Blind Trust in AI Is a Mistake

For better or worse, combining algorithms with images collected by drones, satellites, and video feeds from other monitors enhances aerial intelligence in a variety of fields.

     Overhead movie and TV shots already provide a different perspective, just as viewing the Earth or a rocket launch from a space craft or satellite does. These new perspectives offer advantages besides entertainment value and a chance to study the dwindling ice cap at the North Pole.

     Seen from above, data about landscapes has various applications. The famous Texas Gulf Sulphur Company case involving insider trading began with aerial geophysical surveys in eastern Canada. When pilots in planes scanning the ground saw the needles in their instruments going wild, they could pinpoint the possible location of electrically conductive sulphide deposits containing zinc and copper along with sulphur.

     When Argentina invaded Britain's Falkland Islands in April, 1982, it's been reported the only map the defenders possessed showed perfect picnic spots. Planes took to the air to locate the landing spot that enabled British troops to declare victory at Port Stanley in June, 1982.

     Nowadays, the aim is to write algorithms that look for certain activities among millions of images. A robber can program an algorithm to tell a drone's  camera to identify where delivery trucks leave packages. An algorithm can call attention to a large group of people and cars arriving at a North Korean missile testing site. Then, an analyst can figure out why, because, to date, artificial intelligence (AI) does not explain how and why it reaches a conclusion.

     Since artificial intelligence's algorithms operate in their own "black boxes," humans are unable to evaluate the process used to arrive at conclusions. Humans cannot replicate AI processes independently. And if an algorithm makes a mistake, AI provides no clues to the reasoning that went astray.

     In other words, robots without supervision can take actions based on conclusions dictated by faulty algorithms. An early attempt to treat patients based on a "machine model" provides a good example. Doctors treating pneumonia patients who also have asthma admit them to the hospital immediately, but the machine readout said to send them home. The "machine" saw pneumonia/asthma patients in the hospital recovered quickly and decided they had no reason to be admitted in the first place. The "machine" did not have the information that their rapid recovery occurred, because they were admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit.

     Google's top artificial intelligence expert, John Giannandrea, speaking at a conference on the relationship between humans and AI, emphasized the effect of bias in algorithms. Not only does it affect the news and ads social media allows us to see, but he also echoed the idea that AI bias can determine the kind of medical treatment a person receives and, based on AI's predictions about the likelihood of a convict committing future offenses, it can affect a judge's decision regarding parole.

     Joy Buolamwini's Algorithmic Justice League found facial-analysis software was prone to making mistakes recognizing the female gender, especially of darker-skinned women. AI is developed by and often tested primarily on light-skinned men, but recognition technology, for example, is promoted for hiring, policing, and military applications involving diverse populations. Since facial recognition screening fails to provide clear identifications of some populations, it also has the potential to be used to identify non-white suspects and to discriminate against hiring non-white employees.

     When humans know they are dealing with imperfect information, whether they are playing poker, treating cancer, choosing a stock, catching a criminal, or waging war, how can they have confidence in authorizing and repeating a "black box" solution that requires blind trust? Who would take moral and legal responsibility for a mistake. The human who authorized action based on AI, wrote the algorithm, or determined the data base the algorithm used to determine its conclusion? And then there is the question of the moral and legal responsibility for a robot that malfunctions while it is carrying out  the "right" conclusion.

     Research is trying to determine what elements are necessary to help AI reach the best conclusions. Statistics can't always be trusted. Numbers that show terrorists are Muslims or repeat criminals are African Americans do nothing to suggest how an individual Muslim or African American should be screened or treated.  AI research is further complicated by findings that also suggest the mind/intellect and will that control moral values and actions are separate from the physical brain that controls other human activities and diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson's.

     Automated solutions require new safeguards: to defend against hacking that alters information, to eliminate bias,  to verify accuracy by checking multiple sources, and to determine accountability and responsibility for actions.

Changing Cuba

In over a half century since Cuba's 1959 revolution, relations between the U.S. and Cuba have yet to reach an equilibrium. President Trump's new regulations began to undo the eased restrictions President Obama put in place only a few years ago. US relations with Cuba also were compromised when State Department representatives began to suffer dizziness, hearing loss, and even brain damage similar to a concussion. By 2018, investigations indicated Russia, which has maintained a major presence in Cuba, had been using something like microwave bombardments to cause these injuries in order to undermine any attempt to move the US and Cuba closer together.

     Nonetheless, Cuba is changing. Modern cars now join the familiar U.S. luxury cars of the 1950s Cubans have managed to keep running without imported parts. Sister Jeannine Gramick rode in a new air conditioned Chinese tourist bus, when she and members of the Rainbow World Fund participated in Havana's International Day (May 17, 2017) against Homophobia and Transphobia.

     Sister Jeannine, who has served a ministry of gay Catholics since 1971 and served as executive coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns since 2003, notes alterations to Cuba's constitution in 1992 stipulate the country as secular, rather than atheistic. Decades of atheism have, however, reduced both the number of practicing Catholics and the use of sacred symbols and images in Cuba's art and ceramic crafts.

     Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, credits eased religious discrimination, lifted restrictions on religious displays, and tax exemptions for property owned by religious organizations to Baptist pastor, Rev. Raul Suarez, founder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Old Havana.

     Among other positive developments Sister Jeannine mentioned are:

• Cuba's 99% literacy rate
• Free universal health care in clinics, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. Money does enable richer patients to receive faster and better care.
• A UNESCO-designated sustainable community, the Sierra del Rosario Biosphere Reserve
• Acceptance of LGBT and HIV/AIDS citizens and same-sex unions

Big problems do remain: A one-party system, no freedom of expression, business transactions controlled by the government and military.

(Also see the earlier post, "Changes to US-Cuban Relationships.")

   

Career Choices for an Automated Future

At the end of the day, have any of us thought about the immutable function of nature, i.e. light waves, used to measure distance or why democratic governments recognize their obligation to protect the civil liberties, the rights of their citizens, but Communist governments don't.

     Robots with artificial intelligence might as well take our jobs, if we lack the humility to recognize we don't have all the answers and have no curiosity, no love of learning, no desire to read a book, and no willingness to risk the failure of trying something new.

     Five  thinkers present alternative approaches to future employment.

Personal Touch

Being able to relate, person to person, on an emotional level could be the winning skill for some future careers in fields such as medicine, police work, and religion. What needs are people satisfying, when they check their smartphones, a mirror, or the mole on their arm over and over every day? Are they concerned about social issues outside themselves, life changing measures that offer hope and motivation, reduced anxiety, or a functional benefit that provides more money?

     How much does a patient want to know about her or his condition? the risks of treatment options? how long it will be before treatment provides a better quality of life? Some 81-year-olds will arrive at a doctor's office having done extensive internet research about their ailments and ready to take any risks for the possibility of improving their lives, even if costly pills, twice weekly therapy sessions, and monthly doctor's visits will continue for the rest of their lives. Some won't.

     Eric Mack, who wrote an article for inc.com, suggests students have opportunities in careers that enable them to do what robots can't: deliver personalized service, diagnose and solve non-routine problems, and enter into a collaborative give and take with others. At Big Think (Nov. 13, 2016), Micho Kaku said robots can't match the creativity and imagination needed by gardeners, scientists, and those who write rock and toll tunes. Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify try to pick the books, movies/TV shows, and music you'd choose for yourself and Facebook thinks it can select only the news and ads you want to see, but maybe you or a person who knows you personally can provide even better suggestions.

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 Cottage Industries

Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba, China's family of Amazon-like e-commerce businesses, expects small companies to use the internet to find customers and sell their products throughout the world. He suggests schools need to prepare students to analyze customer data. To operate on the world stage, he fails to mention a small business owner also needs to understand foreign currencies, laws, and languages. New importers and exporters could benefit from an organization similar to the Food Enterprise & Economic Development (FEED) Kitchen in Madison, Wisconsin. This nonprofit incubator for would-be entrepreneurs in the food industry helps obtain necessary permits; provides kitchen, refrigerator, freezer, dry storage, and dish washing space; and serves as a drop-off point for deliveries.

     Microsoft's co-founder, Bill Gates, echoes Ma's emphasis on the need for educational systems to prepare students to base conclusions on statistical analysis. Where Ma's focus is on consumer data, Gates' is on data related to the spread of disease. He stresses the importance of science, engineering, and economics and equipping students to understand what those in these fields can and cannot do.

     Think about the book and movie, The Big Short, which entertained and explained the financial concepts of the 2008 housing crash. How can entrepreneurs and small businesses in the arts earn a living on the world stage?

Leader/Servant

David Eli Lilienthal, the director and chairman of the government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority that brought electric power to a region not served by private corporations, made a fortune by taking chances in private business after he left the public sector. In the journals, actually loose-leaf notebooks, he began writing when he was a high school student, we learn he found the business life full of creative original minds, but he also found solving management problems was not enough. He missed the gratification of public service until he found a way to combine it with private enterprise in the big, new company he started. He found he could make a profit by helping foreign countries develop their resources for the benefit of their citizens.

In Conclusion

There you have it, advice to offer personal service, start a small business, or found/work for a major corporation that makes big profits from projects that improve the world. Your choice. As Ma believes, "machines will never get the wisdom and experience that comes from being human."

Foreign Experiences Teach Students Hard Lessons

Otto Warmbier's plight is a sad reminder that international travel subjects students to the laws of foreign countries. In North Korea, Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for, what the local government considered, illegally removing a propaganda poster. He was returned to the United States in a coma and died.

     No matter how sympathetic students are with the causes that bring protesters to the streets in Moscow, Cairo, or Beijing, they need to remember that by joining a march they risk testing the limited power of diplomacy to release them from arrest or detention. When local governments have strict drug laws and penalties for photographing military guards and installations, ignorance is no defense from local prosecution. The time to write an article, give a speech, or take any other action about international injustices and harsh penalties is when a student is safely home.

     Without offering international opportunities, colleges and universities realize they would fail to prepare students for their future careers. In response to increased study abroad, the U.S. State Department has a one-stop information destination: studentsabroad.state.gov. One of the most important programs offered is STEP, the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. By enrolling with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate in the country a student plans to visit, the Embassy/Consulate knows where to issue a warning to leave the country if a coup or civil war is imminent and where to send news of a family emergency.

     At the State Department's general site for international travel, travel.state.gov, students will find information about:

• passports and visas,
• worldwide alerts and travel warnings for particular countries
• what to do in all sorts of emergencies, including lost passports, arrests & detentions, medical problems, and natural disasters.

Parents and students alike are well advised to go to travel.state.gov to learn ahead of time: The State Department's Role in a Crisis.


   

Lots of Summer Fun

National Geographic magazine has put together a collection of ideas that kids can enjoy for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or a half hour. You can find all this fun by going to "national geographic family field guide" and entering "6 ways to turn your kids into geniuses" in the search box.

I especially liked taking the personality quiz to find out what genius I am most like. A reporter who likes to ask questions to find the truth. There's a chance to win $25,000 for an idea.

You also are invited to join the National Geographic Kids and Family Panel.

Hands-on Activity Shows Why Some Countries Are Poor

Haiti is poor and Germany is rich. Why? Have students each wad up a piece of paper. A BuzzFeed video shows a wastebasket being moved to the front of the room. The contest begins when students try to throw their paper wads into the basket.

     What will students in the back of the room say? They'll claim they are at a disadvantage.

The discussion begins. What are some of the disadvantages poor countries face? How can these countries help themselves improve their situations? What would be comparable to adding a wastebasket to the back of the room? What are some of the ways privileged countries could help poor countries? What would be similar to students in the front of the room sharing their chairs with students from the back of the room?

   

Babies Helped with Unused Vojta Therapy

Using the Vojta (YOY-tuh) method, developed by the Czech neurologist, Vaclav Vojta, in the early 1950s, pressure applied to nine zones of a baby's body can activate muscles, mental activity, and proper breathing in those born with the motor disabilities associated with cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome.

     One medical book describes Down's syndrome as a birth defect of Mongoloid children who have "stubby fingers and hands, a flat face, slanted eyes and a sweet disposition." The book goes on to say, "Mongolism can usually be detected by sampling the amniotic fluid so that an abortion can be performed if the fetus is affected."

     Why would doctors skip to an abortion, when the development of a baby with a sweet disposition could be helped by the Vojta method, used, not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Syria?

     A Vojta therapist at the Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute in Thrissur, India,
suggests the therapy is not widely used, because there is no profit payoff. Once parents are trained, they perform the pressure therapy regularly at home with no equipment or drugs. Perhaps, there also is another answer. As in the case of blue light phototherapy found to destroy the superbugs that resist the antibiotics used to kill staph infections, Western doctors discounted research on the Vojta method conducted in a country behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War (See the earlier post, "Medical Profession Suffers from International Conflict.")

     Since the successful reduction of motor problems depends on how early the Vojta treatment begins and how efficiently it is applied, there should be no delay in trying this therapy in every country. After undergoing treatment before a baby turns 1 year old, although there is no cure for the underlying medical defects, speech problems and a delay in crawling and walking can be overcome. Most Vojta-treated children can learn to speak and walk.

   

Troubled Northwest Passage Found

Even before the US decided it would be one of only three countries not bound by the goals for green- house gas emissions established in the 2015 Paris climate accord, the planet warmed to open a Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean. For example, cruise ships now travel from Alaska to New York without icebreaker assistance.

     Still, there is no guarantee that ships won't be grounded in a storm or that oil, natural gas, and mineral exploration in newly accessible waters won't accidentally endanger whales and migrating birds. Clean up in the cold Arctic where it is dark much of the year is an impossible task. Even without an incident, increased shipping activity introduces the new and unknown impact of underwater noise, dirty water, sewage discharge, and invasive species in the Arctic. With Russia now training military troops in Siberia, there also is a chance of aggression from the far North.

     Sunlight that the Arctic's ice used to reflect now helps quicken sea ice melt, at the rate of 10% per decade, and raises sea levels to threaten inhabitants of islands and coastal cities worldwide. As the disappearance of sea ice forced polar bears onto land, villagers along the Bering Straight needed to form polar bear patrols to protect students walking to school. Residents in the entire Alaskan village of Shishmaret had to relocate when their home began falling into the water. They will not be the only ones faced with the need to move to new homes.

     The reduced difference between temperatures in the Arctic and those in more temperate southern zones causes the fast moving air current, known as the jet stream, to weaken and make extreme weather changes of drought, heat, snow, and floods more likely in North America, Europe, and Asia.

     In 1996, representatives of Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia, and the United States formed an Arctic Council for scientific and environmental study of the Arctic. This advisory body has not shown the leadership needed to outline a vision for the Arctic. Instead, the UN's International Maritime Organization stepped up to provide a Polar Code of environmental regulations for polar shipping. And under President Obama, the US on its own initiative prohibited oil and gas drilling in the Chukchi Sea and most of the Beaufort Sea. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has declared a five year moratorium on offshore oil development in Canada's Arctic waters.

     Private companies are developing their own polar vision to generate geothermal steam energy from water heated in pipes by molten magma from Iceland's volcanoes. Buying into the possibilities of an expensive 20-year project to send clean, renewable volcanic energy from the Krafla Magma Testbed through North Atlantic underwater cables to power turbines in the UK, Netherlands, and/or Denmark are Iceland's Landsvirkjun, Norway's Statoil, Canada's Falco Resources, and US-based Sandia National Laboratories. Iceland's residents have received reassurances that drilling in the Krafla site will not trigger a volcanic eruption.

(For an earlier discussion of developments in the Arctic, go to the post, "North Pole Flag.")

   

   

Don't Take Food for Granted

We all agree we need food to live. Drought in Africa and hurricanes in Haiti endanger lives. When the sunny, warm weather of June replaced May's surplus rainfall, Wisconsin't "Fabulous Farm Babe," Pam Jahnke, had good news for her radio audience: corn planting was 91% complete; soybean planting, 73% complete; and oats planting, 96% complete. Potato, pasture, alfalfa, and hay conditions also were coming along well.

     Besides the right amount of sun and rain, food crops require pollination and freedom from damaging pests and disease. The trouble is the neonicotinoid pesticide and glyphosate herbicide that crops, such as corn, soybeans, and alfalfa, have been genetically modified to survive cause bee pollinators and the milkweed wildflowers butterfly pollinators eat to die. Research indicates almonds, strawberries, peaches, avocados, and up to 140 crops depend on pollination. The cross-purpose of treating crops to resist pests and disease by killing the bee and butterfly pollinators many crops need to survive requires a major research solution.

     Monsanto, the seed and chemical company criticized for playing a role in every study that claims genetically modified crops are safe, donated a $10 million biotech lab facility to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in January, 2017. The installation's 28,000 square foot space accommodates 20 greenhouses and controlled environments in shade houses and light rooms that enable the university to do research on a scale with major companies. Although there has been no mention of studying the impact on bees of treating Monsanto's corn and soybean seeds with neonicotinoids or of creating plants that do not attract the insects that can destroy them, these would be excellent projects for what has been named the university's new Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center.

     Meanwhile, small scale farmers are in a position to plant crop seeds, untreated by neonicotinoid insecticide; to grow bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers (colorful zinnias, cosmos, and lavender), milkweed, and herbs; to leave woody debris and leaf litter undisturbed for bee breeding areas; and to avoid applying pesticides and herbicides to blooming flowers, weeds, and possible bee nesting areas.

      Finally, research suggests gardeners who want to discourage mosquitoes from ruining their outdoor activities should plant marigolds, citronella, lavender, basil, and catnip (mint).

Do World Religions Employ the Antitrust Wink?

It would be a rare religious leader who at one time or another failed to express a desire to make the world a better place. As a Benedictine wrote, "That which each of us does to proclaim God's love makes a wonderful difference in our world."

     Are statements like this said with the winks John Brooks describes in a chapter on antitrust price fixing in his book Business Adventures? He tells how executives of competing companies would wink to cancel the following advice: Avoid any agreements, expressed or implied, that could be viewed as violating the 1890 Sherman Act and the 1914 Clayton Act that make setting noncompetitive price levels illegal.

     When Pope Francis could not visit the pyramids last April, because Muslim extremists vow to attack Egypt's Christians, it does seem some who claim to lead the world's religions give their followers confusing signals. And again and again from the hatred turned against Judaism in the Holocaust to the 24 Coptic Christians killed while riding a bus to a monastery south of Cairo and the two men killed when they tried to defend Muslim girls in Portland, Oregon, last month, religious followers get the winked messages.

     But can't signals, such as peace symbols, also be forged to unite members of all religions?