Vox Sentences: It's official. The most notorious spy in American prison is about to be released.

Jonathan Pollard, a convicted spy for Israel, is getting out after 30 years in federal prison; old sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump have resurfaced; and AI researchers are growing concerned about killer robots.

TOP NEWS

Parollard

A "free Pollard" rally in Jerusalem on March 19, 2013. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

• Jonathan Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst who has spent 30 years in prison for spying on behalf of Israel, has been granted parole.

  [Michael D. Shear]

• The order follows a unanimous vote of three members of the US Parole Commission, and without the objection of the Justice Department. Pollard is scheduled to be released November 21.

  [NBC News / Pete Williams and Robert Windrem]

• Seecretary of State John Kerry denied that the release had anything to do with the Iran nuclear deal. Given how much that agreement has angered the Israeli government, Pollard's release — which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded for decades — could help smooth things over, if not with Israel then perhaps with pro-Israel members of Congress.

  [Haaretz / Barack Ravid, Jonathan Lis, and Reuters]

• Pollard became an Israeli citizen in 1995, and has claimed he was motivated by genuine affection for the country. But he also got tens of thousands of dollars in compensation and took took sensitive documents about China to help his now-wife get a job.

  [NOVA]

• He also admitted to investigators that he gave classified material to apartheid South Africa, and reportedly tried to work as a spy for Australia too.

  [Ynetnews]

• US intelligence officials have strongly opposed Pollard's release. Retired Adm. Thomas Brooks, for whom Pollard worked and who later became director of naval intelligence, says, "I think what he did is exceeded only by Edward Snowden."

  [Foreign Policy / Shane Harris]

• For more on Pollard, his crimes, and the political context around his release, see Zack Beauchamp's comprehensive explainer.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

I can't believe I have to say this but yes, marital rape is illegal

The Trumps in 1989, the year of the alleged assault.(Ron Galella/WireImage)

• Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana referred to an 1989 incident between them — in which Trump allegedly "began to pull out fistfuls of hair from her scalp" and "jam[med] his penis inside her" — as rape in a divorce deposition.

  [The Daily Beast / Tim Mak and Brandy Zadrozny]

• She later said that she "felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense."

• When asked about the allegations by the Daily Beast, Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen said this: "You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse." (Emphasis added.)

• He then proceeded to threaten the Daily Beast reporters: "I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. … So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?"

• Cohen later clarified: "The gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment — which I do not believe — and which I apologize for entirely."

  [CNN / Jeremy Diamond]

• Cohen was of course wrong about whether it is legal to rape one's spouse, though as Vox's Dara Lind points out, marital rape was only criminalized in New York 5 years before the alleged incident, and wasn't criminalized in Oklahoma and North Carolina until 1993.

  [Vox / Dara Lind]

Against Skynet

Potential autonomous weapons include Mecha-Hitler from Wolfenstein 3D. (id Software)

• A large group of intellectuals and tech luminaries — including Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky, and Steve Wozniak — has issued an open letter arguing for a ban on autonomous military weapons.

  [NYT / Daniel Victor]

• Perhaps more relevantly, 1,747 AI/robotics researchers signed as well, including Berkeley's Stuart Russell and Google's Peter Norvig, arguably the two biggest names in AI.

  [Future of Life Institute]

• The letter isn't talking about drones or human-controlled robots, but rather weapons that can "select and engage targets without human intervention," such as a drone that fires based on an algorithm without human intervention.

• From the letter: "Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic group. We therefore believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity."

  [Future of Life Institute]

• Autonomous weapons are a subset of a broader set of worries about strong artificial intelligence, which some, like Musk and Bill Gates, argue could surpass human intelligence in the next 100 years and potentially cause our extinction.

  [Luke Muehlhauser]

• There are reasons to be skeptical of such concerns, though. For example, people grow their intelligence through practical experience, which is hard for AIs to model.

  [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]

• For more, see my interview with philosopher Nick Bostrom from last year, where he lays out worries over computer superintelligence in great length.

  [Vox / Dylan Matthews]

MISCELLANEOUS

Education isn't enough to fix inequality. [Boston Globe / Evan Horowitz]

• I don't know why this piece identifies the puppet shows as such. Everyone knows it's no good as a puppet show if you know it's a puppet show.

  [American Theatre / Scott T. Cummings]

• The 22nd amendment is not the worst amendment — that's probably the 2nd — but it's definitely the silliest and most pointless.

  [Washington Post / Jose DelReal]

• Was one of Jamestown's leaders a secret Catholic?

  [The Atlantic / Adrienne LaFrance]

• The New York Times' big expose on NYC nail salons alleged that Chinese language newspapers were "rife" with ads for $10-a-day jobs. But after scouring 220 ads in those papers, the lowest salary Richard Bernstein found was $70 a day.

  [NY Review of Books / Richard Bernstein]

VERBATIM

"Mr. Trump speaks for Mr. Trump and nobody but Mr. Trump speaks for him." [Anonymous Donald Trump campaign source to CNN / Jeremy Diamond]

• "Masturbating is the sexual equivalent of eating a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies and watching Vanderpump Rules. Not to judge either of those things — that example is from my life."

  [NY Mag / Maureen O'Connor]

• "Marie Kondo stole seven years of my life."

  [Fusion / Kelsey McKinney]

• "At Stanford, it’s called the Duck Syndrome. A duck appears to glide calmly across the water, while beneath the surface it frantically, relentlessly paddles."

  [NYT / Julie Scelfo]

• "Journalism can be superficial or it can be deep, but it’s nearly always going to look rushed and hurried in comparison to peer-reviewed empirical science."

  [Fusion / Felix Salmon]

WATCH THIS

Vox / Joe Posner

• Vox's full, 36-minute interview with Bernie Sanders.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein and Joe Posner]

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