Archive for 2024

October 2, 2024

October 1, 2024

TO BE FAIR, WALZ PROVIDES A LOT TO LOOK SKEPTICAL ABOUT:

Related:

UPDATE (From Ed):

Posted at 10:19 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

FINALLY:

It’s been a long time coming: CBS’s Scott Pelley Loses a Fight Rigged in His Favor.

And since Dan Rather’s Rathergate implosion was a key mile marker pointing towards today’s result, note this Mediaite story from today: Dan Rather Rips His ‘Spineless’ Former Network for Refusing to Fact-Check During the VP Debate.

But only to fact check Vance, of course.

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather tore into his former network on Tuesday for refusing to fact-check its first vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.

In an article published to Substack, Rather predicted Vance would tell “more than one lie” during the debate, before adding, “Who’s going to fact check you? Well, apparently not CBS News.”

He continued:

Please allow me to pause here and say that I am always reluctant to criticize CBS News. I spent 45 years there. Loved every minute of it, even the worst times. I still pull for the important institution that it is, and for the many good people who work there.

With that as background, it is necessary to report and comment on the fact that CBS News has decided not to fact-check the candidates in real time. I would love to know what went into this decision, because it feels spineless, especially after ABC’s Linsey Davis and David Muir effectively and correctly fact-checked Trump during the debate with Kamala Harris.

Naturally, there is no mention of any aspect of RatherGate or why CBS is now Rather’s former network in the Mediaite piece.

UPDATE: So much for no “fact checking:” “And… they just cut Vance’s mic because he was fact-checking Margaret Brennan’s fact-check.”

Posted at 9:40 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 1st, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Come cheer up me lads, ’tis to blogging we steer, to add something new to this wonderful year.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

VANCE/WALZ DEBATE. Are these questions for real? The “moderators” just made a declarative statement about climate change to end their question, because they did not like that Vance had a good answer.

We had a deal. I pretend to believe the ruling class is legitimate, and they give provide me with a credible enough show that I can pretend their version of “democracy” isn’t a sham. Stop breaking the deal, aristos.

UPDATE: It’s only getting worse; even Vance told them to quit it.

Posted at 9:24 pm by Robert Shibley on Oct 1st, 2024

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: What can we learn from election prediction failures of the past?

These cases together remind us that error stalks even the most confident of forecasts and that elite opinion is not always astute or discerning. In such reminders, there is no small value.

Likewise, they emphasize that impressions, “vibrations” and polls signaling landslides can be unsound bases for forecasting outcomes of presidential elections, especially in these days of a polarized U.S. electorate.

They also reveal something about the appeal of prognostication despite the prospect that forecasts will often go sideways. Offering an election prediction implies that this time will be different, that this time the prediction won’t fail. But as these cases attest, that’s not necessarily so.

Hence the continued reminders to forswear all modalities of the cockiness.

Posted at 9:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 1st, 2024

DISPATCHES FROM OBAMA’S SECOND TERM:

Dispatches from Obama’s Third Term:

The world can’t handle his fourth term.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 1st, 2024

TIM WALZ, SO FAKE HE’S REAL:

Ryan claimed during the interview that the upcoming debate would prove an “interesting contrast” between the candidates.

“I think Tim Walz is a good contrast to JD Vance. There’s an authenticity there. There’s a realness there. There’s a likeability there,” Ryan said.

So real he lied abut his military rank, lied about his trip to Hong Kong, and basically made up his bio. Sure. “Realness.” “Authenticity.”

Posted at 8:54 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

THIS IS THE WAY:

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 1st, 2024

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Will artificial intelligence lead to greater appreciation of ‘working class’ jobs?

The professions we were discussing were accountancy and law, though the medical profession is most immediately at risk of losing work to robots: in diagnostics, prescription and surgery. AI in medicine is already in the news. But consider accountancy. At first the use of AI will come as a boon. Think of all the fairly mindless legwork, the retrieval of records, the processing of data, the assembling, charting, calculating and presentation of accounts; the discovery and reconciling of discrepancies. AI can do a lot of this. Important questions of inspection and judgment will remain (at least for the time being) the preserve of humans, and in the short term this will make accountancy a more stimulating job by removing much of the drudgery. But drudgery means time; and time, at present, means human labor. Look at what happened to bank clerks.

We should not assume that computers will automatically replace humans: they may compete with them. Might white–collar workers’ salary levels stagnate, for fear of being priced out of the number-crunching market by AI? How many small businesses could now manage without the services of an accountant unless the latter lower their fees?

Next, our conversation moved to the legal profession. One of us thought it will prove easier with AI to get a legal opinion cheaply; lawyers — able now to use AI themselves — may have to lower their fees. My own view is that researching possible precedents in case law may require a grasp of abstract reasoning not yet given to computers, but I may be wrong.

In summary, AI will be able — is already able — to remove millions of man-hours from a wide range of white-collar work, flooding the labor market with redundant human operatives. But what of tradesmen? Plumbing, heating, wiring, roofing, domestic repair and renovation? Housebuilding, electricians’ work, gardening, mowing, plastering, bricklaying, tiling, furniture removals, road-mending, ditch-digging, vehicle maintenance and repair? What of the catering trades, cooking and waiting-on-table? What of cleaners, nannies, nurses, hairdressers, roofers, bouncers, dustmen, foresters and dog-walkers?

As Glenn wrote in the New York Post in January: The white-collar class derided mass layoffs among the blue-collar workers. It’s about to feel their pain.

People losing their jobs to AI is just the tip of the iceberg.

In the next decade, lots more people — possibly (gulp) including professors like me — will be facing potential replacement by machines.

It turns out that using your brain and not your hands isn’t as good a move as it may have once seemed.

People who work with their hands have some advantages.

If you want something done in the material world, you still need people.

(I replaced a toilet seat some time back while pondering these issues and reflected that neither an AI nor a worker in Bangalore could have taken that job.)

A lot of young Americans, especially males, are forgoing traditional college to enter the trades, as welders, plumbers, HVAC technicians and the like.

That’s probably smart. AI won’t be able to replace those jobs.

As Brian Wang notes, robots probably will, one day — but that day is nowhere near as close.

There is however, one group of blue collar workers who may be talking themselves out of a job much quicker than they ever imagined:

The dockworkers are worried about the ports getting automated and losing their jobs in the long term. And reports indicate they want assurances that there will be a total ban on automation.

In other words, no robots when it comes to loading and unloading freight. That includes cranes, gates and moving containers.

Unfortunately, I’ve got bad news for these folks.

Automation and AI are coming whether they like it or not. The proverbial horse has left the barn.

If we were to ban automation at our ports, it would put the U.S. economy at a major competitive disadvantage. I doubt the Chinese are going to ban automation at their ports, for example.

The fact of the matter is AI is going to completely reshape our world in the months and years to come.

Unfortunately, plenty of companies – thousands of companies – will fail to adapt. They’ll be rendered completely obsolete as AI technology reshapes the business landscape.

AI technology will usher in sweeping societal changes… just like the personal computer, the internet, and the smartphone did. Only the changes this time will be even faster and more disruptive.

And robotic automation is one of them.

The reality is robots don’t sleep. They don’t take vacations. They never need a break. They’re more efficient. And they don’t go on strike, either.

Union bosses who mutter phrases such as “I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means. Nobody does,” could well be exponentially speeding up their men’s obsolescence, and not exactly building up John Henry levels of sympathy for them for when the inevitable happens:

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 1st, 2024

MY LATEST NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Adams is just the latest pol caught at the trough in the United States of Global Graft. “Mayor Adams’ corruption indictment involving the government of Turkey seems like weak tea compared to other recent scandals. But it also indicates just how intertwined America’s ruling class has become with foreign governments — and foreign money. Adams isn’t even the tip of the iceberg: He’s more like one of the little frozen chunks floating around it.”

Posted at 7:45 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

YEAH:

Posted at 7:22 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

LEADERSHIP:

Posted at 6:59 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY:

Posted at 6:56 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 1st, 2024

SPOILER: HARRIS ISN’T LEADING ANYTHING. THIS IS JUST ANOTHER STAGED PHOTO OP:

Posted at 4:51 pm by Stephen Green on Oct 1st, 2024
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »