What A Day: Pass the AI Slop
The idea of putting limits on AI could bring the whole family together this holiday season.
SLICE OF THE AI
This newsletter will be taking a holiday break for the rest of this week, while Matt and Greg eat themselves into mashed-potato-induced-hibernation-like comas. Have a rad holiday, What A Day fam. See you Monday!
Ah, Thanksgiving. Time to find out what our nation’s uncles think about artificial intelligence. In fact, reining in the robots might be an idea the whole family can get behind.
America’s annual family feast traditionally combines warm comfort food with uncomfortably heated political debate. What should you brace to discuss this year? I’ll bet my grandma’s pumpkin pie that you’ll hear a lot about President Donald Trump… and that buzzy new technology of the day, artificial intelligence.
Both topics are increasingly entwined. Trump is hell-bent on super-charging this new technology and harnessing its economic might. That push is making a lot of people uneasy — including many in his own base, who worry that the robots are coming for their jobs. Americans are telling pollsters that the country needs to finally get serious about setting regulations to stop AI from running amok.
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping American life. It’s pumping up the stock market and prompting layoffs. It’s doing your kids’ homework and making their favorite music. Trump is so amped up about this new gadgetry that his aides drafted an executive order, which would’ve directed the Department of Justice to sue states that dare to try and put down their own legal limitations.
But Trump’s not in the mainstream on this one. Eighty percent of people support regulating AI, even if that slows down innovation. After news of the executive order broke, MAGA allies including Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AK) came out swinging. Even MAGA Godfather Steve Bannon has vowed to fight to slow down AI, and warned that Trump’s embrace of thinking machines could cost Republicans future elections. After all the pushback, the White House quietly paused the executive order.
Trump lost that skirmish, but the bigger war for the future of AI is just beginning.
Amid the chaos that is the Neverending Brain-Melting Donald Trump News Cycle, you may have missed this bonkers story: Anthropic, an American artificial intelligence company, recently alleged that Chinese hackers hijacked its software and launched a cyberattack against tech companies and government agencies in September. It’s the first known instance of an attack being powered by AI, without humans calling the shots, according to the company.
“That previews a dystopia coming,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told What A Day. Decisions made by artificial intelligence could be “designed to try to sow chaos and harm people as we start to build AI systems that are wildly more intelligent, more strategic than human beings … I think that for a whole host of reasons, if unregulated, AI — and specifically AGI — has the potential to destroy human civilization.”
Congress has largely failed to regulate AI, even though nearly all lawmakers want states to be able to do so. Why? “There’s a lot of power in the AI lobby,” Murphy said. “There’s a lot of money that flows to members of Congress. It’s not fundamentally different from the pharmaceutical industry.”
Another issue: Many lawmakers don’t even understand how AI works, making it difficult to regulate. As podcast bro Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) once said: “This is an institution [where] I think the median age in the Senate is about 142. This is not a tech savvy group.” Anyone else remember the time an elderly Republican senator called the internet a “series of tubes”? Yes, that guy led the committee tasked with regulating the internet.
Pro tip: If your turkey dinner starts getting tense, there’s a good chance everyone can agree that robots shouldn’t be allowed to destroy the world.
Recommended: How to Handle Your MAGA Uncle at Thanksgiving (Without Ruining Dinner), by Dan Pfeiffer
WHAT ELSE?
Some 73 million people are expected to hit the road and another six million are flying this week, marking the busiest Thanksgiving travel period in 15 years. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is bizarrely focusing on its so-called “civility campaign,” shaming people for wanting to be cozy during travel. “Let’s try not to wear slippers and pajamas as we come to the airport. I think that’s positive,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. Okay, here’s the deal: Let’s have dignified air travel with comfortable seats, plenty of legroom, no anxious scramble to board, decent food and reasonable flight delay policies, and then I will not wear my Minions plush slippers on the plane.
Donald Trump added to his long list of pardons, letting turkeys Gobble and Waddle off the hook ahead of Thanksgiving. In a speech, Trump joked that former President Joe Biden’s turkey pardons from last year were invalid because he supposedly used an autopen, claimed that he considered naming this year’s birds “Chuck” and “Nancy,” and mocked Gov. JB Pritzker’s (D-IL) weight. “I’d like to lose a few pounds too, by the way,” Trump said. “And I’m not going to lose it on Thanksgiving.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson warned the White House that House Republicans don’t wanna extend Obamacare subsidies, the Wall Street Journal reports. Donald Trump’s advisers had been drafting a plan to potentially extend subsidies for two years, surprising his Republican allies… who kept the government shutdown for a record amount of time to avoid extending the subsidies.
Newly released documents show internal conversations at Fox News after the 2020 election, and they’re hilarious. My favorite example: Someone told former host Tucker Carlson that Trump should concede. Carlson replied: “Oh I’m fully aware,” describing Trump as a “total piece of shit.”
Lawmakers are increasingly questioning whether they wanna be lawmakers at all. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have recently faced reprimands from their own colleagues and death threats from the president, sinking morale. Some are also frustrated about the House’s apparent irrelevance: “We don’t ever seem to be doing anything,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told Axios.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has been hawking sleeping pills while serving in his incredibly high-profile government job, NOTUS reports. “I trust Relaxium Sleep, and so should you,” Huckabee says in a commercial. When asked whether the arrangement conflicts with the ambassador’s work, the U.S. Embassy Jerusalem responded: “No. Ambassadors need to sleep, too.”
The American Dream isn’t in reach for Gen Z, according to a new economic study. “Unemployment is rising, and wage growth is declining for young adults, which could have a long-term scarring impact,” Grace Zwemmer, an economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in the report. Give your nephew an extra helping of mashed potatoes this Thanksgiving, and if he says 6-7, just pretend to laugh along.
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE EMAIL…
Americans are increasingly “adopting” turkeys instead of serving them up for dinner, donating money to farm sanctuaries to care for the flightless birds. People sometimes receive photos, certificates and meet-and-greets with their adopted turkey as a result.
Thanksgiving is a great time to clean out grandma’s attic, and who knows what treasures you’ll find there. For example: Three brothers recently found a rare incredibly well-preserved copy of the Superman No. 1 comic, which they sold for $9.12 million.
Do you need even more podcasts to listen to while traveling, aside from all the awesome ones that Crooked Media has to offer? The Washington Post put together a list of 10 podcasts that sound awesome. Personally, I will be checking out The Optimist, which focuses on what’s going right in the world!
Move over, Tokyo: Jakarta is now the most populous city in the world, with an estimated 42 million residents, according to a new report. Another wild fact: Nearly half of the world’s 8.2 billion people live in cities.
A Thai woman shocked a Buddhist temple when she started knocking inside her coffin, proving that she, in fact, was not dead. The woman had been brought to the hospital after she appeared to stop breathing, and she was set to be cremated. “She must have been knocking for quite some time,” the temple’s general manager said.
Do you need a last-minute, super simple, delicious, and stunning dessert for Thanksgiving? Don’t ask ChatGPT, which could lead you astray! I highly recommend this pumpkin flan de queso recipe, which requires minimal effort and almost no measuring. Pro tip: Don’t use a spring-form pan, or else the caramel may leak onto everything in your fridge… and it’ll take so long to clean up…
Meet Otis the Cat, a 10-year-old former shelter kitty and fashion icon!
“Otis has so many costumes, and not just for Halloween. He weighs 18 pounds and a lot of his clothes are actually 2T toddler size. He has dressed up as PeeWee Herman, Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, DEVO, Frida Kahlo, Bruce Springsteen.. tons more, but I can’t attach them all.”
“I hit the jackpot because Otis is the most tolerant and cuddly cat ever. He has an entire closet full of clothes and he actually gets excited about dressing up because he knows he is going to get rewarded with a Churu meat tube when we are done taking pictures.”
— Jo & Otis (@otisatlarge)
Otis is quite the fashion plate.
Thank you Matt and Greg and all/if any, other What a Day Crew/Team peeps for this fantastic, What A Day sign-off for the "Thanksgiving" holidays. It made me laugh and laugh, and that is, not only Good Medicine, it is, the BEST Medicine!!!!! I have several thoughts, on the Thai woman who shocked the Buddhist monks....."You might say she was knock, knock, knocking on Enlightenment's door," AND it's possible, that only Boomer's, Gen X, and Millenials will get the ref. Otis is magnificent!!!! AND an Enigma, a cat who agrees to "dress up" in silly human outfits and sit and pose for the camera. I say Otis is worthy of so much Gratitude and Respect, for his Service to Humanity. All his cat friends are like, "Dude, wtf!!!!" Which also makes me laugh and laugh....Wishing All.....Peace, Love, Light, and Laughter to endure the tricky times ahead. Sooooo, I will share my favorite "Thanksgiving" meditation/tradition, again, same "Gen's" might recognize the clip, but for sure, it's funny as hell the first time one see's it too, Gen Z, I'm talking to YOU! Wednesday Addam's sums it up the best, imho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE3KDxTbWI