Lunch at the Labs

Various web links I found to be of interest recently.

• Introducing the Slickest Con Artist of All Time

  Ted Gioia on ChatGPT

  Technology of this sort is designed to be a con - if the ancient Romans had invented ChatGPT, it would have told them that it's cool to conquer barbarians and sacrifice slaughtered bulls to the god Jupiter. Tech like this-truly made in the image of its human creator-can only feeds back what it learns from us. So we shouldn't be surprised if ChatGPT soaks up all the crap on the Internet, and compresses it into slick-talking crap of a few sentences. The slickness of the delivery is its major achievement. Gosh, it sounds so convincing, even when it's so wrong.And that's precisely how you know it's a confidence game.

• Americans Can't Consent to Companies' Use of Their Data

  They admit they don't understand it, say they're helpless to control it, and believe they're harmed when firms use their data -- making what companies do illegitimate.

  1. FACT: By law a travel site such as Expedia or Orbitz that compares prices on different airlines does not have to include the lowest airline prices. 72% don't know that; 49% of Americans admit they don't know.
  2. FACT: The Federal Health Insurance and Portability Act (HIPAA) does not stop apps that provide information about health - such as exercise and fertility apps - from selling data collected about the app users to marketers. 82% of Americans don't know; 45% admit they don't know.
  3. FACT: It is legal for an online store to charge people different prices depending on where they are located. 63% don't know, and 38% of Americans admit they don't know.
• The American Press Is Destroying Itself

  Matt Taibbi, Racket News

  They've conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it's established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" out loud to a data scientist fired from a research firm for - get this - retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!
  ...
  Now, this madness is coming for journalism. Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who'd made politically "problematic" editorial or social media decisions.

• The press versus the president, part one

  Columbia Journalism Review

  What follows is the story of Trump, Russia, and the press. Trump's attacks against media outlets and individual reporters are a well-known theme of his campaigns. But news outlets and watchdogs haven't been as forthright in examining their own Trump-Russia coverage, which includes serious flaws. Bob Woodward, of the Post, told me that news coverage of the Russia inquiry "wasn't handled well" and that he thought viewers and readers had been "cheated." He urged newsrooms to "walk down the painful road of introspection."

  More at The press versus the president, part two.

  Two days after the Senate announcement, Bob Woodward, appearing on Fox News, called the dossier a "garbage document" that "never should have" been part of an intelligence briefing. He later told me that the Post wasn't interested in his harsh criticism of the dossier. After his remarks on Fox, Woodward said he "reached out to people who covered this" at the paper, identifying them only generically as "reporters," to explain why he was so critical. Asked how they reacted, Woodward said: "To be honest, there was a lack of curiosity on the part of the people at the Post about what I had said, why I said this, and I accepted that and I didn't force it on anyone."

  And at, The press versus the president, part three, and The press versus the president, part four.

• Republican proposals will only make rich tax cheats richer

  Republicans' work to shield rich taxpayers has not been limited to defunding the IRS enforcement arm. Other than audits, the IRS has two vehicles to limit aggressive tax avoidance: information reporting and the threat of penalties. On both those fronts, Republicans have run interference for the wealthy.

• Why Stock Buybacks Are Dangerous for the Economy

  Harvard Business Review

  Even as the United States continues to experience its longest economic expansion since World War II, concern is growing that soaring corporate debt will make the economy susceptible to a contraction that could get out of control. The root cause of this concern is the trillions of dollars that major U.S. corporations have spent on open-market repurchases (aka "stock buybacks") since the financial crisis a decade ago. In 2018 alone, with corporate profits bolstered by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, companies in the S&P 500 Index did a combined $806 billion in buybacks, about $200 billion more than the previous record set in 2007. When companies do these buybacks, they deprive themselves of the liquidity that might help them cope when sales and profits decline in an economic downturn. Making matters worse, the proportion of buybacks funded by corporate bonds reached as high as 30% in both 2016 and 2017, according to JPMorgan Chase.

  At the very least the money should be used to increase the wages of workers and not increase the wealth of stock holders which worsens income inequality.

• The unintended consequences of COVID-19 vaccine policy

  why mandates, passports and restrictions may cause more harm than good.

  Mandating vaccination is one of the most powerful interventions in public health and should be used sparingly and carefully to uphold ethical norms and trust in institutions. We argue that current COVID-19 vaccine policies should be re-evaluated in light of the negative consequences that we outline. Leveraging empowering strategies based on trust and public consultation, and improving healthcare services and infrastructure, represent a more sustainable approach to optimising COVID-19 vaccination programmes and, more broadly, the health and well-being of the public.