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So what happens when languages start going extinct? Will novel ways of thinking follow?
They could, writes psycholinguistics researcher Viorica Marian, and given the trajectory of large-language AI models, we’re going to find out sooner rather than later.
Marian’s op-ed explains that these models require enormous troves of data pulled from the internet; many languages — especially indigenous ones — just don’t have that much online. So AI will churn out more text in commonly spoken languages and could, “like invasive species … drive out languages for which fewer resources exist for training.”
Since living in Hawaiʻi, I’ve learned to distinguish ʻaʻā from pāhoehoe — and to appreciate each. Let’s make sure that a few generations from now, people don’t look out and see just “lava.”
Chaser: Language nerd? Learn a little more Hawaiian with Keoni DeFranco’s 2022 op-ed about the chickens, or moa, of the islands.
A blueprint for Fox News’s future
There’s been a fair amount of moaning that the Fox News/Dominion Voting Systems case didn’t go to a full-blown fireworks trial. (Might I suggest “Succession” instead?)
But the Editorial Board writes that the network’s settlement is a welcome sign that the laws governing truth in journalism are working just as they’re meant to: “News organizations can be held to account under existing rules even as responsible journalists enjoy a high level of protection.” This means no reason to revamp libel laws to more easily punish outlets.
Libel’s legal landscape might not be changing, but things at Fox News sure are, humor columnist Alexandra Petri imagines.
To start: More credulous hosts! “We cannot afford to have hosts who know that they are deceiving viewers,” Alex writes in a spoof internal memo. “So we will take steps to replace them with anchors who genuinely believe the things they are saying!”
From Josh Rogin’s column raising the alarm about the long reach of China’s oppression. He reports that the secret New York police station was a base for harassing U.S.-based critics of the Chinese Communist Party.
Obviously a crackdown is warranted. But Josh also recognizes how sensitive any action must be: Just as China’s actions subvert the United States’ “open and tolerant society,” so would haphazardly accusing Americans of foreign-influence operations any time any suspicion arose.
Happily, Josh writes, a bipartisan middle path is taking shape.
Chaser: More than two years ago, Mike Abramowitz and Nate Schenkkan of Freedom House warned that transnational repression was on the rise. Their strategies for fighting it are even more important to employ now.
More politics? Less politics?
I don’t know what to tell you. The drug policy stuff in journalist Gabriel Pasquini’s op-ed suggests the former header. It’s the cocaine hippos that suggest the latter.
Biden meets this week with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, who is a fan neither of the U.S. war on drugs nor the destruction it has wrought in Latin America. But given the long history Pasquini lays out of the United States’ refusal to rethink its policy, Petro would just be banging his head against the wall if he tried a conventional plea again.
Discussing a war on hippos, on the other hand …
Read Pasquini’s piece for a wild tale of Pablo Escobar, his zoo animals, a daring escape, a booming population, and what Colombia’s president should try to get the United States to do about it.
- Columnist Jennifer Rubin writes that Sen. Richard J. Durbin’s refusal to end judicial “blue-slipping” shows he’s too meek to keep Republicans at bay. (P.S. Sign up for her new newsletter, too!)
- Biden’s new electric car rule doesn’t trust the market, writes George H.W. Bush budget official Robert E. Grady, meaning it will probably increase air pollution in the short term.
- The Discord leaker had a lot of information, contributing columnist Marc Thiessen writes. How many TikTok users have info, too — and what of it will China snatch?
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
“Snow” takes new meaning
At Pablo Escobar’s place
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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