Why hasn't AI gone through all the Epstein files and organized the info into something enlightening?

I'm wondering.

I see that The Economist used AI to analyze the Epstein files, and we got "Inside Epstein's Network/What 1.4m emails reveal about America’s most notorious sex offender":

[A] group of software engineers has turned the PDFs into a format that is easier to analyse. Using Reducto, an AI tool, they have identified which files contained emails; extracted the listed senders, recipients, dates, subjects and message bodies; and posted them on a website called Jmail.world. In total, the group processed 1.4m emails, finishing its work on February 11th. The Economist has collaborated with it to assign each message to unique individuals regardless of spellings or email addresses, and researched the backgrounds of the 500 people who appear most often. We then used a large language model (LLM) to score each email chain on how disturbing its content would be to a typical reader, creating an “alarm index.”... 

Goodbye to Hulk Hogan.

Cardiac arrest, at age 71, reported by TMZ.

A memorable appearance last summer:

When people vote about the visualization of the concept of voting.

Personally lobbied for this sticker with my City Clerk. If there is ever a year to have an unhinged werewolf ripping its shirt off as the “I Voted” sticker…it’s 2024. https://t.co/ZIXxBYMDuk pic.twitter.com/swyb5ok3xO

— Derek Dobies ✊ (@derekdobies) September 4, 2024

(This gets my "monsters" tag, because that is a werewolf.)

ADDED: Was there no pushback over what could be perceived as a reference to Hulk Hogan at the Republican National Convention?

"At the convention, he had a new role: He played the Roman emperor, like a Julius Caesar who survived that 'foul deed' and 'bleeding piece of earth,' fist in the air..."

"... sitting high in the forum, gloating, as his vanquished foes bent the knee. Caesar had a cult of personality as well, the epitome of the strongman authoritarian politician. That Caesar was martyred. But before that he had already eroded republican rule and was on his way to emperor. (Some Trump supporters on X call Barron 'Octavian.').... Playing Caesar, Trump asked gladiators to speak before his speech: Dana White, the U.F.C. chief, to introduce him, which seemed fitting since Trump always treated politics like a blood sport, and Hulk Hogan, the W.W.E. star. Hogan ripped off his shirt to show his muscly arms and a red Trump-Vance T-shirt. He said he was 'bleeding like a pig' the last time he saw Trump at a championship match at Trump Plaza. 'I know tough guys,' Hogan said. 'But let me tell you something, brother: Donald Trump is the toughest of them all.' Trump blew Hogan a kiss...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Trump the Lion, or Trump the Lyin’?" (NYT).

This makes me think of a trend from last year: "The Roman empire: why men just can’t stop thinking about it/Women across the world are asking men how often the ancient civilisation pops into their head – and the answer is frequently startling" (Guardian). Back then, the women were flummoxed. What's up with men thinking about the Roman Empire "three or four times a month," "every couple of days" or "at least once a day."

But here's Maureen Dowd, famously female, going all Roman Empire on us. Why is this happening?

"Trump defense suggests he was shakedown target, not hush money schemer/During contentious questioning of Stormy Daniels lawyer Keith Davidson, Donald Trump’s lawyers portray their client as the victim in the case."

 A headline at The Washington Post.

In the most contentious testimony yet in the criminal trial, Los Angeles lawyer Keith Davidson denied accusations that he flirted with extortion when he negotiated settlements with celebrities to keep potentially damaging stories out of the public eye.

By accusing him, Trump’s lawyers displayed a key element of their defense strategy: getting jurors to focus on the lawyers and middlemen....

Trump’s lawyers... tried to use Davidson to show that he was well versed in squeezing money out of celebrities, and that Daniels thought her chances of getting paid for her story would vanish after the 2016 presidential election, which she expected Trump to lose.

Fortunately, something of Trump's side of the story is coming out, but I do not trust mainstream media to tell us the story straight. We're not able to watch the trial, and we don't even get a transcript, just whatever the media see fit to report. And yet there seems to be this idea — among the Trump antagonists — that we the voters will allow this trial to substantially manipulate our opinion of the man. The case was brought to manipulate us. The presidential election is at stake. Give us a transcript. 

[CORRECTION: Even though I read the news every day, I had not noticed that the New York court system announced, back on April 22, that it would provide transcripts: "The court system is taking the novel step of posting the daily transcripts of the trial proceedings on its public website.... 'With current law restricting the broadcasting of trial proceedings and courtroom space for public spectators very limited, the release of the daily transcripts on the court system’s website is the best way to provide the public a direct view of the proceedings in this historic trial,' said Chief Administrative Judge Zayas."]

Back to the WaPo account of Trump's lawyer, Emil Bove, cross-examining Davidson:

Does Joe Rogan have a "no-holds-barred podcast"?

It took 4 New York Times writers to write "Spotify Bet Big on Joe Rogan. It Got More Than It Counted On. The deal that brought his podcast to Spotify is said to be worth over $200 million, more than was previously known. Accusations that he spreads misinformation have roiled the company." 

This piece is about the business of streaming, and that's a great topic:

Spotify was already the king of music streaming. But to help propel the company into its next phase as an all-purpose audio juggernaut, and further challenge Apple and Google, it wanted a superstar podcaster, much as Howard Stern helped put satellite radio on the map in 2006. Spotify executives came to view Joe Rogan — a comedian and sports commentator whose no-holds-barred podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” was already a monster hit on YouTube — as that transformative star.

I guess they didn't want to waste any time trying to explain what's so great about the Joe Rogan podcast, but as a regular listener, I was irked to see "no-holds-barred." 

It invites non-listeners to imagine all sorts of ugly nastiness, and it piles on after people have made various inapt accusations. And you can't really understand Spotify's decisionmaking if you don't appreciate what's so good about the show, if you think it's sweaty, loutish guys letting loose with sexism and racism!

Obviously, some "holds" are "barred." Joe lets his guests speak and he listens, but he breaks in and challenges things that seem off or where he's aware of other evidence. And he's selective about guests, often bringing in scientists with excellent credentials.

But maybe "no-holds-barred" just means freewheeling and rambling, not tightly edited. 

***

Are you looking for a little escape?

This is an unprecedented display of strength and determination.

"For decades, the news media benefitted from the deference paid by courts to the judgments of newspaper editors."

"The judge in federal court treated Gawker’s editors as if they were running a newspaper, and he declined to second-guess them about what constitutes the news. The jury in state court did the opposite. The question now is whether the law, instead of treating every publication as a newspaper, will start to treat all publications as Web sites—with the same skepticism and hostility displayed by the jury in Tampa. The new President and his fellow-billionaires, like Thiel, will certainly welcome a legal environment that is less forgiving of media organizations. Trump’s victory, along with Hulk Hogan’s, suggests that the public may well take their side, too."

Writes Jeffrey Toobin in "Gawker's Demise and the Trump-Era Threat to the First Amendment/Hulk Hogan’s smashing legal victory shows us that publishing the truth may no longer be enough."

"I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest."

Said Peter Thiel — the PayPal billionaire — explaining why he bankrolled Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker. He said it was "less about revenge and more about specific deterrence." The "revenge" part relates to the fact that Gawker had once written about him "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people." Revenge looks backward, getting recompense for wrongs done. Deterrence looks to the future:

“I can defend myself. Most of the people they attack are not people in my category. They usually attack less prominent, far less wealthy people that simply can’t defend themselves.” He said that “even someone like Terry Bollea who is a millionaire and famous and a successful person didn’t quite have the resources to do this alone.”...

“I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations,” he said. “I think much more highly of journalists than that. It’s precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker.... It’s not like it is some sort of speaking truth to power or something going on here. The way I’ve thought about this is that Gawker has been a singularly terrible bully. In a way, if I didn’t think Gawker was unique, I wouldn’t have done any of this. If the entire media was more or less like this, this would be like trying to boil the ocean.”...

“[W]e would get in touch with the plaintiffs who otherwise would have accepted a pittance for a settlement...."

If you keep reading over at the link — which goes to the NYT — past the quotes from lawprofs who explain there's no ethical violation in Hogan's receiving help from an unnamed donor and no effect on the merits of his case and past some defense of Gawker from its founder and into the part about Thiel's brilliant career, you'll eventually get to:

A libertarian, Mr. Thiel is a pledged delegate for Donald J. Trump for the 2016 Republican National Convention.

The top-rated comments at the Times all pick on this point: 1. "After reading this my respect for Peter Thiel, as it were, disappeared." 2. "At least Gawker relies on truth. Trump, on the other hand, disseminates lies like confetti. Wonder how Thiel reconciles that reality." 3. "Isn't it funny how libertarians don't want any rules, until they do?" 4. "I was actually rooting for Mr. Thiel until I read, 'Mr. Thiel is a pledged delegate for Donald J. Trump for the 2016 Republican National Convention.'"

#3 is a good comment. I'd up-vote that.

"I went from being 6-foot-5 to 4-foot-5 when I climbed up on that witness stand. I thought, 'My God, this is really horrible.'"

"I tried to keep it in context, what I was dealing with. [The defendants] said it was newsworthy — I felt like I was in the middle of a joke, that they were trying to make something that’s a joke in a locker room with men getting dressed. Then to have to talk about it or be exposed to it was just ridiculous, very embarrassing. It’s hard to talk about this stuff especially when you’re trying to be serious or under oath."

Said Terry Bollea, (Hulk Hogan) about his lawsuit against Gawker, which he characterizes as "actually protecting the First Amendment and carving out that little piece of privacy."

Also quoted in the linked article — which goes to The Washington Post — is Donald Trump, who brought up the Hulk Hogan lawsuit in his recent interview with the WaPo editorial board:

 "I mean I must tell you that the Hulk Hogan thing was a tremendous shock to me because — not only the amount and the fact that he had the victory — because for the most part I think libel laws almost don’t exist in this country."

Not that Hulk Hogan's case was a libel case. (It was for the invasion of privacy.)

"You know, based on, based on everything I’ve seen and watched and everything else, and I just think that if a paper writes something wrong — media, when I say paper I’m talking about media. I think that they can do a retraction if they’re wrong."

Here's the full interview with Trump. Let's get a little more context, because someone in the comments the other day was asking me to try to make sense of what Trump said about libel. He does leap around and make associations freely. If you're unsympathetic to him, it's easy to say he's uninformed, incoherent, and doesn't care if it shows. If you're sympathetic, you can infer and interpolate and make the connections yourself. For example: Hulk Hogan's case surprised him because he thought the courts leaned heavily in favor of the media's rights and would get away with publishing whatever they want and that therefore lawsuits — whether they are based on libel or privacy — would fail.  

You may want to know — before you read what I have to say about the transcript — whether I'm sympathetic or unsympathetic to Donald Trump. Isn't everyone on one side or the other? Actually, no. Somehow, I find myself resting comfortably in the middle. I care about seeing how other people react, and it's better to stay uncommitted. Cruel neutrality. It's real. I couldn't even tell you who I'll vote for in the Wisconsin primary next week. I may decide on my walk to the polling place.

Ugh! The transcript! The discussion of libel goes on so long, and I'm engaging with it line by line. It no longer belongs at the end of this post. I'm cutting and pasting what I've been writing into a new post, which will be up fairly soon.

"Hulk Hogan Awarded $115 Million in Privacy Suit Against Gawker."

The NYT reports.

Samantha Barbas, a law professor at the University at Buffalo whose research focuses on the intersection of the First Amendment, media and privacy, said... “For a jury to say that a celebrity has a right to privacy that outweighs the public’s ‘right to know,’ and that a celebrity sex tape is not newsworthy, represents a real shift in American free press law”...

The top-rated comment tops the lawprof:

This decision will have a chilling effect on the dissemination of private sex tapes involving professional wrestlers. A sad day for America.

"The Internet is a hybrid of television and print. And in order to communicate to a younger audience, they expect there will be accompanying illustration..."

"... proof of what the writer is saying... If you are trying to communicate to a modern audience, pictures are essential."

Said Gawker mogul Nick Denton, testifying in the invasion-of-privacy case brought by the man whose public persona is Hulk Hogan, who seeks $100 million in damages for the sex video published on Gawker.  The sex video "was our way to show a highly unusual encounter," Denton said.

"Let's talk for a lack of a better word, your philosophy on privacy," said [Hogan's lawyer Ken] Turkel, bringing up a 2013 interview... ("Gawker's Nick Denton Explains Why Invasion of Privacy Is Positive for Society") as well as another interview with Playboy where Denton addressed privacy by stating, "I don’t think people give a fuck, actually" and "Every infringement of privacy is sort of liberating."

Denton [said] "I think being our true selves, being open to our colleagues and friends and family, my personal view is that we are happier as a result.... [The sex video] was our way to show a highly unusual encounter."... Denton was asked to read salacious passages from Gawker's Hogan story in the "most humanizing way possible." And so, with a British accent, as gently as Denton could muster, the jury heard a play-by-play of Hogan having sex, lines like: "Then we watch Hulk stand up and clumsily attempt to roll a condom on to his erect penis which, even if it has been ravaged by steroids and middle-age, still appears to be the size of a thermos you'd find in a child's lunchbox."

"I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan."

"Hulk Hogan, that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm.”

Is it entertaining to watch 2 young men almost have nervous breakdowns on television?

Casey made the gargantuan effort not to throw up, which they would not have been able to bleep as they did his "Oh my fucking God." And James — who has 2 syndromes, Asperger's and Tourette's — got down on his knees and worshiped Hulk Hogan, then looked like he was going to soar into some unknown dimension of manic.