Saturday, July 22, 2023

The Other Oppenheimer

Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of our main priorities at the Center for Investigative Reporting was examining the health and safety implications of nuclear technology.

This resulted in a series of special reports including “Nuclear Nightmare,” “Operation Wigwam,” and “Nuclear California.”

As part of this work, we interviewed a number of scientists who had been associated in some way with the Manhattan Project, the secret government program during World War Two to invent the atomic bomb.

Two memorable figures among those I met were in San Francisco — John Gofman and Frank Oppenheimer, brother of the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer.

By the time I met him, Frank was an elderly, soft-spoken man who harbored deep regrets about the terrifying destructive power of nuclear weapons, and his brother’s role in helping to create them.

A colleague and I interviewed him in his office at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, an interactive museum with exhibits that encourage children (and the adults accompanying them) to experience first-hand the wonder and mystery of scientific exploration and discovery.

During our interview, Frank described his brother crouching in a bunker to witness the explosion of the first atomic bomb. At first he had felt elation at the success of the mission, Frank said, but then a terrible sense of regret.

“Oh God, what have we done?” he had said, according to Frank.

Frank explained that he had later founded the Exploratorium in order to compensate for that awful sense of regret. “We had proven that science could accomplish terrible things. I wanted children to be able to also realize that science can also accomplish wonderful things.”

A few years after our interview, at the age of 72, Frank Oppenheimer passed away. His legacy, the Exploratorium, remains one of the Bay Area’s most popular and unique institutions.

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Friday, July 21, 2023

The News

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Thursday, July 20, 2023

The Next Shoe Dropping

One major question this morning is how soon Donald Trump is going to be indicted for the third time this year. Special Counsel Jack Smith of the Justice Department has informed Trump he is a target of the election interference probe by a Washington, D.C. grand jury, so it probably is only now a matter of says.

Perhaps even later today.

A fourth indictment of the former President, in Georgia, is likely before the end of summer.

By now it is a cliche to say nothing like this has ever before in our country’s history, but this is one cliche that is true.

I have been hearing from readers that the main news stories this summer are almost too overwhelming to bear. The war in Ukraine. The wildfire smoke. The floods and the extreme heat. The possibility that AI could end life on the planet.

All I can offer is to take pleasure in the little things and special moments that still occur even in the midst of all of the chaos. Notice a flower. Say hi to a stranger. Be kind to a friend in need.

Most of all, connect with others in whatever way you can. None of us are in this alone.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Can Data Think?

At the dawn of the web in the mid-1990s, in many of the media companies that employed me, one of my responsibilities was supervising the metrics department.

In case that sounds like a big deal, this was well before the days of data scientists and multi-variable analysis, and in most cases the metrics department consisted of one lone individual.

And that person often felt like no one listened to them.

After all, much more significant than the actual numbers he or she gathered was figuring out how to interpret that data. In and of themselves, of course, the numbers were neutral. But the people we worked with had a wide variety of opinions over what those numbers actually meant.

Was our audience growing? Which types of content were most successful? What was success in this type of media environment anyway? Which metric mattered most?

Occasionally, especially in the early years, we would publish a story that “broke the servers,” i.e., generated more traffic that our system could handle. There was little debate on those occasions over whether we had a winner, particularly because additional things tended to happen to support the data.

Things like attention from other media outlets, a big reaction from our audience and a boost to whatever financial metric (subscriptions, ad sales, memberships) we were tracking.

It may sound cynical, but my experiences caused me to eventually draw a few conclusions about us collectively:

  • Most of us are not real comfortable with math.

  • Most of us see what we want to see in the numbers and don’t see what we don’t want to see.

  • Most of us don’t change our behavior or opinions even when the numbers say we should.

In the end, I wondered, what did the data itself think about all of this obvious human frailty? That is one reason I have long been apprehensive about the coming of generative artificial intelligence — we may be about to find out the answer to that question.

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Tuesday, July 18, 2023

The Target

This morning’s big news is that according to Trump, he has received a letter from the Department of Justice that he is a target in the January 6th probe.

First of all, as a journalist, I cannot believe that I actually wrote a sentence containing the words “according to Trump.”

We always try to attribute the information we pass on, but Donald Trump is the least credible source imaginable, because he lies compulsively.

Nonetheless, this is what he is saying. As of yet there is no confirmation from the DoJ. But CNN is reporting that two sources (unnamed) have supported Trump’s claim.

Stay tuned.

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Monday, July 17, 2023

We're All Extras



The strike by writers and actors that is paralyzing Hollywood is about money and benefits, of course, just like every strike in history has been. But this one is also about a much bigger issue: artificial intelligence.

The owners of the studios that control the industry want to use AI to scan the images of all the little people in the background of movies and TV shows during their one-time paid appearances and then use those scanned images however and whenever they choose going forward.

This perfectly encapsulates the existential threat of AI overall. The owners, who already have essentially all the power in the matter, do not propose to even pay the extras the extra day rates or residuals (which are the equivalent of scraps of food) for using their scanned images going forward.

This, as they say in negotiating parlance, is a red line. It is one of those issues that must be fought for because so much is at stake here. The writers and the actors are in the right; the owners are in the wrong.

There is no ambiguity here. Extras must receive payments for every use of their scanned image, just as when in the old days, they appeared in multiple scenes.

Those on strike are representing all of the rest of us in the battle over AI. Most of us will never be marquee actors or Hall of Fame athletes or famous enough to be recognizable by our first name.

Most of us will only be “almost famous,” or famous for 15 seconds, or appear once briefly in the background of some main feature, never to be seen again.

Most of us are extras.

That’s not to say we don’t matter. The show can’t go on without us, or all of the other “little people” who handle the equipment, the sets, the lighting, the sound, the security and countless other details that make Hollywood and the rest of the real world work.

Perhaps no film displays the true value of extras more than the what is probably the greatest movie of all time — “Casablanca.” In its most memorable scene, the extras gather to sing a rousing version of La Marseillaise.

What gives that scene its enduring power is that all of the extras were European refugees from the Nazis then sweeping across Europe. Most of them were Jews who had not only escaped from tyranny but also from extermination.

But at the precise moment the film was made, America had not yet made the decision whether to enter the fight against authoritarianism. So in many ways, the extras were singing for their — and our — lives.

We need to remember that now, during this strike, because this involves all of us. Once again, our survival hangs in the balance.

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Sunday, July 16, 2023

Garden


 

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