“There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.”
—Leo Tolstoy, author
How to Use ChatGPT and Still Be a Good Person The New York Times
The New York Times: “The past few weeks have felt like a honeymoon phase for our relationship with tools powered by artificial intelligence.
Many of us have prodded ChatGPT, a chatbot that can generate responses with startlingly natural language, with tasks like writing stories about our pets, composing business proposals and coding software programs. At the same time, many have uploaded selfies to Lensa AI, an app that uses algorithms to transform ordinary photos into artistic renderings. Both debuted a few weeks ago. Like smartphones and social networks when they first emerged, A.I. feels fun and exciting.
Yet (and I’m sorry to be a buzzkill), as is always the case with new technology, there will be drawbacks, painful lessons and unintended consequences. People experimenting with ChatGPT were quick to realize that they could use the tool to win coding contests. Teachers have already caught their students using the bot to plagiarize essays.
And some women who uploaded their photos to Lensa received back renderings that felt sexualized and made them look skinnier, younger or even nude. We have reached a turning point with artificial intelligence, and now is a good time to pause and assess: How can we use these tools ethically and safely?..”
“To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose.” —Yoda in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Check out more of our favorite quotes by Master Yoda.
“You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, but you will love me later because I told you the truth.” —Mary J. Blige, singer and songwriter
For Kaiser therapists, the strike is over but the work goes on Sacramento News Review
Did Rail Strike Threat Matter? Just Maybe…Omaha Daily Record
How to Walk (12 miles a day) Chris Arnade
Final Episode- Adieu Mes Amis (podcast) Mike Duncan, Revolutions. 368 episodes, starting in 2013 (!). I highly recommended
Document: Report on Trump’s Tax Returns
- Ways and Means Committee report on Trump Taxes
- Joint Committee on Taxation summary of Trump’s returns.
- WSJ$ – Donald and Melania Trump Reported Negative Income In Four Years From 2015 Through 2020. “The Trumps paid some form of taxes every year, but paid $750 or less in income taxes in three of the six years.”
- Quartz – The IRS is accused of doing a half-baked job of auditing Trump’s controversial tax returns. The House Committee on Ways and Means painted a damning picture of the IRS’s oversight.
- See also ProPublica: The IRS Hasn’t Released Nearly Half a Million Nonprofit Tax Records. “According to a ProPublica review of public IRS data, which powers our Nonprofit Explorer database, the agency is behind on releasing nearly half a million tax records, known as Form 990s, for tax-exempt organizations. The delays, which began two years ago, are stymying access to key financial information that governments, the public and grantmakers use to evaluate the nation’s tax-exempt companies.”
- See also LawFare – House Democrats’ Report on Trump Taxes Highlights IRS’s Failures—and Their Own
- See also Washington Post – The House Ways and Means Committee will wait until after Christmas to gift the public Donald Trump’s tax returns
PC Mag: “This year saw the usual introduction of next-gen smartphones, laptops, operating systems, and smart home devices, with a few unique offerings thrown in there, too. But for all the innovative tech that made headlines or passed through our labs in 2022, there were just as many products and services that powered down for good