Quick Take - Let Him Eat Grapes

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


In the starkest possible example of why Populist movements are sweeping the globe, we found out yesterday that He Who Must Be Obeyed - Yes, Jeff Bezos - is offering a $1.5 million prize to kiddie researchers who can devise a Chat Bot which can "converse coherently" for a full 20 minutes.


Bezos and Amazon will award college students $500,000 if they're able to code the Alexa Personal Assistant ("A secretary now is a toy")*** to "have an intelligent conversation about pop culture and news events" for a full 1/3 of an hour - with an additional $1 million to their sponsoring university.


We posted the following the minute we heard about this extraordinary contest and are now converting it into a Quick Take:


Dear Jeff, since $20,000 per year is about the bare minimum it now takes for an adult to survive in the United States, you might consider taking your $1.5 million and hiring 75 desperate-for-work adults for one full year - or 1 desperate-for-work adult for an entire 75 years. 


If you've ever ventured out of One-Percent-World - pleasant place though it may be - we expect you've heard some of the many anecdotes about super-well-educated, highly-skilled, and extremely experienced adults, including my fellow Ivy Leaguers and other graduates of top universities and professional schools, who have been driven to suicide, because they can't find enough work to keep them from starvation or living on the streets. 


This is especially true of the more than 2 in 5 "Gray" Americans who are age 50 and over - and who, as we have emphasized, will make up fully 1 in 2 potential voters this year.


Rather than hire a Chat Bot for 20 minutes, Dear Jeff, please think of hiring 75 of us for a year.

 

If you don't have anything truly productive for us to do, perhaps we can keep you cool with feather fans or wash your feet or feed you grapes.  


We are happy to wear togas - which Chat Bots are not apt to do.


 

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***For Readers under age 60 or so, the lyric "A secretary is not a toy" is from the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 1962, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, later made into a terrific 1967 film.


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