AIs are products competing in a market. Their companies’ goal isn’t accuracy; it’s sales. They’ve added some confirmation bias to make users like and use them more. They’re intentionally dumbed down to boost adoption.

Age discrimination is still rampant in Silicon Valley. I have a Stanford Ph.D. but am a baby boomer (guessable from my LinkedIn profile) and Google won’t give me the time of day. This despite the alleged scarcity of tech workers in an era of near record unemployment.

Notice how Mayer’s carefully chosen wording holds the whole nasty business at arm’s length, making it sound like any connection between her as CEO and the breach is a mere accident of timing. She simply had the bad luck of occupying the front office at the time this unfortunate event occurred – she bears no personal responsibility for it. Kind of like the President’s role as Consoler-in-Chief of the victims of hurricanes that happen while he’s in office.

This despite the reports that she pushed back on multiple recommendations that security be strengthened because it’d cost too much and they might lose some users who’ll consider it a hassle.

Can’t help but imagine Stalin using her template for prepared comments to the Politburo. “As premier, this brutal slaughter of millions of peasants and political opponents happened during my tenure, and I want to sincerely apologize to each and every one of our citizens.”

Yes, who’s doing the science should be irrelevant, but human cognition is prone to unconscious biases by its nature, which scientists are the first to admit they’re not immune to. Biases can co-vary by social group, so diversity benefits science by helping to ensure shared blind spots don’t get too big.

Wrong. Their stake in Alibaba (which she had nothing to do with) is solely responsible for the increase in Yahoo’s stock price as its core business continued to decline.

I don’t think management has committed to selling the core business; they just said they’d entertain bids. I could see them selling the patents for show and then Mayer declaring the core business sale is off because the bids were too low. She’ll have gotten the press off her back for six months while thinking of new ways to run Yahoo into the ground. Her golden parachute will still be waiting.

And they’re just talking about emissions here. Don’t forget that electric car batteries are loaded with toxic metals and other hazardous materials. Suddenly e-cars don’t look so green.