News — At The Edge — 7/7

• Good future developments — privacy law, autonomous drones, AI’s periodic table — for a better tomorrow.
• Bad future developments — U.S. fratricide, mass surveillance, AI & developing economies, education — all point to a dystopian tomorrow.
• Ugly future developments — U.S. tech problems, China and search problems — challenge our ingenuity now.

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Good future developments

California passes landmark data privacy bill —

“[Law’s] improvements are:….

• Businesses must disclose what information it collects
• Businesses must disclose what business purpose it does so for
• Businesses must disclose any third parties it shares that data with…
• Businesses required to comply with official consumer requests to delete that data
• Consumers can opt out of their data being sold
• Businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service
• Businesses can…offer ‘financial incentives’…to collect data
• California authorities are empowered to fine companies for violations….

Facebook and Google…aligned with others in opposition…[like] internet providers like AT&T and Verizon….

[California’s] influential and populous state…where a great deal of tech companies are based…[so] law will have more than merely a local effect.” https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/28/landmark-california-privacy-bill-heads-to-governors-desk/

Drones Just Learned to Fly Solo, Which Means Pro Racers May Soon Meet Their Match —

“[New] system that allows drones to autonomously navigate an obstacle course of gates with 100 percent accuracy…[so] won’t crash into something and…can adapt if…move a gate mid-run, completing a course that looks different than when they started…using its onboard camera…and the neural network outputs**….**

[Since] drone isn’t just relying on a static map of its environment, it’s better equipped to react to the unexpected…doing it all onboard[and] will only get more powerful….

Our skies are about to fill up with drones, delivery drones in particular, which will have to avoid…one another [and]…the many obstacles of the big city.” https://www.wired.com/story/watch-out-pro-racers-these-drones-just-learned-to-fly-solo/

AI recreates chemistry’s periodic table of elements —

“[T]he periodic table of elements, arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements in chemistry…[yet] artificial intelligence (AI) program… accomplished the same feat in just a few hours…[unsupervised] using concepts borrowed from…natural language processing…to discover the periodic table on its own….

[Wanted] ‘to see if we can design an AI that can beat humans in…[remaking] some of the greatest discoveries already made by humans’…[Plan’s] to discover and design new materials….

[Now] will focus on cracking an intractable problem in medical research: designing just the right antibody to attack antigens…that are specific to cancer cells….

[Humans] produce more than 10 million unique antibodies, each…a different combination of about 50 genes….

‘[If] map these building block genes onto a mathematical vector…can organize all antibodies into something similar to a periodic table.’” https://phys.org/news/2018-06-ai-recreates-chemistry-periodic-table.html

Bad future developments

Trump Remakes America —

“[Trump] has attacked American institutions that seek truth and justice… shunned and denigrated…traditional allies and cozied up to…traditional enemies…[and] solidify the court’s conservative majority for a generation_…._

[For] person who believes in…equality, respecting choice and identity and civil rights, your vision of America is in jeopardy….

Conservative strategic thinkers…[think] in terms of generations…[see] demographic tide is moving against them and will soon wash away much of their power…[so] strategy is to

• slow that progress…[and] restrict immigration, both illegal and legal…
• push for voter restrictions, suppression and disenfranchisement…
• mass incarceration.

Conservatives want to arrest America’s development…[and] courts are an insurance policy…[using] religion as a weapon, to control…people’s bodies and…full participation in [America]…because of whom they love, how they identify, where they are from or which God they worship…[protecting] ‘American culture,’ which is…white culture.

No matter how advantage was gained, no matter how privilege was acquired, it is… scrubbed clean of blood and tears…[and] must be preserved….

[Obamacare] asked those with more to help support the health…of those with less…[and] precisely why conservatives hate it…[preferring] Darwinian ecosystem…in which health corresponds directly with wealth….

To [conservatives] shifting wealth was shifting power…[in] battle over what America was, is and can be….[It’s] reason that Trump’s base will never abandon him….

[So] a man whose candidacy was a joke, whose election was a fluke tainted by fraud… s how a country’s progress can be crippled…right now in large part because too many people thought that it could not.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/opinion/anthony-kennedy-supreme-court.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

A Better Reason to Delay Kennedy’s Replacement —

“Mr. McConnell’s blatantly anti-democratic ploy stole a judicial appointment from a popularly elected president and gave it to one who lost the popular vote by millions…[and] should not be permitted to appoint a new Supreme Court justice until after the special counsel investigation is over, and we know [if]…there is evidence of wrongdoing…[since] a court that may one day stand between him and impeach…[can] provide an effective bulwark against autocratic [rule]….

[There’s] several knotty constitutional questions….

• Can the president pardon himself or others…to extricate himself from criminal investigation?
• Can the president be compelled to testify before a grand jury?
• Can a sitting president be criminally indicted?….
• Can a president ever obstruct justice?
• What is the proper legal remedy for…violations of the Emoluments Clause?….

[N]ever before has the selection of a Supreme Court nominee been so thoroughly compromised by the president’s profound personal interest in appointing a judge….

[President] has surveillance capacities never before seen, vast power to conduct drone strikes and…lethal military operations abroad…to set immigration and law enforcement priorities and…to regulate enormous areas of economic and personal life….This is the perfect recipe for autocracy…[so] the importance of checks and balances has never been greater….

[Trump] by his own admission, already taken steps to thwart an investigation into his…potential criminality…[and] makes the present moment all the more frightening.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/a-better-reason-to-delay-kennedys-replacement.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront

The ACLU’s Biggest Roadblock to Fighting Mass Surveillance —

“[ACLU] lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a type of [NSA]…bulk monitoring known as ‘upstream’ surveillance…[but] mired in procedural and bureaucratic limbo….

NSA passively monitors and collects…communications by combing international internet traffic as it moves across service providers’ [infrastructure]…[and] suit alleges that this tactic violates the First and Fourth Amendment, along with other laws….

Now, the government is using…the ‘state secrets privilege,’ which protects classified information from the discovery process in a lawsuit, to resist cooperating….

’No public court has ever addressed the lawfulness of this surveillance…[and] government has put up a series of obstacles to having…courts fairly and openly litigate the big legal questions at stake here’….

The intelligence community has argued that…[it’s] investigating targets of interest to national security…[but] ACLU points out that this list…recently ballooned to include about 129,000 people…[with] surveillance dragnet is ever-expanding…[it] can sweep up countless people’s irrelevant personal data….

’It is critical that the federal courts have the information they need to effectively oversee these…unchecked surveillance activities’…[and] measurable chilling effect.” https://www.wired.com/story/wikimedia-nsa-surveillance-privacy-lawsuit/

The Rise of the Robot Reserve Army: Automation and the Future of Economic Development, Work, and Wages in Developing Countries

“[The] emerging economies face a…challenge to traditional…employment generation: automation, digitalization, and labor-saving technologies.

1.8 billion jobs — or two-thirds of the current labor force of developing countries…[are] susceptible to automation…particularly in the agricultural and industrial sectors…leading to a bloating of service-sector employment and wage stagnation…which implies socio-political consequences….

[Strong] skepticism about…skills-based development strategies alone. Social safety nets…offer one strategy; yet, to the extent that they raise the cost of labor, could…[accelerate] technological substitution….

[The] discussions about a living-wage level universal basic income (UBI) somewhat smack of a ‘first-world problem’….Protectionist trade policy in the North could…accelerate reshoring, and…[impact] the developing world….

In the long term, utopian as it may seem…the moral case for a global UBI…[though] difficult to see how such a framework would be politically enacted….

[Thus] three points.

1. automation is challenging the competitive advantage of low-cost labor….
2. many developing countries have a vulnerable labor force in terms of wage stagnation and premature deindustrialization….
3. we need to ask different policy and research questions and be concerned about the jobs impact of technology and the political economy of automation.”

https://www.cgdev.org/publication/rise-robot-reserve-army-automation-and-future-economic-development-work-and-wages

Trump to rescind race guidelines in college admissions —

“[Guidelines] Trump officials contend ‘mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows….

Supreme Court has ruled universities may use affirmative action to help minority applicants get into college.

Conservatives have said such programs can hurt white people and Asian-Americans….

’The law on this hasn’t changed, and the Supreme Court has twice ruled reaffirming the importance of diversity….This is a purely political attack’” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-education-race/trump-to-rescind-race-guidelines-in-college-admissions-wsj-reports-idUSKBN1JT1HO

Reducing Education &Knowledge Gaps_Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart & Virtual Assistants_medium.com

Ugly future developments

Tech in a time of travesties —

“[Today] technology concentrates power…as software eats the world, and everything is networked together…[so] the networks controls everything…[and] most valuable public companies in the world…[are] dominated by tech….

Democracy has long been prone to lies and manipulation, but technology’s…ability to concentrate power over elections in the hands of a few is…new and horrifying….

The idiotic hatred aimed at Central Americans and Maghrebians today is…identical to that which targeted Irish and German immigrants in 19th century…[but] prospect of enforcing that hatred wholesale…[with] a police-state dystopia ‘wall’ of drones and automatic facial-recognition checkpoints…[is] entirely new and terrible….

[Finally] employees begin to uneasily realize that what they do is often a…source of anxiety and bullying, and that…[they] may have created space for a new kind of centralized power…which subtly, maliciously manipulates users’ beliefs, and/or…a consensus reality….

Maybe the centralization of power by technology has become profound enough that the whole Valley / startup mentality…has become dangerous and wrong….[Maybe] centralized tech companies has become problematic….

[Blockchain] permissionlessness is a genuine dissipation of power…[though] concentration of crypto wealth is anything but….[Still] at least it’s a new mindset… ripe with possibility and the promise of emergent properties.

Too much of the tech industry keeps grimly trying to work the…levers of that increasingly rusted engine.” https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/01/tech-in-a-time-of-travesties/

Is Silicon Valley Politically Brain Dead?_According to The Economist, total spending for the 2016 presidential election will exceed $5 billion — double the 2012…_medium.com

How to fix what has gone wrong with the internet —

“The internet was…to make the world a less centralized…but the opposite has happened…[and] failed to deliver the positive, constructive society [hoped]…[hoovering] up everybody’s data and empowers malicious trolls and hackers….

[It’s] dominated by a few giants, from Facebook to Tencent… [in] a new hierarchy…[with] strictly controlled…’walled gardens’…hardly more exciting than television…through their app stores…[and] cloud computing….

Meanwhile governments…[use] big internet firms as willing enforcers…[to] block unwelcome content….

[Now] a vast collection of data silos with big pipes between them, connected to all kinds of devices which both deliver services and collect more data….

[Some] argue that to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI)…online giants should be treated as utilities….[They’re] a source of much invention…[but] dampen it elsewhere, so that fewer new ideas are being tried_._ Venture capitalists now talk about ‘kill zones’, areas they will not invest in because one of the big players may squeeze the life out of startups or buy them up at a low price….

Walled gardens often limit free speech…[and] makes it easier for Russian trolls and their Western counterparts to meddle in elections by spreading misinformation.

The concentration of…personal data in one place makes serious leaks more likely….[and] handy for spooks, as shown by…Edward Snowden….

And online giants have plenty of cash to influence offline politics….

A sense of a new beginning is also in the air…based on blockchain technology….

[Others] argue that without the free services…by companies such as Google and Facebook, far fewer people would be using the internet…[and] make the case against regulation…[as is] thriving in China.” https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/06/28/how-to-fix-what-has-gone-wrong-with-the-internet

Curated Knowledge is THE Future of All Power_Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely_medium.com

How China Is Trying to Invent the Future as a Science Superpower

“Genetic engineering…dark matter, quantum computing…artificial intelligence, brain science…[have] significant implications for future industries, defense technologies and…understandings of what it means to be human….

[Increasingly] achievements in these fields are coming…[from] China’s extensive research system…[where] spending has grown rapidly over the past two decades…second only to [U.S.]…largely conducted in five institutional sectors….

1. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)…
2. Universities…
3. company-based R&D, especially in information and communications technology fields…
4. Government research institutes under civilian ministries…for agriculture, public health, environmental protection, natural resources and so on…
5. military ….

[All] driven by its top political leaders who see China’s future wealth and power being derived from its research and innovation capabilities…[and] defined by a top-down design process…

[It’s] also found in the initiatives of local governments, many of which have become major funders of R&D….[Still] China’s technological progress…[as] a surveillance state…[leaves] little room for privacy and dissent.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-china-is-trying-to-invent-the-future-as-a-science-superpower/

The Complexity of Simply Searching for Medical Advice —

“Babies are born with very low stores of vitamin K, and without the Vitamin K shot…they do not have enough Vitamin K in their blood to form a clot,’ the CDC says on its website.

But new parents who turn to search engines to understand the practice will find an aberrant — and dangerous — strain of thinking….

[It’s] example of a keyword void, or search void…[where] answers about a keyword returns content…by a niche group with a particular agenda….[O]n Facebook are anti-vax…[articles] reaching an audience of millions. YouTube results are no better…[with] very little counter-content to surface because it simply doesn’t occur to regular people (or…actual medical experts) that there’s a need to produce counter-content….

[Since] the first few pages of search results repeats these claims, the message looks like it represents a widely-held point of view. But it doesn’t. It’s wrong, it’s dangerous, and it’s potentially deadly….

Social reinforcement from trusted friends is [important]…when trust in authorities is in crisis….

Snopes and FactCheck.org, devoting more resources to combating misinformation. But it’s hard to make corrections go viral….

[T]o answer questions that have a profound impact…especially where health is concerned, this difficulty in discerning, and surfacing, sound science from pseudo-science has alarming consequences….

[W]ill the tech platforms…understand that giving legitimacy to health misinformation via high search and social rankings is profoundly harmful?

Getting high-quality, fact-based health information shouldn’t be dependent on the outcome of SEO games, or on who has more resources for pay-to-play content promotion.

Ultimately, the question is, how do we incorporate factual accuracy into rankings when no one is willing to be the ‘arbiter of truth.’” https://www.wired.com/story/the-complexity-of-simply-searching-for-medical-advice/

Doc’s — Where Search Ends and Knowledge Begins!_In the past, street maps on paper were often unwieldy, origami-like traveling companions. While these maps had all the…_medium.com

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