A new force is increasing inequality in America; The Washington Post, August 20, 2026

 Shira Ovide, The Washington Post; A new force is increasing inequality in America

Evidence is mounting that artificial intelligence is helping the richest people and cities pull further ahead.

"Sam Altman, the chief executive who unleashed ChatGPT on the world, has called artificial intelligence an “equalizing force” that will “collectively lift us all up.”

But evidence is piling up that the AI boom may instead be widening the gap between America’s economic aristocracy and everyone else.

Data shows that the people making the most use of AI are concentrated in richer urban areas, while disadvantaged regions have lagged behind. Affluent Americans are on a spending spree thanks to investment portfolios fattened by an AI-addicted stock market. And some economic experts are warning that AI could widen the income gap between American workers and business owners that has caused anxiety for a decade."

College cheating scandal is the tip of the iceberg; CNN, March 12, 2019

David Perry, CNN; College cheating scandal is the tip of the iceberg

"We're not talking about donating a building, we're talking about fraud," said Andrew Lelling, the US Attorney for Massachusetts, as he announced indictments in a massive scheme alleging that celebrities and other wealthy individuals used cheating, bribes, and lies to get their kids into elite colleges.

The behavior described in this alleged fraud should be punished. But on a broader and more basic level, the case also sheds light on deep inequities in our college admissions system. Because if someone can get their kid into Harvard by buying a building, let alone by committing any of the alleged acts emerging from this case, the scandal isn't just what's illegal, but what's legal as well. "

Episode 76: X-Men – “The Dream”; ComicsVerse, June 10, 2016

Justin Gilbert Alba, ComicsVerse; 

Episode 76: X-Men – “The Dream”

"Joined by my friend, ComicsVerse X-Men writer and podcast co-host Marius Thienenkamp, Episode 76 of the ComicsVerse Podcast, “X-Men: The Dream,” explored the significance of the metaphor of the X-Men both in and outside of comics through discussions of race, sexuality, inequality, and “othering” in western civilization.  Podcast panelists Jamie Rice, Kay Honda, Nolan Bensen, and Corey Spanner weighed in on parallels between historical activists like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Gandhi which lead to conversations about dominant cultural hierarchies and the nature of humanity itself.

X-Men comics and characters are rife with meaning and serve as a mirror of how society treats anyone who is, and feels, different and how those same people cope in a world that hates and fears them. The concept of the X-Men served as a perfect platform during this podcast to embark on an analysis of American culture as a microcosm of human nature and what it ultimately means to be American."

Two Views On The Jim Crow South And Its Legacy Today; The Diane Rehm Show, 8/10/16

[Podcast] The Diane Rehm Show; Two Views On The Jim Crow South And Its Legacy Today:

"Historian Charles Dew was born in 1937 and grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. His parents, along with every white person he knew, believed without question in the inherent inferiority of black Americans and in the need for segregation. In a new memoir, “The Making of a Racist,” he describes what he learned as a child and how he gradually overthrew those beliefs. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson details the crushing realities of the Jim Crow South from the other side of the color line. In her 2010 book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” she documents the migration of black families in the 1930s, 40s and 50s in search of better lives in the North and in the West. Charles Dew and Isabel Wilkerson join us to talk about racism in American, then and now.

Guests

Charles B Dew professor of history, Williams College; author of "The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History and the Slave Trade"

Isabel Wilkerson Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; author, "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration"