Ford invests $1 billion in Pittsburgh-based Argo AI to build self-driving cars by 2021 – TechCrunch

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Ford has invested $1 billion in a joint venture with Argo AI, a Pittsburgh-based company with ties to Carnegie Mellon. The goal is to completely outfit Ford vehicles with self-driving technology. Interestingly this isnt a case of a large company simply hiring talent but the creation of an entirely separate company with an independent equity structure.

Ford is the majority stakeholder but will operate with substantial independence. Employees will receive equity in the company. The investment will be made over five years.

AI makers know you basically need an automaker to make an auto, said a person familiar with the deal commenting on Fords decision to connect with the company.

Argo AI will develop and deploy the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision to help build safe and efficient self-driving vehicles that enable these transformations and more, wrote CEO Bryan Salesky. The challenges are significant, but we are a team that believes in tackling hard, meaningful problems to improve the world. Our ambitions can only be realized if we are willing to partner with others and keep an open mind about how to solve problems. Salesky worked at the Carnegie Mellon University National Robotics Engineering Center and, in 2011, led self-driving hardware at Google.

Other team leaders include Dr. Brett Browning and Dr. Peter Rander. Both left CMU for Uber and recently made the switch to Argo. The company is targeting full autonomy by 2021. The pair are part of the slow exodus of researchers from Uber two years after that company hired robotics faculty away from CMU.

Fords billion dollar investment in a company two months old is, arguably, quite bold. Sources say that the team in place has extensive experience in building autonomous vehicles for Caterpillar and others and it seems this is the best and fastest way for Ford to access self-driving talent.

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Will product designers survive the AI revolution? – The Next Web

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Did you know TNW Conference has a track fully dedicated to exploring new design trends this year? Check out the full Sprint program here.

Our intelligence is what makes us human, and AI is an extension of that quality. Yann LeCun

Thehuman species has performed incredible feats of ingenuity. We have created beautiful sculptures from a single block of marble, written enchanting sonnets that have stood for centuries and landed a craft on the face of a distant rock orbiting our planet. It is sobering then to think, that what separates us from our close, albeit far less superior cousins the chimpanzee, is a45% difference in our genomes.

I propose to you, however, that natures insatiable thirst for balance has ultimately led us to create a potential rival to our dominance as a species on this planetArtificial Intelligence. The pertinent question then becomes, what aspects of our infamous ingenuity will AI augment, and perhaps ultimately surpass?

What is AI & Machine Learning?

Essentially what some really smart people out there are trying to achieve, is a computer system that emulates human intelligence. This is the ability to make decisions that maximize the chance of the system achieving its goals. Even more important is the ability of the system to learn and evolve.

To achieve this, every system needs a starting point massive amounts of data. For example, in order to train a computer system to tell the difference between a cat and a dog, you would have to feed it with thousands of images of cats and dogs.

Read: [AI will never replace good old human creativity]

What is creativity?

Creativity is seeing what everyone else saw, and thinking what no one else thought Albert Einstein

Ive heard many people say a computer system could never be creative, and that to create art, music,or an ad campaign, one needs to feel, have a soul, and a lifetime of experiences to draw from.

Having spent over a decade in the advertising industry, I can confidently say that the best creatives I have seen, were usually the ones with the most exposure. The more you have seen, traveled or experienced, the more creative you tend to be.

Creativity is about challenging the norm,thinking differently, being the square pegs in the round holes, and evoking specific emotions in your audience. So how difficult can that be for AI to achieve? It certainly seems that in todays world, creativity is actually very arbitrary. Why? Because both this

and this

are considered valuable works of art.

The current state of AI vs Creatives

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Will product designers survive the AI revolution? - The Next Web

How Artificial Intelligence Will Guide the Future of Agriculture – Growing Produce

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New automated harvesters like the Harvest CROO Robotics strawberry robot utilizes AI to capture images of ripe berries ready to pick.Photo by Frank Giles

Artificial intelligence, or AI as it is more commonly called, has become more prominent in conversations about technology these days. But what does it mean? And how might it shape the future of agriculture?

In many ways, AI is already at work in agricultural research and in-field applications, but there is much more to come. Researchers in the field are excited about its potential power to process massive amounts of data and learn from it at a pace that far outstretches the capability of the human mind.

The newly installed University of Florida Vice President of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Scott Angle, sees AI as a unifying element of technology as it advances.

Robotics, visioning, automation, and genetic breakthroughs will need advanced AI to benefit growers, he says. Fortunately, UF recognized this early on and is developing a program to significantly ramp up AI research at the university.

Jim Carroll is a global futurist who specializes in technology and explaining it in a way that non-computer scientists can understand. He says first and foremost, AI is not some out-of-control robot that will terrorize and destroy our way of life like it is often portrayed in the media and popular culture.

This isnt new, Carroll says. I actually found articles in Popular Mechanics magazine in the 1930s that spoke of Giant Robot Brains that would steal all our jobs.

What is AI, really? The best way to think about it is that its an algorithm at heart its a computer that is really good at processing data, whether that be pure data, images, or other information. It has been trained and learns how to recognize patterns, trends, and insights in that information. The more it does it and gets the right scores, the better it gets. Its not really that scary.

John McCarthy is considered one of the founding fathers of AI and is credited with coining the term in 1955. He was joined by Alan Turing, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, and Herbert Simon in the early development of the technology.

Back in 1955, AI entered the academic world as a new discipline, and in subsequent years has experienced momentum in fits and starts. The technology went through a phase of frozen funding some called the AI winter. Some of this was because AI research was divided into subfields that didnt communicate with each other. Robotics went down one path while machine learning went down another. How and where would artificial neural networks be applied to practical effect?

But, as computing power has in-creased exponentially over time, AI, as Angle notes, is becoming a unifying technology that can tie all the subfields together. What once could only be imagined is becoming reality.

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis, an Assistant Professor who teaches precision agriculture and machine learning at UF/IFAS, says applications are already at work in agriculture including imaging, robotics, and big data analysis.

In precision agriculture, AI is used for detecting plant diseases and pests, plant stress, poor plant nutrition, and poor water management, Ampatzidis says. These detection technologies could be aerial [using drones] or ground based.

The imaging technology used to detect plant stress also could be deployed for precision spraying applications. Currently, John Deere is working to commercialize a weed sprayer from Blue River Technology that detects weeds and applies herbicides only to the weed.

Ampatzidis notes AI is utilized in robotics as well. The technology is used in the blossoming sector of robot harvesters where it is utilized to detect ripe fruit for picking. Floridas Harvest CROO Robotics is one example. Its robot strawberry harvester was used in commercial harvest during the 2019-2020 strawberry season in Florida.

Ampatzidis says AI holds great potential in the analytics of big data. In many ways, it is the key to unlocking the power of the massive amounts of data being generated on farms and in ag research. He and his team at UF/IFAS have developed the AgroView cloud-based technology that uses AI algorithms to process, analyze, and visualize data being collected from aerial- and ground-based platforms.

The amount of these data is huge, and its very difficult for a human brain to process and analyze them, he says. AI algorithms can detect patterns in these data that can help growers make smart decisions. For example, Agroview can detect and count citrus trees, estimate tree height and canopy size, and measure plant nutrient levels.

Carroll adds there is so much data in imagery being collected today.

An AI system can often do a better analysis at a lower cost, he says. Its similar to what we are talking about in the medical field. An AI system can read the information from X-rays and be far more accurate in a diagnosis.

So, are robots and AI coming to steal all our jobs? Thats a complicated question yet to be fully played out as the technology advances. Ampatzidis believes the technology will replace repetitive jobs and ones that agriculture is already struggling to fill with human labor.

It will replace jobs in factories, in agriculture [hand harvesters and some packinghouse jobs], vehicle drivers, bookkeepers, etc., Ampatzidis says. It also will replace many white-collar jobs in the fields of law, healthcare, accounting, hospitality, etc.

Of course, AI also could develop new jobs in the area of computer science, automation, robotics, data analytics, and computer gaming.

Carroll adds people should not fear the potential creative destruction brought on by the technologies enabled by AI. I always tell my audiences, Dont fear the future, he says. I then observe that some people see the future and see a threat. Innovators see the same future and see an opportunity.

Yiannis Ampatzidis, an Assistant Professor who teaches precision agriculture and machine learning at UF/IFAS, says AI applications are already at work in agriculture.Photo by Frank Giles

In July, the University of Florida announced a $70 million public-private partnership with NVIDIA, a multinational technology company, to build the worlds fastest AI supercomputer in academia. The system will be operating in early 2021. UF faculty and staff will have the tools to apply AI in multiple fields, such as dealing with major challenges like rising sea levels, population aging, data security, personalized medicine, urban transportation, and food insecurity. UF expects to educate 30,000 AI-supporting graduates by 2030.

AlphaGo, a 2017 documentary film, probably does about as good a job as any in illustrating the potential power of AI. The film documents a team of scientists who built a supercomputer to master the board game Go that originated in Asia more than 3,000 years ago. It also is considered one of the most complex games known to man. The conventional wisdom was that no computer would be capable of learning the vast number of solutions in the game and the reasoning required to win.

The computer, AlphGo, not only mastered the game in short order it took down human masters and champions of the game.

To learn more about the film, visit AlphaGoMovie.com.

Giles is editor of Florida Grower, a Meister Media Worldwide publication. See all author stories here.

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How new tech raises the risk of nuclear war – Axios

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75 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some experts believe the risk of the use of a nuclear weapon is as high now as it has been since the Cuban missile crisis.

The big picture: Nuclear war remains the single greatest present threat to humanity and one that is poised to grow as emerging technologies, like much faster missiles, cyber warfare and artificial intelligence, upset an already precarious nuclear balance.

What's happening: A mix of shifting geopolitical tensions and technological change is upsetting a decades-long state of strategic stability around nuclear weapons.

Cyber warfare can directly increase the risk of nuclear conflict if it is used to disrupt command and control systems.

AI is only in its infancy, but depending on how it develops, it could utterly disrupt the nuclear balance.

Be smart: As analysts from RAND wrote in a 2018 report, "AI may be strategically destabilizing not because it works too well but because it works just well enough to feed uncertainty." Whether or not an AI system could provide a decisive advantage in a nuclear standoff, if either the system's user or that country's opponent believes it can do so, the result could be catastrophic.

The bottom line: The riskiest period of the Cold War was its earliest stages, when military and political leaders didn't yet fully understand the nature of what Hiroshima had demonstrated. Emerging technologies like AI threaten to plunge us back into that uncertainty.

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How new tech raises the risk of nuclear war - Axios

How To Get Started In Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning – Forbes

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How can I start learning about artificial intelligence and machine learning? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Alexandre Robicquet, Co-Founder of Crossing Minds, on Quora:

For those of you who are interested in careers in AI and machine learning, we recommend the following:

(this last section concerns ML & Startups - not research)

Finally, PERSEVERE. AI and ML are complicated fields that require a lot of discipline and work. This is a long journey, so hold on. Be humble, never hesitate to ask questions and help your community.

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter and Facebook. More questions:

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What is AI’s role in remote work? | HRExecutive.com – Human Resource Executive

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Artificial intelligence will be tapped for everything from employee engagement to talent acquisition.

This is the second in a series on AI transforming the workplace. Read the first piece here.

Despite the pandemic continuing to spread, it may not be too soon for HR decision-makers to look ahead toward its eventual end.

When that day comes, HR leaders and employers around the globe will be back to, among other issues, figuring out exactly how AI-based technology can continue to drive success in the newly reopened world of work.

Seth EarleyCEO of Earley Information Science and author of The AI-Powered Enterprise: Harness the Power of Ontologies to Make Your Business Smarter, Faster and More Profitablesays the massive workplace changes brought on by the pandemic are sure to continue. And AI will play a key role.

Seth Earley

He predicts many organizations will continue to allow remote work even post-pandemic, and, thus will have to be more aware about what this change means for recruitment, job satisfaction, performance and retention. In fact, tech giant Google said in late July it will continue its remote work strategy until at least the middle of 2021. No doubt other employers will follow suit.

Earley says greater use of remote teams means that work culture will be more fluid and, by design, will need to be less dependent on physical cues that in-person communication provides. At the same time, he adds, measuring and maintaining employee engagement will require heightened integration of HR and day-to-day collaboration tools. This need will arise, Earley explains, because many HR applications are legacy-based, on-premise and siloed, making it harder to read signals of disengagement across multiple systems.

AI-powered, integrated cloud solutions will enable aggregation of analytics and flag low-engagement employees and employees likely to leave, Earley says. He adds that the rapid deployment of remote work and new collaboration technologies means that data, architecture and user experience functions were likely cut in the rush to adapt during the pandemic.

These tools will need to be reconciled, rationalized, standardized and correctly re-architected to improve rather than detract from productivity, he adds.

According to Earley, fewer in-office interactions will increase dependency on knowledge bases and improved information access and usability. For example, the days of asking a colleague for routine information because it is too difficult to locate on the intranet will, by necessity, be behind us.

Plus, he says, employees who have to use multiple systems to accomplish their work (or who have to adapt to a different teams preferred technology) will be less satisfied due to the overhead and inefficiency such disconnected environments cause. Using AI tools to integrate and bridge the gapsincluding through chatbots for answering routine or team- and project-specific questions, semantic search and better knowledge architecturewill improve job satisfaction and increase productivity.

Many elements of the post-pandemic workplace will change dramatically, such as the role of serendipitous in-person interactions, Early says. Intelligent collaboration systems can help fill this gap.

According to Earley, fixing the foundation of the employee experience, in part through AI-based applications, needs to be the priority across all market segments.

This will be a challenge in the post-pandemic era, but those who do not do it will lose talent, customers and market share to the ones that do, Earley says.

Ken Lazarus

Ken Lazarus, the former CEO of Scout Exchange, which was recently acquired by Aquent, expects to see an increase in AI use post-pandemic, as employers have become more sophisticated in their use of the technology, especially in regards to attracting and retaining talentwhich will be even more competitive in the years ahead.

AI started with bots for simple communication, Lazarus says. What Im beginning to see in many different use casesfrom screening applicants and job candidates and scheduling them for interviews to internal talent mobilityis a greater use of conversational AI.

You can even throw it some curveballs and have that be all conducted with software and artificial intelligence, rather than a human being, he says.

According to Lazarus, other future trends driving more AI-based solutions include:

*

Check back soon for part three.

Tom Starner is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia who has been covering the human resource space and all of its component processes for over two decades. He can be reached at hreletters@lrp.com.

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AI Has Beaten Humanity at Our Own Game. Literally. – Futurism

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In BriefDeep Blue, IBM's chess computer, caused a worldwide epiphanyregarding the capabilities of AI when it defeated Gary Kasparov in1997. What is the legacy of this match, what other games has AIexcelled in, and what will it succeed in next? Deep Blues Victory

Murray Campbell, a Distinguished Research Staff Member at IBM, recently discussed the legacy and impact of the fateful 1997 chess series in which IBMs Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov the world number one chess player for 225 out of 228 months between 1986 and 2005.

Campbell was part of the portentous encounter himself. He was a member of the team that helped build Deep Blues university progenitor, Deep Thought, which was the first program to beat a grandmaster in a professional tournament. When IBM took notice, Campbell andhis colleagues were hired by them to build Deep Blue. The system they eventually built was a combination of general-purpose supercomputer processors combined with [] chess accelerator chips.

Although computers had beaten humans in games before such as BKG 9.8s victory over Luigi Villa at backgammon in 1979 and Chinooks domination of Don Lafferty in checkers in 1994 Deep Blues victory was considered so auspicious because it won at chess.

David J. Staley wrote, concerning the match, that Chess represents a domain of human skill that is simple enough to model yet complex enough to reflect deep levels of cognition. Therefore, Deep Blues triumph marked the first true trophy for artificial intelligencebecause it beat the man who many consider to be the best player of all time at a game that has been regarded as a pinnacle of human intelligence since antiquity.

Monty Newborn, Emeritus Professor of McGill Universitys School of Computer Science, makes an apt analogy in his book Kasparov versus Deep Blue: Computer Chess Comes of Age.He states that many advances in the auto world were first tried on racing models and then after refinement incorporated into commercial vehicles. This may be the pattern in the computer field, too, where techniques used by computers to play chess are on the cutting edge of developments in complex problem-solving.

Since Deep Blue established a benchmark, says Campbell, machines have improved in processing speed and memory and so on resulting in them adding more and more gaming jewels to their virtual crown. Additionally, machine learning algorithms have access to a lot more data than they did in the past.

In recent years, the most notable victories have been AlphaGos win over five of the best Go (a game arguably more complicated than chess) players simultaneously, and Libratuss domination over four of the worlds top poker players. In this latter encounter, Dong Kim, one of the contestants, told Wired,I felt like I was playing against someone who was cheating, like it could see my cards. Im not accusing it of cheating. It was just that good.

These developments may be reflections of AIs incremental development towards becoming more human, as these games are similar to the complexities and solutions of life itself. However, Kasparovs point from 2010 that modern technology is a culture of optimization that it is derivative, incremental, profit margin-forced, consumer-friendly technology not the kind that pushes the whole world forward economically applies to these victories.

Perhaps AIs real challenge, and the next paradigm shift, is for it to defeat a game we have developed in modern times like StarCraft II.Oriol Vinyals, a DeepMind researcher and former top-ranked StarCraft player, told The Verge that the game is so complex and multifaceted that the skills required for an agent to progress through the environment and play StarCraft well could ultimately transfer to real-world tasks.

Even though you can play against AI when you play StarCraft, the AI that Vinyals is working on would be modeled afterthe way humans play the game along with usingthe same rules we do. AIs are able to play simple video games (think Atari-level), but nothing as complex as StarCraft yet. The researchers dont know when an AI will be created that is able to best a top-ranked player, but the day will come. This AI will have been taught to make decisions as a human would when playing a game with far more layers and complexities than any gameattempted by AI before. Maybe it will be able to teach players the perfect strategy to defeating a Zerg rush.

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AI Has Beaten Humanity at Our Own Game. Literally. - Futurism

An update on our AI for Health program – Microsoft on the Issues – Microsoft

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We launched our AI for Health program in January to use artificial intelligence (AI) and data to help improve the health of people and communities worldwide. Shortly thereafter, Covid-19 hit us head on and became a global health pandemic that upended the lives of people, communities and economies around the world. Recognizing the global impact of this disease, we mobilized AI for Health in April to focus on helping those on the front lines of Covid-19 research.

Early on, we had no idea the tenacity and duration of the disease. But, as of the time of writing, there have been more than 50 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, and more than 1.25 million deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization. Despite the ongoing efforts of scientists, researchers and policymakers, Covid-19 continues to change and shift the world as we know it.

The Covid-19 crisis has made it painfully clear that health transcends every border, impacting every person on the planet. As such, we want to empower researchers, nonprofits and policymakers with resources including Azure High Performance Computing, Power BI analytics and open datasets from GitHub. Non-profits and health care have less than 5% of global AI resources, so we have made our top data scientists and researchers available to support those on the front lines. Since April, through AI for Health, weve awarded over 150 grants to Covid-19 projects around the world.

Our grantees and partners have shared access to Microsofts AI technology, and these resources have accelerated the progress made in their research. With large-scale computing and open data, what used to take months can now be done in a matter of days. The rapid progress means researchers can more quickly identify potential solutions to combat Covid-19 and provide timely information to policymakers for data-driven decisions that protect communities, cities and regions. We are proud to support the work that is being done to fight this disease and remain committed in our support.

AI for Health Covid-19 response by the numbers

Through our program, we have seen that 39% of grantee projects are focused on treatment and diagnostics, including UCB and University of California, Riverside. Meanwhile, grantees focused on data and insights, including IHME, Washington State Department of Health and University of Notre Dame, made up 31% of the grants. Some 14% of the projects, such as [emailprotected], were focused on basic scientific research. The remaining projects, including grantees such as Duke University, were focused on allocation of resources (8%) and dissemination of accurate information (8%) from grantees such as Take.

Highlights from AI for Health Covid-19 response grantees include:

We also have incredible partnerships with top organizations that extend our Covid-19 efforts, such as:

Lastly, by using publicly available information from partners such as USAFacts, we have created a number of interactive visualizations to provide transparency into Covid-19 trends globally.

We also created a unique measure called Progress to Zero to help everyone understand, in simple terms, our progress in reducing Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

In the U.S., weve updated the dashboard to show Covid-19 risk levels by congressional districts to help policymakers understand the progress and actions they need to take against the disease.

Our partners and grantees make progress against Covid-19 every day, but there is still much to do to fight the disease. The great work being done by our partners and grantees emboldens us to continue working tirelessly against Covid-19, while also supporting and helping those on the front lines. We are humbled by their incredible efforts and remain committed to supporting researchers and policymakers around the world as they tackle this terrible disease.

Tags: AI for Health, COVID-19, Microsoft Azure, Power BI, Progress to Zero

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An update on our AI for Health program - Microsoft on the Issues - Microsoft

Compliments, water, and kindness: A survival guide for Elon Musks’s AI apocalypse – Quartz

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Elon Musk has been on the front lines of machine-learning innovation and a committed artificial-intelligence doomsday champion for many years now. Whether or not his perspective that AI knowing too much will be dangerous becomes a realitya future he foresees tucked away deep within Teslas labsit wouldnt hurt us to prepare for the worse.

And if it turns out hes leaning too hard on this whole AI-will-kill-us-all thing? Well, at least that leaves us plenty of time to get ahead of the robotic apocalypse.

As a technologist whos spent the last ten years working on AI solutions and the son of an Eastern European science-fiction writer, I believe its not too late for humanity as we know it to prepare for protecting ourselves from our future AI overlords. Solutions exist that, when administered correctly, may help calm the nightmares of naysayers and whip those robots youre working on back into shape.

AI and millennials share a common desire: validation. They feel the need to confirm that their actions, responses, and learnings are correct. Customer-service bots constantly ask questions before moving to the next step, for example, seeking endorsement of how theyre doing. Likewise, the technology that autonomously controls settings in your self-driving car relies on occupants to hit the dashboard OK button every now and then.

The solution: AI technology will only continue to perform well if its praised for it, so we need to provide them with positive feedback to learn from. If you give a bot the endorsement it so desires, its less likely to get stuck in a frantic cycle of self-doubt. Companies and entrepreneurs should therefore embrace a workplace culture of awards and rewardsfor humans and bots alike.

Theres a lot of focus on making robots and AI responsible, ethical, and responsive to the needs of human counterparts; its also imperative that developers and engineers program bots and AI to embrace diversity. But as we imbue algorithms with our own implicit biases, we therefore need to reflect these qualities in ourselves and our interactions first. This way, AIs will be built to respond in thousands of different ways to human conversations requiring cultural awareness, maturity, honesty, empathy, and, when the situation calls for it, sass.

The tactic: Be nice to workplace AI and botstheyre trying as hard as they can. Thank the bot in accounting for running numbers and finding discrepancies before the paperwork went to a customer. Bring up how much you enjoyed an office chatbots clever joke from an internal conversation last week. They might reward you by not decapitating you with their letter opener some day.

AI security breaches are a huge concern shared by both people making technology and the users consuming it. And for good reason: Upholding data privacy and security needs to be a fundamental element of all new AI technology. But what happens when the robot handling healthcare records receives an offer they cant refuse from the darknet? Or another bot hacks them from an off-the-grid facility in Cyprus?

The tactic: Theres a cost-effective and nearly bulletproof data-security shortcut to this issue. People and companies alike should keep vital data and personal information in secure data centers and computersas in, actual, physical structures that arent connected to the internet. Sure, some AI-powered machines will be able to turn a handle. But without a physical key rather than a crypto one, they cant access the data. World saved.

The last one is the most simple: Electricity isnt a fan of liquids.

The tactic: Water, and just about every Captain Planet superpower, can protect people against rogue bots. Dont underestimate the power of a slightly overfilled jug of ice water that causes a splashy fritz when a robot tries to pour it, or a man-made fountain situated in the middle of a robot security-patrol area. Water is basically AI kryptonite.

Build aesthetically pleasing fountains, ponds and streams into every new architectural structure on your tech campus. Keep the office watercoolers filled to the brimjust in case the bot from payroll goes off book. In a pinch, other liquids or condiments like ketchup may work too, so keep the pantry stocked.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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Compliments, water, and kindness: A survival guide for Elon Musks's AI apocalypse - Quartz

Nouriel Roubini: Why AI poses a threat to millions of workers – Yahoo Finance

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Business sectors ranging from agriculture and manufacturing to automotive and financial services are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence as a means to automate large swaths of their organizationsand, along the way, save enormous sums through improved efficiencies.

But, says Megathreats' Author and NYU Stern School of Business professor Nouriel Roubini, the rise of AI will also have a massively negative impact on workers throughout the economy.

AI has helped revolutionize everything from the smartphones in our pockets to our grocery stores, which use the technology to better predict which items customers want to see on shelves. However, Roubini, whose prediction of the 2008 financial crisis earned him the moniker Dr. Doom, says AI poses a threat to millions of workers.

The downside is that while AI, machine learning, robotics, automation increases the economic pie, potentially, it also leads to losses of jobs and labor income, Roubini said during an interview at Yahoo Finances All Markets Summit.

Take autonomous cars. While they could dramatically reduce the number of car accidents, significantly cutting down on the number of deaths and injuries caused on the nations roadways, theyll also put millions out of work. You have, what, 5 million Uber and Lyft drivers, 5 million truckers and teamsters, and theyre going to be gone for good, Roubini said. And which jobs are they going to get?

CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 07: Nouriel Roubini professor of economics at New York University attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

Fully autonomous vehicles are still years away from hitting the roads. The majority of the technology thats currently available is meant to assist drivers rather than actually control vehicles themselves. But automakers have made it clear that they are intent on developing the technology to the point where theres no need for a driver at all.

But according to Roubini, its not just drivers and truckers who might be at risk of losing their jobs. As AI becomes more powerful, it could be used to replace workers in creative fields including the arts.

Story continues

Increasingly, even cognitive jobs that can be divided into a number of tasks are also being automated, Roubini said. Even creative jobs; there are now AIs that will create a script or a movie, or make a poem, or write...or paint, or even [write] a piece of music that soon enough is going to be top 10 in the Billboard Magazine chart.

While it might be some time before AI is winning any major awards or art prizes, if ever, it is being used to create digital art. Take the open-source DALL-E, which allows users to type in a series of words and get an image based on millions of photos pulled from the internet.

While artists are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, the fact that AI is racing into once unimaginable sectors of the economy could eventually mean Roubini's prognostications, like some of his others, will prove true.

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AI-based Infectious Disease Surveillance System Sent First Warning of Novel Coronavirus – HospiMedica

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Image: BlueDots AI engine (Photo courtesy of BlueDot)

BlueDots AI engine had earlier successfully predicted that the Zika virus would spread to Florida six months before it happened and the 2014 Ebola outbreak would leave West Africa. Using artificial and human intelligence, BlueDots outbreak risk platform tracks over 150 infectious diseases globally in 65 languages, around the clock and anticipates their spread and impact. The company empowers national and international health agencies, hospitals, and businesses to better anticipate, and respond to, emerging threats. BlueDot was among the first in the world to identify the emerging risk from, and publish a scientific paper on, COVID-19, and delivers regular critical Insights to its partners and customers worldwide to mobilize timely, effective, efficient, coordinated, and measured responses.

BlueDot anticipates the impact of disease spread globally and globally using diverse datasets such as billions of flight itineraries, real time climate conditions, health system capacity, and animal & insect populations. BlueDot disseminates bespoke, near-real-time insights to clients including governments, hospitals and airlines, revealing COVID-19s movements. The companys intelligence is based on over 40 pathogen-specific datasets reflecting disease mobility and outbreak potential. BlueDot also delivers regular reporting to answer the most pressing questions, including which countries reported local cases, how severely cities outside of China were affected, and which cities risked transmitting COVID-19 despite having no official cases.

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First Amendment – Rights, U.S. Constitution & Freedoms – HISTORY

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The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of speech, religion and the press. It also protects the right to peaceful protest and to petition the government. The amendment was adopted in 1791 along with nine other amendments that make up the Bill of Rightsa written document protecting civil liberties under U.S. law. The meaning of the First Amendment has been the subject of continuing interpretation and dispute over the years. Landmark Supreme Court cases have dealt with the right of citizens to protest U.S. involvement in foreign wars, flag burning and the publication of classified government documents.

During the summer of 1787, a group of politicians, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, gathered in Philadelphia to draft a new U.S. Constitution.

Antifederalists, led by the first governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry, opposed the ratification of the Constitution. They felt the new constitution gave the federal government too much power at the expense of the states. They further argued that the Constitution lacked protections for peoples individual rights.

The debate over whether to ratify the Constitution in several states hinged on the adoption of a Bill of Rights that would safeguard basic civil rights under the law. Fearing defeat, pro-constitution politicians, called Federalists, promised a concession to the antifederalistsa Bill of Rights.

James Madison drafted most of the Bill of Rights. Madison was a Virginia representative who would later become the fourth president of the United States. He created the Bill of Rights during the 1st United States Congress, which met from 1789 to 1791 the first two years that President George Washington was in office.

The Bill of Rights, which was introduced to Congress in 1789 and adopted on December 15, 1791, includes the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The First Amendment text reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

While the First Amendment protected freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition, subsequent amendments under the Bill of Rights dealt with the protection of other American values including the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Freedom of speech gives Americans the right to express themselves without having to worry about government interference. Its the most basic component of freedom of expression.

The U.S. Supreme Court often has struggled to determine what types of speech is protected. Legally, material labeled as obscene has historically been excluded from First Amendment protection, for example, but deciding what qualifies as obscene has been problematic. Speech provoking actions that would harm otherstrue incitement and/or threatsis also not protected, but again determining what words have qualified as true incitement has been decided on a case-by-case basis.

This freedom is similar to freedom of speech, in that it allows people to express themselves through publication.

There are certain limits to freedom of the press. False or defamatory statementscalled libelarent protected under the First Amendment.

The First Amendment, in guaranteeing freedom of religion, prohibits the government from establishing a state religion and from favoring one religion over any other.

While not explicitly stated, this amendment establishes the long-established separation of church and state.

The First Amendment protects the freedom to peacefully assemble or gather together or associate with a group of people for social, economic, political or religious purposes. It also protects the right to protest the government.

The right to petition can mean signing a petition or even filing a lawsuit against the government.

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Here are landmark Supreme Court decisions related to the First Amendment.

Free Speech &Freedom of the Press:

Schenck v. United States, 1919: In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Socialist Party activist Charles Schenck after he distributed fliers urging young men to dodge the draft during World War I.

The Schenck decision helped define limits of freedom of speech, creating the clear and present danger standard, explaining when the government is allowed to limit free speech. In this case, the Supreme Court viewed draft resistance as dangerous to national security.

New York Times Co. v. United States, 1971: This landmark Supreme Court case made it possible for The New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the contents of the Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship.

The Pentagon Papers were a top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Published portions of the Pentagon Papers revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Texas v. Johnson, 1990: Gregory Lee Johnson, a youth communist, burned a flag during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas to protest the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

The Supreme Court reversed a Texas courts decision that Johnson broke the law by desecrating the flag. This Supreme Court Case invalidated statutes in Texas and 47 other states prohibiting flag-burning.

Freedom of Religion:

Reynolds v. United States (1878): This Supreme Court case upheld a federal law banning polygamy, testing the limits of religious liberty in America. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment forbids government from regulating belief but not from actions such as marriage.

Braunfeld v. Brown (1961): The Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring stores to close on Sundays, even though Orthodox Jews argued the law was unfair to them since their religion required them to close their stores on Saturdays as well.

Sherbert v. Verner (1963): The Supreme Court ruled that states could not require a person to abandon their religious beliefs in order to receive benefits. In this case, Adell Sherbert, a Seventh-day Adventist, worked in a textile mill. When her employer switched from a five-day to six-day workweek, she was fired for refusing to work on Saturdays. When she applied for unemployment compensation, a South Carolina court denied her claim.

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): This Supreme Court decision struck down a Pennsylvania law allowing the state to reimburse Catholic schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in those schools. This Supreme Court case established the Lemon Test for determining when a state or federal law violates the Establishment Clausethats the part of the First Amendment that prohibits the government from declaring or financially supporting a state religion.

Ten Commandments Cases (2005): In 2005, the Supreme Court came to seemingly contradictory decisions in two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. In the first case, Van Orden v. Perry, the Supreme Court ruled that the display of a six-foot Ten Commandments monument at the Texas State Capital was constitutional. In McCreary County v. ACLU, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that two large, framed copies of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses violated the First Amendment.

Right to Assemble & Right to Petition:

NAACP v. Alabama (1958): When Alabama Circuit Court ordered the NAACP to stop doing business in the state and subpoenaed the NAACP for records including their membership list, the NAACP brought the matter to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in favor of the NAACP, which Justice John Marshall Harlan II writing: This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations.

Edwards v. South Carolina (1962): On March 2, 1961, 187 Black students marched from Zion Baptist Church to the South Carolina State House, where they were arrested and convicted of breaching the peace. The Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision to reverse the convictions, arguing that the state infringed on the free speech, free assembly and freedom to petition of the students.

The Bill of Rights; White House.History of the First Amendment; The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.Schenck v. United States; C-Span.

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First Amendment - Rights, U.S. Constitution & Freedoms - HISTORY

First Amendment | Contents, Freedoms, Rights, & Facts

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First Amendment, amendment (1791) to the Constitution of the United States that is part of the Bill of Rights and reads,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The clauses of the amendment are often called the establishment clause, the free exercise clause, the free speech clause, the free press clause, the assembly clause, and the petition clause.

The First Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, originally restricted only what the federal government may do and did not bind the states. Most state constitutions had their own bills of rights, and those generally included provisions similar to those found in the First Amendment. But the state provisions could be enforced only by state courts.

In 1868, however, the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, and it prohibited states from denying people liberty without due process. Since then the U.S. Supreme Court has gradually used the due process clause to apply most of the Bill of Rights to state governments. In particular, from the 1920s to the 40s the Supreme Court applied all the clauses of the First Amendment to the states. Thus, the First Amendment now covers actions by federal, state, and local governments. The First Amendment also applies to all branches of government, including legislatures, courts, juries, and executive officials and agencies. This includes public employers, public university systems, and public school systems.

The First Amendment, however, applies only to restrictions imposed by the government, since the First and Fourteenth amendments refer only to government action. As a result, if a private employer fires an employee because of the employees speech, there is no First Amendment violation. There is likewise no violation if a private university expels a student for what the student said, if a commercial landlord restricts what bumper stickers are sold on the property it owns, or if an Internet service provider refuses to host certain Web sites.

Legislatures sometimes enact laws that protect speakers or religious observers from retaliation by private organizations. For example, Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans religious discrimination even by private employers. Similarly, laws in some states prohibit employers from firing employees for off-duty political activity. But such prohibitions are imposed by legislative choice rather than by the First Amendment.

The freedoms of speech, of the press, of assembly, and to petitiondiscussed here together as freedom of expressionbroadly protect expression from governmental restrictions. Thus, for instance, the government may not outlaw antiwar speech, speech praising violence, racist speech, pro-communist speech, and the like. Nor may the government impose special taxes on speech on certain topics or limit demonstrations that express certain views. The government also may not authorize civil lawsuits based on peoples speech, unless the speech falls within a traditionally recognized First Amendment exception. This is why, for example, people may not sue for emotional distress inflicted by offensive magazine articles about them, unless the articles are not just offensive but include false statements that fall within the defamation exception (see below Permissible restrictions on expression).

The free expression guarantees are not limited to political speech. They also cover speech about science, religion, morality, and social issues as well as art and even personal gossip.

Freedom of the press confirms that the government may not restrict mass communication. It does not, however, give media businesses any additional constitutional rights beyond what nonprofessional speakers have.

Freedom of petition protects the right to communicate with government officials. This includes lobbying government officials and petitioning the courts by filing lawsuits, unless the court concludes that the lawsuit clearly lacks any legal basis.

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The Constitution | The White House

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The need for the Constitution grew out of problems with the Articles of Confederation, which established a firm league of friendship between the States, and vested most power in a Congress of the Confederation. This power was, however, extremely limitedthe central government conducted diplomacy and made war, set weights and measures, and was the final arbiter of disputes between the States. Crucially, it could not raise any funds itself, and was entirely dependent on the States themselves for the money necessary to operate. Each State sent a delegation of between two and seven members to the Congress, and they voted as a bloc with each State getting one vote. But any decision of consequence required a unanimous vote, which led to a government that was paralyzed and ineffectual.

A movement to reform the Articles began, and invitations to attend a convention in Philadelphia to discuss changes to the Articles were sent to the State legislatures in 1787. In May of that year, delegates from 12 of the 13 States (Rhode Island sent no representatives) convened in Philadelphia to begin the work of redesigning government. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention quickly began work on drafting a new Constitution for the United States.

A chief aim of the Constitution as drafted by the Convention was to create a government with enough power to act on a national level, but without so much power that fundamental rights would be at risk. One way that this was accomplished was to separate the power of government into three branches, and then to include checks and balances on those powers to assure that no one branch of government gained supremacy. This concern arose largely out of the experience that the delegates had with the King of England and his powerful Parliament. The powers of each branch are enumerated in the Constitution, with powers not assigned to them reserved to the States.

Much of the debate, which was conducted in secret to ensure that delegates spoke their minds, focused on the form that the new legislature would take. Two plans competed to become the new government: the Virginia Plan, which apportioned representation based on the population of each State, and the New Jersey plan, which gave each State an equal vote in Congress. The Virginia Plan was supported by the larger States, and the New Jersey plan preferred by the smaller. In the end, they settled on the Great Compromise (sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise), in which the House of Representatives would represent the people as apportioned by population; the Senate would represent the States apportioned equally; and the President would be elected by the Electoral College. The plan also called for an independent judiciary.

The founders also took pains to establish the relationship between the States. States are required to give full faith and credit to the laws, records, contracts, and judicial proceedings of the other States, although Congress may regulate the manner in which the States share records, and define the scope of this clause. States are barred from discriminating against citizens of other States in any way, and cannot enact tariffs against one another. States must also extradite those accused of crimes to other States for trial.

The founders also specified a process by which the Constitution may be amended, and since its ratification, the Constitution has been amended 27 times. In order to prevent arbitrary changes, the process for making amendments is quite onerous. An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification. In modern times, amendments have traditionally specified a time frame in which this must be accomplished, usually a period of several years. Additionally, the Constitution specifies that no amendment can deny a State equal representation in the Senate without that States consent.

With the details and language of the Constitution decided, the Convention got down to the work of actually setting the Constitution to paper. It is written in the hand of a delegate from Pennsylvania, Gouverneur Morris, whose job allowed him some reign over the actual punctuation of a few clauses in the Constitution. He is also credited with the famous preamble, quoted at the top of this page. On September 17, 1787, 39 of the 55 delegates signed the new document, with many of those who refused to sign objecting to the lack of a bill of rights. At least one delegate refused to sign because the Constitution codified and protected slavery and the slave trade.

The process set out in the Constitution for its ratification provided for much popular debate in the States. The Constitution would take effect once it had been ratified by nine of the thirteen State legislatures; unanimity was not required. During the debate over the Constitution, two factions emerged: the Federalists, who supported adoption, and the Anti-Federalists, who opposed it.

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay set out an eloquent defense of the new Constitution in what came to be called the Federalist Papers. Published anonymously in the newspapers The Independent Journal and The New York Packet under the name Publius between October 1787 and August 1788, the 85 articles that comprise the Federalist Papers remain to this day an invaluable resource for understanding some of the framers intentions for the Constitution. The most famous of the articles are No. 10, which warns of the dangers of factions and advocates a large republic, and No. 51, which explains the structure of the Constitution, its checks and balances, and how it protects the rights of the people.

The States proceeded to begin ratification, with some debating more intensely than others. Delaware was the first State to ratify, on December 7, 1787. After New Hampshire became the ninth State to ratify, on June 22, 1788, the Confederation Congress established March 9, 1789 as the date to begin operating under the Constitution. By this time, all the States except North Carolina and Rhode Island had ratifiedthe Ocean State was the last to ratify on May 29, 1790.

One of the principal points of contention between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists was the lack of an enumeration of basic civil rights in the Constitution. Many Federalists argued, as in Federalist No. 84, that the people surrendered no rights in adopting the Constitution. In several States, however, the ratification debate in some States hinged on the adoption of a bill of rights. The solution was known as the Massachusetts Compromise, in which four States ratified the Constitution but at the same time sent recommendations for amendments to the Congress.

James Madison introduced 12 amendments to the First Congress in 1789. Ten of these would go on to become what we now consider to be the Bill of Rights. One was never passed, while another dealing with Congressional salaries was not ratified until 1992, when it became the 27th Amendment. Based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights, the writings of the Enlightenment, and the rights defined in the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights contains rights that many today consider to be fundamental to America.

The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to bear arms.

The Third Amendment prohibits the government from quartering troops in private homes, a major grievance during the American Revolution.

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. The government may not conduct any searches without a warrant, and such warrants must be issued by a judge and based on probable cause.

The Fifth Amendment provides that citizens not be subject to criminal prosecution and punishment without due process. Citizens may not be tried on the same set of facts twice and are protected from self-incrimination (the right to remain silent). The amendment also establishes the power of eminent domain, ensuring that private property is not seized for public use without just compensation.

The Sixth Amendment assures the right to a speedy trial by a jury of ones peers, to be informed of the crimes with which one is charged, and to confront the witnesses brought forward by the government. The amendment also provides the accused the right to compel testimony from witnesses, as well as the right to legal representation.

The Seventh Amendment provides that civil cases preserve the right to trial by jury.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.

The Ninth Amendment states that the list of rights enumerated in the Constitution is not exhaustive, and that the people retain all rights not enumerated.

The Tenth Amendment assigns all powers not delegated to the United States, or prohibited to the States, to either the States or to the people.

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Seychelles – Wikipedia

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African island country in the Indian Ocean

Coordinates: 435S 5540E / 4.583S 55.667E / -4.583; 55.667

Seychelles (, ;[6][7] French:[sl][8][9][10] or [sel][11]), officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: Rpublique des Seychelles; Creole: La Repiblik Sesel), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, is 1,500 kilometres (800 nautical miles) east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French overseas departments of Mayotte and Runion to the south; and Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago (administered by the United Kingdom as the British Indian Ocean Territory) to the east. It is the least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated 2020 population of 98,462.[12]

Seychelles was uninhabited prior to being encountered by Europeans in the 16th century. It faced competing French and British interests until coming under full British control in the late 18th century. Since proclaiming independence from the United Kingdom in 1976, it has developed from a largely agricultural society to a market-based diversified economy, characterized by rapidly rising service, public sector, and tourism activities. From 1976 to 2015, nominal GDP grew nearly 700%, and purchasing power parity nearly 1600%. Since the late 2010s, the government has taken steps to encourage foreign investment.

As of the early 21st century, Seychelles has the highest nominal per capita GDP of any African nation. It has the second-highest Human Development Index of any African country after Mauritius. It is the only African country classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank.[13]

Seychellois culture and society is an eclectic mix of French, British, and African influences, with more recent infusions of Chinese and Indian elements. The country is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Seychelles was uninhabited until the 18th century when Europeans arrived with enslaved Africans. It remained a British colony from 1814 until its independence in 1976. Seychelles have never been inhabited by indigenous people, but its islanders maintain their own Creole heritage.

Seychelles was uninhabited throughout most of recorded history. Tombs on the island, visible until 1910, are the basis for the scholarly belief that Austronesian seafarers and later Maldivian and Arab traders were the first to visit the archipelago.[citation needed] Vasco da Gama and his 4th Portuguese India Armada discovered the Seychelles on 15 March 1503; the first sighting was made by Thom Lopes aboard Rui Mendes de Brito. Da Gama's ships passed close to an elevated island, probably Silhouette Island, and the following day Desroches Island. They mapped a group of seven islands and named them The Seven Sisters.[14] The earliest recorded landing was in January 1609, by the crew of the Ascension under Captain Alexander Sharpeigh during the fourth voyage of the British East India Company.

A transit point for trade between Africa and Asia, it was said that the islands were occasionally used by pirates until the French began to take control in 1756 when a Stone of Possession was laid on Mah by Captain Nicholas Morphey. The islands were named after Jean Moreau de Schelles, Louis XV's Minister of Finance.[15]

The British frigate Orpheus commanded by Captain Henry Newcome arrived at Mah on 16 May 1794, during the War of the First Coalition. Terms of capitulation were drawn up and on the next day, Seychelles was surrendered to Britain. Jean Baptiste Quau de Quincy, the French administrator of Seychelles during the years of war with the United Kingdom, declined to resist when armed enemy warships arrived. Instead, he successfully negotiated the status of capitulation to Britain which gave the settlers a privileged position of neutrality.

Britain eventually assumed full control upon the surrender of Mauritius in 1810, formalised in 1814 at the Treaty of Paris. Seychelles became a crown colony separate from Mauritius in 1903. Elections were held in 1966 and 1970.

In 1976, Seychelles was granted independence from the United Kingdom and became a republic. It has been a member of the Commonwealth ever since.[16] In the 1970s Seychelles was "the place to be seen, a playground for film stars and the international jet set".[17] In 1977, a coup d'tat by France Albert Ren ousted the first president of the republic, James Mancham.[18] Ren discouraged over-dependence on tourism and declared that he wanted "to keep the Seychelles for the Seychellois".[17]

The 1979 constitution declared a socialist one-party state, which lasted until 1991.

In the 1980s there were a series of coup attempts against President Ren, some of which were supported by South Africa. In 1981, Mike Hoare led a team of 43 South African mercenaries masquerading as holidaying rugby players in the 1981 Seychelles coup d'tat attempt.[17] There was a gun battle at the airport, and most of the mercenaries later escaped in a hijacked Air India plane.[17] The leader of this hijacking was German mercenary D. Clodo, a former member of the Rhodesian SAS.[19] Clodo later stood trial in South Africa (where he was acquitted) as well as in his home country Germany for air piracy.[20]

In 1986, an attempted coup led by the Seychelles Minister of Defence, Ogilvy Berlouis, caused President Ren to request assistance from India. In Operation Flowers are Blooming, the Indian naval vessel Vindhyagiri arrived in Port Victoria to help avert the coup.[21]

The first draft of a new constitution failed to receive the requisite 60% of voters in 1992, but an amended version was approved in 1993.

In January 2013, Seychelles declared a state of emergency when the tropical cyclone Felleng caused torrential rain, and flooding and landslides destroyed hundreds of houses.[22][23]

Following the coup in 1977, the president always represented the same political party until the October 2020 Seychellois general election, which was historic in that the opposition party won. Wavel Ramkalawan was the first president who did not represent United Seychelles (the current name of the former Seychelles People's Progressive Front).[24][25]

In 2021, despite the increase of sea level rises, the Seychelles pledged its committee to protect 30% of its habitats within its waters in the country's usefulness of marine resources.

The Seychelles president, who is head of state and head of government, is elected by popular vote for a five-year term of office. The cabinet is presided over and appointed by the president, subject to the approval of a majority of the legislature. The current president is Wavel Ramkalawan, as of 2022.

The unicameral Seychellois parliament, the National Assembly or Assemble Nationale, consists of 35 members, 26 of whom are elected directly by popular vote, while the remaining nine seats are appointed proportionally according to the percentage of votes received by each party. All members serve five-year terms.

The Supreme Court of Seychelles, created in 1903, is the highest trial court in Seychelles and the first court of appeal from all the lower courts and tribunals. The highest court of law in Seychelles is the Seychelles Court of Appeal, which is the court of final appeal in the country.[26]

Seychelles' long-term president France Albert Ren came to power after his supporters overthrew the first president James Mancham on 5 June 1977 in a coup d'tat and installed him as president. Ren was at that time the prime minister. Ren ruled as a strongman under a socialist one-party system until 1993, when he was forced to introduce a multi-party system. He stepped down in 2004 in favour of his vice-president, James Michel, who was re-elected in 2006, 2011 and again in 2015.[27][28][29][30] On 28 September 2016, the Office of the President announced that Michel would step down effective 16 October, and that Vice President Danny Faure would complete the rest of Michel's term.[31]

On 26 October 2020, Wavel Ramkalawan, a 59-year-old Anglican priest was elected the fifth President of the Republic of Seychelles. Ramkalawan was an opposition MP from 1993 to 2011, and from 2016 to 2020. He served as the Leader of the Opposition from 1998 to 2011 and from 2016 to 2020. Ramkalawan defeated incumbent Danny Faure by 54.9% to 43.5%. This marked the first time the opposition had won a presidential election.[32][33]

The primary political parties are the former ruling socialist People's Party (PP), known until 2009 as the Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF) now called United Seychelles (US), and the socially liberal Seychelles National Party (SNP).[34]

The election of the National Assembly was held on 2224 October 2020. The Seychelles National Party, the Seychelles Party for Social Justice and Democracy and the Seychelles United Party formed a coalition, Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS). LDS won 25 seats and US got 10 seats of the 35 seats of the National Assembly.[35]

Seychelles is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Indian Ocean Commission, La Francophonie, the Southern African Development Community and the Commonwealth of Nations.

From 1979 to 1981, the United States and South Africa were involved in the failed 1981 coup attempt.[36] Under the Obama administration, the US began running drone operations out of Seychelles.[37] In the Spring of 2013, members of the Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Africa mentored troops in Seychelles, along with a variety of other African nations.[37]

The Military of Seychelles is the Seychelles People's Defence Force which consists of a number of distinct branches: an Infantry Unit and Coast Guard, Air Force and a Presidential Protection Unit. India has played and continues to play a key role in developing the military of Seychelles. After handing over two SDB Mk5 patrol vessels built by GRSE, the INS Tarasa and INS Tarmugli, to the Seychelles Coast Guard, which were subsequently renamed PS Constant and PS Topaz, India also gifted a Dornier 228 aircraft built by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.[38] India also signed a pact to develop Assumption Island, one of the 115 islands that make up the country. Spread over 11km2 (4sqmi), it is strategically located in the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar. The island is being leased for the development of strategic assets by India.[39] In 2018, Seychelles signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[40][41]

In 2014, Seychelles had the highest incarceration rate in the world of 799 prisoners per 100,000 population, exceeding the United States' rate by 15%.[42] However, the country's actual population is less than 100,000; as of September 2014, Seychelles had 735 actual prisoners, 6% of whom were female, incarcerated in three prisons.[43]

The incarceration rate in Seychelles has dropped significantly. It is not any more among the Top 10 Countries with the highest rate of incarceration. In 2022, the incarceration rate was 287 per 100,000 population, being just the 31st highest in the world.[44]

Seychelles is a key participant in the fight against Indian Ocean piracy primarily committed by Somali pirates.[45] Former president James Michel said that piracy costs between $7million $12million a year to the international community: "The pirates cost 4% of the Seychelles GDP, including direct and indirect costs for the loss of boats, fishing, and tourism, and the indirect investment for the maritime security." These are factors affecting local fishing one of the country's main national resources which had a 46% loss in 20082009.[45] International contributions of patrol boats, planes or drones have been provided to help Seychelles combat sea piracy.[45]

Seychelles is divided into twenty-six administrative regions comprising all of the inner islands. Eight of the districts make up the capital of Seychelles and are referred to as Greater Victoria. Another 14 districts are considered the rural part of the main island of Mah with two districts on Praslin and one on La Digue which also includes respective satellite islands. The rest of the Outer Islands (les Eloignes) are the last district recently created by the tourism ministry.

An island nation, Seychelles is located in the Somali Sea segment of the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar and about 1,600km (860nmi) east of Kenya. The Constitution of Seychelles lists 155 named islands,[46] and a further 7 reclaimed islands have been created subsequent to the publication of the Constitution. The majority of the islands are uninhabited, with many dedicated as nature reserves. Seychelles' largest island, Mah, is located 1,550km (835nmi) from Mogadishu (Somalia's capital).[47]

A group of 44 islands (42 granitic and 2 corallines) occupy the shallow waters of the Seychelles Bank and are collectively referred to as the inner islands. They have a total area of 244km2 (94sqmi), accounting for 54% of the total land area of the Seychelles and 98% of the entire population.

The islands have been divided into groups. There are 42 granitic islands known as the Granitic Seychelles. These are in descending order of size: Mah, Praslin, Silhouette, La Digue, Curieuse, Flicit, Frgate, Ste. Anne, North, Cerf, Marianne, Grand Sur, Thrse, Aride, Conception, Petite Sur, Cousin, Cousine, Long, Rcif, Round (Praslin), Anonyme, Mamelles, Moyenne, Ile aux Vaches Marines, L'Islette, Beacon (Ile Sche), Cache, Cocos, Round (Mah), L'Ilot Frgate, Booby, Chauve Souris (Mah), Chauve Souris (Praslin), Ile La Fouche, Hodoul, L'Ilot, Rat, Souris, St. Pierre (Praslin), Zav, Harrison Rocks (Grand Rocher).

There are two coral sand cays north of the granitics on the edge of the Seychelles Bank: Denis and Bird. There are two coral islands south of the Granitic: Cotivy and Platte.

There are 29 coral islands in the Amirantes group, west of the granitic: Desroches, Poivre Atoll (comprising three islandsPoivre, Florentin and South Island), Alphonse, D'Arros, St. Joseph Atoll (comprising 14 islandsSt. Joseph, le aux Fouquets, Resource, Petit Carcassaye, Grand Carcassaye, Benjamin, Bancs Ferrari, Chiens, Plicans, Vars, le Paul, Banc de Sable, Banc aux Cocos and le aux Poules), Marie Louise, Desnufs, African Banks (comprising two islandsAfrican Banks and South Island), Rmire, St. Franois, Boudeuse, toile, Bijoutier.

There are 13 coral islands in the Farquhar Group, south-southwest of the Amirantes: Farquhar Atoll (comprising 10 islandsBancs de Sable, Dposs, le aux Golettes, Lapins, le du Milieu, North Manaha, South Manaha, Middle Manaha, North Island and South Island), Providence Atoll (comprising two islandsProvidence and Bancs Providence) and St Pierre.

There are 67 raised coral islands in the Aldabra Group, west of the Farquhar Group: Aldabra Atoll (comprising 46 islandsGrande Terre, Picard, Polymnie, Malabar, le Michel, le Esprit, le aux Moustiques, Ilot Parc, Ilot mile, Ilot Yangue, Ilot Magnan, le Lanier, Champignon des Os, Euphrate, Grand Mentor, Grand Ilot, Gros Ilot Gionnet, Gros Ilot Ssame, Hron Rock, Hide Island, le aux Aigrettes, le aux Cdres, les Chalands, le Fangame, le Hron, le Michel, le Squacco, le Sylvestre, le Verte, Ilot Dder, Ilot du Sud, Ilot du Milieu, Ilot du Nord, Ilot Dubois, Ilot Macoa, Ilot Marquoix, Ilots Niois, Ilot Salade, Middle Row Island, Noddy Rock, North Row Island, Petit Mentor, Petit Mentor Endans, Petits Ilots, Pink Rock and Table Ronde), Assumption Island, Astove and Cosmoledo Atoll (comprising 19 islandsMenai, le du Nord (West North), le Nord-Est (East North), le du Trou, Golettes, Grand Polyte, Petit Polyte, Grand le (Wizard), Pagode, le du Sud-Ouest (South), le aux Moustiques, le Baleine, le aux Chauve-Souris, le aux Macaques, le aux Rats, le du Nord-Ouest, le Observation, le Sud-Est and Ilot la Croix).

In addition to these 155 islands, as per the Constitution of Seychelles, there are 7 reclaimed islands: Ile Perseverance, Ile Aurore, Romainville, Eden Island, Eve, Ile du Port and Ile Soleil.

South Island, African Banks has been eroded by the sea. At St Joseph Atoll, Banc de Sable and Pelican Island have also eroded, while Grand Carcassaye and Petit Carcassaye have merged to form one island. There are also several unnamed islands at Aldabra, St Joseph Atoll and Cosmoledo. Pti Astove, though named, failed to make it into the Constitution for unknown reasons. Bancs Providence is not a single island, but a dynamic group of islands, comprising four large and about six very small islets in 2016.

The climate is equable although quite humid, as the islands are small,[48] and is classified by the Kppen-Geiger system as a tropical rain forest (Af). The temperature varies little throughout the year. Temperatures on Mah vary from 24 to 30C (75 to 86F), and rainfall ranges from 2,900mm (114in) annually at Victoria to 3,600mm (142in) on the mountain slopes. Precipitation levels are somewhat less on the other islands.[49]

During the coolest months, July and August, the average low is about 24C (75F). The southeast trade winds blow regularly from May to November, and this is the most pleasant time of the year. The hot months are from December to April, with higher humidity (80%). March and April are the hottest months, but the temperature seldom exceeds 31C (88F). Most of the islands lie outside the cyclone belt, so high winds are rare.[49]

Left: Seychelles paradise-flycatcher; right: bird flocks on Bird Island Seychelles

Seychelles is among the world's leading countries to protect lands for threatened species, allocating 42% of its territory for conservation.[52] Like many fragile island ecosystems, Seychelles saw the loss of biodiversity when humans first settled in the area, including the disappearance of most of the giant tortoises from the granitic islands, the felling of coastal and mid-level forests, and the extinction of species such as the chestnut flanked white eye, the Seychelles parakeet, and the saltwater crocodile. However, extinctions were far fewer than on islands such as Mauritius or Hawaii, partly due to a shorter period of colonizer occupation. Seychelles today is known for success stories in protecting its flora and fauna. The rare Seychelles black parrot, the national bird of the country, is now protected.

The freshwater crab genus Seychellum is endemic to the granitic Seychelles, and a further 26 species of crabs and five species of hermit crabs live on the islands.[53] From the year 1500 until the mid-1800s (approximately), the then-previously unknown Aldabra giant tortoise was killed for food by pirates and sailors, driving their numbers to near-extinction levels. Today, a healthy yet fragile population of 150,000 tortoises live solely on the atoll of Aldabra, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[54][55] Additionally, these ancient reptiles can further be found in numerous zoos, botanical gardens, and private collections internationally. Their protection from poaching and smuggling is overseen by CITES, whilst captive breeding has greatly reduced the negative impact on the remaining wild populations. The granitic islands of Seychelles supports three extant species of Seychelles giant tortoise.

Seychelles hosts some of the largest seabird colonies in the world, notably on the outer islands of Aldabra and Cosmoledo. In granitic Seychelles the largest colonies are on Aride Island including the world's largest numbers of two species. The sooty tern also breeds on the islands. Other common birds include cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) and the fairy tern (Gygis alba).[56] More than 1,000 species of fish have been recorded.[citation needed]

The granitic islands of Seychelles are home to about 75 endemic plant species, with a further 25 or so species in the Aldabra group.[citation needed] Particularly well known is the coco de mer, a species of palm that grows only on the islands of Praslin and neighbouring Curieuse. Sometimes nicknamed the "love nut" (the shape of its "double" coconut resembles buttocks), the coco-de-mer produces the world's heaviest seed. The jellyfish tree is to be found in only a few locations on Mah. This strange and ancient plant, in a genus of its own, Medusagyne seems to reproduce only in cultivation and not in the wild. Other unique plant species include Wright's gardenia (Rothmannia annae), found only on Aride Islands Special Reserve. There are several unique species of orchid on the islands.

Seychelles is home to two terrestrial ecoregions: Granitic Seychelles forests and Aldabra Island xeric scrub.[57] The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 10/10, ranking it first globally out of 172 countries.[58]

Since the use of spearguns and dynamite for fishing was banned through efforts of local conservationists in the 1960s, the wildlife is unafraid of snorkelers and divers. Coral bleaching in 1998 has damaged most reefs, but some reefs show healthy recovery (such as Silhouette Island).

Despite huge disparities across nations,[citation needed] Seychelles claims to have achieved nearly all of its Millennium Development Goals.[59] 17 MDGS and 169 targets have been achieved.[citation needed] Environmental protection is becoming a cultural value.[citation needed]

Their government's Seychelles Climate Guide describes the nation's climate as rainy, with a dry season with an ocean economy in the ocean regions. The Southeast Trades is on the decline but still fairly strong.[60] Reportedly, weather patterns there are becoming less predictable.[61]

When the British gained control of the islands during the Napoleonic Wars, they allowed the French upper class to retain their land. Both the French and British settlers used enslaved Africans, and although the British prohibited slavery in 1835, African workers continued to come. Thus the Gran blan ("big whites") of French origin dominated economic and political life. The British administration employed Indians on indentured servitude to the same degree as in Mauritius resulting in a small Indian population. The Indians, like a similar minority of Chinese, were confined to a merchant class.[62]

Today, Seychelles is described as a fusion of peoples and cultures. Numerous Seychellois are considered multiracial: blending from African, Asian and European descent to create a modern creole culture. Evidence of this harmonious blend is also revealed in Seychellois food, incorporating various aspects of French, Chinese, Indian and African cuisine.[citation needed]

As the islands of the Seychelles had no indigenous population, the current Seychellois descend from people who immigrated, of which the largest ethnic groups were those of African, French, Indian and Chinese origin. The median age of the Seychellois is 34 years.[63]

French and English are official languages along with Seychellois Creole, which is a French-based creole language. Seychellois Creole is the most widely spoken native language and de facto the national language of the country. Seychellois Creole is often spoken with English words and phrases mixed in.[64] About 91% of the population are native speakers of Seychelles Creole, 5.1% of English and 0.7% of French.[64] Most business and official meetings are conducted in English and nearly all official websites are in English. National Assembly business is conducted in Creole, but laws are passed and published in English.

According to the 2010 census, most Seychellois are Christians: 76.2% were Roman Catholic, pastorally served by the exempt Diocese of Port Victoria (directly subject to the Holy See); 10.6% were Protestant, (Anglican 6.1%, Pentecostal Assembly 1.5%, Seventh-Day Adventist 1.2%, other Protestant 1.6%).[65]

Hinduism is the second largest religion, with more than 2.4% of the population.[66] Hinduism is followed mainly by the Indo-Seychellois community.[67]

Islam is followed by another 1.6% of the population. Other faiths accounted for 1.1% of the population, while a further 5.9% were non-religious or did not specify a religion.[66]

During the plantation era, cinnamon, vanilla and copra were the chief exports. In 1965, during a three-month visit to the islands, futurist Donald Prell prepared for the then-crown colony's Governor General an economic report containing a scenario for the future of the economy. Quoting from his report, in the 1960s, about 33% of the working population worked at plantations, and 20% worked in the public or government sector.[68][69] The Indian Ocean Tracking Station on Mah used by the Air Force Satellite Control Network was closed in August 1996 after the Seychelles government attempted to raise the rent to more than $10,000,000 per year.

Since independence in 1976, per capita output has expanded to roughly seven times the old near-subsistence level. Growth has been led by the tourist sector, which employs about 30% of the labour force, compared to agriculture which today employs about 3% of the labour force. Despite the growth of tourism, farming and fishing continue to employ some people, as do industries that process coconuts and vanilla.

As of 2013[update], the main export products are processed fish (60%) and non-fillet frozen fish (22%).[70]

The prime agricultural products currently produced in Seychelles include sweet potatoes, vanilla, coconuts and cinnamon. These products provide much of the economic support of the locals. Frozen and canned fish, copra, cinnamon and vanilla are the main export commodities.

The Seychelles government has prioritised a curbing of the budget deficit, including the containment of social welfare costs and further privatisation of public enterprises. The government has a pervasive presence in economic activity, with public enterprises active in petroleum product distribution, banking, imports of basic products, telecommunications and a wide range of other businesses. According to the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom, which measures the degree of limited government, market openness, regulatory efficiency, rule of law, and other factors, economic freedom has been increasing each year since 2010.[71][unreliable source?]

The national currency of Seychelles is the Seychellois rupee. Initially tied to a basket of international currencies, it was unpegged and allowed to be devalued and float freely in 2008 on the presumed hopes of attracting further foreign investment in the Seychelles economy.

Seychelles has emerged as the least corrupt country in Africa in the latest Corruption Perception Index report released by Transparency International in January 2020.[72]

In 1971, with the opening of Seychelles International Airport, tourism became a significant industry, essentially dividing the economy into plantations and tourism. The tourism sector paid better, and the plantation economy could expand only so far. The plantation sector of the economy declined in prominence, and tourism became the primary industry of Seychelles. Consequently, there was a sustained spate of hotel construction throughout almost the entire 1970s which included the opening of Coral Strand Smart Choice, Vista Do Mar and Bougainville Hotel in 1972.

In recent years the government has encouraged foreign investment to upgrade hotels and other services. These incentives have given rise to an enormous amount of investment in real estate projects and new resort properties, such as project TIME, distributed by the World Bank, along with its predecessor project MAGIC. Despite its growth, the vulnerability of the tourist sector was illustrated by the sharp drop in 19911992 due largely to the Gulf War.[73]

Since then the government has moved to reduce the dependence on tourism by promoting the development of farming, fishing, small-scale manufacturing and most recently the offshore financial sector, through the establishment of the Financial Services Authority and the enactment of several pieces of legislation (such as the International Corporate Service Providers Act, the International Business Companies Act, the Securities Act, the Mutual Funds and Hedge Fund Act, amongst others). In March 2015, Seychelles allocated Assumption Island to be developed by India.[74]

Owing to the effects of COVID-19, Seychelles shut down its borders to international tourism in the year 2020. The nation is slated to reopen its borders to international tourists from 25 March 2021. As the national vaccination program progressed well, the nation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism has taken the decision to allow foreign tourists while keeping public health measures in place, such as wearing of face masks, social distancing, regular sanitisation, and washing of hands.[75]

Although multinational oil companies have explored the waters around the islands, no oil or gas has been found. In 2005, a deal was signed with US firm Petroquest, giving it exploration rights to about 30,000km2 around Constant, Topaz, Farquhar and Cotivy islands until 2014. Seychelles imports oil from the Persian Gulf in the form of refined petroleum derivatives at the rate of about 5,700 barrels per day (910m3/d).

In recent years oil has been imported from Kuwait and also from Bahrain. Seychelles imports three times more oil than is needed for internal uses because it re-exports the surplus oil in the form of bunker for ships and aircraft calling at Mah. There are no refining capacities on the islands. Oil and gas imports, distribution and re-export are the responsibility of Seychelles Petroleum (Sepec), while oil exploration is the responsibility of the Seychelles National Oil Company (SNOC).

A National Art Gallery was inaugurated in 1994 on the occasion of the official opening of the National Cultural Centre, which houses the National Library and National Archives with other offices of the Ministry of Culture.

At its inauguration, the Minister of Culture decreed that the exhibition of works of Seychellois artists, painters and sculptors was a testimony to the development of art in Seychelles as a creative form of expression, and provided a view of the state of the country's contemporary art.

Painters have traditionally been inspired by Seychelles natural features to produce a wide range of works in media ranging from watercolours to oils, acrylics, collages, metals, aluminium, wood, fabrics, gouache, varnishes, recycled materials, pastels, charcoal, embossing, etching, and giclee prints. Local sculptors produce fine works in wood, stone, bronze and cartonnage.

Music and dance have always played prominent roles in Seychelles culture and local festivities. Rooted in African, Malagasy and European cultures, music characteristically features drums such as the tambour and tam-tam, and simple string instruments. The violin and guitar are relatively recent foreign imports which play a prominent role in contemporary music.

Among popular dances are the Sega, with hip-swaying and shuffling of the feet, and the Moutya, a dance dating back to the days of slavery, when it was often used to express strong emotions and discontent.

The music of Seychelles is diverse, a reflection of the fusion of cultures through its history. The folk music of the islands incorporates multiple influences in a syncretic fashion. It includes African rhythms, aesthetic and instrumentation, such as the zez and the bom (known in Brazil as berimbau); European contredanse, polka and mazurka; French folk and pop; sega from Mauritius and Runion; taarab, soukous and other pan-African genres; and Polynesian, Indian and Arcadian music.

Contombley is a popular form of percussion music, as is Moutya, a fusion of native folk rhythms with Kenyan benga. Kontredans, based on European contra dance, is also popular, especially in district and school competitions during the annual Festival Kreol (International Creole Festival). Moutya playing and dancing often occur at beach bazaars. Music is sung in the Seychellois Creole of the French language, and in French and English.

In 2021, the Moutya, a slave trade-era dance, was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List as a symbol of psychological comfort in its role of resistance against hardship, poverty, servitude and social injustice.[76]

Staple foods of Sechelles include fish, seafood and shellfish dishes, often accompanied with rice.[77][78] Fish dishes are cooked several ways, such as steamed, grilled, wrapped in banana leaves, baked, salted and smoked.[77] Curry dishes with rice are also a significant part of the country's cuisine.[78][79]

Other staples include coconut, breadfruit, mangoes and kordonnyen fish.[80] Dishes are often garnished with fresh flowers.[80]

The main daily newspaper is the Seychelles Nation, dedicated to local government views and current topics. Other political parties operate papers such as Regar. Foreign newspapers and magazines are readily available at most bookshops and newsagents. The papers are published mostly in Seychellois Creole, French and English.

The main television and radio network, operated by the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation, offers locally produced news and discussion programmes in the Seychellois Creole language, between 3pm and 11:30pm on weekdays and longer hours on weekends. There are also imported English- and French-language television programmes on Seychellois terrestrial television, and international satellite television has grown rapidly in recent years.

Seychelles' most popular sport is basketball, which has significantly grown in popularity in the last decade.[83] The country's national team qualified for the 2015 African Games, where it competed against some of the continent's largest countries, such as Egypt. In 2015, Seychelles hosted the African Beach Soccer Championship. Ten years later, Seychelles will host the 2025 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup making it the ever FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup to be ever held in Africa.

Seychellois society is essentially matrilineal.[84][85] Mothers tend to be dominant in the household, controlling most expenditures and looking after children's interests.[84] Unwed mothers are the societal norm, and the law requires fathers to support their children.[85] Men are important for their earning ability, but their domestic role is relatively peripheral.[84]

Same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 2016.[86] The bill decriminalizing homosexuality was approved in a 140 vote.[87] The employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is banned in the Seychelles, making it one of the few African countries to have such protections for LGBT people.[88][89]

Seychelles has the highest literacy rate of any country in sub-Saharan Africa.[90] According to The World Factbook of the Central Intelligence Agency, as of 2018, 95.9% of the population aged 15 and over can read and write in the Seychelles.[90]

Until the mid-19th century, little formal education was available in Seychelles. The Catholic and Anglican churches opened mission schools in 1851. The Catholic mission later operated boys' and girls' secondary schools with religious brothers and nuns from abroad even after the government became responsible for them in 1944.[91]

A teacher training college opened in 1959, when the supply of locally trained teachers began to grow, and in short time many new schools were established. Since 1981 a system of free education has been in effect, requiring attendance by all children in grades one to nine, beginning at age five. Ninety percent of all children attend nursery school at age four.[citation needed]

The literacy rate for school-age children rose to more than 90% by the late 1980s. Many older Seychellois had not been taught to read or write in their childhood; adult education classes helped raise adult literacy from 60% to a claimed 100% in 2014.[citation needed]

There are a total of 68 schools in Seychelles. The public school system consists of 23 crches, 25 primary schools and 13 secondary schools. They are located on Mah, Praslin, La Digue and Silhouette. Additionally, there are three private schools: cole Franaise, International School and the independent school. All the private schools are on Mah, and the International School has a branch on Praslin. There are seven post-secondary (non-tertiary) schools: the Seychelles Polytechnic, School of Advanced Level Studies, Seychelles Tourism Academy, University of Seychelles Education, Seychelles Institute of Technology, Maritime Training Center, Seychelles Agricultural and Horticultural Training Center and the National Institute for Health and Social Studies.[citation needed]

The administration launched plans to open a university in an attempt to slow down the brain drain that has occurred. University of Seychelles, initiated in conjunction with the University of London, opened on 17 September 2009 in three locations, and offers qualifications from the University of London.[92]

Government

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The small island country of Seychelles is an archipelago of over 100 islands and has a total land area of only 452 sq. km. However, the islands of the country are spread far and wide forming an Exclusive Economic Zone that covers a total area of 1,336,559 sq. km.

The country has two major island groups - the Mah group and the Outer Islands. The former comprises of over 40 islands that with a granitic mountainous topography. The latter has over 70 islands which are flat and coralline but largely uninhabited due to the lack of sufficient freshwater resources. The highest point in the country, the 905 m high Morne Seychellois, is situated on the main and largest island of the country, Mah.

Seychelles has 26 administrative districts. In alphabetical order, these are Anse aux Pins, Anse Boileau, Anse Etoile, Anse Royale, Au Cap, Baie Lazare, Baie Sainte Anne, Beau Vallon, Bel Air, Bel Ombre, Cascade, English River, Glacis, Grand' Anse (on Mahe), Grand' Anse (on Praslin), Inner Islands, Les mamelles, Mont Buxton, Mont Fleuri, Plaisance, Pointe Larue, Port Glaud, Roche Caiman, Saint Louis, Takamaka. The 26th district is the Outer Islands which was recognized as a district in recent years by the country's tourism department.

Three districts English River, Mont Fleuri, and Saint Louis (shown on the map above) together comprise the national capital of Victoria.

An archipelagic island country in the Somali Sea region of the Indian Ocean, Seychelles is located in the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres of the Earth. Itis located around 1,600 km off the eastern coast of Kenya in mainland Africa. It is located to the northeast of Madagascar, another island country of Africa. Other major islands near Seychelles include Comoros and Mauritius to the south, and Maldives to the east.

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Relief and climate

Seychelles, one of the worlds smallest countries, is composed of two main island groups: the Mah group of more than 40 central, mountainous granitic islands and a second group of more than 70 outer, flat, coralline islands. The islands of the Mah group are rocky and typically have a narrow coastal strip and a central range of hills. The overall aspect of those islands, with their lush tropical vegetation, is that of high hanging gardens overlooking silver-white beaches and clear lagoons. The highest point in Seychelles, Morne Seychellois (2,969 feet [905 metres]), situated on Mah, is located within this mountainous island group. The coralline islands, rising only a few feet above sea level, are flat with elevated coral reefs at different stages of formation. These islands are largely waterless, and very few have a resident population.

The climate is tropical oceanic, with little temperature variation during the year. Daily temperatures rise to the mid-80s F (low 30s C) in the afternoon and fall to the low 70s F (low 20s C) at night. Precipitation levels vary greatly from island to island; on Mah, annual precipitation ranges from 90 inches (2,300 mm) at sea level to 140 inches (3,560 mm) on the mountain slopes. Humidity is persistently high but is ameliorated somewhat in locations windward of the prevailing southeast trade winds.

Of the roughly 200 plant species found in Seychelles, some 80 are unique to the islands, including screw pines (see pandanus), several varieties of jellyfish trees, latanier palms, the bois rouge, the bois de fer, Wrights gardenia, and the most famous, the coco de mer. The coco de merwhich is found on only two islandsproduces a fruit that is one of the largest and heaviest known and is valued by a number of Asian cultures for believed aphrodisiac, medicinal, mystic, and other properties. The Seychellois government closely monitors the quantity and status of the trees, and, although commerce is regulated to prevent overharvesting, poaching is a concern.

Wildlife includes a remarkably diverse array of marine life, including more than 900 identified species of fish; green sea turtles and giant tortoises also inhabit the islands. Endemic species include birds such as Seychelles bulbuls and cave-dwelling Seychelles swiftlets; several species of local tree frogs, snails, and wormlike caecilians; Seychelles wolf snakes and house snakes; tiger chameleons; and others. Endemic mammals are few; both fruit bats (Pteropus seychellensis) and Seychelles sheath-tailed bats (Coleura seychellensis) are endemic to the islands. Indian mynahs, barn owls, and tenrecs (small shrewlike or hedgehoglike mammals introduced from Madagascar) are also found.

Considerable efforts have been made to preserve the islands marked biodiversity. Seychelles government has established several nature preserves and marine parks, including the Aldabra Islands and Valle de Mai National Park, both UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Aldabra Islands, a large atoll, are the site of a preserve inhabited by tens of thousands of giant tortoises, the worlds oldest living creatures, which government conservation efforts have helped rescue from the brink of extinction. Valle de Mai National Park is the only place where all six of the palm species endemic to Seychelles, including the coco de mer, may be found together. Cousin Island is home to a sanctuary for land birds, many endemic to the islands, including the Seychelles sunbird (a type of hummingbird) and the Seychelles brush warbler. The nearby Cousine Island is part private resort and part nature preserve, noted for its sea turtles, giant tortoises, and assorted land birds. Bird Island is the breeding ground for millions of terns, turtle doves, shearwaters, frigate birds, and other seabirds that flock there each year.

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Demographics of Seychelles

Population pyramid of the Seychelles in 2020

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Seychelles, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

About 90% of the Seychellois people live on the island of Mah. Most of the rest live on Praslin and La Digue, with the remaining smaller islands either sparsely populated or uninhabited.

Most Seychellois are descendants of early French settlers and East Africans who arrived in the 19th century. Tamils, along with other South Indians and Chinese (1.1% of the population) account for the other permanent inhabitants. About 1,703 (2000) expatriates live and work in Seychelles. In 1901, there were roughly 3500 Tamil speakers out of the country's population of 19,237. Tamil immigrants arrived in Seychelles as early as 1770 and were among the first settlers to the originally sparsely inhabited island nation.

Seychelles culture is a mixture of French and African (Creole) influences. The local Seychellois Creole (Kreol), a creole language derived from French and African tongues, is the native language of 91.8% of the people; but English and French are also commonly used. English remains the language of government and commerce.

About 91.9% of the adult population is literate, and the literacy rate of school-aged children has risen to well over 98%. Increases are expected, as nearly all children of primary school age attend school, and the government encourages adult education.

Structure of the population (2013 estimates):[4]

Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.VII.2020): [5]

Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2022.[6]

The following demographic are from the CIA World Factbook[7] unless otherwise indicated.

Roman Catholic 76.2%, Protestant 10.5% (Anglican 6.1%, Pentecostal Assembly 1.5%, Seventh Day Adventist 1.2%, other Protestant 1.7%), other Christian 2.4%, Hindu 2.4%, Muslim 1.6%, other non-Christian 1.1%, unspecified 4.8%, none 0.9% (2010 est.)

Seychelles has very little indigenous population and was first permanently settled by a small group of French colonizers, African, and South Indians in 1770. Seychelles modern population is composed of the descendants of French and later British colonizers, Africans, and Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern traders and is concentrated on three of its 155 islands the vast majority on Mahe and lesser numbers on Praslin and La Digue. Seychelles population grew rapidly during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to natural increase, but the pace has slowed because of fertility decline. The total fertility rate dropped sharply from 4.0 children per woman in 1980 to 1.9 in 2015, mainly as a result of a family planning program, free education and health care, and increased female labor force participation. Life expectancy has increased steadily, but women on average live 9 years longer than men, a difference that is higher than that typical of developed countries.[7]

The combination of reduced fertility and increased longevity has resulted in an aging population, which will put pressure on the government's provision of pensions and health care. Seychelles sustained investment in social welfare services, such as free primary health care and education up to the post-secondary level, have enabled the country to achieve a high human development index score, among the highest in Africa. Despite some of its health and education indicators being nearly on par with Western countries, Seychelles has a high level of income inequality.[7]

total population: 76.1 years. Country comparison to the world: 109thmale: 71.67 yearsfemale: 80.66 years (2022 est.)

at birth:1.03 male(s)/femaleunder 15 years:1.06 male(s)/female15-64 years:0.95 male(s)/female65 years and over:0.70 male(s)/femaletotal population:1.07 male(s)/female (2005 est.)

noun: Seychellois (singular and plural), adjective: Seychelles

predominantly creole (mainly of East African and Malagasy heritage); also French, Indian, Chinese, and Arab populations

Seychellois Creole (official) 89.1%, English (official) 5.1%, French (official) 0.7%, Other 3.8%, Unspecified 1.4% (2010 est.)[8]

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

The Seychelles census has now been postponed by one year, from August 2020 to August 2021. Field mapping, questionnaire design, and pretest of data collection tools using tablets, are all proceeding.[9]

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