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Can Anyone Be Trusted With AI?

To the editor; Commentary describing the benefits or the dangers of AI has become commonplace. Predictions for AI run the gamut from Utopian visions of a world where humans will have all needs taken care of by armies of robots directed by a benevolent AI to a cataclysmic future in which humans will be terminated by an all-powerful AI. On a less grand scale, pundits cannot decide whether AI will usher in a golden age of productivity for human labor or simply eliminate most human jobs causing catastrophic unemployment and extreme wealth inequality. If experts cannot reach a consensus about how AI is likely to …

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Less than three weeks to go. What do you mean, “until what?” Do we really have to specify? The suspense has us thinking back 82 years, when 156,116 men spent hours crammed into open boats, being knocked about by waves, and thinking—or trying not to think—about what was going to happen next. We’re not saying we’d rather be storming the beaches of Normandy, but waiting for the mid-term elections is challenging our equanimity. Fortunately we are dry and safe—and do we ever have distractions. Here’s one we didn’t see coming: The Man Who Need Not Be Named [TMWNNBN] has finally found someone in his administration …

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Volume 271, No. 3

Once again, thanks in large part to our small team of dedicated volunteers, thousands of copies of our conveniently-sized paper—small enough to pocket and pass on to another reader—are now available, for free, here in Portsmouth and environs. If you click here, our latest issue—the whole thing—in digital form, will appear more or less miraculously on the glassy face of whatever gadget into which you’re now peering.

Fri, Oct 16

2002—George W.[MD] Bush signs the law he demanded giving him permission to start an unprovoked war. 1973—Fred and Donald Trump are sued by the Justice Dept. for discriminating against minority renters. Their lawyer, Roy Cohn, countersues, claiming the victims are the Trumps. 1973—After Henry Kissinger gets the Nobel Peace Prize, Tom Lehrer declares political satire obsolete. 1968—Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise the Black Power salute. 1962—At breakfast, President John F. Kennedy finds he’s got a Cuban Missile Crisis on his plate. 1946—Inept Army MSgt. John C. Woods hangs ten Nazis at Nuremberg. Heads bash the trap; two choke for 14 minutes, Ribbentrop for 24. …

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Thurs, Oct 15

2008—The Dow loses 7.8 percent of its value in its 2nd worst day ever. 2004—Jon Stewart appears on CNN’s “Crossfire” and begs Tucker Carlson to “stop hurting America.” Less than 90 days later CNN announces the show is over. 1987—Socialist Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso and an opponent of the World Bank, is assassinated in a French-backed coup. 1969—In the U.S., two million march in the first Vietnam Moratorium. One demo in Boston draws 100,000. 1966—In Oakland, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale form the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. 1965—David Miller becomes the first American to publicly burn his draft card in Vietnam …

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Wed, Oct 14

2018—RIP, Emilio V. Maddaloni. 2011—Weeks after a U.S. drone smites his dad, a U.S. citizen in Yemen, Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, also a U.S. citizen, meets the same fate. Neither ever got a trial. 1984—KFBK in Sacramento replaces Morton Downey Jr., with someone even worse: Rush Limbaugh. 1976—The U.S., presided over by Gerald Ford, Republican, apologizes to Japan, offended by a Hiroshima re-enactment in which Paul Tibbets flew a B-29 over Harlingen, Texas, creating a [mock] mushroom cloud. 1968—Protestors in the Army’s Presidio stockade sit and sing “We Shall Overcome.” They’re charged with mutiny, which carries the death penalty. 1968—The Pentagon orders 24,000 troops back to …

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