
Chances always work two ways. Someone gives; someone else takes. But the risk is shared.
| Rachel Louise Snyder, Notes From a Formerly Unpromising Young Person
Killer Robots
In In Ukraine War, A.I. Begins Ushering In an Age of Killer Robots, Paul Mozur, Adam Satariano declare the debates about killer robots are mooted by the stark realities of the war in Ukraine:
The pressure to outthink the enemy, along with huge flows of investment, donations and government contracts, has turned Ukraine into a Silicon Valley for autonomous drones and other weaponry.
What the companies are creating is technology that makes human judgment about targeting and firing increasingly tangential. The widespread availability of off-the-shelf devices, easy-to-design software, powerful automation algorithms and specialized artificial intelligence microchips has pushed a deadly innovation race into uncharted territory, fueling a potential new era of killer robots.
The most advanced versions of the technology that allows drones and other machines to act autonomously have been made possible by deep learning, a form of A.I. that uses large amounts of data to identify patterns and make decisions. Deep learning has helped generate popular large language models, like OpenAI’s GPT-4, but it also helps make models interpret and respond in real time to video and camera footage. That means software that once helped a drone follow a snowboarder down a mountain can now become a deadly tool.
*In more than a dozen interviews with Ukrainian entrepreneurs, engineers and military units, a picture emerged of a near future when swarms of self-guided drones can coordinate attacks and machine guns with computer vision can automatically shoot down soldiers. More outlandish creations, like a hovering unmanned copter that wields machine guns, are also being developed.*
And then suddenly, they will be everywhere.
Ukraine has “made the logic brutally clear of why autonomous weapons have advantages,” said Stuart Russell, an A.I. scientist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has warned about the dangers of weaponized A.I. “There will be weapons of mass destruction that are cheap, scalable and easily available in arms markets all over the world.”
[…]
Groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross have pushed for legally binding rules that prohibit certain types of autonomous weapons, restrict the use of others and require a level of human control over decisions to use force.
For many in Ukraine, the debate is academic. They are outgunned and outmanned.
“We need to win first,” Mr. Fedorov, the minister of digital transformation, said. “To do that, we will do everything we can to introduce automation to its maximum to save the lives of our soldiers.”
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Immigration
I am struck by the fact that immigration critics do not send me cost-benefit studies, nor do they seem to commission them. If the case against immigration is so strong, why aren’t these studies created and then sent to me? You could have a good one for a few hundred thousand dollars, right? Instead, in my emails and the like, I receive a blizzard of negative emotion, and all sorts of anecdotal claims about how terrible various things are, but never a decent CBA. I take that to be endogenous. I think it is widely accepted that America having taken in the people who are now Italian-Americans would pass a cost-benefit test, even though the Mafia ruled New Jersey and Rhode Island for decades. Somehow people are less keen to apply this same kind of reasoning looking forward, though they are happy to regale you with tales of crimes by current immigrants.
| Tyler Cohen, How we should update our views on immigration
DEMbargo
Abigail E. Disney, a filmmaker who is an heir to the Disney fortune, said in an email exchange that Mr. Biden’s campaign and committees supporting it — including the Democratic National Committee, super PACs and nonprofit groups — “will not receive another dime from me until they bite the bullet and replace Biden at the top of the ticket.” Ms. Disney, who has been a major Democratic donor, added, “Biden is a good man who has served his country well, but the stakes are far too high to allow timidity to determine our course of action.”
Damon Lindelof, a Hollywood producer who has donated more than $115,000 to Democrats this election cycle and who attended Mr. Biden’s fund-raiser in Hollywood last month, published an essay in Deadline urging what he called a “DEMbargo” of Mr. Biden and other Democratic candidates until or unless Mr. Biden stands down. Mr. Lindelof said in a text-message exchange, “No one is eager to donate to anyone until the proverbial dust settles.”
The financial pressure campaign comes as Mr. Biden and his team have sought to reassure Democratic donors and officials that he is up to the task, privately telling key allies that he knows the coming days are crucial and acknowledging that he may not be able to salvage his candidacy.
| Kenneth P. Vogel, Theodore Schleifer, Lauren Hirsch, Major Democratic Donors Devise Plans to Pressure Biden to Step Aside
…
In One by One, the Reasons to Stick With Biden Are Failing, Michelle Cottle ticks off the arguments against booting Biden off the ticket, dispelling them one by one. And then:
Yes, Democrats are famous for being overreacting bed-wetters. And yet: Have you been listening to voters? Because they have been saying for quite a while now that they think Biden is too old. And continuing to lecture them that they are wrong is not a winning strategy, especially for a Democratic Party that frequently comes across as scoldy and condescending.
Which brings us to what may be the most damning attempted defense.
Yes, of course Democrats overwhelmingly picked Biden to be their nominee. He is the incumbent president, and that is generally how re-election campaigns work. But that makes this situation all the worse because many Americans feel misled about his physical and cognitive fitness. They suspect his team has been hiding important things from them. That is a truly destructive message to be sending a nation where trust in government and other institutions is already in the toilet.
So, yeah. I get all the concerns about easing Biden off the stage. I just can’t buy them anymore.