News — At The Edge — 2/1
Something very unsettling is happening — privacy, innovation, ideas, health, economics, geopolitically — in every area that impacts our lives.
Global warming and AI raise questions about how to manage innovation -
“[Economists] are now asking whether, when it comes to innovation, what sort is as relevant as how much.
Early models of growth did not explain technological progress at all…
- [1980s] explained it as the consequence of investment in research and development, increases in the stock of human capital, or the (temporary) extra profits that can be reaped by firms with new technologies….
- [1990s] some reckoned…technological change in the 20th century was ‘skill-biased’….
- [2001] a model of ‘directed technical change’. Technological progress…is influenced by the relative scarcity of factors such as labor and capital; by how easily one factor can be substituted for another; and by the path of past innovation….
Directed technical change…allows for alternative technological futures…[and] lead an economy down one technological path rather than another.
That raises an immediate question: if innovation can be steered, should it be, and if so, how?….
Private firms, focused on their bottom lines…might be indifferent between the two approaches in the absence of a government nudge….
[If] directing technical change to favor labor-assisting rather than labor-displacing forms of AI could be a second-best way to manage progress, if governments cannot sufficiently redistribute the gains from automation from winners to losers….
But economics lacks the tools…to judge which technological path is preferable…[because] world is too complex to…compare hypothetical technological futures….And questions of technology are not…about efficiency. Many are ethical….
[Which] radical technological change — AI, robotics and genetic engineering…paths should be explored [is now an issue].” https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/01/16/economists-explore-the-consequences-of-steering-technological-progress
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People can now be identified at a distance by their heartbeat —
“[A] new tool…dubbed Jetson, is able to measure, from up to 200 meters away, the minute vibrations induced in clothing by someone’s heartbeat.
Since hearts differ in both shape and contraction pattern, the details of heartbeats differ, too…[so] effect of this on the fabric of garments produces…a ‘heartprint’ — a pattern reckoned sufficiently distinctive to confirm someone’s identity….
[Using] laser vibrometers…[they] can measure a displacement of just ten picometres (trillionths of a meter]…[and] beam involved is infrared…[so] invisible to the human eye…for the 30 or so seconds it takes to obtain a good heartprint….
The stress of telling a falsehood can alter someone’s heartbeat, so it could improve lie-detection technology….[and] governments could employ the technology to identify masked protesters.” https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/01/23/people-can-now-be-identified-at-a-distance-by-their-heartbeat
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Twitter demands AI company stops ‘collecting faces’ —
“Clearview has already amassed more than three billion photographs from sites including Facebook and Twitter…[and] used by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and more than 600 other law-enforcement agencies around the world….
Twitter said its policies had been violated and requested the deletion of any collected data….
Clearview app [can]…pair the images with augmented-reality glasses that would…identify the names and addresses of anyone they saw….
’Americans have a right to know whether their personal photos are secretly being sucked into a private facial-recognition database…and effectively destroy…ability to go about their lives anonymously.’” https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51220654
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The marketplace of ideas is a weapons market now —
“’[We’re] ‘being slowly taken over by beef-only thinkers…as the global culture wars evolve into a stable, endemic, background societal condition of continuous conflict’…[but] this seething tire-fire conflict is part of something larger: the transition of the marketplace of ideas from a stock market into a weapons market….
[A] marketplace of ideas,’ wherein people from across the political spectrum…would introduce ideas for initiatives, actions, programs, and/or laws…[and] new ideas might climb…[until] it was seen fit to actually implement them….
Some reject…marketplace of ideas…[as] always seemed to favor entrenching the interests of…the rich and the elected…rather than the larger population. Others simply want more for themselves….
Nowadays the primary goal is to win….
Policy documents and statistical analyses…[are] weapons, or fig leaves, to serve as defenses or pretexts for decisions which have already been made…[and] add a veneer of respectability to pre-existing tribal beliefs….
[T]he increasingly irrelevant marketplace of ideas is…hard to ignore.” https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/20/the-marketplace-of-ideas-is-a-weapons-market-now/
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Second-largest doctors group in US endorses Medicare for All, public option —
“American College of Physicians (ACP)…represents internal medicine doctors that often serve as a patient’s primary care physician [says]….
’[U.S.] is the only wealthy industrialized country…[without] universal health coverage’…[and] nation’s existing health care system is inefficient, unaffordable, unsustainable, and inaccessible to many’…[endorsing] both full-scale single-payer health insurance and an optional government-run plan as competing options that can both achieve universal coverage….
[ACP] also called for moving…to a payment system for doctors and hospitals that incentivize quality care, rather than the old system of…paying for the number of services provided. …
’[T]he status quo is…unsustainable model for our [patients].’” https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/479111-second-largest-doctors-group-in-us-endorses-medicare-for-all-public-option
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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’: report —
“U.S. drinking water with man-made ‘forever chemicals’…known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS….[impacting] 110 million Americans…could be far too low.
‘It’s nearly impossible to avoid contaminated’…[and] used in products like Teflon and Scotchguard and in firefighting foam….
[O]n average six to seven PFAS compounds were found at the tested sites, and the effects on health…are little understood….
EPA has known since at least 2001 about the problem…[but] failed to set an enforceable, nationwide legal limit….
Department of Health and Human Services said the risk level…should be up to 10 times lower than…threshold the EPA recommends….
[Trump] and the EPA had tried to stop the report from being published.” http://ca.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1ZL0F8
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Trump administration strips pollution safeguards from drinking water sources —
“[A] rollback of environmental protections for streams, wetland and other bodies of water…stripped pollution safeguards from drinking water sources used by around a third of all Americans…[claiming] rule impinged upon landowners’ rights…[yet] allowing pesticides and other pollutants to be dumped into them without penalty….
’[This] new rule is scientifically indefensible and socially unjust…[and] will result in the impairment of drinking water, fisheries and flood control for communities throughout the US’….
[It] also reverses protections reaching back to the 1972 Clean Water Act, such as requirements that landowners seek permits that the EPA considers on a case-by-case basis….
Trump administration has dismantled about 100 environmental rules while in office, including the reversal of a ban on mining companies dumping their waste into rivers.
‘The ‘dirty water rule’ will put clean drinking water for tens of millions of…low-income communities…already disproportionately impacted by polluted water….
Clean, safe drinking water is a basic human right and we should be doing more to protect our water resources, not less.’” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/23/trump-clean-water-protections-rule-rollback
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A ‘Green Swan’ is the next economic nightmare —
“Bank for International Settlements (BIS)…the central bank for central banks…[said] climate-related events could be the source of the next financial crisis.…
‘The increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events could trigger non-linear and irreversible financial losses…[with] far-reaching effects potentially affecting every single agent in the economy and every single asset price….
Debt, inequality and environmental damage are major issues for growth sustainability…[but] first two are cyclical whereas the third is potentially structural….
[We] will soon enter a stage where there will be a realization of the immense economic and personal trade-offs…[that] may shock citizens and be difficult to administer in democracies….
[T]he problem with the status quo is that the irreversible damage to our planet will increase.’ On the one hand, modern civilization is screwed. On the other hand, modern civilization is screwed….
’It is a global problem but no global solution is in sight.’” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-economists-worry-reversing-climate-change-is-hopeless-morning-brief-110537963.html
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New research suggests that secular stagnation is centuries old —
“[With] interest rates near or below zero across much of the world, room for further cuts to combat the next downturn is limited….
[Research] back to the early 14th century, when capitalism and free markets began to emerge…found that real rates have declined by 0.006–0.016 percentage points a year since…[and] fallen from an average of around 10% in the 15th century to just 0.4% in 2018…[and] suggest that secular stagnation, insofar as it means falling interest rates, has been a feature of capitalism since its birth.
Rates falling since the early 1980s may be less the result of acute problems, such as an ageing population, than markets simply snapping back to a centuries-old trend…
[If] trend continues, by…late 2020s global short-term real rates will…[reach] permanently negative territory. By late 21st century, long-term rates will have joined them. Even unconventional monetary policies, which rely on driving down long-term rates, would then lose traction.” https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/01/09/new-research-suggests-that-secular-stagnation-is-centuries-old
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UN Secretary-General: US-China Tech Divide Could Cause More Havoc Than the Cold War —
“[We’ve] three risks…geostrategic divide, a social divide, and a technological divide….
- [Geostrategically] Chinese economy and the American economy…with the trade and technology confrontation…[has] a risk of a decoupling in which…have its own market, its own currency, its own rules, its own internet, its own strategy in artificial intelligence…own military and geostrategic strategies…[so] risks of confrontation increase dramatically….
- [The] social divide …[shows] traditional forms of intergovernmental conventions to regulate sectors do not apply to the digital world…[since] things move so quickly….[Need] much more flexible mechanisms in which different stakeholders come together regularly, and…[adopt] protocols, codes of conduct, define some red lines, and…flexible mechanism of governance that allows the internet to become a force for good….
- [Technological] divide…between rich and poor….[Half] world is not linked to the internet….[So] we need to transform the digital technologies into an instrument to attenuate the inequality…not only among countries but within each country….
The Cold War in the past was more predictable and…risks of confrontation were limited….[But] cyberspace is much more complicated….
[A] major confrontation…would start with a massive, massive cyberattack, not only on military installations, but some civilian infrastructure….
[W]e do not have clarity on legal frameworks…[for] war, when is it not war…[and] artificial intelligence will develop new kinds of weapons…[especially] autonomous weapons, that can…choose targets and kill people….
[T]here is no consensus…how to regulate it…[or] distinguish what is defensive and what is offensive….[A]n environment in which there will be no serious international cooperation…if this decoupling takes place — and…can create havoc in the world is much bigger….
[Need] to have a universal economy, a universal internet, and to have a number of mechanisms…to establish a set of rules that allow for these risks to be minimized…[so] these technologies respect human rights, respect human privacy…[and] we don’t use these systems to…control human lives…politically or economically….
[I]t’s also true that…different tribes tend to have their own systems of interconnection…[and] see facts differently….
[T]here are mechanisms that allow for…political control of people that are extremely worrying, and that if applied in a society can fully undermine democracy….
[Clearly] our democratic systems needs to…evolve to preserve democratic values.
We cannot just blindly move ahead as if nothing is happening…[that] are real threats to democracy….
[T]he internet should be a right…[not] instrument of political control.”
https://www.wired.com/story/un-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-internet-risks/
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Doc Huston
