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Bill Fulkerson

Anatomy of an AI System - 1 views

shared by Bill Fulkerson on 14 Sep 18 - No Cached
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    "With each interaction, Alexa is training to hear better, to interpret more precisely, to trigger actions that map to the user's commands more accurately, and to build a more complete model of their preferences, habits and desires. What is required to make this possible? Put simply: each small moment of convenience - be it answering a question, turning on a light, or playing a song - requires a vast planetary network, fueled by the extraction of non-renewable materials, labor, and data. The scale of resources required is many magnitudes greater than the energy and labor it would take a human to operate a household appliance or flick a switch. A full accounting for these costs is almost impossible, but it is increasingly important that we grasp the scale and scope if we are to understand and govern the technical infrastructures that thread through our lives. III The Salar, the world's largest flat surface, is located in southwest Bolivia at an altitude of 3,656 meters above sea level. It is a high plateau, covered by a few meters of salt crust which are exceptionally rich in lithium, containing 50% to 70% of the world's lithium reserves. 4 The Salar, alongside the neighboring Atacama regions in Chile and Argentina, are major sites for lithium extraction. This soft, silvery metal is currently used to power mobile connected devices, as a crucial material used for the production of lithium-Ion batteries. It is known as 'grey gold.' Smartphone batteries, for example, usually have less than eight grams of this material. 5 Each Tesla car needs approximately seven kilograms of lithium for its battery pack. 6 All these batteries have a limited lifespan, and once consumed they are thrown away as waste. Amazon reminds users that they cannot open up and repair their Echo, because this will void the warranty. The Amazon Echo is wall-powered, and also has a mobile battery base. This also has a limited lifespan and then must be thrown away as waste. According to the Ay
Steve Bosserman

How Instagram Saved Poetry - 0 views

  • In 2010, the editor of n+1 magazine, Chad Harbach, famously wrote that there were two distinct and rival literary cultures in America: the institutional, university-driven M.F.A. track and the New York–centered publishing world. But now there is a third option: the fast-paced, democratizing, hyper-connected culture of the internet. The poets of this third category often have little formal training, and their publishers are strewn across the country. Andrews McMeel, for instance, is an indie publisher in Missouri. Social media seem to have cracked the walls around a field that has long been seen as highbrow, exclusive, esoteric, and ruled by tradition, opening it up for young poets with broad appeal, many of whom are women and people of color.
  • Social-media poets, using Instagram as a marketing tool, are not just artists—they’re entrepreneurs. They still primarily earn money through publication and live events, but sharing their work on Instagram is now what opens up the possibility for both. Kaur, the ultimate poet-entrepreneur, said she approaches poetry like “running a business.” A day in the life can consist of all-day writing, touring, or, perhaps unprecedented for a poet, time in the office with her team to oversee operations and manage projects.
Steve Bosserman

Which is the only country to protect in law the child's right to play? | Aditya Chakrab... - 0 views

  • Every Welsh local authority “must secure sufficient play opportunities in its area for children”, according to the measure passed by Cardiff’s parliamentarians in 2010. It is, says Mike Barclay, who used to do Roberts’s job in neighbouring Wrexham, “a beautiful piece of legislation”. It encourages councils to ask children what events and activities they want, and to reflect their desires in annual play action plans. It puts every blueprint for a new housing estate or plan for a bypass under scrutiny for how it will affect children’s play. And it gives play officers like Roberts extra ammo when they need cash to organise aquaslides. It makes Wales the first country in the world to take play seriously.
Steve Bosserman

Tesla has installed a truly huge amount of energy storage - 0 views

  • Today, the company is announcing a new milestone: Since 2015, it has installed a worldwide total of a gigawatt-hour of energy storage–technology that is critical for using renewable energy at scale. For comparison, that’s nearly half of the entire amount of energy storage installed globally last year.
  • The cost of battery storage keeps falling; between 2010 and 2016, the price across the industry fell 73%, from $1,000 a kilowatt-hour to $273 a kilowatt-hour. By 2020, it may drop to $145 a kilowatt-hour, and by 2025, to $69.5 a kilowatt-hour.
  • The growth is only a fraction of what’s needed to transform energy. In 2015, when Elon Musk talked about the company’s new energy division, he estimated that it would take 2 billion Powerpacks to fulfill the world’s energy needs. “Even at 300%, we’ll need to grow it this way for decades, frankly, to really solve the problem,” says Straubel. “And not just us, but other companies need to get involved, too.”
Steve Bosserman

Here's why robots are making income inequality even worse - 0 views

  • Automation has not triggered mass unemployment, despite concerns about increasingly-realistic innovations like driverless trucks and ATMs that can handle mortgages. But already, around the edges, robots are on the rise — creating cost savings that benefit corporations and Americans who run businesses. These benefits are increasingly going to a small group at the top.In fact, the income gap between the super rich and middle class has also increased at a rapid clip — by $58,800 between 2010 and 2015, as Bloomberg reported. And within the middle class itself, the gap between upper and lower middle class grew by $9,000.
Bill Fulkerson

The Smart Way to Fix the Filibuster - The Atlantic - 0 views

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    If Democrats get their wish-a landslide victory leading to a Joe Biden presidency, as well as a Democratic Senate and House-they will face an immediate challenge to getting things done. No matter the size of that landslide, the Republican response will be undeterred: a united opposition, akin to a parliamentary minority party, blocking what they can and delegitimizing what they cannot. It will be little different from their approach in the aftermath of the 2008 Democratic landslide. That formula led to huge GOP gains in the 2010 midterm election, and, after Barack Obama's big reelection victory in 2012, even more gains in the 2014 midterms.
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