Good morning, Gnusies! I hope it’s a better morning for you than it is for me — I have a nasty cold (not Covid, fortunately) that’s been sapping my energy. Niftywriter has kindly offered to take over for me in a couple of hours so I can get more rest. Fortunately, however, since nothing keeps a GNR writer from finding good news, I managed pack quite a lot into today’s roundup. So grab a mug of your favorite morning beverage, settle into a comfortable seat, and let’s dive in!
Opening music
One of our themes around here is that we all need to step up to do the work to re-elect President Biden and elect more Dems in the House and Senate. So here’s an oldie but goodie to inspire us to action.
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Good news in politics
Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Actions to Promote Responsible AI Innovation that Protects Americans’ Rights and Safety
Better late than never. Let’s hope that these efforts make a difference in getting a handle on an increasingly intractable problem.
From whitehouse.gov:
President Biden has been clear that when it comes to AI, we must place people and communities at the center by supporting responsible innovation that serves the public good, while protecting our society, security, and economy. Importantly, this means that companies have a fundamental responsibility to make sure their products are safe before they are deployed or made public.
Vice President Harris and senior Administration officials [met on May 4] with CEOs of four American companies at the forefront of AI innovation—Alphabet, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI—to underscore this responsibility and emphasize the importance of driving responsible, trustworthy, and ethical innovation with safeguards that mitigate risks and potential harms to individuals and our society. The meeting is part of a broader, ongoing effort to engage with advocates, companies, researchers, civil rights organizations, not-for-profit organizations, communities, international partners, and others on critical AI issues.
This effort builds on the considerable steps the Administration has taken to date to promote responsible innovation. These include the landmark Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and related executive actions announced last fall, as well as the AI Risk Management Framework and a roadmap for standing up a National AI Research Resource released earlier this year.
The Coming Biden Blowout
Jessiestaf brought us this story yesterday, and I thought it deserved repetition.
By David Frum in The Atlantic:
The Republican plan for 2024 is already failing, and the party leadership can see it and knows it.
There was no secret to a more intelligent and intentional Republican plan for 2024. It would have gone like this:
(1) Replace Donald Trump at the head of the ticket with somebody less obnoxious and impulsive.
(2) Capitalize on inflation and other economic troubles.
(3) Offer plausible ideas on drugs, crime, and border enforcement.
(4) Reassure women worried about the post-Roe future.
(5) Don’t be too obvious about suppressing Democratic votes, because really blatant voter suppression will provoke and mobilize Democrats to vote, not discourage them.
Unfortunately for them, Republicans have turned every element of the plan upside down and inside out. Despite lavish anti-Trump donations by big-money Republicans, Trump is cruising to easy renomination. ✂️
It’s early in the election cycle, of course, but not too early to wonder: Are we watching a Republican electoral disaster in the making?
The Ice-Cream Theory of Joe Biden’s Success
Even though I think Joe is hardly a vanilla president, I think this metaphor is successful in nailing an important aspect of his electability.
By Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic:
One of the most revealing statements of the 2020 presidential campaign wasn’t uttered by the candidates. It came instead from a former Republican congressman. “It’s difficult to attack vanilla,”griped Florida’s Carlos Curbelo, lamenting the failure of GOP attacks against then-candidate Joe Biden. Curbelo probably intended to deride the former vice president as milquetoast. But he inadvertently landed on the key to Biden’s success: No one hates vanilla. Biden’s flavor of politics is not everyone’s favorite, but it’s one that most people are happy to accept.
...To the president’s detractors, many of them Democrats, he is old, uninspired, and bland. He lacks the dynamism needed to excite younger voters, and his resistance to radical change fails to meet the moment. But this critique fundamentally misunderstands Biden’s appeal: He wins because he’s banal, not in spite of it. That’s because his brand of politics is the perfect counter to the acquired taste of today’s Trump-led Republican Party. ✂️
Biden...excels at being an acceptable candidate to the maximum number of general-election voters, even as he inspires only middling enthusiasm among his party’s loudest voices. This quiet cultivation of consensus—rather than crowd-pleasing bombast—is how Biden won the White House. He is vanilla in a world of pistachio and rocky road, unobjectionable to most people and unlikely to trigger any allergies. This is often more about Biden’s affect than his aspirations: Even when he is pursuing ambitious policies, he tends to cast them in common-sensical rather than revolutionary terms. ✂️
It’s understandable that certain Democrats want someone with more flavor to be their standard-bearer, but the trick to being a consensus candidate is to avoid giving voters reasons not to vote for you. That’s Biden’s specialty—and Trump’s weakness.