The moment I heard they were perfecting the self-driving car, it gave me very serious pause.
Maybe that's because in some essential way I don't trust handing over the decision-making process to a machine, even though I don't like driving all that much and even though the evidence is that self-driving cars would almost certainly result in fewer accidents and fewer deaths overall. There's just something very basic about the thechnology that I don't trust, and it may be the very same very basic thing in me that makes me especially concerned with protecting liberty and autonomy.
But I hadn't spent all that much time thinking about the details. It turns out others have---they must, if they're going to program these cars. And it's no surprise that there are some knotty ethical problems involved.
Here's one hypothetical:
Posted by Sarah Rumpf
on October 29, 201522 Comments
When Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton had an event in South Florida earlier this month, he Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) sent a staffer armed with a video camera and a devastatingly damaging question: "Can you name her accomplishments?"
On Wednesday, RPOF released a YouTube video showing Hillary supporters enthusiastically voicing their loyalty to her, but then stumbling when asked to name her top two accomplishments as either Secretary of State or when she represented New York in the Senate.
"To be honest with you, I'm not too sure," says one supporter. "I couldn't tell you," says another.
"Ummm, well, I'll be pretty honest with you, I didn't follow her very much when she was involved with those positions," says the third Hillary fan shown in the video compelled to "honest" about being unable to name any of her accomplishments.
The very few specific answers were not incredibly helpful, with one supporter mentioning that while he felt she had improved women's rights in the Middle East, the "worst thing" she had done as Secretary of State was "Benghazi," while his friend smirks and agrees.
Posted by Vijeta Uniyal
on October 29, 20151 Comment
India’s largest corporate house Reliance Industries has announced its plans to make big and long-term investments in Israel. Reliance Industries, a Fortune 500 Company owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is the largest private sector company in India with a market capitalisation of well over $40 billion.
Founded in 1966, Reliance Industries made its initial fortune in oil and natural gas sector. Recently, the company has invested billions of dollars in building a telecommunications network across India. The state-of-the-art nationwide cellular network build at the cost of estimated $15 billion opens new possibilities in retail, finance and healthcare. The company is looking for Israeli know-how and talent to fully exploit these possibilities, creating services for 100-200 million potential customers across the Indian sub-continent.
Talking to Israeli media, managing partner of the company’s venture capital arm GenNext, Vivek Rai Gupta said that his company was working to build a nationwide customer base and there would be “no limit” on company’s investment in Israel. Israeli financial news website Globes Einglish quoted Gupta saying:
"We want to hook up to the Israeli ecosystem, and to discover more innovative companies that can enhance the value of the cellular network whose deployment we're completing right now," GenNext managing partner Vivek Rai Gupta, currently visiting Israel, said in "Globes" interview. "The network [mobile network reaching 800 cities] we're setting up is only a pipeline, and we're looking for interesting things through which we can provide value for our users in India."
Mobile-based technology carries the promise of improving everyday life for millions of Indians living in rural and remotely accessible regions -- from proving healthcare, vocational education, banking to even coordinating disaster relief.
It turns out that instead of a snoozefest, the third debate was fascinating. And it was all thanks to the incredibly clear anti-GOP bias of CNBC.
What am I talking about? Group dynamics, that's what.
I've studied groups and I've run groups. Groups don't happen just because you get a bunch of people together in a room, even if they're sitting in a circle, holding hands and singing "Kumbaya." There comes a time in the life of a collection of people when they become a group, even if only temporarily---even a group of people that's pitted against each other in competition, like the candidates last night. If you give them a common enemy against which to unite, they sometimes become a group, and that's what happened Wednesday evening.
It took a little time. Even though the candidates knew they were in enemy territory with these moderators, I think even they were surprised at the extent of the bias and the sharpness of the "gotcha" questions. So it took a while to know how to react.
Trump had already called one question "not nicely asked," but Cruz was most definitely the leader, the first to go on a lengthy offensive against the moderators. And what an attack it was! Take a look:
Posted by Kemberlee Kaye
on October 29, 201510 Comments
I think it's safe to say we've reached peak primary with this one.
Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused fellow candidate Ben Carson of changing his position on abortion.
Posted by Mike LaChance
on October 29, 201537 Comments
If you watched the CNBC Republican primary debate last night and the political analysis that followed on FOX News or any other center right outlet, you know what a disaster the event was.
The moderators were so far left and openly combative that it was like watching a Republican debate moderated by the Democratic Party. CNBC's moderators succeeded in making CNN's Candy Crowley look fair and balanced.
Everyone who's familiar with John Harwood and CNBC had some idea it was going to go this way. Everyone except Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus. Following the debate, Priebus reacted harshly.
Ben Kamisar of The Hill:
RNC chief: 'CNBC should be ashamed'
Republicans are lashing out at CNBC over Wednesday's night's GOP debate, with the party's campaign chairman saying the network "should be ashamed" of how it was handled.
Posted by Amy Miller
on October 29, 201520 Comments
Trigger warning: hot takes!
Give our analyses a look, then take it to the comments...
Aleister:
The CNBC Republican debate was a dumpster fire from beginning to end.
John Harwood and the other moderators were openly hostile and argumentative to the candidates when they weren't encouraging the candidates to fight among themselves.
What a contrast to the respectful way CNN treated Democrats.
Speaking of the Democrats, were they asked any questions that would appeal to conservative viewers? I watched the Dem debate and I can't recall any.
Yet Republicans were asked about climate change and pot legalization.
Posted by Amy Miller
on October 28, 201536 Comments
Welcome to the main stage! Tonight's debate will feature...
Carly Fiorina
Jeb Bush
Donald Trump
Chris Christie
Ben Carson
Marco Rubio
Ted Cruz
Rand Paul
Mike Huckabee
John Kasich
CNBC, like Fox News, decided to put tonight's debate behind the "cable news subscriber" paywall. If you pay for cable and are away from your TV, you can log in and watch here. If you're not a subscriber, we'll do our best to post a full video of the debate as soon as some enterprising blogger makes it available on YouTube. In the mean time, you can follow all of the commentary and reaction on Twitter, right here:
Posted by William A. Jacobson
on October 28, 20157 Comments
On Monday night, October 26, 2015, The O'Reilly Factor ran a Watters' World segment with student-on-the-street interviews.
The highlight of the segment was that Cornell shut down Jesse Watters on air during student interviews.
Here is the segment.
I predicted that Cornell would experience the Streisand Effect, which is:
Posted by Amy Miller
on October 28, 201513 Comments
Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. Navy planned on sending a destroyer into disputed waters in the South China Sea. In the first of a series of missions, the USS Lassen would breach the 12-mile "buffer" zone around the man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago as a way of challenging China's belligerent assertions of sovereignty in those waters.
Today, China rebuked the US for this "freedom of navigation" patrol, protesting it as a form of harassment, and announced that they had "shadowed" the Lassen:
The U.S. destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, one of seven artificial islands built up by China in the past year.
Posted by William A. Jacobson
on October 28, 20155 Comments
Last year we highlighted a debate within the American Anthropological Association as to whether to boycott Israel, and how the anti-Israel activists had stacked the deck, Anti-Israel academic boycotters rig debate at American Anthropological Association.
That stacked deck recently resulted in a one-sided report calling for action against Israel, though a full boycott similar to what the American Studies Association adopted was only one of the potential actions discussed.
The ideological nature of the boycott push is clear in the Report, in which the authors explicitly applied a "settler colonialism" construct (see Report, starting at page 11), which is the prism through which boycott advocates view Israel itself (not just the "occupation" of the West Bank) as illegitimate:
... We found the “settler colonialism” frame suggested by many of our interlocutors to capture some aspects of the relationship of the Israeli government to Palestinians that concerned us and we present that frame first....
Posted by Kemberlee Kaye
on October 28, 201516 Comments
Consumers living in the country's fourth largest city will no longer be able to purchase an individual PPO.
Market changes sparked by implantation of Obamacare are putting the squeeze on the self-employed and those who purchase health insurance outside of a large employer sponsored PPO.
The Lone Star State's largest PPO provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas announced earlier this month that beginning in 2016, the would no longer offer individual PPO plans, though some enrolled in certain plans in 2010 might be grandfathered in.
Just yesterday, I received a notification from my health insurance provider that my plan, an HMO, would be cancelled.
Needing a break from the computer screen, I wandered out to the mailbox to find an “OPEN IMMEDIATELY, THE APOCALYPSE IS NIGH” envelope from my health insurance provider, tucked between the junk mail and a cooking magazine. Sure enough, it was a cancellation notice. Now, I too am a victim of Obamacare’s reign of insurance premium of terror.
Not to worry though. I can pay 20% more for less coverage and a deductible increase from $500 to $3250.
But my story is small potatoes compared to many families who are forced to watch in horror as their health insurance premiums triple and their deductibles multiply faster than rabbits.
The Obama administration acknowledged Monday that consumers would see health insurance premium increases across the board in 2016. They claim the average premium increases clocks in at 7.5%, though I have no idea where they’re getting these numbers. Don’t want to pay more? Then go back to the exchanges and shop around. You might pay less, but you’ll also have fewer benefits and higher deductibles.
Posted by Kemberlee Kaye
on October 28, 201516 Comments
Tonight, GOP Presidential contenders will duke it out on stage for the third time. How are the candidates preparing for this evening's verbal sparring?
Posted by Kemberlee Kaye
on October 28, 20155 Comments
For years, we have heard that that 1-in-4 or 1-in-5 college women are victims of rape or sexual assault. The studies behind the statistic tended to be agenda-driven and unscientific, but now according to hundreds of news stories, there’s a new, more comprehensive survey that confirms epidemic levels of sexual predation on campus. Could these researchers be right?
Posted by Mike LaChance
on October 28, 201521 Comments
Last week on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show, Hillary Clinton downplayed recent scandals at the Department of Veterans Affairs which resulted in the deaths of vets who were waiting for care.
Since then, a growing chorus is calling for Clinton to apologize. CNN reports:
Veterans' groups fire back at Clinton's VA comments
Some veterans groups are firing back after a comment Hillary Clinton made about the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal. The former secretary of state suggested in an interview late last week that the controversy which shook the VA last year was overblown, and Republicans used it to serve their own agenda.
"It's not been as widespread as it has been made out to be," Clinton said Friday on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" when asked about the scandal and how she would fix the VA.
Yet the federal government's own report contradicts Clinton's remarks.
