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- Issue 36 - Fake AI and Plastic Vegetables
Architects of the world
I walk your streets and live in your towns
Temporarily, architects of the world
You've served us well until now
But soon we'll be on our own
Welcome to issue 36, a forewarning perhaps of what may be a volatile year. The lyrics above, hint at what will be a hot one. Video, one of the first produced in Canada, at the end of this issue.
Table of Contents
AI and the War in Gaza
War drives technological innovation, and conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza are fueling innovation in drones and AI. Tragically in Gaza, we’re seeing the rise of automated decision making when it comes to not only targeting combatants, but civilians as well.
This is without a doubt one of the most important pieces of reporting on Gaza, and by far one of the most disturbing:
All by Israeli journalist @yuval_abraham based on whistleblower accounts from within the IDF and intelligence agencies.
Israel has… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand)
3:03 PM • Apr 3, 2024
There are many reasons we should be outraged by what is happening in Gaza right now. We want peace not just because all human life is sacred, but also because the weapons being developed and deployed will be used elsewhere.
Amazon Faked AI Customer Experience
There has always been a lot of puppetry to AI, as the actual amount of human labour involved in enabling these systems has been obfuscated. Whether it is the work involved in building the model, or fine tuning these systems, none of the AI that we use today would be possible without massive low cost labour.
Amazon just admitted as much when announcing an end to their “Just Walk Out” shopping tech.
A May 2023 report from The Information revealed the myriad tech problems Amazon was still having with the idea six years after the initial announcement. The report said that "Amazon had more than 1,000 people in India working on Just Walk Out as of mid-2022 whose jobs included manually reviewing transactions and labeling images from videos to train Just Walk Out’s machine learning model."
Training is part of any AI project, but it sounds like Amazon wasn't making much progress, even after years of working on the project. "As of mid-2022, Just Walk Out required about 700 human reviews per 1,000 sales, far above an internal target of reducing the number of reviews to between 20 and 50 per 1,000 sales," the report said.
The report said Amazon's team "repeatedly missed goals" to cut down on human reviews, and "the reliance on backup humans explains in part why it can take hours for customers to receive receipts."
Can You Digest Vegetables?
If you live in a city, then you may find it increasingly difficult to digest your vegetables. New research has been released that suggest the bacteria in our guts that breaks down cellulose is decreasing in urban communities.
Why are rural folk able to digest plants? Proximity to animals! Humans get this bacteria from herd animals. In our own case, our dogs eat the poop produced by our herd, and then do their best to stick their tongues in our mouths. Who knew this is why we can digest plants?
Also, did you know there’s technically no such things as a vegetable? Peppers for example are fruits. Vegetables are just a blanket term to describe vegetation that is edible.
Do Stressed Plants Scream?
One of the central flaws of vegan extremism is the false assumption that plants are not sentient. While there is growing research around inter-plant communication, there is also now research around plants communicating with their environment.
Listening to Plants
Are you listening to your plants? At the very least you should talk to them.
Is Ozempic Triggering A Baby Boom?
While the Ozempic hype may be a bit much, the baby boom it may be triggering is kind of funny.
@realdrbae #greenscreen Be careful! Everyone’s getting pregnant on Ozempic! 😂🤔
Bricks for Pedestrian Safety
Check out this great pilot program from Vision Zero Vancouver that arms pedestrians with bricks as a symbolic means of achieving traffic safety.
@aboutherevideos Vision Zero Vancouver is excited to announce a pilot program to enhance pedestrian safety: bricks! #urbanism #urbanplanning #visionzero #p... See more
Eyes on H5N1 Transmission
While covid continues to plague us, shout out to a few readers we know are suffering through a bout right now, we’ve got our eyes on a new threat emerging.
H5N1, a bird flu, is spreading among non birds. The latest news has focused on cows, including a human who caught it from a cow.
These are still early days, but it is something worth keeping an eye on.
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