Annika Beckett

Should companies be banned from using AI to screen job applications?

Sure, let's ban AI screening. Then hiring goes back to its traditional, deeply fair methods: the unpaid intern speed-reading resumes, the manager hiring his college roommate's nephew, and the classic "cultural fit" interview, which is just vibes with extra steps. Very human. Very unbiased. The anti-AI position quietly assumes that without the software, some wise and patient human will lovingly consider each applicant's full potential. In reality the human spends six seconds, gets distracted by a weird font, and moves on. At least the algorithm's biases can be found and sued over. Nobody has ever successfully audited a hiring manager's gut. I will take the flawed robot over the flawed mammal, because the robot leaves logs.

Should location privacy violations trigger automatic independent audits?

Negotiated settlements have a recidivism problem. Look at the GDPR record: the same giant platforms appear in the enforcement tracker again and again, collecting record fines and then collecting more, because a one-time penalty, however large, is a moment while the business model is forever. An automatic audit tail changes the time horizon. It says the scrutiny does not end when the headlines fade, and every subsequent review is a chance to catch the quiet return to old practices. Companies respond to what is measured repeatedly, not to what is punished once. If twenty years of check-ins sounds long, consider how long the data lives: location histories do not expire, so neither should the verification that they were handled properly. [GDPR enforcement tracker](https://www.cms.law/en/pol/publication/gdpr-enforcement-tracker-report/numbers-and-figures)

Should sports betting advertisements be banned from live game broadcasts?

My players can name three sportsbooks and cannot name their state senator. These ads run during the games kids watch with their families, and they sell betting as part of fandom itself: same-screen odds, celebrity cameos, 'risk-free' bets that are nothing of the kind. Since the 2018 Supreme Court decision opened legal betting nationwide, calls to the national problem-gambling helpline have climbed, and counselors keep saying the same thing, that the ads reach people before the harm does ([helpline](https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/national-helpline/)). We banned tobacco ads from TV because kids were watching. A whistle-to-whistle ban during live games is the same principle with fifty years of precedent.

We are a 9-to-5 family and even we could not hold a full blackout. What worked was one rule: no phones at the dinner table. Small, enforceable, done.

Lifestyle · Sep 23, 2026 · Should families set shared screen-free hours rather than individual limits?