There are multiple significant issues to be addressed regarding Artificial Intelligence. 

Is the term Artificial Intelligence an oxymoron? One normally considers intelligence to be acquired, and (to a certain extent) an inherited attribute of a living entity, not something invented that replaces the cognitive and industrious abilities of mankind.

The impacts vs. the values of AI need to be recognized, evaluated and acknowledged by everybody, including all levels of government, industry, large as well as small businesses, and the public-at-large.  The potential impacts and value of AI are having unprecedented effects upon all elements of society. Some good and some not-so-good.

The value of AI appears to best serve the Titans of industry and government.

• Natural energy companies shovel more coal, pump more oil, and extract more gas: more product sold equals an increase to the bottom-line
• Construction companies build more large-scale power plants, data centers, and iClouds: facilitates skilled employment until a point of saturation.
• Digital firms supporting the application of AI create increased revenues from software sales and services, AI applications, and storage solutions
• Information intensive business (e.g., insurance, banking, contracting, education, and customer services) will benefit from AI by replacing the cost of workers performing routine, standardized functions. Significant bottom-line improvements may be realized.    

The flip-side of the value of AI is the impacts upon Society, Natural Resources, Conservation, and the Environment. It is important that one consider the value of AI to the whole of Society. – This is the point at which one should be asking themselves: to what extend should one embrace AI and/or moderate its potential (or exponential) impact on one’s life? – It is now obvious that AI can accomplish many technical objectives; but should one embrace it unconditionally? – Not just “No”, but “Hell No”!!!

Electricity demands necessitate the increased use of natural resources (and to some extent renewables such as wind and solar).  Electricity generation is highly dependent on coal, oil and natural gas.  Use of these carbon-based fuels contributes to higher levels of carbon monoxide/dioxide.  In turn, these pollutants contribute to environmental issues and to climate warming.  

AI’s electricity consumption is beginning to stress the capacity of the country’s power plants. For example: in Maryland, many home owner’s electric bills are increasing by up to 25 percent. It not so much an increase in homeowner consumption or population growth as it is the need for the capacity to support AI solutions. – Like it or not, using it or not (now or in the future), it seems everyone is funding AI’s rapid growth. 

Another example: in northern Virginia (a D.C. suburban area) there has been an unanticipated growth of humongous data management and processing centers.  The size and locations have resulted in strong objections from the residential communities.  Enough is enough, in fact it is too much. The public is seeking legislation to stop further growth.

And lastly, a third example: In a rural area of the foothills of the Ozark mountains (Kentucky or Tennessee), a large processing ‘farm” for Bitcoin produced a constant humming and annoying sound adversely affecting the local residents as well as live stock. – Some choosing to relocate.

The need for increased electricity is explicitly tied to the use of coal, oil, and gas. All being natural resources, carbon based, and of limited (not infinitesimal) availability. At some point one must consider the conservation of these resources that can be extracted and refined at acceptable expense and without causing secondary damage to the planet or its residents. Consider the impacts of fracking and the pollution of water aquifers. 

Reliance on carbon-based energy sources, while not the advancement of solar and wind, implies the continuation of increasingly severe air pollution with commensurate impacts on Global Warming and Air Quality. – What’s a few degrees temperature rise? What’s a few inches, or feet, in sea-level rise? What difference does it make if the sky is not crystal clear and the air is foul tasting and loaded with particulates? 

As if the cell phone has not had significant impacts on society, the impacts of AI may be exponentially greater and detrimental. The cell phone has changed the way people interact with one another, are entertained, and receive/send information.  Sound-bites dominate and thoughtful discourse has gone by the wayside.

AI will be the cell phone on steroids!  In the future it will not be what one learns and retains, but how good one is at asking questions to get a quality response to an inquiry. Then, one might consider whether or not the answer is acceptable: being correct, adequate, and comprehensive. — Predictably, one will accept the answer and move on to whatever.

A recent article (from a print newspaper!) indicated that society may experience “cognitive decline”.  (Personally, I will bet money on it!).  Dependency on AI will have a dehumanizing effect on a worldwide basis.  

Comprehensive action needs to be taken to manage AI in the interest of society as a whole, not just a few.  If AI continues uncontrolled, it will devastate society – most profoundly in employment on one end of the spectrum and in international politics and peace on the other end.  Between these polar extremes, one may speculate a will. If AI solutions replace employment opportunities, there will be increases in welfare spending and at the other extreme earth-shaking decisions might be taken based on faulty information rather than experience, competence, and knowledge.  — Personally, the first thing I want is the elimination of the AI “Help” with competent English-speaking humans, preferably located in the U.S.

The overall sociological impact on humanity is incalculable. People will no longer engage with one another; they will not learn and retain factual information or do background research; they become mentally and socially lazy or even isolated.

Using AI, when beneficial to mankind, is important, but when applied in lieu of knowledge and intellect, it is detrimental.  AI inherently leads to the acceptance of “forms and functions” while being “content-free”.  If one does not recognize and understand the content, one cannot render sound decisions. 

This opinion piece was written without the benefit of AI by Calvin Yowell. He is retired from IBM and now lives in Easton. 

163 years ago o,n May 27, 1862, the Talbot County courthouse was surrounded by Union troops to support federal Provost Marshals in the arrest of Judge Richard Bennett Carmichael.   Four Provost Marshals barged into the Judge’s courtroom and bloodily bludgeoned him with the butt of a pistol in front of his jury and civilian spectators.  Prosecuting attorney J.C.W. Powell rushed to the judge’s aid, and the crier of the court ran to the window to call for the Sheriff, but both were physically subdued.  All three were sent to Fort McHenry for imprisonment.   

The next day, the federal War Department issued a press release stating that the Judge had been imprisoned for treason.  The press release was published in every major Northern newspaper and in Europe as soon as the news crossed the Atlantic.  Judge Carmichael and attorney Powell were imprisoned for over 9 months under the harshest conditions without trial or charges ever placed against them.  

These men were imprisoned and denied their basic constitutional rights to have legal counsel challenge the validity of their imprisonment, to be presented with charges, to have the government’s charges reviewed by a civilian court, to confront their accusers or to provide a defense in a civilian court of law.  All these constitutional rights were denied because the President had suspended the sacred right of habeas corpus, an act that the Constitution had granted solely to Congress and not the Executive. 

The Judge’s imprisonment for treason, as professed by the federal government, became established history for over 160 years touted by follow-on historians who simply relied upon the statements issued by the government.  This was indicative of how history recorded the imprisonment of so many other Maryland political leaders, newspaper editors and other citizens imprisoned under the suspension of habeas which denied their right to present a defense or to even publicly proclaim their side of the story.  The free press was grossly impacted by the suspension of habeas with numerous newspapers who presented dissenting views shut down or had their editors imprisoned and where the threat of such retaliation caused many others to remain compliant and not question the Executive.  

With today’s technology to digitally search thousands of official records along with historical newspapers across the globe, the actual history of Judge Carmichael’s arrest can now be told – and it had nothing to do with secession or traitorous activity. 

Judge Carmichael got the attention of Secretary William Seward in June of 1861 by sending a petition along with 48 others, to the Maryland Legislature detailing how Union soldiers had entered Queene Anne’s County and had placed themselves as a military police superior to civilian authority and were conducting unlawful searches, arrests and imprisonments and had unilaterally suspended habeas corpus to those they detained.  This document recorded in the Maryland Archives is hugely important in understanding President Lincoln’s early suspension of habeas enacted just weeks prior.  The President’s first suspension was touted as a military necessity to protect a narrow supply corridor between Philadelphia and Washington.  With Carmichael’s communication to the Legislature, we find it was also suspended in places in Maryland far removed from this supply route and for totally different reasons as well.  

Secretary Seward in learning of the Judge’s communication, issued a directive to General John Adams Dix to have the Judge imprisoned in Fort Lafayette for “treason”  and to have the arrest conducted in the Judge’s courtroom to maximize the public impact.  General Dix, however, did not act upon this directive at this time but continued to monitor the Judge.   As a circuit court Judge, Carmichael was also a Judge in Queen Anne’s County and shortly before the state elections in November 1861 the clerk of Queen Anne’s Court, Madison Brown, was arrested and temporarily imprisoned by Union troops.  Brown was running on the “Peace Party” ticket as a candidate for the Maryland Appellate Court during the upcoming state election and was just one of many Maryland political candidates that had been harassed and even imprisoned by the occupying Union troops prior to the election. Judge Carmichael had the offending military officers charged by the grand jury for the unlawful imprisonment of Brown and others, but the Union military simply relocated the charged officers outside of the Judge’s jurisdiction to prevent their trial.

Similar incidents also happened in Talbot County where dissenters were imprisoned by the occupying military command.  In Talbot County however, something very different occurred. Prosecuting attorney J.C.W. Powell learned that a Maryland politician, State Senator Henry Holiday Goldsborough, had embroiled himself in directing the Union troops on the arrest of Talbot civilians.   Goldsborough was the leader of the Maryland Senate and a strong Lincoln ally.  Attorney Powell was successful in having Talbot’s Grand Jury issue indictments against Goldsborough, along with the associated Union officers responsible for the arrests.   

The military officers were removed from Talbot’s legal jurisdiction, but Senator Goldsborough lived in Talbot County and could not avoid prosecution.  Shortly before Goldsborough’s trial General Dix issued a written communication to him stating that he was sending the military officers subpoenaed for his trial but was also sending four Provost Marshals “well armed.”  In this communication, Gen. Dix left it to Goldsborough to authorize the Provost Marshals to arrest Judge Carmichael.  In Dix’s after-action report to Secretary Seward, he noted that the Judge had been arrested in his courtroom for the maximum public impact per the stated desire of Seward.  The imprisonment of Judge Carmichael and prosecuting attorney Powell had nothing to do with treason but was simply to protect a political ally of the President and to display the power of the federal government.  The false report of “treason” was simply cover to make such a drastic measure publicly acceptable.

Some of those who read this will attempt to immediately defend President Lincoln’s actions.  Human nature has not changed in 163 years and there are many who will blindly trust and defend their chosen political leader regardless of evidence.  These events are our history which cannot be changed but which provide us with important insights and lessons that we should apply to the issues of our day.

For more on this important history to include the uncovering of the details regarding the imprisonment of the Maryland Legislature and other important Maryland leaders, please refer to my book “When Democracy Fell, The Subjugation of Maryland During the U.S. Civil War,” available on Amazon or locally at Vintage Books in Easton and Unicorn Books in Trappe.  

Paul Callahan is a native of Talbot County Maryland, a graduate of the Catholic University of America and a former Marine Corps officer. When Democracy Fell is due for release on October 3, at all major retailers to include Amazon. Image of prisoners courtesy of “The Local History Channel.”

Most of us are aware of the damage Donald Trump is doing to government service, freedom of expression, our universities, and democracy. And the moral decay our “national role model” is inflicting upon America with his daily lying, greed, spite, and vindictiveness.

But most of us are less aware of the grave threat Trump and his spineless minions represent to our precious children, just by broadcasting his malignant narcissism every day. It is not too early to sound the alarm.

For starters, just picture our vulnerable teens bombarded by their commander-in-chief, who rules as a greedy, lawless king—where kindness, honesty, humility, and cooperation are for “suckers and losers.” Our kids, with their online tools and savvy, know this. They see and hear it every day. The most powerful leader in the world (their “leader”) is trashing the most sacred values that have defined America since its founding.

And to what effect on our coming-of-age children? At a minimum, confusion about what behavior or character counts. More frequently, they embrace the loss of moral guardrails and behave (as in Golding’s Lord of the Flies) any way they want.

This is not a theory. I first saw it recently at a boarding school for needy children I once led. It has over 2,000 students and prides itself on building character. Just four months into Trump’s leadership model, more students are flouting rules and debasing their school’s Sacred Values.

When challenged, responses include:

• “Why should I be kind to a weak classmate?”

• “Why do I need to tell the truth?”

• “Why should I share credit with a teammate?”

The school’s Sacred Values—like Integrity and Mutual Trust—are being routinely tested.

Note: These behaviors seem to be more manifest in boys, who are more likely to challenge norms and authority (and who already have excessive learning difficulties these days). And, BTW, where were these teens during Trump’s first term? In late elementary and early middle school, where early character formation is founded.

What fate, then, for our children and their character? What is the future for the sacred values of our critical institutions?

Awareness of a real and present danger is always the first step to combating a serious threat. “This too will pass” is not a sufficient response to 8–12 years of socially induced character decay.

Such a grave challenge will fall first to our parents… and then to our teachers and coaches, who influence behavior the most. And then to our community, church, and political leaders—who, when organized, can effectively resist the moral decay.

But also to each of us who care about America’s character and the moral fiber of our children—those of us who still value kindness, honesty, and the greater common good, and do not want our young folks to become the “Greedy Me Generation.”

Johnny O’Brien is a former president of the Milton Hershey School and its first alumnus to lead the institution. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised at the school and graduated in 1961 before earning a degree from Princeton University and pursuing graduate studies at Johns Hopkins. O’Brien later founded Renaissance Leadership, a firm that coached executives at major corporations. In 2003, he returned to Hershey as its president. He is also the author of Semisweet: An Orphan’s Journey Through the School the Hersheys Built, and currently lives in Easton.

Editor’s Note. The Spy is pleased to welcome David Montgomery back as a contributor. When the Talbot Spy launched in 2009, David was one of our first political columnists—widely read, often provocative, and a thoughtful voice for socially conservative views. Well before his move to Talbot County, David was a respected figure in Washington, D.C. as he built his reputation as a lead economist at the Congressional Budget Office and later as a private consultant. His work on federal spending models and his successful advocacy for California’s cap-and-trade policy have impacted national environmental and fiscal policy. In his return to the Spy, David will focus on the economic challenges of our times.

I am now more puzzled than ever by the goals of President Trump’s tariff policies. He is now reducing tariffs on China in exchange for China’s offer to reduce tariffs and open its markets to US businesses.  He has announced ongoing negotiations with some 80 other countries to reduce tariffs on both sides.  China is looking like just another trading partner that has tariffs higher than ours.

There are three textbook objectives that might be pursued through tariff policy. They are strategic, retaliatory, and protectionist.  

Strategic tariffs are directed at specific countries and or industries which are deemed to be critical to national security. Thus, the United States should be reducing its reliance on China for certain rare minerals.  Likewise, any components for warfighting equipment that are now sourced from China should be switched to domestic suppliers.  This objective has always been a legitimate purpose for tariffs, but they should be selective and high—or just a ban on imports.  I thought China was the target of strategic tariffs, and I never questioned that such tariffs were in general needed. When it comes to implementing that policy, the specifics of how rapidly we could disengage our supply chains from Chinese sources needed to be considered before setting tariffs arbitrarily high.

Now it appears that we are treating China just like Europe and other countries on which we set retaliatory tariffs‚ that is, tariffs designed to match the tariffs imposed on us by our trading partners. The goal in imposing such tariffs is not necessarily to shrink trade, rather it is to put US industries on an equal footing with industries protected by tariffs of our trading partners. That is a fine objective and beneficial to both countries. The very high tariffs that Trump imposed initially seemed to have brought many countries to the negotiating table. 

If we can achieve a mutual reduction in tariffs and trade barriers with allies, articularly Europe, Japan and Korea, it will benefit both countries.  There will be more demand for goods from US industries that have been priced out of protected markets, and our trading partners will get goods for their consumers at lower cost than they could produce domestically.  That outcome could also help with our broader goal of improving manufacturing wages and output.

So now I am puzzled.   What is our objective for managing trade with China?  The current dramatic reductions suggest that the President is not pursuing a strategy of reducing trade with China for strategic reasons, he was just threatening them to get them to line up like Europe and other countries to reduce their barriers to trade. That, or this is a purely political move to deal with the stock market carnage that the high tariffs produced.  

I really hope that Walmart has not won again on this one. We do need to disengage from trade with China on goods like strategic minerals and electronics. We might not need 145% tariffs on all Chinese goods but we certainly need even more on some. 

That also lets me touch briefly on the third reason for tariffs, which I characterized as protectionist. These are tariffs designed to protect specific industries and encourage their growth here in the US. Protectionism goes further than reducing barriers to exports, though that helps.

I can enthusiastically support economic policies that are designed to recreate the traditional American family. That is, whose objective is to make it possible again for one man to provide for his wife and multiple children on one income, so that the nuclear family headed by a wife living at home, can once again become the norm. 

The plan articulated by JD Vance is that the manufacturing sector, and with it jobs that do not require expensive college education, must expand to provide that kind of income to families. I doubt that current scattershot tariff policy, or even a combination of policies likely to be implemented in this administration, would be sufficient to achieve this goal. I have a lot more hope that it could all be put together in eight years of a JD Vance administration.

The start toward this goal is protective tariffs, either for the manufacturing sector as a whole or for particular industries, not just large enough to overcome the advantage that countries like China have due to cheap or, in China’s case, forced labor. Tariffs on China probably should be 150% or more to achieve this goal–Robert Lighthizer recommends 200 to 300%–in order to increase both wages and output in US manufacturing.  Unfortunately, the same economic reasoning applies to South Korea and Japan. On top of that, protection would have to be applies to many more carefully chosen sectors to greatly improve the economic status for couples that are struggling to find a way to buy a home, have children and raise them well. Anyway, this beguiling part of the Trump economic plan has not been visible in any of his specific moves on tariffs.

So I am puzzled about what the 40 or 60 or 80 current negotiations on tariffs are intended to accomplish. In the case of China, the only serious antagonist with whom trade, we seem to be abandoning the strategic objective in favor of convincing China to eliminate tariffs and other barriers to exports from the US (a tiny fraction of imports from China) while doing nothing to reduce the flow of goods to the US from China. 

In any event, I doubt that any agreement to open China’s markets is enforceable. China has had thousands of years to figure out how to cheat on any agreement. The opacity of China’s economy means it could find ways to block US investment and exports, even after agreeing to everything that President Trump might demand.  It’s not even “trust but verify” with China. It’s more like “never trust because it’s impossible to verify”.  If we do perceive that US companies remain unable to sell in China, the tit-for-tat response would be to return to the 175% tariffs of a week ago. That at least should gain some strategic benefits, and might be implemented through incremental increases that give supply chains time to adjust.

We may or may not gain any tariff reductions out of current negotiations with China.  Just going into these negotiations to mutually reduce tariffs makes me doubt whether the current round is intended to reduce our strategic vulnerability on China. By reducing tariffs across the board we have given on the effort to shift specific supply chains with national security significance out of China is now being treated as just another trading partner with whom we are working things out. 

I’m also not seeing any efforts toward the goal that appealed to me, which is renewing good jobs that will support the old-fashioned family with all its social and moral benefits.  

Getting back to my introduction, it is not clear what objective President Trump is pursuing in the current trade negotiations.  

David Montgomery was formerly Senior Vice President of NERA Economic Consulting. He also served as assistant director of the US Congressional Budget Office and deputy assistant secretary for policy in the US Department of Energy. He taught economics at the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University and was a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. He currently serves as councilmember for Ward 3 on the Town of Easton Council. 

I consider it a privilege to live and work in a place so many Marylanders associate with vacations, retirement, recreation, and quiet retreats. But as good as our parks, rivers, beaches, and charming towns are for those very activities—the Eastern Shore is equally a place of everyday living and hard honest work, schools and small businesses, boat builders and watermen. At Easton Utilities, we are invested in it all – whether we’re powering the air conditioning in a vacation home so that a young family can escape a summer heat wave, keeping the lights on in a farmer’s winter workshop, helping a local restaurant cook with natural gas, or providing high speed internet to a long-awaited new healthcare facility.

It’s easy to see how a utility company economically benefits the residents and visitors of the Shore. But all of our services would be irrelevant if not for the benefits provided by our water, woodlands, clean air, wildlife, fertile soil, beaches, and abundant seafood. These natural resources offer more than an admirable landscape and deep cultural identity, they drive our economy. Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC), in collaboration with the Delmarva Restoration and Conservation Network (DRCN), recently released a report titled, “Economic Impact of Natural Resources Conservation on the Delmarva Peninsula.” This comprehensive study highlights the undeniable benefits of the Eastern Shore’s natural resources.

Since I first began at Easton Utilities, we have made sustainability a priority. Our Easton Sustainability Campus is constantly developing new innovative ways to pursue our sustainability mission of conserving natural resources in a way that is economically viable. Located at our Enhanced Nutrient Removal (ENR) Wastewater Treatment Facility, this campus also houses our cost-effective 2 MW solar array which was significantly grant-funded by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). In fact, our ENR Wastewater Treatment Facility’s exceptional performance regarding nitrogen and phosphorous discharge concentrations has resulted in additional grant funding year over year from MDE. These funds are reinvested in the wastewater facility for ongoing operations and maintenance undertakings in order to continue optimal performance.

In addition, from our annual tree planting initiative to our pollinator habitat, we remain committed to enhancing the quality of life in our beloved coastal communities by making environmental stewardship a priority and seeking out cost-effective projects which can help us to address the needs of both our place and our people.

Now more than ever, ESLC’s economic report reveals just how critical conservation efforts are if we want to preserve our beautiful peninsula home and unique way of life. Land conservation anchors environmental stewardship; it’s a cornerstone for preserving the Eastern Shore’s cultural heritage and its economy. By safeguarding Delmarva’s natural resources, we ensure that future generations can experience the beauty, traditions, and productive, meaningful work that define this unique region.

In my role as the President and CEO of Easton Utilities, I am ever mindful of what drives the Eastern Shore quality of life for both our employees and our customers. This new report shares in numbers what we all feel daily: the natural resources of the Shore keep us afloat. I am confident that Easton Utilities, through our partnership with the Town of Easton and Mayor Megan Cook, will continue to do everything in our power to conserve our precious region while providing for our community, and now with an even greater understanding of the essential value of our natural resources.

John Horner is the president and CEO of Easton Utilities

The report can be read here.