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.

Students Motivated by Learning Scientists Struggled to Find Success

Solutions to the world's problems haven't come to famous scientists without a struggle. A study at Columbia University and the University of Washington should give students, especially young women, courage to apply themselves to the task of becoming a scientist. The study found that reading about the failures of famous scientists motivated students not only to pursue studies in science and math but also to improve their performances in all academic studies.

     Artist Teresita Fernandez, a recipient of a $500,000 genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation, goes so far as to suggest something unique and valuable can come from failure. She relates the Japanese idea of kintsugi, "to patch with gold," a practice of using gold to repair a broken bowl. That way the new bowl resembles nothing but itself. Failures unique to an individual can lead to something valuable, if that person keeps pressing forward.

So, what are some of the books that can motivate students to keep pressing forward?

• Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Wallmark and April Chu

Although Ms. Lovelace had to overcome temporary blindness from measles, this daughter of Lord Byron wrote the first computer program after she met Charles Babbage and understood how his first mechanical computer worked.

• Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle and Julie Paschkis

In the 17th century, Maria Merian had to work in secret to show butterflies weren't evil creatures that sprang out of mud.

• Primates by Jim Ottoviani and Maris Wicks

To make discoveries about primates, students suffered through many hardships living and working in the African bush with Richard Leakey.

• Brilliant Blunders by Mario Livio

Livio describes scientists who made colossal mistakes before making progress.

Just last summer, when my granddaughter was an intern in a zoology lab, she learned that every day she had to overcome the spiders that wove new webs overnight in the cages of the birds she was studying.

Play, Computer Connections, and Pets Come to the Aid of Sick Kids

Years ago when my four-year-old daughter was in the hospital with an infection, there was a room reserved for play, where needles, pills and painful procedures were banned. She really perked up when she learned to play her first video game.

     Nowadays, a new pilot project designed by Gokul Krishman, a Ph.D. candidate at Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University, is bringing a mobile creative space to young patients who can't leave their hospital rooms. Drawing on the idea of the MakerMovement, a cart carries a 3-D printer, tablet computer on a swivel arm, a circuit board that cycles lights through the rainbow, and bins filled with items kids can use to create solutions to problems they face in the hospital. Of course, patients can communicate room to room using the computer.

     One patient wanted to stop nurses from just entering her room without knocking, so she fitted a tissue box with wires and switches and posted a sign on her door that read, "Ring My Doorbell." Another stopped nurses from waking sleeping patients by making a Nurse Night Light that only lit up the toilet and trash areas of his room.

     Developed in Israel, a new "Sesame" Google Nexus Phone enables those with certain disabilities to mAake telephone calls by using gestures and voice controls.

     The later post, "Want to Reach Global Citizens?" reports on the free AFLAC ducks the insurance company gives hospitalized children to help them use emojis to tell the medical staff and visitors how they feel. 

     Even back in 2002, before there was Skype, Len Forkas worked with a school system's head of technology to equip his sick son's home bedroom and fourth grade classroom with computers and cameras and an internet connection. Microsoft's NetMeeting software enabled the boy with acute lymphoblastic leukemia to see his classroom and to talk with friends every morning and after recess. Based on this initial experience, Hopecam (hopecam.org) now works with schools to cut through red tape to provide kids homebound with
cancer with tablet computers, web cameras, and high speed internet connections that enable them to participate in classroom activities and interact with their friends. Sometimes, even if a child only Skypes for a half hour with classmates each week, parents report that this little spot of sunshine makes a big difference.

     Julia Havey, a nurse at the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing at Loyola University in Chicago,
observed that brief interactions with pets also could make a big difference for a group of her patients. If they received daily visits from specially trained dogs for five to 15 minutes while they were recovering from total joint-replacement surgery, they required 28% less oral pain medication than those in a group similar in age, gender, ethnicity, length of hospital stay, and the same type of total joint replacement who did not receive animal therapy visits. Havey concluded that therapy animals can have a positive influence on human recovery, because the animal-human connection reduces stress and generates a sense of well-being. Indeed, other research has found that interaction with pets decreases the level of the cortisol stress hormone and increases endorphins, considered the happiness hormone.

      The organization, Dogs on Call (dogsoncall.org), provides pet therapy dogs not only to hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and hospices, but also to libraries, dorms, and schools where students are stressed, especially during final exams.

(For other examples of ways to improve the lives of sick kids, see the blog post, "Robots for Good.")

   

 

Santa's Checking His List Twice

In preparation for the holiday gift-giving season last year, I wrote the blog post, "Go Holiday Globe (S)hopping." Many of the gift suggestions in that post are still available. UNICEF (unicefusa.org/shop) and SERRV (serrv.org) again offer Advent calendars. For children who celebrate Hanukkah, SERRV also sells Kosher certified dark and milk chocolate foil-wrapped coins from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa.

     This year, there are gifts that enable youngsters to sample the world's latest technologies. Using a LED touchscreen, kids can change patterns on Barbie's new "Digital Dress." A variety of robot toys are sold at YoungExplorers.com, mindware.com, Museumtour.com, and shopng.org. Since the American Red Cross Field Radio and Phone Charger from shopng.org uses both solar power or hand cranking to recharge, it can go high tech or low.

     A variety of approaches to geography update a familiar subject. Maps, a new book by Aleksandra and Daniel Mezielinska, associates fascinating facts with illustrations of every region of the world. By touching one of 39 sections on the "Global Glowball" from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art store (store.metmuseum.org), children can activate a song from that part of the world. Based on the latest facts about every country in the world, the geography game, "Where in the World?" from Museumtour.com is fun for 2 to 6 players 8 years of age or older. Using pieces shaped like countries, children over 4 also can put together a "World GeoPuzzle" from Museumtour and those 12 years of age and up can build Museumtour's 4D puzzles of Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Osaka, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Tokyo, or Toronto. For free, go to "google maps" and introduce children to the way they can use a computer to tour countries, such as France, and cities, such as Nairobi, Kenya.

     Several new gifts provide the kind of indoor activities youngsters need to amuse themselves during the winter. Games, stencils, stickers, and crafts come with The National Geographic Kids: Animal Creativity Book. In Dawn Casey's book, The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales, stories from around the world are coupled with related activities. In the virtual world, students can build the world's landmarks with the Swedish video game, Minecraft. Or they can paint Paris and London in watercolors with Ravensburger's Aquarille World Cities Arts and Crafts Kit, which comes with all needed art supplies and instructions for different painting techniques.

     Paris seems to be a popular destination this holiday season. Chavonne, the African-American "Journey" doll at Toys R Us, is about to travel to Paris. Madeline is already there in her new book, Madeline and the Old House in Paris.  In Paris! Recipe for Adventure, a book by Giada DeLaurentiis, Zia Donatella takes a brother and sister to a French cooking school to show them home-cooked meals are better than fast food. (The same author also visits Naples! Recipe for Adventure.)  Students can build Paris' Eiffel Tower with National Geographic's 3-D puzzle or the more difficult to construct 5-foot tall model that uses the same engineering principles as the real landmark. (At shop.nationalgeographic.com, National Geographic also offers a 3-D puzzle of Big Ben and a 4-D Cityscape puzzle of London.)

     For teen age girls who want gifts with a touch of Parisian glamour, artisans around the world are creating original jewelry just for them. The SERRV website (serrv.org) and Shop For Social (shopforsocial.com) provide many options.

     What would be the ultimate gift? Book an international family vacation with AdventuresByDisney.com, journeys.travel, AAA.com/ExploreMore, worldwildlife.org/travel, or hfholidays.co.uk.

    Best wishes for peace and joy throughout the world in this holiday season and every day in 2014!