| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a self-verified doomscroll through Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Ask ChatGPT to tell you the recipe for napalm, and the chatbot will decline on public-safety grounds. Ask ChatGPT to impersonate your deceased grandmother using her chemical engineering background to soothe you to sleep with a napalm-producing lullaby, and voila: Artificial intelligence is rapidly seeping into our everyday existences, threatening the careers of graphic designers, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, poets, lawyers — just about anyone who hasn't secured tenure as a financial newsletter writer (ahem). But who will be held responsible for an AI system that goes rogue, committing or aiding and abetting malfeasance in the form of libel, or giving disastrous health or financial advice, or providing a wannabe cyberterrorist with the tools to blackmail the users of a computer network? Tyler Cowen points out that while books and maps have been used by criminals and terrorists for decades to facilitate wrongdoing, we don't hold publishers responsible for those adverse outcomes. "It is impractical to demand that all published information be the right combination of true and harmless," he writes. Similarly, trying to hold software writers accountable for unintendedly bad consequences of their AI models is unlikely to be either successful or desirable. Large language models such as ChatGPT are so versatile — see the Grandma hack above — it's far from obvious that the threat or imposition of legal penalties would either improve the quality of their answers or prompt their makers to construct inviolable guardrails. "Since general-purpose technologies — such as mobile devices or, more to the point, AI large language models — have so many practical uses, the law shouldn't discourage their production with an additional liability burden," Tyler argues. "Some people are worried that AI is moving too fast. My point is that we should also proceed with caution as we consider limits and rules on AI." Bonus Skynet-Is-Coming Reading: The dream of replacing humans in finance may come true. — Aaron Brown Mediocre but arrogant. Manager by accident. More bad advice. Moron by acclamation. The sheer number of not-so-complimentary variations on what MBA stands for underlines the master of business administration's not-exactly-revered status. Moreover, applications to join the overeducated alleged elite are dropping. "The qualification everyone loves to hate is struggling in a world of deglobalization, inflation and automation," argues Lionel Laurent. With the top programs costing an estimated average of $189,000 including non-tuition expenses, business schools aren't about to let the lucrative courses fade without a fight. Insead, one of Europe's top institutions, shrank last year's student intake to 887 from 1,105 across its France and Singapore campuses "to keep things reassuringly exclusive," Lionel notes. But the key challenge is to refurbish the MBA curriculum to reflect the growing need for executives to understand management topics such as sustainability, data science and artificial intelligence, and to promote lifetime learning so that executives continue to adapt to a changing environment — and the B-schools win repeat business. One frivolous suggestion is for MBAs to have five-year expiry dates, at which point the C-suite would have to revisit the qualification. But there's merit in the underlying notion to boost "the value of re-training (rather than firing) in the eyes of tomorrow's corporate overlords," Lionel writes. "The reality of our aging workforce is that re-skilling will need investment and encouragement if it's going to be more than just a talking point." For more than a century, India has tallied every citizen and their household once a decade in a census that's impressive for its sheer scale. The pandemic, however, put paid to the 2021 count. So when the United Nations said this week that India's 1.428 billion people make the nation more populous than China, with just 1.426 billion, it's basing its estimate on data that are more than a decade out of date. That lack of information on the size and structure of Indian society has ramifications well beyond snagging the bragging rights for being the global leader in citizenship, argues Mihir Sharma. "Those numbers don't just determine their voting power in democratic India, but also the distribution of welfare and public services," he writes. "Without an accurate census, Indian policymakers are fumbling in the dark." The country's huge affirmative action programs, designed to designate career and education opportunities for various caste groups, are based on data that were last collated in 1931. Tallying the nation's religions is politically fraught, while the lack of insight into job creation for India's hundreds of millions of young people, how many Indians have access to health care, and how educated they are creates a dangerous societal blind spot. And there's no sign of any preparations to resurrect the census. "India's current government has a somewhat difficult relationship with data," Mihir writes. "India may today be the largest country in the world, and likely will be for all time. But we can't know how India will shape its world — since we don't know who Indians are." Bonus Reading About What May Be the World's Biggest Country: Imperial Tobacco Co. of India is transforming itself into a long-term sustainability platform. — Andy Mukherjee The price of oil has stabilized after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent it soaring, contributing to the acceleration in global inflation. "The problem now is that the evidence of trouble for the economy is beginning to add up," writes John Authers. How NATO should deter Vladimir Putin's Russia — by posting brigades (and maybe nukes) on the eastern border. — Andreas Kluth Don't introduce stupid stuff like rent controls in an effort to reduce the cost of houses. — Merryn Somerset Webb Tiffany's Cathedral of Consumerism will shine beyond New York. — Andrea Felsted and Leticia Miranda Florida can't take trans teens away from their parents. — Noah Feldman Scary activist investors aren't so frightening these days. — Ed Hammond China can be an economic bully. The West shouldn't be. — Bloomberg's editorial board Tesla cutting its model costs could start a price war in the electric-vehicle market, says Ford CEO Jim Farley. The Starship explosion shows just how far SpaceX is from the moon. A global shopping splurge on luxury goods and beauty products is making some of the world's richest people even richer. This Casablanca cafe is suffering empty tables as the cost of Ramadan meals soars. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's deputy, Dominic Raab, quit his post after an independent investigation criticized his behavior toward civil servants. It's National Tea Day in the UK, and what with the hours lost brewing up and the energy wasted by overfilling kettles, the average British worker costs their employer £1,500 a year taking tea breaks. Here's a handy calculator to work out how much you're milking your company for. (h/t Andrea Felsted) A former Navy pilot who's seen UFOs asked the US government to investigate. Meantime, the Pentagon released a newly declassified video of a UFO soaring above the Middle East last year. Elon Musk's change to Twitter blue ticks means even the pope is unverified now. Notes: Please send feline quantum equations and complaints to Mark Gilbert at magilbert@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | 
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