Even as the scale of the coronavirus outbreak was becoming apparent, spring breakers flooded the beaches of Florida and New Yorkers continued to congregate in parks. Despite the warnings of politicians and health-care professionals, many people failed to treat the pandemic as a serious threat. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning expert on human behavior, told Maria Konnikova that the problem isn’t just that the threat posed by COVID-19 is hard to grasp—it’s that public officials haven’t done enough to explain the threat. “There should be clear guidelines and clear instructions. We all ought to know whether we should open our Amazon packages outside the door or bring them in,” Kahneman said. “It’s not a decision individuals should consider making on the basis of what they know, because they don’t know enough to make it.”
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The New Yorker Radio Hour
Exploitation in the Amazon, and Why We Underestimated COVID-19
Jon Lee Anderson on Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to legalize mining on indigenous lands. And an expert on human behavior discusses why it’s hard to grasp the threat of the coronavirus.
Letter from California
Among the A.I. Doomsayers
Some people think machine intelligence will transform humanity for the better. Others fear it may destroy us. Who will decide our fate?
By Andrew Marantz
Critics at Large
The Politics of the Oscar Race
The Academy Awards often say less about a film’s artistic merits than about the lengthy—and expensive—P.R. campaigns being orchestrated behind the scenes. So why do we care who wins?
Annals of Artificial Intelligence
How to Picture A.I.
To understand its strengths and limitations, we may need to adopt a new perspective.
By Jaron Lanier