Is there a “Black Mirror with Tim Robinson” bingo card nobody told me about?
Melissa Lewis
@melissa.news
13.3K followers 1.1K following 675 posts
data reporter, Center for Investigative Reporting (@motherjones.com + @revealnews.org)
data reporter, Center for Investigative Reporting (@motherjones.com + @revealnews.org)
![In May 2016, billionaire Peter Thiel confirmed in an interview with The New York Times that he had paid $10 million in legal expenses to finance several lawsuits brought by others, including the lawsuit by Terry Bollea (Hogan) against Gawker Media. Thiel referred to his financial support of Bollea's case as "one of my greater philanthropic things that I've done."[84] Thiel was reportedly motivated by anger over a 2007 Gawker article that had outed him as gay.[85]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o5r6qogow4bhwr5b3xpr7h6l/bafkreig2lmydr4ahzzl62zdyrzgfo4xr3swgt3bn4a3x4xgzhm4kabpbcu)
![Pope and Buckley 1891 [1725] (without filtering stop words):
and the, d the, in the, of the, to the
After filtering stop words:
chaste queen, dear delight, dreary coast, royal youth, young orestes
Bryant 1871 (without filtering stop words):
in the, of the, the gods, the suitors, to the
After filtering stop words:
blue-eyed pallas, chief ulysses, pallas spake, prudent spake, seagirt ithaca
Butcher and Lang 1906 (without filtering stop words):
he was, his own, in the, of his, of the
After filtering stop words:
answered telemachus, even though, go back, minerva said, old woman](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o5r6qogow4bhwr5b3xpr7h6l/bafkreigittapjwtqv4mu6hq7qhdczugeuqwkm36x5y73hukpa2is2e7ruy)
![Post in the subreddit AskHistorians: How do I refute a holocaust denier?
[excerpt of the answer by username Georgy_K_Zhukov]
“The most important thing to understand is that Debating Holocaust Deniers plays into what they want. You will lose. Not because you're wrong of course but because they have no vested interest in being honest or correct. Satre's [sic] quote on antisemites is apt here (Denial being inherently antisemitic as it is premised on tropes of lying Jews):
‘Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.’”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o5r6qogow4bhwr5b3xpr7h6l/bafkreiexay4god45ze2mpvnphyiqc5l26vdekttsolfsp2xtgeix4bphwy)
![By contrast, AI brings none of its thoughts. It has nothing to contribute and, through generating no friction, can briefly give the illusion of perfect understanding. The danger is that a subset of people might be trained to choose this sort of interaction over an actual conversation. If AI is a horoscope it is a uniquely flattering one. We might prefer to have our own thoughts, inarticulacies and biases polished and reflected back to us. We might, as a result, grow frustrated with the give and take of traditional conversation in which we earn our right to talk through a promise of reciprocal attention.
I've highlighted the phrases "through generating no friction, [AI] can briefly give the illusion of perfect understanding" and "promise of reciprocal attention"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o5r6qogow4bhwr5b3xpr7h6l/bafkreicdassquezp3gmanduyrmehdtxnwhejzxuebm6rm7xuftxn4qtyiu)
![In addition to OpenAI’s deals with chipmakers, the ChatGPT maker is also eying a broad mix of financing vehicles to fund its infrastructure efforts. Friar said OpenAI is “looking for an ecosystem of banks [and] private equity” to support its ambitious plans. She also hinted at a role for the US government to “backstop, the guarantee that allows the financing to happen,” but did not elaborate on how this would work.
Asked for clarification, an OpenAI spokesperson said Friar was speaking in the context of the broader AI industry. There are currently no immediate plans about OpenAI pursuing a federal backstop, the spokesperson said.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o5r6qogow4bhwr5b3xpr7h6l/bafkreifnfnjdtjcyhkpjfo62zrog5qlewtmcnmjmvuihq7xj6jons77zde)
![The judge goes on to write that the case he is deciding is “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court.” He concludes that there was not an “ideological deportation policy” targeting pro-Palestine speech. Instead, there was something more sinister:
“[T]he intent of the Secretaries was more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o5r6qogow4bhwr5b3xpr7h6l/bafkreicu7dh57haibrrpo2vpxstp73bsoafp7kbrzfe2kpn6d6ygp6njta)
