New York (CNN Business)Inflation was 0% or 8.5% in July. The answer is both. But leave it to the politicians to twist this basic economic fact into rhetorical ammunition.
Here's the deal: At yesterday's White House press conference, President Biden took a moment to point out that inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, fell last month.
“Today we received the news that July inflation was 0% in our economy. It fell, resulting in zero inflation last month.”
That's right. From June to July, his CPI, which measures price fluctuations in baskets of commodities and services, was actually flat. It's not exactly the result of the Champagne breakout, but it's a step in the right direction.
I jumped.
Ted Cruz tweeted that it was "cruel gaslighting" from the president, pointing out that the headline CPI figure was actually him at 8.5%.
But Biden didn't lie. Perhaps he has successfully picked a more optimistic number to focus on short-term improvements in spending power? of course. After all, he is a politician.
If I were one of his advisors, he might have advised me not to make too much of a percent since he only has a month. If you ask Americans what they think, they'll probably say they're still pissed and struggling to make ends meet.
As I wrote here yesterday, the consumer price index He's the only reason he's leveled off. That's because energy prices have fallen. Almost everything else went up, including food and housing.
Conclusion
Biden and Republicans are both right about the data, and both miss the point.
Mr. Biden's optimism looks like Pollyanna when people are still getting paid and working, even after he admitted that "people are still suffering."
Also, the Republican party's dismissive dismissal of the 0% monthly figure is unnecessarily dismal, and all good things that happen under Biden's oversight are either real or should be celebrated.
Is it too much to admit that it's a long road, but to ask for time to pat yourself on the back?
NUMBER OF THE DAY: $6
US Postal Service Peaks Holiday Season for 3rd Year in a Row From time to time, we temporarily increase the rates for our delivery services. The price increase, from 25 cents to over $6 per package, runs from October 2nd through January 22nd.
BAD BOTS
Alright, Facebook has released what it describes as the most advanced chatbot ever, an artificial intelligence powered program called BlenderBot3 . And boy, it didn't take long for it to start saying racist and plainly wrong crap.
That said, the A.I. Survey said, "It's painful to see some of these unpleasant reactions," but reiterates the importance of public demonstrations to improve conversational AI systems.
(On the one hand, I applaud transparency, but on the other hand, a company with some of the top engineers on the planet released a crappy bot and then
I am aware of the shortcomings.
"All conversational AI chatbots are known to imitate and generate unsafe, biased, or offensive remarks at times, so we conducted extensive research and We have jointly held workshops and developed new techniques to create protections for BlenderBot 3,” the company said in a blog post last week.
But Meta also claimed that the bot was "twice as knowledgeable" as the previous bot.
When Katherine asked Bot what made her "human", Bot replied:
She pointed out the contradiction and the bot responded too humanly. truth.
Damn BlenderBot. It's dark.
Conclusion
BlenderBot's reply is racist, offensive and inaccurate And if it's weird, it's because the internet and humans are all about them: bots mimic the way people talk online, which makes bot brains all the more disturbing with the added conspiracy. 96}
However, one A.I. It's not the kind of innovation you'd put inside the Matrix or something like that.
"If there's one message for people, it's not to take these things too seriously," said Gary Marcus. . "These systems do not understand the world they are talking about."