Fast Takes: Jews must hold Mamdani accountable, the price for AI progress, and other commentary

Jews on last week’s Oct.7 anniversary proved they “don’t have to sit on the sidelines” when “the unhinged Hamasnik left” is “baying for Jewish blood,” cheers Commentary’s Seth Mandel.

After Mayor Mamdani’s “genuinely evil Oct.7 anniversary statement, where he refused “to say the word ‘Jews’ at all on a date that was solely about Jewish suffering,” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, president of the New York Board of Rabbis, branded him “morally perverse.” Democratic Rep.

Jared Moskowitz said he “needs the city’s antisemitism policy for himself.” Debbie Wasserman Schultz railed that he was “desecrating the memory of murdered, innocent Jews.” New Jersey Rep.Josh Gottheimer slammed him for making a “painful” day “worse.” Jews” are obliged “to speak truth to power.” And they did.Public alarm over AI is “understandable,” concedes Bloomberg News’ editorial board, but “a bit of perspective is in order.” The “grim scenarios” hardly come from “expert consensus.” And “while recent ‘rogue’ AI incidents are unsettling, follow-up analyses have found that they were less the result of enigmatic new capabilities than of oversight and engineering flaws that can be mitigated with known security practice.” True, “frontier models are advancing quickly” and “risks, even unlikely ones, should be taken seriously”; “no set of policies will produce perfect safety,” and “AI models will surely cause further havoc.” But “advancing any new technology requires ambition, experimentation and risk-taking — including leaps into the unknown.

Such is the price of progress.”Leading Democrats claim the party “has a plan to make life’s necessities more affordable” by “ending Trump’s tariffs” and the war in Iran and “reversing Medicaid cuts,” but “voters should be skeptical” that these “extravagant promises” will be fulfilled, warns USA Today’s Nicole Russell.Why? Because Democrats wil...