Terrorism Alerts

New York City's Police Commissioner, James O'Neill, didn't just tell us, if we see something, say something, he told us what to look for. He said to put down our cell phones and look for something out of place. An automotive vehicle driving down a bike path certainly was something out of place in New York City on October 31, 2017. Years ago, an NYC vendor said something and successfully alerted the police to prevent a disaster, when he saw wires and smoke coming out of a van in Times Square.

     Looking back on other tragic events, we remember later seeing unattended backpacks at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA, and at the Boston Marathon in 2013. Also there was the unusual young white man attending a Bible service in an African-American church and the high school boys who wore long black coats. In department stores, security looks for potential shoplifters carrying large shopping bags and wearing big winter coats, especially in summer. When a security guard at the Watergate complex saw a piece of tape over a lock, he found the burglars who led to President Nixon's resignation. Then, there are unusual purchases of too much fertilizer and too many boxes of ammunition. And there is unusual behavior: a "Do Not Disturb" sign on a hotel door for three days, an unusual amount of activity on a web site, or pilots in training who don't seem to care about learning how to land a plane.

     When Nobel Prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman, was asked to investigate the cause of the Challenger space shuttle's explosion, he saw a photo of a small smoke puff coming out of one side of the craft. His advice that anything not supposed to happen according to a project's design should signal trouble is applicable in other circumstances, as well. A police officer shooting anyone holding up his or her hands should not happen. Neither should the sound of a gun being fired in a convenience store be heard. Current police practice requires going to anywhere a gun shot is heard, because any sound of a gun shot in a neighborhood is out of place, as is a woman's scream and screeching tires.

     Finally, keep the telephone number of your local police department handy. When you see or hear something, the next step is to say something to prevent more violence.

AI Only Provides Opportunities for Rich People. Really?

     "He fixes radios by thinking!"

     The book, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! recounts this answer a man gave someone who saw the Nobel Prize winning physicist walking back and forth, when he was supposed to be fixing a radio. The book also tells how Feynman learned trigonometry by reading a book he checked out from the library, when he was eleven or twelve.

     I was reminded of these items when I read a July 7, 2017 article (theverge.com) by James Vincent. He cites studies that conclude people from working class and poorer backgrounds lack: 1) the ability to retrain for AI and robotic automation, and 2) the "soft skills" of communication, confidence, motivation, and resilience. Job losses and inequality will increase as artificial intelligence eliminates the administrative positions that have traditionally enabled these employees without higher educations to move up the corporate ladder.

     Yet, I remember the way the movie Hidden Figures showed a woman who made a contribution to the early US space program learned computer language from a library book, and I began to question the inevitability of this prognosis.

     In another example, a young Muslim woman I know, who doesn't come from a family of means, taught herself to sew by watching YouTube videos. She spent her last year of high school writing the essays and organizing the portfolio she needed to gain admission to the Fashion Institute of Technology.

       During the summer, colleges and universities offer scholarships to programs in a wide variety of fields. During the school year, they sponsor debating, math, computer, chess, and other competitions open to all. And every school is beefing up the STEM courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that prepare students to land positions in fields that have no pay gaps for those from different socio-economic backgrounds.

     The rich cannot corner the market on walking and thinking.