Big brother’s listening. Despite warnings of abuses like those that have accompanied the rise of red-light cameras, Chicago’s planning to deploy cameras with microphones—for automated ticketing of drivers with loud mufflers.
■ 404 Media: “AI cameras took over one small American town. Now they’re everywhere.”
Get ready for AI politicians. Gizmodo: Over the next year, candidates “will flood the world with robot duplicates of themselves, delivering messages they’ve never actually said, in languages they don’t speak, and in ways we’ve only imagined in our most boring dystopian nightmares.”
■ The Washington Post exposes AI image generators’ bias—for instance, how they define “attractive people” as young and light-skinned. (Gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters.)
■ ChatGPT’s writing a new off-Broadway musical nightly.
Reporters playing dumb. Popular Information outs journalists who’ve been straight-facedly reporting Republicans’ disingenuous plan to fund military aid for Israel by cutting funding for the IRS.
Google that s**t. Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina explains the significance of the Centers for Disease Control’s decision to switch to an arm of Google parent Alphabet for the sampling of public wastewater to detect COVID-19 and other health threats.
■ The Verge: Google’s antitrust trial has revealed, for the first time, which searches make Google the most money (or at least did in 2018).
‘They received all that money, and we have not seen anything.’ Block Club Chicago: Almost a year after Chicago gave a grocery company $26.5 million to revive Save A Lot stores—the city has nothing to show for it.
■ The watchdog Civic Federation is unimpressed with the city’s funding for its migrant influx.
■ Read the federation’s full analysis of the 2024 budget proposal.
‘My team is burnt out.’ Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia says her office has been swamped with demand for CityKey municipal ID cards—partly on behalf of thousands of migrant arrivals here.
■ The former Museum of Broadcast Communications may become a new haven for refugees …
■ … but Mayor Johnson’s been mum on that option.
■ Johnson and four other big-city mayors were headed to D.C. today to press President Biden for more help accommodating the influx.
■ They’ve already sent the president a letter listing their suggestions.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “What are the migrants going to do when it really is winter in Chicago?”
Like father … Under investigation for allegedly violating Chicago Park District sexual harassment policy, disgraced ex-Ald. Danny Solis’ daughter, Maya Solis, has quit her $126,072-a-year job with the district.
■ A Sun-Times editorial slams Illinois Senate President Don Harmon for supporting tens of millions in tax breaks for the nursing home biz—after snarfing up $2 million in campaign cash from the industry’s political action committee: “It’s easy to see what’s wrong with that picture.”
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■ The station will honor her with special events through the weekend.
■ Today brought the debut of what’s been billed as the last song from her beloved Beatles …
■ … an AI-aided tune that Variety’s Jem Aswad says fails to measure up to the band’s towering legacy but remains “an unexpected pleasure that marks the completion of the group’s last bit of unfinished business.”
■ A 12-minute mini-documentary explains the tech behind the song’s resurrection.
All holiday music, all the time. It starts at 4 this afternoon on WLIT-FM.
■ Columnist Rex Huppke: “Halloween’s over. Merry Christmas, people.”
■ Just a few days left for you to nominate Chicago Public Square for Best Email Newsletter and Best Independent Website in the Reader’s Best of Chicago awards.
■ Welcome, new readers who’ve discovered Square courtesy of Eric Zorn’s newsletter.