When we talk about Artificial Intelligence, we immediately think of cutting-edge technologies, robots capable of understanding and deciding the actions to be taken and a futuristic world in which machines and humans coexist. In fact, Artificial Intelligence and its use are much more real than one might imagine and are now used in several sectors of daily life. However, these are less invasive uses than what is thought or what is often shown by science fiction films that have found the inspiration for many more or less successful series in the theme of Artificial Intelligence.
But are we really sure that these are really “less invasive uses than what is shown in the movies?”
The video below shows the presentation of the first virtual anchorman for XINHUA, we are in 2018
On December 20, 2021, a National Business Daily journalist announces that he is virtual after seventy days, I also write it in number: 70 days of programming, during which it was broadcast without no one would notice anything.
The Chinese state media NBD then illustrated, in collaboration with the artificial intelligence company Xiaoice, the official launch of their TV programs: live news broadcast entirely managed by Artificial Intelligence.
Xiaoice 微软 小冰, which defines itself The unicorn born of a giant, is linked to Microsoft, which transformed it into an independent company on July 13, 2020.
Here you can find the official video and description of the project that is part of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan under Key digital technologies: innovation and application
Our focus will be on high-end chips, operating systems, key AI algorithms, sensors and other key fields. Go on here.
Now, it would seem that given the level of many journalists, unfortunately, such a condition would not make much difference … but there is little to joke about.
What do you think?
Is there a present or past journalist who, on the contrary, you particularly respect?
Stanislav Evgrafovič Petrov: not everyone knows this name, yet it is the name of a man to whom universal gratitude should go.
It was 1983, the year in which ARPANET adopted the TCP / IP protocol that has become the modern Internet, year in which Microsoft releases the first version of Word for MS-DOS, but also year in which Reagan gives the famous speech which launches the Strategic Defense Initiative: SDI, more commonly known as “space shield” which some mass media have also renamed Star Wars.
A speech based on the need to face a possible nuclear attack by the Soviet Union which ended as follows: My fellow Americans, tonight we’re launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history. There will be risks, and results take time. But I believe we can do it. As we cross this threshold, I ask for your prayers and your support.
On the other side of the world, likewise, they were ready to intercept any missile through the OKO satellite system, implemented with a new software: Krokus (which in my mind I visualize as a flower).
What’s more, the tension created by Reagan in calling Russia an “empire of evil,” on September 1, a Boeing departing from New York to Seoul is shot down for “trespassing into Soviet airspace.”
In this climate of extreme early warning, we arrive at September 26, a day that began just fourteen minutes when something happens that could cause a terrible chain reaction.
In front of the monitor in the Serpukhov 15 base there is an analyst, called to replace a colleague, when the system signals a missile and all the alarms start to sound.
In the following minutes the anxiety drops along with four other signals for a total of five missiles directed towards the Soviet Union.
What would you have done? How would you have reacted?
Fortunately for us, Stanislav Petrov was able to keep calm and above all he decided to follow his instinct, avoiding sending a call that would have proved fatal.
The verification on the radar in fact does not detect anything and shortly before the expected impact Krokus cancels the signals, resuming its normal operation.
Krokus was perhaps more sensitive to Nature than to technology since subsequent investigations revealed the cause of the “glare:” reflections of sunlight on clouds.
Molniya: Молния in Russian means lightning bolt and is the name given to a series of satellites, which were launched into a highly elliptical orbit to allow them to reach regions of the far north of the country.
These satellites that September 26 are aligned with the sun and the earth on which the rays fall perpendicular to the equinox and this causes deception, so much so as to go down in history as the Autumn Equinox Incident.
Fate also wanted Petrov to “align”, who should not have been on duty.
In an interview with Time, Petrov says, “If I had sent my report up the chain of command, nobody would have said a word against it.“
But I would like to show you these short statements on the BBC
More than the words I was struck by the images. A simple man. Very few things. The only companion cigarettes. And those three books.
I cannot erase the image of those books from my mind: aged like him, thin, yellowed, lying down, lonely.
Not being able to read them, I try to read humanity on his face.
The ability to understand the possibility of error, to contemplate fallibility, to accept doubt and to follow instinct.
Treccani tells us that Coltan is a term which, by contraction, identifies columbo-tantalite, a black metallic mineral composed of columbite and tantalite. It is one of the combinations in which it is possible to trace tantalum, the metal with which small but very efficient capacitors are made (therefore essential in portable devices such as mobile phones and computers, as well as in automotive electronics), which is why coltan has become a highly sought-after material.
In Congo, and in particular in the border area with Rwanda and Uganda, there are the Luwow mines notorious for the exploitation of workers and the horrendous scourge of child labor.
Amnesty International reports a UNICEF estimate of 2014 but we can assume that the number is underestimated, given the continuous exponential increase of electronic devices in circulation.
We all still have the name of the Belgian Congo imprinted in our minds, which brings us directly back to the control of the territories which has ceased in recent times, as this video from the Istituto Luce dated 1960 also testifies:
A memory that for me is placed on the desks of elementary schools is: Zaire, the new name since 1971. The decision is made by Mobutu who, in a sort of political whirlwind between the alternations of Republics and de facto dictatorship, remained an ambiguous figure until 1997 in contrast between: the role of father of the homeland he intended to cover, and an authoritarian and corrupt profile.
The newly formed Democratic Republic of Congo, however, does not see peace looming, and the rush to grab coltan aggravates both the already severe internal conflict on ethnic grounds, as well as that with neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
By the statement of its President of 2 June 2000, the Security Council requested the Secretary-General to establish an expert panel on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for a period of six months, with the following mandate:
To follow up on reports and collect information on all activities of illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including in violation of the sovereignty of that country;
To research and analyse the links between the exploitation of the natural resources and other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the continuation of the conflict;
To revert to the Council with recommendations.
With this letterdated April 2001 Kofi Annan presents his Report of the Expert Group on Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A 2003 UN Security Council report denounces that the proceeds from the exploitation of coltan by the opposing states have served to finance their armies against the Congo itself. In addition to the fact that the search for and extraction of coltan by rebel forces has caused serious environmental damage in Congo within reserves and national parks.
The main multinationals basically declare that they are not connected to exploitation, but basically it would be enough to go up the stream from company to company to get to the source.
Afrewatch mentions a cause: Last December, a US lawyer filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 13 Congolese families in a Washington court. In particular, he criticizes Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla for using cobalt despite knowing that it was forcibly mined by children. This lawsuit could push commodity miners and tech companies in need of cobalt to forgo sourcing it from artisanal miners. Glencore, which dominates the market, is following this strategy to no longer be associated with child labor.
Glencore website in fact, speaks only of Australia or Canada presenting in the home sustainability, international day of women and girls, international day of education and human rights. The same goes for Trasfigura that comes with a responsible program and supply chain.
But then, where does Congolese coltan end up, which is estimated to represent the largest percentage of total production?
Similarly, Reuters details the profiles of some Chinese companies: China Molybdenum Luoyang Co Ltd and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co Ltd and also in this case the wording appears at the bottom “China’s Huayou Cobalt will not buy artisanal cobalt from two mines in Democratic Republic of Congo until it is sure the material they produce is free of human rights abuses according to standards to be decided by the industry.”
Who knows if we can hope that theory will follow practice.
I have already mentioned organizations, associations, safety councils, companies and so on, yet in the Luwow mines people, and even children, continue to be exploited beyond all limits, for all to see. Or maybe I should say under everyone’s screens, including mine, from which I’m writing to you.
On the cobalt DRC case International rights Advocates writes: on behalf of the child miners, the lawsuit demands that the companies pay reparations and fund rehabilitation and education programs for the families of child miners killed or maimed by the horrific conditions in the cobalt mines. Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla are among the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world.
These companies purport to be green and futuristic, but their products are Powered by Blood Cobalt. Consumers buying these products should demand that the companies fix their supply chain rather than spend years fighting in court to avoid responsibility for the Blood Cobalt their products currently use to operate.
We are the consumers.
I conclude with the quote that Massimo sent me The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don’t mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don’t sing all the time
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn’t half bad if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen
and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool flesh is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling flowers and goosing statues and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally ‘living it up’ Yes but then right in the middle of it comes the smiling mortician.
It is now part of the common language: as the Accademia della Crusca indicates to us, Googling means doing an online search using the Google search engine.
How often do you use Google? For you is it just a tool like any other or do you find it indispensable?
According to Attorney General William Barr “Today, millions of Americans rely on the Internet and online platforms for their daily lives. Competition in this industry is vitally important, which is why today’s challenge against Google — the gatekeeper of the Internet — for violating antitrust laws is a monumental case both for the Department of Justice and for the American people.”
In particular, the subject of the dispute are the various exclusive or long-term agreements as in the case of Apple, which prohibit the pre-installation of any competing search service and at the same time impose applications in prime locations on mobile devices, making them also undeletable.
These anticompetitive practices are equated with the conditions under which the Department filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in the 1990s.
In March 1998, Bill Gates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capital Hill, then in May the Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that the company had violated Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The court ruled in April 2000 that Microsoft was split into two separate companies: one for the operating system, ie Windows, and one for the other software programs.
Just on the same day, that is, Tuesday, October 20, faced with antitrust charges, and in response to the Department Files Complaint Against Google to Restore Competition in Search and Search Advertising Markets, Google released the following statement:
Google Search has put the world’s information at the fingertips of over a billion people. Our engineers work to offer the best search engine possible, constantly improving and fine-tuning it. We think that’s why a wide cross-section of Americans value and often love our free products. Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed. People use Google because they choose to, not because they’re forced to, or because they can’t find alternatives. This lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers. To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices, and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use.
What do you think about it? Do you feel compelled to use Google?
I have already expressed my opinion on the websoft giants, and in this case I personally cannot understand one thing: why should they possibly raise the phone prices?
Hi I'm Claudia and this is KCDC.
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