That darn Peanuts, Doonesbury, and Mark Trail

Some of us still have Frick and Frack bric-a-brac

Philip C. Meyer, Ashburn

Washington Post January 27 2024: A13.

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/26/ultra-processed-food-biden-iowa-axolotl/

"Classic Peanuts" cartoons are typically as fresh today as when they were originally published years ago, but younger readers might have been perplexed about the punch line in the Jan. 12 strip featuring Snoopy skating blind because of a stocking cap covering his head. When he fell down on the ice, Snoopy said, "For a moment there, I had Mr. Frick worried." No, not Ford Frick, the commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1951 to 1965. Snoopy was referring to Frick and Frack, the highly skilled duo who delighted Ice Follies audiences with their comedy skating routines decades ago. Remember, "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz, a native Minnesotan, was a big advocate of ice skating and hockey.

It's unfunny because it's true

Stan Pearson, Newport News, Va.

Washington Post January 27 2024: A13.

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/26/ultra-processed-food-biden-iowa-axolotl/

Little did I know that I would be benefiting from a mini-education just by perusing the funny papers, of all sections, in the Dec. 31 Post. I refer to that day's "Mark Trail" strip.

In it, I learned of the astonishing toll that artificial intelligence is (already) wreaking on our environment — the very same environment we've been overloading with carbon dioxide and pollutants and is therefore always primed for catastrophe: floods, droughts, rising sea levels, enormous wildfires, monster hurricanes, heat domes, extinctions and other dystopian phenomena.

Mark Trail implies that we haven't seen anything yet. For example, "AI technology demands an enormous amount of energy" (almost all of which is produced now by burning fossil fuels). "One data center can consume as much energy as 50,000 homes." AI is also very demanding of our precious water supply, he adds.

The direst of his news is that "just one AI model can create more than 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. More than five cars' life output!" So, climate change will likely be made much worse by using AI.

Oh, we've all heard of the best-known downsides of AI: potential competition for jobs (with AI itself), students' suspicious term papers, dangerous misinformation, unemployment and others. But for most of us, nothing quite on par with this.

A Google check confirmed to me the truth of all of Mark Trail's claims. Though I did, just possibly, find something that seemed like a silver lining: AI might actually help reduce emissions by 5 to 10 percent by 2030. (Yet if it can both increase and decrease emissions, will the net change be positive or negative?)

Mark Trail signed off with the (only somewhat hyperbolic) statement "And all this for unusable science articles and stolen artwork."

It's unfunny regardless

Elizabeth Kaehler, Washington

Washington Post January 27 2024: A13.

online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/01/26/ultra-processed-food-biden-iowa-axolotl/

One of my favorite sections of the Sunday paper is the Comics. I often get my 9-year-old son to read them because they are an easy-to-read part of the paper and kid-friendly. I was horrified to read the Jan. 14 "Doonesbury" on the front page of the section. I was surprised and disgusted that The Post would allow a comic discussing rape and sexual assault to be on the front page or any page of the Comics.

Those topics are not funny and are definitely not kid-friendly. It makes me sad to know that now I need to preview the comics before giving them to my child to read. Please reconsider running such comics in the future. Humor is definitely subjective, but rape and sexual assault are not funny.