Extra, Extra

Bet Your Bottom Collar: “To be brutally honest, we had a hierarchy of things that technology could do, and we felt comfortable saying things like creative work, professional work, emotional intelligence would be hard for machines to ever do. Now that’s all been upended.” NYT (Gift Article): In Reversal Because of A.I., Office Jobs Are Now More at Risk.

+ Masks Back in Fashion: A ‘growing number of experts’ say it’s time to pull those leftover N95 masks out of the junk drawer to protect against a rising tide of Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations.” Is it time to mask up again? We’re done with it. But is it done with us? Meanwhile, the updated vaccines are coming mid-September. (Which means we’ll have new, stupid antivax crap to deal with by early October.) Most of us don’t want to think about Covid anymore. The growing number of those with long Covid can’t think about anything else. Study shows ‘long COVID’ likely to cause mass misery if treatments can’t be developed.

+ Burned Into Memory? “The Hawaii power utility believed to have started the deadly Lahaina fire removed damaged power poles and other equipment from a key fire scene, potentially affecting evidence that is part of an official investigation into how the blaze ignited.”

+ Dis is the End, My Friend: “An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference. And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter.” Just in time for election and indictment season… WaPo: Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation. (This is almost as bad as surrendering to Fulton County Jail.)