accurate but low grade. Really, you could be anyone. It doesn’t matter because once we install a leader who rejects a rule of law system of government in favor of one where all that matters are the momentary desires of the head of the cult, we are beyond the protections the law has traditionally offered people in this country from overreaching leaders. Trump has made abundantly clear his intent to dismantle that system if he gets another opportunity.

More from Rolling Stone’s reporting: “Trump has…privately discussed that should he return to the White House, it is imperative his new Department of Justice ‘quickly’ and ‘immediately’ purge the FBI and DOJ’s ranks of these officials and agents who’ve led the Trump-related criminal investigations, the sources recount. The ex-president has of course dubbed all such probes as illegitimate ‘witch hunts,’ and is now campaigning for the White House on a platform of ‘retribution’ and cleaning house.” Trump is the quintessential bully who doesn’t believe in the rule of law.

Trump has leveled specific criticism against FBI Director Chris Wray, his 2017 appointee, objecting to Wray’s failure to engage in a wholesale purge of people who are not loyal to Trump and threatening to fire him on his first day back in the White House if he wins in 2024. But Trump’s sights aren’t set exclusively on DOJ. He has gone beyond that, promising that top of the list for his revenge and retribution campaign against federal employees whose loyalty is to the Constitution, not Trump, is reinstituting “Schedule F.” Schedule F is an executive order that would make it much easier for him to fire federal employees across the executive branch, while also offering the ability to replace them with Trump loyalists (despite longstanding protections for civil servants against just this type of action).

From his earliest moments in office, Trump targeted employees whom he thought were insufficiently loyal to him, personally. The first one was then–FBI Director Jim Comey, who declined to give Trump the personal loyalty oath he sought, saying that his loyalty was to the Constitution. Comey was, of course, fired. The bookend at the conclusion of Trump’s presidency was his top cybersecurity official, Chris Krebs, who issued a statement calling the 2020 election “the most secure in American history” despite his boss’s claims of pervasive fraud. Trump fired Krebs on Twitter for contradicting The Big Lie.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s attention appears to have turned toward the Krebs firing, but it may have more to do with establishing Trump’s state of mind—proof he knew he’d lost in a fair election—than any new substantive lean in the direction of that investigation. It is nonetheless another significant marker on the path toward the possibility of an authoritarian America.

Personal loyalty oaths to the president aren’t how our country is supposed to work. Career federal employee jobs aren’t spoils of war for a president to hand out like party favors. There are political appointments like judgeships and executive agency leadership, but the folks who move the ship of state forward from administration to administration are career professionals. Like the prosecutors and agents temporarily detailed to special counsel investigations into Trump, they are supposed to have civil service protections. In a normal world, Trump would be unable to walk in and fire them. His plans to do so are sinister. Trump is threatening to fundamentally change the structure of our country so that it runs in a way that serves him and not the people. That, of course, describes Trump in a nutshell.

What’s still more sinister is that little, if any, attention is being paid to Trump’s clear intentions to lead us away from democracy if he gets another shot at the White House. Is it fascism yet? Even asking the question can draw criticism these days. But we have on our hand a bully who repeats his lies until they become accepted as fact, at least by his followers, and who eschews the rule of law in favor of personal loyalty to him. It’s a frightening picture for the future, a future it’s critical that we prevent.

We’re in this together,

Enemies of the Russian State

Posted on by under cartoons, Free Press Issues, Global Issues, Humour, Political commentary, Re-blogs

Poor Clay Jones … he has been inadvertantly left off of Putin’s “Enemies List” and he’s a bit down in the dumps about it, understandably. Perhaps ol’ Vlad never reads the political cartoons … probably can’t understand the ‘subtle’ humour, eh? Anyway … here’s what Clay has to say about it all …

claytoonz

I’m sad about not winning recognition this year. No, I’m not talking about my failure to even place in any journalism awards for 2022 (what do they know anyway, right?). I’m talking about failing to make Vladimir Putin’s enemy list.

At first, you might think I’m crazy. Why should I make Putin’s enemy list? I’m not sending drones to attack the Kremlin or Putin’s love pad. It’s not like I am at physical war with Russia or have any input on U.S. policy on the nation. It’s not like I can levy sanctions on Vladimir Putin. But when you see a lot of the names among the 500 Americans on the list, I have every right to be on it.

There are names that make sense, like Senior Director of Defense Affairs of the National Security Council Cara Abercrombie, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Charles Brown Jr…

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No Pony In This Show

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2024, Environmental Issues, Free Press Issues, Political commentary

I don’t care what Donald Trump has to say about the tentative debt ceiling agreement reached between President Biden and Kevin McCarthy, nor do I give a rat’s arse what Ron DeSantis thinks of it.  Neither of them are the president, neither are sitting in Congress, nor are they likely to be either.  They are, therefore, irrelevant to the discussion!  The unfortunate truth is that at this point, the only people whose opinions are relevant are the 535 members of Congress whose majority approval is required to pass this bill and save the nation from an extremely consequential default on its debt.

Is this a good bill?  Hell no!  The debt ceiling should have been lifted without consequence, without conditions.  The debt ceiling is simply the device that allows us to pay the debts we have already incurred through the years. Period. Budget negotiations are intended to be separate from paying the debt, but in this day of political polarization and obstructionism on one side of the aisle, that was not to be.  I am frustrated over the concessions that President Biden had to make, especially in three areas:  the environment, food stamp work requirements, and taxes/IRS funding. But, I realize that given the time frame and the crucial importance of raising the debt ceiling, there was no other viable option.  I would, if I were a member of Congress, voice my disgust, my protest, but I would vote for this bill, because the alternative would be so much worse … for everyone.

People like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are what I think of as pseudo-politicos because their actual understanding of governance, of how government is intended to operate, is nil.  Furthermore, they don’t care … they are politicians, not governors nor leaders in any sense of the word.  Their only focus is on winning the next election, on pulling the wool over the eyes of enough people with their lies and loud voices to gain or maintain a high-level office with its built-in power, privileges, and potential for greater wealth.  They need to shut up, but since they won’t, then the media needs to refuse to give them a voice.

I’ve said it so many times that I think I say it in my sleep: ‘Rights’ like the freedom of speech and freedom of the press, are always accompanied by responsibilities.  The responsibility of the press is to tell the truth, not to tell people what they want to hear, or what the politicians want them to hear, but instead to tell them what they need to hear:  the truth.  Nobody … NOBODY needs to hear what a twice-impeached former president posts on his private social media outlet.  And if Trump or DeSantis wish to campaign for next year’s election, then fine, but they need to keep their message one of what they plan if they should win, not weigh in on what is happening now that really is none of their business beyond the extent to which it is the business of us all. They have no pony in this show.

“Journalistic Malpractice” by The New York Times?

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

It would be a mistake to ignore the group No Labels, that our friend Annie has written about before. The group claims to be one thing, but in truth their motives are far less altruistic and far more dangerous than what they imply. We the People rely on a free press to keep us informed of facts … I’m not talking about Fox, NewsMax or the like, but about the established media such as The Washington Post and New York Times. Understandably, the “mainstream media” has shifted, since the popularity of the internet has veered people away from print media, and the media corporations do have to find a way to profit, however they still have a responsibility to the people. As The Washington Post’s motto reads: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Annie has once again written an excellent post on both the topic of No Labels and of the media’s responsibility (and sometimes failure) to We the People. Thank you for sharing your insights, Annie!

annieasksyou...

My status as a determined optimist—albeit a worrying optimist—is being sorely tested by that deceitful gang at No Labels who call themselves “centrist/moderates.” They are, in my opinion, as much a threat to democracy as Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or both.

And, not for the first time, the media is not doing its job.

I wrote about this faux-democratic campaign recently: “No Labels Is Up to No Good.” A quick recap: this organization–which refuses to disclose its donors–is launching a well-funded effort to get on the ballot in all fifty states, and focusing on the states Biden won in 2020.

Regardless of your feelings about Biden, the most likely result of this campaign will be the election of Donald J. Trump.

When I first wrote about No Labels last month, they were flirting with the idea of running what will essentially be a spoiler campaign, as they have no…

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CNN … The New Fox In Town 🦊

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Social commentary

Many, myself included, were appalled by the news that CNN would give Donald Trump more than an hour on prime time to spew his lies and hatred, which was exactly what he did.  For many years, CNN has been considered a reliable news source, but that all began to change last year with a change in ownership and management.  What started the network’s decline that culminated this week with their hosting of the wanna-be dictator?  Robert Reich gives us the lowdown on what happened … and is continuing to happen … over at CNN.

After last night, anyone still trust CNN?

Chris Licht is full of BS

Robert Reich

11 May 2023

 

Why in hell did CNN give Donald Trump a full hour of primetime television before an audience of ardent supporters who applauded every lie and laughed at every sexist insult?

The germ of an answer could be found last August, when Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, canceled Brian Stelter’s Sunday show, “Reliable Sources,” which had been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, rightwing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican party.

Licht also fired Stelter and his staff.

The show had been commercially successful. It was doing better than several of CNN’s primetime shows.

Around the same time, Licht told CNN staff they should stop referring to Donald Trump’s “big lie” because the phrase sounded like a Democratic party talking point. Licht also told the staff he wanted more “straight news reporting,” along with more conservative guests.

Why?

Follow the money. CNN’s new corporate overseer is Warner Brothers Discovery Inc, whose CEO is David Zaslav.

Zaslav has been pushing Licht to reposition CNN to be a network preferred by “everybody … Republicans, Democrats.”

But CNN was never going to be the network preferred by Republicans. Fox News has that sewn up.

Besides, facts, data and logic are no longer relevant to the Republican base.

The anti-democracy movement in America is among the biggest issues confronting America today. Is reporting on it considered “straight news” or “opinion?” Wouldn’t failing to report on it in a way that sounded alarms be a gross dereliction of duty?

How is it possible to report on Trump and not speak of the big lie, or say they’ve broken norms if not laws?

So, what’s motivating Zaslav? Keep following the money.

The leading shareholder in Warner Brothers Discovery is John Malone, a multibillionaire cable magnate. (Malone was a chief architect in the merger of Discovery and CNN.)

Malone describes himself as a “libertarian” although he travels in rightwing Republican circles. In 2005, he held 32% of the shares of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. He is on the board of directors of the Cato Institute. In 2017, he donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration.

Malone has said he wants CNN to be more like Fox News because, in his view, Fox News has “actual journalism”. Malone also wants the “news” portion of CNN to be “more centrist.”

It’s unlikely that Malone instructed Zaslav to tell Licht to fire Stelter. Power isn’t exercised that clumsily in large corporate media bureaucracies.

It’s more likely that Licht knew what Zaslav wanted, and Zaslav knew what Malone wanted. A source told Deadline’s Dominic Patten and Ted Johnson that even if Malone didn’t order Stelter’s ouster, “it sure represents his thinking.”

When you follow the money behind deeply irresponsible decisions at the power centers of America today, the road often leads to rightwing billionaires.

Last year, Stelter wrote in his newsletter that Malone’s comments about CNN “stoked fears that Discovery might stifle CNN journalists and steer away from calling out indecency and injustice.”

Last August, on his last show, Stelter said:

“It’s not partisan to stand up for decency and democracy and dialogue. It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues. It’s required. It’s patriotic. We must make sure we don’t give platforms to those who are lying to our faces.”

Precisely.

Sadly, there are still many in America – and not just billionaires like Malone – who believe that holding Trump accountable for what he has done (and continues to do) to this country is a form of partisanship, and that such partisanship has no place in so-called “balanced journalism”.

This belief is itself dangerous.

After I first criticized Licht for the direction he was pushing CNN, he phoned me. He was angry that I doubted his motives, and said he took the top job at CNN because he “believes in journalism.”

When I mentioned the particularly challenging time American journalism now finds itself — with Trump, most of the Republican Party, and most Republican candidates for office denying that the 2020 election was won by Joe Biden, thereby on the way to undermining America democracy – Licht agreed that it’s challenging. He said, emphatically, that this was why he is so deeply committed to restoring CNN’s credibility as an “unbiased” source of news that “people can feel they can trust.”

Well, Chris, after what you did last night, you can forget the public’s trust in CNN.

Rude, Obnoxious, Ignorant Liar — Volume MMCXIV

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I did not watch CNN’s “town hall” with Donald Trump last night, and frankly I’m glad I didn’t, for I might well have thrown something through my screen if I had, not to mention I probably would have thrown up.  I’ve read numerous accounts today, and it seems to me that Trump has nothing new to say … at all … but rather continues with the same ol’ schtick that has bored us to tears for years now.  Lies, lies, and more lies … ho hum.  I was incensed by his treatment of his host, Kaitlan Collins who he told at one point that she was “nasty”, and especially incensed by what he said about the woman he raped some years ago, E. Jean Carroll.  Do we really want to lower our standards to the point we would put something like him in charge of this nation yet again?  Did we learn nothing in the four years from 2017-2021???

Of all the analyses I’ve read, I think Taegan Goddard’s sums it up with the fewest words, and frankly it’s a waste of time to write or read many words about Trump, for he himself is like a broken record.  According to Taegan …

Some Thoughts on Trump’s Town Hall Event

Taegan Goddard

May 10, 2023

I did not expect much from tonight’s town hall event with Donald Trump.

But it was so much worse than I could have ever imagined.

Trump had complete control from the start. He pushed the Big Lie that he won the election during his very first response. Moderator Kaitlan Collins attempted to interject that “it was not a rigged election.” But Trump just responded by lying some more.

I think Collins did the best she could, but there’s only so much anyone can do in the face of Trump’s endless fire hose of disinformation. It’s impossible to fact check something like this in real time.

Furthermore, the idea that you can discuss something — anything — with Trump is crazy. He is indifferent to reality.

The town hall format made the night worse. Limiting the audience to Republican primary voters was a huge mistake. It allowed the crowd to cheer him and laugh at his jokes.

The crowd cheered along as Trump defended the Capitol riots and mocked E. Jean Carroll after he was found liable for sexual abusing her. They clapped when he endorsed the U.S. defaulting on its debt. He got applause when he said he would pardon the Capitol riots.

That said, I’m not sure it will help Trump in a general election campaign. The Biden campaign could make an entire library of attack ads just using video from tonight.

You may even see ads with this line as soon as tomorrow: “The fact that I was able to terminate Roe vs. Wade… I was so honored to have done it.”

But none of that makes up for CNN’s decision to host this event. It was deeply irresponsible to put this on live television.

One Tidbit And A Bunch O’ Toons

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Economic issues, Free Press Issues, guns, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

I have just one little tidbit of news, and some of the better political cartoons I’ve saved over the past week or so for your viewing pleasure!

Has the law finally caught up with Georgie-boy?

Yep, Representative George Santos, the Republican’s head liar, is in federal custody as I write this!  Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.  He has been charged by federal prosecutors with 13 counts of financial crimes including wire fraud (7 counts), money laundering (3 counts), stealing public funds (1 count) and lying in federal disclosure forms (2 counts).

But lest you think this is the end of his career in Congress … guess again!  Ol’ Kevin McCarthy says he can continue to hold his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives!  He says he obviously cannot serve on any committees but will still have a vote and retain his seat.  Stay tuned, for I’m sure this will get interesting.

And now for the ‘toons …

Do We Really Need Artificial Intelligence???

Posted on by under education, Free Press Issues, Social commentary, technology

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, quite frankly scares me.  It scares me in much the same way guns and nukes scare me, for while almost every tool ever invented was developed for a valuable purpose, every single one has also been used by evil people for evil purposes throughout the course of history.  When even the man who has been dubbed the “Godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, steps down from his lucrative position at Google so he can speak more freely about the potential dangers of advanced artificial intelligence, then yeah, I think we better all be leery.

Almost every tool invented since the beginning of humankind has been developed to fulfill a need, to make life easier or somehow better.  But looking back, every single tool that’s ever been invented by humans has also been used for nefarious purposes at one time or another.  The axe gave man the ability to chop down trees and chop wood for fires on which to cook his food and to keep his family warm.  It was also a tool for murder.  Cars were developed to make it easier for people to travel distances to work or to the market, and yet they have also been used to drive through a crowd of protestors or to run down a person because of the colour of their skin.  The internet?  Well, isn’t it great to be able to access information and stay in touch with loved ones with the click of a button, but how many times has it been used to spread false information or stoke widespread violence, causing far greater harm than could have been done with only a pencil or a telephone?  And the list is endless.  It seems that humankind will always find a way to misuse tools, to use them as implements to do harm rather than good.

Beware the latest technology!

I played around with AI just a bit a while back, found I had no use for it, and put it out of my mind … until recently.  At first, I thought it was a passing phase that people would have fun with for a while, using it to produce “art” and stories.  I worried a bit that journalists might start producing their stories using AI rather than their own skills, or that students would use it to write their term papers rather than actually spending hours at the library doing research, but I didn’t overthink it.  And then, last week I saw the article … a couple of them, actually, about the resignation from Google of Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” and his reason being that he wanted to be able to speak more freely about his concerns with the rapidly developing technology.  That got my attention.

So, what exactly are Mr. Hinton’s concerns?

“I’m just a scientist who suddenly realized that these things are getting smarter than us,” Hinton tells CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I want to sort of blow the whistle and say we should worry seriously about how we stop these things getting control over us.”

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us. I think they’re very close to it now and they will be much more intelligent than us in the future,” he tells MIT Technology Review. “How do we survive that?”

Hinton’s immediate concerns are that the internet will soon be flooded with fake text, pictures and videos that regular people won’t be able to distinguish from reality. But eventually, he says this technology could be used by humans to sway public opinion in wars or elections. He believes that A.I. could sidestep its restrictions and begin “manipulating people to do what it wants,” by learning how humans manipulate others.

He is also worried that A.I. technologies will in time upend the job market. Today, chatbots like ChatGPT tend to complement human workers, but they could replace paralegals, personal assistants, translators and others who handle rote tasks. “It takes away the drudge work,” he said. “It might take away more than that.”

This evening, I saw a short interview with Mr. Hinton on PBS that I think highlights some of both the positive and the negative aspects of the future contributions of this new technology.  It’s well worth 8 minutes of your time to watch if you haven’t already seen it.

Time will tell, but all efforts to contain AI, to ensure it is used only for good and not harm, will rely on humans to enact and implement safeguards in the form of laws, and just like regulating guns, I suspect regulating Artificial Intelligence will be determined by $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ rather than by conscience.

That Pesky First Amendment Scores Again!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Our friend Annie airs some of her frustrations with the “mainstream” media today, and I share her views. Ever since Chris Licht took over at CNN, the network has swapped truth-telling for leaning to the right of center, as is evidenced by their upcoming ‘town hall’ with the ignoble Donald Trump. But Annie also talks of the White House Correspondents Association dinner that was held last Sunday. She shares two great clips that are a must-see, and shares her views, again views with which I fully concur! Thank you, Annie, for this excellent post reminding us of just how crucial true freedom of the press is to our democracy … or what remains of it.

annieasksyou...

I am often critical of the mainstream media, whom I find too insensitive to the fragility of our democracy in their determination to present “both sides” of issues that often don’t have two sides.

For example, I’m more than frustrated with much of the coverage of the House Republicans’ willingness to throw our economy over the cliff if Biden doesn’t accept the demands of their most radical, irresponsible members.

Instead of focusing on the dangerous Republican behavior, reporters are asking: “Why doesn’t Biden just sit down with Kevin McCarthy and reach a deal?”

By a vote of 217-215, the House Republicans passed a dreadful bill, which McCarthy promised his most far right members would be the floor to any negotiations, leaving no room for a deal they knew would be unacceptable to the President and the Senate.

Oh, and another example of media irresponsibility is the incomprehensible CNN Town Hall…

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