Episode 1176
Bars, mid-pandemic.
May 14 2020
What AI hype does it gives the idea that these things are more than what they are. What they are are these text extrusion machines and so that’s important to point out. And so pointing out that the emperor wears no clothes is a very important step. From what we call this on the podcast is using ridicule as praxis. As a way of showing that this is not some incredible new technology. It’s a massive carbon sink that has terrible environmental implications based on stolen work and relying on exploitative labor conditions. Pointing it out that it’s not that impressive. It is mid. So the outputs are bad of in themselves. And then there is the question of power. How do we fight back against this?
Dr. Emily M. Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna, come on the show to talk about their new book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want” published by LitHub. The book tackles the pitfalls of AI and why it’s so crucial to understand the capitalist greed that is manipulating AI behind the scenes.
A new installment of “This Week In Rotten History” from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview.
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Itamar Mann
May 20
Overbroad Antisemitism Definitions Discipline the Jewish Diaspora / Lihi Yona & Itamar Mann
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Apr 30 2020
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Welcome the Moment of Truth, and the conclusion of the 4-part semi-fictional expose of one doctor’s degradation from healer to heel.
Fame was taking our Odd Couple for a lovely jaunt. Dr. Dave made guest appearances on sitcoms, and Mel was jobbed into a number of cable network talent exhibits. About the time Mel started doing the “Big Balls Show” on MTV alongside fellow thinly-disguised fictional standup, Kimmy Jimmel, he began adopting a definitively rightwing stance on issues about which he had no business opining.
Mel: What is it about the Middle East that causes people to be violent, do you think? Dave. Is it something in the soil? Is it –
Dave: (sarcastically) No, it’s two hundred years of oppression by the West, that’s what the liberal, the politically correct —
Mel: – is it the humus? The babaganoush? The crappy music? What is it?
Well, what are you implying, Mel and Dr. Dave? Is it just that dark people on the other side of the world have more violence in their blood or genes? Is it their religion? Their swarthiness? Middle East experts and armchair scholars alike knew that the region had been carved to pieces and raped by the colonizing powers, and the CIA had, as recently as 1953, overthrown the elected Mossedegh government in Iran to install the Shah, and were – even as Dave and Mel were busy disparaging knowledge – continuing their manipulations of peoples, their propping up of dictators, and facilitating when not outright committing the murders of political leaders in the region. The West was not an innocent observer. Radios could be heard across the nation being smashed in fury.
This was no longer a “hip” sex advice show slipping common-sense abstinence, monogamy, condom-wearing, and heterosexual-leaning advice “under the radar.” This was a couple of media figures peddling naked rightwing racist and corporatist propaganda.
And that’s how Dr. Dave finally found his ideological home in the Fox News milieu.
He tried to make it as an actor, no one knows why – I guess he figured if a rightwing toady like Ben Stein could do it, so could he – but someone who’s handsome because there’s nothing wrong with him isn’t a particularly memorable face. Safer to build on his brand as the new, less repulsive Dr. Laura (not fictional. Why keep up the pretense?). And that’s exactly what he... read more