Patricia Kullberg hosts this episode of the Old Mole, which features the following segments:
International Law and Lawlessness in the Middle East: In the leadup to a United Nations conference in New York City to discuss Palestine and a two-state solution, the Trump administration discouraged governments around the world from attending. The conference was set to take place on June 17-20 but was postponed in early June, partly in response to US pressure. In their Left & the Law segment, Jan Haaken and Mike Snedeker talk about the UN and international law as well as the lawlessness of Israel and the United States. They take up the growing support globally for a one-state solution given Israel's ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, intensified settler violence against Palestinians, and the ongoing seizure of Palestinian lands in the Occupied Territories. The ruthlessness of Israel has both exposed the fault-lines of proposed two-state solutions and opened the horizons of what's possible.
The Great Con of AI: Promoters of Artificial Intelligence claim that AI is going to usher in a new era of prosperity for all. Economist Mary Hart-Landsberg is skeptical. He argues that generative AI, like chatbots, have not only largely exhausted their potential, they pose numerous threats to human well-being. Patricia Kullberg speaks with Hart-Landsberg about the problems of generative AI, which is the type of AI used to create new content, like text images and audio, based on existing data. Hart-Landsberg wrote about generative AI in a blog published in February of this year entitled Exposing the Big Con: the False Promise of Artificial Intelligence. Hart-Landsberg is Chair of the Oregon chapter of the National Writers Union; Chair of Portland Rising, a committee of Portland Jobs with Justice; and Professor emeritus of economics at Lewis and Clark College.