#Automation and employment effects

[jcmarchi]

OpenResearch reveals potential impacts of universal basic income

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/openresearch-reveals-potential-impacts-of-universal-basic-income/

OpenResearch reveals potential impacts of universal basic income

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A study conducted by OpenResearch has shed light on the transformative potential of universal basic income (UBI). The research aimed to “learn from participants’ experiences and better understand both the potential and the limitations of unconditional cash transfers.”

The study – which provided participants with an extra $1,000 per month – revealed significant impacts across various aspects of recipients’ lives, including health, spending habits, employment, personal agency, and housing mobility.

In healthcare, the analysis showed increased utilisation of medical services, particularly in dental and specialist care.

One participant noted, “I got myself braces…I feel like people underestimate the importance of having nice teeth because it affects more than just your own sense of self, it affects how people look at you.”

While no immediate measurable effects on physical health were observed, researchers suggest that increased medical care utilisation could lead to long-term health benefits.

The study also uncovered interesting spending patterns among UBI recipients.

On average, participants increased their overall monthly spending by $310, with significant allocations towards basic needs such as food, transportation, and rent. Notably, there was a 26% increase in financial support provided to others, highlighting the ripple effect of UBI on communities.

In terms of employment, the study revealed nuanced outcomes.

While there was a slight decrease in overall employment rates and work hours among recipients, the study found that UBI provided individuals with greater flexibility in making employment decisions aligned with their circumstances and goals.

One participant explained, “Because of that money and being able to build up my savings, I’m in a position for once to be picky…I don’t have to take a crappy job just because I need income right now.”

The research also uncovered significant improvements in personal agency and future planning. 

UBI recipients were 14% more likely to pursue education or job training and 5% more likely to have a budget compared to the control group. Black recipients in the third year of the program were 26% more likely to report starting or helping to start a business.

Lastly, the study’s analysis revealed increased housing mobility among UBI recipients. Participants were 11% more likely to move neighbourhoods and 23% more likely to actively search for new housing compared to the control group.

the openresearch team releases the first result from their UBI study:https://t.co/8YXBwVeQeW

great, diligent work over the past few years. proud of the team!

— Sam Altman (@sama) July 22, 2024

The study provides valuable insights into the potential impacts of UBI, offering policymakers and researchers a data-driven foundation for future decisions on social welfare programs. This major societal conversation may be necessary if worst case scenarios around AI-induced job displacement come to fruition.

(Photo by Freddie Collins on Unsplash)

See also: AI could unleash £119 billion in UK productivity

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: agi, ai, artificial intelligence, employment, ethics, government, job displacement, law, legal, openresearch, Politics, report, research, Society, study, ubi, universal basic income

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The real AI fight

Tonight (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Last week's spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between "Effective Altruism" (doomers) and "Effective Accelerationism" (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama.

Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete") will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ "AI Safety" – measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, nor an adversary.

Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity – but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine."

Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come?

This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As Molly White writes, this isn't much of a debate. The "two sides" of this debate are as similar as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Yes, they're arrayed against each other in battle, so furious with each other that they're tearing their hair out. But for people who don't take any of this mystical nonsense about spontaneous consciousness arising from applied statistics seriously, these two sides are nearly indistinguishable, sharing as they do this extremely weird belief. The fact that they've split into warring factions on its particulars is less important than their unified belief in the certain coming of the paperclip-maximizing apocalypse:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/effective-obfuscation

White points out that there's another, much more distinct side in this AI debate – as different and distant from Dee and Dum as a Beamish Boy and a Jabberwork. This is the side of AI Ethics – the side that worries about "today’s issues of ghost labor, algorithmic bias, and erosion of the rights of artists and others." As White says, shifting the debate to existential risk from a future, hypothetical superintelligence "is incredibly convenient for the powerful individuals and companies who stand to profit from AI."

After all, both sides plan to make money selling AI tools to corporations, whose track record in deploying algorithmic "decision support" systems and other AI-based automation is pretty poor – like the claims-evaluation engine that Cigna uses to deny insurance claims:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

On a graph that plots the various positions on AI, the two groups of weirdos who disagree about how to create the inevitable superintelligence are effectively standing on the same spot, and the people who worry about the actual way that AI harms actual people right now are about a million miles away from that spot.

There's that old programmer joke, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't." But of course, that joke could just as well be, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't understand either":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/11/the-ten-types-of-people/

What's more, the joke could be, "there are 10 kinds of people, those who understand hexadecenary, those who understand pentadecenary, those who understand tetradecenary [und so weiter] those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't." That is to say, a "polarized" debate often has people who hold positions so far from the ones everyone is talking about that those belligerents' concerns are basically indistinguishable from one another.

The act of identifying these distant positions is a radical opening up of possibilities. Take the indigenous philosopher chief Red Jacket's response to the Christian missionaries who sought permission to proselytize to Red Jacket's people:

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5790/

Red Jacket's whole rebuttal is a superb dunk, but it gets especially interesting where he points to the sectarian differences among Christians as evidence against the missionary's claim to having a single true faith, and in favor of the idea that his own people's traditional faith could be co-equal among Christian doctrines.

The split that White identifies isn't a split about whether AI tools can be useful. Plenty of us AI skeptics are happy to stipulate that there are good uses for AI. For example, I'm 100% in favor of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group using an LLM to classify and extract information from the Innocence Project New Orleans' wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

Automating "extracting officer information from documents – specifically, the officer's name and the role the officer played in the wrongful conviction" was a key step to freeing innocent people from prison, and an LLM allowed HRDAG – a tiny, cash-strapped, excellent nonprofit – to make a giant leap forward in a vital project. I'm a donor to HRDAG and you should donate to them too:

https://hrdag.networkforgood.com/

Good data-analysis is key to addressing many of our thorniest, most pressing problems. As Ben Goldacre recounts in his inaugural Oxford lecture, it is both possible and desirable to build ethical, privacy-preserving systems for analyzing the most sensitive personal data (NHS patient records) that yield scores of solid, ground-breaking medical and scientific insights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eaV8SWdjQ

The difference between this kind of work – HRDAG's exoneration work and Goldacre's medical research – and the approach that OpenAI and its competitors take boils down to how they treat humans. The former treats all humans as worthy of respect and consideration. The latter treats humans as instruments – for profit in the short term, and for creating a hypothetical superintelligence in the (very) long term.

As Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax reminds us, this is the root of all sin: "sin is when you treat people like things":

https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html

So much of the criticism of AI misses this distinction – instead, this criticism starts by accepting the self-serving marketing claim of the "AI safety" crowd – that their software is on the verge of becoming self-aware, and is thus valuable, a good investment, and a good product to purchase. This is Lee Vinsel's "Criti-Hype": "taking press releases from startups and covering them with hellscapes":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Criti-hype and AI were made for each other. Emily M Bender is a tireless cataloger of criti-hypeists, like the newspaper reporters who breathlessly repeat " completely unsubstantiated claims (marketing)…sourced to Altman":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464030855880383

Bender, like White, is at pains to point out that the real debate isn't doomers vs accelerationists. That's just "billionaires throwing money at the hope of bringing about the speculative fiction stories they grew up reading – and philosophers and others feeling important by dressing these same silly ideas up in fancy words":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464024432217299

All of this is just a distraction from real and important scientific questions about how (and whether) to make automation tools that steer clear of Granny Weatherwax's sin of "treating people like things." Bender – a computational linguist – isn't a reactionary who hates automation for its own sake. On Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 – the excellent podcast she co-hosts with Alex Hanna – there is a machine-generated transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417

There is a serious, meaty debate to be had about the costs and possibilities of different forms of automation. But the superintelligence true-believers and their criti-hyping critics keep dragging us away from these important questions and into fanciful and pointless discussions of whether and how to appease the godlike computers we will create when we disassemble the solar system and turn it into computronium.

The question of machine intelligence isn't intrinsically unserious. As a materialist, I believe that whatever makes me "me" is the result of the physics and chemistry of processes inside and around my body. My disbelief in the existence of a soul means that I'm prepared to think that it might be possible for something made by humans to replicate something like whatever process makes me "me."

Ironically, the AI doomers and accelerationists claim that they, too, are materialists – and that's why they're so consumed with the idea of machine superintelligence. But it's precisely because I'm a materialist that I understand these hypotheticals about self-aware software are less important and less urgent than the material lives of people today.

It's because I'm a materialist that my primary concerns about AI are things like the climate impact of AI data-centers and the human impact of biased, opaque, incompetent and unfit algorithmic systems – not science fiction-inspired, self-induced panics over the human race being enslaved by our robot overlords.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[bravecrab]

I was just listening to a podcast about the Peter Thiel backed Enhanced Games, a proposed alternative Olympics in which doping would not only be allowed but be the whole point. It's not an original idea, as long as doping has been in the conversation about the Olympics, there's always been people flippantly saying that they should just do something like the Enhanced Games, see how far we can push it. What's the harm?

There are plenty harms related in using cocktails of drugs to push the human body past it's natural limits, and there are plenty people who have made these comments in regards to the Enhanced Games. However a harm that I haven't seen mentioned yet, is the normalisation of pharmaceutical drug use and associating it with "peak physical performance". The Enhanced Games would be more than just an exhibition of sport, it would be a marketing platform for the pharmaceutical industry. Each athlete would have their own team to build them into the perfect athlete, more like Formula One, although who knows if the athletes will have to wear the brand logos on all their gear, so the audience know who sells the best steroids.

Let's not beat around the bush, an event that focuses on finely tuning the human body into a "perfect" form, is eugenics. The proponents of the Enhanced Games will deny it, but they want it to be successful and influential. They want it to be more successful than the Olympics. And that will require a normalisation of Eugenics.

A philosophy of domination is behind both the Enhanced Games and the Olympics. It's always been about peak fitness, as well as geopolitical bragging rights. A mindset of domination has always been used to justify eugenics, domination theology stating that God created the Earth for human consumption, and that of all creatures, Man is closest to God. That's been weaponized as white supremacy and as patriarchy, amongst many other oppressive norms, making claims through pseudo-science, that white, cis, straight men are the pinnacle of humanity. Both events are an exhibition of dominance, and while the Enhanced Games is definitely worse, the Olympics still promotes an idea that the winners are just Great Athletes, and their winning has nothing to do with factors like national wealth and resources.

Another concern I have over an event that normalises enhancing bodies beyond human limits, is that it will attempt to normalise it in work places. Despite advances in automation, a lot of physical work is still done by humans, and will remain that way as long as it is cheaper. If one of the biggest sporting events endorses performance enhancers, it's not a stretch for them to become popularly used in physical workplaces. I've done many years of warehousing work, and guys in those jobs are very much into the idea of being the biggest and strongest. Employers will definitely be happy to exploit this.

I think an event like Enhanced Games is easy to overlook. The concept has been the curiosity of a lot of people as soon as they're aware of doping. However it's the involvement of ghouls like Peter Thiel, people with a TESCREAL philosophy (Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effect Altruism, Long-termism), who want to control the future of all humankind, that make this worrying. These are billionaires who want to sell you your greatest sci fi fantasies, while maintaining a firm grasp on the controls. A future in which Peak Human Performance requires you to buy a steady supply of performance enhancing drugs, is one in which the Pharmaceutical industry is perpetually wealthy.

I'd also like to include that there is also the potential of a backlash to an event like Enhanced Games, it which all forms of alterations and modifications to the human body are labelled as evil and impure, which will likely be used to endorse transphobia.

[wuxiaphoenix]

On Writing: A Quick Jury Introduction

Okay, thought I’d turn an exhausting day into possibly useful info for you all.... The U.S. institution of trial by jury is likely more familiar to some of us than others. If you’re a writer coming from outside the States, though, what may not immediately be apparent is that far, far more Americans interact with the legal system than ever show up for a civil suit or are charged with a crime.

All those jurors have to come from somewhere.

So. There are multiple requirements to be a legit juror, but mostly it boils down to, you’re a U.S. citizen, you’re over 18, and you have all your civil rights (i.e. you’re not a felon yourself). You also, so far as I know, have to be a resident of the county where the trial is taking place. In practical terms this means once you get any kind of state-issued ID, even a learner’s permit - if you’re over 18, you’re in the list the computer draws from for the next jury pool.

(Yes, I once had to arrange transportation to a jury summons when I still wasn’t legally allowed to drive by myself. Fun. Not.)

About two to three weeks before you’re due to show up, you get the summons in the mail. At which point a certain amount of profanity may ensue, because you have to prepare to upend all your plans for at least an entire day. You can ask for a deferral, or even to be dropped from selection, if one of several hardship conditions apply. You’re the sole person doing 24/7 medical care for someone, for example, or you’re going to be in the hospital on that date with major surgery involved. “My workplace won’t let me take that day off,” is NOT one of those conditions. Let the court know that, and they will then duke it out with your workplace. No, seriously, that is what will happen. The jury summons is a civic duty. It is, effectively, being “drafted” for that day. Constitutionally. I would not want to be the employer who has to hear from the Clerk of Courts. It would not go well.

So, you prep, you clear your schedule, there’s usually a questionnaire to fill out (either on paper or, more recently, on a county website) so they have some background to make sure you’re who they meant to call... and then you wait. In my home county, you wait until the night before you’re due to come in, and call the automated line to see if they still need a jury pool the next day. It’s possible the lawyers will hash things out and call the trial off. No trial, no jury needed.

Assuming you’re not that lucky, then it’s get up very early in the morning so you can get to the courthouse on time. They try to put courthouses near the center of the county, but some counties are very big. And you come prepared, because you’re likely to be there from 8 AM to 5 PM or later.  

My experience is that it’s very cold in courthouses. Don’t ask me why. After the first trip I started bringing multiple layers so I didn’t freeze myself into bronchitis. It... mostly works.

Summons in hand, you go in through the metal detector; anything else you bring in with you (coats, water, etc.) has to go in a tray and fit through an x-ray machine under the unblinking and likely already-tired eyes of a couple deputies. And you take a deep breath before plunging into what will be an introvert’s most horrible day, because you will be surrounded by strangers you cannot get away from.

You follow the various staff directing you to the first auditorium, where you hand in your summons, let the clerks know whether you’re employed and whether or not your employer is going to pay you for the day (often they don’t), then try to find a seat not so close to the speakers that your ears will get blasted when everyone else shows up and they show the instructional vids about voting being a civic duty, take it seriously, etc., etc.

(It is and I do, but I’ve seen the vids so many times by now....)

Aaand then you wait. And wait. Often two hours plus. While the attorneys up in the courtroom overhead are duking things out with each other, and with the judge, and reading all the questionnaires to try and figure out who they might want on their jury and what questions they want to ask.

A certain number of people may get let go at this point, depending on how many trials they’re picking for. The clerk of court quipped that they ought to consider lottery tickets....

Finally the attorneys hit the end of when the judge will allow them to keep delaying things, and all the pool gets led upstairs to the courtroom itself. Once everyone’s in, all rise for the judge, there’s another lecture on civic duty, fair and impartial, and so on.

(Everyone is already freezing, tired, and there’s no coffee. Seriously, there’s a spot for snack and drink machines when we have breaks, but not one drop of coffee. The court clerks also mourn this as an affront against humanity.)

The attorneys - prosecution and defense - get introduced, as well as the defendant. And then the questions start. One of the first being, does anyone in the pool know anyone 1) who’s going to be in court or 2) one of the other jurors? Even with random selection, it’s possible you get some people who know each other....

Other questions that may show up include but are not limited to: Can you be fair and impartial with X charges? (Given you have no idea what you’re a jury for until this point, from a traffic ticket to murder, this is important.) Do you think you can judge the credibility of a witness? Have you, a family member, or someone you know been involved with a similar crime? Do you know any of the witnesses?

Once they get past all of that and mark down a preliminary “who’s affected by what and why”, then the attorneys go back to the judge’s bench and start discussing who they’ll pick. Jurors don’t get to overhear this. If they have specific follow-up questions for a particular jury candidate, you get called up to the judge’s bench to answer them.

(My frank and honest answers seemed to unnerve both the prosecution and the defense. Heh.)

BTW, a jury may be less than the classic twelve. For many trials they just want six or seven, so they’ll pick out eight or nine (so they have a few alternates). They’re also likely to be selecting juries for several trials from the same pool. So once they make their first picks, those jurors are brought over to the jury box, sworn in, told not to talk with anyone about the case, and released until court is back in session. Everyone else has to sit and wait through the rest of the picks....

Yes, you do get a lunch break. Eventually. Depending on how far the judge thinks he can push people to get the attorneys done - that’ll vary, especially if you have older jurors or those with medical conditions who need to eat something with medicine or end up in trouble. Lunch may break for an hour, which isn’t as long as you’d think because there’s nowhere nearby to get solid food unless you hit the road. In lunch hour traffic. Fun.

(I bring lunch in a cooler. Have I mentioned I’ve done this a lot of times?)

And then it’s back to the next set of attorneys, and questions, and... it’s a long, cold, exhausting day surrounded by people. Though if you are selected, the trial is usually the next day or at most later that week, so with luck you’re only upended for a few more days.

Whether or not you get picked, you’re then out of the pool for a year. If they do call you back early, you can tell them that!

Jury duty. Necessary, somewhat interesting, very chilly. So it goes!

[dailyanarchistposts]

The Basis of the Environmental Crisis

There is a fundamental problem here: The dynamics of capitalism have an inherent tendency towards ecological devastation. To understand why this is so, we need to look at how firms are constantly searching for ways to minimize their expenses. This is how they ensure the firm can make the maximum in profits. Because capitalism is made up of relatively autonomous firms, they are in competition. If a firm doesn’t continuously seek ways to make profits, they won’t be able to expand their business, move into new markets, invest in new technology. Other firms will out-compete them. And minimizing expenses is central to the pursuit of profits. Thus minimizing expenses is central to survival for the capitalist firms. And to do this, firms do cost-shifting at the expense of both workers and the environment.

First, companies try to keep compensation to workers as low as they can get away with. They may look to cut taxes that support services working class people rely on. They try to find new forms of technology or new ways to organize the work that reduces the number of worker hours it takes to produce a unit of output. They might automate a production operation with robots, or they will seek ways to intensify work through “lean production” methods. For example, they’ll use computer tracking of a warehouse worker picking items for an order so that they have no rest time after finishing an order but are pushed to a new task through computer control. Work intensification and computer monitoring puts workers under more stress which can have damaging health effects over time. This means the employers are imposing a human cost on workers. If workers in a furniture factory are constantly breathing in finishes or paints being sprayed on furniture in the open, or electronics assemblers are breathing in solder fumes, these are also cases where capital is shifting costs onto workers. And these are cases where the costs could be avoided. For example, there are soldering tools that have a vacuum to suck off solder fumes so workers don’t breath it, but a firm may not want to pay the expense of installing that equipment. These are examples of how the capitalist mode of production tends to shift costs onto workers.

Second, emissions into the air and water are another form of cost-shifting. A utility firm may burn coal to generate electricity. This creates emissions that damage the respiratory systems of people in the region and also contributes to global warming. But the power firm is not required to pay anything for these damages. These costs to others from emissions are “external” to the market transaction between the power firm and its customers who pay for electricity. This is an example of a “negative externality.” Externalities are a pervasive feature of the capitalist mode of production. The fossil fuel industry generates many “negative externalities.” Fracking operations insert chemicals underground which can pollute the underground water sources. A large gas field or leaky oil refinery will generate large amounts of volatile organic compounds — including carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. Studies of gas fields show effects in the surrounding area such as goat herds and barn cats losing the ability to have viable offspring, due to the endocrine disruptors. Gas fields also contribute to global warming by leaking large amounts of methane. Contrary to gas industry claims, gas power plants contribute as much as coal-fired power plants to global warming due to all the methane leaks.

You’ll notice here that I’m focusing on how environmental devastation is rooted in production — not consumption. Some environmentalists try to suggest that we should understand the global warming problem by looking at consumption practices, and they use ideas like a person’s “carbon footprint” to focus on personal consumption. But consumers of electric power don’t have control over the decisions of power firms on the methods of electricity generation, or what technology firms rely on to move cargo around in the global supply chains.

Another useful concept here is throughput. The throughput of production consists of two things: (1) All the material extracted from nature for the production process, and (2) all the damaging emissions (“negative externalities”) from the production process. In addition to the damaging emissions into the air and water, capitalism is an extractivist regime with a long history of land-grabbing to minimize expenses — as in the US government handing over mineral wealth to mining companies, lands for commercial ranching and extraction of logs and wood debris from forests for the lumber and paper industries. The search for short-term profits can lead to unsustainable practices such as clear-cutting of forests or use of huge nets to scarf up all the fish in a coastal region without regard to the future of that fishery.

With the concept of throughput, we can define a concept of ecological efficiency. If a production process is changed in ways that reduce the amount of damage from emissions (or amount of extracted resource) per unit of human benefit, then that change improves ecological efficiency. And here is a basic structural problem of capitalism: It has no inherent tendency towards ecological efficiency. If nature is treated as a free dumping ground for wastes, there will be no tendency to minimize damaging emissions per unit of human benefit from production. Also, there will be no tendency to minimize materials extracted from nature except to the extent firms have pay for these resources.

A production system that could generate increasing ecological efficiency would tend towards reductions in pollution and resource extraction. This would require a non-profit, non-market type of eco-socialist economy where production organizations are held socially accountable — required to systematically internalize their ecological costs. Capitalism’s tendency to ever greater environmental devastation happens because firms have an incentive to not internalize their costs, but dump them on others.

The devastation wrought by the cost-shifting dynamic of capitalism is not limited to global warming. Capitalism has favored the evolution of agricultural practices that aim at highest output at lowest financial cost to the firm. Intense competition has led to ever-greater concentration in ownership of farm land. The capitalist setup allows the growers to rely on labor contractors to pay laborers as little as possible and get rid of workers who try to organize. Growers often own lands in various locations and pursue different crops to minimize their risks. With encouragement from the chemical industry, growers have adopted industrial production of a single crop in a large field with increasing usage of pesticides and inorganic fertilizer over time. Inorganic fertilizers typically provide some mix of nitrogen, phosphorus and calcium. Over-use of these fertilizers has led to excessive runoff, polluting water courses and leading to ocean “dead spots” around the mouths of rivers. Destructive effects on fisheries is thus one of the negative externalities from capitalist agriculture.

Since World War 2 chemical pesticide production world-wide grew from 0.1 ton to 52 million tons in 1976 and 300 million tons in 2015. Pesticides produced by the chemical industry are damaging to the health of farm workers, and pollutes water courses, and leaves residues on food. Pesticide overuse also destroys the natural predators of insects and breeds pesticide-resistant pests. This leads a kind of agricultural arms race as more and more pesticide is needed. As Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams report in Creating an Ecological Society, pesticides also reduce “presence in the soil of organisms that stimulate plants to produce chemicals to defend themselves.”

As with pesticides the chemical industry has also vastly pumped up the production of petroleum-based plastics which do not biodegrade but end up as vast scourge of pollution in the oceans. Plastic bags have grown in use because they take a lot less energy to produce than paper bags, and thus cost less. Production has increased from less than 5 tons in 1950 to over 340 million tons by 2014, according to the Plastics Europe trade association. At least a third of all plastic produced is not recaptured, but mostly ends up in the ocean where it is destructive to living organisms. The plastics industry does not have to pay for the negative effects on living things in the oceans.

If we bring in our definition of throughput, pollution and dumping of wastes are one aspect, but we need to also look at the destructive extractivist tendencies in capitalism, such as clear-cutting of forests or over-fishing. According to a 2003 study, “90 percent of all large fishes have disappeared from the world’s oceans in the past half century,” since the onset of industrial fishing with huge nets in the 1950s. “”Whether it is yellowfin tuna in the tropics, bluefin in cold waters, or albacore tuna in between, the pattern is always the same. There is a rapid decline of fish numbers,” according to Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax. To address the problem, many countries have banned long drift nets and untended longlines, and have instituted elaborate systems of licensing, and have instituted quotas and third party observers working on boats. Nonetheless, capitalist fishing outfits frequently ignore or evade these rules.

[pitchnhirejobs]

Streamline Your Hiring Process: Using Pitch N Hire to Tackle Recruitment Challenges with ATS Systems

Recruitment is a critical function that directly impacts an organization's growth and success. However, it comes with its own set of challenges that can make the process daunting. Here, we will explore the top six recruitment challenges faced by organizations and discuss how they can be overcome.

Finding Ideal Candidates One of the most significant challenges in recruitment is finding candidates who perfectly match the job requirements. The ideal candidate not only has the necessary skills and experience but also fits well with the company culture. However, with the vast pool of applicants, it becomes a Herculean task to identify the right ones. Pitch N Hire offers a robust ATS system that helps organizations filter candidates efficiently, ensuring that only the most suitable profiles reach the interview stage.

Competition Among Organizations Regarding Hiring Process The job market is highly competitive, with multiple organizations vying for top talent. This competition often leads to a situation where candidates have multiple offers to choose from, making it difficult for companies to secure the best talent. To stand out, organizations must streamline their hiring process, offer competitive packages, and create a positive candidate experience. Pitch N Hire provides tools that allow you to post a job quickly and track applications efficiently, giving you an edge in the recruitment race.

A Lengthy Recruitment Procedure A drawn-out recruitment process can be detrimental, leading to candidate drop-off and a negative employer brand. Lengthy procedures often result from multiple rounds of interviews, extensive background checks, and delays in decision-making. To avoid losing top candidates to quicker competitors, organizations must optimize their recruitment timeline. Utilizing a free ATS like Pitch N Hire can significantly reduce the time taken to screen, interview, and hire candidates, making your recruitment process more efficient.

Using Outdated Recruitment Methods In today's fast-paced digital world, relying on outdated recruitment methods can hinder your ability to attract top talent. Traditional methods like newspaper ads or manual resume screening are not only time-consuming but also less effective. Modern tracking systems offered by platforms like Pitch N Hire can automate and streamline the recruitment process, helping you stay ahead of the competition and attract the right candidates through digital channels.

Failing to Provide Sufficient Information About Job Description A common mistake organization make is not providing enough detail in job descriptions. Vague job postings can lead to a flood of irrelevant applications, wasting time and resources. Candidates are more likely to apply if they fully understand the role and responsibilities. Pitch N Hire enables organizations to create clear, detailed job descriptions, ensuring that applicants have a precise understanding of the position before applying.

Absence of Branding In the modern job market, employer branding plays a crucial role in attracting top talent. Companies with a strong brand are more likely to be seen as desirable places to work. However, many organizations struggle with effectively communicating their brand to potential candidates. Pitch N Hire not only offers an efficient ATS system but also provides features that enhance your employer branding, making your company more attractive to prospective employees.

Conclusion Recruitment challenges are inevitable, but they can be effectively managed with the right strategies and tools. Pitch N Hire offers a comprehensive solution that addresses these common challenges, from finding ideal candidates to optimizing your recruitment process. By leveraging ATS systems, utilizing a free ATS, and implementing a modern tracking system, your organization can overcome these hurdles and build a strong, talented workforce. Whether you're looking to post a job or streamline your hiring process, Pitch N Hire is the partner you need to stay ahead in the competitive recruitment landscape. Checkout our Website for more Information: www.pitchnhire.com

[sadoeuphemist]

There was a script that the artist used when introducing herself to people unaware of her and her occupation, one that she had carefully refined over the last several years. Despite her considerable fame, there had always been the occasional encounters in the semi-anonymity of online interaction, or in person, disguised beneath a baggy, shapeless sweater, and she had taken every opportunity at practice. “I’m doing quite well for myself, actually,” she would say, in response to any reference to poverty, or the economy, or automation, or how impossible it was to get a job these days; and then would immediately undercut that graceless boast with a modest smile and a reference to her humble beginnings: “I’m just grateful I had a lot of practice for my career, having been a starving writer, and all.”

There were those who were well-informed enough to immediately point out the absurdity of what she had said, and from there she would have to go off-script, either acting apologetic over her misleading phrasing, or insisting that she had been perfectly clear, it was they who had misunderstood. But more often than not, the other person would simply swallow her story whole, and ask, with a hopeful, almost desperate gleam in their eye, some variation on the question: “So, there’s money to be had in writing, then?”

This was her occasion, if she so chose, to immediately correct their (entirely reasonable, given her initial remarks) misconceptions and launch into a well-rehearsed diatribe on how creative writing had been among the first industries to go extinct, well before the total automation of the economy; how electronic publishing had gradually pushed print media out of business; how the pivot to video and the monopolization of ad revenue by major tech companies had led to a wave of massive layoffs in the field; how algorithmically-generated clickbait content had proved more effective and gathering and maintaining viewership than carefully crafted human-authored pieces; how predictive text had evolved to comb through the great classics of literature and churn out variations on them at a rate no human being could hope to match; and how even human editorial judgement, the one vital ingredient in separating the wheat from the procedurally-generated chaff, no longer presented an employment opportunity in itself but was instead farmed out to legions of listless readers, given access to what they were told were preview versions of the next bestsellers, leaving likes and dislikes and ratings that fed the great mindless algorithm, ever-refining its content.

Then, it was her greatest hope that her listener, befuddled by this deluge of contradictory information, would retreat back to her earlier words and parrot them back to her, more or less, in protest, saying something along the lines of: “But I thought you said you were a starving writer?”

And to this she would respond, almost graciously: “That’s right. I’m just lucky to have had so much experience with starving.”

Here, she planned to make a flourish with her arm, to call attention to her thin wrists protruding from the sleeves of her sweater, hoping they would reevaluate her gaunt cheeks, her lank brittle hair. She would show them her website, the pictures of her shirtless with her ribs sharply defined through her skin, the knobs of her spine protruding from her back, her legs extending from her underwear at bent angles to her hips, her skeletal limbs furred with the hazy aura of lanugo, her eyes staring out wide and hungry from her skull. She would show them her daily blogs: her painstaking descriptions of the acidic pangs gnawing at her stomach, the sensation of her her body clenching in on itself, the weakness that ran shakily through her veins and hollowed out her bones so that at times she felt as if she might fall and shatter, the countless hallucinatory descriptions of food, conjured up from her memories, or from the scent of it wafting out from a restaurant or food stall, imagining its weight and heft on her tongue as her mouth filled with drool, and then swallowing down her own saliva as if the imagining had flavored her spit with its juices. She would show them the videos of herself openly weeping, clutching her narrow arms, thanking a patron for some scrap or another they had sent her as she took it between her teeth, chewing slowly, face convulsing in paroxysms of gratitude; imploring, begging, exposing herself to a million anonymous eyes, asking for their patronage.

For she was famous, pictures of her gaunt frame reblogged across the internet along with links to her Patreon and GoFundMe, with millions of followers, her starvation amplified to an ever-growing audience. For she was an artist of the one remaining craft that only a human could perform, that to a robot was impossible: to suffer, and to be visible in its suffering.

She supposed that they would hate her afterwards, for the evidence of her runaway success; that they would think her a fraud, undergoing the self-inflicted starvation of a millionaire discontent with luxury. But the physical deterioration of her body would prove itself; and besides, with the economy fully automated and with almost the entirety of the population without a job, what use was money, then, with no one earning it to spend and near none of it in circulation? Her vast fortune was just another incrementing number on her screen, nothing more, along with her follower count and likes and shares and reblogs, the vast majority of which surely came from the bots themselves, vastly superior as they were in social media engagement than human beings.

Despite the resonant symbolism, at this point, nearing the ending, her script suffered considerably from vagueness, as her conversations seldom extended this far. To her dismay, it was considerably harder to steer a dialogue when you weren’t controlling both sides, and the conversation would inevitably become distracted with irrelevancies, arguments, and worst of all, expressions of uncritical sympathetic pity that made it impossible to continue on.

And so, with every chance she got, the artist would rehearse the script in her head, editing, revising, in between the blog posts and videos and photographs, not stopping to eat, beginning shakily the conversation even as her voice faltered and her throat closed up, saying “I’m doing quite well for myself, actually” at the slightest provocation; all the while growing thinner, thinner, thinner until she was nearly two-dimensional, an image invoked by words scrawled across the screen, transforming herself into art.

Originally posted January 31st, 2019

[highflysourcing]

Importance of Resume Writing and How HighflySourcing Can Elevate Your Career

In today’s competitive job market, your resume is more than just a document; it’s your personal marketing tool, your professional brand’s first impression, and often your gateway to new career opportunities. Crafting a compelling resume is crucial for making a positive impact on potential employers and securing that coveted interview slot. Here’s why resume writing is so important and how HighflySourcing, a leading visa immigration consultancy, can assist you in this vital process.

Why Resume Writing Matters

1. First Impressions Count

   Your resume is often the first interaction a prospective employer has with you. A well-crafted resume not only highlights your qualifications but also demonstrates your ability to communicate effectively. A clear, professional resume sets the tone for how you are perceived, making it more likely that you'll be remembered positively.

2. Showcase Your Unique Value

   In a sea of job applicants, a standout resume can help differentiate you from the competition. It’s your chance to showcase your unique skills, experiences, and achievements. A tailored resume highlights what makes you an ideal candidate for a specific role, emphasizing how your background aligns with the job requirements.

3. Reflect Professionalism

   A polished resume reflects your attention to detail and professionalism. Spelling errors, poor formatting, and irrelevant information can undermine your credibility. A well-organized resume demonstrates that you take your career seriously and are committed to presenting yourself in the best light.

4. Pass Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

   Many companies use ATS to screen resumes before they reach human eyes. Crafting a resume with the right keywords and format can ensure it passes through these systems and lands in the hands of hiring managers. This requires a strategic approach to resume writing that considers both human and automated review processes.

5. Highlight Achievements and Skills

   Your resume is an opportunity to quantify your accomplishments and skills. By highlighting measurable achievements, you can provide concrete evidence of your capabilities and the impact you’ve made in previous roles. This helps potential employers understand the value you can bring to their organization.

How HighflySourcing Can Help

HighflySourcing is a premier visa immigration consultancy known for its comprehensive services in visa application processes. But their expertise doesn’t stop there. They also provide invaluable support in resume writing and career development. Here’s how they can assist you:

1. Expert Resume Writing Services

HighflySourcing’s team includes professionals with experience in crafting resumes that stand out. They understand industry-specific requirements and can tailor your resume to meet the expectations of different sectors and job roles. Their expertise ensures that your resume not only highlights your strengths but also aligns with current trends in resume writing.

2. Personalized Consultations

The consultancy offers personalized consultations to understand your career goals, professional experiences, and unique skills. This tailored approach allows them to create a resume that accurately reflects your qualifications and aspirations. They work closely with you to ensure that every aspect of your resume is customized to fit your career objectives.

3. ATS Optimization

HighflySourcing understands the intricacies of Applicant Tracking Systems and ensures that your resume is optimized for these systems. They incorporate relevant keywords and formats that increase the chances of your resume getting noticed and advancing through the initial screening processes.

4. Visa and Immigration Support

For those seeking international opportunities, HighflySourcing offers visa and immigration consultancy services. They can assist in ensuring that your resume meets the requirements of specific visa categories and international job markets. Their knowledge of global job trends and visa regulations helps in aligning your resume with the expectations of employers abroad.

5. Career Development Advice

   Beyond resume writing, HighflySourcing provides career development advice. They can offer insights into industry trends, job search strategies, and interview preparation. Their holistic approach helps you not only create a standout resume but also navigate the complexities of the job market effectively.

Conclusion

Resume writing is a critical component of job searching and career advancement. It serves as your personal marketing tool, creating a first impression, showcasing your unique value, and reflecting your professionalism. HighflySourcing offers expert support in crafting effective resumes, optimizing them for ATS, and providing additional career development and immigration assistance. By leveraging their services, you can enhance your resume, increase your chances of landing interviews, and achieve your career goals with confidence.

Ready to take your resume to the next level? Contact HighflySourcing today and let their expertise guide you towards career success.

For more details Visit Our Website or mail us on info@highflysourcing.com

[thesaleswhisperer]

How a Pandemic Pivot Made $5,000,000 a Month—Adam Pisk

https://blog.thesaleswhisperer.com/p/adam-pisk

Market like you mean it.

Now go sell something.

  SUBSCRIBE to sell more, faster, at higher margins, with less stress, and more fun!

https://www.youtube.com/@TheSalesWhispererWes

  Takeaways

Pivoting during a crisis can lead to unexpected opportunities and growth.

Outsourcing and global employment can be effective solutions for businesses looking to scale and save costs.

Maintaining authenticity and human connection is crucial in a world increasingly driven by AI and automation.

Hiring globally can provide access to a talented workforce at a more affordable rate. Bruntwork.co supports over 1,500 companies globally in various industries and offers a wide range of roles.

Clear communication and understanding the business are crucial when hiring outsourced sales agents.

Personalized training and avoiding the use of auto-dialers can ensure authenticity and effectiveness in sales calls.

Treating outsourced workers as part of the team and providing a good work-life balance is important for success.

  Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Background

03:04 The Pivot to Outsourcing and Global Employment

07:09 Navigating the Challenges of AI and Automation

13:05 The Importance of Authenticity and Human Connection

27:51 Affordability of Outsourcing

29:27 Language and Education Requirements

30:44 Different Types of Sales Roles

33:28 Outsourcing with Existing Processes

35:56 The Importance of Authenticity in Sales

37:52 Avoiding Call Center Stereotypes

39:34 Accents and Communication

41:45 Outsourcing to a Distributed Workforce

44:31 Demand for Global Work

48:21 Treating Outsourced Workers as Part of the Team

-----

Connect with me:

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Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/wes.sandiegocrm

Facebook Page -- https://www.facebook.com/thesaleswhisperer

Vimeo -- https://vimeo.com/thesaleswhisperer

Podcast -- https://feeds.libsyn.com/44487/rss

Sales Book -- https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/c/way-book

  BUSINESS GROWTH TOOLS

https://12WeeksToPeak.com

https://CopyByWes.com

https://CRMQuiz.com

https://TheBestSalesSecrets.com

https://MakeEverySale.com

https://www.TheSalesWhisperer.com/

Check out The Sales Podcast's latest episode

[annajade456]

The Ultimate DevOps Course Will Help You Realise Your Full Potential

In today's fast-paced and highly competitive professional world, individuals constantly strive to expand their skill set and stay ahead of the curve. With the ever-evolving technology landscape, knowing how to efficiently manage software development processes has become crucial. Enter DevOps, a methodology that revolutionizes collaboration between development and operations teams, leading to increased productivity, better software quality, and faster deployment. To unleash your true potential as a professional, consider enrolling in the ultimate DevOps course. In this article, we will delve into the reasons why you should embark on this transformative journey and the numerous benefits that await you.

Reasons to Do the Ultimate DevOps Course

1. Bridge the Gap Between Development and Operations

DevOps serves as a bridge — a conduit, if you will — between development and operations teams, fostering a seamless and harmonious collaboration. By undertaking the ultimate DevOps course, you can acquire the knowledge and skills to facilitate effective communication and collaboration between these traditionally siloed departments. Understanding the nuances of both sides will enable you to streamline processes, actively participate in cross-functional discussions, and contribute significantly to your organization's success.

2. Embrace Automation and Efficiency

Automation lies at the core of DevOps principles, and mastering this art can revolutionize your professional journey. The ultimate DevOps course empowers you to gain expertise in leveraging automation tools and technologies, empowering you to automate routine tasks, minimize manual interventions, and increase overall efficiency. By eliminating repetitive and time-consuming operations, you can amplify your productivity and focus on high-value activities, leaving an indelible impact on your personal and professional growth.

3. Foster Continuous Integration and Deployment

Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) has revolutionized software development, enabling rapid and reliable release cycles. By joining the ultimate DevOps course, you can comprehensively understand these practices and their significance. Embracing CI/CD can empower you to automate build, test, and deployment processes, resulting in accelerated time-to-market, reduced errors, and seamless collaboration within your team. By adopting these practices, you position yourself as a forward-thinking professional committed to delivering top-notch software solutions rapidly and consistently.

4. Cultivate a Culture of Continuous Improvement

DevOps embodies a culture of continuous improvement and learning. By enrolling in the ultimate DevOps course, you embrace this mindset, nurturing your personal and professional growth. The course equips you with the knowledge to implement feedback loops, monitor performance metrics, and continuously refine your development and operational practices. By actively seeking opportunities to optimize processes and learn from previous experiences, you cultivate an environment of innovation and progress, enhancing your career prospects and adaptability in an ever-evolving industry.

Benefits of the Ultimate DevOps Course

1. Enhanced Employability and Career Opportunities

In today's competitive job market, possessing DevOps skills has become highly sought after by organizations across industries. By completing the ultimate DevOps course, you position yourself as a highly desirable candidate, equipped with the expertise to bridge the gap between development and operations. This enhanced employability opens doors to a myriad of exciting career opportunities, potentially leading to higher salaries, increased job satisfaction, and accelerated professional growth.

2. Improved Collaboration and Teamwork

DevOps thrives on the foundation of collaboration and teamwork. By immersing yourself in the ultimate DevOps course, you develop a deep understanding of these principles, allowing you to foster effective collaboration within your team. The course emphasizes the importance of cross-functional communication, empathy, and shared responsibility, enabling you to build strong relationships and work synergistically towards shared goals. Enhanced collaboration not only enhances the quality of your work but also fosters a positive work environment and boosts overall team morale.

3. Enhanced Productivity and Efficiency

As a result of the ultimate DevOps course, you will acquire a wide range of techniques and tools to optimize workflow and amplify your productivity. By taking advantage of automation and streamlining processes, you can eliminate bottlenecks and time-consuming operations, allowing you to focus on delivering exceptional results. The course equips you with skills to manage complex projects more efficiently and implement strategies that maximize efficiency. Ultimately, increased productivity leads to higher job satisfaction and sets the stage for personal and professional success.

4. Stay Ahead in the Technological Race

The world is rapidly evolving, and technology plays a pivotal role in driving progress. By completing the ultimate DevOps course, you position yourself at the forefront of this technological race. The course equips you with up-to-date knowledge and the ability to adapt to emerging trends and industry practices swiftly. By staying ahead of the curve and embracing the latest tools and techniques, you establish yourself as a modern, forward-thinking professional, capable of spearheading innovation and thriving in an ever-changing landscape.

Investing in your professional development by enrolling in the ultimate DevOps course at ACTE Technologies is a strategic decision that can unlock your full potential. By bridging the gap between development and operations, harnessing the power of automation, embracing continuous integration and deployment, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, you pave the way for enhanced employability, improved collaboration, increased productivity, and the ability to stay one step ahead in the technological race. Don't limit yourself - seize the opportunity, unlock your full potential, and embark on the transformative journey of mastering DevOps.

[dishachrista]

Exploring Game-Changing Applications: Your Easy Steps to Learn Machine Learning:

Machine learning technology has truly transformed multiple industries and continues to hold enormous potential for future development. If you're considering incorporating machine learning into your business or are simply eager to learn more about this transformative field, seeking advice from experts or enrolling in specialized courses is a wise step. For instance, the ACTE Institute offers comprehensive machine learning training programs that equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary for success in this rapidly evolving industry. Recognizing the potential of machine learning can unlock numerous avenues for data analysis, automation, and informed decision-making.

Now, let me share my successful journey in machine learning, which I believe can benefit everyone. These 10 steps have proven to be incredibly effective in helping me become a proficient machine learning practitioner:

Step 1: Understand the Basics

Develop a strong grasp of fundamental mathematics, particularly linear algebra, calculus, and statistics.

Learn a programming language like Python, which is widely used in machine learning and provides a variety of useful libraries.

Step 2: Learn Machine Learning Concepts

Enroll in online courses from reputable platforms like Coursera, edX, and Udemy. Notably, the ACTE machine learning course is a stellar choice, offering comprehensive education, job placement, and certification.

Supplement your learning with authoritative books such as "Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow" by Aurélien Géron and "Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning" by Christopher Bishop.

Step 3: Hands-On Practice:

Dive into real-world projects using both simple and complex datasets. Practical experience is invaluable for gaining proficiency.

Participate in machine learning competitions on platforms like Kaggle to challenge yourself and learn from peers.

Step 4: Explore Advanced Topics

Delve into deep learning, a critical subset of machine learning that focuses on neural networks. Online resources like the Deep Learning Specialisation on Coursera are incredibly informative.

For those intrigued by language-related applications, explore Natural Language Processing (NLP) using resources like the "Natural Language Processing with Python" book by Steven Bird and Ewan Klein.

Step 5: Learn from the Community

Engage with online communities such as Reddit's r/Machine Learning and Stack Overflow. Participate in discussions, seek answers to queries, and absorb insights from others' experiences.

Follow machine learning blogs and podcasts to stay updated on the latest advancements, case studies, and best practices.

Step 6: Implement Advanced Projects

Challenge yourself with intricate projects that stretch your skills. This might involve tasks like image recognition, building recommendation systems, or even crafting your own AI-powered application.

Step 7: Stay updated

Stay current by reading research papers from renowned conferences like NeurIPS, ICML, and CVPR to stay on top of cutting-edge techniques.

Consider advanced online courses that delve into specialized topics such as reinforcement learning and generative adversarial networks (GANs).

Step 8: Build a Portfolio

Showcase your completed projects on GitHub to demonstrate your expertise to potential employers or collaborators.

Step 9: Network and Explore Career Opportunities

Attend conferences, workshops, and meetups to network with industry professionals and stay connected with the latest trends.

Explore job opportunities in data science and machine learning, leveraging your portfolio and projects to stand out during interviews.

In essence, mastering machine learning involves a step-by-step process encompassing learning core concepts, engaging in hands-on practice, and actively participating in the vibrant machine learning community. Starting from foundational mathematics and programming, progressing through online courses and projects, and eventually venturing into advanced topics like deep learning, this journey equips you with essential skills. Embracing the machine learning community and building a robust portfolio opens doors to promising opportunities in this dynamic and impactful field.

[jcmarchi]

Is the Risk of AI Worth the Reward?

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/is-the-risk-of-ai-worth-the-reward/

Is the Risk of AI Worth the Reward?

When I reflect on the fictional content I have encountered involving AI, I would estimate it to be over 90% dystopian. Ironically, because large language models are trained on content from the internet, they are not just biased towards problematic aspects of society, but even themselves. The concept of self-loathing AI is humorous and brings to mind Marvin from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, it is one of many realities that we must consider as AI is integrated into society.

In his book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of AI, MIT professor Max Tegmark explains his perspective on how to keep AI beneficial to society. He writes, “If machine learning can help reveal relationships between genes, diseases and treatment responses, it could revolutionize personalized medicine, make farm animals healthier and enable more resilient crops. Moreover, robots have the potential to become more accurate and reliable surgeons than humans, even without using advanced AI.”

There is no doubt that AI will impact individuals, society, and global systems, but there is uncertainty associated with this impact. AI will be entrusted with delicate work such as healthcare diagnosis, autonomous driving, and financial decision-making. By taking on the risk of trust, we anticipate returns in the form of automation, improved productivity, speedier workflows, and user interfaces that we cannot even predict today.

One example of this can be seen in Thomson Reuters Institute’s recently published 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services report, based on a global survey of 1,128 respondents qualified as being familiar with Generative AI technology. The research demonstrates a common theme of cautious optimism when it comes to adopting Generative AI in professional settings– in fact, 41% said they were excited because they expect increased efficiency and productivity.

This shows a healthy demand for automation that can create new efficiencies for professionals, a benefit that they are supportive to bring forward.

No workplace or industry wants to be left behind, so as long as this race toward leveraging AI in business continues to pick up momentum, you can expect that employees and professionals will continue to be exposed to these new technologies in a variety of ways to strengthen their future of work.

On the other hand, we are also hyper aware of potential risk we take on by entrusting AI. Tegmark also wrote this in Life 3.0, “In other words, the real risk with AGI (artificial general intelligence) isn’t malice but competence. A superintelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.”

Like any new technology, AI presents a new way of doing things, and change is often a challenge when you don’t know what outcome to expect. Some of this risk is highly dramatized in fiction commonly depicting AI as misanthropic–in Silicon Valley, you’ll at times hear joking references to “Skynet” from the Terminator film franchise in casual conversation regarding fears about AI. However, the reality about potential AI risk is much less exciting than what Hollywood presents, in that initial AI performance may simply be inaccurate and buggy. After all, AI is software, and shares all of the same pitfalls as traditional software.

As a researcher, I am constantly faced with the need to mitigate bias in AI algorithms, whether through careful data curation, algorithmic transparency, or robust testing protocols. The fact that we as humans are hyper-aware of the dangers of AI (as evidenced by the content we create) brings me comfort that significant attention is being paid towards ethical and responsible AI. This attention comes from stakeholders of all kinds: users, policymakers, and businesses are increasingly demanding transparency and accountability from AI systems.

It is a commonly held view that technology in the private sector moves fast, and government moves slow. It also is a reality that, once it becomes possible, capitalism will result in AI displacing millions of workers, forcing them to learn new skills in order to stay in the workforce.

According to a 2023 research report from McKinsey Global Institute about Generative AI and the future of work in America, “By 2030, activities that account for up to 30 percent of hours currently worked across the US economy could be automated—a trend accelerated by generative AI. However, we see generative AI enhancing the way STEM, creative, and business and legal professionals work rather than eliminating a significant number of jobs outright. Automation’s biggest effects are likely to hit other job categories. Office support, customer service, and food service employment could continue to decline.”

It is difficult for me to imagine a world where the government does not play a role in helping these workers who will be displaced. Therefore, it is important that the public sector begin preparing solutions now. Examples of solutions include upskilling at-risk workers and providing a universal basic income. I also am hopeful that the private sector will play a role here, by creating new jobs that we may not be able to predict today.

Universal basic income has always been an exciting concept to me and brings to mind the phrase “don’t live to work, work to live.” Many people work to live. Call me polyannish, but if this work is automatable, I believe it is more than a pipe dream that humanity could enter an era where work is optional. This is a totally foreign concept to us today, but that does not mean it is impossible. In fact, we should expect nothing short of extraordinary from a technology as extraordinary as AI.

[mercyjuliet1512]

From Beginner to Pro: Dominate Automated Testing with Our Selenium Course

Welcome to our comprehensive Selenium course designed to help individuals from all backgrounds, whether novice or experienced, enhance their automated testing skills and become proficient in Selenium. In this article, we will delve into the world of Selenium, an open-source automated testing framework that has revolutionized software testing. With our course, we aim to empower aspiring professionals with the knowledge and techniques necessary to excel in the field of automated testing.

Why Choose Selenium?

Selenium offers a wide array of features and capabilities that make it the go-to choice for automated testing in the IT industry.

It allows testers to write test scripts in multiple programming languages, including Java, Python, C#, and more, ensuring flexibility and compatibility with various project requirements.

Selenium’s compatibility with different web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer makes it a versatile choice for testing web applications.

The ability to leverage Selenium WebDriver, which provides a simple and powerful API, allows for seamless interaction with web elements, making automating tasks easier than ever before.

Selenium’s Key Components:

Selenium IDE:

Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a Firefox plugin primarily used for recording and playing back test cases. It offers a user-friendly interface, allowing even non-programmers to create basic tests effortlessly.

Although Selenium IDE is a valuable tool for beginners, our course primarily focuses on Selenium WebDriver due to its advanced capabilities and wider scope.

Selenium WebDriver:

Selenium WebDriver is the most critical component of the Selenium framework. It provides a programming interface to interact with web elements and perform actions programmatically.

WebDriver’s functionality extends beyond just browser automation; it also enables testers to handle alerts, pop-ups, frames, and handle various other web application interactions.

Our Selenium course places significant emphasis on WebDriver, equipping learners with the skills to automate complex test scenarios efficiently.

Selenium Grid:

Selenium Grid empowers testers by allowing them to execute tests on multiple machines and browsers simultaneously, making it an essential component for testing scalability and cross-browser compatibility.

Through our Selenium course, you’ll gain a deep understanding of Selenium Grid and learn how to harness its capabilities effectively.

The Benefits of Our Selenium Course

Comprehensive Curriculum: Our course is designed to cover everything from the fundamentals of automated testing to advanced techniques in Selenium, ensuring learners receive a well-rounded education.

Hands-on Experience: Practical exercises and real-world examples are incorporated to provide learners with the opportunity to apply their knowledge in a realistic setting.

Expert Instruction: You’ll be guided by experienced instructors who have a profound understanding of Selenium and its application in the industry, ensuring you receive the best possible education.

Flexibility: Our course offers flexible learning options, allowing you to study at your own pace and convenience, ensuring a stress-free learning experience.

Industry Recognition: Completion of our Selenium course will provide you with a valuable certification recognized by employers worldwide, enhancing your career prospects within the IT industry.

Who Should Enroll?

Novice Testers: If you’re new to the world of automated testing and aspire to become proficient in Selenium, our course is designed specifically for you. We’ll lay a strong foundation and gradually guide you towards becoming a pro in Selenium automation.

Experienced Testers: Even if you already have experience in automated testing, our course will help you enhance your skills and keep up with the latest trends and best practices in Selenium.

IT Professionals: Individuals working in the IT industry, such as developers or quality assurance engineers, who want to broaden their skillset and optimize their testing processes, will greatly benefit from our Selenium course.

In conclusion, our Selenium course is a one-stop solution for individuals seeking to dominate automated testing and excel in their careers. With a comprehensive curriculum, hands-on experience, expert instruction, and industry recognition, you’ll be well-prepared to tackle any automated testing challenges that come your way. Make the smart choice and enroll in our Selenium course at ACTE Technologies today to unlock your full potential in the world of software testing.

[daxbuz]

Personal finance strategies for saving and investing

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Importance of Personal Finance Strategies

3. Saving Strategies

1. Budgeting

2. Automating Savings

3. Cutting Expenses

4. Investing Strategies

1. Diversification

2. Retirement Accounts

3. Passive Income Streams

5. Conclusion: Maximizing Financial Growth

6. FAQ Section

Introduction:

In the realm of personal finance, navigating the complexities of saving and investing can be daunting. However, armed with the right strategies and knowledge, individuals can pave their way to financial security and prosperity. This comprehensive review delves into the intricacies of personal finance strategies for saving and investing in 2024, exploring various techniques and approaches to optimize wealth accumulation and growth.

**1. Importance of Personal Finance Strategies:**

Effective personal finance strategies serve as the cornerstone for achieving financial stability and long-term prosperity. By meticulously planning and implementing strategies tailored to individual goals and circumstances, individuals can gain control over their finances, mitigate risks, and build a solid foundation for future endeavors. Whether aiming for short-term goals like purchasing a home or planning for retirement, strategic financial management is indispensable.

**2. Saving Strategies:**

**1. Budgeting:**

Budgeting stands as the fundamental pillar of financial management, providing a roadmap for allocating income and expenses. By meticulously tracking expenses and setting realistic spending limits, individuals can identify areas of overspending and redirect funds towards savings and investments. Utilizing budgeting apps or spreadsheets simplifies the process, enabling better decision-making and fostering financial discipline.

**2. Automating Savings:**

Automation streamlines the saving process, ensuring consistent contributions towards financial goals. Setting up automatic transfers from checking to savings accounts or utilizing employer-sponsored retirement plans automates savings, removing the temptation to spend impulsively. Additionally, utilizing apps that round up purchases to the nearest dollar and deposit the difference into savings accounts fosters incremental savings growth effortlessly.

**3. Cutting Expenses:**

Trimming unnecessary expenses is paramount in bolstering savings potential. Conducting regular expense audits aids in identifying discretionary spending that can be reduced or eliminated. Negotiating bills, opting for generic brands, and embracing frugal habits contribute to significant cost savings over time. Redirecting these savings towards investments amplifies wealth-building opportunities and accelerates financial progress.

**3. Investing Strategies:**

**1. Diversification:**

Diversification is the bedrock of investment strategy, spreading risk across various asset classes to minimize exposure to volatility. By allocating investments across stocks, bonds, real estate, and alternative assets, individuals can optimize risk-adjusted returns and cushion against market fluctuations. Regular rebalancing ensures alignment with evolving financial goals and risk tolerance levels.

**2. Retirement Accounts:**

Maximizing contributions to retirement accounts such as 401(k)s or IRAs offers tax advantages and accelerates wealth accumulation. Employers often match contributions to retirement plans, amplifying the benefits of consistent savings. Leveraging tax-deferred growth and compound interest within retirement accounts empowers individuals to secure a comfortable retirement lifestyle.

**3. Passive Income Streams:**

Diversifying income sources through passive streams complements traditional employment income, fostering financial resilience and independence. Investing in dividend-paying stocks, rental properties, or creating digital assets like e-books or online courses generates recurring income with minimal ongoing effort. Cultivating multiple passive income streams bolsters financial security and enhances wealth-building potential.

**5. Conclusion: Maximizing Financial Growth:**

In conclusion, embracing personalized finance strategies tailored to individual circumstances is paramount in achieving financial prosperity. By prioritizing saving and investing, individuals can cultivate a robust financial foundation, mitigate risks, and capitalize on growth opportunities. With discipline, diligence, and strategic planning, the path to financial freedom becomes attainable for everyone.

**6. FAQ Section:**

1. Q: How much of my income should I allocate towards savings?

A: Financial experts recommend saving at least 20% of income towards savings and investments to ensure long-term financial security.

2. Q: Is it better to pay off debt before saving or investing?

A: It depends on the interest rates of the debt. High-interest debt should be prioritized for repayment, while simultaneously allocating a portion towards savings and investments to capitalize on compounding returns.

3. Q: What are some low-risk investment options for beginners?

A: Beginner-friendly investment options include index funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and robo-advisor platforms, offering diversified exposure to the market with minimal risk.

4. Q: How often should I review my investment portfolio?

A: Regular portfolio reviews, typically quarterly or semi-annually, are recommended to ensure alignment with financial goals, risk tolerance, and market conditions. Rebalancing may be necessary to maintain diversification and optimize performance.

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Why should I use an ATS in recruiting?

As the previous scenario illustrates, using a streamlined ATS in recruiting delivers many benefits:

It saves time. Not only does an ATS make your applicant pool easily accessible in an organised, searchable database, it also includes features that automate manual tasks. This frees recruiters to spend more time on high-value activities, like personalised outreach and relationship-building. 

It helps you recruit more effectively. Collaborating and communicating with your talent organisation is easier with a centralised applicant tracking system. Robust analytics show your hiring team which sources are most fruitful, how long applicants take to move through the pipeline and other insightful metrics that can make your recruiting process even more effective.

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