Experts on a US economic recovery

An article reported what experts said about what to expect regarding an economic recovery.

Bottom line: "...experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now, we shouldn’t assume we’ll be back to normal anytime soon. In fact, economists think there are still significant economic risks despite the tentative rebound, including a second wave of COVID-19, an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress."

Key points:

• They expect "a steep drop followed by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower, mixed growth."
• It seems "unlikely (33 percent probability) that GDP will creep back up to where it was in the fourth quarter of 2019 any time before the first half of 2022."

Takeaway: "The economists in our survey think the economy has a long way to go before it returns to normal.."

AI actors, animation, and pandemics

An article about a decision to use an AI-created actor should give human actors pause. The quality of animation and CGI is such that I wouldn't be surprised if this approach becomes quite mainstream as a way around the constraints of the pandemic.

Assessment of financial institutions: BlackRock

A website that is probably no fan of large financial institutions and their linkages with government described BlackRock's influence.

Important points:

• "BlackRock has been called 'the most powerful institution in the financial system,' 'the most powerful company in the world' and the 'secret power.'" 
• "It is the world’s largest asset manager and 'shadow bank,' larger than the world’s largest bank (which is in China), with over $7 trillion in assets under direct management  and another $20 trillion managed through its Aladdin risk-monitoring software."
• "Despite its size and global power, BlackRock is not even regulated as a 'Systemically Important Financial Institution' under the Dodd-Frank Act,"
• "BlackRock really made its fortunes, however, in 'exchange traded funds' (ETFs)."
• "...while ETFs are very liquid, trading on demand like stocks, the assets that make up their portfolios are not. When the market drops and investors flee, the ETFs can have trouble coming up with the funds to settle up without trading at a deep discount."
• "BlackRock got a bailout with no debate in Congress, no “penalty” interest rate of the sort imposed on states and cities borrowing in the Fed’s Municipal Liquidity Facility, no complicated paperwork or waiting in line for scarce Small Business Administration loans, no strings attached. It just quietly bailed itself out."

The article's conclusion is provocative: "If the corporate oligarchs are too big and strategically important to be broken up under the antitrust laws, rather than bailing them out they should be nationalized and put directly into the service of the public."

Medical robotics in China

An article described the increasing use of medical robotics in China.

Bottom line: "Guang-Zhong Yang, head of the Institute of Medical Robotics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, says that China’s robotics research output has been growing steadily for two decades, driven by three major factors: 'The clinical utilization of robotics; increased funding levels driven by national planning needs; and advances in engineering in areas such as precision mechatronics, medical imaging, artificial intelligence and new materials for making robots.'"

Supporting points:

• Overall, "...rises in research output are closely related to the introduction of specialized robotics equipment in medical-research facilities."
• "Between 1999 and 2019, the number of papers published by at least one Chinese author in the combined fields of biomedical engineering and robotics increased from 142 to 4,507."
• "In 2019, the number of da Vinci systems installed in Chinese hospitals that year leapt to 59, up from only 8 installations in 2018."

Where we're going with AI? Are we leading or following?

An article took a look at the future of artificial intelligence in our lives.

Main point: "AI’s ultimate impact is impossible to predict."

Supporting points: 

• "One hypothesis is that it will bring us an era of boundless leisure, with humans no longer required to work."
• "A more dystopian thought experiment concludes that a robot programmed with the innocuous goal of manufacturing paper clips might eventually transform the world into a giant paper clip factory."
• "...we can anticipate the near future of artificial intelligence, including our interactions with this technology and its limits. Most of it, experts say, will be designed to take on a wide range of specialized functions."

Uses of AI:

"Machine learning is one of an expanding collection of AI tools that will help people make smarter, healthier decisions."

“Increasingly emotionally sophisticated personal assistants will motivate us and challenge us.”

"AI is also being used to create therapeutic tools."

Concerns: "Repetitious jobs such as factory work and customer service have already started to be usurped by AI, and job loss is among the greatest public concerns when it comes to automation."

Predictions: "...we will not just trust these virtual entities completely but connect with them on a deeply personal level and include them in our social groups."

Disturbing news from Japan - decline of the middle class

An article laid out a disturbing trend in Japan.

Main point: "...income has declined across the income percentiles, and the share of low-income households has risen as those of middle- and high-income groups shrink."

Supporting points:

"...the share of low-income households has been rising at the expense of middle-income groups in a process of secular income decline across percentiles.”

"Japanese companies have also been converting regular workers — who could previously enjoy the comparatively privileged lifetime-employment system — to part-time workers."

"...the disappearance of Japan’s middle class could lead to further stagnation in consumption."

Apps running on the network

Here's an article about one company's efforts to bypass the tech oligarchs.

Main point: “We’re taking the internet back to a time when it provided this open environment for creativity and economic growth, a free market where services could connect on equal terms,” says Dominic Williams, Dfinity’s founder and chief scientist. “We want to give the internet its mojo back.”

What's being said:

• "Dfinity is building what it calls the internet computer, a decentralized technology spread across a network of independent data centers that allows software to run anywhere on the internet rather than in server farms that are increasingly controlled by large firms, such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud."
• "The dominance of a few companies, and the ad-tech industry that supports them, has distorted the way we communicate—pulling public discourse into a gravity well of hate speech and misinformation—and upended basic norms of privacy."
• "Dfinity is introducing a new standard, which it calls the internet computer protocol (ICP). These new rules let developers move software around the internet as well as data."
• "...a decentralized internet may lead to a decentralized form of governance, in which developers and users all have a say in how it is regulated."

It remains to be seen whether Dfinity will be successful. It also remains to be seen whether ideology will drive development of algorithms.

A call for help from an AI training group

AI4US.seeks to increase the number of Black women scientists in the AI field through a program called RAPIDS.

The founder's call for help: "How many students can we free to realize their wildest dreams?"

AI coming to help cybersecurity

A short article summarized how AI would function in the field of cybersecurity.

Main point: "Smart Cybersecurity is a logical reaction to try to manage risk by lessening security gaps often posed by reliance on manual processes that are impacted by a continual cybersecurity skills shortage and the administrative burdens of data security management."

The contributions are in:

• Artificial intelligence: "Computing systems that employ AI and ML are becoming more pervasive and critical to cyber operations and have become a major focus area of cybersecurity research development and investments in both the public and private sectors."
• Machine learning: "Machine learning can provide the fastest way to identify new cyber-attacks, draw statistical inferences, and push that information to endpoint security platforms."
• Automated and adaptive networks: "oth AI and machine learning can be core components and support applications of automated and adaptive networks."
• Supercomputing: "Detecting cyber threats can be greatly enhanced by having an accurate model of normal background network traffic."

Read the article to get details on each technology.