MarkFord.net
The open-for-inspection half-way home for my writing…
Today…
It’s been several weeks since I served up a new conspiracy theory, or even given you a juicy update. So today, I’m giving you one of each – one on why the FTC is getting involved with AI, and another follow-up on the coming digital dollar. Also today: two reviews on Charles Bukowski’s Factotum, the book and then the movie.
What’s FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan Really Up To?
Lina Khan
The FTC is going after OpenAI’s ChatGPT by “investigating” whether the technology may be “harming people” by publishing false information about them.
In a July 13 press release accompanying a civil subpoena, the FTC said it will find out if OpenAI has “engaged in unfair or deceptive practices relating to risks of harm to consumers, including reputational harm.”
As someone that doesn’t take government press releases as gospel, I’m suspicious.
First, since when does the FTC investigate possible future harm-doing? Its job is to investigate current and prosecute current wrongdoings. And that only when there is ample factual evidence of wrongdoing.
Second, the FTC is not in the business of policing speech. Its bailiwick is “trade,” as in the Federal Trade Commission.
Third, even if the FTC had a legitimate reason to investigate and prosecute speech, ChatGPT is not a conveyor of speech – in the sense of ideas and opinions – the way that the media (newspapers, magazines, TV, the internet, etc.) is. It is not – at least at the moment – a being with agency. Like any other tool, a screwdriver, for instance, ChatGPT can be used for all sorts of useful purposes. But it can also be used to hurt people.
Investigating the company behind ChatGPT for speech concerns is like investigating Stanley or Craftsman to determine if screwdrivers could possibly be used to stab someone to death. Doh!
The FTC surely knows this. So why is it doing it?
I see the current excuse – protecting individuals from libel or slander – as patently false. What the government is doing here, I suspect, is looking to get the AI industry under its thumb in any and every way it can, before AI advances to the next level and the government can’t control it anymore.
I don’t think the FTC, or the Biden administration, has any idea of what sort of threat AI is to them, but they want to figure it out. Beginning the investigation with the FTC and a concern that vague is a good, low-key way of moving forward.
I haven’t been using ChatGPT, but I keep promising myself that I will get acquainted with it. It’s already impressive, and it will be getting a major upgrade soon, as the company has just struck a deal with the Associated Press to access the 177-year-old news organization’s text archives. Click here.
The Government’s Digital Dollar Plan Is Moving Apace
Alex Mashinsky
Alex Mashinsky, the founder of Celsius Network, a now-defunct crypto exchange, was arrested last week in NYC and charged with seven federal crimes, including securities fraud, commodities fraud, and market manipulation. In the last three months, the government has gone after at least one major cryptocurrency business a week. The week of June 10, for example, it was Binance and Coinbase.
What, if anything, is going on?
One thing is that some of these companies are engaged in fraud and federal regulators are doing their jobs. Another thing – and this I can’t prove – is what I suggested in the June 8, 2022 issue. It is just one more step of a plan that is already well underway: replacing the paper dollar with a digital dollar, and then using the digital dollar to monitor and control just about everything every single American does or says.
For more on this, click here.
Huge Return on Tiny Collectible
This is the sort of story that inspires millions of amateur collectors to spend weekends browsing thrift stores and garage sales. Here you have a nicely painted but otherwise undistinguished little vase that was bought for $3.30 and later sold at auction for $11,800.
In today’s interconnected world, this is a rare phenomenon, but it’s still fun to read about, if you fancy this sort of thing. Click here.
School Massacres… Where?
The US has led the world in school massacres for as long as I can remember. But now I’m seeing reports of school killings in Europe. And just the other day, I read about six people (including three children) stabbed to death in a kindergarten in southeastern China’s Guangdong province. According to The Hustle, the massacre was one of several similar incidents. At least 17 knife attacks in schools have occurred in China since 2010.
Gun-related murders are extremely rare in China because guns are almost impossible to get. In China, apparently, knives are the mass murderer’s weapon of choice.
Factotum
By Charles Bukowski
208 pages
Originally published Jan. 1, 1975
Factotum was one of three books the Mules read for our mid-July meeting at the Cigar Club. A semi-autobiographical novel about a wannabe writer and drunk, it is outside of the sorts of books our members enjoy reading, so I was surprised by the recommendation.
The Plot
Henry Chinaski roams around from one fleabag hotel and city to another, barely understanding what is going on while attempting to support himself through mindless, poorly paid jobs. (Chinaski is Bukowski’s alter-ego. The character appears in five of his novels.)
There’s lots of drinking, smoking, and foul language, but there is virtually no forward movement among the characters. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone that hasn’t read Bukowski and to anyone that wanted to understand American prose in modern times.
What I Liked About It
Bukowski’s prose. I’m a big fan of Hemingway. And I liked the way Bukowski takes Hem’s terseness and directness even farther… probably as far as prose can go while still retaining some poetic vibration.
What I Didn’t Like So Much
Having to vicariously live the life of Henry Chinaski. This isn’t a fault of the story. Nor of Bukowski’s imagination. He wants the reader to live in that depressing, boring, unredeemable world in order to show him the little glints of light. But it’s viscerally uncomfortable.
About Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)
Charles Bukowski was born in Germany. When he was three, the family moved to the US.
As a struggling writer, he worked a wide range of jobs, including dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.
His writing often featured a depraved metropolitan environment, downtrodden members of American society, direct language, violence, and sexual imagery. His first book of poetry was published in 1959. He went on to publish more than forty-five books of poetry and prose. (Source: Poets.org)
Charles Bukowski on Writing
* “Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.”
* “If I stop writing, then I am dead. And that’s the only way I’ll stop: dead.”
* “It’s better to do a dull thing with style than a dangerous thing without it.”
Matt Dillon and Marisa Tomei
Factotum
Adapted from the book by Charles Bukowski
Directed by Bent Hamer
Starring Matt Dillon, Marisa Tomei, and Lili Taylor
Released Aug. 18, 2006 (US)
Factotum is a good but not great movie. There are many things to recommend it, including the camera work and the settings. But I think what I liked best about watching it so many years after it first came out was Matt Dillon’s portrayal of Henry Chinaski. (Dillon was about 40 at the time.) It felt exactly right. It might have been Dillon’s best performance ever. I also thought that Lili Taylor was excellent in the role of Henry’s main squeeze.
What I didn’t like so much…
The plot moved along pretty well in the book, but it dragged in the movie. I think the reason for that is that the screenwriters (Bent Hamer and Jim Stark) took liberties with Bukowski’s story (e.g., cutting some scenes, then dropping in transitional sections in an effort to help with continuity) that had the effect of slowing everything down. They also failed to capture the dark humor in the book.
I would recommend Factotum to Bukowski fans. But I would warn them not to watch it with huge expectations.
Critical Reception
* “At times, the picture recalls Jim Jarmusch at his very best, with all the self-indulgent parts cut out.” (Eleanor Ringel Cater, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
* “Factotum, for all its grim grind, is funny-serious, and smart-stupid.” (Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle)
* “An aimless movie about an aimless man is still an aimless movie.” (Tom Long, Detroit News)
You can watch the trailer here.
A factotum (fak-TOW-tum) – Latin for “do everything” – is an employee or official that has many different responsibilities; a handyman or jack-of-all trades hired to do all sorts of work around the house.
Sure, These May Be Cherry-Picked, but Still…
Another amusing episode of “How Dumb Are Young People Today.” I love the last bit, where the young woman could rattle off the names of all the Kardashians but couldn’t name the capital of the US!
Click here.