Author / Sam Klein
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The Fault In Our Cars
It won’t be long—a few years, maybe ten— before the algorithm begins killing us. As self-driving cars emerge on the market, eventually overtaking human-operated ones, there will inevitably be fatal car accidents in which computer code is responsible. Self-driving cars rely on deep neural networks to operate. This means that humans haven’t encoded every plausible…
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How the Other Half Learns
Okay, I confess. I check up on Breitbart once in a while. I occasionally visit Drudge Report, too. And if you don’t already, I think you should as well. If I haven’t lost you already, I can explain. This is not some sort of Millian exercise in broadening my horizons to let the best ideas…
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No, Everything Won’t Be OK
The election of Donald Trump to the most powerful office in the world is cataclysmic. I won’t speak to the physical insecurity that many Americans and people around the world are feeling—many women, racial and religious minorities, denizens of the Middle East and the Baltics and Central and South America. I won’t speak for environmentalists,…
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Oh, By All Means, Please, Let Gary Debate
Alex Trebek: Welcome back to our special political edition of Jeopardy. Rand, you control the board. Rand Paul: Alright Alex, I’ll take ‘Softballs’ for $400. Trebek: This critical Syrian city, a hotbed of violence, death, and destruction, is one that no international leader could possibly ignore. Gary Johnson buzzes in. Trebek: Gary. Johnson: “What is…
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The Improbable Journey of Howard Mechanic
The temperature was in the low 50s in St. Louis on the night of May 4, 1970, but the thousand-plus Washington University students marching towards the rally site were anything but chilly. Earlier that day, the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four unarmed student protesters at Kent State University. They were peacefully demonstrating against…
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Of Supreme Importance
The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has launched the Supreme Court into the spotlight of national politics. What will happen next, both in terms of filling his vacancy and how he will be remembered, is an unsettled question. The Republican-controlled Senate will most certainly not confirm an Obama nominee to the Supreme Court. Senate judiciary…
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The Liberal Arts Can Work
Support science and the arts—especially the arts,” advised the documentarian Ken Burns during his commencement address to Wash U Class of 2015. “They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country. They Just Make Our Country Worth Defending!” As a historian, Burns was probably referring to the liberal arts, not simply the…
