LeCun says such talk is likely premature. When a departing OpenAI researcher in May talked up the need to learn how to control ultra-intelligent AI, LeCun pounced. “It seems to me that before ‘urgently figuring out how to control AI systems much smarter than us’ we need to have the beginning of a hint of a design for a system smarter than a house cat,” he replied on X.
He likes the cat metaphor. Felines, after all, have a mental model of the physical world, persistent memory, some reasoning ability and a capacity for planning, he says. None of these qualities are present in today’s “frontier” AIs, including those made by Meta itself.
Eric Boehm is correct: “Democrats refusing to say they’d accept a Trump victory aren’t helping.” A slice:
Anyone, including vice presidential candidates, has a right to express their opinions about the basic structure of America’s elections, of course. But Walz’s criticism of the proper constitutional mechanism for selecting a president sits awkwardly alongside the Democratic Party’s attempt to portray this election as a stand against Trump’s and Vance’s disregard for that same constitutional process.
Greg Weiner praises John Witherspoon’s understanding of the purpose of higher education. Here’s his conclusion:
Witherspoon’s students agitated for American independence. So did Witherspoon himself. But that wasn’t the purpose of the classroom. Instead it was the enduring nature of their education that prepared them to build a republic. Universities hoping to reclaim trust must do more than simply make political activism evenhanded. They must reclaim the pursuit of truth that alone justifies university education.
Juliette Sellgren talks with Jacob Levy about Hayek, Adam Smith, and social justice.
“We will make interest on car loans fully deductible,” Mr. Trump vowed at a rally in Detroit on Thursday. “This will stimulate massive domestic auto production and make car ownership dramatically more affordable for millions and millions of working American families.” This is the fanciful economics typical of Democrats.
Mr. Trump is trying to woo auto workers harmed by inflation and the Biden Administration’s electric-vehicle mandate. Higher car prices and interest rates are crimping sales. Car makers are laying off workers and cutting shifts amid slowing demand. They also need to cut costs to finance increasing EV production to meet government mandates.
A tax deduction for auto interest could reduce the cost of buying a car and boost demand in the short term. But it would also fuel higher prices and make cars less affordable over time. This is what has happened with the mortgage interest deduction. It’s another tax subsidy for debt and consumption, which the economy doesn’t need.
Ramesh Ponnuru decries Barack Obama’s contempt for voters.
Yet a small sub-culture of scientists and journalists who supported destructive policies like school closures and vaccine mandates continue to denigrate efforts to promote thoughtful debate about the pandemic. They fear an honest appraisal of these ideas.
Before the Stanford event, LA Times business writer Michael Hiltzik wrote a column asserting that the university was “throw[ing] a party for purveyors of misinformation and disinformation about Covid”. A San Francisco newspaper erroneously averred that the panellists were mostly “Fauci-hating anti-maskers”. And, Yale epidemiology professor Gregg Gonsalves claimed that “our top schools are embarrassing themselves” by even hosting a scientific conference.
A new generation of students (who lived through the harms of lockdowns and school closures) will increasingly see such smears for what they are: childish, ad hominem slurs.
Many are tired of the vapid arguments of ideologues and hungry for a return to the long-standing academic tradition of debate. University leaders are recognising this cultural hunger. Jonathan Levin, the new Stanford president, noted in his opening remarks at the conference that faculty and students alike should “join in the larger project of trying to make Stanford and other campuses forums for the type of robust and thoughtful discussion that is at the heart of universities when we’re at our best.”
