Pioneer in artificial intelligence says we need to start over

• Updated on: 2017-09-16
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Trump's top advisers — Jared and Ivanka, General Kelly, and Gary Cohn among them — are mostly sympathetic to "Dreamers." There's no more Steve Bannon. And Stephen Miller's nationalistic voice is a lonely one inside the White House these days. So consider how different life is these days for aides bent out of shape by Trump's public pivot to Marco Rubio-style arguments regarding a path to citizenship for young immigrants brought here illegally as children.
Remember, to the ears of immigration hardliners, Trump's tweets Thursday would have sounded like something Marco Rubio might have said during the Gang of Eight fight.
Instead of being able to march into the Oval Office and hand Trump the latest Breitbart headline or printouts of tweets showing how badly his amnesty drive is playing with his fiercest nationalist supporters, aides opposing the decision would now have to go through the Kelly process, which would involve submitting an official, documented, request to meet with the president.
The result: Trump gets mostly positive feedback for his turn towards bipartisanship. He watches cable news in the morning, and even "Fox and Friends" finds a way to praise his deal with the Democrats. He reads his morning news clips and briefing materials, which are managed by Staff Secretary Rob Porter, under the guidance of Kelly. And during the day it's not possible for a staff member to sneak a story onto Trump's desk that might rile him up and turn him in a wildly different direction in an instant.
Bottom line: Staff who oppose the moderate immigration turn no longer have unfettered access to Trump, and nor do allies on the outside who, in the first six months of the administration, used to send text messages to Trump's bodyguard Keith Schiller, and often receive a snappy callback from the president. Kelly now has real control over the most important input: the flow of human and paper advice into the Oval Office. For a man as obsessed about his self image as Trump, a new flow of inputs can make the world of difference.
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The resistance follows other major moves by tech companies that seek to end unpleasant user experiences on the web. Earlier this year, Google said it would block traffic to any web page from its Chrome web browser whose ads didn't adhere to third-party standard that's largely agreed upon by most advertisers, but this has proven to be difficult for many websites to implement. Apple also said that it would block any ads accessed through Safari that autoplay video, and many websites autoplay video to be able to sell more ads.
Between the lines: The tech innovations in digital advertising that were embraced by publishers trying to monetize digital content and marketers hoping to better target ads, (like cookie-based targeting, web-tracking, etc.), were largely unregulated when introduced. As a result, the overuse of these tactics has created a unpleasant web experience for users. While most advertisers would agree that something needs to be done to create a less intrusive web environment, some argue that users don't actually want to see these type of changes.
"More than 68 million people that visit the cookies opt-out page have chosen to allow interest-based ads to continue," says Dan Jaffe, EVP at the National Association of Advertisers. "By doing this, Apple is saying 'we know better than consumers what they need.'"
Publishers are caught somewhere in the middle: Dave Grimaldi, EVP of Public Policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, says Apple's move "could prevent the types of digital ads that support publishers all across the web," meaning it would limit cheaper data-based ads from being sold. On the other hand, "it could be beneficial to publishers in that advertisers may be more motivated to buy ad inventory directly from publishers, which is far more lucrative for the publisher," says Keith Sibson, VP of Product & Marketing for digital marketing company PostUp.
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In a letter to Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, Mark Wallace, CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, cited Prince's email in which he said that they had stopped working with the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer because the people behind the site "are a**holes and I'd had enough."
Key quote: "Surely you would agree that the people behind internationally-sanctioned terrorist organizations such as ISIS are also 'a**holes,' and that the content on websites operated on their behalf are at least as 'vile,'" said Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Yes, but: These issues have forced tech to re-evaluate its hardline commitment to openness. Some have wondered if that's happening too fast, and in hoc way.
"All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country," wrote the liberal Electronic Frontier Foundation in August. "But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with."
Wallace said in a letter to GoDaddy that the organization hopes that cutting off the Daily Stormer "is a first step that will lead to the adoption of policies that put an end to ad-hoc and reactionary removal of content and services, clearly define what material and partners are acceptable to GoDaddy, and allow for the quick removal of objectionable extremist content in a manner that is reasonable, consistent, transparent, and fair."
Be smart: This will keep coming up for the companies that form the silent infrastructure for the Internet, at least until there's some sort of consensus on how to address issues like this.
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Alexander has tried to carve out a narrow middle ground in a debate that has never had really had one. Here's why it's so hard, and where the competing pressures are coming from:
The right: Several Republicans, including Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, quickly criticized the prospect of funding the ACA's cost-sharing subsidies as an "Obamacare bailout." Republicans are not going to readily vote to prop up a law they've spent years attacking, unless they get some real concessions.
"Trying to get people to think about this outside of just the collapsing failure that many of us see in Obamacare is hard to do. And I think to get very many votes on the Republican side, you'd have to have a bill that arguably creates a lot more flexibility for governors and states," Blunt said.
The left: It's easy for Democrats to support funding the cost-sharing subsidies. But Alexander must convince them to get on board with more flexibility to the states — which and that would likely mean softening some of the ACA's insurance regulations, which Democrats don't want to do.
The real world: Insurers have proposed double-digit premium hikes; dozens of counties might not have any insurance plans available next year; and many more counties will only have one insurer. If Congress doesn't act, real people will get hurt.
"I don't think the question is what kind of challenge you face doing it. I think if you do nothing…you have a mad electorate who's mad at us not doing anything. I don't think we have any option," Sen. Johnny Isakson told me.
The clock: Insurers must decide by Sept. 27 whether to participate in the exchanges next year. That leaves Alexander very little time to act.
What Alexander says: "If it's balanced, I think I can persuade enough Republicans to support it. This is the kind of proposal where it will have to get a good number of Democrats and a good number of Republicans. It's not like it'll be one-sided."
The strategy: Alexander and Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on HELP, have kept the discussion narrow, and brought in senators outside their committee at the beginning of the process. One of those senators, Sen. Angus King, said Alexander and Murray have handled this difficult task "just the right way."
"Lamar's really smart, really smart, he has great people around him, he has a great demeanor about him, and he has a great partner in Patty Murray," Sen. Tom Carper said.
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Here is what each carrier is offering:
AT&T: Those who buy an iPhone 8 can get a 32GB iPad for $99 (as long as you sign up for a two year-contract on the iPad). The company is also offering those who pay for its DirecTV or U-Verse home TV service an offer to buy one iPhone 8 and get one free (up to $699 off). AT&T also recently added free HBO to its Unlimited Choice service. (It had previously only been included with the pricier Unlimited Plus)
Sprint: Sprint is offering up to half off the iPhone 8 for new customers who buy the device on its "Sprint Flex" pricing and trade-in an eligible phone, including an iPhone 6 or newer, along with recent high-end phones from Samsung, LG, Motorola and Google. It's also saying it will guarantee the lowest monthly price on the entry-level iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus to those who switch to Sprint. If a customer sees a better nationally advertised offer within 14 days, Sprint says it will match the price.
T-Mobile: The self-styled Un-carrier is offering up to $300 credit for those who trade in an iPhone 6 or newer for one of Apple's new phones (iPhone 8, 8 Plus or, eventually, the iPhone X). It's also promising those that get one of those new iPhones can trade in the device once half of it is paid off and then upgrade to the next iPhone. T-Mobile also recently started including free Netflix for customers with two or more lines, an offer that COO Mike Sievert told Axios was designed to arrive just before the new iPhones .
Verizon: Those who buy an iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, sign up for unlimited service and trade in certain smartphones can get up to $300 back.