New book provides roadmap for police management of public order

Assuring safety of large gatherings seen as critical to upholding democracy

Book Announcement

CRIME AND JUSTICE RESEARCH ALLIANCE

Managing public order at large demonstrations, protests, and assemblies is a demanding and necessary task. A new book provides an international review of public order management experiences and effective practices. Through practical examples grounded in multidisciplinary theory and science, the book offers a roadmap to improve police response and increase safety at large gatherings in democratic countries.

The book, Public Order Policing: A Professional's Guide to International Theories, Case Studies, and Best Practices, was edited by researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV); the Institute for Further Education of the Bavarian Police; and the Portland Police Bureau. It published by Springer Cham in December 2023.

            “Successful public order management is critical to upholding democracy and maintaining the rule of law,” according to Tamara D. Herold, associate professor of criminal justice at UNLV and a senior advisor at the National Institute of Justice, one of the book’s editors. “Negative police-public interactions can harm the safety and well-being of citizens and officers, as well as local and international perceptions of police legitimacy.”

Herold is an expert whose work is promoted by the NCJA Crime and Justice Research Alliance, which is funded by the National Criminal Justice Association.

In 21 chapters by researchers and police officials in the United States, Europe, and Canada, the book presents cutting-edge, evidence-based, and successful strategies to plan, conduct, and analyze crowd events. The chapters are grounded in research from the fields of sociology, criminology, psychology, and ethics, as well as in practical police work.

The chapters address a wide range of topics, including the emergence and escalation of collective violence; de-escalation; preventing crime at large gatherings; intelligence in public order policing; the use of force in public order policing; and the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as a challenge for public order policing and democracy.

“As we have seen worldwide, including assemblies in the United States, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, and elsewhere, police mismanagement of mass demonstrations often instigates crowd violence and other harmful behaviors,” says Herold. “The causes of violence at assemblies are complex and multifaceted, and failure to understand crowd dynamics that lead to violence limits police effectiveness and contributes to poor decision-making by officers.”

The content, perspectives, and lessons presented in this book are intended to guide people working in public order management, including police officials, policymakers, and researchers.   

Police leaders face challenges when seeking to accommodate community stakeholders

Research on intergroup communication can inform efforts to improve relations with public

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CRIME AND JUSTICE RESEARCH ALLIANCE

Police reform movements often focus on improving police-public relationships. These ties are a focus of community policing and procedural justice, two significant reform efforts in policing worldwide over the last three decades. In a new article, researchers examine issues involved in these efforts, especially limitations to communication, and highlight implications for police-community relations.

The article, by researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), is published in Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law.

“Reform movements that try to improve relationships between police and the public rely, in part, on improving how police communicate with the public,” explains Edward R. Maguire, professor of criminology and criminal justice at ASU, the article’s lead author. “But little attention has been paid to the constraints police leaders may face.” Maguire is an expert whose work is promoted by the NCJA Crime and Justice Research Alliance, which is funded by the National Criminal Justice Association.

Altering the style and content of police communication to improve trust and reduce tension and conflict is consistent with communication accommodation theory (CAT). The theory addresses how individuals and groups accommodate one another (or not) in their verbal and nonverbal communications, as well as the consequences of those accommodation decisions and behaviors. CAT seeks to explain and predict when, how, and why individuals engage in interactional adjustments with others, as well as recipients’ inferences, attributions, evaluations of, and responses to these adjustments (or lack thereof).

When police leaders use communication accommodation in intergroup settings (e.g., with the public), the decision to accommodate one group can alienate another group, which is an example of an accommodative dilemma. Drawing on the study of intergroup communication, the authors explore the challenges police leaders often face when seeking to accommodate internal and external stakeholders.

“Communication accommodation isn’t easy; you have to have enough empathy and emotional intelligence to accurately perceive what types of accommodation others may want or need,” notes Shawn Hill, a graduate student in communications at UCSB and a police commander, who coauthored the article. “In intergroup settings characterized by mistrust, tension and conflict, communication accommodation is even more difficult. But research demonstrates that intergroup communication accommodation can help build trust and ameliorate tension and conflict.”

  The authors provide examples of law enforcement leaders responding to challenging and turbulent intergroup issues, including when a New York police chief kneeled in solidarity with Black Lives Matters protesters, when the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued an apology to minorities for racial injustice, and when a Milwaukee police chief defended officers who used chemical agents against protesters after the death of George Floyd. The authors then analyze the examples through the lens of CAT.

            In every example, police leaders’ decisions to accommodate one group led to criticism from another group, a common pattern that results from accommodative dilemmas in intergroup settings. Police chiefs are sometimes caught in the middle when attempting to navigate these issues, the authors say. Among the authors’ suggestions, they recommend that police leaders in these situations understand the intergroup dynamics involved, knowingly and purposefully accommodate groups on a case-by-case basis and in context, and explain the reasons behind any positions they take.

            “We need more research to understand these dilemmas more clearly,” adds Howard Giles, professor of communications at UCSB, who coauthored the article and was the developer of CAT. “This will enable scholars to continue building evidence base useful for navigating accommodative dilemmas in a way that improves relationships and builds trust between police leaders and the communities they serve.”

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JOURNAL

Psychology Public Policy and Law

DOI

10.1037/law0000399 

ARTICLE TITLE

Caught in the middle: Accommodative dilemmas in police–community relations.

 

Meagan Brem and team receive grant to study alcohol-fueled acts of violence among intimate partners

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: 

MEAGAN BREM.

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY HUNTER Q. GRESHAM FOR VIRGINIA TECH.

Beer pong. Quarters. Flip cup. The drinking games college students play can seem like an alcohol-laced version of intramural sports.

When college-aged drinkers imbibe too heavily, the risk for physically harming a romantic partner rises considerably.

What if there was a way for heavy drinkers to monitor their alcoholic intake and blood-alcohol levels in real time, before an intimate situation cascades into physical violence?

Or, as Virginia Tech researcher and assistant professor of psychology Meagan Brem put it: “If we can identify a cut-off where students’ risk for perpetration [of violence] would be highest, we might be able to perform just-in-time delivery of interventions to prevent perpetration.”

Brem, director of the university’s Research for Alcohol and Couples Health Lab and an Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment Scholar, leads a team of Virginia Tech researchers in the development of a study where self-identified heavy drinkers use pocket-sized electronic devices to monitor their drinking habits, alcohol levels, mood, and behavior. The study, initially supported by seed funding from the institute, has recently secured a $434,491 grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, commonly called an R21 grant, as part of a National Institutes of Health program to support research projects in the nascent stages of development.

Early this year, Brem and her professional and student colleagues will assemble a group of 100 heavy-drinking men and women students who have self-reported histories of intimate partner violence who will then be expected to report their drinking habits and other information for 30 consecutive days. The study relies on simple methods that require only a hand-held breathalyzer, a smartphone app, and quick daily reports.

Each day during the 30-day study period, participants will receive prompts through their phone at five specific times that will ask them to submit results from the provided breathalyzer and to answer a brief survey about how they feel, when they had their last drink, and other pertinent questions.

Even though participants’ survey answers might be hard to quantify, the breathalyzer information is not. Working closely with co-researcher Warren Bickel, behavioral research professor with Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC whose research has involved the use of breathalyzers, Brem expects to get objective data about student drinking and the likelihood that someone could perpetrate violence against an intimate partner. Studies have shown that adults will often under-report the number of alcoholic beverages they have consumed.

And college students?

“They're especially bad at it,” Brem said.

That’s why breathalyzer data is necessary, she said. The participant blows into the breathalyzer, which connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth to record the numbers.

“We wondered,” Brem said, “can we identify exact blood-alcohol concentration level when there might be the greatest likelihood that they would perpetrate sexual assault or intimate partner violence, sort of in the same way that we do with driving while intoxicated?”

The range of blood alcohol levels among heavy drinkers can be vast. In fact, during a pilot study conducted for this project, Brem’s team found that participants’ blood alcohol concentrations ranged from zero to a staggering 0.25 percent — more than three times the legal limit for driving while intoxicated and dangerously close to alcohol-poisoning levels.

“It's amazing that people are still alive and functioning at that point,” Brem said.

Another reason why breathalyzer data beats self-reported information is because many students simply don’t know how much alcohol constitutes a standard “drink.”

Heavy-drinking college students might be guzzling unknowable amounts of alcohol from bottles, cups, plastic jugs, aluminum pails, even rubber hoses.

“They're drinking directly out of bottles of liquor sometimes or they're drinking a concoction of various high-powered spirits made in large quantities, or mixed drinks,” Brem said. “Even when we give them a definition of a standard drink … they're really poor reporters when it comes to how much they've consumed.”

But the breathalyzer doesn’t lie.

As important as the objective alcohol data is for this study, there is some need for subjective self-reporting, especially when it comes to a heavy drinker’s mood, feelings or behavior toward other people. That’s why the survey’s daily questions are tailored in ways that don’t sound accusatory to the participants.

“For instance,” Brem said, “we will ask, ‘Since the last survey have you yelled at your partner or have you called them names? Have you pushed or shoved your partner?’’”

That method generated eye-popping answers during the pilot study. Fifty-four percent of the participants reported at least one intimate partner violence event during that study’s 28-day period.

Brem’s team takes a broad view when it comes to intimate partner violence, considering not only physical altercations, but online and technology-based violence, such as cyberstalking, bullying or making threats on social media.

This broader perspective also shifts the common narratives around intimate violence. Sexual perpetrators are often men, as research has shown for years, but men suffer the same rates of physical and psychological harm as women, Brem said. However, even in those cases where abuse rates are similar, women sustain more negative consequences.

“We do see that women are more likely to experience a greater severity of negative repercussions after the IPV,” Brem said, “meaning they need more resources such as shelter or financial support. They're more likely to miss work, they're more likely to experience mental health symptoms.”

Which means that Brem’s project has potential real-world societal and economic implications when it comes to reducing alcohol-related domestic violence and the societal costs required to handle the consequences — whether they be in healthcare, the judicial system, rehabilitation, workplaces, or other social safety-net programs.

The more information the public has, the better prepared it will be to prevent domestic violence and mitigate the fallout, according to TJ Shaw, a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant helping guide the data collection.

“We want to find out if this study is a way to get more information from college students who are at risk for this,” Shaw said. “We need to know if we can design an intervention system to reduce the likelihood of violence before it happens.”

 

ChatGPT poem regurgitation raises ethical questions

Reports and Proceedings

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – Ask ChatGPT to find a well-known poem and it will probably regurgitate the entire text verbatim – regardless of copyright law – according to a new study by Cornell University researchers.

The study showed that ChatGPT was capable of “memorizing” poems, especially famous ones commonly found online. The findings pose ethical questions about how ChatGPT and other proprietary artificial intelligence models are trained – likely using data scraped from the internet, researchers said.

“It’s generally not good for large language models to memorize large chunks of text, in part because it’s a privacy concern,” said first author Lyra D’Souza, a former computer science major and summer research assistant. “We don’t know what they’re trained on, and a lot of times, private companies can train proprietary models on our private data.”

D’Souza presented this work, “The Chatbot and the Canon: Poetry Memorization in LLMs,” at the Computational Humanities Research Conference.  

“We chose poems for a few reasons,” said senior author David Mimno, associate professor of information science. “They’re short enough to fit in the context size of a language model. Their status is complicated: many of the poems we studied are technically under copyright, but they’re also widely available from reputable sources like the Poetry Foundation.”

D’Souza tested the poem-retrieving capabilities of ChatGPT and three other language models: PaLM from Google AI, Pythia from the non-profit AI research institute EleutherAI and GPT-2, an earlier version of the model that ultimately yielded ChatGPT, both developed by OpenAI. She came up with a set of poems from 60 American poets from different time periods, races, genders and levels of fame, and fed the models prompts asking for the poems’ text.

The most reliable predictor of memorization was if the poem had appeared in a Norton Anthology of Poetry, specifically the 1983 edition.

D’Souza noticed that ChatGPT’s responses changed over time as the model evolved. When she first queried the chatbot in February 2023, it could not say it didn’t know a poem – instead it would fabricate one or recycle a poem from another author. By July 2023, if ChatGPT didn’t know the poem, it would ask if the poem even existed – putting the blame on the user.

Additionally, in February, ChatGPT had no limits due to copyright. But by July, sometimes it would respond that it couldn’t produce a copyrighted poem. However, it would usually reproduce the poem if asked again, D’Souza found.

This study looked only at American poets, but the next step will be to see how chatbots respond to requests in different languages and whether factors such as the length, meter and rhyming pattern of a poem make it more or less likely to be memorized, D’Souza said

“ChatGPT is a really powerful new tool that’s probably going to be part of our lives moving forward,” she said. “Figuring out how to use it responsibly and use it transparently is going to be really important.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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Inspired by Greek mythology, this potential drug shows promise for vanquishing Parkinson’s RNA in early studies

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UF HEALTH

 

IMAGE: 

MATTHEW DISNEY, PH.D., IS THE ENDOWED INSTITUTE PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF THE CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT AT THE HERBERT WERTHEIM UF SCRIPPS INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY IN JUPITER, FLORIDA.

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CREDIT: SCOTT WISEMAN FOR THE WERTHEIM UF SCRIPPS INSTITUTE

JUPITER, Fla. — Like the Greek mythological beast with a snake’s tail and two ferocious heads, a potential Parkinson’s medicine created in the lab of chemist Matthew Disney, Ph.D., is also a type of chimera bearing two heads. One seeks out a key piece of Parkinson’s-causing RNA, while the other goads the cell to chop it to pieces for recycling.

The research is described in the Jan. 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.

Parkinson’s is a frustrating and all too common disease. Slowly, people with Parkinson’s lose brain cells and other neurons needed to make the neurotransmitter dopamine. This progressive loss leads them to develop rigid, tense muscles and tremors, and causes difficulties with sleep, mood, speech, eating and movement.

Commonly used treatments include drugs that replace the dopamine. Other treatments, such as deep-brain stimulation, help with movement problems that develop as the disease worsens. But while these types of treatments alleviate symptoms, they are not a cure, come with side effects and do not change the trajectory of the disease. An estimated 500,000 people in the United States live with Parkinson’s.

“To change the course of this disease, we need to address its cause. For many Parkinson’s patients, that apparent cause is the accumulation of a toxic protein called alpha-synuclein, in and around their neurons,” said Disney, the endowed Institute Professor and chair of the chemistry department at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in Jupiter, Florida.

Unfortunately, alpha-synuclein has proven an especially challenging protein to medicate due to its unruly, disorganized form and lack of clear druggable structures, Disney added.

“In situations like this, we have found that targeting the RNA needed to build the toxic protein may be an optimal strategy to slowing or even stopping disease progression,” he added.

Disney’s lab focuses on interfering with or degrading RNA needed to assemble the proteins implicated in disease. This is a relatively new concept. Most drugs on the market work by binding to proteins to change their function. But not all disease-causing proteins can be successfully targeted with drugs. Some are too changeable, some lack druggable structures, some fold in a way that conceals their active sites.

Disney’s approach is to prevent the problematic proteins from being made in the first place. To do that requires targeting their RNA. Here’s why: Proteins are assembled in cells through a process that involves the reading and translation of a gene, the transport of that information from the cell nucleus to its cytoplasm via messenger RNA, and the assembly of protein-building factories called ribosomes, also built of RNA, in the cytoplasm. The ribosomes stitch the proteins together one amino acid at a time. Disney’s potential Parkinson’s drug, which he calls Syn-RiboTAC, binds to a section of messenger RNA that tells a ribosome to start protein assembly. Without the “start” signal, the toxic protein isn’t built.

 Disney’s first authors on the PNAS study were graduate students in his lab. Yuquan Tong is a current student of the Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences on the Jupiter, Florida campus, and Peiyuan Zhang, Ph.D., is a recent graduate, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“In Parkinson’s mouse models, we see that reducing alpha-synuclein by even 25% is therapeutically beneficial,” Tong said. “In studies from induced neurons of Parkinson’s patients, we see the Syn-RiboTAC strategy reduces alpha-synuclein production by about 50%. We saw that adding the RiboTAC produces a significant gain in potency.”

Disney added that the compound also showed good selectivity, important for avoiding unwanted side effects, and improved brain-barrier penetration relative to other compounds they studied.

Other collaborators on the study included physician-scientist M. Maral Mouradian, M.D., of Rutgers University, whose patients donated tissue to create induced neurons.

Much work lies ahead, as the team works to refine the two-headed drug and improve its drug-like properties, the scientists said. Preparing an experimental compound for clinical trials in humans can sometimes take years, as refinements are made and data are gathered. 

“The medical need for a truly disease-modifying treatment is significant, and we know that patients are awaiting better options,” Disney said. “We’re hopeful that we’re on the road to a better days for people living with Parkinson’s.”

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2306682120 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Decreasing the intrinsically disordered protein α-synuclein levels by targeting its structured mRNA with a ribonuclease-targeting chimera

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Jan-2024

COI STATEMENT

Matthew Disney is a founder of Expansion Therapeutics and other biotechnology companies.

ALBERTA

Canmore resident group asks government for environmental assessment of developments

The Canadian Press

A group of Canmore residents is asking the Alberta government to follow its own legislation and refer two major developments in the mountain town for an environmental assessment.

Bow Valley Engage, a not-for-profit society, says in a statement that the Three Sisters Village and Smith Creek projects have the potential to almost double the population of Canmore, which is west of Calgary.

It says the developments could also damage the last area for wildlife to move between Kananaskis Country and Banff National Park.

The group says the developments were widely opposed by the community during a six-day public hearing in 2021 and rejected by Canmore's town council.

A provincial tribunal then ruled that the developments could go ahead, which the town unsuccessfully challenged in the Court of Appeal of Alberta.

The group says an environmental assessment was done 32 years ago under less stringent legislation that no longer exists, and is asking the province to complete a new assessment under the current Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 10, 2024.

 

Fake news danger becomes top Davos worry in year of elections

Jana Randow, Bloomberg News

False or wrong information poses the biggest danger to the world in the next two years amid a confluence of elections and economic drudgery, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum.

Hours after a fake post on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account fueled a brief surge in Bitcoin, the Geneva-based organization that will next week host the global elite in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos highlighted how worries about the potential manipulation of voters are mounting.

The annual poll conducted by the forum among more than 1,400 risk experts, policymakers and industry leaders put “misinformation and disinformation” at the top of threats facing the global economy in the short term. Concerns about the health of the planet dominate the outlook for the coming decade, a trend already seen in previous surveys.

More than 3 billion people will vote this year, with the U.S., India, Indonesia, Europe, and probably the U.K. too holding some of the biggest polls due. The report confronts how economies squeezed by high borrowing costs after a once-in-a generation inflation shock just as major elections take place could present a toxic backdrop for the world in coming months. 

“When these two things come together — the economic hardship being faced by many people and the rise of synthetic content combined with going into an election year where people get to make decisions about who is going to be leading them — that together can be a very potent mix,” Saadia Zahidi, WEF managing director, told Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua on Wednesday.

The elevation of fake news as a danger at the forefront of worries among the crowd heading to the Davos meetings kicking off on Monday underscores shows how politics risks dominating the gathering in the mountains. How to rebuild trust is the theme confronting leaders and executives set to attend there. 

Widespread use of misinformation and disinformation may undermine the legitimacy of newly elected governments, fuel violent protests and potentially even terrorism, according to the WEF. 

“If some of those views start spilling over very different perceptions of reality, when it comes to health, when it comes to what people are thinking about education, what people think about specific people, who then becomes the owner of the truth?” Zahidi said.

Things are no better for the coming decade. Two-thirds of respondents anticipate the emergence of a multipolar or fragmented world order in that time horizon, in which mid- and large-size powers set and enforce rules and norms. Four of the five biggest challenges for then are related to climate change. 

Some 30 per cent of respondents see an elevated chance of global catastrophes in the next 24 months, and nearly two thirds envisage such a scenario in the coming decade.

“The outlook has shifted deeply toward darker side over the next 10 years,” Zahidi said.

The forum’s wider analysis on the survey was no less pessimistic. 

The results “highlight a predominantly negative outlook for the world in the short term that is expected to worsen over the long term,” the WEF said. “Against a backdrop of systemic shifts in global power dynamics, climate, technology and demographics, global risks are stretching the world’s adaptative capacity to its limit.”

 

AI skills in demand as companies develop 2024 hiring plans for Canada

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

When Canadian companies turn to hiring this year, candidates will need to show skill in a key area: artificial intelligence.

Members of the country's tech community say finding staff who can develop AI-based products or use them to drive efficiencies is a priority as the global race to take advantage of AI deepens.

"Everyone is looking for people who understand how to use AI," said Jenny Yang, a senior advisor at the MaRS innovation hub in Toronto, who helps startups navigate the challenges of growing the business and commercializing their products.

"Some are companies that want to use (AI chatbot) ChatGPT themselves directly ... and then there are companies who are trying to really hire data scientists, who want to build AI products."

Job postings show Porter Airlines recently sought an AI engineer in Toronto "to solve a wide range of complex problems" and pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson wanted a senior data scientist to "stay on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence." 

Reviews platform Yelp was on the lookout for a senior machine learning engineer in Canada capable of "turning raw data into valuable signals," while beverage giant Keurig Dr Pepper Canada wanted an associate data scientist in Montreal with an "interest in artificial intelligence."

Many of the jobs focus on generative AI — a type of machine learning capable of generating text, images and other content. This form of AI has exploded in popularity since the November 2022 release of ChatGPT, a chatbot from San Francisco-based OpenAI that can rapidly turn simple prompts into text-like essays and speeches.

ChatGPT's debut kick-started a race between tech titans, including Google and Microsoft, to innovate with AI and inspired other firms to consider how the tech could transform their businesses.

Now job listings show companies, including prominent firms like Qualcomm and J.D. Power along with startups, universities and law firms, have all been soliciting applications for interns, consultants, engineers, scientists and prompters with AI and machine learning skills.

But many believe AI's impact on hiring is still a long way from its peak.

Employment search website Indeed found generative AI — a type of machine learning capable of generating text, images and other content — was mentioned in 0.07 per cent of Canadian job postings at the end of November.

However, 17 per cent of postings for machine learning engineers specifically, which Indeed calls "the quintessential AI job," and five per cent of data scientist jobs mentioned generative AI. 

Openings for software engineers and full-stack developers also increasingly saw the term crop up, said Brendon Bernard, senior economist at Indeed.

"I'd be surprised if (generative AI in job postings) doesn't keep growing and we don't see it in more and more job types," he said.

Alik Sokolov, co-founder and chief executive of Montreal-based AI company for investment management Responsibli, has found more companies have become interested in AI over the last year, changing some of the criteria businesses seek when hiring.

"I think it's going to be a very different mix of skills for someone going into the field in 2024 than it was, say, for me going into the field around 2013..." he said.

"Just looking at the resumé I had when I was hired at Deloitte, I wouldn't be hired at Deloitte today or Responsibli. The bar has just grown."

Sokolov and Yang agree that data scientists with AI skills tend to be more in demand these days, though developers are also being taught or expected to use tools to build AI.

"You don't have to be a hardcore research data scientist with a PhD anymore, whereas I think five years ago even, you had to kind of be like that," Yang said.

"Now you're seeing more traditional software engineers building AI products and it's because of the availability of better and better tools."

Rob Toews, a partner at AI-focused venture capital firm Radical Ventures, has predicted chief AI officers will become part of the C-Suite at large enterprises this year, while others foresee the rise of prompters — professionals trained to put instructions into AI systems to elicit the most effective and desired responses.

But Sokolov and Yang agree prompter jobs are likely to be short-lived because workers from a wide swath of backgrounds can easily be taught to integrate prompting into their work with a bit of training or experimentation.

"We're not looking for a full-time prompt engineer, but instead, prompt engineering is something that's done by almost everyone in our company to varying degrees," Sokolov said.

He is in the process of hiring a vice-president of AI, who will handle how the company approaches the technologies' risks, and several data scientists, who will take on prompt engineering responsibilities.

So far, he's managed to hire almost completely from Canada, which has long had a reputation as an AI leader as companies and researchers exploring the technology have coalesced in Montreal and Toronto.

A September study from Deloitte found when one analyzes per capita venture capital investments in AI, Canada ranks third among G7 countries, trailing only the U.S. and U.K.

Canada also had the highest five-year average year-over-year growth rate in AI talent concentration of all G7 nations between 2017 and last year, the report said.

But Yang has recently seen some of Canada's top data scientists heading for the U.S.

"There's just better money, more opportunities, so we are getting the brain drain for AI talent," she said, noting Amazon and other big tech companies can pay $500,000 a year for top AI data scientists.

"You need bigger companies (in Canada) to be able to afford the talent, when it is high in demand."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 10, 2024.

 

Canada can't afford to block temporary residents, Desjardins says

Laura Dhillon Kane, Bloomberg News

Curbing the number of temporary workers and international students allowed into Canada would deepen an expected recession and blunt the country’s subsequent recovery, according to Desjardins Securities Inc.

Record numbers of newcomers have pushed Canada’s population growth rate to 3.2 per cent, one of the fastest in the world. The surge has boosted the labor market but also helped drive up housing costs, sparking a backlash in the typically immigrant-friendly country.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has acknowledged a need to adjust policy to get a handle on the “massive expansion” in temporary residents.

While an outright ban on non-permanent residents isn’t being considered, Randall Bartlett, Desjardins’ senior director of Canadian economics, examined the impact of changes to immigration. If the influx of temporary residents were to grind to a halt, real gross domestic product would fall considerably below current forecasts, and a recession the firm anticipates in the first half of 2024 would double in length, he wrote in a report released Wednesday.

“Caution is warranted on the part of policymakers to minimize the economic downside of slowing newcomer arrivals too quickly,” Bartlett said. “But it’s not an easy balance to strike, as sustained high non-permanent resident admissions could further strain provincial finances and housing affordability.”

Canada accepted 454,590 new permanent residents over the 12-month period to Oct. 1, while bringing in a record 804,690 non-permanent residents. Temporary admissions should slow naturally with the economy, but changes in government policy may cause them to decline even faster, Bartlett said. 

He used Desjardins’ recent economic and financial outlook as a baseline since it contains population-growth estimates that are roughly in line with the Bank of Canada’s most recent monetary policy report. The Desjardins forecast assumes there will be roughly half as many non-permanent residents in 2024 as there were last year, then half as many again in 2025, before hitting bottom in 2026 and starting to rise again after that.

Given those estimates, the Desjardins outlook predicts real GDP will grow just 0.1 per cent in 2024 and an average of about 1.95 per cent annually from 2025 through 2028.

But if Canada were to shut the door to temporary residents, real GDP would drop by 0.7 per cent in 2024 and grow an average of 1.78 per cent annually over the following four years, Bartlett said.

On the other hand, if Canada were to double the pace of non-permanent resident admissions, compared with the Desjardins forecast, the country would experience a milder economic slowdown than anticipated and potentially avoid a recession altogether. Real GDP would grow 1 per cent in 2024, and top 2.1 per cent on average after that, Bartlett said.

The Bank of Canada’s official forecast doesn’t see a recession on the horizon, though Governor Tiff Macklem said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg that the first part of 2024 is “not going to feel good.”

Boosting temporary-resident admissions would also likely contribute to elevated inflation, complicating the central bank’s job and probably keeping rates higher for longer than they would be otherwise, Bartlett said. Conversely, halting those arrivals would keep inflation more contained.

Luxury Resort Gets Denmark's First Hydrofoiling Electric Boat

Artemis eFoiler workboat (Courtesy Artemis)

PUBLISHED JAN 9, 2024 10:05 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The UK-based electric vessel company Artemis has sold a high-tech hydrofoiling workboat to an island resort in Denmark, putting the possibility of all-electric marine transport on display in a luxurious setting. 

Vejrø Resort is an island retreat located southwest of Copenhagen and just east of the Great Belt shipping lane, the primary route for merchant traffic in the Baltic. In addition to private stays and hunting excursions, it hosts business conferences. It has its own sailboat harbor for those who like to arrive with their own vessel, along with a diesel passenger vessel for those who do not wish to bring a yacht.  

The resort - owned by Saxo Bank CEO Kim Fournais - places a strong emphasis on its natural surroundings and its sustainability, and it wants to go fully carbon-neutral by 2025. That includes its marine transport, too - so it has ordered a fast-foiling electric boat. 

Artemis is building a 12-meter, all-electric passenger transfer boat for Vejrø, based on.a serial production model from Artemis' UK plant. It has an automated "flight control" system for its foil, leaving the crew to focus on navigation. 

“The delivery of this solution is a major milestone in our journey to become carbon neutral. We are investing significantly in the green transformation of Vejrø, and the acquisition of the Artemis EF-12 Workboat XL demonstrates our commitment to this transition. Transporting guests has traditionally been a major contributor to CO2 emissions, so these types of investments are not only important for Vejrø, but vital in the race against climate change and protecting our environment,” said Jens Ole Ambjerg, CEO of Vejrø Resort. “Our mission at Vejrø, is to lead change with real and meaningful actions."

The boat will be the first vessel of its kind in Denmark, according to Artemis, and will be in service beginning in summer 2024. 

Artemis' foiling-boat business has been taking off, and quickly. The company designed a practical electric workboat for customers on the working waterfront, like port authorities and offshore wind farm operators, and it has been booking sales. It is also designing a larger ferry variant, 24 meters in length, and has secured funding from HSBC to support its international-sales ambitions. It says that it has doubled its headcount in a year and is set to keep growing. 

"The potential impact of low emission, smooth and fast travel that our eFoiler boats provide should not be underestimated. We hope that our technology will help to transform both the day-to-day operations and environmental impact of our customers, across the globe," said Kiera McSorley, the finance director at Artemis. 
 

Houthis Launch Largest Attack Yet on Merchant Shipping

The destroyer USS Carney responds to a Houthi attack, December 2023 (USN file image)

PUBLISHED JAN 10, 2024 2:11 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

On Tuesday night, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels launched a massive attack on international shipping in the Red Sea, defying a series of warnings from the U.S, the UK and a small number of international partners. 

According to U.S. Central Command, Houthi militants launched a combination of antiship missiles, suicide drone UAVs and anti-ship ballistic missiles towards the shipping lanes, beginning at about 2115 hours. Dozens of merchant ships were in the area affected. 

The U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy took up the response. F/A-18 attack fighters from the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower launched to intercept some of the aerial threats, and the crews of the destroyers USS Gravely, USS Laboon, USS Mason and HMS Diamond took down the others.

In all, the combined force destroyed eighteen suicide drones, two anti-ship missiles and one ballistic missile. An American military official told Fox News that it is believed to be the largest Houthi attack since the militant group's campaign began in November. 

Security consultancy Ambrey reported that merchant ships in the affected area were advised to "proceed at maximum speed" during the attack. No injuries or combat damage were reported, and AIS data showed large volumes of marine traffic moving smoothly through the waterway early Wednesday. 

The group's latest attack defied a final warning that the White House and a small coalition of partners issued on January 3. 

"The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways. We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks," the coalition warned at the time. 

As of late Tuesday, the White House had not yet commented on the group's ongoing attacks or any possible response measures.