US defense must have foundations for AI integration by 2025, report says – Global Government Forum

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Military intelligence: the DoD is now trying to make the leap to a software-intensive enterprise says the new report from the NSCAI.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) must set an ambitious goal to have the foundations for widespread integration of artificial intelligence (AI) across defence in place by 2025, according to a draft of the final report from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI).

This should include a common digital infrastructure that is accessible to internal AI development teams and critical industry partners, a technically literate workforce, and modern AI-enabled business practices that improve efficiency.

The draft report was published last month; the final version will be released on 1 March 2021.

The Commission has advocated for greater investment and uptake in AI in the defence and security sectors. It frames the USs efforts in AI similarly to an arms race, as hostile actors develop their own capabilities in autonomous weaponry, cyber tools and disinformation.

The magnitude of the technological opportunity coincides with a moment of strategic vulnerability. China is a competitor possessing the might, talent, and ambition to challenge Americas technological leadership, military superiority, and its broader position in the world, the introduction notes.

AI is deepening the threat posed by cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns that Russia, China, and other state and non-state actors use to infiltrate our society, steal our data, and interfere in our democracy, it adds.

The NSCAI was established in August 2018 as part of the annual defence spending settlement, with a mission to scope out how to advance AI, machine learning and associated technologies in relation to US national security and defence needs.

It is chaired by former Google chief executive Dr Eric Schmidt. The vice chair is Robert Work, a former Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2014 to 2017, under both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Its fifteen commissioners, supported by a secretariat of 25 staff, have completed five interim reports and memos since July 2019, informed by submissions from a wide range of experts. The commission is scheduled to be wound up in October 2021.

Previous reports have urged policies such as creating a national digital corps, setting up a military cyber academy, and increasing the federal budget for research and development into AI and associated technologies, according to US government news website Fedscoop.

The draft final report is in two halves. The first, Defending America in the AI Era, focuses on the defence applications of AI, and what the US should do to respond to the spectrum of AI-related threats from state and non-state actors.

In the second part, Winning the Technology Competition, the commission looks at AI as part of a wider global competition around new technologies and recommends policies to promote innovation in AI and create a critical and competitive advantage for the US.

The introduction paints a picture of a nation at risk of slipping behind competitor states, which, in future, could include small nations and actors able to exploit affordable, off-the-shelf hardware and readily available algorithms.

The report is also blunt about Chinas capability. In some areas of research and applications, China is already an AI peer, and it is more technically advanced in some applications. Within the next decade, China could surpass the United States as the worlds AI superpower, it notes.

It warns that US citizens have also not recognised the assertive role the government will have to play in ensuring the United States wins this innovation competition or the public investment needed. Despite our private sector and university leadership in AI, the United States remains unprepared for the coming era, the commission writes.

On the other hand, capabilities in AI could ensure the US can respond with greater agility to new or emerging vulnerabilities. Global crises exemplified in the global pandemic and climate change are expanding the definition of national security and crying out for innovative solutions. AI can help us navigate many of these challenges, the introduction says.

The authors argue that AI development and implementation requires a stack of interconnected elements containing including talent, data, hardware, algorithms, applications, and integration.

We regard talent as the most essential requirement because it drives the creation and management of all the other elements, the report says, recommending a focus on improving the government technology talent pipeline, both through new recruiting practices and retraining current employees.

If government agencies do not have enough of the right talent, every AIinitiative will struggle and most will fail, said commissioner Dr Jos-Marie Griffiths, president of Dakota State University, according to Fedscoop.

While the US armed forces might already deploy, and be able to counter, drones and autonomous weapons, the NSCAI warns that rapidly advancing capabilities could change the dynamic within human-machine teams.

In the past, computers could only perform tasks that fell within a clearly defined set of parameters or rules programmed by a human. As AI becomes more capable, computers will be able to learn and perform tasks based on parameters that humans do not explicitly program, creating choices and taking actions at a volume and speed never before possible.

The report therefore sees the construction of an AI infrastructure as the first step to creating new defence capabilities. DoD has long been hardware-oriented toward ships, planes, and tanks. It is now trying to make the leap to a software-intensive enterprise, it notes.

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US defense must have foundations for AI integration by 2025, report says - Global Government Forum

How to Fight Discrimination in AI – Harvard Business Review

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Executive Summary

Ensuring that your AI algorithm doesnt unintentionally discriminate against particular groups is a complex undertaking. What makes it so difficult in practice is that it is often extremely challenging to truly remove all proxies for protected classes.Determining what constitutes unintentional discrimination at a statistical level is also far from straightforward.So what should companies do to steer clear of employing discriminatory algorithms? They can start by looking to a host of legal and statistical precedents for measuring and ensuring algorithmic fairness.

Is your artificial intelligence fair?

Thanks to the increasing adoption of AI, this has become a question that data scientists and legal personnel now routinely confront. Despite the significant resources companies have spent on responsible AI efforts in recent years, organizations still struggle with the day-to-day task of understanding how to operationalize fairness in AI.

So what should companies do to steer clear of employing discriminatory algorithms? They can start by looking to a host of legal and statistical precedents for measuring and ensuring algorithmic fairness. In particular, existing legal standards that derive from U.S. laws such as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act and guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can help to mitigate many of the discriminatory challenges posed by AI.

At a high level, these standards are based on the distinction between intentional and unintentional discrimination, sometimes referred to as disparate treatment and disparate impact, respectively. Intentional discrimination is subject to the highest legal penalties and is something that all organizations adopting AI should obviously avoid. The best way to do so is by ensuring the AI is not exposed to inputs that can directly indicate protected class such as race or gender.

Avoiding unintentional discrimination, or disparate impact, however, is an altogether more complex undertaking. It occurs when a seemingly neutral variable (like the level of home ownership) acts as a proxy for a protected variable (like race). What makes avoiding disparate impact so difficult in practice is that it is often extremely challenging to truly remove all proxies for protected classes. In a society shaped by profound systemic inequities such as that of the United States, disparities can be so deeply embedded that it oftentimes requires painstaking work to fully separate what variables (if any) operate independently from protected attributes.

Indeed, because values like fairness are subjective in many ways there are, for example, nearly two dozen conceptions of fairness, some of which are mutually exclusive its sometimes not even clear what the most fair decision really is. In one study by Google AI researchers, the seemingly beneficial approach of giving disadvantaged groups easier access to loans had the unintended effect of reducing these groups credit scores overall. Easier access to loans actually increased the number of defaults within that group, thereby lowering their collective scores over time.

Determining what constitutes disparate impact at a statistical level is also far from straightforward. Historically, statisticians and regulators have used a variety of methods to detect its occurrence under existing legal standards. Statisticians have, for example, used a group fairness metric called the 80 percent rule (its also known as the adverse impact ratio) as one central indicator of disparate impact. Originating in the employment context in the 1970s, the ratio consists of dividing the proportion of the selected group in the disadvantaged class by the proportion of selected members of the advantaged group. A ratio below 80% is generally considered to be evidence of discrimination. Other metrics, such as standardized mean difference or marginal effects analysis, have been used to detect unfair outcomes in AI as well.

All of which means that, in practice, when data scientists and lawyers are asked to ensure their AI is fair, theyre also being asked to select what fairness should mean in the context of each specific use case and how it should be measured. This can be an incredibly complex process, as a growing number of researchers in the machine learning community have noted in recent years.

Despite all these complexities, however, existing legal standards can provide a good baseline for organizations seeking to combat unfairness in their AI. These standards recognize the impracticality of a one-size-fits-all approach to measuring unfair outcomes. As a result, the question these standards ask is not simply is disparate impact occurring?. Instead, existing standards mandate what amounts to two essential requirements for regulated companies.

First, regulated companies must clearly document all the ways theyve attempted to minimize and therefore to measure disparate impact in their models. They must, in other words, carefully monitor and document all their attempts to reduce algorithmic unfairness.

Second, regulated organizations must also generate clear, good faith justifications for using the models they eventually deploy. If fairer methods existed that would have also met these same objectives, liability can ensue.

Companies using AI can and should learn from many of these same processes and best practices to both identify and minimize cases when their AI is generating unfair outcomes. Clear standards for fairness testing that incorporate these two essential elements, along with clear documentation guidelines for how and when such testing should take place, will go a long way towards ensuring fairer and more-carefully-monitored outcomes for companies deploying AI. Companies can also draw from public guidance offered by experts such as BLDSs Nicholas Schmidt and Bryce Stephens.

Are these existing legal standards perfect? Far from it. There is significant room for improvement, as regulators have in fact noted in recent months. (A notable exception is the Trump administrations Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is currently attempting to roll back some of these standards.) Indeed, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has indicated an increasing focus on fairness in AI in recent months, with one of its five commissioners publicly stating that it should expand its oversight of discriminatory AI.

New laws and guidance targeting fairness in AI, in other words, are clearly coming. If shaped correctly, they will be a welcome development when they arrive.

But until they come, its critical that companies build off of existing best practices to combat unfairness in their AI. If deployed thoughtfully, the technology can be a powerful force for good. But if used without care, it is all too easy for AI to entrench existing disparities and discriminate against already-disadvantaged groups. This is an outcome that both businesses and society at large cannot afford.

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How to Fight Discrimination in AI - Harvard Business Review

Zero-sum thinking is an AI talent killer – Times Higher Education (THE)

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Technology arising out of artificial intelligence has untold potential to benefit humanity and to generate wealth and employment. It also offers exciting new ways to explore most academic disciplines.

Moreover, if a technology company cannot learn from the innovative work done in higher education, it will probably fail to find a platform for sustainable growth. Similarly, without both public and private funding, new inventions may languish in a laboratory.

Hence, the case is obvious for industry and academia to collaborate on AI. However, not everyone is convinced. Some people regard cooperation between enterprises and universities as benefitting only the companies, and that research should be conducted in a commercial vacuum. Politicians are less concerned about commercial benefit since they welcome the economic growth and jobs that commercial success brings. But they do sometimes object when the company concerned is based in a foreign country.

Such zero-sum thinking has parallels with fears voiced by some US politicians in the 1980s and 1990s about Japans economic rise. In the 2018 book Prediction Machines, Ajay Agrawal recounts how the MIT economist Scott Stern was asked at a congressional hearing in 1999 how the US should respond to comparably higher R&D spending by Japan and other economies, suggesting that these countries posed a threat to American prosperity. The first thing we should do is send them a thank you letter, Stern said. Innovative investment is not a win-lose situation. American consumers are going to benefit from more investment by other countriesIt is a race we can all win."

Huawei is not holding out for a thank you letter any time soon. But our message will always be clear: countries have more to gain than to fear from healthy international competition. By placing Chinese companies on a blacklist, politicians are restricting the talent growth required for a successful AI-informed future that will benefit everyone.

Talent growth is a hugely important issue. The European Commission believes that there could be as many as 750,000 unfilled jobs in the European information and communication technology sector this year. And a 2018 Ernst & Young poll found that 56 per cent of senior AI professionals believe this lack of qualified talent is the single biggest barrier to AI implementation across business operations. This means talent, not technology, is key to economic growth.

The trick, then, will be to upskill people up to work in IT, rather than allowing them to be put out of work by it: what Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, calls technological unemployment. But the existing talent is spread all around the world; 71 per cent of tech employees in Silicon Valley are foreign born, for instance. So cross-border collaboration on AI makes overwhelming sense. We need a global Silicon Valley: an international community of academics, entrepreneurs, companies and investors working together to nurture talent and push ideas forward.

To this end, Huawei has launched a developer enablement programme, providing an investment of $1 billion (777 million) to address the widening skills gap. We work with universities to publish textbooks and educational material related to AI, help to build AI labs and train AI teachers, and encourage universities from all over the world to participate in the Huawei cloud open community.

But we also need to keep making the case for investment in basic research, which has hit a bottleneck worldwide, primarily because government funding in this area has fallen significantly. Product innovation during the past 20 years has relied on ideasthat were conceivedin academiaand developed by industry into products and solutions that address customer needs. The next phase will be a search for new theoretical concepts that will shape consumer needs in 50 years time: a future ShannonHartley theorem or Moores Law, for example.

Despite the geopolitical pressures that international tech companies such as Huawei face, we will continue to increase investment in collaborating with universities. A collective effort is the only way to answer the worlds greatest challenges and respond to an uncertain future. It is not a zero-sum game.

Jack Lyu Ke is president of Huaweis Human Resource Management Department, and chairman of the Huawei Corporate Advisory Committee.

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Zero-sum thinking is an AI talent killer - Times Higher Education (THE)

The Rise of AI Is Forcing Google and Microsoft to Become Chipmakers – WIRED

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The Rise of AI Is Forcing Google and Microsoft to Become Chipmakers - WIRED

How AI and Unmanned Aerial Systems Could Change the Future of Crop Scouting – Ohio’s Country Journal and Ohio Ag Net

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Crop scouting may transition from a boots-on-the-ground job to an artificial intelligence endeavor in the sky thanks to research from The Ohio State University (OSU) and investments made by the Ohio Soybean Council (OSC) and soybean checkoff. Dr. Scott Shearer, professor and chair of OSUs Department ofFood,Agricultural and Biological Engineering, and his team are testing the use of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) in Ohio fields to automate the scouting process with data collected directly from the crop canopy.

To dig deeper, OSC talked with Dr. Shearer about the project and the impact it could have on Ohio agriculture.

Q: Tell us about your current work with AI and sUAS.

A: We have developed a stinger platform suspended beneath a multi-rotor drone, or sUAS, to insert sensors into the crop canopy. These sensors capture high-resolution imagery from within the plant canopy, which can be used for real-time plant stress classification.

Over the past two growing seasons, we have been scouting soybean fields and building an extensive image library of soybean crop stress imagery. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), AI algorithms used for image recognition, have been trained using the image library to support real-time classification of crop stress. The resulting CNN classifiers are being field tested for accuracy.

Currently, the predominant sensing technique uses low-cost RGB cameras. However, additional work has been conducted this growing season to include a near-infrared spectroscopic sensor as well as tissue sampler, both suspended on the stinger beneath the drone.

Q: How does this technology benefit Ohio soybean farmers?

A: The direct benefit to Ohio soybean farmers is a more efficient and accurate scouting approach for improved crop health monitoring. Current scouting practices require the farmer to scout three or more locations within a field. However, the sUAS approach significantly expands the scouts ability to monitor many more sites within a field and to automate the stress detection and specification process using AI.

Ideally, farmers using this method will be alerted of stressors affecting their soybean crop sooner so they can implement corrective measures more quickly and preserve yield potential for improved profitability. This rapid assessment approach will move the industry toward a more prescriptive approach to crop stress management where economic thresholds are addressed on a refined spatial basis.

Q: When do you anticipate this technology could be commercialized?

A: Researchers and technology commercialization managers have been in contact with several venture capitalists and ag tech providers to explore commercialization options. The approach is somewhat constrained by the ability to develop regional and crop-specific reference libraries to train the CNN classifiers, so the value of this approach depends on who can develop those libraries. Its likely the first commercial deployment of this system will occur within three to five years.

This technology may be a few years from your farm, but there are many other innovations coming available every day to help improve the efficiency of your operation. Find out which technologies are currently working for other Ohio soybean farmers here.

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How AI and Unmanned Aerial Systems Could Change the Future of Crop Scouting - Ohio's Country Journal and Ohio Ag Net

Top Voice AI Stories in the First Half of 2020 with Lau, Prescott and Knig – Voicebot Podcast Ep 162 – Voicebot.ai

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on August 9, 2020 at 4:25 pm

This weeks roundtable discussion focuses on the top voice AI news from the first half of 2020. We, of course, talk about COVID-19 and how that is changing adoption patterns or the industry. Plus we discuss smart speaker adoption figures, the voice app ecosystems and whether there is a voice app winter underway, the rise of custom assistants, a shift to mobile, and more.

Guests this week include Theo Lau, founder of Unconventional Ventures, Katherine Prescott, founder of Voicebrew, and Jan Knig, co-founder of Jovo. Unconventional Ventures is a firm that focuses on banking and has a lot of crossover with voice and AI among other financial services technologies. Theo is also an advisor to Bond.ai and is the former director for market innovation at AARP. Earlier in her career, she worked with voice and data products and services at Nextel and Teligent. Theo earned a degree in Chemical Engineering from RPI and an MS from George Washington University.

VoiceBrew is a daily newsletter that teaches consumers how to get more out of their Alexa-enabled devices. Previously, Katherine was a senior vice president of corporate strategy at Highbridge Capital Management and an analyst to Morgan Stanley focusing on M&A. She earned a BS in economics at Harvard.

Jovo provides a cross-platform development framework for voice apps and technologies. Jan is also an entrepreneur partner at Etribes and was a product manager at Blue Yonder. He earned both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Industrial Engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

You can listen to the podcast interview above, on Google or Apple Podcasts or most of the leading podcast players.

2019 Voice Year in Review with Jargon, Voxly, and Voicebot Voicebot Podcast Ep 128

2020 Voice AI Predictions Part 1 with Ware, Bass, and Lens-FitzGerald Voicebot Podcast Ep 130

2020 Voice AI Predictions Part 2 on Voice App Architecture with Kelvie, McElreath and Ream Voicebot Podcast Ep 131

Harjinder Sandhu Founder and CEO of Saykara a Voice Assistant for Doctors Voicebot Podcast Ep 161

Bret is founder, CEO, and research director of Voicebot.ai. He was named commentator of the year by the Alexa Conference in 2019 and is widely cited in media and academic research as an authority on voice assistants and AI. He is also the host of the Voicebot Podcast and editor of the Voice Insider newsletter.

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Top Voice AI Stories in the First Half of 2020 with Lau, Prescott and Knig - Voicebot Podcast Ep 162 - Voicebot.ai

Artificial Intelligence In Diagnostics Market Worth $3.0 Billion By 2027: Grand View Research, Inc. – PRNewswire

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SAN FRANCISCO, July 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global artificial intelligence in diagnostics market size is expected to reach USD 3.0 billion by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 32.3%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Increase in the number of healthcare Artificial Intelligence (AI) diagnostic startups coupled with huge investments by venture capitalist firms to develop innovative technologies that allow fast and effective diagnostic procedures due to continuous increase in number of patients suffering from chronic diseases supports the growth of the market. Around 33.3% of all healthcare AI SaaS companies are engaged in developing diagnostics, making it largest focus area for startups in the market.

Growing investments and funding for AI in healthcare is also one of the key factors driving the market. For instance, in 2016, the U.S.-based startup, PathAI, secured USD 75.2 million investment for developing machine learning technology that assists pathologists in making more precise diagnosis. Rising investments in AI diagnosis-based startups is one of the key indicators that depicts upcoming opportunities.

Key suggestions from the report:

Read 150 page research report with ToC on "Artificial Intelligence In Diagnostics Market Size, Share And Trends Analysis Report By Component (Software, Hardware, Services), By Diagnosis Type, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-diagnostics-market

Moreover, increasing adoption of AI technology by hospitals and research centers for clinical diagnosis purpose is another factor propelling market growth. For instance, in July 2018, two national research institutes in Japan succeeded in implementing AI technology for detecting early stage stomach cancer with high precision rate of 95.0% for healthy tissues and 80.0% for cancer tissues. According to National Cancer Centre and Riken, AI technology took 0.004 seconds to identify whether obtained endoscopic image contains normal stomach tissue or early stage cancer tissue. Growing awareness regarding the technology is expected to boost the usage of AI in medical procedures.

Grand View Research has segmented the artificial intelligence in diagnostics market on the basis of component, diagnosis type, and region:

Find more research reports on Healthcare IT Industry,by Grand View Research:

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About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

Contact:

Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USAGrand View Research, Inc.Phone: +1-415-349-0058Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519Email: [emailprotected] Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter

SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc.

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Artificial Intelligence In Diagnostics Market Worth $3.0 Billion By 2027: Grand View Research, Inc. - PRNewswire

Adobe tries to make selfies less embarrassing using AI and machine learning – The Verge

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Sensei, the arm of Adobe that fiddles around with AI and machine learning, has released a trailer for some new selfie-improving features they have in the works. Adobe hasnt announced if or when these features will be included in any of its apps, but the video is still a fun watch.

It shows a dude taking a bad, embarrassing selfie and improving it using tools that apply artificial depth of field, tweak the perspective so its not clear it was taken from so close to the face, and steal aesthetics from other portraits of other dudes.

That last feature the ability to copy the style of any given photograph and transfer it to another photograph was described in detail by a joint research team last week. The researchers, from Adobe and Cornell University, published a paper titled Deep Photo Style Transfer, which outlines how the process is more complex and precise than merely applying an Instagram-style filter. The code they used is open source, and you can download it on GitHub if you want.

The selfie our demonstrator has at the end does look better, but I feel it would be irresponsible of me not to point out that the selfie he started with wouldnt have been so awful if he hadnt gone with the classic My Dad move of aiming the camera directly up his chin.

Another way to drastically improve your selfies, beyond relying on admittedly cool-looking Adobe AI, would be to listen to even one thing Kim Kardashian-West has ever said. Repeat after me: never take pictures of yourself from any lower than one foot above your head.

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Adobe tries to make selfies less embarrassing using AI and machine learning - The Verge

Ozlo releases a suite of APIs to power your next conversational AI … – TechCrunch

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Ozlo releases a suite of APIs to power your next conversational AI ...
TechCrunch
Building on its promise to give the entrenched a run for their money, conversational AI startup Ozlo is making its meticulously crafted knowledge layer..
This AI startup wants to help robot assistants ask people the ...Recode
Ozlo finally reveals a business model for its AI training app ...SiliconANGLE (blog)

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Ozlo releases a suite of APIs to power your next conversational AI ... - TechCrunch

ARMs new edge AI chips promise IoT devices that wont need the cloud – The Verge

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Edge AI is one of the biggest trends in chip technology. These are chips that run AI processing on the edge or, in other words, on a device without a cloud connection. Apple recently bought a company that specializes in it, Googles Coral initiative is meant to make it easier, and chipmaker ARM has already been working on it for years. Now, ARM is expanding its efforts in the field with two new chip designs: the Arm Cortex-M55 and the Ethos-U55, a neural processing unit meant to pair with the Cortex-M55 for more demanding use cases.

The benefits of edge AI are clear: running AI processing on a device itself, instead of in a remote server, offers big benefits to privacy and speed when it comes to handling these requests. Like ARMs other chips, the new designs wont be manufactured by ARM; rather, they serve as blueprints for a wide variety of partners to use as a foundation for their own hardware.

But what makes ARMs new chip designs particularly interesting is that theyre not really meant for phones and tablets. Instead, ARM intends for the chips to be used to develop new Internet of Things devices, bringing AI processing to more devices that otherwise wouldnt have those capabilities. One use case ARM imagines is a 360-degree camera in a walking stick that can identify obstacles, or new train sensors that can locally identify problems and avoid delays.

As for the specifics, the Arm Cortex-M55 is the latest model in ARMs Cortex-M line of processors, which the company says offers up to a 15x improvement in machine learning performance and a 5x improvement in digital signal processing performance compared to previous Cortex-M generations.

For truly demanding edge AI tasks, the Cortex-M55 (or older Cortex-M processors) can be combined with the Ethos-U55 NPU, which takes things a step further. It can offer another 32x improvement in machine learning processing compared to the base Cortex-M55, for a total of 480x better processing than previous generations of Cortex-M chips.

While those are impressive numbers, ARM says that the improvement in data throughput here will make a big difference in what edge AI platforms can do. Current Cortex-M platforms can handle basic tasks like keyword or vibration detection. The M55s improvements let it work with more advanced things like object recognition. And the full power of a Cortex-M chip combined with the Ethos-U55 promises even more functionality, with the potential for local gesture and speech recognition.

All of these advances will take some time to roll out. While ARM is announcing the designs today and releasing documentation, it doesnt expect actual silicon to arrive until early 2021 at the earliest.

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ARMs new edge AI chips promise IoT devices that wont need the cloud - The Verge

Confirmed: Facebook shifts away from AI and like a miracle, the bots start working – The Register

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Facebook has revamped its Messenger bot platform that allows businesses to engage with the app's massive audience and the story is a lesson for anyone looking for practical applications of the AI and machine learning hype.

If you believe the evangelists, "new advances in AI" will allow businesses to restructure their support and sales operations, and maybe even their business models.

Via a chatbot interface, the AI would take care of work a human would do. Mark Zuckerberg implied as much when he introduced Facebooks bot platform only last April to great fanfare, in a move hailed as part of an AI arms race.

The "Fourth Industrial Revolution" of white-collar automation was almost here.

But reports that Facebook has scaled back the fashionable emphasis on machine learning and AI after encountering a high failure rate have turned out to be true. And British entrepreneur Syd Lawrence thinks Facebook has been wise to move away from an emphasis on AI.

"The whole AI hype is horrifically off the mark," he told us. "Whereas these things can be really useful and powerful. But they're certainly not AI. We're way away from AI being really useful."

Lawrence, CEO of The Bot Platform, says: "The whole conversation around AI and even the term chatbots is all horribly wrong," says Lawrence. "I really hope we can put AI chatbots to rest. No one wants to talk to a chatbot." If that sounds odd from a company at the bleeding edge of the chatbot hype, then it needs an explanation.

The bots Lawrence's team creates are really akin to a Unix daemon, or in Windows, a Service: they're a background process or agent. In fact, we all use these often without knowing it, Lawrence tells us, and they've never stopped being useful. Now they're slightly more useful.

"One of the bots using our platform is performing almost 10,000 per cent better than their mobile website for one common task, and we've customers that have their bots performing 30,000 per cent better than an email mailing list," says Lawrence.

A real-life walkthrough of a bot on the revamped Facebook Messenger shows what he means.

The revamped bot UI has a persistent menu, and can now run "headless". Imagine bypassing a bank or a utility's voice menu and instead using a set of menu buttons instead. It's so much faster to navigate, you won't want to go back to "press 5 for an customer service representative".

Hopefully this will put "fake AI" to rest, says Syd in a Medium post describing the changes.

Just be clear about you're trying to do, be aware of what the limitations are specifically, typing on mobile is hard and stop claiming "that it's AI". Facebook is now careful to call the agents "bots", not "chatbots", in addition to offering a less annoying customer interface than IVR, aka voice menus.

"Disabling free text completely might sound counter-intuitive, especially for a messaging platform, but it still lets you do outbound messaging, and control the conversation. You can still present the user with buttons. Not surprisingly, people prefer to press the buttons rather than type."

So perhaps the future isn't virtual robot buddies replacing humans, but simple interactive mobile UIs replacing another technology: the 1990s-spawned nightmare of voice menus.

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Confirmed: Facebook shifts away from AI and like a miracle, the bots start working - The Register

Even successful cities aren’t ready for AI’s disruptions – Quartz

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Which major city is well prepared for the challenges that will be brought about by artificial intelligence? According to one recent report, the answer is simple: none.

AI, which refers to programming that can mimic human behaviors such as speaking, learning and carrying out tasks, is flourishing fast across the world, and being used in applications ranging from facial recognition to autonomous driving. However, along with the many possibilities of AI, risks from its capacity to replace human workers, or from unethical uses of the technology, have also become more obvious.

The Global Cities AI Disruption Index, published by research outfit Oliver Wyman Forum today (Sept. 26), aims to look at how 105 major cities are preparing for the AI era. The report was conducted based on interviews with stakeholders such as government officials and academics, a survey of 9,000 residents in 21 of those cities, as well as an analysis of public social and economic data on the cities examined. Overall, the report measures readiness using four broad parametersa citys understanding of AI-related risks and its corresponding plans, its ability to carry out those plans, the asset base it can rely on, and the direction the city is taking.

Singapore, Stockholm, London and Shenzhen rank first in each of those four categories, respectively. But not a single city ranks in the top 20 among all four categories, and none appears in the top 10 across more than two categories. This means no city is close to being ready for the challenges ahead, said the report. Sure, some are better prepared than others, but all cities will need to continue to make substantial improvements to fully prepare for the impacts of next-generation technology.

Gauging AI readiness is far from an exact science at the moment though various efforts in recent years have been trying to do it. For now, it looks like many of the qualities that might make a government or a city prepared to deal with AI are likely to be similar to those that put them high up on rankings of good places to do business. A three-year-old index from Oxford Insights that gauges government ability to capitalize on AI looks at parameters like the skill level of the workforce, for example, as well as a more technical measure like the quality of the data the government has to work with.

But given controversies surrounding the use of AI, from how it can propagate existing biases, to privacy and misinformation risks, governments abilityand transparencyin dealing with those need to be a vital part of AI readiness.

China, for example, has been accused of using facial recognition in profiling ethnic minorities including Muslims in its Xinjiang region. Meanwhile FaceApp, an AI-powered face-ageing app developed by a Russian company, has also stirred privacy concerns among users.

The OW Forum research urged governments worldwide to get real about the risks posed by AI, saying they tend to downplay or ignore such disruptions while focusing only on opportunities such as smart city projects.

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Even successful cities aren't ready for AI's disruptions - Quartz

Poker-playing AI beats pros using ‘intuition,’ study finds – ABC News

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Computer researchers are betting they can take on the house after designing a new artificial intelligence program that has beat professional poker players.

Researchers from University of Alberta, Czech Technical University and Charles University in Prague developed the "DeepStack" program as a way to build artificial intelligence capable of playing a complex kind of poker. Creating an AI program that can win against a human player in a no-limit poker game has long been a goal of researchers due to the complexity of the game.

Michael Bowling, a professor in the Department of Computing Science in the University of Alberta, explained that computers have been able to win at "perfect" games such as chess or Go, in which all the information is available to both players, but that "imperfect" games like poker have been much harder to program for.

"This game [poker] embodies situations where you find yourself not having all the information you need to make a decision," said Bowling. "In real-life situations, it's a rare moment that we have all the information."

There have been other poker-playing AI programs, but they were playing a poker game that included a pot limit, meaning there were limitations on the amount of money could be bet during different stages. As a result, there was less information and risk analysis for the program to compute. In those programs, Bowling explained, the program could look at all potential paths and probabilities for playing different hands prior to playing the game and then simply plug in the information from each hand to win the game.

In this new version of a two-person Texas hold'em poker, there were no limits on betting vastly expanding the amount of information that would need to be processed. Bowling explained without that limitation there were more potential outcomes "than there are atoms in the universe."

"DeepStack gets around that by not pre-computing everything in advance, it will process information at each time," said Bowling.

The programmers were able to create an "intuition" program system for the AI that would focus on looking at each hand in real time and then compute the probability of winning the next few hands, rather than the entire game.

"It only looks a few answers ahead," Bowling explained.

In order for the program to be able to respond in real time, Bowling and his co-researchers were able to create special machinery designed to "learn" complex information. Called a deep neural network, the technology allows the AI to "learn" by looking at past poker games and their outcomes. By simulating poker games over and over, the AI is able to better estimate how to play a hand and figure out a hand's "value."

Bowling explained the program could see via the simulations "how much money would I expect to win if I found myself in this situation."

"If it's positive, it's good for me; if it's negative, it's bad," Bowling said.

The "intuition" could then determine if a hand was more valuable by looking at past simulation results and then be able to better predict a winning move.

To test if their AI could win, the researchers worked with the International Federation of Poker to recruit players willing to play against DeepStack. In four weeks, they had 11 professional poker players each play 3,000 games against DeepStack. They found DeepStack won most of the time against all the players.

"We were ahead by quite a large margin," Bowling said. When they went back to look and see if the program might have just been lucky, they found the program was likely ahead due to skill not luck when pitted against 10 of the 11 participants.

The researchers hope the program will be able to be used for other complicated situations such as "defending strategic resources" or making difficult decisions in medical treatment recommendations.

"With many real-world problems involving information asymmetry, DeepStack also has implications for seeing powerful AI applied more in settings that do not fit the perfect information assumption," the authors said.

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Poker-playing AI beats pros using 'intuition,' study finds - ABC News

Can AI and connected tech foster better disaster decision-making? – GCN.com

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Can AI and connected tech foster better disaster decision-making?

Florida communities frequently battered by hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes may soon have more tools for responding to and bouncing back from disasters.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida have launched a three-year interdisciplinary project that will examine how artificial intelligence and smart technologies can improve collective decision-making among emergency managers, local government agencies, businesses and nonprofits. The goal is to reduce community vulnerability and enhance resilience.

Although smart technologies -- like streetlights that monitor traffic flow or sensors that transmit real-time data about rising water levels -- provide emergency managers with situational awareness, the increasing amount of data is becoming unmanageable without some AI assistance.

One facet of the project will use AI for real-time analysis and reporting on the massive amount of incoming emergency management data -- including social media text and images -- so community leaders can be better prepared and craft informed responses.

The study, funded by a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, area will cover 78 towns and cities in eight counties in east central Florida with the idea that improvements in community resilience could be generalized to other locations.

The research design assessing resilience changes will help decision makers in governments, businesses and nonprofits obtain a deeper understanding of how AI-aided information technologies can advance collective decision making to reduce community vulnerability and enhance resilience, Yue Gurt Ge, an assistant professor in the universitysSchool of Public Administrationand principal investigator of the project, told UCF Today.

The researchers will also develop and launch the Community Resilience Data Depot, a platform that will allow community leaders and emergency personnel to share data more easily and support real-time collective decision-making.

The projects proposed metrics to assess the extent and speed of achieving appropriate post-event functionality will help address a nationwide community capacity building need to quantitatively evaluate resilience increases by public-private partnerships, Ge said.

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Can AI and connected tech foster better disaster decision-making? - GCN.com

Chicago Beaches to Open for 2022 Season Friday, But Swimming Isn’t Allowed Due to Dangerous Conditions – NBC Chicago

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The 2022 Chicago beach season kicks of Memorial Day weekend, with 21 beaches opening Friday. Beaches will remain open through Sept 5.

According to the Chicago Park District, Humboldt Beach isn't due to open until June.

However, due to severe weather Friday creating beach hazards and high waves, swimming will not be permitted until the weekend.

According to the Chicago Office of Emergency Management, "high waves action and dangerous conditions are expected at Lake Michigan beaches through Friday at 10 p.m."

Waves of up to seven feet or higher are expected.

"Swimming conditions will be life threatening, especially for inexperienced swimmers," the alert went on to say.

According to the Chicago Park District's flag notification system, these conditions put beaches on a Red Flag warning. When flags are green, swimming is permitted, weather conditions are fair and water quality is good.

When flags are yellow, swimming is permitted, but caution is advised. Weather conditions are unpredictable or bacteria levels are higher than the water quality criteria set by EPA for notifying the public.

When flags are red, swimming is not allowed due to either dangerous weather conditions or water quality.

In addition, swimming is only permitted at beaches between 11 a.m.- 7 p.m., when lifeguards are present.

More beach guidelines are below, according to the Chicago Park District:

In an update earlier this week, the Chicago Park District said its offering $500 hiring bonuses for lifeguards due to a staffing shortage.

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Chicago Beaches to Open for 2022 Season Friday, But Swimming Isn't Allowed Due to Dangerous Conditions - NBC Chicago

Dr. Beach Announces His Top 10 Best Beaches List For 2022 – TravelAwaits

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Who hasnt lovingly dragged beach toys, gear, chairs, umbrellas, and coolers to the perfect spot on a beautiful beach to feel instantly relaxed after the most exhausting walk? Thats the effect an amazing beach can have.

Dr. Beach, aka Stephen Leatherman, has selected the best of the best beaches for the past 32 years. He uses 50 criteria to evaluate each beach, including the softness and color of the sand, water color, and temperature, number of sunny days, smell, amount of wildlife, number of rip currents, whether there are lifeguards you get the idea.

The beaches selected are loved by locals and several havent been best-kept secrets for quite some time thanks to nods in previous Dr. Beach Best Beaches lists, but each year is special. Without further ado, the top 10 best beaches of 2022

Famous for its once infamous resident, Blackbeard, Lifeguarded Beach has a fan in Dr. Beach for its connection to nature, where the main pursuits are swimming and beachcombing. Accessible only by air and ferry, its a true getaway. Ocracoke Island is part of the 75-mile Cape Hatteras National Seashore and is beloved for its remote, laid-back feel and adorable historic village. Dr. Beach notes the surf can be rough later in the year, so families with children may want to visit early.

When hot days turn into star-filled nights, a bonfire on the beach is the perfect way to end a day, enjoy smores, the crashing surf, and maybe even a few ghost stories.

Located just a few miles north of Clearwater Beach, visitors to Caladesi Island State Park must take the passenger ferry, a private boat, or walk from Clearwater Beach to access the area. Spend the day shelling, hiking, paddling, and swimming. The park is open from 8 a.m. until sundown every day of the year, but if you snag a reservation at the marina, you can try boat camping. You will need your own boat.

While you could spend all day lounging on the beautiful, soft, white sand, Dr. Beachs favorite activity on Caladesi Island is the kayak and canoe trails through the mangroves to see the large blue herons and other birds that frequent the area. Rentals are available in the park.

Best known for the tony residents who call the area home, Coopers Beach is a wide, beautiful beach facing the Atlantic and backed by large grass-covered dunes on the southside of Long Island. Enjoy a live look at the beach here. Parking is pricey with a daily parking permit costing $50. Chairs and umbrellas are available to rent for the day. If youre spending a bit of time in the area, check out our town-by-town guide to The Hamptons and get ready to explore.

Relaxing at the beach works up an appetite. Fuel up with breakfast or grab a late lunch at Sipn Soda, a Southampton staple for more than 60 years.

Located in the lesser-populated area of the Florida Panhandle, St. George Island State Park can still be considered a hidden gem. Dr. Beach loves the sugary fine, white sand beach and the crystal-clear water perfect for a dip, and our writers agree its worthy of high praise.

The area is also popular with fishermen, birders, kayakers, hikers, campers, boaters, and pretty much anyone who makes the outdoors their playground. The park was hit by Hurricane Michael in 2018 and park staff and community volunteers have worked hard to bring it back to its glory.

Go for the sunsets, stay for the stargazing. St. George Island State Park offers amazing opportunities for both. While the park closes at sundown, there are several ways to gain after-hours access.

With views of Diamond Head and its location on the west end of the famed Waikiki Beach area, its no wonder Duke Kahanamoku Beach makes this list. Dr. Beach likes this area of Waikiki Beach because its less crowded, its protected by a coral reef, and the beautiful lagoon is nearby, making it a great pick for families. While the lagoon is on the Hilton Hawaiian Village property, it is open to the public.

Follow in the footsteps of the beachs namesake, an Olympic gold medalist and the father of modern surfing, and take a surf lesson or experience outrigger canoe wave-riding with one of the several businesses that offer these experiences in the area.

The former location of the iconic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, this beach is the number one spot on the U.S. Atlantic coast for surfing. Dr. Beach loves to walk south to Cape Point, the easternmost piece of land on the 75-mile Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where a long sand spit often existsand the waves are coming from both directions as you walk along this narrow string of sand in the ocean.

Other great activities in the area include kiteboarding, windsurfing, fishing, and hiking. While its only about 30 miles north of the number one spot on the list (see Lifeguarded Beach

Ocracoke, North Carolina, above), you will need to take a ferry if you want to travel between the two.

While Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is no longer located on Lighthouse Beach, be sure to visit its new location, which is just a short drive or walk away. The lighthouse is being restored, so you may not be able to climb the 248 stairs to the top, but the views are amazing if its open and youre able to make the climb.

With the most notable backdrop on the list, Coronado beach is a Southern California gem. Dr. Beach loves its subtropical vegetation, unique Mediterranean climate, and fine sparkling sand. Visitors also describe it as clean, spacious, and not very crowded. Bicyclists love the areas bike paths. Plan to bring your own bike, or rent one, to discover the rest of Coronado Island once youre tired of relaxing on the beach.

Enjoy delicious fish tacos at Hotel del Coronados Beach & Taco Shack. Another option, spend the weekend at Hotel Del Coronado to get the full Coronado Island experience.

At the risk of playing favorites, this may be the most beautiful beach on the list. TravelAwaits Cindy Barks describes Wailea Beach as a full sensory experience. Beautiful views, the smell of flowering hibiscus trees, delicious poke bowls and cocktails, wind rustling through the trees, all with ukelele music playing nearby. Dr. Beach notes that Wailea Beach is made up of five pocket beachespart of the Wailea Resort Complexand is great for snorkeling when the ocean is calm. If youre not staying at one of the resorts, public access is available.

Experience an authentic luau and learn to hula at the Grand Wailea Maui.

On an island where many beaches are private, Beachwalker Park welcomes everyone and makes for the perfect day trip from Charleston, which is less than an hour away. Dr. Beach says Beachwalker Park is perfect for nature-lovers, so bring your canoes and kayaks to paddle through the tidal inlets.

The beach is also great for riding bikes or a nice long stroll. Kiawah Island is a yearly destination for some families with plenty to do when you need a break from the beach.

Walk a mile from Beachwalker Park to Captain Sams Inlet. Dolphins love this area, and if youre lucky, you may see them strand feed. The inlet is also popular with birders.

This beautiful beach on Cape Cod may not be the best for swimming, unless youre a hearty New Englander who likes the chilly waters, but its an excellent spot to relax, enjoy the amazing views, and see plentiful wildlife. In the spring and summer, youll spot plovers, terns, and gray seals. Harbor seals visit in the winter. The occasional great white shark lurks in the area as well. Watch for the flag warnings to alert you if one is around.

If you visit June through Labor Day, youll need to take a shuttle or ride your bike to the beach since parking is only available to Eastham residents and vehicles with handicap placards.

Dont leave the Cape without enjoying fried clams, a lobster roll, a stuffie, or all three. Or, spend the week and beach hop through the Cape with recommendations from TravelAwaits writer and Massachusetts local Sandi Barrett.

For more beach inspiration, check out Dr. Beachs Best Beaches lists from 2019, 2020, and 2021.

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Dr. Beach Announces His Top 10 Best Beaches List For 2022 - TravelAwaits

Your Beach Guide: Beaches You Can Get to in and Near Connecticut – NBC Connecticut

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Connecticut residents can boast about our beaches and Travel + Leisure has ranked one beach in the top 25 in the United States.

The travel magazine included Ocean Beach Park in New London in its list.

See the full Travel + Leisure list here.

Of course, Ocean Beach is just one of many beaches in the state. There are several great beaches and swimming areas here and in nearby states that you can get to within a couple of hours.

There are several Connecticut beaches to choose from.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection oversees four shoreline beaches:

DEEP oversees these lakes and ponds:

Massachusetts has many beaches and Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket offer many options that are a drive or a ferry ride away.

Rhode Island beaches are also popular summer destination.

Long Island, New York offers many beaches.

Connecticut has 110 state parks and 32 state forests and you can learn about them here.

The governors office said Connecticut also manages 117 boat launches across the state, on ponds, lakes, rivers and Long Island Sound.

The Passport to the Parks program allows visitors in Connecticut-registered vehicles to enter without paying any parking fee.

DEEP and the Connecticut Department of Transportation are expanding the ParkConneCT program, providing public transit options to Hammonasset Beach, Silver Sands, Fort Trumbull, Osbornedale, Indian Well, Sleeping Giant and Sherwood Island State Parks. They said this is a free service from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.

The state is still looking to fill seasonal jobs, including lifeguards.

The governors office said lifeguard positions are still available at Black Rock State Park in Watertown, Burr Pond State Park in Torrington, Indian Well State Park in Shelton, Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Silver Sands State Park in Milford, and Squantz Pond State Park in New Fairfield.

Apply by June 17 online here.

Other seasonal jobs are available as well here.

State park and forest campgrounds are booked for Memorial Day weekend, but you can get reservations for the rest of the summer online through Reserve America or by calling 1-877-668-CAMP (2267).

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Your Beach Guide: Beaches You Can Get to in and Near Connecticut - NBC Connecticut

7 secret beaches that are worth the trip to get there – MarketWatch

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So you want to relax at the beach this summer without being crammed in next to hundreds of other beachgoers? Its a reasonable request and one that (with some insider info and a little legwork) is actually attainable.

The one downside with most of the best beaches is that they often attract the largest crowds. But there are still some pristine places that arent completely clogged with people. Keep in mind that since a secluded beach usually means that its slightly more challenging to access, you should expect a bit of a schlep to some of these beauties. But, we promise it will be worth it.

Tucked away in the tiny village ofOcean Park, this seven-mile stretch of beach on tranquil Saco Bay is a true find. Historically a summer community of the Free Will Baptists, the area continues to be a dry district to this day, though nearbyOld Orchard Beachdoes serve alcohol. Parking is quite limited within the town as the streets were not designed for cars and are extremely narrow. Dont miss a visit toOcean Park Subs and Grocery, which is well known for its delicious blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls.

You might like: If youre thinking of moving to the country, be aware of these hidden costs

In order to protectDry Tortugas National Park, the National Parks Service caps the visitor count to this small archipelago of coral islands inKey West, Fla., at 60,000 people a year. Hop on a ferry or seaplane and be one of the lucky ones (you need to book tickets way in advance) to access a stunning tropical hideaway complete with colorful birds, coral reefs, tales of pirates and sunken gold, and natural beauty at every turn. The parks central feature,Fort Jefferson, is one of the largest coastal forts ever constructed. Take a high-speed catamaran for a day or overnight camping trip or book a seaplane charter for the day.

Also on MarketWatch: The best and most affordable places to live in Florida

Located in the historic village of Glen Haven, this quiet strip of theSleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshoreis nestled in between low-lying sand dunes and the calm, clear waters of Lake Michigan. Though no longer populated, the port village still houses a fully restored 1920s working blacksmith where visitors can pop in to see live demonstrations on their way to the lake. Thegeneral storeis also open in the summer to grab some snacks and cold drinks.

The name says it all. Hidden away in a tiny cove onOregonsbreathtaking coastline, this glorious beach will not disappoint. Getting toSecret Beachrequires some planning youll need to time your visit with the tides, and theres a 3/4 of a mile hike from the parking area down to the beach. But, after all your effort, you may very well be rewarded with some time alone (at least for a little while) in this idyllic locale.

See: 14 of the best and most affordable places to live on the West Coast

New York Citymight not immediately spring to mind when you think of the most secluded beaches in the country places like Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden fill up in a flash on a hot summer day. Though this small stretch of sandy oceanfront on Staten Island may not directly compare to some of the more exotic locales on the list, the tranquil spot is beautiful in its own right.Wolfe Ponds Parkis kept super clean and features picnicking areas, communal barbecues, and an excellent dog park.

Just north of the lovely but very crowdedKey Biscayne beachlie the white sands and turquoise waters of the less-frequented shores ofVirginia Key Beach Park. Boasting the largest mangrove forest inFlorida, this 863-acre barrier island is awash in natural beauty. The park also offers convenient amenities like a renovated bathhouse, kayak rentals, and concession stands. The history of the beach tells the story of an important milestone in the fight for racial equality inMiami. In 1945, when beaches remained segregated, commissioner Charles Crandon designated Virginia Key as the first beach in the county to allow black visitors.

Dont miss: Summer travel isnt just heating up, it will be on fire: More travelers are hitting the road this Memorial Day Weekend, but will pay more for airfares and gas prices

Located only 15 miles (but what feels like a world away) from the hustle and bustle ofVirginia Beach, this gorgeous gem boasts 5 miles of the most pristine sand dunes and calm Atlantic waters youll find. Most of the beachgoers here book a house along theSandbridge Beachstrip, keeping the numbers down and making it feel much more like a private beach. If youre not renting a place close enough to walk to the beach, arrive early to get a spot in the parking lot as it fills up quickly. Better yet, have a car-sharing service drop you at the beach.

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7 secret beaches that are worth the trip to get there - MarketWatch

Remember this lifeguard-approved rule for safely digging holes at the beach – Boston.com

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TravelRace Point Beach in Provincetown, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Flickr / Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism

Following the death of a Maine man in a sand collapse on a New Jersey beach earlier this month, local officials are focused on preventing similar incidents on Massachusetts beaches this summer.

Were going to talk about that incident when we have our training, said Gordon Miller, North District Lifeguard Supervisor for the Cape Cod National Seashore. That is one of the big things we talk about, anyway.

Levi Caverly, 18, was digging a hole in the sand with his 17-year-old sister when the sand collapsed, according to The Boston Globe. Caverly died in the collapse, and his sister was saved.

Miller, who has been on the job for 37 years, said sand collapses have happened on the Cape Cod National Seashore.

Weve had several of those events, said Miller. No deaths. But cave-ins.

Lifeguards enforce the following rule, Miller said: Beach-goers can only dig as knee deep as the shortest person in their group.

We see someone digging and what we do is we go over and speak to that group, Miller said. If they have, say, a 2-year-old, thats going to be about maybe a foot deep. They can make it as wide as they want, but the depth will only be knee deep as the shortest person in their group.

Bradley A. Maron, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a cardiologist at Brigham and Womens Hospital, completed a study about collapsing sand holes, outlined in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. He examined 52 incidents of collapsing sand holes nine of them in New England and found that 60 percent resulted in death. The collapses were triggered by digging, tunneling, jumping, or falling into the holes and the victims ranged in age from 3 to 21 years old.

Marons interest in the topic was sparked from his time spent lifeguarding on Marthas Vineyard during college when a little girl was rescued from a hole in the sand.

These are not isolated events, said Maron, a father of two. They occur with regular and predictable pattern every summer in the United States. We know that preventing them requires awareness and not digging.

In his study, the most common setting for the accidents was a public beach in a coastal area, and the holes were generally between 2 and 12 feet deep and dug by the victim, friends, or relatives.

Not all of these holes are giant, so its possible to get yourself into a dangerous situation even when the hole itself doesnt appear to be one that strikes a specific risk, Maron said.

Parents often feel a false sense of security when their kids are playing in the sand rather than in the water because they think of the sand as a risk-free zone, Maron said, which isnt true.

The study described what can happen when a child is caught in a sand collapse: Typically, victims became completely submerged in the sand when the walls of the hole unexpectedly collapsed, leaving virtually no evidence of the hole or the location of the victim.

When sand collapses on someone, its not as easy as one may think to pull them out, Miller said.

If you dig a four-foot hole and a four-foot person falls in it head-first, that person is in real, real trouble, Miller said. Its a life-threatening situation. You think you can just walk over and pull them up, but you cant. The sand grabs you. Theres like a suction there. Its holding them in.

Lifeguards are even more on guard for sand collapse incidents on overcast days, Miller said. When the weather is overcast, kids tend to play in the sand more than in the water.

Caverly and his sister were digging during the off-season when there were no lifeguards on duty at the New Jersey beach, according to The Boston Globe. In Marons study, those who survived the sand collapses benefited from timely rescues.

Its a good idea for families to frequent beaches where lifeguards are on duty, Miller said, and they should feel free to ask lifeguards any questions they may have about beach and water safety.

Its also a good idea to fill in any abandoned holes you find on the beach to prevent potential problems for your group and others, Maron said.

These are totally preventable events and theres plenty of opportunity to have fun on the beach and in the water, under safe conditions, that dont require digging holes, Maron said. Although the risk is probably low, its not worth taking.

Daily lifeguard service begins June 16 at the six Cape Cod National Seashore beaches: Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham; Marconi Beach in Wellfleet; Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro; and Race Point Beach and Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown.

Stay up to date on all the latest news from Boston.com

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Remember this lifeguard-approved rule for safely digging holes at the beach - Boston.com

Dangers lurking on the beaches – DAWN.com

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Its that time of the year when almost all of us make plans for outings because of two months of summer vacation, bringing lots of free time and opportunities to relax and have lots of fun. Besides, there is no boring or hard routine of studying and doing assignments, all you have is play and enjoy the days the way you want.

The days are full of energy for adventures and activities. One of the most frequented places in summer is the beach, for there is nothing better than water to beat the heat! Playing and enjoying in the water is the most enjoyable thing one could think of, and not all of us can resist the temptation and the pull towards the crashing waves on the beach isnt it?

Those living in Karachi and along coastal areas are blessed to have several beaches. Karachi has a long coastline, stretching from Cape Monze in the west to Port Qasim in the east. It is about 70 kilometres in length and has a number of beaches, including Paradise Point, Hawkes Bay, Sandspit, French Beach, Sunehra Beach, Mubarak village, Clifton beach and many more that I probably dont know the name of.

Among several other factors, what makes Karachis beaches so dangerous is their undeveloped topography (the features of land). Though the coastal belt is the same, the beaches have different textures and types of sand, water, tide and currents. But all the beaches are beautiful and welcoming.

The allure of the splashing waves and roaring sea is so mesmerising that people often forget about the scorching heat and directly jump in the waters without considering the tide, the currents and the heat.

The seemingly harmless fun activities at the beach often lead to tragedies every year when thousands of people flock to the seaside, completely forgetting about safety and any warnings issued by the government, resulting in drowning and heatstroke due to over exposure to the sun.

While beaches will always be a popular vacation destination, you need to be aware of the risks and dangers that come with visiting the seaside and how you can protect yourself. For instance, heatstroke, sunburn, deadly superbugs, jelly fish, rip currents, water quality, water debris, harmful algae blooms, etc, are some of the dangers that need to be looked out for.

Lets dig deep into the hidden dangers that can be found on a beach, so that the next time you go to the seaside, you can stay safe and enjoy your visit to the fullest.

Bubbly holes

While walking on a beach, you may see waves flow onto dry sand. You may also notice hundreds of small round holes that form as the wave recedes. Along with the holes, small mounds of sand several centimetres across are left as the wave sides back to the sea.

Sometimes, the water just bubbles up from the tiny holes and then everything becomes still. So whats inside?

Well, most often, these tiny holes or the bubbles are made when the wave recedes, some of the water sinks down in the sand and forces the air between sand particles back upwards and the air bubbles out of the sand to create the effect of tiny holes or bubbling holes.

But not all holes give out the same explanation, every beach is different from another, and that many critters that are habitants of these sandy beaches follow the tide as it rises and falls. For instance, sand crabs, sand fleas and sand flies, roly polies (isopods) and beach hoppers, (amphipods), beetles, blood worms and also clams all move up and down the beach according to the water level. So there are also chances of finding any of these inside.

Among those which can bite are sand fleas, they are one of the most common biting sand dwellers. If you develop welt-like bites that are similar to mosquito bites, they are most likely from a sand flea.

Heatstroke and sunburns

A heatstroke occurs when extreme temperatures cause the bodys core temperature to exceed 40 degrees Celsius. When the body is unable to properly cool itself to compensate for the increased heat by sweating, heatstroke may occur.

Common symptoms include nausea, incoherence, fatigue, weakness, vomiting and muscle cramps. So it is suggested that you take breaks while cooling off in the water.

The other problem, that is sunburn, occurs when ultraviolet light from the sun zaps through your skin and kills living cells that normally work to help make new skin. Exposure to the suns UV rays can cause genetic mutations in your cells and lead to cancer. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation (SCF), over 90 percent of all skin cancers are caused by exposure to the sun.

Sunburns sting lasts for much longer after the redness has faded. In order to stay safe from sunburn, you must apply sunscreen lotion, and use shades while chilling on the beach. Besides, keeping your body hydrated is a must.

Deadly superbugs

Superbugs, or strains of bacteria that are resistant to traditional antibiotics, do lurk on beaches and that too in abundance. These bacteria can cause serious skin infection. Once inside human body, they pose serious, life-threatening infections in the bones, lungs and several other organs.

But staying out of the water is not the solution, the only solution is to take shower before and after the visit to the beach so that all the germs and bugs (if any) on you, wash away.

Jellyfish

This may seem harmless to many of you, like a fluffy shopper lying on the beach. But dont get fooled, the fluffy shopper could actually be a jelly fish.

While they may appear to be harmless, squishy blobs, jellyfish can be a real pain, and even quite deadly. The most common jellyfish, called scyphozoans, are not very toxic and a sting from one usually results in a painful, itchy and raised red rash that lasts for a few days.

Keep an eye out for jellyfish. All jellyfish sting, but not all have venom that hurts humans. Of the 2,000 species of jellyfish, only about 70 seriously harm or may occasionally kill people. Be careful around jellies washed up on the sand as some still sting if their tentacles are wet. Unbelievably, tentacles torn off a jellyfish can sting too!

If you are stung, dont rinse with water, which could release more poison. Lifeguards usually give first aid for stings. See a doctor if you have an allergic reaction.

E. coli

Harmful strains of E. coli have always been found on the beaches all over the world. E. coli is one of the main species of bacteria that live in the lower intestines of mammals, including humans. The presence of E. coli is an indicator of faecal contamination.

Symptoms of E. coli poisoning include vomiting, bloody diarrhoea, severe abdominal pain and a mild fever, according to the CDC.

To stay safe, the doctors advised against swallowing water while swimming. Washing your hands frequently, especially after using the bathroom and before eating, will lower your chances of an infection.

Rip currents

Also known as riptides or undertow, rip currents can happen at any beach that has breaking waves, which are usually narrow, fast-moving streams of water that travel away from shore. They happen when waves break strongly in some locations and weakly in others, and can be affected by the presence of sandbars or man-made structures, such as piers near the beach.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), rip currents are responsible for more than 80 percent of lifeguard rescues. A rip current wont pull you under, but it will drag you deeper and deeper into the ocean.

To break free, start swimming back to shore without the power of the rip current pulling at you, swim parallel to the coast to escape the current. Then you will need to swim at an angle straight to shore once you are free.

Harmful algae blooms

You must have noticed the dark green or brown plant-like stuff scattered around the beach, and also coming in the waves, these are called algae blooms. Algae arent always harmful, but when large colonies of algae form and bloom at the same time, they release toxins into the water and air since they tend to float when they are in bloom. Their toxins can cause diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, difficulty breathing, eye and throat irritation.

Water quality

One of the most important and vital point here is the quality of the water on these beaches. Coastal beaches are among the most treasured natural resources in any nation, but beach closures or advisories caused by poor water quality often prevent the public from enjoying these resources.

So how does the mighty sea get damaged? As water flows from land to coastal waters, it is often contaminated by untreated sewage from boats, pets, failing septic systems, fertilisers and spills from hazardous substances. Sea water contaminated by sewage, storm-water pollution, and other hazardous substances can make beachgoers very sick as the water in the sea can get into the swimmers eyes, ears and mouth, causing health problems. Additionally, bacteria and other nasty things can breed in polluted water and cause even more problems for beachgoers.

Always avoid water that looks murky, smells bad and has a film on it. Also avoid water and beach areas near piers, pipers and other outlets that might have contaminated water.

Water debris

Unfortunately, the seaside is not exempted from the contamination by humans. Think of your last visit to the beach, any beach of Karachi, what did you find there?

Our oceans are filled with items that do not belong there. Huge amounts of consumer plastics, metals, rubber, paper, textiles, derelict fishing gear, vessels and other lost or discarded items enter the marine environment every day, making marine debris one of the most widespread pollution problems facing the worlds oceans and waterways.

This debris, or litter, often ends up on our beaches, damaging habitats, harming wildlife, and making it unsafe for beachgoers to walk along the shoreline and swim in the water. So whichever beach you visit, always be careful where you put your feet!

Sharks

Though shark attacks make big splashes in the news, these toothy fish are not your biggest threat on the beach on the Karachi coastal belt.

Shark attacks, though rare, are most likely to occur near the shore, typically inshore of a sandbar or between sandbars, where sharks can become trapped by low tide, and near steep drop-offs where sharks prey together. Just dont swim too far from the shore, stay in groups, avoid being in the water during darkness or twilight, and dont go in the water if you are bleeding from a wound.

Hope you will keep these points in mind the next time you are on the beach in order to fully enjoy your visit.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 28th, 2022

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