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Letter to the Editor: Vote for Chatham County Republican candidates – The Chatham News + Record

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Danzig

To the Editor:

Robert Thomas is running for the U.S. House of Representatives, District 4. A strong supporter of the Second Amendment, he is for building the wall in opposing illegal immigration into the United States.

Incumbent Ted Budd is running for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives, District 13. A strong proponent of the Second Amendment, Budd owns a gun range in Rural Hall.

Tom Glendinning is running for the N.C. State Senate, District 23. Attentive to safety and security, he is a strong advocate for property rights. Glendinning opposes discrimination against seniors.

George Gilson Jr. is running for the N.C. State House, District 54. A strong supporter of the Second Amendment, he believes in small government and personal accountability. Gilson opposes excessive tax and runaway spending. Opposed to open borders, he favors a voter ID law.

Jay Stobbs is running for the Chatham County Board of Commissioners, District 1. Opposed to raising property and sales taxes in Chatham County, and against removal of the Chatham County Confederate statue, Stobbs is committed to safeguarding farmlands in the western part of Chatham County from land-use zoning.

Jimmy Pharr is a candidate for the Chatham County Board of Commissioners, District 2. Pharr is against raising property and sales taxes, removal of the Confederate statue and zoning of farmlands in the western part of Chatham County.

Andy Wilkie is an incumbent candidate for the Chatham County Board of Commissioners, District 5. He created the Project Help non-profit for serving the homeless people in Sanford. Commissioner Wilkie is on the side of holding down taxes, respecting status quo of the Confederate statue and protecting farmlands in the western part of Chatham County.

Ryan Armstrong is running for the Chatham County Board of Education, District 1. In favor of competent preparedness and effective communications, Armstrong wants to be a voice for teachers, students and parents. In advocating a two-tier revolving teaching schedule, he supports live-streaming classes.

Dennis Lewis is running for the Chatham County Board of Education, District 2. Promising to be a voice for parents on the board, he favors hybrid teaching that includes options for in-class and online teaching. Lewis advocates attention to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) and trade skills. Along with ensuring bandwidth access in rural areas, he would introduce JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) in schools.

Rolin Mainuddin

Chapel Hill

Election Officials Are Planning for Conflict They Hope Wont Materialize – The Trace

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Danzig

Election officials and voting rights groups across the country are preparing to respond to unrest at the polls even though its unclear how real the threat of Election Day violence or armed intimidation may be.

Authorities emphasize that they are not responding to any specific threats of violence at polling places and that theyre concerned about the potential for scaring off voters. But there is more than enough reason to be on alert. In recent months, armed militia groups and vigilantes have shown up at Black Lives Matter marches and numerous armed protesters have descended on state capitols to oppose COVID-19 restrictions. The general public is anxious about the divisive political climate and gun sales have been surging. President Donald Trumps unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud also havent helped.

We consulted experts and took stock of the legal and practical landscape in several swing states.

Theres a widespread sense that the risk of Election Day violence is much greater this year, although researchers say theres little hard evidence to back up the collective anxiety. Online, there are few indications that extremist groups have plans to show up at polling stations or insert themselves into the democratic process. I am not seeing very much discussion about election poll watching at all, said Megan Squire, a researcher at Elon University who tracks extremists online. Maybe they dont want to talk about it this far out, or maybe theyll make the decision at the last minute. But I am not seeing a lot of it.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, the battleground states chief elections officer, told The Trace that he, too, is struggling to assess the general threat level. How much of this is bravado? he asked. How much of it is posturing and posing versus an actual threat, violent or otherwise, armed or otherwise?

You know, you dont want to not talk about it and sweep it under the rug, and pretend its nothing, Simon said of the risk of intimidation at the polls. But you dont want to talk about it so much and so breathlessly that people say, Oh, my God, this place is a deathtrap. Im not going to go vote. Thats the balance.

While its impossible to quantify the chances of conflict, Squire said radical groups have been emboldened by the presidents rhetoric, which she worries may lead to unplanned altercations between impromptu demonstrations or conflicts stoked by extremists who may feel they have permission to act as vigilantes.

Simon expressed concern about demonstrations escalating outside of polling places, though they may not have been organized to intimidate voters. What if the Trump campaign mobilizes and the Biden campaign counter mobilizes, sending people to polling places and even though it wont be inside, what if we have 20 people or more from each campaign and a recipe for real conflict? he asked.

The announcement on October 8 that federal officials and state law enforcement in Michigan had arrested 13 men with a terrorist plot to take hostage Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has brought heightened attention to the issue of unlawful militia groups.

Mary McCord, a former assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice who now heads Georgetown Law Schools Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, said increased militia activity this year at anti-racism protests and at state capitols over COVID-19 restrictions are cause for concern.

Weve seen their increasing public presence this year, McCord said. We do have some concern that some of these armed extremist groups will take it upon themselves to deploy.

McCords institute has been tracking extremist groups and its intelligence suggests that they are trying to send small contingents of armed members to the polls, she said.

McCord also pointed out that the leader of the Oathkeepers, a far-right militia group with adherents nationwide, recently said publicly that his group is gearing up to do the same. But that particular group is known for exaggeration and made the same promise in 2016. Neo-Nazi and QAnon extremist groups have made similar claims, which some say should also be treated skeptically because, as in 2016, their threats may not translate into action. Other paramilitary groups, like the Three Percenters, are using the election as a recruitment tool, because who knows whats going to happen after that, one Three Percenter militia leader said.

Militias aside, guns at polling places remain a concern, and the line between legally carrying a weapon and using one to intimidate voters is quite thin. In 2016, when Guns Down America opened up a hotline for voters to call if they spotted guns at polling places and felt intimidated, 85 voters in 28 states reported firearms on Election Day. Many of these instances could have been people legally bringing their guns to polling places just as they would to the grocery store or church.

Guns Down America and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and separately the human rights group Amnesty International have issued calls for states to clarify their laws and explicitly ban guns at polling places, saying that the presence of firearms could escalate an already volatile political climate.

Only six states have laws that generally prohibit guns in polling places, and at least five battleground states Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have no such laws in place. On October 16, however, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson issued a directive banning the open carry of firearms in a polling place or the 100-foot buffer zone outside one. Prohibiting the open-carry of firearms in areas where citizens cast their ballots is necessary to ensure every voter is protected, she said.

Firearms may not be allowed inside buildings that are often used as polling locations and where guns are already banned, like some houses of worship or a government building. But in states with permissive laws, carrying a gun into the polls is legal unless it is brandished or otherwise used to intimidate voters.

We have a concealed carry law, Simon, the Minnesota secretary of state, said. Weve had occasional not frequent, but occasional calls from voters who are pretty freaked out about that. Simon added that he has no authority to change the states laws on his own.

The presidents rhetoric has given election officials, particularly in battleground states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, extra reason to worry. They fret that dozens of unofficial poll watchers might show up to monitor the election. That concern is particularly pronounced in states with lax gun laws and amid an ongoing pandemic during which crowded polling locations could potentially intimidate voters.

The pandemic made the gathering of signatures risky, thwarting reform efforts in Ohio, Oregon, and Oklahoma.

byJennifer Mascia

Plus, the 2020 presidential election will be the first in three decades in which the Republican National Committee (RNC) is free of a court consent decree that limited its ability to organize poll watchers because of concerns of voter intimidation. The decree dated back to 1982 when the Democratic National Committee sued the RNC, alleging that the party tried to discourage Black people from voting by posting armed, off-duty law enforcement officers at the polls in non-white neighborhoods. But a federal judge appointed by President Barack Obama allowed that consent decree to expire at the end of 2017.

Election officials want to make it clear that they are taking every precaution to ensure a safe voting experience. Simon said that, in his state, as in many others, poll watchers must be designated in writing by a political party, and have a limited range of motion and narrow authority within polling places.

No one can just show up and say, Hey, here I am, Im the Democrat or the Republican and you gotta let me in, Simon said.

In most states, poll watchers sometimes called challengers or election observers, depending on the range of authorized activity are only allowed to observe the process, watch for abnormalities, and track turnout. They are not allowed to disrupt the voting or counting process.

In nearly every state where watchers or challengers are allowed, there is a limit of one per precinct per major party, with some states requiring the observer to be a registered voter in that precinct. In some states, like Minnesota, challengers are allowed to contest a voters eligibility, but only under strict conditions.

Experts told The Trace that unjustified claims attempting to cast doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in voting, which have been propagated by the president, may encourage extremists to act but that there is not any legal basis for them to do so. There is no authority under federal or state law for armed groups of individuals to self deploy and undertake legitimate law enforcement or legitimate militia activities, McCord said. Theres a lot of gray area in what the Second Amendment protects and doesnt protect. But this is an area thats crystal clear.

Statutes prohibiting private militias have been upheld by the Supreme Court since the Reconstruction Era, and in 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the court ruled that the Second Amendment does not prevent states from banning paramilitary organizations.

Across the country, election officials are taking precautions to make polling places as safe as possible and free of intimidation tactics. The FBI, in conjunction with local authorities, has been conducting drills to improve responses to reports of violence or intimidation.

In North Carolina, where early voting began Oct. 15, the states chief election officer issued a lengthy memo warning that voter intimidation is a violation of both state and federal law, that buffer zones outside polls will be enforced, and that poll watchers must be formally appointed. The State Board is committed to ensuring all voters have a safe voting experience, free from intimidation and harassment, said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Regardless of political affiliation, every voter deserves to cast their ballot in peace.

In North Carolina and Minnesota, local poll workers are being given specific guidance about what to do if things get out of control. In most states, police are prohibited from being stationed at polls because they can be intimidating. But poll workers are being trained in de-escalation and are told to call local law enforcement in the event of a conflict.

In Pennsylvania, which is a key battleground state that could determine the outcome of the election, Philadelphia officials assembled an Election Day task force to be prepared to investigate and prosecute any voter intimidation.

Anyone who comes to the cradle of American democracy to try to suppress the vote and violate the law and commits crimes is going to find themselves in a jail cell talking to a Philadelphia jury to try to explain why they thought that was OK, said Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner at a press conference on October 7. It is not OK.

To Kevin Johnson, concerns about voter intimidation and voter suppression are part of the American story particularly for Black Americans who faced violence to gain the right to vote. For decades, they have endured suppression tactics, ranging from laws that disproportionately impact Black voters to violence.

This is nothing new, he said, but its sad that we still have to deal with it. This is the current conversation, but its not a new phenomenon when we look back historically over this countrys history.

Johnson, a pastor and community activist who serves as a chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign in Detroit, has worked for the past 30 years on gun violence prevention in the city. Nationally, the Poor Peoples Campaign is calling on people of faith to lead the way to polls and to encourage their members and congregations to vote as part of the M.O.R.E. initiative, which stands for mobilize, organize, register, and educate.

Also in Detroit, Ponsella Hardaway, the executive director of the community organization MOSES, said its organizers are working to prevent conflict by encouraging early voting and organizing groups to vote at the county clerks office together. They believe lowering the stakes of Election Day itself may reduce the risk, but theyre still holding training sessions in preparation.

Our staff has been a part of training for how to de-escalate conflicts, Hardaway said. People are really gearing up to make sure that people are safe and making sure that people understand some of the strategies to be observant at the polls and watch for things that may not be right.

Hardaway, though, also noted that there is a fine line between acknowledging the threat and overestimating it. We know that intimidation has always been a tactic, she said. We want to make sure that there are more people in support of more peace than agitation.

Trump is pushing democracy to the limit and beyond. Don’t go to prison for him. – USA TODAY

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Danzig

Chris Truax, Opinion columnist Published 7:00 a.m. ET Oct. 17, 2020 | Updated 2:31 p.m. ET Oct. 17, 2020

Thinking of sitting out the election? Here's why your vote counts. Register, verify your status or request an absentee ballot at vote.usatoday.com. USA TODAY

If you subvert our democracy, your acts will neither be forgotten nor forgiven. Sooner or later, justice will find you, even if Trump wins reelection.

The last four years have made it clear that our institutions are suffering from too many years of deferred maintenance. Thats why Ive been participating in the Guardrails of Democracy Project, an informal think tank made up of conservative, often Republican, lawyers who have grown increasingly concerned about the health of our democracy. Guardrails of Democracy is about identifying reforms designed to reinvigorate and secure our existing system of checks and balances.

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, were soldiering through this election season with the checks and balances weve got. And it'sgoing to be bad. The FBI has already broken up a serious plot to kidnap one and maybe twositting governors, and authorities are bracing for the worst. In a recent poll, 55%of Americans said they anticipate violence in the elections aftermath.

So we will launch this project by reviewing some of the guardrails that have been created with just such a situation in mind. While this is a discussion of federal law, lots of state laws would apply, too.

First, the big one, seditious conspiracy. If you conspire to use force to hinder the application of any federal law or to seize federal property, you will spend up to 20 years in prison. Note that you dont have to actually succeed. The essence of conspiracy is communication and agreement so you have committed seditious conspiracy even if you are simply planning this kind of activity, even if it is just over the internet. Oath Keepers, Proud Boysand other assorted militia organizations, take note.

There are several laws that criminalize interfering with an election or a vote count. For example, its a felony to attempt to intimidate voters or to attempt to interfere with voting. That means that while poll-watching is legal in most cases, poll watchers walk a fine line and had better be on their best behavior. It is most definitely not the moment to exercise your Second Amendment rights unless you fancy spending up to 10 years in federal prison.

Federal law views having armed people of any sort at the polls very seriously, much less potential vigilantes. Its a felony for even a government official to send armed men to the polls. And theres no exception for the attorney general or the president, on the contrary. That statute also runs right down the chain of command, so if armed federal agents were to show up at a polling place, everyone who had a hand in deploying them would be facing up to five years in prison. I was just following orders. wont be a defense.

William Null (R), one of the men arrested for plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, in Lansing on April 30, 2020.(Photo: JEFF KOWALSKY, AFP via Getty Images)

Heres one you probably hadnt considered: a statute thatmakes it felony to make a false statement about a material fact to the federal government or to falsify, concealor cover up a material fact from the federal government. Normally, this statute is used when people outside the government are filing reports and answering questions. But there is nothing in the statute that would prevent employees and officers of the federal government from being prosecuted for making false statements or trying to hide the truth in an effort to influence government action.

So to anyone who might be pressured to come up with some handy facts about mail-in ballots and election fraud: Beware. There is no evidence that mail-in ballots are particularly likely to be fraudulent and any statements you might make to the contrary or any other effort you might make to hide or distort the truth could earn you up to five years in prison.

Texas GOP death wish: One dropbox in a county of 4.7 million people

Theseconcerns are very real. President Donald Trump could not be making it clearer that he is going to push our democracy to the limit and, perhaps, beyond. He's spent months attempting to undermine our faith in the election, refused repeated opportunities to say that he would abide by the result, and, with his order to stand back and stand by, appointed the Proud Boys as the paramilitary wing of Trump's version of Nixon's 1971Committee to Re-Elect the President.

But the situation we find ourselves in is not entirely unprecedented. The original Committee to Re-Elect the President was an arm of the Nixon campaign set up to engage in various illegal activities to make sure Nixon won the 1972 presidential election. Most of the members of the committee went to prison when their activities became public. Should the election and its aftermath be a train wreck, history is going to repeat itself.

First in their sights: A kidnap and murder plot targeted Gretchen Whitmer. It's no coincidence she's a woman.

If you are tempted to put your thumb on the election scale, do not try and fool yourself that this will never come out. Should Joe Biden become president, I have no doubt that one of the first orders of business will be a full and public investigation of what happened during the election. And even if Donald Trump should retain the presidency, the federal statute of limitations is at least five years for most crimes. The mills of the criminal justice system may grind slowly, but they grind incredibly fine. If you take action to subvert our democracy, your acts will neither be forgotten nor forgiven. Sooner or later, justice will find you.

In the end, it isnt just Americas guardrails that are being tested. Americans are being tested. We live in a particular time. On Nov. 3, we have a choice to make, not just between candidates, but between democratic values on one hand, and fear and anger on the other. Choose wisely. We are all going to live with those choices for a very long time.

Republican Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San Diego and CEO of CertifiedVoter.com, isa member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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Trump is pushing democracy to the limit and beyond. Don't go to prison for him. - USA TODAY

The Next Generation Of Artificial Intelligence – Forbes

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

AI legend Yann LeCun, one of the godfathers of deep learning, sees self-supervised learning as the ... [+] key to AI's future.

The field of artificial intelligence moves fast. It has only been 8 years since the modern era of deep learning began at the 2012 ImageNet competition. Progress in the field since then has been breathtaking and relentless.

If anything, this breakneck pace is only accelerating. Five years from now, the field of AI will look very different than it does today. Methods that are currently considered cutting-edge will have become outdated; methods that today are nascent or on the fringes will be mainstream.

What will the next generation of artificial intelligence look like? Which novel AI approaches will unlock currently unimaginable possibilities in technology and business? This article highlights three emerging areas within AI that are poised to redefine the fieldand societyin the years ahead. Study up now.

The dominant paradigm in the world of AI today is supervised learning. In supervised learning, AI models learn from datasets that humans have curated and labeled according to predefined categories. (The term supervised learning comes from the fact that human supervisors prepare the data in advance.)

While supervised learning has driven remarkable progress in AI over the past decade, from autonomous vehicles to voice assistants, it has serious limitations.

The process of manually labeling thousands or millions of data points can be enormously expensive and cumbersome. The fact that humans must label data by hand before machine learning models can ingest it has become a major bottleneck in AI.

At a deeper level, supervised learning represents a narrow and circumscribed form of learning. Rather than being able to explore and absorb all the latent information, relationships and implications in a given dataset, supervised algorithms orient only to the concepts and categories that researchers have identified ahead of time.

In contrast, unsupervised learning is an approach to AI in which algorithms learn from data without human-provided labels or guidance.

Many AI leaders see unsupervised learning as the next great frontier in artificial intelligence. In the words of AI legend Yann LeCun: The next AI revolution will not be supervised. UC Berkeley professor Jitenda Malik put it even more colorfully: Labels are the opium of the machine learning researcher.

How does unsupervised learning work? In a nutshell, the system learns about some parts of the world based on other parts of the world. By observing the behavior of, patterns among, and relationships between entitiesfor example, words in a text or people in a videothe system bootstraps an overall understanding of its environment. Some researchers sum this up with the phrase predicting everything from everything else.

Unsupervised learning more closely mirrors the way that humans learn about the world: through open-ended exploration and inference, without a need for the training wheels of supervised learning. One of its fundamental advantages is that there will always be far more unlabeled data than labeled data in the world (and the former is much easier to come by).

In the words of LeCun, who prefers the closely related term self-supervised learning: In self-supervised learning, a portion of the input is used as a supervisory signal to predict the remaining portion of the input....More knowledge about the structure of the world can be learned through self-supervised learning than from [other AI paradigms], because the data is unlimited and the amount of feedback provided by each example is huge.

Unsupervised learning is already having a transformative impact in natural language processing. NLP has seen incredible progress recently thanks to a new unsupervised learning architecture known as the Transformer, which originated at Google about three years ago. (See #3 below for more on Transformers.)

Efforts to apply unsupervised learning to other areas of AI remain at earlier stages, but rapid progress is being made. To take one example, a startup named Helm.ai is seeking to use unsupervised learning to leapfrog the leaders in the autonomous vehicle industry.

Many researchers see unsupervised learning as the key to developing human-level AI. According to LeCun, mastering unsupervised learning is the greatest challenge in ML and AI of the next few years.

One of the overarching challenges of the digital era is data privacy. Because data is the lifeblood of modern artificial intelligence, data privacy issues play a significant (and often limiting) role in AIs trajectory.

Privacy-preserving artificial intelligencemethods that enable AI models to learn from datasets without compromising their privacyis thus becoming an increasingly important pursuit. Perhaps the most promising approach to privacy-preserving AI is federated learning.

The concept of federated learning was first formulated by researchers at Google in early 2017. Over the past year, interest in federated learning has exploded: more than 1,000 research papers on federated learning were published in the first six months of 2020, compared to just 180 in all 2018.

The standard approach to building machine learning models today is to gather all the training data in one place, often in the cloud, and then to train the model on the data. But this approach is not practicable for much of the worlds data, which for privacy and security reasons cannot be moved to a central data repository. This makes it off-limits to traditional AI techniques.

Federated learning solves this problem by flipping the conventional approach to AI on its head.

Rather than requiring one unified dataset to train a model, federated learning leaves the data where it is, distributed across numerous devices and servers on the edge. Instead, many versions of the model are sent outone to each device with training dataand trained locally on each subset of data. The resulting model parameters, but not the training data itself, are then sent back to the cloud. When all these mini-models are aggregated, the result is one overall model that functions as if it had been trained on the entire dataset at once.

The original federated learning use case was to train AI models on personal data distributed across billions of mobile devices. As those researchers summarized: Modern mobile devices have access to a wealth of data suitable for machine learning models....However, this rich data is often privacy sensitive, large in quantity, or both, which may preclude logging to the data center....We advocate an alternative that leaves the training data distributed on the mobile devices, and learns a shared model by aggregating locally-computed updates.

More recently, healthcare has emerged as a particularly promising field for the application of federated learning.

It is easy to see why. On one hand, there are an enormous number of valuable AI use cases in healthcare. On the other hand, healthcare data, especially patients personally identifiable information, is extremely sensitive; a thicket of regulations like HIPAA restrict its use and movement. Federated learning could enable researchers to develop life-saving healthcare AI tools without ever moving sensitive health records from their source or exposing them to privacy breaches.

A host of startups has emerged to pursue federated learning in healthcare. The most established is Paris-based Owkin; earlier-stage players include Lynx.MD, Ferrum Health and Secure AI Labs.

Beyond healthcare, federated learning may one day play a central role in the development of any AI application that involves sensitive data: from financial services to autonomous vehicles, from government use cases to consumer products of all kinds. Paired with other privacy-preserving techniques like differential privacy and homomorphic encryption, federated learning may provide the key to unlocking AIs vast potential while mitigating the thorny challenge of data privacy.

The wave of data privacy legislation being enacted worldwide today (starting with GDPR and CCPA, with many similar laws coming soon) will only accelerate the need for these privacy-preserving techniques. Expect federated learning to become an important part of the AI technology stack in the years ahead.

We have entered a golden era for natural language processing.

OpenAIs release of GPT-3, the most powerful language model ever built, captivated the technology world this summer. It has set a new standard in NLP: it can write impressive poetry, generate functioning code, compose thoughtful business memos, write articles about itself, and so much more.

GPT-3 is just the latest (and largest) in a string of similarly architected NLP modelsGoogles BERT, OpenAIs GPT-2, Facebooks RoBERTa and othersthat are redefining what is possible in NLP.

The key technology breakthrough underlying this revolution in language AI is the Transformer.

Transformers were introduced in a landmark 2017 research paper. Previously, state-of-the-art NLP methods had all been based on recurrent neural networks (e.g., LSTMs). By definition, recurrent neural networks process data sequentiallythat is, one word at a time, in the order that the words appear.

Transformers great innovation is to make language processing parallelized: all the tokens in a given body of text are analyzed at the same time rather than in sequence. In order to support this parallelization, Transformers rely heavily on an AI mechanism known as attention. Attention enables a model to consider the relationships between words regardless of how far apart they are and to determine which words and phrases in a passage are most important to pay attention to.

Why is parallelization so valuable? Because it makes Transformers vastly more computationally efficient than RNNs, meaning they can be trained on much larger datasets. GPT-3 was trained on roughly 500 billion words and consists of 175 billion parameters, dwarfing any RNN in existence.

Transformers have been associated almost exclusively with NLP to date, thanks to the success of models like GPT-3. But just this month, a groundbreaking new paper was released that successfully applies Transformers to computer vision. Many AI researchers believe this work could presage a new era in computer vision. (As well-known ML researcher Oriol Vinyals put it simply, My take is: farewell convolutions.)

While leading AI companies like Google and Facebook have begun to put Transformer-based models into production, most organizations remain in the early stages of productizing and commercializing this technology. OpenAI has announced plans to make GPT-3 commercially accessible via API, which could seed an entire ecosystem of startups building applications on top of it.

Expect Transformers to serve as the foundation for a whole new generation of AI capabilities in the years ahead, starting with natural language. As exciting as the past decade has been in the field of artificial intelligence, it may prove to be just a prelude to the decade ahead.

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The Next Generation Of Artificial Intelligence - Forbes

St. Louis Is Grappling With Artificial Intelligence’s Promise And Potential Peril – St. Louis Public Radio

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Tinus Le Rouxs company, FanCam, takes high-resolution photos of crowds having fun. That might be at Busch Stadium, where FanCam is installed, or on Market Street, where FanCam set up its technology to capture Blues fans celebrating after the Stanley Cup victory.

As photos, theyre a fun souvenir. But paired with artificial intelligence, theyre something more: a tool that gives professional sports teams a much more detailed look at whos in the audience, including their estimated age and gender. The idea, he explained Thursday on St. Louis on the Air, is to help teams understand their fans a bit better understand when theyre leaving their seats, what merchandise are they wearing?

Now that the pandemic has made crowd size a matter of public health, Le Roux noted that FanCam can help teams tell whether the audience has swelled past 25% capacity or how many patrons are wearing masks.

But for all the technologys power, Le Roux believes in limits. He explained that he is not interested in technology that would allow him to identify individuals in the crowd.

We dont touch facial recognition. Ethically, its dubious, he said. In fact, Im passionately against the use of facial recognition in public spaces. What we do is use computer vision to analyze these images for more generalized data.

Not all tech companies share those concerns. Detroit now uses facial recognition as an investigatory tool. Earlier this year, that practice led to the wrongful arrest of a Black man. The ACLU has now filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the practice there.

Locally, Sara Baker, policy director for the ACLU of Missouri, said the concerns go far beyond facial recognition.

The way in which many technologies are being used, on the surface, the purpose is benign, she said. The other implication of that is, what rights are we willing to sacrifice in order to engage with those technologies? And that centers, really, on your right to privacy, and if you are consenting to being surveilled or not, and how that data is being used on the back end as well.

Baker cited the license readers now in place around the city, as well as Persistent Surveillance Systems attempts to bring aerial surveillance to the city as a potential concern. The Board of Aldermen has encouraged Mayor Lyda Krewson to enter negotiations with the company as a way to stop crime, although Baltimores experience with the technology has yet to yield the promised results.

That could involve surveillance of the entire city, Baker said. In Baltimore, that means 90% of outdoor activities are surveilled. I think were getting to a point where we need to have robust conversations like this when were putting our privacy rights on the line, because I think we have a shared value of wanting to keep some aspects of our lives private to ourselves.

To that end, Baker said shed like to see the St. Louis Board of Aldermen pass Board Bill 95, which would regulate surveillance in the city. She said it offers common sense guardrails for how surveillance is used in the city.

Other than California and Illinois, Le Roux said, few states have even grappled with technologys capabilities.

I think the legal framework is still behind, and we need to catch up, Le Roux said.

Le Roux will be speaking more about the ethical issues around facial recognition at Prepare.ais Prepare 2020 conference. The St. Louis-based nonprofit hosts the annual conference to explore issues around artificial intelligence. (Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, Prepare 2020 is now entirely virtual and entirely free.)

Prepare.ais mission is to increase collaboration around fourth-industrial revolution technologies in order to advance the human experience.

Le Roux said he hopes more tech leaders and those who understand the building blocks of technology have a seat at the table as regulations are being written. And Baker said her hope is that local governments proceed with caution in turning to new technologies being touted as a way to solve crime.

We have over 600 cameras in the city of St. Louis, she said. Weve spent up to $100,000 a pop on different surveillance technologies, and weve spent over $4 million in the past three years on these types of surveillance technologies, and weve done it without any real audit or understanding of how the data is being used, and whether its being used ethically. And that is what needs to change.

Related Event

What: Prepare 2020

When: Now through Oct. 28

St. Louis on the Air brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill and Lara Hamdan. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.

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St. Louis Is Grappling With Artificial Intelligence's Promise And Potential Peril - St. Louis Public Radio

For artificial intelligence to flourish, governments need to think ahead about its responsible use – Firstpost

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Hareesh TibrewalaOct 16, 2020 19:30:24 IST

In the words of Singularity University founder Ray Kurzweil, "In the 21st century, we wont experience 100 years of progress, it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). And one key driver for this mind-boggling rate of change, is the use of technology powered by artificial intelligence.

To some extent, "artificial intelligence"is a misnomer. There is nothing really artificial about it. Artificial Intelligence (AI) simply means

So far, the human mind was the fastest known data cruncher, and we prided on calling ourselves an intelligent species as a result. Intelligence is, simply put, the ability to crunch a lot of data and use that to arrive at decisions. Now, for the first time inhuman history, we will see another "species" computers capable ofbehaving more "intelligently" than we do.This creates its ownchallenges and opportunities.

The use of AI will lead to exponential innovation, that help solve the basic needs of humanity and eliminate all kind of shortages and help humans live a far more comfortable and longer lives. Some examples

Thus, governments need to be thinking ahead, about how best to harness the power of AI andbegin putting in place mechanisms and regulationsto ensure its responsible use. This thinking has to happen not only at national government level but also at a global level.With technologyconnectingpeople across the world in onebig, interconnected village, it is important that governments across borders start cooperating and collaborating for mechanisms and processes to manage the powerof AI. Itwill be important to ensure no single entity be it a corporation or country is allowed tomisuse the power of AI for global supremacy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.

If there's one thingwe can take away from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is thepowerof information sharing, collaboration and pre-defined protocols. If governments across the world had collaborated to share information about the coronavirus, and had pre-approvedprotocols in place for an event like this (shutting borders or the sharing ofintelligenceonvaccine efforts), we wouldn't have seen the situation escalate to the one we're finding ourselves in.

It is commendable that the government of India has shown the foresight and vision to bring conversation around artificial intelligence in the public domain. Irrespective of political affiliations, there is no denying that this government demonstrates a high level of alertness around the use of technology for bringing around social change be it is the Jan-Dhan Yojna (to weed out middle men) or the Aadhaar card (to link financial transactions and minimize tax evasion). Responsible AI can have a positive impact in almost every facet of social change education, agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing or infrastructure.

India, on account of its large IT industry, can be a leader, not only in providing AI solutions to the world, but also leading the global political dialogue aroundresponsible AI.

The author is the joint CEO of Mirum, India.

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For artificial intelligence to flourish, governments need to think ahead about its responsible use - Firstpost

Looper column: Artificial intelligence, humanity and the future – SouthCoastToday.com

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Columns share an authors personal perspective.

*****

In September, the British news website The Guardian published a story written entirely by an AI - an artificial intelligence - that learned how to write from scanning the internet. The piece received a lot of press because in it the AI stated it had no plans to destroy humanity. It did, however, admit that it could be programmed in a way that might prove destructive.

The AI is not beyond making mistakes. I noted its erroneous claim that the word robot derives from Greek. An AI that is mistaken about where a word comes from might also be mistaken about where humanity is headed. Or it might be lying. Not a pleasant thought.

Artificial intelligence is based on the idea that computer programs can learn and grow. No less an authority than Stephen Hawking has warned that AI, unbounded by the slow pace of biological development, might quickly supersede its human developers.

Other scientists are more optimistic, believing that AI may provide solutions to many of humanitys age-old problems, including disease and famine. Of course, the destruction of biological life would be one solution to disease and famine.

Hawking worried that a growing and learning computer program might eventually destroy the world. I doubt it ever occurred to Hawking that his fears regarding AI could once have been expressed toward BI - biological intelligence; that is, humans - at their creation.

Did nonhuman life forms, like those the Bible refers to as angels, foresee the dangerous possibilities presented by the human capacity to grow and learn? Might not the angel Gabriel, like the scientist Hawking, have warned of impending doom?

AI designers are not blazing a trail but following one blazed by God himself. For example, their creations are made, as was Gods, in their own image. And, like Gods creation, theirs is designed to transcend its original specs. There is, however, this difference: AI designers do not know how to introduce a will into their creations.

The capacity for growth, designed into humankind from the first, is seldom given the consideration it deserves. For one thing, it implies the Creators enormous self-confidence. God, unlike humans, is not threatened by the growth of his creation. In fact, he delights in it. He does not need to worry about protecting himself.

That the Creator wants his creatures to grow is good news, for it means God is a parent. That is what parents are like. They long for their children to become great and good. No wonder Jesus taught his followers to call God Father.

Given that God created such beings knowing what could - and if theologians are correct, what would - go wrong, he must have considered the outcome of creation to be so magnificent and good as to merit present pain and suffering. When people fault God for current evil, they do so without comprehending future good.

The present only makes sense in the light of the future, and the future only offers hope if we will become more and better than we currently are. Outside of the context of a magnificent future, present injustices, sorrows and suffering appear overwhelming.

The hope presented in the Bible is audacious. It is unparalleled and unrivaled. The Marxist hopes for a better world. The Christian hopes for a perfect one: a new heaven and new earth, where everything is right and everyone exists in glory. The hope of the most enthusiastic Marxist fades before this shining hope the way a candle fades before the noonday sun.

This hope is not just that human pains will be forgotten, swallowed up in bliss. It is not just that shame will be buried when we die and left in the grave when we rise. Christian hope is not just that evil and injustice will be destroyed. It is that when God is all and is in all, we will be more than we have ever been.

The long story of weapons and wars, of marriages broken, and innocence stolen turns out to be different than we thought and better than we dreamed. It is the introduction to a story of astounding goodness, displayed in our creation, redemption, and glorious future.

Shayne Looper is the pastor of Lockwood Community Church in Coldwater, Michigan. His blog, The Way Home, is at shaynelooper.com.

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Looper column: Artificial intelligence, humanity and the future - SouthCoastToday.com

The relentless threat of artificial intelligence taking our jobs away – Mint

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

I recently came across a quote by the father of Information Theory and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Claude Shannon: I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and Im rooting for the machines." Shannon did not seem to like human beings much, but this view set off another thought process in my mind. As a technology writer and digital transformation practitioner, the second-most asked question of me is: Will artificial intelligence (AI) take our jobs, and what should I do to protect mine or my childs"? (For the most oft- asked query, you will have to read on).

Whether AI will take our jobs or create new ones is one of the greatest debates of the modern world. Every instance when a revolutionary new technology comes in, the same thought fearfully raises its head. It bothered Ned Ludd in 1779 after the invention of the Spinning Jenny, which threatened to take his job as a textile factory apprentice. He went and smashed a machine or two, catalysing a movement against textile technology, and started the Luddite movement. New-age Luddites worried about personal computers and their job-destroying potential. This movement was particularly strident in India, with computers being smashed by worker unions. It turned out that the information technology (IT) revolution created millions of jobs, and catapulted India to its tech-superpower status.

But AI, everyone says, is different, and we need to think about it in a different way. They may be right. This is the first time we have a technology which could potentially replace us, and could perhaps be even more powerful than us, armed with the theoretical potential to turn humans redundant. Turing Award winner Alan Perlis articulates this worry best when he says, A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God." Most global institutions, though, are far more sanguine. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2022, AI will create 133 million new jobs. It also says that from a 30/70 division of labour between machines and humans, the ratio will dramatically shift to 52/48 by 2025. IT consultancy Gartner claims that AI will create two million net new jobs by the same year.

But where will these jobs come from? I have a simple way to think about it: Most of the work we do can be rudimentarily divided into English (or any other language), and arithmetic. English is the creative part (strategy, communication, messaging), while arithmetic is the analytical part (excel sheets, number crunching, financial planning). The arithmetic bit will get taken away by robots first (case in point: Robotic Process Automation) and humans will still own the English bit. However, while even this language part has started getting chipped away by AI, specifically by Deep Learning, Neural Networks and now Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, AI now creates great music too. Search for AI-written music on YouTube, and you will find lots of it. Microsoft Research and ING teamed up to have AI paint a Rembrandt painting (nextrembrandt.com), and it painted a critic-defying one six centuries after the master died. AI writes poetry and prose, and defeats humans at games that are instinct- and imagination-driven.

Perhaps the best explanation of AIs impact on jobs is given by Kai Fu Lee, an acclaimed AI investor and practitioner. His famous matrix has optimization-to-strategy on one axis, and no-compassion-to-full-compassion on another. High optimization and low compassion jobs, like telesales, customer support, dishwashing, radiology work and truck driving, will be the first to go, while high compassion jobs like running a company, striking deals, teaching and caring for the elderly will be last. There will also be AI-only jobs, where AI will support humans, or humans will assist AI. Then there will be jobs that will always be for humans, requiring communications skills, empathy, compassion, trust, creativity and reasoning. In fact, Lee has a list of the 10 safest jobs: psychiatry, therapy, medical care, AI-related research and engineering, fiction writing, teaching, criminal law, computer science and engineering, science, and management.

If you think of it, it is more about humans than about AI. Udacity co-founder Sebastian Thrun puts it best: I think that artificial intelligence is almost a humanities discipline. Its really an attempt to understand human intelligence and human cognition."

And that brings me to the question that people ask me most often: Will AI replace humans?" The short answer is that in some ways, it will. The long answer is for another column.

Jaspreet Bindra is the author of The Tech Whisperer, and founder of Digital Matters

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MediFind Selected as Finalist for Best in Artificial Intelligence in the Shorty Social Good Awards – The Wellsboro Gazette

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MediFind, an advanced platform that uses artificial intelligence to help patients make more informed health decisions, today announced it has been selected as aShorty Social Good Award Finalist for Best in Artificial Intelligence. This award honors the most creative and effective use of artificial intelligence tools to support a social good program, initiative or social good goal.

MediFind was selected based on its use of AI and machine learning to help people facing serious, complex and rare diseases find better care, faster. The platform enables patients and their families to explore symptoms and findexperts, second opinions, clinical trials and the latest research for thousands of health conditions all in one place. By leveraginga proprietary combination of artificial intelligenceand medical experts, MediFind evaluates over 2.5 million global physicians and analyzes over 100,000 research articles each month, using information from dozens of disparate datasets.

This is the latest in a streak of recognitions for the company, also being shortlisted for theVesalius Innovation Award from Karger Publishers,Reuter's Pharma Awards USA for Most Valuable Service or Digital TherapyandSierra Ventures/Startup50 Top 25 Startups.

The Shorty Social Good Awards honor the social initiative brands, agencies and nonprofits that are working to make our world a better place. While the Shorty Awards have long honored the best of social media and digital, these awards include efforts made by organizations to improve sustainability and diversity internally, foster globally minded business partnerships and increase employee community and civic engagement.

Finalists were selected by members of theReal Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences, comprised of luminaries from advertising, media, entertainment and technology. The group includes Ogilvy Vice President of Social Change Kate Hull Fliflet, Owner and CEO at Black Girls Run Jay Ell Alexander, Director of Social Impact at MTV, VH1 and Logo Maxwell Zorick, Founder and CEO at The Phluid Project Rob Smith and more. Social Good Award winners will be announced and honored at a digital ceremony on Thursday, November 19th, in New York City.

MediFind is honored to be in the company of the other Best in Artificial Intelligence finalists, including IBM, Goodwill and Hypergiant Industries. The full list of honorees can also be viewed atAdWeek.

ABOUT MEDIFIND

Founded on Rare Disease Day in 2020, MediFind is a proprietary technology platform that uses big data to help connect patients to the right care team and treatment protocols faster, improving their chances of optimal health outcomes. With a searchable database powered by advanced machine learning and algorithms, MediFind makes it easy for people facing the most challenging health conditions to locate top doctors, review the latest research and learn about clinical trials. Research findings are summarized in plain language so patients can make more informed decisions faster, because when it comes to health, nothing is more valuable than time. Learn more about MediFind atwww.medifind.com.

ABOUT THE SHORTY SOCIAL GOOD AWARDS

The Shorty Social Good Awards are presented by the Shorty Awards and produced by Sawhorse Media, a New York-based technology company. Sawhorse also created and runs Muck Rack, the leading network to connect with journalists on social media.

MEDIA CONTACT:Erin OvadalSSPReovadal@sspr.com

MediFind Selected as Finalist for Best in Artificial Intelligence in the Shorty Social Good Awards - The Wellsboro Gazette

Penn Medicine researchers use artificial intelligence to identify early signs of Alzheimer’s Disease – Express Computer

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

As the search for successful Alzheimers disease drugs remains elusive, experts believe that identifying biomarkers early biological signs of the disease could be key to solving the treatment conundrum. However, the rapid collection of data from tens of thousands of Alzheimers patients far exceeds the scientific communitys ability to make sense of it.

Now, with funding expected to total $17.8 million from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will collaborate with 11 research centers to determine more precise diagnostic biomarkers and drug targets for the disease, which affects nearly 50 million people worldwide. For the project, the teams will apply advanced artificial intelligence (AI) methods to integrate and find patterns in genetic, imaging, and clinical data from over 60,000 Alzheimers patients representing one of the largest and most ambitious research undertakings of its kind.

Penn Medicines Christos Davatzikos, PhD, a professor of Radiology and director of the Center for Biomedical Image Computing and Analytics, and Li Shen, PhD, a professor of Informatics, will serve as two of five co-principal investigators on the five-year project.

Brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases, among which Alzheimers is the most frequent, are highly heterogeneous, said Davatzikos. This is an unprecedented attempt to dissect that heterogeneity, which may help inform treatment, as well as future clinical trials.

Diversity within the Alzheimers patient population is a crucial reason why drug trials fail, according to the Penn researchers.

We know that there are complex patterns in the brain that we may not be able to detect visually. Similarly, there may not be a single genetic marker that puts someone at high-risk for Alzheimers, but rather a combination of genes that may form a pattern and create a perfect storm, said Shen. Machine learning can help to combine large datasets and tease out a complex pattern that couldnt be seen before.

That is why the projects first objective will be to find a relationship between the three modalities (genes, imaging, and clinical symptoms), in order to identify the patterns that predict Alzheimers diagnosis and progression and to distinguish between several subtypes of the disease.

We want to redefine the term Alzheimers disease. The truth is that a treatment that works for one set of patients, may not work for another, Davatzikos said.

The investigators will then use those findings to build a predictive model of cognitive decline and Alzheimers disease progression, which can be used to steer treatment for future patients.

This undertaking will also utilize data from the Alzheimers Disease Sequencing Project, an NIH-funded effort led by Gerard Schellenberg, PhD, and Li-San Wang, PhD, at Penn, along with colleagues from 40 research institutions. That project aims to identify new genomic variants that contribute to as well as ones that protect against developing Alzheimers.

Davatzikos and Shen will collaborate with three co-principal investigators at the University of Southern California, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Indiana University. The project, titled Ultrascale Machine Learning to Empower Discovery in Alzheimers Disease Biobanks, is supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health

If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at [emailprotected]

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Penn Medicine researchers use artificial intelligence to identify early signs of Alzheimer's Disease - Express Computer

Will artificial intelligence technology change the dairy industry – positivelyosceola.com

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) on ranches and dairy farms represents tremendous potential to benefit the Florida cattle industry. Thats driving a discussion at the University of Floridas Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences about how to harness this potential with tools that gives ranchers insight on each animal in their herds.

Producers may already get more data from sensors and other technologies than any human mind can make sense of. AI can link and analyze all sorts of data that exist in separate silos. UF/IFAS animal scientists working with computer scientists and engineers could reveal relationships between data points that inform decisions down to the individual animal.

Imagine if we could link an individual cows feed efficiency to its unique genetics as we select animals for breeding. Imagine if we could identify the point for each animal on a ranch at which heat stress makes it ill.

Imagine, too, if we could tell by how many steps it takes and how its posture changes day-to-day if a cow is developing sore feet. Imagine the advances in milk production and animal welfare if we could predict and prevent illness by subtle behavioral changes like how often a cow shows up at the feed bucket.

Albert De Vries of the UF/IFAS Department of Animal Sciences is already using a form of AI called machine learning to determine with precision how to better breed cattle. He is also exploring using AI to measure how much a cow eats by analyzing changes in the topography of the grain in the trough.

As an editor of a prestigious international journal, De Vries has familiarized himself with a range of AI applications in cattle and dairy. He believes UF/IFAS needs to go more assertively into this line of inquiry.

The University of Florida took a major step toward unlocking the potential of this game-changing technology when it announced in July a $70 million campus-wide AI initiative.

The announcement specifically mentioned the challenge of food insecurity as one of many possible areas to direct AI-fueled science. AI will become part of the curriculum at the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and throughout campus so that our students take some level of knowledge and skills related to AI into their jobs.

The initiative is supported by a $25 million gift from UF alumnus Chris Malachowsky and $25 million from NVIDIA, the technology company he cofounded. UF is investing an additional $20 million in the initiative, which will create an AI-centric data center that houses the worlds fastest AI supercomputer in higher education.

UF/IFAS will be proposing to university administration how an investment of a substantial portion of these funds in agriculture can result in huge payoffs.

All this isnt going to replace the intuition and responsible management practices ranchers develop from years of experience. AI, though, is one way UF/IFAS is likely to help the Florida cattle industry in the decade to come.

Scott AngleUniversity of Floridas VPAgriculture and Natural Resources

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Will artificial intelligence technology change the dairy industry - positivelyosceola.com

Futurism Reinforces Its Next-Gen Business Commerce Platform With Advanced Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Capabilities – Yahoo Finance

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

New AI capabilities pave way for an ultra-personalized customer experience

PISCATAWAY, N.J., Oct. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Futurism Technologies, a leading provider of digital transformation solutions, is bringing to life its Futurism Dimensions business commerce suite with additional artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. New AI capabilities will help online companies provide an exceptional personalized online customer experience and user journeys. Futurism Dimensions will not only help companies put their businesses online, but would also help to completely digitize their commerce lifecycle. The commerce life cycle includes digital product catalog creation and placement, AI-driven digital marketing, order generation to fulfillment, tracking, shipments, taxes and financial reporting, all from a unified platform.

With the "new norm," companies are racing to provide a better online experience for their customers. It's not just about putting up a website today, it's about creating personalized and smarter customer experiences. Using customer behavioral analysis, AI, machine learning and bots, Futurism's Dimensions creates that personalized experience. In addition, with Futurism Dimensions, companies become more efficient by transforming the entire commerce value chain and back office to digital.

"Companies such as Amazon have redefined online customer experience and set the bar very high. Every company will be expected to offer personalized, easy-to-use, online experience available from anywhere at any time and on any device," said Sheetal Pansare, CEO of Futurism Technologies. "We've armed Dimensions with advanced AI and ML to help companies provide exceptional personalized experiences to their customers. At the same time, with Dimensions, they can digitize their entire commerce value chain and become more efficient with business automation. Our ecommerce platform is affordable and suited for companies of all sizes," added Mr. Pansare.

Story continues

Futurism Dimensions highlights:

Secure and stable platform with 24/7 support and migration

As cybercrimes continue to evolve, e-commerce companies ought to keep up with advanced cybersecurity developments. Futurism Dimensions prides itself on its security for customers allowing them to receive the latest in technological advancements in cybersecurity. Dimensions leverages highly secure two-factor authentication and encryption to safeguard your customers' data and business from potential hackers.

To ensure seamless migration from existing implementations, Dimensions integrates with most legacy systems.

Dimensions offers 24/7 customer support, something you won't find with some of the dead-end platforms of the past. Others will simply have a help page or community forum, but that doesn't necessarily solve the problem. It can also be costly if you need to reach someone for support on other platforms, whereas Dimensions support is included in your plan.

Migrating to Dimensions is a seamless transition with little to no downtime. Protecting online businesses from cyber threats is a top priority while transitioning their websites from another platform or service. You get a dedicated team at your disposal throughout the transition to ensure timely completion and implementation.

Heat Map, Customer Session Playback, Live Chat and Analytics

Dimensions offers intelligent customer insights with Heat Map tracking, Full customer session playback, and live chat allowing you to understand customers' needs. Heat Map will help you identify the most used areas of your website and what your customers are clicking on. Further, customer session playback will help you identify how customers arrived at certain products or pages. Dimensions also has a live customer session that helps you provide prompt support.

Customer insights and analytics are lifeblood for any e-business in today's digital era. Dimensions offers intelligent insights into demographics to help you market to your target audiences.

Highly personalized user experience using Artificial Intelligence

Dimensions lets you deploy smart AI-powered bots that use machine learning algorithms to come up with smarter replies to customer questions thus, reducing response time significantly. Chatbots can help address customer queries that usually drop in after business hours with automated and pre-defined responses. Eureka! Never lose a sale.

Business Efficiency and Automation using AI and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning can help predict inventory and automate processes such as support, payments, and procurement. It can also expand business intelligence to help create targeted marketing plans. Lastly, it can give you live GPS logistics tracking.

Mobile Application

Dimensions team will design your mobile site application to look and function as if a consumer were viewing it on their computer. Fully optimized and designed for ease of use while not limiting anything from your main site.

About Futurism Technologies

Advancements in digital information technology continue to offer companies with the opportunities to drive efficiency, revenue, better understand and engage customers, and redefine their business models. At Futurism, we partner with our clients to leverage the power of digital technology. Digital evolution or a digital revolution, Futurism helps to guide companies on their DX journey.

Whether it is taking a business to the cloud to improve efficiency and business continuity, building a next-generation ecommerce marketplace and mobile app for a retailer, helping to define and implement a new business model for a smart factory, or providing end-to-end cybersecurity services, Futurism brings in the global consulting and implementation expertise it takes to monetize the digital journey.

Futurism provides DX services across the entire value chain including e-commerce, digital infrastructure, business processes, digital customer engagement, and cybersecurity.

Learn more about Futurism Technologies, Inc. at http://www.futurismtechnologies.com

Contact:

Leo J ColeChief Marketing OfficerMobile: +1-512-300-9744Email: communication@futurismtechnologies.com

Website: http://www.futurismtechnologies.com

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Dont Be Afraid, BMW Promises To Keep Artificial Intelligence (AI) On A Tight Leash With These 7 Principles – CarScoops

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something that freaks out many people, especially after Elon Musk famously said in 2018 that it is far more dangerous than nukes for the human species.

While some people are wary of the ever-increasing presence and power of AI, companies fully embrace the benefits it brings. The BMW Group makes no exception and says AI is already widely used within the company, with over 400 use cases throughout the value chain. However, the German automaker aims to keep AI on a tight leash, as it has set certain boundaries for AI use.

More specifically, BMW Group has elaborated a code of ethics for the use of artificial intelligence. We are proceeding purposefully and with caution in the expansion of AI applications within the company. The seven principles for AI at the BMW Group provide the basis for our approach, says Michael Wrtenberger, Head of Project AI.

Read Also:Hyundai Working On Worlds First AI-Based Cruise Control Tech

While artificial intelligence is the key technology in the process of digital transformation, BMW says its focus remains on people, with AIs roles being to support employees and improve the customer experience. That said, the BMW Group and other companies and organizations are involved in shaping and developing a set of rules for working with AI, with the company taking an active role in the European Commissions ongoing consultation process.

The automaker has worked out seven basic principles covering the use of AI within the company, building on the fundamental requirements formulated by the EU for trustworthy AI. The principles will be continuously refined and adapted as AI is applied across all areas of the company.

The first and probably most important principle is Human agency and oversight. This means that the BMW Group implements human monitoring of decisions made by AI applications and considers possible ways that humans can overrule algorithmic decisions.

The second principle, Technical robustness and safety, is about developing robust AI applications and observing the applicable safety standards to decrease the risk of unintended consequences and errors. Privacy and data governance is the third principle which refers to BMW extending its data privacy and data security measures to cover storage and processing in AI applications.

Another essential principle is Transparency as the BMW Group aims for explainability of AI applications and open communication where respective technologies are used. The fifth principle, called Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness, is based on the fact that the BMW Group respects human dignity and therefore sets out to build fair AI applications. This includes preventing non-compliance by AI applications.

Environmental and societal well-being is another principle which commits BMW to developing and using AI applications that promote the well-being of customers, employees and partners. Finally, the Accountability principle stipulates that the automakers AI applications should be implemented so they work responsibly. The BMW Group will identify, assess, report and mitigate risks, in accordance with good corporate governance, the company says.

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Dont Be Afraid, BMW Promises To Keep Artificial Intelligence (AI) On A Tight Leash With These 7 Principles - CarScoops

SparkCognition Advances the Science of Artificial Intelligence with 85 Patents – PRNewswire

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --SparkCognition, the world's leading industrial artificial intelligence (AI) company, is pleased to announce significant progress in its efforts to develop state of the art AI algorithms and systems, through the award of a substantial number of new patents. Since January 1, 2020, SparkCognition has filed 29 new patents, expanding the company's intellectual property portfolio to 27 awarded patents and 58 pending applications.

"Since SparkCognition's inception, we have placed a major emphasis on advancing the science of AI through research making advancement through innovation a core company value," said Amir Husain, founder and CEO of SparkCognition, and a prolific inventor with over 30 patents. "At SparkCognition, we've built one of the leading Industrial AI research teams in the world. The discoveries made and the new paths blazed by our incredibly talented researchers and scientists will be essential to the future."

SparkCognition's patents have come from inventors in different teams across the organization, and display commercial significance and scientific achievements in autonomy, automated model building, anomaly detection, natural language processing, industrial applications, and foundations of artificial intelligence. A select few include surrogate-assisted neuroevolution, unsupervised model building for clustering and anomaly detection, unmanned systems hubs for dispatch of unmanned vehicles, and feature importance estimation for unsupervised learning. These accomplishments have been incorporated into SparkCognition's products and solutions, and many have been published in peer-reviewed academic venues in order to contribute to the scientific community's shared body of knowledge.

In June 2019, AI research stalwart and two-time Chair of the University of Texas Computer Science Department, Professor Bruce Porter, joined SparkCognition full time as Chief Science Officer, at which time he launched the company's internal AI research organization. This team includes internal researchers, additional talent from a rotation of SparkCognition employees, and faculty from Southwestern University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. The organization works to produce scientific accomplishments such as: the patents and publications listed above, advancing the science of AI, and supporting SparkCognition's position as an industry leader.

"Over the past two years, we've averaged an AI patent submission nearly every two weeks. This is no small feat for a young company," said Prof. Bruce Porter. "The sheer number of intelligent, science-minded people at SparkCognition keeps the spirit of innovation alive throughout the research organization and the entire company. I'm excited about what this team will continue to achieve going forward, and eagerly awaiting the great discoveries we will make."

To learn more about SparkCognition, visit http://www.sparkcognition.com.

About SparkCognitionWith award-winning machine learning technology, a multinational footprint, and expert teams, SparkCognition builds artificial intelligence systems to advance the most important interests of society. Our customers are trusted with protecting and advancing lives, infrastructure, and financial systems across the globe. They turn to SparkCognition to help them analyze complex data, empower decision-making, and transform human and industrial productivity. SparkCognition offers four main products: DarwinTM, DeepArmor, SparkPredict, and DeepNLPTM. With our leading-edge artificial intelligence platforms, our clients can adapt to a rapidly changing digital landscape and accelerate their business strategies. Learn more about SparkCognition's AI applications and why we've been featured in CNBC's 2017 Disruptor 50, and recognized four years in a row on CB Insights AI 100, by visiting http://www.sparkcognition.com.

For Media Inquiries:

Michelle SaabSparkCognitionVP, Marketing Communications[emailprotected]512-956-5491

SOURCE SparkCognition

http://www.sparkcognition.com

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SparkCognition Advances the Science of Artificial Intelligence with 85 Patents - PRNewswire

Opinion: How far must we go to achieve political correctness in literature? The Review – University of Delaware Review

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Rebecca Calderon/THE REVIEW Authors ability to write from other perspectives shows range, even if their work may be criticized by some for lacking political correctness.

In the age of social media, where ideas can be communicated quicker than ever, so can backlash. Anyone who writes anything is bound to be extolled or criticized for their ideas. It is impossible for literary authors to create content that everyone will enjoy and agree with, and the discussions that come with controversy are valuable and can open minds to other viewpoints. From the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to the more contemporary Harry Potter series, literature evokes different feelings for readers.

Authors write content for a variety of reasons, and it is useless for them to aim for complete political correctness. Some authors who have written about characters in situations beyond that of their personal experience have attempted to reach political correctness by employing a sensitivity reader: Someone who proofreads their work to ensure that the content remains inoffensive in dealing with issues such as race, culture, religion, gender, sexuality, illness and disability.

Author Liane Moriarty employed the use of such sensitivity readers for her novel American Heart, set in a dystopian America where a Muslim girl helps an Iranian immigrant escape to Canada. Writing outside of her personal experience, she utilized the readers to verify that she had written an accurate and respectful portrayal of the Islamic faith. However, upon the release of the book, Moriarty still received backlash by Muslims who were offended by her writing. Should Moriarty, who already expected her novel to be polarizing, not have bothered enlisting the help of sensitivity researchers in the first place?

Spending $250 per manuscript in order to get a couple of other peoples approval cannot accurately ensure infallible cultural portrayals. The intention of not wanting to offend someones culture is understandable, but how many people need to read a work until it becomes perfectly politically correct? It seems unlikely for Moriarty that hiring sensitivity readers dramatically impacted her reader feedback for the better. After all, she is writing about a topic outside of her experience, and no matter how many sensitivity readers review her work, there is always room for error and misunderstanding amongst her audience.

Controversy will always exist among people, so what is the merit for trying to avoid confrontation in literature? While this may seem like an insensitive and devil-may-care approach for some writers, it is important to remember that writing is not intended to please everyone. An authors positive and thoughtful intentions seem to be of no use once criticisms roll out.

Literature that is debated for political correctness gets people thinking and opens up for discussions that encourage the consideration of a multitude of perspectives. Writers need to have thick skin and an understanding of the criticism that comes with publishing. Literary works should be published with an intention to foster healthy debate, not to please everyone with its political correctness.

Catherine Hogan is a staff reporter for the Review. Her opinions are her own and do not represent the majority opinion of the Reviews editorial staff. She may be reached at cmhogan@udel.edu

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Opinion: How far must we go to achieve political correctness in literature? The Review - University of Delaware Review

No ‘bang for buck’: Budget is big on political correctness, weak on job creation – Sydney Morning Herald

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

First, give tax breaks and incentives to businesses, in the hope that this will induce them to expand their operations, spending more on capital equipment and new employees.

Second, give tax cuts (or maybe one-off cash grants) to individual taxpayers or welfare recipients, in the hope that they will spend most of the money and thereby generate economic activity and jobs.

Those two categories involve the government making "transfer payments" from itself to households or firms. The third category is the government spending money directly by paying someone to build a house or an expressway or to work for the government and perform some service.

As a rule, economists expect direct spending to yield a greater stimulus (and thus have a higher "multiplier" effect) than transfer payments. Thats because all the governments spending adds to demand for goods and services in the "first round", whereas some of the money you transfer to a firm or individual may be saved rather than spent, even in the first round.

Economists consider saving a "leakage" from the various rounds of the "circular flow of income" round and round the economy. Other leakages occur if the money is spent on imports rather than locally made goods and services.

Still on direct spending, if your primary goal is not so much to add to the production of goods and services (real gross domestic product) as to increase employment, youd be better off directing your government spending to a labour-intensive purpose (employing an extra uni tutor or aged-care nurse, for instance), rather than a capital-intensive purpose, such as a new expressway.

Now lets look at how the budgets main measures fit these three categories. Its temporary measure to allow firms an immediate write-off of the cost of new equipment (costing the revenue $26.7 billion over four years), its temporary measure allowing firms to carry back current losses for tax purposes ($4.9 billion), its research and development tax incentive ($2 billion) and its temporary JobMaker "hiring credit" - wage subsidy ($4 billion) add up to total revenue forgone under the first category of tax breaks to businesses of almost $38 billion.

This is far bigger than the money going to individual taxpayers and welfare recipients in the second category: personal tax cuts ($17.8 billion over four years) and "economic support payments" to pensioners ($2.5 billion), a total of just over $20 billion.

Under the third category, direct government spending on goods and services, the main measures are various infrastructure programs mostly via grants to state governments - worth more than $10 billion over four years.

So you see how much the budgets fiscal stimulus measures have been affected by the governments "core values". No less than $38 billion goes as tax breaks to business, three-quarters of the $20 billion in transfers to individuals comes as tax cuts, leaving about $10 billion in direct spending going to the least labour-intensive purpose transport infrastructure.

Liberal "core values" over "bang for buck": Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg before the budget announcement.

Now, according to the budget papers or according to the budget "glossies" fudged up by ministerial staffers with lots of colour photos of good-looking punters the government and its minions have estimated the number of jobs the top programs are expected to create.

The immediate asset write-off and loss carry-back for businesses is expected to create about 50,000 jobs. Is that a lot? Well, remembering we have a labour force of 13.5 million, it doesnt seem much. And dividing the 50,000 into the budgetary cost of $31.6 billion gives a cost of $632,000 per job.

Thats infinitely more than any of those extra workers are likely to be paid, of course, and absolutely pathetic bang per buck. Giving money to business in the hope it will do wonders for "jobs and growth" is a classic example of "trickle-down economics". Clearly, a lot of the money doesnt.

But, when you think about it, its not so surprising that so much money produces so few extra jobs. Why not? Because almost all the capital equipment Australian firms buy is imported. And because firms get the concession even if they dont buy any more equipment than they would have done.

Next, the budget documents imply that the personal tax cuts worth $17.8 billion will create a further 50,000 jobs. That works out at $356,000 per job still terrible bang per buck. Why so high? Too much of the tax cut is likely to be saved.

Finally, the budget documents tell us the $4 billion cost of the JobMaker hiring credit will yield "around 450,000 positions for young Australians". Thats a much better but still high - $8900 per "position" which I take to mean that a lot of the jobs wont be lasting or full time.

So, what measures would have yielded better job-creation value? The ones rejected as politically incorrect: big spending on social housing, a permanent increase in the JobSeeker unemployment benefit or even just employing more childcare workers.

Ross Gittins is the Heralds economics editor.

Ross Gittins is the Economics Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

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No 'bang for buck': Budget is big on political correctness, weak on job creation - Sydney Morning Herald

Letter: The danger of the left – Concord Monitor

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Published: 10/15/2020 7:03:28 PM

Ron Litalien lectures us on what kind of country we are and should be using absurd rhetoric. If the Biden/Harris ticket wins, the long-term consequences using Litaliens words will be devastating.

Do you enjoy the cancel culture, political correctness, condoned riots and looting, being shamed, silenced, demonized and dismissed if you dont believe as Democrats and progressives do?

Do you support Democrats closing the country down again, further destroying our economy with governors and mayors enjoying their emergency and new found power a little too much? Three prominent governors sent COVID-19 patients to nursing homes infecting and killing thousands. Thats not leadership, that is incompetence.

Litalien worries about fascism. I worry about totalitarianism and more legislation that we have to pass the bill so people can see whats in it by the bully party of Pelosi.

Do you trust China to manufacture our pharmaceuticals and do you think that they are blameless for the spread COVID-19? Democrats have defended China through COVID-19.

Eight long years of economic hardship under Obama/Biden policies stifled our economy, emboldened our enemies, divided and weakened our country. Remember the green jobs that Obama never created and the largess he showered on bundlers in the name of stimulus squandered by now failed green companies.

Democrats and progressives focused on overturning an election for four years, accomplishing little beyond further dividing the country and spewing the kind of vitriol and hatred that we see in letter after letter by intellectually dishonest partisans in the Monitor daily.

Bill Bunker

Barnstead

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Letter: The danger of the left - Concord Monitor

Feehery: Trumpism will survive, no matter what happens on Election Day | TheHill – The Hill

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

The New York Times did a story Monday on those characters who make up the Never Trump movement, a collection of former political strategists (most of whom worked for either Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyOvernight Defense: Pentagon IG to audit use of COVID-19 funds on contractors | Dems optimistic on blocking Trump's Germany withdrawal | Obama slams Trump on foreign policy Romney says he'll vote to put Barrett on Supreme Court House Democrat optimistic defense bill will block Trump's Germany withdrawal MORE or John McCainJohn Sidney McCainLeadership matters: President's words and actions show he is unfit to lead our nation Budowsky: President Bush, please vote Biden Supreme Court battle acts as lifeline for Lindsey Graham MORE), who are campaigning not only against the president but also now against any Republican who supports him.

These Never Trumpers not only want to beat the president, they want to extinguish Trumpism.

I am of the exceedingly unpopular opinion inside the beltway that Donald Trump will win reelection. But even if the president loses, elements of Trumpism will survive and inspire the Republican faithful for years to come. Trump is to the GOP what Andrew Jackson was to the Democrats and his influence will reshape the party for a generation.

Here are the five ways that Trumpism will triumph within the GOP, no matter what happens this election:

1) Nationalism instead globalism: It was George H.W. Bush who promised a New World Order, led by the United States. Trumpism promises a return to the Old World Order, where America looks out first for its own interests. Multi-lateral organizations like the United Nations, founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, have outlived their usefulness for the United States and key allies, like Israel.

2) Fair Trade vs. Free Trade: For as long as I have been involved in Republican politics, the GOP has been a free trade party. But a funny thing happened on the way to the next GATT agreement. We lost our manufacturing base and vast swaths of middle America has been hollowed out as a result. Those voters have increasingly turned to the GOP in the era of Trump and it is unlikely that they will return to the Democrats any time soon.

3) Agency vs. Victimhood: Republicans cant survive as a party of just old white men. President TrumpDonald John TrumpFeds investigating if alleged Hunter Biden emails connected to foreign intelligence operation: report Six takeaways from Trump and Biden's dueling town halls Biden draws sharp contrast with Trump in low-key town hall MORE gets that and has been trying, clumsily, to expand the base among African-Americans and Hispanics. His pitch to black voters has been to stress the economic benefits of his policies, while signing into law criminal justice reform. At the same time, he rejects liberal philosophical constructs like systemic racism, white privilege and critical race theory. For Trump, minority voters are agents who create their own destiny, not victims of an overwhelmingly racist society that is fundamentally stacked against them.

4) The people vs. the elites: Not all country club members are opposed to Donald Trump, but the mythical Country Club Republican, as a class, has turned on the president and the GOP. If you went to Andover or some other elite boarding school, Trumps rhetoric offends you. The reason Democrats have such an overwhelming financial advantage in this election is because they are now the party of well-heeled. But in politics, it is always smart to remember Henry Fords advice to sell to the masses if you want to eat with the classes. Mr. Trump is an expert of packaging his messages to the people, not the elites. That will continue after Trump.

5) Free speech vs. political correctness: Comrade, your statement is factually incorrect. However, it is politically correct. So went a familiar refrain in Stalins Soviet Union. We live in a cancel culture world and the left continues to impose a rigorous speech code of conduct on its followers while trying to silence the voices of those they disagree with. Increasingly, this political correctness is imposed by the new gatekeepers of our public discourse, Google, Facebook and Twitter. Donald Trump smashes political correctness every day, and his willingness to take on the mandarins of wokeness is a lesson to the GOP: Never stop fighting for the right of the American people to express themselves however they want.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at http://www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) when he was majority whip and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).

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Feehery: Trumpism will survive, no matter what happens on Election Day | TheHill - The Hill

Will the Cultural Revolution be Canceled? – newgeography.com

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

Its an article of faith among many conservatives, and some liberals, that were being swept by a Maoist cultural revolution destined to transform American society into a woke collective. Yet before surrendering basics like equality of opportunity, social order, and free speech to leftist authoritarians, we should consider whether theyre the ones who will wind up getting canceled.

Most Americans dont favor defunding police or instituting race quotas; they are wary of the costs connected with the Green New Deal and of allowing Washington to control local zoning. Many are already voting with their feet, fleeing places that promote these ideas and seeking out areas aligned with more recognizable American values. Over the past 20 years, virtually all the most progressive large statesNew York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Californiahave suffered massive outmigration, while red or purplish states like Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, or Arizona welcome more and more Americans to resettle there. On the metropolitan level, even before Covid-19 accelerated the trend, a steady, largely unacknowledged, movement from the deep-blue core to the less progressive suburbs or exurbs has been underway.

Political correctnessthe secular religion of elite liberal societyturns out to be enormously unpopular, something President Trump has exploited politically. Some 80 percent of Americans, notes one recent survey, including most millennials and minorities, see political correctness as a problem, not a solution for the future. Progressive social activists, a survey by the liberal research organization More in Common found, account for barely 8 percent of the adult population, less than a third of the number who identify as traditional conservatives.

The fact that most AmericansDemocrat and Republicanfall between these two categories suggests that social attitudes may be far less polarized, and less susceptible to political correctness, than has been widely assumed. As seen in the reaction to the George Floyd case, most Americans generally back the police but also embrace the notion of police reform; they are increasingly hostile, however, to the wave of violence that has accompanied some of the protests. Rather than support growing attempts to limit free speech, almost four in five Americans, according to Pew, support protecting it. These attitudes extend well beyond the base of Trumpian conservatives to include most Americans, regardless of ethnic background.

The media epitomize the gap between the public and the nations dominant institutions. Subjectivity, notes a recent Rand study, has replaced the world of shared facts with approaches that lead to truth decay. Reporters once believed that their mission was to inform the public, but now many journalism schools, including Columbia, embrace progressive groupthink, openly advancing a leftist social-justice agenda in which reporters are advocates. Even Teen Vogue has taken a neo-Marxist tack. Moral clarity replaces objectivity. Free speech is somehow linked to white privilege.

These partisan attitudes have dramatically eroded trust in media, according to a new Knight Foundation study. Public trust in most large media has declined steadily over the past four years, with the biggest drops among Republicans; the New York Times, the publisher of the 1619 Project takedown of American history, is trusted by less than half of the public, compared with almost 60 percent in 2016. Gallup reports that, since the pandemic, the news media has suffered the lowest ratings of any major institution, performing even worse than Congress or President Trump.

Certainly, the shift leftward has not helped the progressive-dominated newspaper business. Between 2001 and 2017, the publishing industry (books, newspapers, magazines) lost 290,000 jobs, a decline of 40 percent. Endless partisan sniping and countless crises have boosted CNN, but the network lags well behind right-wing Fox. NPR has seen its ratings drop as many listeners gravitate to less predictable, livelier voices like Joe Rogan.

The new media also suffer from a credibility crisis. Controllers like those at Facebook, Google, Apple, and Twitter are increasingly determined to curate quality content on their sites, or even eliminate views they find objectionable, which tend to be conservative, according to employees. The idea that managers of huge social-media platforms aim to control content is more than conservative paranoia. Over 70 percent of Americans, according to a recent Pew study, believe that such platformsas demonstrated in the case of Reddit, Facebook, and Googlecensor political views. In California, the center of Big Tech, people express more trust in the marijuana industry than they do in social media, according to a 2019 survey.

Read the rest of this piece at City Journal.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo credit: City of St Pete via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.

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Will the Cultural Revolution be Canceled? - newgeography.com

Judge Barrett is already a disappointment – The Herald

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Danzig

To the editor:

Even before Senate hearings had begun, Judge Amy Coney Barrett had proved to be a disappointment, and it had nothing to do with her judicial philosophy.

A more understanding judge would have expressed gratitude at being nominated, but would have insisted that in order to preserve the integrity of the Court in this politically toxic environment, it would be best for the Senate to postpone the confirmation hearings until after the election. She didn't do that. She's put her interests ahead of the interests of the country. Judge Barrett will be as complicit as Trump, McConnell and the Senate Republicans in stoking public distrust of the Supreme Court.

Judge Barrett has shown herself to be politically correct in the world of Trump. At her introduction last month, she met with officials and VIPs in the Oval Office, the Rose Garden, and later in the Diplomatic Reception Room. Almost all of the attendees, including Judge Barrett, refused to physically distance themselves or to wear masks, presumably because no one wanted to offend the president. This White House affair has since been classified as a COVID-19 superspreader event. It laid waste to numerous politicians and most of the West Wing.

Reckless personal behavior, adherence to political correctness, and failure to understand that barefisted politics is going to further poison the credibility of the Supreme Court, Judge Barrett is already a disappointment and Senate hearings have barely begun.

Scott NewtonJasper

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Judge Barrett is already a disappointment - The Herald

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