Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Obama says presidents shouldn’t watch TV and should stay off social media

Obama says presidents shouldn’t watch TV and should stay off social media

President Barack Obama spoke at an event on Wednesday in San Francisco hosted by software company Splunk. Obama discussed how tech can help play a role dealing with critical issues like climate change and health care. The event came a day after President Trump held his first Bay Area fundraiser.

President Barack Obama didn’t mention Donald Trump by name on Thursday during a talk in San Francisco, but he clearly referenced his successor when he suggested that two things a president should avoid doing are watching TV and social media.

Even without invoking Trump’s name, he was taking on the agenda of the current president in discussing the urgency of addressing climate change. Speaking at an event hosted by software company Splunk, Obama hit on a number of areas where technology advancements can benefit society, including health care and even traffic congestion.

But, following up on a key issue from his eight-year presidency, Obama said there’s no bigger challenge facing us than climate change. While technology can solve certain issues related to the changing environment, ultimately “it’s a moral decision that we make,” he said.

“There are a handful of issues that if we don’t get right we have real problems,” Obama said. “Climate change is a big problem.”

His keynote comes a day after President Trump held his first fundraiser in the Bay Area since becoming president in 2017. The $1,000 to $50,000-per-plate event on Tuesday was at the home of Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy, and attracted protesters with a giant inflatable baby Trump.

One of Trump’s key efforts is rolling back Obama-era regulations, most notably those related to environmental rules. The president said on Wednesday that his administration is barring California from setting its own auto emissions standards, setting up the latest struggle over the administration’s push to unravel restrictions on businesses. California has been insulated from many of Trump’s efforts because the state insisted on setting its own strict standards under a federal waiver issued in 2013.

Society has to make the decision “that we are going to mitigate as much as possible this problem that we’ve created so our kids and grandkids and the human family can manage,” Obama said.

It’s a friendly audience for Obama. In 2008 and 2012, he won more than 83% of the vote in San Francisco County and at least two-thirds of the vote in every nearby county. Those numbers stayed fairly consistent in 2016, when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton captured close to 85% of the vote in San Francisco, though she lost the election.

Obama’s visit to San Francisco comes as tech giants Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple face heightened legal and regulatory scrutiny for potential anticompetitive practices and amid the continued fallout from the abuse of social platforms by foreign actors ahead of the 2016 election.

While the former president didn’t weigh in on the antitrust debate, he did offer a personal anecdote about how smartphones have been great for keeping in touch with his two daughters, who are now in college, and connecting society at large even though there’s a broader crisis in how social media is dividing people and leading to loneliness.


One-sixth of the economy


One area where he sees tremendous potential for technology is in health care and reducing the inefficiencies in the system. With health care accounting for one-sixth of the U.S. economy, we should expect much better outcomes with “very modest improvements in how we deliver customer service to people who are sick,” he said.

And we should be investing in solutions to use that money more efficiently so we’re both less sick and have more capital to spend elsewhere.

“Almost our entire federal deficit, at least when I was president, can be accounted for by what we spend on health care versus what other industrialized nations spend on health care,” Obama said.

“That’s all money that could be used for early childhood education and rebuilding roads and bridges an cleaning our water and putting young people back to work. Those are wasted resources that I think big data can really capture in a powerful way, but it does require some guardrails and thinking through what the framework is to protect patient privacy.”

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Russia’s A7 Builds a State-Linked Payments Network Beyond Western Sanctions
AI’s Next Bottleneck Is Power, Not Just Nvidia Chips
Meta Raises AI Spending Target to as Much as $145bn Despite Pressure Over Returns
Danube Drought Exposes Nazi Wrecks and Pushes Central Europe’s Power System to the Brink
Joe Biden’s Cancer Has Spread Beyond His Bones, Hunter Biden Says
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Why Markets May Look Quiet in August After Big Tech Earnings
UK Drought Cuts Harvests and Raises Food-Security Fears
UFO: Pentagon Releases Video of Unidentified Object Tracked Over Middle East
Ukraine Tells Senate Republicans Its Drone War Offers a Blueprint for America
Weight-Loss Drug Boom Tests the Limits of Prescription Advertising Rules
Senate Scrutinises AI-Driven Personalised Pricing
Spain Seeks Mainland Transfers for 1,100 Children Stranded in Ceuta
Spain and Morocco Trade Blame After 72,000 Migrants Enter Ceuta
AI Is Remaking the US Economy, From GDP Growth to iPhone Prices
Europe’s Heat and Drought Are Now Disrupting Power, Shipping and Tourism
Europe’s Drying Rivers Trigger Power Cuts, Factory Shutdowns and Wildfire Emergencies
Record-Low Danube Forces Nuclear Cuts and Emergency Power Curbs
Danube Drought Forces Hungary’s Paks Nuclear Plant Into Full Shutdown
Ceuta Death Toll Rises as Spain and Europe Clash Over Border Response
Valued at $109 Million: F-35B Fighter Jet Crashes in Southern California
Record-Low Danube Exposes Probable Mammoth Remains in Bulgaria
US Says It Has Carried Out Heavy Strikes on Iran After Attempted Attacks on Its Forces
The AI User Nightmare: Private Claude Conversations Leaked to the Internet
Over 24 Hours in the Air: Qantas Airbus Completes Record-Breaking Test Flight
Massive Wildfires Ravage Southern Europe: Fatalities in Greece and Evacuations Across France, Spain, and Turkey
Nvidia Reportedly Takes Vast Texas Data-Centre Lease to Underwrite AI Expansion
FIFA’s Private-Investment Plan for World Cup Rights Draws European Revolt
Apple Briefly Crosses Five Trillion Dollar Valuation as Investors Retreat From AI Bets
Fresh Heatwave Threatens to Rekindle France’s Historic Wildfire Crisis
Following OpenAI's Cyberattack: 'Most Companies Still Do Not Understand What Is Coming'
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
Czech Central Bank Governor Rejects Early Euro Entry and Rate-Cut Pressure
Trump Readies New Tariffs as Temporary Global Levy Nears Expiry
Vivienne Westwood Casts Cicciolina, 74, in Its New Autumn Campaign
Dejavu: Germany’s Military Expansion Reshapes Europe’s Strategic Balance With France
Morgan Stanley Builds a Wall Street Lead in AI Infrastructure Finance
High Prices Push Coffee Drinkers Toward Whole Beans and Home Brewing
Trump Draws Boos and Podium Scrutiny at Spain’s World Cup Triumph
Brilliant move: Péter Magyar Moves to Nominate Chess Grandmaster Judit Polgár as Hungary’s President
Spain Defeats Argentina in Extra Time to Win Second World Cup
Current AI Seeks to Build an Open Global AI Infrastructure Outside Big Tech Control
Germany’s Economic Malaise Reopens the Sunday Shopping Debate
Proposed U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Pact Could Permit Limited Uranium Enrichment Under International Safeguards
Netherlands Declares Water Shortage Emergency After Drought Pushes Rivers to Historic Lows
Why Kentucky Fried Chicken Became KFC—and Why the False Explanations Persist
Ukrainian Drones Strike Wildberries Warehouses Deep Inside Russia
Reported CIA Mission Helped Clear the UAE’s Path to Advanced US AI Chips
Artificial Intelligence Capital Fuels Markets While Governments and Regulators Face Mounting Strategic Tests
×