Monthly Archives: September 2021

Proud of what? | Sept. 15-21, 2021 – Real Change News

Posted: September 16, 2021 at 5:48 am

On Saturday, Sept. 4, an anti-mandate protest in Olympia escalated to gunfire in a clash between the Portland Proud Boys and anti-fascist counterprotesters. The conflict is far from the first for the enemy groups, and it will certainly not be the last. The Proud Boys will rally at Olympia City Hall Sept. 18 to honor their wounded leader.

I think its gonna get worse before it gets better, said Garrett Padera, a photographer who captured Proud Boys leader Tusitala Tiny Toese on the ground after being shot. After what happened Saturday, the Proud Boys might be out for blood.

The Proud Boys are an exclusively male group of far-right, white nationalists founded in 2016 to stand in opposition to progressive, far-left or, in the organizations words, neo-Marxist movements, according to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

The anti-fascist movement is a leaderless resistance to fascism, racism and other far-right extremism. Both groups frequent protests to defend their ideology and work to weaken their respective opposition.

Because of these shared tactics for opposing missions, these groups have a history together; as recently as late August, two opposing rallies in Portland, Oregon, sparked clashes between Proud Boys and antifa adherents.

Right-wing protests in Olympia against vaccine mandates have become a weekly occurrence since Gov. Jay Inslee announced that most state employees, health care workers and educators can either get vaccinated or find new jobs. The Free Press Media News livestreamed one such protest at the Washington Capitol building Sept. 4. Previous to the day, antifa counterprotesters had sent out an alert to meet at Sylvester Park, and the Proud Boys came as back-up to the anti-mandate crew.

The stream lasted for two and a half hours, following Proud Boys as they pursued antifa counterprotesters who were in black bloc. Seattleites may remember from the Black Lives Matter protests last summer the use of black bloc: a protest tactic of wearing black clothing to make it more difficult for police to identify and arrest individuals.

At about the 59-minute mark, around 3 p.m., five gunshots earned the reaction, What the fuck? Holy shit! from the streamer.

Toese was struck in the foot by a gunshot about a mile away from the Capitol building, near Intercity Transit Center on State Avenue, on which sidewalk he received emergency care from police. The injuries were not life threatening, and Toese was transported to Providence St. Peter Hospital.

Initially, there were conflicting reports about who shot him. The Olympian reported that, as of Sept.7, police are continuing to investigate video footage that shows a person wearing dark clothing and a facial covering who also appears to be holding a handgun, according to Chief Aaron Jelcick. On Sept. 10, the Olympia Police Department released footage of the shooting which confirmed the bullets were fired by someone running with the antifa group.

Padera, who has been covering protests since the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, was on the scene that day. Padera brought a newer photographer out with him to show her the ropes, expecting an easy day anti-mandate rallies have not been violent. When he saw the Proud Boys, Padera went back to his car and suited up in gear he had acquired during the Black Lives Matter protests: a bulletproof vest, ballistic helmet and a full-face respirator.

Last weekend was very crazy, Padera told Real Change the Tuesday following the action in Olympia. But I feel like there have been many instances just like it with people pulling guns and shooting and things. In the weird sense, its more normal now, I guess. Not that thats ever a good thing.

At the time of the shooting, Padera was about three blocks away, cleaning out his eyes from an unfortunate encounter with a cloud of bear spray. He arrived at the scene about 3 or 4 minutes after Toese was shot.

The internet was quick to tease Toese, claiming he shot himself, but Padera said the Proud Boys blamed their natural foil, antifa.

According to a flyer circulating Reddit, the Proud Boys will be back Sept. 18, seeking, in their words, Justice for Tusitala Tiny Toese.

The rally coincides with expected action at the U.S. Capitol organized by the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia made up of current and former military and police, who will be demanding justice for people charged for participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. According to CBS News, the United States Capitol Police is taking no chances with the action expected on Sept. 18 in Washington D.C.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told CNN that any intelligence about the action at the U.S. Capitol should be taken very seriously In fact, they should take it more seriously than they took the same sort of intelligence that they likely saw on Jan. 5.

Padera said the tensions between the Proud Boys and antifa seem to have escalated since December 2020, when he saw both groups at another protest in Olympia.

It seemed like there was a much stronger police presence (at the December protest) and a much more proactive police presence, Padera said. I think that presence helps reduce a lot of the violence. At the event in Olympia on the 4th, at the event in Portland two weeks prior to that, we saw almost no police presence. Like the two groups just have free rein to go at it with each other. And I think that is something thats newer, and I think thats leading to more violence between these two groups.

Another observer to what happened in Olympia a self-described concerned, working-class dad and average white dude was driving his car into the garage after work when he saw a throng of people racing down Fourth Avenue with weapons above their heads.

The man, who is afraid to be named because of the damn chuds, was so concerned about fascists in our progressive town that he made a few calls to the police, who he says did not do enough to intervene. Hes sure Sept. 18 will be a bloodbath if the Olympia Police Department doesnt step in.

Both of those groups that want to cause chaos: not here, the concerned father said. Go out into the hills, and like, punch each other in the face. Go for it. No one cares. Just stop endangering peoples families.

The Olympia Police Department and City Hall did not respond to Real Change about the citys safety plans for the Justice for Tusitala Tiny Toese rally.

Hannah Krieg studied journalism at the University of Washington. She is especially interested in covering politics, social issuesand anything that gives her an excuse to speak with activists.

Read more of the Sept. 15-21, 2021 issue.

Follow this link:

Proud of what? | Sept. 15-21, 2021 - Real Change News

Posted in Antifa | Comments Off on Proud of what? | Sept. 15-21, 2021 – Real Change News

Robbins: On 9/11 anniversary, Bush warns of extremists within – Boston Herald

Posted: at 5:48 am

The president whose fate it was to summon the best of America after al-Qaedas murderous attack on us 20 years ago delivered a powerful warning on Saturday about the menace posed by the worst of America.

We have seen growing evidence, George W. Bush noted at the Shanksville, Pa., memorial to the heroes of United Flight 93, that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home, but in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to befoul national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.

The marking of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was a painful, apt moment seized by former President Bush to speak pointedly about the peril in which some of our own countrymen have placed our country, a peril every bit as real as that which we face from enemies overseas. His remarks were especially resonant coming from a Republican president, the son of another Republican president, addressing the poisoned and the poisonous within the Republican Party, who threaten our future in ways as worrisome as Middle Eastern jihadists.

Indeed, many of them are themselves jihadists of a fashion: insurrectionists, white supremacists, ultra-right wing fanatics and just plain nut cases. A fraction of their number stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 bent on overthrowing a democratic election. But hundreds of criminals do not represent the breadth or the depth of the problem: These individuals are supported or embraced by millions of our fellow citizens.

The leaders of both political parties readily agreed that the catastrophe of Sept. 11, 2001, required a bipartisan investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack. Supported by President Bush, Congress established the 9/11 Commission to answer these questions: Who organized the attacks and who carried them out? What security failures and what intelligence-gathering inadequacies contributed to the success of these attacks? What had to be done to guard against future attacks? The importance of ascertaining the facts was a no-brainer.

Either America has changed a great deal in the 20 years since both parties sought answers to questions about an assault on our homeland, or a massive rock has been lifted, revealing a whole lot of ugly underneath. It turns out that it isnt merely a fringe that is prepared to indulge a home-grown neo-fascist mob but a substantial slice of the country. The rise of the same kind of domestic extremism that we have watched consume other countries threatens to consume ours. So it is that a bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, every bit as much of a no-brainer as the 9/11 Commission, was blocked by an overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans, who had themselves supported nullifying the election in order to keep Donald Trump president.

Just hours before we commemorated 9/11, the information requested by the House committee appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate Jan. 6 began to arrive on Capitol Hill. The committee seeks evidence from government agencies, certain individuals in Trumps inner orbit and social media companies in order to shed light on how the attack came about, who instigated it, who facilitated it and who failed to stop it. A political party that truly cared about American values would want the answers. The Republican Party, however, isnt and doesnt. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to retaliate against those who provide the information sought by the committee.

George Bushs speech in Shanksville will no doubt stoke the hatred of the American extremists that he warned us about. But honoring the heroism of those who did America proud on Sept. 11 was just the moment to remind us that we face not only grave external threats but grave domestic ones.

Jeff Robbins is a Boston lawyer and former U.S. delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

View post:

Robbins: On 9/11 anniversary, Bush warns of extremists within - Boston Herald

Posted in Antifa | Comments Off on Robbins: On 9/11 anniversary, Bush warns of extremists within – Boston Herald

Transition to Oligarchy Shows Why Threats of Violence Are Epidemic in America – LA Progressive

Posted: at 5:48 am

Im sitting in my home office working on the next mornings Daily Rant when I hear what sounded like a man in my driveway yelling, at the top of his voice, You f*cking c*nt! and other female-specific obscenities. Walking to the window, I saw a guy in his 40s, red-faced, giving my wife the finger with both hands and cursing her out as he climbed into his car and squealed out of the driveway.

Louise, it turns out, had invited a local contractor to give us a bid on some repairs and shed (very nicely) asked him, before letting him into the house, if he was vaccinated. He exploded and marched back to his car screaming curses at her.

In all her years on this planet, including as CEO of three different companies, that was the first time in her life a man had behaved like such an ass toward her.

In Tennessee a high school student testifies to a school board meeting that his grandmother has just died of Covid and he begs his school to mandate masks so his other grandmother isnt next; hes shouted down, laughed at and heckled by smirking, unmasked adults.

On Jet Blue whats become a new rite of passage for flight attendants blows into life as a man screams obscenities when asked to leave the plane because he refused to properly wear his mask.

In Tacoma, Washington a group of thugs goes looking for a fight when antifa fails to show up for the brawl the Boys had advertised. Undeterred, they march around town with clubs, flags and baseball bats looking for people to pick fights with until a local (not-antifa) man, apparently disgusted and feeling threatened by their behavior, finally pulls out a gun and shoots one of them in the foot (the story is still evolving; its possible the guy shot himself in the foot).

In Ft. Collins Colorado a man harasses a group of women suntanning on the beach for wearing pornographic bathing suits, refusing to leave when they ask him to go away because, he says, This is America!

Across the nation, hundreds of poll workers and election officials endure daily death threats and violent harassment just for doing their civic duty. And school boards are under daily assault in similar fashion.

This continuous and increasing use of violence and threats of violence has become an epidemic across America since 2016 and its not because of frustration with the pandemic.

And these are just the stories from the past week.

This continuous and increasing use of violence and threats of violence has become an epidemic across America since 2016 and its not because of frustration with the pandemic.

This is what happens in every country when it begins making the transition from being a democratic and generally polite and respectful culture into one that embraces authoritarianism or fascism.

And it always starts from the top down: leadership sets the initial tone in countries, just like in companies and families.

In our case, these people are imitating Donald Trump; our best hope is that President Bidens reasonable and compassionate example can help the nation turn against it, although Trump-imitating governors and other elected officials are making it very difficult.

The Republican leadership of Texas, for example, just legally embraced vigilantism against women, and a dozen GOP-controlled states are planning to follow suit this month. This is how it starts.

In Hungary, roaming bands of thugs with torches threatened to burn the homes of Roma people as Viktor Orbn rose to power a bit over a decade ago.

In The Philippines, President Little Donald Trump Duterte praised vigilantes roaming the streets with clubs and guns looking to beat or kill people linked to drugs including more than 150 judges, mayors, lawmakers, police and military personnel he viewed as political opponents. Duterte told his followers: Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun you have my support.

In Russia roaming bands attack and kill suspected-LGBTQ people as the governments leadership ramps up otherizing language against its own citizens. Across former Soviet states advocates for democracy or gay rights are routinely hunted, beaten and often killed.

As Mussolini came to power in Italy in the early 1920s his civilian vigilantes, known as Blackshirts for their garb of that color, took to the streets regularly. Historian Michael R. Ebner writes: Thus, life for labor leaders became terror-filled, especially because Fascists did not limit their attacks to the public sphere. Nowhere was safe. Late at night, 10, 30, or even 100 Blackshirts, as these squad members became known, sometimes traveling from neighboring towns, might surround a home, inviting a Socialist, anarchist, or Communist outside to talk. If they refused, the Fascists would enter forcibly or threaten to harm the entire family by lighting the house on fire.

In Germany in 1921 Hitler organized a volunteer, unpaid civilian militia he called the Sturmabteilung (Storm Unit) who roamed across Germany looking for labor leaders, gays and Jews to beat up.

In Brazil today roaming bands of thugs called militias beat and kill people they believe are political enemies of strongman and Trump imitator President Jair Bolsonaro. According to reporting in The Intercept and The Guardian, theyre led by Bolsonaros eldest son Flvio.

In every case, around the world and throughout history, regular citizens were first surprised, then shocked, then intimidated, and finally dominated by the emerging authoritarian or neofascist movements led or encouraged by ambitious politicians in their nation.

In every case, everyday interactions like traveling on a train, bus or airplane, hiring a contractor, or just walking through town became a minefield filled with unpredictable eruptions of threat, intimidation and violence.

As Chicago reporter Milton Mayer wrote after returning from Germany just after World War II: If I and my countrymen ever succumbed to that concatenation of conditions, no Constitution, no laws, no police, and certainly no army would be able to protect us from harm.

We are witnessing today in America the symptoms of a culture going through the early stages of transition from pluralistic democracy to violent oligarchy, as I lay out in far more detail in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy.

It quite literally starts with average people randomly exploding and behaving like asses while political demagogues promote self-styled militias, lawlessness and vigilantism.

We ignore or minimize them at our own peril.

Thom Hartmann

Independent Media Institute

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Read more here:

Transition to Oligarchy Shows Why Threats of Violence Are Epidemic in America - LA Progressive

Posted in Antifa | Comments Off on Transition to Oligarchy Shows Why Threats of Violence Are Epidemic in America – LA Progressive

Yan Cui and Team Are Innovating Artificial Intelligence Approach to Address Biomedical Data Inequality – UTHSC News

Posted: at 5:48 am

Yan Cui, PhD, associate professor in the UTHSCDepartment of Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics,recently received a $1.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute for a study titled Algorithm-based prevention and reduction of cancer health disparity arising from data inequality.

Dr. Cuis project aims to prevent and reduce health disparities caused by ethnically-biased data in cancer-related genomic and clinical omics studies. His objective is to establish a new machine learning paradigm for use with multiethnic clinical omics data.

For nearly 20 years, scientists have been using genome-wide association studies, known as GWAS, and clinical omics studies to detect the molecular basis of diseases. But statistics show that over 80% percent of data used in GWAS come from people of predominantly European descent.

As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly applied to biomedical research and clinical decisions, this European-centric skew is set to exacerbate long-standing disparities in health. With less than 20% of genomic samples coming from people of non-European descent, underrepresented populations are at a severe disadvantage in data-driven, algorithm-based biomedical research and health care.

Biomedical data-disadvantage has become a significant health risk for the vast majority of the worlds population, Dr. Cui said. AI-powered precision medicine is set to be less precise for the data-disadvantaged populations including all the ethnic minority groups in the U.S. We are committed to addressing the health disparities arising from data inequality.

The project is innovative in the type of machine learning technique it will use. Multiethnic machine learning normally uses mixture learning and independent learning schemes. Dr. Cuis project will instead be using a transfer learning process.

Transfer learning works much the same way as human learning. When faced with a new task, instead of starting the learning process from scratch, the algorithm leverages patterns learned from solving a related task. This approach greatly reduces the resources and amount of data required for developing new models.

Using large-scale cancer clinical omics data and genotype-phenotype data, Dr. Cuis lab will examine how and to what extent transfer learning improves machine learning on data-disadvantaged cohorts. In tandem with this, the team aims to create an open resource system for unbiased multiethnic machine learning to prevent or reduce new health disparities.

Neil Hayes, MD, MPH, assistant dean for Cancer Reesearch in the UTHSC College of Medicine and director of the UTHSC Center for Cancer Research, and Athena Starlard-Davenport, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics, are co-Investigators on the grant. Yan Gao, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar working with Dr. Cui, is a machine learning expert in the team. A pilot study for this project, funded by the UT Center for Integrative and Translational Genomics and UTHSC Office of Research, has been published in Nature Communications.

Related

Follow this link:

Yan Cui and Team Are Innovating Artificial Intelligence Approach to Address Biomedical Data Inequality - UTHSC News

Posted in Artificial Intelligence | Comments Off on Yan Cui and Team Are Innovating Artificial Intelligence Approach to Address Biomedical Data Inequality – UTHSC News

Unlocking the power of data with artificial intelligence – TechRadar

Posted: at 5:48 am

Data is the lifeblood of business it drives innovation and enhances competitiveness. However, its importance was brought to the fore by the pandemic as lockdowns and social distancing drove digital transformation like never before.

About the author

Andrew Brown, General Manager, Technology Group, IBM United Kingdom & Ireland.

Forward-thinking businesses have started to grasp the importance of their data; they understand the consequences of not fully mobilizing it, but many are sat at the start of their journey.

Even the best organizations are failing to extract the maximum benefits from their data while keeping it safe. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play it can benefit enterprises with their data in three fundamental ways.

First, without the right tools it is impossible to unlock datas hidden value. For that to happen businesses need to deploy AI because of its ability to analyze complex datasets and produce actionable insights. These can significantly enhance business agility and improve the foresight of enterprises of all sizes.

The success of any move to adopt AI will depend on a robust IT infrastructure being in place. Transforming data into useful information is only possible with this solid foundation, which in turn allows advanced AI applications to extract the real value locked inside the data.

During the first wave of the pandemic, IBM worked with The Royal Marsden, a world-leading cancer hospital, to launch an AI virtual assistant to alleviate some of the pressures and uncertainty for staff associated with COVID-19. The system depended on fast access to trusted information from various diverse sources, such as the hospitals official policy handbook as well as data from NHS England. By tapping into these rich knowledge sources, staff were able to get quicker answers to workplace queries while the HR team had more time to handle complex requests.

Another issue is that far too many businesses simply dont know how much data they own. Split up into silos, it can be impossible to gain a clear view of not only what data is available but also where it resides. Removing this bottleneck can also be achieved through the implementation of AI. This is important because incomplete data will result in incomplete insights.

Businesses should prioritize making all data sources as simple and accessible as possible. Cloud computing technologies, such as hybrid data management, have a vital role to play here. Adoption makes it possible to manage all data types across multiple sources and locations, effectively breaking down these silos and a major barrier to AI adoption.

IBM has partnered with Wimbledon for more than 30 years, helping the worlds leading tennis tournament get the most from its data. Tapping into a wealth of new and archived footage, player data and historical records, fans can now benefit from personalized recommendations and highlights reels. Created through a rules-based recommendation engine integrated across Wimbledons digital platforms, this personalized content allows fans to track their favorite players through the tournament as well as receive suggestions on emerging talent to follow.

This is all made possible by the hybrid cloud the data spans a combination of on-premises systems, private clouds, and public cloud. Breaking down these silos has allowed Wimbledon to innovate at pace to attract new global audiences.

While extracting value from data is undoubtedly beneficial for organizations, it also creates risks. Criminals are increasingly aware of the potential to exploit vulnerabilities to disrupt operations or cause reputational issues through leaking sensitive data. The threat landscape is evolving and rising data breach costs are a growing problem for businesses in the wake of the rapid technology shifts triggered by the pandemic.

Over the last year businesses were forced to quickly adapt their technology approaches, with many companies encouraging or requiring employees to work from home, and 60% of organizations moved further into cloud-based activities during the pandemic.

According to the latest annual Cost of a Data Breach report, conducted by Ponemon Institute and analyzed by IBM Security, serious security incidents now cost UK-based organizations an average of $4.67 million (around 3.4 million) per incident, the highest cost in the 17-year history of the report. This is higher than the global average of $4.24 million per incident, highlighting the importance of protecting data for British businesses.

AI has a role to play here, and the study revealed encouraging signs about the impact of intelligent and automated security tools. While data breach costs reached a record high over the past year, the report also showed positive signs about the impact of modern cybersecurity tactics, such as AI and automation which may pay off by reducing the cost of these incidents further down the line.

The adoption of AI and security analytics were in the top five mitigating factors shown to reduce the cost of a breach. On average, organizations with a fully deployed security automation strategy faced data breach costs of less than half of those with no automation technology in place.

The sector in which a business operates also has a direct impact on the overall cost of a security breach. The report identified that the average cost of each compromised record containing sensitive data was highest for UK organizations in Services (191 per record), Financial (188) and Pharmaceuticals (147). This highlights how quickly the costs of a breach can escalate if a large number of records are compromised.

The Cost of a Data Breach report highlights a number of trends and best practices that were consistent with an effective response to security incidents. These can be adopted by organizations of all types and sizes and contribute to form the basis of a data management and governance strategy:

1. Invest in security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR). Security AI and automation significantly reduce the time to identify and respond to a data breach. By deploying SOAR solutions alongside your existing security tools, its possible to accelerate incident response and reduce overall costs associated with breaches.

2. Adopt a zero trust security model to help prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data. Organizations with mature zero trust deployments have far lower breach costs than those without. As businesses move to remote working and hybrid cloud environments, a zero trust strategy can help protect data by only making it accessible in the right context.

3. Stress test incident response plans to improve resilience. Forming an Incident Response team, developing a plan and putting it to the test are crucial steps to responding quickly and effectively to attacks.

4. Invest in governance, risk management and compliance. Evaluating risk and tracking compliance can help quantify the cost of a potential breach in real terms. In turn this can expedite the decision-making process and resource allocation.

5. Protect sensitive data in the cloud using policy and encryption. Data classification schema and retention policies should help minimize the volume of the sensitive information that is vulnerable to a breach. Advanced data encryption techniques should be deployed for everything that remains.

So how should a business bring its AI strategy to life? First, organizations must ensure their infrastructure is equipped to handle all the data, processing and performance requirements needed to effectively run AI. If you use your existing storage arrangement without modernizing it, you greatly increase your risk of failure. A hybrid cloud implementation is likely to be the best solution in most instances as it offers the optimum flexibility.

Enterprises should also directly embed AI into their data management and security systems, which should have clearly defined data policies to ensure appropriate levels of access and resilience. The data management system and the data architecture should be optimized for added agility and ease of operation.

A fully featured AI implementation doesnt just aggregate data and perform largescale analytics, it also enhances security and governance. Together they enable companies to create valuable business insights that fuel innovation. AI will also help ensure that data if used more efficiently and minimize data duplication. But above all, properly managed data is the lifeblood of enterprise a resource that needs to be identified and protected. Only then can companies start to climb the AI ladder.

See the original post here:

Unlocking the power of data with artificial intelligence - TechRadar

Posted in Artificial Intelligence | Comments Off on Unlocking the power of data with artificial intelligence – TechRadar

Why robotics and artificial intelligence will be bigger than the discovery of the New World | Column – Tampa Bay Times

Posted: at 5:48 am

Having spent more than 25 years working with industry partners to educate and prepare the future workforce, it is not surprising to see that Florida has experienced growth in the technology sector.

Across the nation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that computer and information technology occupations are projected to grow 11 percent from 2019 to 2029, much faster than the average for all occupations. Additionally, demand for skilled professionals in robotics and artificial intelligence is growing. The World Economic Forum estimates that while 85 million jobs will be displaced, 97 million new jobs will be created across 26 countries by 2025 due to the growth of artificial intelligence technology.

From my conversations with industry leaders to the research and data Ive studied, all signs lead me to believe that robotics and artificial intelligence will be a significant economic driver, surpassing the impact of Christopher Columbus exploration of the New World in 1492.

While Columbus used sophisticated technology that was highly advanced for his time, he was still required to convince Queen Isabella that his trip and tools had value. His technology included the compass, maps, and charts that helped him navigate what many considered a nearly unthinkable journey.

Today, few in our modern world need to be convinced that computing and other advanced technologies, including robotics and artificial intelligence, have value.

While certainly some people fear technology will impact us negatively with the loss of jobs or human touch, others see technologies like robotic surgery or manufacturing as protections that can help heal people faster or make work more effective. Today, robots are largely sophisticated tools that are as amazing and mindboggling as the compass and quadrant were in Columbus time.

While Columbus trip changed the world, it took hundreds of years for its impact to be understood and capitalized upon. Robotics, as a field of practice and study, rapidly will change the future for graduates, and all of us, with new technologies being employed each year.

The idea of a robot may bring to mind images of Commander Data from Star Trek, or more frighteningly, the robots featured in The Terminator, but the field of robotics is much broader than those perceptions.

According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, there are many types of robots from those in aerospace, to consumer products, disaster response, drones, autonomous vehicles, and exoskeletons, to industrial robots, and medical robots, among others. In 2019, an article in Oxford Economics revealed that the number of robots in use worldwide multiplied three-fold over the past two decades, to 2.25 million. In many cases, robots are simply machines that are programmed to perform tasks or take actions. They are able to do things in anticipation of needs, based on artificial intelligence coding.

A final point to consider is the impact on the economy. After Columbus journey, trade between nations became prevalent and a new economic system was born. Likewise, demand for robotics and artificial intelligence technology will grow and create new efficiencies. PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Artificial Intelligence Study predicts that by 2030, growth of artificial intelligence will lead to an estimated $15.7 trillion, or 26 percent increase, in global gross domestic product.

Demand for robotics engineers and technicians also will grow, given the need for designing and maintaining robots. There also will be strong demand for application developers for robotic systems and solutions. So, while some fear that robots and artificial intelligence will take away jobs from humans, they will create many more jobs and careers.

With what I now know today, if I could go back and change my college major, I would select robotics. There are many opportunities in this growing field. It is multidisciplinary, creative, impactful, and would allow me to innovate. It is and will be the next big discovery in our world.

Jeffrey D. Senese, PhD, is the president of Saint Leo University, a private, nonprofit Catholic university based in Pasco County, FL. Saint Leo is the largest Benedictine Catholic university in the world, educating more than 18,000 students each year. This fall, the university is launching a bachelors degree in robotics and artificial intelligence and opening a new college dedicated to the growing field.

Follow this link:

Why robotics and artificial intelligence will be bigger than the discovery of the New World | Column - Tampa Bay Times

Posted in Artificial Intelligence | Comments Off on Why robotics and artificial intelligence will be bigger than the discovery of the New World | Column – Tampa Bay Times

Museum Of Wild And Newfangled Art’s Opening Exhibition Curated By Artificial Intelligence – Broadway World

Posted: at 5:48 am

The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna) will open their final show of the year "This Show is Curated by a Machine" on September 23, 2021.

The Artificial Intelligence curated exhibition opens with a talk on the development of the AI model followed by a Q&A with the AI Team: IV (Ivan Pravdin) and museum co-founders cari ann shim sham* and Joey Zaza. "This Show is Curated by a Machine" runs September 23, 2021 through January 31, 2022 tickets bought prior to opening day, September 23rd, include entrance to AI talk and are available at: https://www.mowna.org/museum/this-show-is-curated-by-a-machine

Earlier this year, The Whitney Museum of American Art commissioned and exhibited the work "The Next Biennial Should Be Curated by a Machine" for their online artport. In response the Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art has designed an artificial intelligence curator that will not only redefine how we look at curation and AI but will also underscore the need to move forward with AI curation in an ethical way.

The artificial intelligence model was trained on image sets from various sources, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the mowna Biennial submissions, an exhibit of around 88 International Artists from 44 countries.

"Curation is very subjective. It's my hope through the development of an AI curator that we can allow for equity and diversity, and eliminate some biases," says cari ann shim sham*.

Artists in the show include Alice Prum, a London based artist whose work explores the invisible relationships between space, the body, and technology. Bridget DeFranco is an east coast media artist working against the high-stimulation nature of the screen. Avideh Salmanpour is an Iranian artist whose paintings explore the bewilderment of contemporary man and the attempt to find a new way.

The artificial intelligence curator was created by multiple artists. IV is a post-contemporary artist working with various artificial intelligence and neural networking techniques. cari ann shim sham* is the co-founder and curator of mowna, a wild artist working at the intersection of dance and technology, and an associate arts professor of dance and technology at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Joey Zaza is the co-founder and curator of mowna, and works in photography, software, video, sound, and installation. They combined forces to explore the potential of using artificial intelligence in art curation. The team's initial thoughts, strategies and questions in the development of the AI model can be found on mowna's blog.

Human curation is also included alongside the AI curation for "This Show is Curated by a Machine" to offer a comparison. Text written by the team will explain why or why not they think the AI chose the work. This show is a successful completion of phase one of mowna's AI model which ranks and curates a show using image based files. mowna will release a paper with its phase one research and findings to the public. With this data the team will enter into phase two development for the AI's ability to curate sound and video files.

"This Show is Curated by a Machine" will be installed and available for viewing on September 23, 2021 and marks the third online art exhibition by mowna. The second, the 2021 mowna Biennial, showcases art of all mediums and focuses on exhibiting art that might have otherwise gone unseen due to gaps in the post-pandemic art world. It is currently still on exhibit until September 22, 2021 and can be viewed on the mowna website. Tickets are a sliding scale of pay-what-you-wish.

mowna makes it their priority to showcase a broad range of art and is committed to diversity in every way. It provides an international online platform for the most timely, diverse, and preeminent artists. At the center of the constantly changing and expanding art world, mowna showcases a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar. Members will have the opportunity to see artists who have been curated by the MoMA or the Whitney alongside artists available only on mowna.

As the global landscape shifts towards a more technological way of being, mowna is there to meet the needs of an ever-changing art world. The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art was formed to feature the newest art developments and make art of all mediums accessible to everyone. And it unmistakably builds on that foundation with the upcoming exhibition "This Show is Curated by a Machine".

For more information on current and upcoming exhibitions and events, please visit mowna's new pages on Instagram and Facebook (below) as well as the museum's official website.

See the original post:

Museum Of Wild And Newfangled Art's Opening Exhibition Curated By Artificial Intelligence - Broadway World

Posted in Artificial Intelligence | Comments Off on Museum Of Wild And Newfangled Art’s Opening Exhibition Curated By Artificial Intelligence – Broadway World

Microsoft creates an R&D hub in Spain focused on Artificial Intelligence models to improve user experience – Science Business

Posted: at 5:48 am

Microsoft has chosen Spain as the base of operations for its new R&D hub specialized in the application of Artificial Intelligence technologies to improve user experience on the web. This facility will be one of eight research centers worldwide and part of Microsofts WebXT (Web Experiences Team) division. Chaired by Mikhail Parakhin, WebXT is an organization of more than 5,000 people focused on the development of advanced user experiences that leverage Artificial Intelligence and deep learning technologies.

Located in Barcelona, the hub seeks to attract talent from all European countries and is part of the Search & AI team led by Jordi Ribas, corporate vice president of Microsoft Corporation in the United States. This team that specializes in AI applications is the largest group in WebXT and contributes to the development of multiple Microsoft products, including Windows, Azure and, of course, Bing.

I am honored to announce the launch of this R&D hub in Spain. After creating Search & AI hubs in London, Munich and Paris, and having been able to learn first-hand about the requirements, needs and, above all, opportunities for attracting talent, I am convinced that implementing this hub in Spain will add much value to Microsofts R&D footprint worldwide,says Jordi Ribas.

In the first phase, the current investment includes the recruitment of 30 Software Engineers and Data Scientists specialized in advanced areas of software engineering including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning, and in the coming years, the hub may exceed 100 employees. (*)

In the words of Alberto Granados, GM at Microsoft Spain, Microsofts investment in our country is further proof of the high qualifications of our professionals and our ability to become a pole of attraction for talent.Around this hub we want to generate a vector of innovation in Artificial Intelligence in collaboration with universities, research centers and technology companies, reinforcing our efforts to boost digital talent in Spain and training in machine learning technologies.

According to Nadia Calvio, First Vice-President of the Government of Spain and Minister for the Economy and Digital Transformation, We celebrate the announcement of this R&D center in artificial intelligence models and Microsofts commitment to our country. The government of Spain is promoting an ambitious digital agenda, supported by the Recovery Plan, which is already mobilizing important investments in the sectors of the most future.

In words of Jordi Puigner, Vice Presidentand Minister of Digital Policies and Public Administration of Catalonia,Catalonia has the capabilities to lead the development of Artificial Intelligence in Europe and has become a global technological pole in this area. The Microsoft R&D Hub reinforces the ecosystem driven by the Artificial Intelligence Strategy of Catalonia (Catalonia.ai) and the joint commitment of the Govern and Microsoft to the CIDAI (Center for Innovation in Data Tech and Artificial Intelligence) as an initiative of reference for the adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Catalonia.

According to Ada Colau, Major of Barcelona,It is excellent news that Microsoft has chosen Barcelona for a strategic project linked to Artificial Intelligence: it confirms that we are a leading city in the field of innovation and new technologies, and a pole of attraction in this area. This choice reinforces the city as one of the best in the world to live and work, with a large scientific and technological ecosystem. Companies that want to attract the best talent know that if they are in Barcelona they have it easier.And she adds:All the international rankings place us among the most attractive cities for the technology sector, and Microsofts decision is further proof of this. In this final stretch of the pandemic, it also shows that Barcelona is recovering well and confirms that the work done in recent years is contributing to improving Barcelonas attractiveness and its international competitiveness.

WebXT work areas

The WebXT organization operates as a start-up environment, where it encourages teams to take on challenges that create high impact web experiences to consumers, such as Microsoft Bing, Edge, and MS News, while collaborating with other Microsoft product groups, including Azure, Windows, and Office, among others. The hub in Spain will start with teams from Search & AI, which is part of WebXT, and will focus on four main areas:

This article was first published on September 13 by Microsoft.

Go here to read the rest:

Microsoft creates an R&D hub in Spain focused on Artificial Intelligence models to improve user experience - Science Business

Posted in Artificial Intelligence | Comments Off on Microsoft creates an R&D hub in Spain focused on Artificial Intelligence models to improve user experience – Science Business

World’s biggest container ship, the Ever Ace, is hitting the high seas – Insider

Posted: at 5:47 am

The Ever Ace, the world's largest container ship, docked at the UK port of Felixstowe in Suffolk on Sunday morning.

The giant vessel is part of a newer class of container ship than the Ever Given, which memorably blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March. The Ever Ace is an Evergreen A-class, which can hold up to 23,992 cargo units. This is up from the 20,124 cargo units that the Ever Given, which is an Evergreen G-class ship, can carry.

Eleven other mega container ships are being built in the make of the Ever Ace, three of which could become operational this year. The Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen Marine, which owns the Ever Ace, did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

According to American Bureau of Shipping records, the two ships are the same length, but the Ever Ace is wider and deeper. The Ever Given is 192.9 feet wide, slightly narrower than the Ever Ace's 201.7 feet. The Ever Given has a draught, or depth, of 52.4 feet in comparison with the Ever Ace's 54.1 feet.

The Ever Ace is now taking a two-day break at the Suffolk port and is set to depart for Rotterdam on Wednesday, per the BBC. It then is set to traverse the Suez Canal, which accounts for about 12% of the world's seaborne cargo trade.

This is the same route the Ever Given took when it got stuck, throwing the global supply chain into chaos that lasted weeks even after the ship was freed. A logjam of more than 400 ships formed, even after some vessels opted to abandon the Suez Canal and reroute, taking a massive detour around the southern tip of Africa.

It took almost a week of dredging and digging to get the massive Ever Given unstuck from the Suez, a costly endeavor that prompted the Egyptian authorities to seize the Ever Given on April 13 and hold it for months.

The Ever Given finally ported at Rotterdam on July 29 with more than 20,000 containers on board, a full 106 days after it first got lodged in the waterway and after the ship's owner, the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, arrived at an undisclosed compensation agreement with the Suez Canal Authority.

Go here to read the rest:

World's biggest container ship, the Ever Ace, is hitting the high seas - Insider

Posted in High Seas | Comments Off on World’s biggest container ship, the Ever Ace, is hitting the high seas – Insider

What’s On The Bookshelf: Shiver me timbers! It’s books about pirates – What’s On

Posted: at 5:47 am

With International Talk Like A Pirate Day coming up, our friends at the Emirates Literature Foundation have shared some of their favourite books about pirates

Pirates have been sailing through our imaginations for the better part of the last century, having been cast as both heroes and villains across all sorts of swashbuckling sagas set on the high seas.

So with International Talk Like A Pirate Day coming up, our friends at the Emirates Literature Foundation thought it would be fun to look back at some of their favourite books about pirates.

Do pirates make good babysitters? Find out in this wildly hilarious romp set over the course of one night as a brother and sister meet their surprising new babysitter: Long John McRon. From flying ships to doughnut feasts, and even the titular magical stew, Gaimans almost-lyrical rhymes leap off the page where theyre brought to life by Riddells gorgeous illustrations. Fun to read aloud and follow along, Pirate Strew is perfect for pirate fans both young and old.

Dive headfirst into this thrilling graphic novel that draws on a real, historical figure: Anne Bonny, a fearsome female pirate. The story begins with Annie on the run, following a planned heist that was foiled by a man looking to end piracy once and for all thus threatening the livelihood of Anne and all her friends. So its up to her to convince her crew to not only renew their belief in her but to also work together and trust in each other, ensuring the oceans remain free to be sailed by anyone. Wells art is charming and great for those looking to get into graphic novels and comics, while Maggs writing is packed with humour and heart.

Long before Treasure Island, there was Joseph Flint and John Silver. This prequel to the Robert Louis Stevenson classic follows these two iconic characters as they slowly grow into the men that fans know and love. Drakes writing cleverly tracks how former merchant navy-man John Silver became the legendary pirate Long John Silver, and how he forged his firm alliance with Joseph Flint, a naval officer with plans of mutiny, only to see it devolve into deadly rivalry over a woman theyre both interested in. Its a modern look at a timeless classic, with all the hallmarks of what made Treasure Island such a gripping read.

Travel back to the 1600s as best-selling nonfiction writer Eric Jay Dolin takes readers through the Golden Age of American piracy when ships bearing skulls and crossbones sailed on the coast of North America. Facts take on the highs and lows of fictional storytelling, as Dolin deftly recounts how American colonists first sided with the pirates against the English Crown, only to eventually turn against them, while also painting larger than life portraits of some of the key figures involved including Blackbeard, Captain Kidd and more. History comes alive through Dolins words, drawing straight lines to the present.

If you enjoyed this cannon of pirate reads from Nivea Serrao, Web Content Manager at the Emirates Literature Foundation, dont forget to check out her other recommendation on the Foundation blog. Keep up to date with Emirates LitFest news on the Foundations YouTube channel and its podcast Best of the Emirates LitFest. And keep your eyes peeled on your favourite podcast player for the launch of Season 3 of its other podcast, the Boundless Book Club.

Featured image: Getty Images

> Sign up for FREE to get exclusive updates that you are interested in

Go here to read the rest:

What's On The Bookshelf: Shiver me timbers! It's books about pirates - What's On

Posted in High Seas | Comments Off on What’s On The Bookshelf: Shiver me timbers! It’s books about pirates – What’s On