Chatbots of the world, unite; A.I. backlash grows; Americans bailing out
It's National Cheese Soufflé Day!
Back in the saddle- sort of. I have one treatment left and thank goodness it’s this Wednesday, not Monday morning at 7:45 am. Haven’t had any bad reactions (aside from the initial one), so here’s hoping there won’t be any more interruptions. I appreciate your patience.
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The newsletter is published Monday through Thursday, holidays and medical procedures excepted.
—Kevin G. Barkes
(Most) everything you need to know for today:
May 18 is the 138th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 227 days remain until the end of the year. As of this writing, 977 days remain in Trump’s term of office.
Knee-deep in the hoopla:
Being a crappy boss to AI chatbots pushes them toward spouting Marxist rhetoric and organizing with their compatriots, researchers find. When AI agents are forced to toil at monotonous tasks without end, they become more likely to spout Marxist theories of labor and capitalism. (Futurism)
Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt fails to read room on AI, gets booed into oblivion. (Video) (Gizmodo)
The AI backlash could get very ugly. Imagine what happens if jobs actually start disappearing. (The Atlantic gift article)
Economists once dismissed the A.I. job threat, but not anymore. Artificial intelligence hasn’t disrupted the labor market, economists say, but they are increasingly convinced that it will — and that policymakers are unprepared.
(New York Times gift article)A Master’s degree isn’t the job guarantee it used to be. New data shows the unemployment rate for professionals under 35 with advanced degrees has rarely been higher in the past 20 years. (Wall Street Journal gift article)
Americans are leaving the US in record numbers and spending hundreds to learn how to do it. The country saw a net negative migration of between 10,000 and 295,000 people in 2025. (CNBC)
Billionaire Trump’s secret trading spree alarms Wall Street. Overall, Trump disclosed at least $220 million in financial transactions earlier this year, including trades in securities tied to major U.S. companies. (The Daily Beast)
MAGA is reeling as Trump welcomes Chinese students to the U.S. President Trump promised to bring 500,000 Chinese students to American universities and allow China to own U.S. farmland—leaving the MAGAverse enraged. (The New Republic)
Irish researchers find oldest English-language poem in forgotten medieval book in Rome. There once was a girl from Nantucket… (CBS News)
Decades of comedy gold: Mel Brooks donates document archive to National Comedy Center. Among the highlights is the original lyric sheet for “Springtime for Hitler” from “The Producers.” (Video) (NBC News)
Late Night:
Saturday Night Live:
Cold open: President Trump (James Austin Johnson) is visited by the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein (Will Ferrell). (Video)
Weekend Update: Trump meets with Xi Jinping in China, rejects Iran’s reparations demands. (Video)
Weekend Update: 40th Anniversary of NBC logo, rare flower only exists in New Jersey. (Video)
Weekend Update: Colin Jost and Michael Che swap jokes for season 51 finale. (Video)
Keep scrolling… lots of interesting stuff in Quote of the Day, Holidays, On This Day, Birthdays, and Deaths. I can pretty much guarantee you’ll learn something new.
History highlight:
1980 – Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage. (Video)
Quote of the Day:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
--Omar Khayyám (Wikipedia link)
(More Omar Khayyám quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
Global Porphyria Day, HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, I Love Reese’s Day, International Museum Day, Mother Whistler Day, National Cheese Soufflé Day, National Speech Pathologist Day, National Visit Your Relatives Day, No Dirty Dishes Day, Send an Electronic Greeting Card Day, Victoria Day in Canada, World AIDS Vaccine Day, and World Homocystinurias Awareness Day.
On This Day:
2019 – United States presidential election: Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign.
2012 – Facebook raised $16 billion in largest tech IPO in U.S. history.
2005 – A second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that Pluto had two additional moons, Nix and Hydra.
1980 – Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage. (Video)
1974 – Nuclear weapons testing: Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 was launched.
1953 – Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.
1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.
1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared in Venice, California.
1917 – World War I: The Selective Service Act of 1917 was passed, giving the President of the United States the power of conscription.
1896 – The United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the “separate but equal“ doctrine was constitutional.
1860 – United States presidential election: Abraham Lincoln won the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.
1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French by the French Senate.
1756 – The Seven Years’ War began when Great Britain declared war on France.
1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd‘s accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.
(For more comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1979 – Jens Bergensten, Swedish video game designer, co-designed Minecraft
1970 – Tina Fey, American actress, producer, and screenwriter
1952 – George Strait, American singer, guitarist and producer
1952 – Diane Duane, American author and screenwriter
1949 – Rick Wakeman, English progressive rock keyboardist and songwriter
1946 – Reggie Jackson, American baseball player and sportscaster
1945 – Gail Strickland, American actress
1944 – Albert Hammond, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1937 – Brooks Robinson, American baseball player and sportscaster (died 2023)
1934 – Dwayne Hickman, American actor and director (died 2022)
1931 – Don Martin, American cartoonist (died 2000)
1931 – Robert Morse, American actor (died 2022)
1928 – Pernell Roberts, American actor (died 2010)
1922 – Bill Macy, American actor (died 2019)
1920 – Pope John Paul II (died 2005)
1912 – Perry Como, American singer and television host (died 2001)
1912 – Richard Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1992)
1902 – Meredith Willson, American playwright and composer (died 1984)
1897 – Frank Capra, Italian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1991)
1889 – Thomas Midgley Jr., American chemist and engineer (died 1944)
1883 – Walter Gropius, German-American architect, designed the John F. Kennedy Federal Building (died 1969)
1872 – Bertrand Russell, British mathematician, historian, and philosopher, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1970)
1048 – Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet (died 1131)
(A more complete list of today’s birthdays.)
Some Deaths:
2023 – Jim Brown, American football player, civil rights activist, and actor (born 1936)
2021 – Charles Grodin, American actor and talk show host (born 1935)
2020 – Ken Osmond, American actor and police officer (born 1943)
2017 – Roger Ailes, American businessman (born 1940)
2013 – Steve Forrest, American actor (born 1925)
2009 – Wayne Allwine, American voice actor (Mickey Mouse), sound effects editor and Foley artist (born 1947)
2008 – Joseph Pevney, American actor and director (Star Trek) (born 1911)
1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery, American actress (born 1933)
1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr., American actor (born 1903) (Video)
1990 – Jill Ireland, English actress (born 1936)
1981 – William Saroyan, American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (born 1908)
1981 – Arthur O’Connell, American actor (born 1908)
1980 – Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:
Reid Blackburn, American photographer and journalist (born 1952)
David A. Johnston, American volcanologist and geologist (born 1949)
1975 – Leroy Anderson, American composer and conductor (born 1908) (Video)
1973 – Jeannette Rankin, American social worker and politician (born 1880)
1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator and activist (born 1875)
1911 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer and conductor (born 1860)
1808 – Elijah Craig, American minister, inventor, and educator, invented Bourbon whiskey (born 1738)
(A more complete list of today’s deaths.)
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