Former President Obama quietly advised the White House over the past 5 months on its strategy to address AI, engaging behind the scenes with tech companies and holding Zoom meetings with White House aides at Biden’s request, aides to both men say. https://t.co/QxNfwVqBGO
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 3, 2023
The fact that this has to be reported as “quietly” is frustrating. We can all bet his advice carries weight but we also don’t know what it was or what it was influenced by. If this were a legislative process Obama would be illegally lobbying. more here …
And as for Obama’s disdain for “material consumption”?
Hmmm… Does that critique of inequality, inordinate profiteering, and conspicuous consumption suggest that Obama will then decide that as a former president, he must himself set the example by exhibiting a “higher purpose” beyond his own fixations on “material consumption”? In other words, perhaps Obama now plans to downsize and sell off either his #4 new multimillion-dollar Hawaii beachfront villa, or his #3 30-acre, multimillion-dollar Martha’s-Vineyard estate, or his #2 Washington-DC Kalorama multimillion-dollar mansion, or his #1 multimillion-dollar stately Chicago home? Does Obama’s reference to a more “inclusive capitalism” also encompass the ex-president signing $150-million-plus worth of book and Netflix deals, or Michelle Obama recently speaking for an hour on “diversity and inclusion” (but oddly not on the” equity” part of the holy DEI trinity), for over $12,000 a minute in Germany?