How Authoritarians Will Use AI
Plus: Stella and the Regulators
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ART KLEINER: How Authoritarians Will Use AI.
CLEARVIEW, A BIOMETRIC DATA COMPANY, launched its facial recognition systems in 2017, offering a free trial to police departments. By 2020, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, the Los Angeles and Chicago police departments, and many Canadian police departments all refused to use Clearview technology within their jurisdictions, and with good reason. They saw the risk—to their constituents, their reputations, and their own ability to withstand the temptations of power.
“For practical applications, Clearview AI was all the rage,” said Peter Sloly, former chief of the Ottawa Police Service, in an interview for The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles of Responsible Technology, which I coauthored with Juliette Powell. “But police chiefs actually held themselves in check and voluntarily put it back on the shelf. The police decided they shouldn’t have it, let alone use it.”
🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧
Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Ben Wittes: Putin’s Cheerleaders [Ad-Free🔐]
Just Between Us: Putin Murders Navalny, MAGA Smirks 🔐
Beg to Differ: Should Democrats Dump Biden? [Ad-Free🔐]
Secret Podcast: Genuine Patriots and Useful Idiots 🔐
Thursday Night Bulwark: Bulwar Principles [Video] 🔐
ATMA 🎧: Has Film Criticism Gotten too Stale? 🔐
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BILL LUEDERS: Stella and the Regulators.
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT regulators—you know, the people whose job it is to keep the rest of us safe by making sure standards are in place and violators are held to account. Regulators are often maligned, as though their only purpose is to gleefully complicate and obstruct. Promises to eliminate red tape are politically popular, even when doing so is demonstrably foolish.
CATHY YOUNG: The Greatest 20th-Century Russian Novel Finally Gets a Film Version Worthy of It.
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV’S CULT NOVEL The Master and Margarita, published in two issues of the literary magazine Moskva in 1966 and 1967—a quarter century after the author’s death, and after a long and hard battle with censors—had an electrifying effect on the Soviet reading public in the increasingly repressive climate that followed the removal of Nikita Khrushchev. Despite cuts eliminating or mutilating the most heretical passages, the novel’s principal themes, including the crushing of literature by ideological diktat and the constant chill of fear amid the omnipresence of the secret police, remained resonant and defiant. Now, a new film version seems to be having a similar bombshell effect under a new, post-Soviet repressive regime, in Vladimir Putin’s wartime Russia.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Friday! The Biden campaign hit Donald Trump with a new ad about NATO. It’s a little wonky, but still, compelling. This, however, would make a great, succinct, ad.
Look what AI can do for video… It’s beautiful, but horrifying when you think about it. Though, the new Billy Joel music video is nice, I guess. Here’s Dan Shipper at Every on How Sora Works (And What It Means).
Brother, can you spare $350+Million? Donald Trump’s monetary crunch is on the horizon after today’s ruling. Can Lara Trump use her experience at the family car wash to turn the RNC into a cash cow?
Good for Nancy Pelosi… for pressing charges against CODE PINK after they did this.
‘Personnel changes’ coming to Virginia GOP… after post attacking House Speaker (VA Mercury.)
A now-indicted FBI informant was at the 'heart'… of the GOP's case against Joe Biden (NBC News). One wonders: Will Ted Cruz be issuing any corrections?
Marc Caputo joins Greg Sargent… On The New Republic podcast to talk about the MAGA takeover of the RNC.
"You're not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong." A moving clip from the CNN ‘Navalny’ documentary.
Another reason to fire Rob Manfred early... The new Nike uniforms? Players hate them. (This fan does, too, and remembers the time Nike came for hockey with similar results.)
The final repudiation… of ‘2000 Mules’ (WaPo).
"Elon, I've repeatedly declined to criticize you." MAGA star journo Matt Taibbi, everybody. Apparently, Elon is not happy about Substack? (He just got a horseshoe theory award, my YAF alumni magazine informs.)
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