AI impact on jobs; Billionaires' shameless hypocrisy; Trump stuff

The BBC reports that an IMF analysis indicates AI will have a major impact on jobs:

AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says

Artificial intelligence is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs, according to a new analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva says "in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality".

Ms Georgieva adds that policymakers should address the "troubling trend" to "prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions". 

The IMF projects that the technology will affect just 26% of jobs in low-income countries. .... Ms Georgieva said "many of these countries don't have the infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the benefits of AI, raising the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality among nations".

Given American political dysfunction and authoritarian radical right ideology dead set against government trying to do anything about problems that any society faces in any country, we can expect little to no domestic or international movement on this developing matter. 

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One outspoken critic of former Harvard president Claudine Gay was billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Ackman ripped Gay for alleged plagiarism that was found in her PhD dissertation thesis (and for her inadequate response to questions about anti-Semitism at Harvard before a congressional committee). Gay failed to cite the source of several passages in her thesis. 

Ackman’s outspokenness drew some attention to him, and then his wife Neri Oxman. Business Insider (BI) published allegations that Oxman had plagiarised parts of her PhD dissertation. The WaPo commented on the kerfuffle:

Early this month, Business Insider published two stories that alleged that Neri Oxman, a former MIT professor, had plagiarized some of her work, such as by taking information from Wikipedia articles to write her dissertation. The stories came after her husband, the hedge fund manager Ackman, pushed Harvard University to oust then-President Claudine Gay over concerns that she had mishandled student protests and committed plagiarism in her career. Gay resigned on Jan. 2.

Ackman flew into a snit but, unlike the way other billionaires express their displeasure about inconvenient reporting, he publicly said what he did to try to force BI to retract the stories about his wife’s plagiarism. Axios reported:

Bill Ackman, a hard-charging hedge fund manager, is typical in terms of how he behaves about publication of stories they don’t like. Where he’s not typical is in his willingness to be open about what he did:

When the "Neri Oxman admits to plagiarism story" broke, I reached out to a board member I knew at BI, and to its controlling shareholders, the co-ceos of KKR, and to Mathias Döpfner, the Chairman and CEO of [parent company] Axel Springer. I assumed that with a call or two, I would be able to convince BI or AS to suspend the stories.

BI is Business Insider, a publication that reported accurately that Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman (an Israeli), admitted to instances of plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation (she failed to put quote marks around several copied passages). KKR is a major shareholder in Axel Springer (AS), which owns BI. Ackman’s assumption was that because Springer owns BI, he could bully them into taking down the story, overriding BI’s editor-in-chief. Oxman’s mea culpa:

Oops, forgot the quote marks,

my bad

Reality check: While it’s true that hedge fund managers often find it easier to talk to CEOs than to editors, it’s incredibly rare for a CEO to override an editor.

Tom Glocer, a former CEO of Thomson Reuters, tells Axios that “I was contacted multiple times (by disgruntled hedge fund managers in particular) when Reuters wrote something less than the adoring hagiography they sought.”

“My standard playbook was to refer the complaint directly to the editor in chief, to let the EIC call the complainant directly, and to remind that person of our separation of church and state.”

The bottom line: Ackman was not being realistic in his assumptions. But he had something of a tailwind because he's Jewish; he was accusing BI of anti-Semitism; and Springer is strongly and explicitly pro-Israel.

Arrogant billionaires like Ackman are the ones often calling the shots about all kinds of things. They buy congress and candidates who will serve them, usually at our expense. Hypocrisy does not faze them any more than corruption does. Getting their way and telling their version of often fake reality is what they expect, demand and often get. Axios implicitly posits billionaire influence on reporting as it being incredibly rare for a CEO to override an editor.

I’m not sure it is incredibly rare for billionaires to influence reporting. Look at Faux News and the rest of the authoritarian radical right propaganda and slanders Leviathan. I suspect elite influence on reporting happens quote a lot. Maybe EICs don’t see a lot of elite complaints because elite political and economic pressure can be exerted in many ways. Maybe the rule is billionaires influence reporting more often than they don’t.

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As commented on here yesterday, various sources are reporting about DJT lying to the court: 

Trump called a judge a 'bad person' for not allowing him to travel for a funeral. His calendar says he’s got a campaign event that day. .... Donald Trump requested the trial date for E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial be postponed. He said he would be traveling on Wednesday to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral. His campaign website shows he’ll be in New Hampshire at a campaign rally that evening.

Bad judge, bad, bad judge! That’ll teach that judge a thing or two. /s

But who knows, maybe DJT will blow the court off and go to the funeral to prove he wasn’t lying about planning to attend. But even if he did that, it’s still not believable as anything other than a forced change in his political theater agenda. The controlling rule of thumb:

Known chronic liars don’t get any credibility or benefit of any doubt.

Vote for DJT damnit, even if it kills you: The Hill reports on DJT’s inspiring call to arms in Iowa today:

Former President Trump encouraged his Iowa supporters to caucus for him at any cost, joking that due to extreme winter weather, “even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.”

Meteorologists warned of “life-threatening” conditions in Iowa for the weekend as the state prepares to caucus. Trump canceled three of his four in-person Iowa events Sunday due to the freezing cold and snow.  

“You can’t sit home. If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘Darling, I gotta make it,’” Trump said at an Indianola rally on Sunday. “Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it, remember.”

That speaks for itself. And, he wasn't joking. Remember the rule of thumb stated above.

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From the Feisty Republican Politicians Files:

MLK Was An Inferior Pastor And ‘Communist,’ 

Said Top GOP Candidate For N.C. Governor

In unearthed Facebook posts, Mark Robinson also called the civil rights movement “crap” and vowed to work on MLK Day because he’s “not a leach.”

Martin Luther King Jr. was just an “ersatz pastor” and a “communist,” and the 1960s civil rights movement was “crap,” according to a series of Facebook posts by Mark Robinson, the leading Republican candidate to be North Carolina’s next governor.

Robinson, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, regularly criticized King and the civil rights movement for years on Facebook ― specifically on MLK Day ― HuffPost found amid a review of his posts. The Black politician also downplayed slavery, rejected the idea that he’s part of the African American community, and attacked the late congressman and civil rights icon, John Lewis.

There we have it civil liberties fans. At least some elite authoritarian, radical right GOP leaches think that civil rights are crap and working on MLK Day prevents one from being a leach. What a bunch of feisty, slandering parasite hypocrites.