Need to Regulate Artificial Intelligence

The “Talks at Google” channel on YouTube interviews Yuval Noah Harari, macro-historian, Professor, best-selling author of "Sapiens" and "Homo Deus," and one of the world's most innovative and exciting thinkers. Harari discusses his newest work, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century."1

Described as a “truly mind-expanding” journey through today’s most pressing issues, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" reminds us to maintain our collective focus in the midst of dizzying and disorienting change.

A quote from McKibben’s book points to the boundary that he considers for regulation.

To be clear, we already have achieved what the writer Tim Urban calls artificial narrow intelligence, sometimes referred to as “weak AI.”... You’ll be able to drink IPA’s for hours at your local tavern and the self-driving car will take you home - and it may well be able to recommend precisely which IPA’s you’d like the best. But it won’t be able to carry on an interesting discussion about whether this is the best course for your life. (McKibben p137) That next step up is artificial general intelligence, sometimes referred to as “strong AI “ That’s a computer “as smart as a human across the board, a machine that can perform any intellectual task a human can,” in Urban’s description.2

Yuval Noah Harari has contributed to the exploration of AI ethics through participation in “Talks at Google” This interview is also available as a podcast.3

Helen Lewis, writing a review for the Guardian, provides a summary of Harari’s style as a contrast to that of Jordan Peterson.

 It’s an unkind comparison, but I am compelled to return to Jordan Peterson. The two men are almost mirror-images: Harari is a vegan, while Peterson says that a beef-only diet is the best treatment for his depression. Both can sound like prophets. Harari advises that if you want to “know the truth about the universe ... the best place to start is by observing suffering and exploring what it is”, while Peterson tells readers: “Suffering is real, and the artful infliction of suffering on another, for its own sake, is wrong. That became the cornerstone of my belief.” And both men are treated as general all-purpose Clever People, rather than as academics with a particular specialism. They inhabit the high-altitude world of speaking tours and TED talks, repackaging their books into bite-sized chunks.4

McKibben’s concern about inequality resulting from the application of “strong AI” or Harari’s warning about the interface between biosensors and AI are flags that encourage us to discuss the ethical deployment of this technology to serve humanity rather than have humanity serve those who control the technology.

References

1	(2018, October 11). Yuval Noah Harari: "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" | Talks at .... Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9P_ZXWDJU
2	McKibben, B. (2020). Falter: has the human game begun to play itself out? New York: Henry Holt and Company.
3	(n.d.). Talks at Google - Ep14 - Yuval Noah Harari: "21 Lessons for .... Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.stitcher.com/s/?eid=57208899
4	(2018, August 15). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari review .... Retrieved April 2, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/15/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century-by-yuval-noah-harari-review

Guidelines for change after COVID-19

When Canada has put the COVID-19 crisis behind us, we will likely make changes in our attitudes toward how we restore our economy and what changes will better prepare us for the future.

Contemplate economic change

Merran Smith & Dan Woynillowicz offer an opinion on April 8 2020 in the National Observer that Canada should come out of COVID-19 with a new economy. The stark reality is that Canada’s traditionally strong oil and gas sector is confronted with both cyclical and structural change. It will never return to its halcyon boom days of the early 2000s. We need to shift from a mantra of “no barrel left behind” to one in which no oil worker or region is left behind. And we need to reorient and rebuild our energy sector with a focus on clean energy.

 To start, renewable power sources, energy storage and transmission lines. More public transit, walking paths and bike lanes. Clean fuel and renewable gas plants that draw on waste streams from forestry, agriculture and municipal garbage. Electric vehicle charging stations and a domestic zero-emission transportation industry that already spans buses, trucks, cars and ferries. Energy efficient homes, buildings and factories.
And for all this building, let’s use Canadian-made, low-carbon concrete and steel, or sustainably produced mass timber. Let’s use the metals and minerals abundant in Canada in those wind turbines, solar panels and batteries.
To build this workforce, we need support for training and retraining Canadians whose past jobs may not return. Many of these programs can and should start while unemployed workers are sitting at home.1

The Resilience web site discusses COVID-19 and a New New Deal. On a societal level, Covid-19 is opening doors and perceptions at unprecedented rates. This group urges us to amplify any insights and revelations that help us as a global society to use this shock to our future benefit.

 The original New Deal, led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, established between 1933 and 1939, employed 8.5 million people, lifting them and their families from poverty. The New Deal became fundamental to a more progressive government; Social Security, banking regulations like the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, home loans, farm and rural programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps and a significant expansion of the National Park Service were just a few of the elements that led to a remarkable transformation of our government.2

Changes after COVID-19

During an Interview with Pope Francis on April 8, 2020 Austen Ivereigh asked whether it was possible to see an economy that is more human, and if the Pope sees the crisis and the economic devastation it is wreaking as a chance for an ecological conversion, for reassessing priorities and lifestyles.

 “every crisis contains both danger and opportunity: the opportunity to move out from the danger. Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption (Laudato si’, 191) and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion...Yes, I see early signs of an economy that is less liquid, more human”, he adds,  “but let us not lose our memory once all this is past, let us not file it away and go back to where we were. This is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it. We have lost the contemplative dimension; we have to get it back at this time.”3

Sea level rise

Marc Stenger (Troyes, France), bishop president of Pax Christi International, reminds us that Pope Francis offers us this monumental gift of “Laudato Si” which could become more and more our Charter in the post-coronavirus era. Our responsibility as we define the new economy after the COVID-19 crisis is to contemplate a plan to restore greater concern for the economic health of all people and encourage our greater kinship with Nature and care of the planet.

References

1	(2020, April 8). Let's come out of COVID-19 with a new economy | National .... Retrieved April 15, 2020, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/04/08/opinion/lets-come-out-covid-19-new-economy
2	(2020, March 25). COVID-19 and a New New Deal - Resilience. Retrieved April 15, 2020, from https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-03-25/covid-19-and-a-new-new-deal/
3	(2020, April 8). Pope: How I am living through the Covid-19 pandemic .... Retrieved April 15, 2020, from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2020-04/pope-how-i-am-living-through-the-covid-19-pandemic.html
4	(2020, March 23). Covid 19 - Pax Christi International. Retrieved April 15, 2020, from https://paxchristi.net/2020/03/23/covid-19/

Ponder if Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good

A cliche that is often quoted to people working on sophisticated projects is "The perfect is the enemy of the good". Alex Lickerman M.D. on the web site of Psychology Today answers two questions.

1. Why Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good
2. Why obsession with perfection can paralyze.

Urban Planning?

What helps to release me from the compulsion to create perfection, I've found, is striving to put into proper perspective the importance of the act of creation itself. When I'm immersed in the creative process, nothing feels more important to me at that moment than the thing which I'm creating. And though that sense of importance is what drives my passion and discipline (which in turn is what makes creating it possible at all), it also represents the source of the painful sense of urgency for the final result to be perfect. Forcing myself, then, to recognize that in the grand scheme of life no one thing is so important to me or anyone else that failing to make it perfect will permanently impair my ability to be happy is what frees me from the need for it to be perfect. Freed then from the need to attain the unattainable, I can instead focus on enjoying the challenge of simply doing my best. Because if we allow ourselves to remain at the mercy of our desire for perfection, not only will the perfect elude us, so will the good.1

I suggest an example from the work on the Venus Project and Resource Based Economic might be expressed in the table below.

Perfect	Good
Venus Project Enclosed City	Net Zero neighbourhoods, municipalities
Replace “capitalism” with RBE	Eliminate “scarcity” in sharing some resources in towns and regions
Direct technology supported decisions	Replace indifference about politics with involvement through education around struggling to achieve “equity”.

The "perfect" solutions may be a "bridge too far" for people who do agree with the examples in the "good" column. The implementation of the "good" requires efforts in organization and leadership that will bring people onside and provide a constituency open to moving toward perfection after their experience with the good.

 1(2011, June 26). Why Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good | Psychology Today. Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-in-world/201106/why-perfect-is-the-enemy-good

Economists and the Pope advocate change in Covid crisis

Experts in economics and human relations are thinking about changes that are likely to support our “new normal” lives after our journey through the Covid-19 crisis.

Journey through Covid-19

Alex Hemingway, an economist and public finance policy analyst at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office, writes that an excess profits tax is needed to prevent profiteering amid COVID-19. People and businesses all over the country and the world are hurting as large parts of the economy have shut down to help stop the spread of COVID-19. But a subset of businesses will see a spike in profits, including in big tech, e-commerce and logistics, and cleaning products, as well as vendors of scarce goods who engage in price gouging. No one should make windfall profits from a crisis causing so much suffering, particularly when billions in public dollars are flowing to keep businesses afloat.

 Two leading economists in the United States are now calling for an excess profits tax of the type previously imposed during World War I and II in countries including Canada, the US and Britain. A wartime-style excess profits tax would help prevent profiteering amid COVID-19, discourage abuse of government support programs for business, tamp down on price gouging, and raise public revenues from large, profitable corporations that are booming during the crisis. As US President Wilson declared in 1918, “The profiteering that cannot be got at the restraints of conscience and love of country can be got at by taxation.”1

Austen Ivereigh, writing for the Tablet, was curious to know if Pope Francis saw the crisis and the economic devastation it is wreaking as a chance for an ecological conversion, for reassessing priorities and lifestyles. Ivereigh asked him concretely whether it was possible that we might see in the future an economy that – to use his words – was more “human” and less “liquid”.

 You ask me about conversion. Every crisis contains both danger and opportunity: the opportunity to move out from the danger. Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption (Laudato Si’, 191) and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion.Yes, I see early signs of an economy that is less liquid, more human. But let us not lose our memory once all this is past, let us not file it away and go back to where we were. This is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it. We have lost the contemplative dimension; we have to get it back at this time.2

Our economy and our attitude to production and consumption are likely to change as we move through the Covid crisis. Contemplation of necessary change now may lead to significant action in the months ahead.

References

1	(2020, April 9). Excess profits tax needed to prevent profiteering amid COVID-19. Retrieved April 10, 2020, from https://www.policynote.ca/profits-tax/
2	(2020, April 8). Pope Francis says pandemic can be a 'place of ... - The Tablet. Retrieved April 10, 2020, from https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/17845/pope-francis-says-pandemic-can-be-a-place-of-conversion-

The role of kinship after Covid 19

The Covid 19 crisis has changed the role of many of the players in our globalized economy. Government has become the source of resources to sustain countries as the financial crisis remakes our employment status.

Employment changes

Change in the attitude we have to kinship was being advocated by people working for social, economic, and environmental justice before the coronavirus pandemic. A kinship model to our care of the pollution, climate change, water resources, and loss of biodiversity is proposed by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si Care of Our Common Home”.

Appeal from Laudato Si

Naomi Klein in 2014 did not see the climate crisis as being separable from economic and racial justice. We are now collectively dealing with the impacts of an industrial model that always had sacrificial places and sacrificial people. There was this Faustian bargain at the center of the fossil fuel economy from the very start—the sacrifice of coal miners’ lungs and of coal mining communities—and it was accompanied by a deepening of theories of racial and class superiority. Because you can’t have a system built on sacrificial places and sacrificial people unless you have a theory that justifies their sacrifice.

 The promise of climate justice—as opposed to just climate action—is that, in changing our economy to respond to climate change, we can do more than move away from fossil fuels. We can heal the centuries-old wounds that were intrinsic to an extractivist economy and an extractivist worldview. We can get at the root of the problem.1

In Nova Scotia, many residents of Scottish descent are interested in the history of Hogmanay. Ben Johnson comments many of the traditional Hogmanay celebrations were originally brought to Scotland by the invading Vikings in the early 8th and 9th centuries.

  “First footing” (or the “first foot” in the house after midnight) is still common across Scotland. To ensure good luck for the house the first foot should be a dark-haired male, and he should bring with him symbolic pieces of coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and a wee dram of whisky. The dark-haired male bit is believed to be a throwback to the Viking days, when a big blonde stranger arriving on your doorstep with a big axe meant big trouble, and probably not a very happy New Year!2

My Gaelic grandmother, Christina Campbell, from the area of Cape Breton that is the headwater of the Margaree River was very concerned about the “First footing” on New Year’s Day at her home in Sydney when my dark eyed brother and my blue eyed self would rush in to visit our grandparents. I learned early that her preference was to have my brother come through the door first. This Gaelic understanding of kinship, limited to one’s family or clan, has outlived its usefulness.

City and kinship

Achieving justice for all involves expanding the notion of kinship to all. Economic and social justice activity in some areas of Nova Scotia with a diverse economic base and resources in people, land, and sea can move forward by encouraging greater kinship, literally greater “family emphasis, among “clans” that have lived mostly separately, on the farm, at the wharf, on the reservation, in the suburbs, in supply towns, and the mining camps.

Resources and kinship

Projects in food production without scarcity, alternate energy generation, urban design for climate change, protection of water resources, indigenous land use rights, and action to maintain biodiversity are realizable in small districts and municipalities as “pilots” for implementation on a larger scale in other jurisdictions.

"family" resource projects

Fr. Daniel P. Horan, OFM introduces viewers to the three models or approaches to creation that have arisen over the course of Christian history.

 These different ways of interpreting sacred scripture and theology will help set the context for how we can approach and understand Pope Francis's teaching in his encyclical letter. Pope Francis uses words of a Kinship and Stewardship Model3

Our traditional sense of “clan” in Nova Scotia is not an impediment to more cooperation. It is a model of cooperation that we can extend to all people as the beginning of an attitude of building sustainable communities where scarcity, greed, individual privilege, and entitlement are less operative because we are doing it for the well being of “family”.

References

1	(n.d.). Naomi Klein - Capitalism vs. the Climate - Tricycle: The .... Retrieved April 8, 2020, from https://tricycle.org/magazine/capitalism-vs-climate/
2	(n.d.). The History of Hogmanay - Historic UK. Retrieved April 8, 2020, from https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-History-of-Hogmanay/
3	(n.d.). "Understanding Laudato Si" Series - YouTube. Retrieved April 8, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO2W1tFFtdJn9V9_DvEbz9Bygt7XsYXRj

Getting Involved in change after Covid19

One of the themes running through the YouTube video Designing and Constructing a TRUE Net Zero City. (https://youtu.be/ap3NCou1rSc ) is that the current Covid-19 crisis may be the pause before the opportunity to make significant changes in how we use and share resources on our planet.

Trends to act upon

The Economist reports that rich countries are trying radical economic policies to counter Covid-19. The Economist article comments that history suggests that the effects will be permanent.

 The vast majority of economists support these measures. Nominally they are temporary, designed to hold the economy in an induced coma until the pandemic passes, at which point the world is supposed to revert to the status quo ante. But history suggests that a return to pre-covid days is unlikely. Two lessons stand out. The first is that governmental control over the economy takes a large step up during periods of crisis—and in particular war. The second is that the forces encouraging governments to retain and expand economic control are stronger than the forces encouraging them to relinquish it, meaning that a “temporary” expansion of state power tends to become permanent.1

Joseph Zeballos-Roig writes that Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic income in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

https://i.insider.com/5e8b4b8ac0232045ff29f7f5?width=1200&format=jpeg&auto=webp

 Nadia Calviño, the country's minister for economic affairs, told the Spanish broadcaster La Sexta on Sunday evening that the government was planning to introduce the cash handouts as part of a barrage of policies meant to help people get back on their feet.
She said enacting basic income was "mostly aimed at families, but differentiating between their circumstances."
Calviño didn't offer a specific date as to when basic income could be rolled out in the country. But she said the government hoped it would become "a permanent instrument."
"We're going to do it as soon as possible," she said. "So it can be useful, not just for this extraordinary situation, and that it remains forever."2

In the publication Climate Change and Cities urban planners have done an assessment report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network. Urban planning and urban design have a critical role to play in the global response to climate change. Actions that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and build resilience to climate risks should be prioritized at all urban scales – metropolitan region, city, district/neighborhood, block, and building.

Looking for LEED design

This needs to be done in ways that are responsive to and appropriate for local conditions.

 Urban planners and urban designers have a portfolio of climate change strategies that guide decisions on urban form and function:
 • Urban waste heat and GHG emissions from infrastructure – including buildings, transportation, and industry – can be reduced through improvements in the efficiency of urban systems.
 • Modifying the form and layout of buildings and urban districts can provide cooling and ventilation that reduces energy use and allow citizens to cope with higher temperatures and more intense runoff.
 • Selecting low heat capacity construction materials and reflective coatings can improve building performance by managing heat exchange at the surface.
 • Increasing the vegetative cover in a city can simultaneously lower outdoor temperatures, building cooling demand, runoff, and pollution, while sequestering carbon...3

SWAGR (Solidarity with Alton Gas Resistance) is a Halifax-based group of organizers from Council of Canadians, Ecology Action Centre, Solidarity Halifax and the general community. The focus of this group is to support resistance efforts against the Alton Natural Gas Storage Project, and we take our direction from frontline Mi’kmaq communities and other residents of the surrounding area.

Protecting water

In Nova Scotia, Alton Gas has a hugely destructive plan to create salt caverns in which to store natural gas, by dumping the equivalent of 3,000 tons of hard salt into the Shubenacadie river everyday. This massive 50 year project would seriously harm the river ecosystem and put the health, livelihoods and rights of the Mi’kmaq people at risk. It is also in contravention of the Fisheries Act, which prohibits the deposit of “deleterious substances” into water frequented by fish.

 Since September 2016, Mi’kmaq water protectors have been asserting their rights under the Peace and Friendship treaties by building infrastructure (the Treaty Truck House and then the Treaty Camp) on Shubenacadie River. For over 2 years, they have permanently occupied this site, effectively preventing the company from breaking the provincial, federal and treaty laws.
Now, in a surprise move, instead of opposing the Alton Gas project for not complying with federal regulations, the Federal government is looking to make completely new rules, just for Alton Gas, so that the project can go forward. This proves what Water Protectors have been asserting since last November: the current plan is not compliant with the Fisheries Act.
Article 10 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) clearly states “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their land or territories.” Any removal of Mi’kmaq people will directly violate UNDRIP along with the Trudeau government’s promise to fully implement the Declaration.4

Aquaponics Farmers that add fish to their vegetable mix say they're combining the benefits of an ecosystem with the resource-efficiency of an water-based operation.

 “Even though [aquaponic farmers] have been operating in the U.S. for more than 30 years, we don’t have a good count,” Cufone says. That applies both to commercial operations such as Hasey’s that sell to regional supermarkets and also to backyard, or “recreational,” farms like the one Aney would like to set up. The latter are especially difficult to track. RFC wants to see aquaculture acknowledged as a positive addition to American agriculture and thereby boost its lobbying power. Haney, an RFC member, calls aquaponics, “the answer” to generating year-round income for farmers constrained by the seasons.5

These trends reported in the media today may suggest several ways to get involved now in projects in Nova Scotia that are closely related to the outcomes of the work of the Venus Project and Resource Based Economy described in the video.

References

1	(2020, March 26). Building up the pillars of state - Rich countries try radical .... Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/03/26/rich-countries-try-radical-economic-policies-to-counter-covid-19
2	(2020, April 7). Spain is moving to permanently establish universal basic .... Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-universal-basic-income-coronavirus-yang-ubi-permanent-first-europe-2020-4
3	(n.d.). Urban Planning and Urban Design - Urban Climate Change .... Retrieved April 7, 2020, from http://uccrn.org/files/2019/09/ARC3.2-PDF-Chapter-5-Urban-Planning-and-Design-wecompress.com_.pdf
4	(n.d.). Stop Alton Gas – for our river, water, air, and climate. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://stopaltongas.wordpress.com/
5	(2017, August 30). Aquaponics Farmers Band Together to Set Their Industry Apart. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://civileats.com/2017/08/30/the-effort-to-keep-aquaponic-farming-afloat/

Initial Comment on Designing and Constructing a TRUE Net Zero City

The promise of the ideas of The Venus Project and Resource Based Economics are laid out in the YouTube video Designing and Constructing a TRUE Net Zero City. (https://youtu.be/ap3NCou1rSc ).

Terms to Understand

Many of the terms in the video will be new to viewers.

Terms that may be new

J. Roy Hopkins has written about the enduring influence of Jean Piaget, very much discussed in the BEd. program in the 90’s, among people involved with cognitive neuroscience.

 Piaget’s interview ended with a question about how he saw the future of psychology.“With optimism,” he replied. “We see new problems every day.” More than 40 years later, I think it is fair to say that Piaget’s influence remains strong and that his optimism was justified. Much of the revolution in cognitive neuroscience was anticipated by Piaget’s approach. The “contemporary biological revolution” that he believed had bypassed the behaviorists has continued unabated since Piaget’s death in 1980. I think if he could be interviewed today, he would express delight in the direction of the field.1

If Piaget’s approach is applied to Designing and Constructing a TRUE Net Zero City use of familiar terms that can be applied in a practical way now may facilitate assimilation of this “new situation” based on concepts of changing one parameter at a time, environmental kinship as expressed in documents since 2015, understanding how “greed” has become entrenched in our economic system in the past decades,

Topic	Ponder Patterns Article
Changing one parameter at a time	Kinship in a “Parallel Polis”
Environmental kinship as expressed in documents since 2015	Truth, Beauty, and Goodness in Climate Change
Understanding how “greed” has become entrenched in our economic system in the past decades	Ayn Rand and threats in our economic and political lives

and the advantage of sharing resources in real communities now,

Resources in an area of Nova Scotia

as the Covid-19 crisis is demonstrating to us.

Reference

 1(2011, December 1). The Enduring Influence of Jean Piaget – Association for .... Retrieved April 6, 2020, from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/jean-piaget