Oct. 5: Eric Schmidt ’76 Warns Us About Artificial Intelligence

Andrew Jarecki ’85’s 2015 documentary series The Jinx helped lead to a murder conviction for real-estate scion Robert Durst. “In 2010 I interviewed him for over 20 hours for The Jinx and he said many incriminating things,” Jarecki said. — The Wrap
 
Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg ’80 has a new one-man play, A Shot Rang Out, that draws on themes of disconnectedness and isolation. — The L.A. Times
 
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 denied a last-minute request from a group of New York City teachers to block the city’s vaccine mandate for public school employees, signaling the rest of the court was in agreement. — CNN
 
Independent Women’s Forum president Carrie Lukas ’95 said a letter the group circulated, asking schools to make mask-wearing optional, was intended to “empower people to have a kind, civil conversation.” — The Washington Post 

“The information space, the social world that we all live in now, is so governed by the online media and, frankly, many of the attributes of clickbait and all those other kinds of things. It’s really disturbing.”

— Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt ’76, discussing the future of artificial intelligence. — The Atlantic

Conservative writer John Stossel ’69 sued Facebook for defamation after a fact-checking group working with the social media outlet censored his comments about climate change and forest fires. — Fremont News Messenger
 
The Biden administration announced 30 members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, including aeronautical engineer John Dabiri ’01 and mathematician Terence Tao ’96, plus Princeton engineering dean Andrea Goldsmith and ecology and evolutionary biology professor Stephen Pacala. Geneticist Eric Lander ’78 and biochemical engineer Frances Arnold ’79 are co-chairs. — The White House
 
With a new book of columns out, conservative writer George Will *68 discussed the Republican Party’s turn to Donald Trump, saying, “There’s been a rebellion against the very concept of expertise.” — The Waco Herald-Tribune
 
Meicen Sun ’12 discussed her graduate research at MIT on the paradox of China’s surging economy and tightening Internet controls, yielding “both novel findings and troubling questions.” — MIT News
 
Court documents show Los Angeles attorney Melissa Lerner ’09 is joining Prince Andrew’s legal team as it fights a sexual assault lawsuit brought by a Jeffrey Epstein accuser. — Daily Mail

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