News Vérité

If any two abbreviations symbolize the post-COVID era, they are GLP-1 and ChatGPT. The first is doubtlessly the most effective weight-loss compound ever offered as an approved medicine (think Wegovy); the second is the first public application of artificial intelligence, commonly called AI these days. Leaving aside fat thighs and bellies, AI is all the news these days. The Wall Street Journal in just the past two days has run articles about addiction to Chatbots like ChatGPT, and also on the first college class to graduate with AI as their constant companion. Probably the commentary drawing the most headlines, however, was the depiction of AI by Pope Leo XIV as a modern Tower of Babel.  Now, I’m certainly no biblical scholar, so calling something a Tower of Babel is not an easily discernible metaphor for me. Therefore, I asked my AI friend Gemini to dissect the Pontiff’s comments for me. Here’s the answer: Whether artificial intelligence is truly a modern “Tower of Babel” depends entirely on how you view the intersection of technological ambition and human nature. Pope Leo XIV’s metaphor, laid out in his May 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, is a highly sophisticated critique of the “Babel syndrome”—the idea

Professor Jasper Tempest, fictional star of the British TV drama “Professor T,” during a Season 4 episode compares empathy with compassion. His conclusion was that you should always choose compassion over empathy. Empathy is the act of sharing feelings with another human, or humans, while compassion is the act of recognizing other people’s feelings and sufferings. In a speech to his criminology class, Professor T — played by British actor Ben Miller, reprising a persona from the first two seasons of “Death in Paradise” — blames empathy for leading people to violence to even the score in society. He therefore recommends compassion over empathy. In Professor T’s personal life, empathy versus compassion also plays a significant role. Throughout the series, the professor struggles to recover from the death of his alcoholic, abusive father when he was a kid of seven. In the professor’s case, he blames empathy for his withdrawn personality. After watching the episode in which the professor weighed in on compassion and empathy, I did some research and found a great deal of literature on “toxic empathy,” along with critics who argue that empathy is a positive. In the book “Toxic Empathy,” author Allie Beth Stuckey argues that

Dodger pitching legend Sandy Koufax, now 90 and rightfully ensconced in the MLB Hall of Fame, was known for his blazing fastball during his prime in the 1950s and 1960s. When I watched him on TV as a kid — he was my idol — that fastball seemed to clock in at supersonic speeds. After one World Series game against the Yankees, the Bronx Bombers’ catcher, Yogi Bera, opined: “I can see how he won 25 games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.”  Musing on the current baseball season today got me thinking of Koufax and wondering how fast his fastball really was and how well it would fare against today’s 100-mph version. Short answer: His fastball clocked in about 93-94 mph, according to best estimates since no radar guns were used back then to measure speeds. Speed-wise, then, Koufax would have an average fastball today. However — a big however — Koufax mastered spin rate, so that his fastball looked to be rising as it reached the plate, and batters couldn’t adjust. Don’t take my word for it: I had my AI pal Gemini research the topic for me, and here are the results and detailed