REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- November 6

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New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

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Saturday

Nov062010

The Commentariat -- November 6

President Obama speaks at a business roundtable in Mumbai:

President Obama in a New York Times op-ed, explains the goals of his trip to Asia: "... the more we export abroad, the more jobs we create in America.... It is for this reason that I set a goal of doubling America’s exports in the next five years. To do that, we need to find new customers in new markets for American-made goods. And some of the fastest-growing markets in the world are in Asia...."

Bob Herbert: Voters "long for leaders with a clear and compelling vision of a better America and a road map for getting there. That leadership has long been AWOL.... Tuesday’s outcome was the result of voters, still hungry for change, who either switched in anger from the Democrats to the Republicans or, out of a deep sense of disappointment, stayed home." ...

... WWHD? Dana Milbank: What would Hillary do? Milbank argues a President Hillary Clinton would have handled the jobs & housing crises better, though she also might have got us in more foreign entanglements. ...

... Hard Feelings. Jonathan Martin of Politico: "In the wake of the party’s worst election drubbing since 1994, the deep frustration felt by many centrist Democrats toward the White House and the national party is now out in the open. And it’s being aired in the battleground state that’s the biggest prize in presidential politics. Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a 'tone-deaf' Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign." ...

... Peter Nicholas of the Los Angeles Times: "Despite the historic defeat dealt to Democrats on Tuesday, President Obama appears to be resisting wholesale staff changes that would pry apart the circle of advisors he has relied on since the 2008 campaign."

Glenn Greenwald & Lawrence O'Donnell get into it on "Morning Joe":

... Greenwald, of course, follows up with a little column he titles, "Lawrence O'Donnell vehemently denies his own words."

New York Times Editorial Board: "In the most recent mortgage mess, the Obama administration has — oddly and disturbingly — been arguing that foreclosures are, in effect, good for the economy and should proceed apace as banks get their snarled paperwork in order.... They gloss over the question of whether families who were foreclosed upon were given a fair shot at keeping their homes." The Administration has done far too little to save homes from foreclosure.

Return of the Do-Nothing Congress. Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "Republicans are mapping an agenda for the new Congress that calls for a radical reduction in government spending, a hard-line stance against new taxes and a 'sustained' battle against federal regulators.... The path charted in the party's 'Pledge to America' and in a new blueprint released this week by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) ... is already stirring dissension among Republicans who say it doesn't go far enough."

Gail Collins on Mama Grizzlies. Really, ladies, we do not have to take responsibility for women who don't represent us. ...

... The point is not 'He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,' though that is true. -- Peggy Noonan, in her WSJ column. on Ronald Reagan, to Sarah Palin. Noonan doesn't like President Obama, either.

Editors of the Christian Science Monitor: voters in Florida & California approved measures to end gerrymandering. "In Florida, it took less than 24 hours for two members of Florida’s congressional delegation to challenge the newly approved redistricting rules in court. Tellingly, one plaintiff is a Democrat, the other, a Republican. Protecting incumbency is a bipartisan interest. Voters, if not politicians, want more competition. Let’s hope their desires are heard across the country and other states follow soon."

In the New York Times, Ted Widmer reproduces an account of how Abraham Lincoln spent election day 1860. The author of the account, a reporter named Samuel R. Weed, spent the day with Lincoln & took notes, but he did not write the report till 1882, & the New York Times did not publish that 1882 report till February 14, 1932. The Times report is reproduced as a ScribD file; unless your eyesight is really, really terrific, you'll have to switch to full screen, then zoom in some more.

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