An Alternate Approach to Best of the Year Lists

As I see the best of the year lists popping up, I once again think about another approach I wish critics would employ–namely, instead of identifying the best works relative to other works within a given year, identify the works in a given year that compare favorably with the all-time great works. One drawback here is that none of the works may meet this criterion. For me, I don’t see this as a drawback. Here’s the reason why (and this will explain my overall mindset with regard to this topic).

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How Was Barnes and Noble Able to Turn Things Around?

Barnes and Noble is doing so well financially that they plan to open thirty new stores in 2023. That caught my attention, and I think it’s great news. Why is the store thriving? That’s the question music critic, Ted Gioia, tries to answer in this post. I agree with some of the reasons he cites (e.g., appointing a better CEO who decentralized decision making), but I’m dissatisfied with the overarching reason he offers–namely, that the new CEO loves books.

In this thread, I’ll explain the reason I feel this way, as well as offer an alternate explanation that seems more compelling. (In spite of this slight disagreement, I recommend reading his post.) OK, let’s begin.

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ChatGPT Thread

“ChatGPT is a development on par with the printing press, electricity and even the wheel and fire.”

That’s according to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration. I had heard about ChatGPT before, but I knew nothing about it. (Actually, when I listened to Summers, it sounds like he’s referring more broadly to the ability of AI to think and express itself like humans.)

Here’s what I learned from an NYT article.

“In ChatGPT’s case, it read a lot. And, with some guidance from its creators, it learned how to write coherently — or, at least, statistically predict what good writing should look like.”

Some benefits:

“It can help research and write essays and articles. ChatGPT can also help code programs, automating challenges that can normally take hours for people. Another example comes from a different program, Consensus. This bot combs through up to millions of scientific papers to find the most relevant for a given search and share their major findings. A task that would take a journalist like me days or weeks is done in a couple minutes.”

The benefits here are obvious, but, off the top of my head, here are some drawbacks:

  • For humans, the ability to comb through lots of information and find the most relevant information could deteriorate.
  • My sense is that different people make different judgments about what is relevant; the ability to do this, which includes making connections with other information, including seemingly unrelated information, can differ significantly from person to person. Will this capability become more uniform if done by an AI?
  • My sense is that this process can lead to important insights. How will AI impact that?

In a survey, a group of scientists who work on machine learning had even more dire response:

Nearly half said there was a 10 percent or greater chance that the outcome would be “extremely bad (e.g., human extinction).” These are people saying that their life’s work could destroy humanity.

This seems like a big problem, one that that seems blatantly foolish:

“The problem, as A.I. researchers acknowledge, is that no one fully understands how this technology works, making it difficult to control for all possible behaviors and risks. Yet it is already available for public use.”

To go ahead with something that we don’t fully understand, but could pose an existential threat to humanity (albeit a relatively small probability) seems foolish. And how can we accurately assess the risk if we don’t fully understand how the technology works?

Sight and Sound’s 2022 All-Time Greatest Movie List

For most of my adult life, the subject of all-time great movies interested me a lot, but in the past few years, that interest has waned considerably.This fact came to my attention with the release of Sight and Sound’s all-time great movie list, which they release every decade starting in 1952. The list has several significant changes, and those changes made me think about this topic again. I use this thread to work out some thoughts on this, as well as comment on the list. By the way, here’s the top 100:

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2022-2023 NFL Week 11

Titans@Packers

I like the way the Titans play. This is a team you don’t want to face in the playoffs. Also, imagine if the Titans were in Buffalo or Green Bay. Homefield advantage, with their style of play, would be formidable.

Oh, and while I’ve seen worst defenses (Seahawks earlier this season or in previous seasons), the Packers defense isn’t that good.

The GOP Will Control the House of Representatives

I purposely avoided reading about politics for several weeks prior to the election–primarily because it was just causing too much anxiety. When I finally started reading reactions after the election, the overall tone was positive from many Democratic supporters. The reaction seemed based on two things: 1) there was no “red wave”–and the Democrats had a good chance of controlling the Senate; 2) many of the election deniers who ran for positions that could impact elections lost. I was genuinely happy to hear this, especially the latter.

However, who controlled the House was still undecided, and the degree to which the reaction was positive seemed out of place. To me, the GOP winning the House, while maybe not as bad as election deniers gaining control over state and local electoral processes, was almost as bad. What I found most disturbing was their likely use of their power to hold political investigations, and possibly attempt to impeach, Biden and his administration. The idea was nauseating and revolting.

Today, I heard the Republicans held a news conference that they would be investigation Biden and his family (Hunter Biden, most likely), based on disingenuous concerns over corruption. The level of cynicism and bad faith is off the charts.

I’ll have more to say, but I’ll leave with more remark. It is disheartening that so many Americans believed the Republicans deserved their vote–that the GOP is fit to govern.