April 24 2024
Free speech for me but not for thee
1 Senate passes bill that forces sale of TikTok
2 FTC bans noncompete contracts
3 University protests test free speech principles
4 Transition from search engines to AI underway
5 Lower income consumer’s finances deteriorate
Sports
4/24/1982 Jane Fonda’s first workout video released
see ad astra on x @greg_loving
1 Senate passes bill that forces sale of TikTok
The Senate passed a long-delayed $95.3 billion foreign-aid package sending much-needed ammunition and military equipment to beleaguered Ukrainian soldiers and fortifying Israel’s missile defense systems, while also forcing the sale of Chinese-controlled TikTok in the U.S. The 79-to-18 vote brought to a close months of wrenching debate over Ukraine that sharply split the Republican Party, with rank-and-file members openly rebelling against their leaders. The fight also called into question both how far the U.S. would go to defend the country, now in the third year of trying to repel Russia’s invasion, as well as America’s leadership role in the world.
On Saturday the US House of Representatives passed the bill that impacts TikTok. The US Senate will likely pass it Tuesday evening or Wednesday, and then Biden will sign into law. Of course it will challenged in court but this whole process may create corrosive uncertainty for creators, advertisers and employees and so the smart ones will hedge to other platforms and the TikTok business in the US and its valuation may be materially damaged, even if they eventually win the legal case.
Sinocism
2 FTC bans noncompete contracts
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday said employers could no longer, in most cases, stop their employees from going to work for rival companies.The sweeping action could help create jobs, raise wages and increase competition among businesses, the agency said. But the action is all but certain to be challenged in court by businesses that say they need to protect trade secrets and confidential information. The move bars contracts known as noncompetes, which prevent workers from leaving for a competitor for a certain amount of time, in most circumstances. Noncompetes cover about 30 million U.S. workers, the trade commission said, in a variety of jobs that include TV news producers, hairdressers, corporate executives and computer engineers. The commission has said the proposal would raise wages by forcing companies to compete harder for talent. It was approved in a 3-to-2 vote. Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson, both Republicans, voted against the measure.
3 University protests test free speech principles
University presidents are struggling with policing free speech on campus: specifically, how to deal with pro-Palestinian protests. After seeing timid responses by the heads of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania lead to those presidents being forced to step down a few months ago, leaders are now trying a tougher approach. They are in danger of over-correcting. The trigger for the latest troubles was the clearing by police of tents and protesters at Columbia on April 18th, and the arrest of more than a hundred students. This was an “alarming decision”, wrote Jameel Jaffer, from the university’s semi-independent free-speech centre, adding that “it was not evident to us how the encampment and protest posed such a danger” as to justify the escalation. According to the New York Police Department (nypd), the arrested protesters were peaceful and offered no resistance. “It was so scary,” says Layla Saliba, who saw the arrests. “All these cops just swarming everywhere and we had people in like full riot gear.” Within days another encampment sprang up on a nearby lawn.
4 Transition from search engines to AI underway
The web has become so interwoven with everyday life that it is easy to forget what an extraordinary accomplishment and treasure it is. In just a few decades, much of human knowledge has been collectively written up and made available to anyone with an internet connection. But all of this is coming to an end. The advent of AI threatens to destroy the complex online ecosystem that allows writers, artists, and other creators to reach human audiences. The arrival of generative-AI tools has introduced a voracious new consumer of writing. Large language models, or LLMs, are trained on massive troves of material—nearly the entire internet in some cases. They digest these data into an immeasurably complex network of probabilities, which enables them to synthesize seemingly new and intelligently created material; to write code, summarize documents, and answer direct questions in ways that can appear human. These LLMs have begun to disrupt the traditional relationship between writer and reader. A less obvious but even darker problem will also result from this shift. SEO will morph into LLMO: large-language-model optimization, the incipient industry of manipulating AI-generated material to serve clients’ interests. Companies will want generative-AI tools such as chatbots to prominently feature their brands (but only in favorable contexts); politicians will want the presentation of their agendas to be tailor-made for different audiences’ concerns and biases. Just as companies hire SEO consultants today, they will hire large-language-model optimizers to ensure that LLMs incorporate these preferences in their answers. As readers, we are already in the dark about how a chatbot makes its decisions, and we certainly will not know if the answers it supplies might have been manipulated.
Atlantic
5 Lower income consumer’s finances deteriorate
U.S. borrowers on lower incomes are increasingly struggling to keep up with their loan payments, according to recent data and bank executives, prompting banks to become more cautious about dishing out credit cards and car loans. A growing number of Americans have seen their savings dwindle as rising prices squeeze budgets while interest rates stay high, bankers and economists said. The deterioration in household finances for those earning less than $45,000 contrasts with financial resilience among those on higher incomes. Austan Goolsbee, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President, said on Friday that consumer delinquencies were one of the most concerning economic data points at the moment. “If the delinquency rate of consumer loans starts rising, that is often a leading indicator things are about to get worse," he said. First-time and low-income borrowers are experiencing higher default rates on their loans than people with larger incomes, said Arijit Roy, who runs the consumer business at U.S. Bancorp.
Sports
Caitlin Clark set to sign a new Nike deal valued at $28 million over 8 years
4/24/1982 Jane Fonda’s first workout video released
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