Free Republic

All of the ongoing buzz around OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot continues to increase in volume as people discover new and more inventive ways to use it. But some of it is taking on an increasingly darker tone. As the bot continues to expand its language base, becoming more and more “humanlike” in its responses and accurate in the material it generates, it’s becoming clear that the technology may be reaching the point where it is outgrowing its makers. The most recent example turned up when the University of Pennsylvania tasked ChatGPT to take a final exam in a core course from...

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton is genuinely regarded as one of the finest business schools in the country — U.S. News & World Report ranks it second, behind only Stanford. But these aspiring giants of the business world could use an education in real-world economics. Nina Strohminger, a professor of legal studies and business ethics, tweeted that she had asked students what the average American makes. They did not do well. The tweet triggered a firestorm of responses, mostly along the lines that these students were out of touch. One Twitter user linked to New York Times data, showing the...

A new model shows reopening states and ignoring the pandemic could result in more than 5 million people contracting coronavirus. According to Yahoo Finance, a Penn Wharton Budget Model shows reopening states could cause positive coronavirus cases in the U.S. to jump to 5.4 million by the end of July. The model, which assumes states reopening May 18, explores various scenarios under which states reopen.The model also includes lockdowns, a partial reopening, and takes into account whether social distancing rules would continue to be adhered to or are relaxed.If states fully reopen with no social distancing rules in place, the...

The perception that only elite schools produce elite leaders needs to die. The No. 1 company in last year’s Fortune 500 was Walmart Inc., with $500 billion in revenue. That would make its chief executive, Douglas McMillon, a pretty important and powerful executive, don’t you think? Can you guess where he went to college? The University of Arkansas. He has an MBA, too. From the University of Tulsa. Second on the list was Exxon Mobil Corp. Its CEO, Darren Woods, went to Texas A&M. Third was Berkshire Hathaway Inc., run by the man many consider the greatest investor who ever...

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/289290-jeff-bezos-neil-degrasse-tyson-join-pentagon-innovation-board July 26, 2016 - 02:15 PM EDT Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jeff Bezos join DOD innovation board By Rebecca Kheel Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson were among the big names Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday as joining the Pentagon’s recently formed Defense Innovation Advisory Board. “I've given them the very specific task of identifying innovative private sector best practices that could be of use to DOD [the Department of Defense] — not unlike our recent Hack the Pentagon pilot program, which invited hackers to help find vulnerabilities in our networks," Carter said during an...

In February of 1901, Walter Berry, a lawyer and member of élite society in New York, expressed a regret in a letter written to his close friend Edith Wharton. “How I do wish I could run on to see the first rehearsal of the Shadow,” he wrote. At the time, Wharton, who was thirty-nine years old, was not yet a novelist, having only published shorter fiction and poetry, as well as co-authoring, with Ogden Codman, “The Decoration of Houses,” an 1897 book about interior design. But she was a budding playwright, and, as two scholars have just deduced in an...

Donald Trump frequently tells crowds that he went to Wharton, as a credential to prove that he is intelligent: "I went to the Wharton School of Business," he noted several times. "I'm, like, a really smart person." "Why do you have to tell us all the time that you went to Wharton?” moderator Chuck Todd asked. "People know you're successful." "They know it's a great business school," Trump replied. You might be forgiven for thinking from this, as I did, that Trump has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. He doesn't. He actually has an undergraduate degree for...

FULL TITLE: Donald Trump's alma mater tops US News & World Report's new ranking of undergraduate business programs, again The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, Donald Trump's alma mater, was once again named the best undergraduate business program in America by US News & World Report. As the undergraduate-business-education website Poets & Quants for Undergrads noted in a breakdown of business-school rankings last year, Wharton tends to dominate the US News list. "Wharton's clear win is not surprising," it wrote last year. "The school boasts one of the most respected, and selective, undergraduate business programs in the country."Of...

Robert Wolf bundled over a million dollars for Obama, got a WH appointment, and is cashing in on his connections As economists and policy wonks debate the merits of U.S. export financing, critics of one controversial program are warning of more subtle consequences exemplified, they say, by one of the president’s golfing buddies. Robert Wolf joined the president on the links this month in Martha’s Vineyard, the latest of his frequent outings with the president. The foursome also included private equity financier Glenn Hutchins and Cyrus Walker, cousin of White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.

A Philadelphia man who claims to have been paid to have sex with former Poly Prep football coach Phil Foglietta in 1979 as part of an alleged pedophile ring that included Jerry Sandusky sent an email to several Poly Prep officials Monday - including current headmaster David Harman - detailing the explosive allegation. Greg Bucceroni, 48, was a teenager when he said he met Foglietta at a Second Mile fund-raiser near State College, Pa. The Second Mile organization, which helped at-risk youths, was founded in 1977 by Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach who was convicted on 45 counts...

In light of the actions taken by the NCAA in the Penn State scandal, here’s a question for you: Do you think that if a professor of, say, economics, was discovered to be a serial sex abuser of young boys, that the university’s economics department would be shut down? If you answered “of course not,” I think you’re right. It would be ridiculous to do any such thing. But if you answered “that depends,” then you might want to consider the case of Scott Ward, a University of Pennsylvania marketing professor who just a few short years ago was sentenced...

With an almost certain win in the special election, Hawaii will tilt the state at least a little to the right in May. Now we also have news that we have an extremely qualified runner for the 2nd Hawaii Congressional District, Patsy Mink's old seat, in November. It may not be too much to hope for that both could pull off a coup in the Hawaii delegation that will send a rumble through the political system. Ramsay Wharton is a former newswoman, anchor and reporter, for KHON, KHNL, and KGMB. Her face is well known to state residents. She is...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.” Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Venture capitalists could start relying on a new way to measure the potential value of tech startups they might decide to fund if a Wharton professor has his way. Andrew Metrick, an associate professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia, believes he has found a simpler way to value tech companies using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and some common-sense advice. Establishing the value of a startup company has never been an easy task for either entrepreneurs or VC firms looking for promising technology to finance. While VC funding can help a company develop its...

Ivy League Professor Caught with Videos That Show Him Having Sex with Children, Feds Say August 28, 2006 6:10 PMJack Date Reports: An Ivy League business school professor is in federal custody for allegedly having videos of himself engaging in sexual acts with children, ABC News has learned.Lawrence Scott Ward, 63, Professor Emeritus of Marketing at University of Pennsylvania's renowned Wharton School of Business, was caught with child pornography in his luggage and on his laptop computer after arriving at Dulles International Airport on a flight from Brazil, according to court documents.An affidavit in support of a criminal complaint...

Two Saudi men were arrested Friday after they boarded a school bus and rode to Wharton High School in New Tampa. Students on the bus became alarmed, as did the bus driver, who called ahead. Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies met the bus at the school and detained the men. No one was injured and nothing out of line occurred on the bus, deputies said. Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, who lives in Apt. 302 in The Point apartments, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20 Monticello Gardens, Apt. 304-A, each were charged with trespassing on school property. Both remained in Orient Road Jail...

It's spring, and at the Indian Institute of Management - a premier management school in this industrial town - the campus is abuzz with company recruiters offering fat pay packages to new grads. . Bagging a $185,000 per year offer, Manan Ahuja, an affable 26-year-old lad, coyly notes that his salary package offered by Barclays Capital, a British investment bank, is far more than his father, a Delhi government bureaucrat, earned in his entire lifetime. "It feels great to get an international offer," Mr. Ahuja says. "Beyond the salary, this promises an interesting job profile and great growth prospects." Ahuja's...

When finance professor Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania published Stocks for the Long Run in 1994 (Irwin Professional Publishing), he found himself getting booked on the lecture trail, called on for magazine and newspaper articles, and taking stands on various stock market debates of the day. Inevitably, he found himself asked, "Okay, stocks for the long run, fine. But which stocks?" Another question persisted as well: "What happens when the baby boomers retire?" In his new book, The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and the True Triumph Over the Bold and the New...

Texas transportation officials are expected to negotiate a plan this month that would launch the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's grandiose vision of future transportation. The first planned route would run through Central Texas from Oklahoma to Mexico, and its first segment would be a four-lane toll road from Dallas to San Antonio. But officials in Houston and along the Gulf Coast are paying close attention. They're not alone. "The whole nation is watching Texas to see if we can pull it off," said Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson, Perry's appointee and go-to man for getting the corridor built....

I spent a good chunk of the 1990s writing mutual fund advertising, so much of it that the required caveats and footnotes still trip off the fingers: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." "The Fund is offered only by prospectus. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing or sending money." Financial services advertising, you see, is ringed about by careful regulation. You can't cherry pick and show off only one good year. You can't make false comparisons. And so forth. One home truth came through that long experience, and I share it here with doubters and fear-mongers who...