Why Does the Washington Post Publish Classified Info?
“Why does The Washington Post willingly publish ‘classified’ information affecting national security?” wrote former Post editor Robert G. Kaiser in a Sunday Outlook piece.
“Should Post journalists and others who reveal the government’s secrets be subject to criminal prosecution for doing so? These questions, raised with new urgency of late, deserve careful answers.”
He proposed some thoughtful answers in “Public Secrets,” Washington Post, June 11.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
Ask people what worries them most right now, and they’ll say the cost of living and their livelihoods, not climate change. But those concerns are not separate.