prior probability

Is Al a scam, a potential genocidal maniac, a wizard with magical powers, or just meh? (See below.) What is your take on Al?

1. A.I. as scam. See Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, The AI con (Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, 26 June 2025): Bender and Hanna explain why A.I. in education simply leads to the perfunctory performance of educational tasks without the fulfillment of their original purpose: learning.
2. A.I. as magic. See Ethan Mollick, On working with wizards (Substack, 11 Sept. 2025): Mollick explains why the best A.I. models are now indistinguishable from magic.
3. A.I. as meh. See David Wallace-Wells, A.I. may be just kind of ordinary (N.Y. Times, 20 Aug. 2025): Wallace-Wells explains why A.I. is more like electricity or the Internet, once-revolutionary technologies that are now normal and taken for granted.
4. A.I. as genocidal maniac. See Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, Can we survive A.I.? (Sam Harris podcast, 16 Sept. 2025): Yudkowsky and Soares explain why A.I. will destroy the world.

That is the title of this erudite 68-page law review article by Eric R. Claeys, a law professor at George Mason University. (See also Professor Claeys’s book with the same title.) Alas, Professor Claeys makes no mention of the greatest theft of natural property rights of all time: the spring 2020 lockdown orders by State governments in the U.S. in response to the spread of the Wuhan virus.

Pam “The-Epstein-Client-List-Is-on-My-Desk” Bondi needs to divulge her law school transcripts so we can verify whether she is even qualified for the position of Attorney General. While discussing the assassination of Charlie Kirk on an episode of “The Katie Miller Podcast“, Bondi announced that hate speech is now a crime. It’s not; hate speech is protected speech under the First Amendment. More details are available here, via the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Franz Gürtner was Hitler’s first Minister of Justice from 1933 until his death in 1941. (He was also Justice Minister in the governments of Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher.) Among other things, Gürtner helped Hitler find legal justification for the Nazi’s repression of political dissidents. For more details about Gürtner’s role in justifying Adolf Hitler’s consolidation of power, see pp. 71-73 of the 2013 book The Law in Nazi Germany: Ideology, Opportunism, and the Perversion of Justice.

In addition to the Detroit Institute of Art, the Motown Museum, and the Fox Theater, my wife Sydjia and I also visited a hidden gem: the original Ford factory on Piquette Avenue (Wikipedia page here), the birthplace of the first mass-produced automobile, the revolutionary Ford Model T. In its heyday, Henry Ford’s historic factory employed over 1,000 workers (men and women!) from all over the world. Highly recommended! Our tour guide, Jerry Elmy, is a local treasure. (Among other things, we learned that the origins of such terms and phrases as cranky, self-starter, and want a lift? can be traced back to these first-generation cars.)

My wife Sydjia and I visited the Motown Museum on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit this past weekend. In honor of our visit, here is one of my all-time favorite Motown hits: the original 1967 version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell.

We also attended Jeezy’s concert at the Fox Theatre on Friday night (12 Sept. 2025). Below the fold is Jeezy’s “Tiny Desk” concert recorded on 21 Feb. 2024:

My wife Sydjia and I will be visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) later today. Among other things, we want to see the iconic “Detroit Industry Murals” by Mexican painter Diego Rivera.

Or to be more precise, what did Osama bin Laden’s evil 9/11 attack and George Bush’s knee-jerk “war on terror” response to this attack accomplish? I am tempted to say absolutely nothing, except lost lives, two pointless wars, and billions of wasted hours in security lines, so I asked Google Gemini this very question. Below the fold is the AI’s automated response to my query: