The pervasive, high-risk realties of AI

Beyond and above the infinite Big Tech/corporate media hype.

OpenAI’s goal of developing AGI has become entwined with the idea of AI acquiring superintelligent capabilities and the need to safeguard against the technology being misused or going rogue. But for now, AGI and its attendant risks are speculative. Task-specific forms of AI, meanwhile, are very real, have become widespread and often fly under the radar...

AI plays a visible part in many people’s daily lives, from face recognition unlocking your phone to speech recognition powering your digital assistant. It also plays roles you might be vaguely aware of – for example, shaping your social media and online shopping sessions, guiding your video-watching choices and matching you with a driver in a ride-sharing service.

AI also affects your life in ways that might completely escape your notice. If you’re applying for a job, many employers use AI in the hiring process. Your bosses might be using it to identify employees who are likely to quit. If you’re applying for a loan, odds are your bank is using AI to decide whether to grant it. If you’re being treated for a medical condition, your health care providers might use it to assess your medical images. And if you know someone caught up in the criminal justice system, AI could well play a role in determining the course of their life. - The Conversation

Majority of top companies are flagrantly greenwashing on climate change

Not a surprise.

The recent InfluenceMap study, assessing the climate commitments of nearly 300 of the world’s largest companies, has uncovered a troubling trend: over half are at risk of ‘net zero greenwashing.’ This finding highlights a significant disconnect between corporate pledges to support the Paris Climate Accord and actual policy actions, casting doubt on the integrity of these commitments.

The analysis focused on the world’s top companies from the Forbes 2000 list, revealing that 58 percent have not aligned their climate policy influencing actions with their public claims. This discrepancy raises concerns about the credibility of corporate commitments to achieving net zero emissions.

Catherine McKenna, chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Net Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities, emphasizes the urgency for businesses to align their actions with their climate pledges. “We urgently need every business, investor, city, state, and region to walk the talk on their net zero promises. We cannot afford slow movers, fake movers, or any form of greenwashing,” she states. - Nation of Change

Not even close, so far, on emissions cuts

Obviously we can't wait until the greedheads' interests are seriously at risk, to take actions that matter, which is what seems to be happening now worldwide.

A new United Nations Climate Change report says that current climate action plans by nations are not enough to limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius and meet Paris Agreement targets...

UN Climate Change’s analysis looked at the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of the 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement, which included 20 updated or new NDCs submitted through September 25 of this year. The report showed that emissions were not showing the fast downward trajectory that science indicates is needed this decade.

“Global ambition stagnated over the past year and national climate plans are strikingly misaligned with the science,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as Reuters reported. “The chasm between need and action is more menacing than ever.” - EcoWatch

The hidden costs of industrial ag are mind-blowing

The UN report linked in the quoted story actually covers all agriculture worldwide. But when you look at the second paragraph below, you know almost all the problems are originating with the greedheads of Big Ag.

Food systems are about much more than just food. What’s on your plate or in your bowl is important, of course, but food is linked with everything from labor rights and healthcare to social justice and the climate crisis.

But when consumers buy a cluster of tomatoes on the vine or a carton of eggs, the price does not necessarily consider that inter-tangled web of connections. These external impacts of food production—on human health, animal welfare, workers, biodiversity, waterways, or soil—aren’t always reflected in the market price.

The movement to calculate, value, recognize, and pay down these costs is known as True Cost Accounting (TCA), and we’ve talked about it before. But in a landmark report just published, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization took on the massive task of analyzing virtually the entire world’s food system through the lens of TCA.

This report estimates that the global quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems is approximately US$12.7 trillion.

It’s almost like a debt the food system owes to the world—a debt that, so far, it’s not making payments on. - Food Tank

Big Oil's disgusting plan to deal with protest

Vile.

A new report by Greenpeace USA details the widespread coordination between the public and private sectors to monitor activism, punish protesters both physically and legally, and grease the wheels for proposed anti-protest bills that criminalize civil disobedience.

“Corporate polluters, and their allies in government, have shown they will go to extreme lengths to silence us,” said Greenpeace Senior Research Specialist Andres Chang, one of the authors and editors of the report. “Why? Because a supermajority of Americans support climate action, and our ability to voice our dissent is essential to making climate progress.”

The Greenpeace report combines previously available research with new details about the ongoing collaboration between police officers and private security forces, the strategic use of dissent-chilling lawsuits, and tight-knit relationships between fossil fuel representatives and law enforcement — all of which compromise both the public interest and the First Amendment rights of protesters. - Truthout

An honest look at beef, dairy, and climate change

Most articles I've seen on this topic discuss the problem, then stop. This one gets into just how tough solutions will be. Which doesn't mean they can't happen.

Cattle play a colossal role in climate change: As the single largest agricultural source of methane, a potent planet-warming gas, the world’s 940 million cows spew nearly 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions — much of it through belches and droppings.

As such, there’s an astonishing amount of time and money being funneled into emission control. On-farm biodigesters, for example, take a backend approach by harvesting methane wafting from manure pits. A slew of research aims to curb bovine burps by feeding them seaweed, essential oils, and even a bovine Beano of sorts. The latest endeavor, a $70 million effort led by a Nobel laureate, uses gene-editing technology in an effort to eliminate that pollution by reengineering the animals’ gut microbes.

Given the world’s growing appetite for meat and dairy, these novel ventures are crucial to inching us toward international and national climate goals. Yet they beg the question: Wouldn’t it be easier to ditch milk, cheese, and beef for plant-based alternatives? Why fight nature when there’s an easier solution, at least from a scientific perspective?

...Given the scale of the beef and dairy industries, the central role they play in feeding people, and the difficulty of removing them from the economy, cattle clearly aren’t moving on any time soon. - Grist