AOC/GATES BIPARTISAN BILL😱

US House Members Unveil Stock Trading Ban: Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act

"When members have access to classified information, we should not be trading in the stock market on it," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "It's really that simple."


U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) participates in a meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. on January 31, 2023.
(Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT
May 02, 2023

Four members of the U.S. House of Representatives from across the political spectrum came together on Tuesday to introduce the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act, which would ban federal lawmakers and their immediate relatives from owning and trading stocks.

Momentum for such a ban has been growing in the wake of various investigations last year, but Democrats—who controlled both chambers of Congress in 2022, but now only have a slim majority in the Senate—failed to pass any of the related legislative proposals, despite their popularity among voters.

"The fact that members of the Progressive Caucus, the Freedom Caucus, and the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, reflecting the entirety of the political spectrum, can find common ground on key issues like this should send a powerful message to America," said Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who is leading the new bill with Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

"We all view this as a critical first step to return the House of Representatives back to the people."

"We must move forward on issues that unite us, including our firm belief that trust in government must be restored, and that members of Congress, including their dependents, must be prohibited from trading in stocks while they are serving in Congress and have access to sensitive, inside information," Fitzpatrick continued. "This is basic common sense and basic Integrity 101. And we all view this as a critical first step to return the House of Representatives back to the people."

As Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center and former chair of the Federal Election Commission, explained last September, "Congress passed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act into law 10 years ago, but the STOCK Act did not decrease the appearance of corruption that arises when members of Congress engage in suspicious stock trades."

If passed, the new restrictions proposed by Fitzpatrick's diverse group would apply to all members of Congress as well as their spouses and dependents.

"The ability to individually trade stock erodes the public's trust in government," asserted Ocasio-Cortez. "When members have access to classified information, we should not be trading in the stock market on it. It's really that simple."

While the progressive "Squad" member has often clashed with Gaetz, their comments Tuesday made clear they agree on this topic.

"Members of Congress are spending their time trading futures instead of securing the future of our fellow Americans. We cannot allow the Swamp to prioritize investing in stocks over investing in our country," said Gaetz. "As long as concerns about insider trading hang over the legislative process, Congress will never regain the trust of the American people. Our responsibility in Congress is to serve the people, not hedge bets on the stock market."

Krishnamoorthi also agreed that "members of Congress must be focused on their constituents, not their stock portfolios."

The Hill on Tuesday highlighted some recent events that have fueled bipartisan support for a stock trading ban:
In 2022, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) husband sold millions of dollars worth of shares of a computer chip maker as the House prepared to vote on a bill focused on domestic chip manufacturing. A spokesman for Pelosi said at the time that he sold the shares at a loss.

Former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who at the time was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also unloaded stocks at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The Securities and Exchange Commission recently closed a probe of his trading activities without taking action.

The legislation unveiled Tuesday is supported by advocacy groups including the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

"When members of Congress own and trade stock in companies they regulate they undermine the democracy that they were elected to serve," argued CREW policy director Debra Perlin. "It is Congress' duty to rebuild the trust that it has lost by banning members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from owning or trading stocks. And that is precisely what the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act does."

The proposed "complete prohibition on congressional stock ownership demonstrates that in our democracy the public's needs, rather than members' stock portfolios, come first," Perlin added. "CREW commends Rep. Fitzpatrick for his work on this issue and strongly encourages Congress to pass stock ban legislation as quickly as possible."

Emma Lydon, managing director of P Street, the government affairs sister organization of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, similarly called on the House—which is now narrowly controlled by Republicans—to "take swift action to pass this critical, bipartisan anti-corruption legislation to restore public trust in our democracy."

"Elected officials should represent the interests of their constituents, not their own pocketbooks," declared Lydon. "It's a scandal that members of Congress are still allowed to own and trade individual stocks while casting votes that move markets and transform economic sectors."

This post has been updated to correct Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick's political party.

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JESSICA CORBETT
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
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Study Shows Large Minimum Wage Hikes Boost Both Earnings and Employment​

"That sound you hear is exploding heads," joked one economist.

Activists take part in a “Wage Strike" demonstration outside of the Old Ebbitt Grill restaurant on May 26th, 2021 in Washington, DC.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON
May 04, 2023

A working paper unveiled this week by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley shows that large minimum wage increases can have positive effects on both earnings and employment, countering the notion pushed by corporate lobbying groups that significant wage hikes are job killers.

Examining nearly 50 large U.S. counties in California and New York whose wage floors reached $15 or higher by the first quarter of last year, the analysis found that sizable minimum wage hikes produced "substantial pay growth, no disemployment effects, and reduced wage inequality."

The paper—authored by Justin Wiltshire, Carl McPherson, and Michael Reich—also found that when excluding counties with already-high minimum wages relative to other local areas, minimum wage increases actually boost employment.

Citing previous research on the impacts of local minimum wage hikes, the authors explain that "cities that enact local minimum wage increases tend to already have higher wages."

"In other words, the local areas that enact their own minimum wage policies are less likely to experience employment effects (in either direction)," the paper notes. "Moreover, including high-wage labor markets—where the minimum wage has less bite—in treatment samples could also attenuate estimated effects."

The researchers found "larger positive and significant" employment effects of minimum wage hikes when leaving out areas that already had higher average wages—indicating that large wage boosts in areas with lower minimum wages are beneficial for job growth

The working paper comes as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is preparing to introduce legislation Thursday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour, up from the $7.25 level that it has been stuck at for more than a decade. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the federal minimum wage—which 15 U.S. states currently use as their wage floor—is worth 17% less today than it was 10 years ago.

"There are millions of workers in this country who are working literally on starvation wages, eight nine, ten bucks an hour," Sanders toldInsider on Wednesday. "Two years ago, we proposed a $15 an hour minimum wage as a result of inflation. $15 is now the equivalent of $17."

When Sanders attempted to attach a $15 minimum wage amendment to a coronavirus relief package in 2021, eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus joined Republicans to block the effort.

"I think all over this country, you're seeing states on their own voting to raise the minimum wage," Sanders said Wednesday. "We have not raised the minimum wage here in Congress."

In the absence of federal action, a record number of U.S. jurisdictions are set to raise their minimum wages in 2023—in many cases above $15 an hour.

The new working paper focused primarily on fast food workers in 25 California counties and 22 New York counties that "are representative of the U.S as a whole: the distribution of average county wages in 42 of these counties lies uniformly between the 10th and 90th percentiles of all U.S. counties."

"This pattern implies our results are generalizable to jurisdictions across the U.S.," the authors note.

The analysis of wage hikes in the full 47-county sample found "positive and significant" impacts on worker earnings—particularly at the lower end of the wage distribution—and "positive and borderline-significant" effects on employment. When stripping from the sample counties that already had higher wage floors, "our positive employment estimates increase in magnitude and become significant," the authors wrote.

"Our paper demonstrates that the rapid growth of minimum wages to high levels in California and New York resulted in increased earnings without causing negative employment effects," they concluded. "Indeed, our evidence suggests that these minimum wage increases resulted in employment gains."

'Not a Radical Idea': Sanders Calls for 32-Hour Workweek With No Pay Cuts

6.4 HRS PER DAY

"It's time to make sure that working people benefit from rapidly increasing technology, not just large corporations that are already doing phenomenally well."


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) meets with union members outside the Senate office buildings on July 20, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMONDREAMS
May 04, 2023

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday called for a 32-hour workweek with no pay cuts for U.S. employees, pointing to the overwhelmingly positive results in nations that have recently experimented with or enacted shorter workweeks.

"Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea," Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, wrote in an op-ed in The Guardian. "In fact, movement in that direction is already taking place in other developed countries. France, the seventh-largest economy in the world, has a 35-hour workweek and is considering reducing it to 32. The workweek in Norway and Denmark is about 37 hours."

The senator also pointed to a recent four-day workweek pilot program in the United Kingdom, where more than 90% of participating companies said the trial was so successful that they have no plans to return to a five-day workweek.

"Not surprisingly, it showed that happy workers were more productive," Sanders wrote. "Another pilot of nearly 1,000 workers at 33 companies in seven countries found that revenue increased by more than 37% in the companies that participated and 97% of workers were happy with the four-day workweek."

Sanders also noted that "an explosion in technology" in recent decades, and associated increases in worker productivity, have not prompted any changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the 1938 law that established the 40-hour workweek.

Between 1979 and 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute, worker productivity rose by nearly 65% while hourly pay rose just 17.3%.

6 HOURS PER DAY

"The result: millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, with the average worker making nearly $50 a week less than he or she did 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation," wrote Sanders, who has said he will introduce legislation Thursday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour.

"It's time to reduce the workweek to 32 hours with no loss in pay," the senator continued. "It's time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life. It's time to make sure that working people benefit from rapidly increasing technology, not just large corporations that are already doing phenomenally well."

"It's time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality of life."

Sanders is one of just a handful of U.S. lawmakers to endorse a 32-hour workweek. Earlier this year, Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) reintroduced his Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, legislation that would cut the standard U.S. workweek by amending the FLSA.

The bill currently has just two co-sponsors: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). The measure has also been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and other organizations.

1933

"Workers across the nation are collectively reimagining their relationship to labor—and our laws need to follow suit," Takano said in March. "We have before us the opportunity to make common sense changes to work standards passed down from a different era. The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act would improve the quality of life of workers, meeting the demand for a more truncated workweek that allows room to live, play, and enjoy life more fully outside of work."
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JAKE JOHNSON
Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
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Artificial intelligence market faces review from UK watchdog



 The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen which displays the ChatGPT home Screen, on March 17, 2023, in Boston. Britain’s competition watchdog is opening a review of the artificial intelligence market, focusing on the technology underpinning chatbots like ChatGPT. The Competition Markets Authority said Thursday, May 4 it will look into the opportunities and risks of AI as well as the competition rules and consumer protections that may be needed.

 (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday that it’s opening a review of the artificial intelligence market, focusing on the technology underpinning chatbots like ChatGPT.

The Competition Markets Authority said it will look into the opportunities and risks of AI as well as the competition rules and consumer protections that may be needed.

AI’s ability to mimic human behavior has dazzled users but also drawn attention from regulators and experts around the world concerned about its dangers as its use mushrooms — affecting jobs, copyright, education, privacy and many other parts of life.

The CEOs of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI will meet Thursday with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for talks on how to ease the risks of their technology. And European Union negotiators are putting the finishing touches on sweeping new AI rules.

The U.K. watchdog said the goal of the review is to help guide the development of AI to ensure open and competitive markets that don’t end up being unfairly dominated by a few big players.

Artificial intelligence “has the potential to transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth,” CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said. “It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to U.K. businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information.”

The authority will examine competition and barriers to entry in the development of foundation models. Also known as large language models, they’re a sub-category of general purpose AI that includes systems like ChatGPT.

The algorithms these models use are trained on vast pools of online information like blog posts and digital books to generate text and images that resemble human work, but they still face limitations including a tendency to fabricate information.

Noam Chomsky Speaks on What ChatGPT Is Really Good For

The subset of artificial intelligence known as Large Language Models can't tell us anything about human language learning, but it excels at misleading the uninformed.


In this 2023 photo illustration, the ChatGPT website welcome screen is displayed on a laptop.
(Photo Illustration: Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

C.J. POLYCHRONIOU  NOAM CHOMSKY
May 03, 2023

Common Dreams


Artificial intelligence (AI) is sweeping the world. It is transforming every walk of life and raising in the process major ethical concerns for society and the future of humanity. ChatGPT, which is dominating social media, is an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI. It is a subset of machine learning and relies on what is called Large Language Models that can generate human-like responses. The potential application for such technology is indeed enormous, which is why there are already calls to regulate AI like ChatGPT.

Can AI outsmart humans? Does it pose public threats? Indeed, can AI become an existential threat? The world’s preeminent linguist Noam Chomsky, and one of the most esteemed public intellectuals of all time, whose intellectual stature has been compared to that of Galileo, Newton, and Descartes, tackles these nagging questions in the interview that follows.

Engineering projects can be useful, or harmful. Both questions arise in the case of engineering AI. Current work with Large Language Models (LLMs), including chatbots, provides tools for disinformation, defamation, and misleading the uninformed

C. J. Polychroniou: As a scientific discipline, artificial intelligence (AI) dates back to the 1950s, but over the last couple of decades it has been making inroads into all sort of fields, including banking, insurance, auto manufacturing, music, and defense. In fact, the use of AI techniques has been shown in some instance to surpass human capabilities, such as in a game of chess. Are machines likely to become smarter than humans?

Noam Chomsky: Just to clarify terminology, the term “machine” here means program, basically a theory written in a notation that can be executed by a computer–and an unusual kind of theory in interesting ways that we can put aside here.

We can make a rough distinction between pure engineering and science. There is no sharp boundary, but it’s a useful first approximation. Pure engineering seeks to produce a product that may be of some use. Science seeks understanding. If the topic is human intelligence, or cognitive capacities of other organisms, science seeks understanding of these biological systems.

As I understand them, the founders of AI–Alan Turing, Herbert Simon, Marvin Minsky, and others–regarded it as science, part of the then-emerging cognitive sciences, making use of new technologies and discoveries in the mathematical theory of computation to advance understanding. Over the years those concerns have faded and have largely been displaced by an engineering orientation. The earlier concerns are now commonly dismissed, sometimes condescendingly, as GOFAI–good old-fashioned AI.

Continuing with the question, is it likely that programs will be devised that surpass human capabilities? We have to be careful about the word “capabilities,” for reasons to which I’ll return. But if we take the term to refer to human performance, then the answer is: definitely yes. In fact, they have long existed: the calculator in a laptop, for example. It can far exceed what humans can do, if only because of lack of time and memory. For closed systems like chess, it was well understood in the ‘50s that sooner or later, with the advance of massive computing capacities and a long period of preparation, a program could be devised to defeat a grandmaster who is playing with a bound on memory and time. The achievement years later was pretty much PR for IBM. Many biological organisms surpass human cognitive capacities in much deeper ways. The desert ants in my backyard have minuscule brains, but far exceed human navigational capacities, in principle, not just performance. There is no Great Chain of Being with humans at the top.

The products of AI engineering are being used in many fields, for better or for worse. Even simple and familiar ones can be quite useful: in the language area, programs like autofill, live transcription, google translate, among others. With vastly greater computing power and more sophisticated programming, there should be other useful applications, in the sciences as well. There already have been some: Assisting in the study of protein folding is one recent case where massive and rapid search technology has helped scientists to deal with a critical and recalcitrant problem.

Engineering projects can be useful, or harmful. Both questions arise in the case of engineering AI. Current work with Large Language Models (LLMs), including chatbots, provides tools for disinformation, defamation, and misleading the uninformed. The threats are enhanced when they are combined with artificial images and replication of voice. With different concerns in mind, tens of thousands of AI researchers have recently called for a moratorium on development because of potential dangers they perceive.

As always, possible benefits of technology have to be weighed against potential costs.

Quite different questions arise when we turn to AI and science. Here caution is necessary because of exorbitant and reckless claims, often amplified in the media. To clarify the issues, let’s consider cases, some hypothetical, some real.

I mentioned insect navigation, which is an astonishing achievement. Insect scientists have made much progress in studying how it is achieved, though the neurophysiology, a very difficult matter, remains elusive, along with evolution of the systems. The same is true of the amazing feats of birds and sea turtles that travel thousands of miles and unerringly return to the place of origin.

Suppose Tom Jones, a proponent of engineering AI, comes along and says: “Your work has all been refuted. The problem is solved. Commercial airline pilots achieve the same or even better results all the time.”

If even bothering to respond, we’d laugh.

Take the case of the seafaring exploits of Polynesians, still alive among Indigenous tribes, using stars, wind, currents to land their canoes at a designated spot hundreds of miles away. This too has been the topic of much research to find out how they do it. Tom Jones has the answer: “Stop wasting your time; naval vessels do it all the time.”

Same response.

Let’s now turn to a real case, language acquisition. It’s been the topic of extensive and highly illuminating research in recent years, showing that infants have very rich knowledge of the ambient language (or languages), far beyond what they exhibit in performance. It is achieved with little evidence, and in some crucial cases none at all. At best, as careful statistical studies have shown, available data are sparse, particularly when rank-frequency (“Zipf’s law”) is taken into account.

Enter Tom Jones: “You’ve been refuted. Paying no attention to your discoveries, LLMs that scan astronomical amounts of data can find statistical regularities that make it possible to simulate the data on which they are trained, producing something that looks pretty much like normal human behavior. Chatbots."

This case differs from the others. First, it is real. Second, people don’t laugh; in fact, many are awed. Third, unlike the hypothetical cases, the actual results are far from what’s claimed.

These considerations bring up a minor problem with the current LLM enthusiasm: its total absurdity, as in the hypothetical cases where we recognize it at once. But there are much more serious problems than absurdity.

The LLM systems are designed in such a way that they cannot tell us anything about language, learning, or other aspects of cognition, a matter of principle, irremediable

One is that the LLM systems are designed in such a way that they cannot tell us anything about language, learning, or other aspects of cognition, a matter of principle, irremediable. Double the terabytes of data scanned, add another trillion parameters, use even more of California’s energy, and the simulation of behavior will improve, while revealing more clearly the failure in principle of the approach to yield any understanding. The reason is elementary: The systems work just as well with impossible languages that infants cannot acquire as with those they acquire quickly and virtually reflexively.

It's as if a biologist were to say: “I have a great new theory of organisms. It lists many that exist and many that can’t possibly exist, and I can tell you nothing about the distinction.”

Again, we’d laugh. Or should.

Not Tom Jones–now referring to actual cases. Persisting in his radical departure from science, Tom Jones responds: “How do you know any of this until you’ve investigated all languages?” At this point the abandonment of normal science becomes even clearer. By parity of argument, we can throw out genetics and molecular biology, the theory of evolution, and the rest of the biological sciences, which haven’t sampled more than a tiny fraction of organisms. And for good measure, we can cast out all of physics. Why believe in the laws of motion? How many objects have actually been observed in motion?

There is, furthermore, the small matter of burden of proof. Those who propose a theory have the responsibility of showing that it makes some sense, in this case, showing that it fails for impossible languages. It is not the responsibility of others to refute the proposal, though in this case it seems easy enough to do so.

Let’s shift attention to normal science, where matters become interesting. Even a single example of language acquisition can yield rich insight into the distinction between possible and impossible languages.

The reasons are straightforward, and familiar. All growth and development, including what is called “learning,” is a process that begins with a state of the organism and transforms it step-by-step to later stages.

Acquisition of language is such a process. The initial state is the biological endowment of the faculty of language, which obviously exists, even if it is, as some believe, a particular combination of other capacities. That’s highly unlikely for reasons long understood, but it’s not relevant to our concerns here, so we can put it aside. Plainly there is a biological endowment for the human faculty of language. The merest truism.

Transition proceeds to a relatively stable state, changed only superficially beyond: knowledge of the language. External data trigger and partially shape the process. Studying the state attained (knowledge of the language) and the external data, we can draw far-reaching conclusions about the initial state, the biological endowment that makes language acquisition possible. The conclusions about the initial state impose a distinction between possible and impossible languages. The distinction holds for all those who share the initial state–all humans, as far as is known; there seems to be no difference in capacity to acquire language among existing human groups.

All of this is normal science, and it has achieved many results.

Experiment has shown that the stable state is substantially obtained very early, by three to four years of age. It’s also well-established that the faculty of language has basic properties specific to humans, hence that it is a true species property: common to human groups and in fundamental ways a unique human attribute.

A lot is left out in this schematic account, notably the role of natural law in growth and development: in the case of a computational system like language, principles of computational efficiency. But this is the essence of the matter. Again, normal science.

It is important to be clear about Aristotle’s distinction between possession of knowledge and use of knowledge (in contemporary terminology, competence and performance). In the language case, the stable state obtained is possession of knowledge, coded in the brain. The internal system determines an unbounded array of structured expressions, each of which we can regard as formulating a thought, each externalizable in some sensorimotor system, usually sound though it could be sign or even (with difficulty) touch.

The internally coded system is accessed in use of knowledge (performance). Performance includes the internal use of language in thought: reflection, planning, recollection, and a great deal more. Statistically speaking that is by far the overwhelming use of language. It is inaccessible to introspection, though we can learn a lot about it by the normal methods of science, from “outside,” metaphorically speaking. What is called “inner speech” is, in fact, fragments of externalized language with the articulatory apparatus muted. It is only a remote reflection of the internal use of language, important matters I cannot pursue here.

Other forms of use of language are perception (parsing) and production, the latter crucially involving properties that remain as mysterious to us today as when they were regarded with awe and amazement by Galileo and his contemporaries at the dawn of modern science.

The principal goal of science is to discover the internal system, both in its initial state in the human faculty of language and in the particular forms it assumes in acquisition. To the extent that this internal system is understood, we can proceed to investigate how it enters into performance, interacting with many other factors that enter into use of language.

Data of performance provide evidence about the nature of the internal system, particularly so when they are refined by experiment, as in standard field work. But even the most massive collection of data is necessarily misleading in crucial ways. It keeps to what is normally produced, not the knowledge of the language coded in the brain, the primary object under investigation for those who want to understand the nature of language and its use. That internal object determines infinitely many possibilities of a kind that will not be used in normal behavior because of factors irrelevant to language, like short-term memory constraints, topics studied 60 years ago. Observed data will also include much that lies outside the system coded in the brain, often conscious use of language in ways that violate the rules for rhetorical purposes. These are truisms known to all field workers, who rely on elicitation techniques with informants, basically experiments, to yield a refined corpus that excludes irrelevant restrictions and deviant expressions. The same is true when linguists use themselves as informants, a perfectly sensible and normal procedure, common in the history of psychology up to the present.

Proceeding further with normal science, we find that the internal processes and elements of the language cannot be detected by inspection of observed phenomena. Often these elements do not even appear in speech (or writing), though their effects, often subtle, can be detected. That is yet another reason why restriction to observed phenomena, as in LLM approaches, sharply limits understanding of the internal processes that are the core objects of inquiry into the nature of language, its acquisition and use. But that is not relevant if concern for science and understanding have been abandoned in favor of other goals.

More generally in the sciences, for millennia, conclusions have been reached by experiments–often thought experiments–each a radical abstraction from phenomena. Experiments are theory-driven, seeking to discard the innumerable irrelevant factors that enter into observed phenomena–like linguistic performance. All of this is so elementary that it’s rarely even discussed. And familiar. As noted, the basic distinction goes back to Aristotle’s distinction between possession of knowledge and use of knowledge. The former is the central object of study. Secondary (and quite serious) studies investigate how the internally stored system of knowledge is used in performance, along with the many non-linguistic factors than enter into what is directly observed.

We might also recall an observation of evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, famous primarily for his work with Drosophila: Each species is unique, and humans are the uniquest of all. If we are interested in understanding what kind of creatures we are–following the injunction of the Delphic Oracle 2,500 years ago–we will be primarily concerned with what makes humans the uniquest of all, primarily language and thought, closely intertwined, as recognized in a rich tradition going back to classical Greece and India. Most behavior is fairly routine, hence to some extent predictable. What provides real insight into what makes us unique is what is not routine, which we do find, sometimes by experiment, sometimes by observation, from normal children to great artists and scientists.

Society has been plagued for a century by massive corporate campaigns to encourage disdain for science.

One final comment in this connection. Society has been plagued for a century by massive corporate campaigns to encourage disdain for science, topics well studied by Naomi Oreskes among others. It began with corporations whose products are murderous: lead, tobacco, asbestos, later fossil fuels. Their motives are understandable. The goal of a business in a capitalist society is profit, not human welfare. That’s an institutional fact: Don’t play the game and you’re out, replaced by someone who will.

The corporate PR departments recognized early on that it would be a mistake to deny the mounting scientific evidence of the lethal effects of their products. That would be easily refuted. Better to sow doubt, encourage uncertainty, contempt for these pointy-headed suits who have never painted a house but come down from Washington to tell me not to use lead paint, destroying my business (a real case, easily multiplied). That has worked all too well. Right now it is leading us on a path to destruction of organized human life on earth.

In intellectual circles, similar effects have been produced by the postmodern critique of science, dismantled by Jean Bricmont and Alan Sokal, but still much alive in some circles.

It may be unkind to suggest the question, but it is, I think, fair to ask whether the Tom Joneses and those who uncritically repeat and even amplify their careless proclamations are contributing to the same baleful tendencies.

CJP: ChatGPT is a natural-language-driven chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to allow human-like conversations. In a recent article in The New York Times, in conjunction with two other authors, you shut down the new chatbots as a hype because they simply cannot match the linguistic competence of humans. Isn’t it however possible that future innovations in AI can produce engineering projects that will match and perhaps even surpass human capabilities?


NC: Credit for the article should be given to the actual author, Jeffrey Watumull, a fine mathematician-linguist-philosopher. The two listed co-authors were consultants, who agree with the article but did not write it.

It’s true that chatbots cannot in principle match the linguistic competence of humans, for the reasons repeated above. Their basic design prevents them from reaching the minimal condition of adequacy for a theory of human language: distinguishing possible from impossible languages. Since that is a property of the design, it cannot be overcome by future innovations in this kind of AI. However, it is quite possible that future engineering projects will match and even surpass human capabilities, if we mean human capacity to act, performance. As mentioned above, some have long done so: automatic calculators for example. More interestingly, as mentioned, insects with minuscule brains surpass human capacities understood as competence.

CJP: In the aforementioned article, it was also observed that today’s AI projects do not possess a human moral faculty. Does this obvious fact make AI robots less of a threat to the human race? I reckon the argument can be that it makes them perhaps even more so.


NC: It is indeed an obvious fact, understanding “moral faculty” broadly. Unless carefully controlled, AI engineering can pose severe threats. Suppose, for example, that care of patients was automated. The inevitable errors that would be overcome by human judgment could produce a horror story. Or suppose that humans were removed from evaluation of the threats determined by automated missile-defense systems. As a shocking historical record informs us, that would be the end of human civilization.


Unless carefully controlled, AI engineering can pose severe threats.

CJP: Regulators and law enforcement agencies in Europe are raising concerns about the spread of ChatGPT while a recently submitted piece of European Union legislation is trying to deal with AI by classifying such tools according to their perceived level of risk. Do you agree with those who are concerned that ChatGPT poses a serious public threat? Moreover, do you really think that the further development of AI tools can be halted until safeguards can be introduced?

NC: I can easily sympathize with efforts to try to control the threats posed by advanced technology, including this case. I am, however, skeptical about the possibility of doing so. I suspect that the genie is out of the bottle. Malicious actors–institutional or individual–can probably find ways to evade safeguards. Such suspicions are of course no reason not to try, and to exercise vigilance.

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C.J. POLYCHRONIOU
C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His latest books are The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (A collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky; Haymarket Books, 2021), and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (Verso, 2021).
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NOAM CHOMSKY
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (retired) at MIT. He is the author of many books and articles on international affairs and social-political issues, and a long-time participant in activist movements. His most recent books include: "Who Rules the World?" (2017); "Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire" (2013 with interviewer David Barsamian); "Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance" (2012); "Hopes and Prospects" (2012); and "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order" (1998). Previous books include: "Failed States" (2007), "What We Say Goes" (2007 with David Barsamian), "Hegemony or Survival" (2004), and the "Essential Chomsky" (2008).
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Shopify laying off large share of staff and selling major asset

BLOGTO

May 4, 2023

Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify has announced that it's laying off 20 per cent of its workforce and selling off Shopify Logistics.

In a letter published Thursday, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke said these moves are being made to "pay unshared attention to [Spotify's] mission."

"There are a number of consequences to this, and I don't want to bury the lede: after today, Shopify will be smaller by about 20 per cent, and Flexport will buy Shopify Logistics; this means some of you will leave Shopify today," he wrote. "I recognize the crushing impact this decision has on some of you and did not make this decision lightly."

Employees affected by the reductions were told they would get follow-up emails shortly.

Lütke also outlined ways Spotify will support those leaving the company today, including providing them with a minimum of 16 weeks severance plus a week for every year at Shopify, and medical benefits and access to Shopify's employee assistance program for the same period.

"All office furniture we provided is yours to keep," the CEO added. "We legally need the work laptop back, but we'll help pay for a new one to replace it. You'll have continued free access to the advanced Shopify plan should you opt to take an entrepreneurial path in future."

Impacted staff's Slack accounts and internal emails will remain open so they can "share farewells," too.

"You'll have a chance to talk more about this when you meet with a leader later today," Lütke added.

India: One Health in Action - Fighting the Giant Snail Menace in Kerala

DR BHAGYASREE A R
DR AJAN MAHESWARAN JAYA
DEEPIKA CHAUDHERY|

MAY 04, 2023

African Giant Snail. Photo Credit: World Bank

In August 2022, a unique genetic strain of the Giant African Snail began to spread uncontrollably in the Kottayam district of India’s southern state of Kerala, damaging crops and farmers’ livelihoods. This is one of the world’s most harmful invasive species and can cause meningitis in humans, a deadly disease if untreated. It has been classified as one of the world’s “100 worst” invaders by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Within a month of the outbreak, the district administration swung into action. Their swift response was possible because the state government had already created a platform for addressing human, animal and environmental health together under the ‘One Health’ umbrella. Kerala’s One Health program is implemented by the state’s Department of Health and Family Welfare, with support from the World Bank’s Resilient Kerala Initiative.

The One Health concept has gained in importance because expanding populations are entering new geographic areas, creating more opportunities for diseases to pass between animals and humans. Already, more than 65 percent of the contagious diseases affecting humans are of zoonotic or animal origin. As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, the cost of preventing a disease is far lower than the cost of managing an outbreak.

Kerala has now become one of the first states in India to adopt this holistic approach to health care. And its fight against the Giant Snail menace was one of the first to be operationalized under the state’s One Health umbrella.

Department of agriculture mixing jaggery powder with copper sulphate for making the snail trap.

 Photo Credit: World Bank


Timely and coordinated action

To address the invasive species, the administration carried out a unique six-week campaign. It showed that timely and coordinated action between key government agencies – the state’s departments of health, agriculture, animal husbandry and forests, and the National Health Mission - could reduce the prevalence of the species as well as build the capacity of local people to handle it.

The campaign began by gauging the level of infestation. The public was thus asked to fill up a Google form on the Facebook page of the District Collector. Officials then made direct observations in the field and engaged with local people, especially farmers, to understand the extent of the damage. The data collected showed that while the snails were mainly reported from certain areas, the entire Kottayam district was affected to varying degrees. The campaign was therefore extended district wide.

Officials from the health and agriculture departments then taught the farmers and the public how to clean their surroundings, maintain strict vigilance and trap the snails. They also informed them about the precautions they needed to take while handling the snails, such as wearing gloves and washing their hands, to avoid transmission of the parasites the snails might carry.

The farmers were shown the most humane methods of eliminating the snails, such as by getting ducks to eat them or using simple non-toxic substances like brine and tobacco solutions. In severely affected areas, leaflets were distributed and announcements made over loudspeakers to mobilize collective action. The active engagement of farmers' groups and local community associations such as Kudumbashree, Haritakarma Sena, and Padasekara Samiti helped take the campaign forward.

“We received a lot of complaints from farmers regarding the destruction of their crops," explained Rajesh K. R., Assistant Agriculture Officer in Uzhavoor panchayat of Kottyam district. “The focus of the Padam Onnu Ochu Campaign was to train the farmers to control the snails, prepare snail traps and use salt and copper sulphate solution to eliminate them. Farmers were also advised to take precautionary measures like wearing gumboots and gloves while working on the land.”

Experts from horticulture department demonstrating copper sulphate spray. 

Photo Credit: World Bank


Impact

The campaign had the desired impact. "Earlier there were a lot of snails,” recalled Raju Kalladayil, a local plantain farmer. “They destroyed my banana plantation. While the cabbage-leaf traps did not attract the snails, those which used wheat, jaggery and yeast did attract a few. In my experience, the application of copper sulphate solution was effective."

Kerala now plans to scale-up the One Health mechanism across all the state’s 14 districts. The state is also preparing its public health systems to prevent and control outbreaks of disease, with support from the World Bank. One Health platforms are being established at different levels of the administration; integrated public health laboratories are being upgraded and operationalized; community-based surveillance systems, led by local governments and self-help groups, are being promoted; and an IT-enabled platform for the Prevention of Epidemics and Infectious Diseases cells at medical colleges is being created to facilitate effective data triangulation

Related Links: One Health Approach Can Prevent the Next Pandemic

Authors

Dr Bhagyasree A R
Nodal Officer for the One Health program, Kottayam District, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala

MORE BLOGS BY DR BHAGYASREE

Dr Ajan Maheswaran Jaya
Public Health Specialist and Epidemiologist, Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala

MORE BLOGS BY DR AJAN

Deepika Chaudhery
Senior Health, Nutrition, and Population Specialist

MORE BLOGS BY DEEPIKA

 

How safe are EU's North Sea wind farms from attack?

• 

  As the number of wind farms increases, intentional sabotage and accidents pose a significant threat to their security (Photo: Kim Hansen)

By CHRISTIAN BUEGER

COPENHAGEN, TODAY

During its summit held in Ostend, Belgium, the EU and its partners, the United Kingdom and Norway, made an announcement to transform the North Sea into "Europe's biggest green power plant".

This ambitious plan would drive up wind energy production by at least 25 times by 2030. Building new energy islands would decrease Europe's reliance on non-renewable energy sources and Russian gas, and create numerous job opportunities in Scotland and other regions involved in the production of turbines, blades and electricity cables.

The announcement was made a week after Nordic broadcasters exposed the extent of Russian espionage activities in the North Sea, including gathering information on windfarm installations and the subsea cables linking them to the terrestrial electricity grid. These developments have made the North Sea a crucial area for both maritime and energy security, and imply new vulnerabilities.

The North Sea plans boasts an energy production capacity equivalent to several nuclear power plants, and the EU's energy supply will increasingly depend on it. However, while nuclear power plants are well-protected and inaccessible to the public, windfarms and cable installations are less secure.

The recent Nordic documentary showed how easily windfarms and cable grids can be accessed. As my colleague who is a passionate Danish kayaker confirmed, some individuals even visit them for recreational activities like diving.

As the number of wind farms increases, intentional sabotage and accidents pose a significant threat to their security. A recent example of this is the collision between a cargo ship Petra L and a rotor in the Gode Wind farm on 27 April in the North Sea, which resulted in severe damage to the vessel.

Although the cause of the accident is still being investigated, the incident highlights the potential risks of accidents that could occur and the need for greater safety measures.

The complete ramifications of the critical maritime infrastructure protection agenda, despite the heightened focus following the Nord Stream attack, have yet to be comprehensively grasped.

Can Nato fix it?

All North Sea coastal states are Nato members, and seven of them are also EU members. Nato has already announced plans to increase its efforts in critical maritime infrastructure protection, including in the North Sea. This is likely to boost security in the region. However, protecting wind farms cannot be exclusively a military task and requires a significant civilian component.

As acts of sabotage on wind farms or the underwater electricity grid are likely to be carried out as grey zone tactics, state-sponsored sabotage may be disguised as a civilian accident, or carried out from a vessel such as a leisure yacht or fishing boat, rather than from a military ship.

Therefore, preventing threats to maritime infrastructure requires close monitoring of civilian maritime traffic, and the response will often be in the hands of coastguards or maritime police rather than the military.

Nato alone cannot provide the necessary protection for critical maritime infrastructures in the North Sea. Further collaboration among the EU member states, the United Kingdom, and Norway is essential. Ideally, they would form a new maritime security community. This should be comprised of several elements: close collaboration among the various maritime security and energy agencies from the nine North Sea states is essential, but the different organisational structures of each country's maritime security sector make it challenging.

Denmark, for example, only operates a navy, while other countries like the UK involve several different agencies in maritime security. A coastguard function forum for the North Sea, for instance, could be established to promote collaboration and develop best practices for surveillance, protection, and response.

In order to effectively monitor and prevent threats to critical maritime infrastructure, it is necessary to share information, conduct surveillance, and report any suspicious activities at sea.

This requires the integration of data from various sources, including satellites, radar, patrols, CCTV, and subsea sensors. To facilitate this, the European Union is launching a Common Information Sharing Environment, which will be operated by the European Maritime Safety Agency.

However, the UK and Norway are currently not participating in this initiative, and as such, it is important to identify political solutions that would enable them to contribute to this structure.

Ensuring the safety and protection of maritime infrastructures cannot be solely accomplished by governments, as it also necessitates the involvement of industry players. It is important to develop shared regulatory standards for the measures that the industry must put in place and how it collaborates with state agencies in areas like information sharing, investigations and emergency management.

As the plans for the North Sea's green energy production become more ambitious, the demand for maintenance and repair capacities, including repair ships and cable depots, will increase. These capacities will be essential for responding quickly to acts of sabotage and minimising the impact on Europe's energy supply.

The nine states involved in this initiative must conduct a review to determine if their existing capabilities are sufficient to meet the needs of the planned infrastructure under different attack scenarios. They must also consider how these capacities can be shared and pooled with the industry.

AUTHOR BIO

Christian Bueger is professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen, where he leads a research group on Ocean Infrastructures.

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL

Socialists focused on boosting sustainable development
May 4, 2023
Peace, International Affairs & Cooperation

Pictured from left: European Commissioner for International Partnership Jutta Urpilainen, meeting Chair and Portugal’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Francisco André and PES Executive Secretary General Giacomo Filibeck.

The European Union must continue to be a driving force behind economic, social and environmental progress in developing countries, as a reliable international partner supporting effective Multilateral development banks.

Development ministers from the Party of European Socialists (PES) met in Brussels, Belgium, this morning to coordinate ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council (Development) taking place later today. On the agenda of the PES meeting: reform of Multilateral development banks, reconstruction of Ukraine, and joint initiatives to support sustainable development.

Francisco André, Chair of the PES meeting and Portugal’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said:

“Europe must continue to be a reliable international partner which promotes multilateral cooperation and progressive values in development. By focusing on making Multilateral development banks more effective, we can strengthen human rights and environmental protections. The world’s poorest are facing a multitude of crises, which are exacerbating global inequality and poverty. We must take steps to help people in developing countries to ensure the progress that has been achieves is not lost.”

The meeting exchanged on Ukraine, condemning Russia’s brutal invasion and reaffirming its full support for Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction. Progressives stand ready to support all efforts to rebuild Ukraine. The participants also discussed the need to increase EU support for Africa and the situation around women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Ministers discussed the developing situation in Sudan, urging all sides in the conflict to observe and further extend the agreed ceasefire. The meeting commended efforts to evacuate EU nationals from the conflict zones and underlined the importance of continued engagement in Sudan to avert a humanitarian crisis emerging in the country.

Illegal mining threatens Ghana forests

A group of Galamseyers, illegal gold panner, work on a gold field in Kibi 
CRISTINA ALDEHUELA/AFP 

By Rédaction Africanews
with AFP 
GHANA

Ghana's widespread illegal mining activities are destroying the gold-rich West African country's forests, the government's forestry agency warned Tuesday at a news conference in Accra.

Ghana and South Africa are vying to be Africa's top gold producers. The mining industry in Ghana involves both large global players but also artisanal mining activities, many of which are illegal.

Since taking office in 2017, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo has promised to rid the country of "galamsey," the name given by locals to these illegal mines where deadly accidents frequently occur.

"Of the 16 regions of Ghana, seven have been affected by illegal mining activities," said the head of the Ghana Forestry Commission, John Allotey.

In addition, "34 out of 288 (forest) reserves have been affected," he said, and the total area destroyed is estimated at 4,726 hectares (larger than cities like Athens or Brussels).

Illegal mining activities not only reduce the size of forests, but also pollute rivers and create deep holes that are then difficult to rehabilitate, he added.

Authorities regularly launch operations against illegal sites, including removing excavators, but the practice continues.

"We want to intensify surveillance, use the military to conduct operations in sensitive areas and find additional funding," Allotey said.

Ghana has "revised laws, put in place measures and systems to ensure that our forests are well protected, but despite this, our forests continue to be destroyed," Ghanaian environmentalist Nehemiah Odjer-Bio of Friends of the Earth told AFP.

According to him, insufficient law enforcement, corruption and unemployment fuel deforestation activities, while "Ghana has a tropical forest rich in biodiversity, with different species of trees and animals that all perform important functions for the country and the world.

In addition to illegal mining, the main driver of deforestation in Ghana is the expansion of agricultural areas, but also illegal logging, forest fires, overgrazing and infrastructure development.