What I'm Reading (July 18)

I have not been AI’s biggest fan, especially in healthcare, where I have seen and continue to experience the downstream effects of electronic medical records on the enslaved humans using it. So, this opening paragraph in an article on AI in healthcare was singing my song.

“An important thing to realize about the grandest conversations surrounding AI is that, most of the time, everyone is making things up. This isn’t to say that people have no idea what they’re talking about or that leaders are lying. But the bulk of the conversation about AI’s greatest capabilities is premised on a vision of a theoretical future. It is a sales pitch, one in which the problems of today are brushed aside or softened as issues of now, which surely, leaders in the field insist, will be solved as the technology gets better. What we see today is merely a shadow of what is coming. We just have to trust them.”

Evidently, AI is faith-based. From Charlie Warzel in the Atlantic, AI Has Become a Technology of Faith

Oprah led the way, Reese Witherspoon and now Jenna Bush Hager have followed with reading clubs, the new way to find books. Or is it?

“For years, the signals that mattered most in publishing came from the highest of highbrow sources. Anyone who worked in the industry prior to the 2010s will tell you about the glory days when a rave New York Times review and one national NPR segment led to a spot on the best-seller list. For many, it was hard to accept that Reese Witherspoon holding your book could do more for it than ten NPR interviews. Now BookTok may be the next bitter pill industry insiders need to swallow. The literary quality of the books selected by celebrity book clubs is miles above that of many of the titles amplified through BookTok—and for that matter, BookTok is even harder to predict than the media or the celebrity book clubs.”

An interesting look behind the business of celebrity book clubs. From Esquire, How Celebrity Book Clubs Actually Work

While I am a bit late for the 4^th, I would like to report that I love me a good hot dog. In fact, even at Shake Shack, which makes their chops with shakes and burgers, their griddle-fried hot dog is the best.

“Early vendors were mostly poor immigrants selling the bun-and-wiener combo for a nickel a pop, and hot dogs were such a hit because they were relatively cheap to both buy and sell. As hot dog carts popped up coast to coast in the early 20th century, a few lucky enterprising souls struck it rich from their hot dog business — like Nathan Handwerker, founder of the Nathan’s Famous hot dog chain that crowds flock to on Coney Island to this day. Thanks to its association with leisure — specifically, being out and about in warm weather — hot dogs also became indelibly associated with the summertime. Today, almost 40 percent of the billions of hot dogs consumed in the US every year are eaten between Memorial Day and Labor Day.”

An ode to a dog, from Vox, America’s obsession with hot dogs, explained

While discussing my favorite foods, I wish to offer another defense for the potato. The potato, by the way, remains a vegetable despite attempts to reclassify it as a grain!

“In China, except for associating French fries with the West, potatoes are known as peasant food. Very different, rice is a symbol of civilization, and noodles relate to longevity.”

But China needs the potato as described in EconLife, Why China Wants People To Eat More Potatoes