The other night, after picking me up in the middle of a light rainstorm on Bernal Hill, my friendly Lyft driver told me his life story.
He’d grown up in Prague, relocated here years ago, learned to drive a car, now lives with his wife and 16-year-old son in American Canyon, which is on the edge of the Bay Area, has a sister in Pleasanton, and plans to visit Prague next summer, where he has two brothers and his mother, who is 77 and in too poor health to make the journey over here.
It was near midnight as he was telling me all of this, and the traffic was light as we crossed the Bay Bridge.
It’s smooth sailing,” he observed cheerily, glancing both at his GPS screen and the road ahead.
He was curious about me so I filled him in on the details of my life. The rain intensified.
As we reached a spot a few exits from mine the traffic suddenly slowed into a sea of brake lights, including a few flashing ones far ahead.
“Oh oh,” he said. “I did not see this coming.”
***
As I sort and collate the news day after day, frequently I see warning signs flashing like emergency vehicles on our route ahead toward a common future.
There’s the Mideast War.
Also, a key judge in the Jan. 6th cases warns that we are seriously close to losing our democracy and ending up with an authoritarian future instead. (Politico)
That threat comes as soon as next year with the 2024 presidential election.
Then there are the longer-term threats posed by climate change and artificial intelligence. Even if we can grasp the nature of those risks, it is hard currently to imagine any solutions.
Meanwhile, sitting the backseat of my Czech river’s car, I tried to imagine how he could elude the traffic mess ahead.
Not to worry. He skillfully navigated his way through the lanes crammed with stopped vehicles to an exit off-ramp and continued overland to my home, dropped me off and returned into the night.
I thanked him and said goodbye, went inside, got into bed and thought about all of those other flashing red lights in the news listed below.
We are going to need all of our combined skill and effort to find the exit ramps from those dangers.
HEADLINES:
More hostages released as Israel-Hamas truce deadline approaches (CNN)
Henry A. Kissinger, 1923-2023 (WSJ)
More hostages to be freed; Israel expects to further extend pause in combat (WP)
US says it foiled alleged plot to assassinate Sikh activist in New York (BBC)
Trump targets Judge Arthur Engoron's wife on Truth Social (Salon)
‘Damning’: New Pence notes point to GOP senator's role in Jan. 6 plot (MSNBC)
Nikki Haley's getting buzz, but faces tough math to beat Trump (Reuters)
The US economy grew by 5.2% in the third quarter, even faster than previously estimated (CNN)
Judge key to Jan. 6 cases warns US faces ‘authoritarian’ threat (Politico)
Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak — Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia. (Foreign Policy)
stronomers discover six planets orbiting a nearby sun-like star (WP)
Most dinosaurs were killed by climate change, not a meteorite, new study suggests (Salon)
How Moral Can A.I. Really Be? (New Yorker)
Google DeepMind's AI Dreamed Up 380,000 New Materials. The Next Challenge Is Making Them (Wired)
Why Won’t OpenAI Say What the Q* Algorithm Is? (Atlantic)
Scaling deep learning for materials discovery (Nature)
A year after launching, ChatGPT is already changing medicine (Axios)
OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets (Wired)
AI Systems That Master Math Will Change the World (PYMNTS)
How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia Is Powering the A.I. Revolution (New Yorker)
Biden Addresses Nation: ‘Does Anyone Else Ever Feel Like They’re Floating Through A Dream They Can Never Wake Up From?’ (The Onion)
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