Sunday, December 22

Tag: learn

Canada’s Cannabis Clarity, What The United States Can Learn
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BUSINESS, VIDEO REELS

Canada’s Cannabis Clarity, What The United States Can Learn

The inherent contradictions of American cannabis laws seem to appear in the news almost every week. At the state level, for example, Virginia recently became the latest jurisdiction to allow adult cannabis use, effective this July 1. But just days later, a court upheld United States federal tax laws that treat state-licensed cannabis businesses as illegal drug traffickers. To resolve conflicts like this, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’ll introduce legislation to “decriminalize” cannabis federally. In drafting his bill, he should draw inspiration from Canada. Congress might be too divided for full legalization this year, but it can begin providing the clarity that Canada’s approach offers. U.S. contradictions Congressional action is clearly needed, as federal law has f...
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COVID-19 Case Spikes And Crowd Size – What Baseball Can Learn From The NFL’s 2020 Season
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COVID-19

COVID-19 Case Spikes And Crowd Size – What Baseball Can Learn From The NFL’s 2020 Season

Baseball season is here, and thousands of cheering fans are back in the ballparks after a year of empty seats and cardboard cutouts as fan stand-ins. Still cautious of the COVID-19 risk, most teams were keeping season openers to 20-30% capacity. Only the Texas Rangers planned a packed stadium for its home opener on April 5, a move President Joe Biden called irresponsible. It isn’t just baseball – college basketball was allowing up to a quarter of seats filled for Final Four games, soccer season starts April 17, and promoters are planning professional fights in filled-to-capacity arenas. Many of these attendance decisions are being made with minimal data about the heightened risk that players and fans face of getting COVID-19 at stadiums or arenas and spreading it the community. There is...
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Here’s Why AI Is So Power-Hungry – It Takes A Lot Of Energy For Machines To Learn
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AI, TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

Here’s Why AI Is So Power-Hungry – It Takes A Lot Of Energy For Machines To Learn

This month, Google forced out a prominent AI ethics researcher after she voiced frustration with the company for making her withdraw a research paper. The paper pointed out the risks of language-processing artificial intelligence, the type used in Google Search and other text analysis products. Data centers like this Google facility in Iowa use copious amounts of electricity. Chad Davis/Flickr, CC BY-SA Among the risks is the large carbon footprint of developing this kind of AI technology. By some estimates, training an AI model generates as much carbon emissions as it takes to build and drive five cars over their lifetimes. I am a researcher who studies and develops AI models, and I am all too familiar with the skyrocketing energy and financial costs of AI research. Why have AI models b...
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To be a great innovator, learn to embrace and thrive in uncertainty
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SELF

To be a great innovator, learn to embrace and thrive in uncertainty

Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, was America’s first female self-made millionaire. She pioneered a line of hair care and beauty products for people of color early in the 20th century, and the recent Netflix series “Self Made” details the story of this talented innovator and the challenges she overcame on the way to her success. To accomplish her goals, she had to face overwhelming uncertainties. How would she finance her business? Would her partnerships fail? Would her products sell? Would ruthless competition and racism get in her way? Madame Walker’s future was far from certain when she began her journey, but that did not dissuade her. Madam Walker was willing and able to face uncertain situations as she grew her business. The Smithsonian via Wikimedia Commons It is tempting to ...
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What we can learn from MLK for a Better Post-Coronavirus Economy
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

What we can learn from MLK for a Better Post-Coronavirus Economy

The civil rights icon fiercely advocated for redistributive wealth and social democracy. Fifty-two years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, April 4, 1968, his radical economic agenda reverberates through a pandemic-ridden nation at a prophetic tilt. “If the society changes its concepts by placing the responsibility on its system, not on the individual, and guarantees secure employment or a minimum income, dignity will come within reach of all,” King wrote in his book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community. As the economy grinds to a halt to flatten the COVID-19 curve, the triage of policies designed to fill the yawning holes in the nation’s social safety net looks a lot like what Dr. King ordered. The $2 trillion congressional emergency relief bill, CARES...
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6 ways to build motivation to do your schoolwork now that you’re forced to learn online at home
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SELF

6 ways to build motivation to do your schoolwork now that you’re forced to learn online at home

Even in normal circumstances, it can be hard to get motivated to do your schoolwork. But these are not normal circumstances. The switch to remote instruction caused by COVID-19 has been unsettling. Patterns have changed. Habits have been disrupted. Remote classes are simply different from classes that involve face-to-face instruction. As a researcher who looks at what it takes to get through college, I have a few tips that could maximize your motivation and productivity when you’re at home going to school online. 1. Guard your time You do not need large amounts of time to be productive. Instead, be intentional and focused in short blocks where you can work without interruption. Protect these open times by setting up your workspace to minimize distraction – including silencing notificatio...
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We are entering a recession – but what did we learn from the last one?
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IN OTHER NEWS

We are entering a recession – but what did we learn from the last one?

As the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, it is abundantly clear that the global economy is entering a recession – the first we’ve seen since 2008. Some officials have compared the last period of economic decline – also know as the Great Recession – to the Depression, which began in 1929. Yet it is clear that these two downturns differed not only in severity but also in the consequences they had for inequality in the United States. Though the Depression was bigger and longer than the Great Recession, the decades following the Great Depression substantially reduced the wealth of the rich and improved the economic security of many workers. In contrast, the Great Recession exacerbated both income and wealth inequality. Some scholars have attributed this phenomenon to a weak...
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The tricky ethics of Google’s Project Nightingale, an effort to learn from millions of health records
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TECHNOLOGY

The tricky ethics of Google’s Project Nightingale, an effort to learn from millions of health records

The nation’s second-largest health system, Ascension, has agreed to allow the software behemoth Google access to tens of millions of patient records. The partnership, called Project Nightingale, aims to improve how information is used for patient care. Specifically, Ascension and Google are trying to build tools, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, “to make health records more useful, more accessible and more searchable” for doctors. Ascension did not announce the partnership: The Wall Street Journal first reported it. Patients and doctors have raised privacy concerns about the plan. Lack of notice to doctors and consent from patients are the primary concerns. As a public health lawyer, I study the legal and ethical basis for using data to promote public health. Info...
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