In today's NYT, columnist Ezra Klein uses 3 seemingly unrelated stories in the news to illustrate how hard it is to relate to each as a present day happening. UFOs have been more of a funny page happening than serious news for a long time. Each generation comes up with a new explanation to explain the enduring fascination with aliens. Now, the government seems to be willing to provide evidence that can be interpreted as proof that something we don't fully understand is out there looking us over.
Klein's second present day story which is hard to keep in the present tense is the recent claim by a google engineer that he believes a program the company has developed has achieved sentience. The engineer was promptly suspended by Google, but the debate about AI has heated up again. Here also, it is hard not to jump ahead and speculate on the impact of this new technology. AI done right would be the most significant achievement in human history. However, like so many other technological breakthroughs throughout history the downsides of computer sentience are formidable. Thus as Klein sees it, we are taking our eyes off the ball and vaulting into speculation.
Finally, he presents the hearings by the January 6 committee as the final piece of present day information which is hard to keep in the the present tense. The evidence speaks for itself, but once again, most of us will leap to various conclusions based on our own biases. As Klein puts it, things are weirder than we know.
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