#-generative tools... part of the problem is the foundation of a/i art to be using people's work without . permission. im sure a good amount

[ourstarsystem]

even though i feel like i can confidently tell when a piece of art is generative A/I, i really don't feel inclined or really even justified calling someone out for it due to the precedent it sets - especially when artists who DO make their own pieces get caught in the crossfire for being inexperienced or making the choice to be more free-form when it comes to character design / consistency...

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

The most challenging part for me is the dialogue between characters. I just, for some reason, struggle with it

So dialogue is just another tool to construct a scene. It needs to serve a purpose, and personally I think having functional dialogue is more important than anything particularly fancy or artful.

Dialogue is going to depend entirely on what the point of your scene is, and where it’s supposed to go. Conversations, just like scenes, and just like stories, need to have an arc, or any sense of movement so that they don’t feel stagnant. You want a beginning, middle, and end. You want clear motivations for each speaker.

How characters express themselves is meanwhile going to depend on their: goals, fears, how they want to be perceived by their interlocutors, their perception of events(!!!), and also their general emotional and mental state.

Bad dialogue tends to be too direct. Characters will rarely say exactly what they think, or be exactly on the same page. Each character will be viewing any given situation through the lens of their own life experiences and values; each character is going to be more concerned with their own problems over the protagonist’s!

Anyway general rules of thumb. Try to avoid stating exposition outright. Characters will not explain to each other things that they both already know. They also will not spill their guts out without reason. Someone monologuing about their tragic backstory unprompted is going to read awkwardly– unless oversharing is a particular character trait you’re going for lol.

If you’re unsure about whether your dialogue reads naturally, trying reading it out loud or have a screen reader recite it back to you.

Also you can learn a lot about dialogue by reading screenplays! I personally think it’s more informative than studying novels because dialogue counts that much more in film and theatre. (Reading the Lion in Winter script rewired my brain tbh.)

I’d also suggest checking out (good) book to film adaptations and studying how they translated the dialogue. Often times you will find that it’s severely streamlined and all to a purpose.

A side by side example I personally learned a lot from is in Silence of the Lambs.

This is the original novel’s take on a portion of dialogue during Clarice and Hannibal Lecter’s first conversation. I’d copy over the entire scene, frankly, but it would be far too long.

Compare it to how the screenplay paired it down:

It’s essentially the same conversation but the pacing is so much tighter, and the word choice is more precise. You do lose something in translation without the first segue into them discussing the nature of evil vs destruction, but it’s really interesting how the script instead decides to bring things around to the main plot, the serial killer, but also Lecter’s famous cannibalism, which offers imo a better set up for his last (iconic!) bit about eating a census taker.

Also compare this to how NBC Hannibal tries to pass off its batshit nonsense dialogue as intelligent by using melodrama and highbrow seeming imagery.

But this is just an example! In general, there’s just a lot to be gleaned from breaking down good dialogue and trying to figure out why it works, and what each word says about the speakers.

Also! You are presumably asking me about writing because you like my fanfiction but… please don’t try to learn how to write from fanfic. Fanfic is a terrible foundation for building the skills to write original work. It just operates on very different standards, and has different goals. Read some classics! Study craft books! Eat your vegetables!

[cailencrow]

halloooo, little teeny tiny question… what was it like when you were participating in the Law of Talos tournament????

Hello! Law of Talos is around 15 years old now and I can recall many late nights, drawing into the early morning on sheets of printer paper using only a BIC pen as my art tool. I wasn't talented with photoshop and my shading skills were fairly poor, so I scrambled to do my best with what I had. It was stressful and anxiety inducing at times but always exciting for the most part. I wasn't in the best place financially or emotionally during that time, and my interactions online were all I really had to hold onto to stay sane in those days. The OCT community was a mixed bag of people and personalities and unfortunately with the territory came cliques. Law of Talos was a private OCT, invitation only, and a clique was behind its creation and many of the members of that clique were participants in the tournament while others were judges. It wasn't the most welcome environment if you were someone on the outside of the clique, and it was clear that certain people were being favored to win before rounds even started. The amount of bias towards certain participants was constantly palpable during the tournament and I don't suggest anyone who wants to run an OCT ever follow Law of Talos as a example of how to do it. I will say that I did have fun penning Eric Pockets' story. He's been an OC of mine since 2001 and getting to re-imagine him as we got to meet him in Law of Talos was rewarding. He's near and dear to me and I am proud of a lot of the work I put into that OCT. As well, many of the characters from Law of Talos were extremely fun and I had a blast back then discussing character interactions with the other competitors I was friends with. I lament never getting to face certain competitors, as I would have loved to have Eric do battle with characters like Steffi, Murphy, Chimbley Sweep, or Spoiler. A lot of good people entered into that tournament and some I am still good friends with to this day. One is even my roommate. I've discussed with Unknown Person my ideas for what an Eric vs Karl would have looked like and I will always mourn what could have been. I still, to this day, take umbrage with how my character was handled in the round where he was taken out. I do not think it's very sportsmanlike in a tournament where your character is fighting someone else's character to refuse to feature your opponent's character and it is unfortunate that that tactic was used in a couple of my opponent's submissions. Random unexplained demonic possession occurring during a steampunk tournament? Never did sit well with me. I suppose I can say that Law of Talos served more as a cautionary tale for me? My next OCT after that, Escape from Nevara, was somehow even MORE of a shitshow and almost didn't launch with how mangled the leadership behind the tournament was. OCTs are tricky things to run and you need calm, unbiased leadership at the helm with a good, solid idea to serve as a foundation. Ebon Spire to this day stands out to me as the perfect OCT, run well with unbiased judges and a group of participating artists who (for the most part) respected the story and the other competitors and the tourney actually had an ending wrapped up in a nice bow. It's a rare gem in the sea of failed or rotten OCTs. So, I had fun during Law of Talos and I'm glad I got to be a part of it in the end, but it was rife with problems from the get go. Practically a third of the participants dropped out before Round 3 and it was indicative of the health of the OCT itself. It will never cease to amaze me, however, how popular Karl became though, and the fandom that has arisen around Karl, Climber, and the Castle of Nations, paired with the renewed obsession over Law of Talos, is a constant bizarre delight. I'm glad that something I took part in almost 20 years ago is somehow entertaining a new generation of people and y'all in the fandom are adorable. I might not have had the best experience but don't ever let me yuck your yum. Enjoy what makes you happy and be kind to each other.

[i-believe-in-u]

L.S. Dunes, AI, and how we are missing the bigger picture:

After a day of heightened emotions due to the announcement of the Old Wounds music video, this is what I can offer. I have given this response a great deal of consideration and I submit these words respectfully. I'm not hiding the ball about where I stand: I do not support AI as it exists, however I do support L.S. Dunes's use of it.

There has been debate about whether or not engaging an artist who utilizes generative imaging is worth discussing at all, or if it is symptomatic of a broader problem. Something that I have not seen any widespread discussion of is the bands much greater history with AI. The truth is that without AI, L.S. Dunes would not exist.

Do I think AI is awesome? Absolutely not.

Do I think AI is a signature part of the artistic landscape of this era and something that we should acknowledge as a reality, like it or not? Yes, I do.

Beyond that, I believe that this is exactly the kind of thing that can produce provocative and interesting art when utilized in creative ways. I believe that it this is what art should do-- it should inspire outrage, fury, laughter, discussion, and challenge the context within which it was made. This is the burden and responsibility of art. It must make us question and engage with our world.

If the art that you embrace only ever leaves you feeling comforted, then you are not consuming art, you are hanging out in an echo chamber. You might as well go to a grocery store for the ambiance.

So, is it the responsibility of a rock band to eschew a problematic tool in the creation of their work? That is not for me to say. Personally, I view misogyny, racism, classism, the proliferation of drugs, and the promotion of neoliberal politics as problematic tools for the creation of art, and all of these things have been used for decades in rock music and videos.

Am I honor-bound to condemn every artist who has ever utilized any of these things? I would be hard-pressed to find a band or musician I could support.

Is it the responsibility of artists to make morally pure, ethically unquestionable material, or is it our responsibility as an audience, to decide for ourselves what we are and are not comfortable with and to act accordingly? This appears to be the dilemma and divide of the decade, if not the generation.

In the specific case of L.S. Dunes, the question of AI is baked into the foundation of the band itself. There would be no L.S. Dunes without AI. The band was started by Tucker Rule during the quarantine, when tours were cancelled.

During this time, the Rules were supported by Tucker's wife who is the chief of staff of an AI company.* Without her support, Tucker would not have had the creative freedom to form the band. L.S. Dunes would not have written or recorded any of their music. They would not have toured. Any of the positive experiences that their fans have had would not have happened.

Is it disingenuous to accept a band that benefited directly from the profits of AI, but to publicly decry their work when they experiment with it as a means of artistic expression? I do not believe that you can have your cake and eat it, too. I feel that you must either accept the band as a whole or not, but do so honestly and by making a conscious decision.

As AI continues to encroach into spaces both public and private, creative and commercial, we will continue to find ourselves with more questions to ask and answer. These questions will have greater consequences than how we engage with a rock band, but the ultimately core of these questions will remain the same:

What matters more: how we respond to an algorithm, or how we treat our fellow human beings?

*This is not an invitation to harass the Rule family. Tucker's wife works with human beings in her role at her office. We all have to work to survive capitalism and sometimes those jobs are not ideal. She has a family. Leave her alone, for the love of all that is good in the world.

[dangeloxox]

Perfectionist Legacy Challenge

Looking for a new challenge to make The Sims 4 more exciting? Well, I have created my own version of the legacy challenge to keep you on your toes. This challenge forces you to play the sims with a story in mind, with each generation being distinct in its own right.

Basic Rules:

1. All legacy heirs must have the perfectionist trait, otherwise you can pick the other traits for all of your legacy heirs. This gives you the flexibility to create a unique story.

2. You should not use cheats to get ahead, but you can if the game is acting up/being annoying. For example, you can use move objects, but you cannot use motherlode. (Just don’t cheat too much).

3. Drama is everything in this challenge. Embrace drama/chaos/tragedy as much as possible in this challenge… it will make your perfectionist sims’ lives much more difficult!

4. You must fully complete the challenge requirements for each generation before moving on to the next heir.

5. You should play on either a medium/long lifespan.

6. You can use as many mods/custom content as you like.

7. You will require Get To Work & Seasons to play the original challenge. If you do not own those packs then you can try to substitute your own rules/generation with what you have - get creative with it!

8. Your sims can be any gender.

____________________________________________________________

Note: All of these sims have a strong internal drive to be perfect. It is almost an obsession on an unhealthy level. You can take this in whatever way you like with your story, I am simply laying down the foundation of the challenge. Get creative with your story. At the end of the day, it is your Sims game. Create drama, play with fire, and watch a broken legacy unfold on a bed of unrealistic expectations and an eternal dream to reach perfection.

Generation One: Scientist

You grew up in a broken home, with divided parents that both put pressure on you to always perform your best. As they both failed in their own aspirations, they instilled in you their dreams of becoming successful in the scientist career. This is the beginning of your pursuit of perfection and will leave a lasting effect on your legacy.

Aspiration: Successful Lineage

Career: Scientist

Rules

Complete Scientist Career

Complete as much of the Successful Lineage aspiration as possible

Have at least 2 children

Have at least one failed marriage

____________________________________________________________

Generation Two: Astronaut

Growing up with such a demanding parent always made you look for an outlet. Although you refuse to see it, you are very similar to said parent - you are a perfectionist through and through. You are intrigued by the laws of science and specifically want to escape planet Earth to explore outer space. You feel most at ease when you are thousands of miles away in a spaceship.

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Astronaut

Rules

Complete Astronaut Career

Complete Nerd Brain aspiration

Have at least 1 child

Reach level 10 in two skills

____________________________________________________________

Generation Three: Secret Agent

You will do anything to get to the truth. You are someone that always wants more. You never stop until you get what you want. As the child of a perfectionist, you learned from your parent the importance of never settling for mediocrity. You think of yourself highly, never think twice, yet are still always successful in what you do.

Aspiration: Friend of the World

Career: Secret Agent

Rules

Complete Secret Agent Career

Complete Friend of the World aspiration

Reach level 10 in charisma skill

Have at least 3 children

____________________________________________________________

Generation Four: Artist

As part of a big family, you never felt seen or understood. You used art as a tool to escape from your problems, but also as a way to show your family that you are good at something. They might not care enough to see your talent, but you go through life trying to be the best there ever was.

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Career: Painter

Rules

Complete Painter Career

Complete Painter Extraordinaire aspiration

Have an affair

Have only 1 child

____________________________________________________________

Generation Five: Botanist

You are a simple sim, you wake up, water your plants, and mind your business. You don’t like drama but somehow it always manages to find its way into your life. Do you nurture toxic relationships or do you just have bad luck? Are your perfectionist ideals the culprit, or is it others that are to blame?

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist

Career: Gardener

Rules

Complete Gardener Career

Complete Freelance Botanist aspiration

Own a house exceeding $250,000

Have at least 2 children after becoming an adult

____________________________________________________________

Generation Six: Criminal

You had a decent upbringing but always had a grudge against your parents. You don’t align yourself with your family and want to establish a new life for yourself. Your mean streak takes control; you run away and take your place in the criminal underworld, where you have a keen eye for darkness.

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Career: Criminal

Rules

Run away from home as a teenager (never to return)

Complete Criminal Career

Complete Public Enemy aspiration

Have only 1 child

Marry three times

____________________________________________________________

Generation Seven: Entrepreneur

Your childhood was anything but conventional. You reject your parent and search for a new sense of belonging from your estranged family. You aim to rewrite your past and create a falsified perfect image. You want the perfect career and family life. You are savvy, smart, and ambitious to achieve great things.  Life is yours for the taking.

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Career: Business

Rules

Abandon your parent and reach out to your estranged family

Complete Business Career

Complete tier 3 of Fabulously Wealthy aspiration

Have at least 3 children

____________________________________________________________

Generation Eight: Chef

As a child, you had everything you could have wanted but material goods and parental love sometimes isn’t enough. You never fit in with your siblings or peers at school. You sought comfort in food. Food was always there for you when others were not. You will do anything to make a success for yourself in the culinary field.

Aspiration: Master Chef

Career: Culinary

Rules

Complete Culinary Career

Complete Master Chef aspiration

Reach level 10 of baking skill

Have twins and give them food-related names

____________________________________________________________

Generation Nine: Athlete

You always knew that you were destined for greatness. Always active and energetic, you channel your physical prowess into bodybuilding. You aim to become the best athlete in the world. Your impressive physique and physical attractiveness mean that you receive a lot of attention from other sims.

Aspiration: Bodybuilder

Career: Athlete

Rules

Complete Athlete Career

Complete Bodybuilder aspiration

Have 3 affairs without getting caught

Have at least 1 child

____________________________________________________________

Generation Ten: Doctor

A distant voice calls to you, and a cloud of scientific knowledge and wisdom sinks into your brain. For as long as you remember, you have always wanted to be a doctor. Helping people has always been your main concern. However, your kind heart often gets taken advantage of. Is your kindness ever going to be good enough? Will you follow your ancestors in the pursuit of perfection, or will you forge a new path for yourself?

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Career: Doctor

Rules

Complete Doctor Career

Complete Big Happy Family aspiration

Write a book

Have at least 3 children

____________________________________________________________

I hope you have fun with this challenge! Be sure to use #perfectionistlegacy to share your stories! Share this challenge with those who need to spice up their sims gameplay!

[rukafais]

Do you have any general art tips? I really enjoy your art! (If you want more specific questions, uh, tips on lining and anatomy?)

Aw gosh anon! I’M REAL HAPPY YOU STOPPED BY TO SAY YOU LIKED MY ART so uh i’ll try my best to give tips.

LINEART

This is going to sound a bit wishywashy but a lot of lineart is about confidence and patience. Depending on what you want to do with it and your patience level, you’ll need to do a lot of it (and you’re probably going to) before it gets to looking the way you want. Lineart is difficult! But I have super shaky hands and I can still get lineart looking pretty good so hopefully you will do better than me!

Specific tips: - Get out some paper and draw things in pen/ink/other materials that are permanent and can’t be erased. This will train you to make your strokes more confident and to commit to shapes and lines. Also it’s fun, so have fun with it! Weird shapes pop out of things you can’t erase and you can have a lot of interesting times making them make sense.

- If you like hatching and adding value through drawing lots of lines on things, you can practice making your lines steadier with exercises that involve it, like these.

(source)

- If you’re a digital artist: Use stabilizers if shakiness frustrates you. Stabilizers reduce the jitter of your pen, which is fantastic. It’s a tool like anything else, so if you need it, make use of it! You can tune it higher or lower depending on your comfort levels; if you don’t want to use the stabilizers any more, you can always reduce them.

- Practice quick strokes, drawing lines from an A point to a B point, things like that. If you don’t like how it’s come out, you can just keep doing those exercises until you get something you’re satisfied with. This is the confidence part I mentioned - a shaky or uncertain hand will produce the same quality of line, which are usually unsatisfying (unless ofc wobbly lines are what you want, in which case go forth). Usually, a quick stroke that commits to its path looks better than an uncertain slow one, quality-wise.

ANATOMY

- If you can take any kind of life drawing class, you should do it at least once in your life! They’re super helpful and they help you train your eyes to see what’s there, and not what your brain assumes is there (which can be two different things). Very good for just learning the shapes and curves of real bodies.

- Study a lot of real-life references. If your style leans more towards the stylized, you’ll need a good foundation of real life references to know where you can bend and break rules and disregard what you learned. If you’re a realistic artist, well, you’ll need lots of references of real life people for obvious reasons. Building up a stock of references in your head from good quality stuff online means that you’ll know where to go if something’s confusing you and you’re less likely to fall victim to biases and same body/sameface syndrome.

- Tutorials that show lots of base shapes of the human body are great! Tutorials that gender lock certain shapes to men and women are not great. Avoid those or you might end up having shape biases that you have to actively undo (like me, whoops).

- A lot of people have their own free tips and ways for working out perspective. You should gather as many of these references as possible because it’s 99% certain that someone else will have had your exact same problem and you’ll be able to solve it by piggybacking off their work and knowledge. There’s no point in struggling and reinventing the wheel if someone else has already made the wheel and improved on it.

- Feet and hands are usually the most difficult hurdle for a lot of people. Don’t worry about it too much.

[deepdreamnights]

Of course, everyone who actually knows how the tech work and how IP works has been saying this from the start.

The question is, why has this argument not been more widely disseminated. You'd think the critics would want to bring it up preemptively to demonstrate why their reasoning negates that point.

It is wild how frequently my posts on this get responses like "I've never heard anyone present this case, interesting." because my points aren't 'out there' and I'm not a genius. But not too wild, because every major argument thrown against AI has been based on complete misinformation.

The power use numbers and concerns were heavily manipulated, going so far as to blame all increased datacenter use on AI.

The technology has been presented as 'push button, get final result' but it does not work that way. Every good gen you've seen was curated and likely edited. Every shitty gen used to show how AI is evil and stealing has also been curated.

The claims of theft depended on misunderstandings of copyright and misunderstandings of how generative AI works.

The technology was represented commonly as a 'collage machine' that would reach out to the web and snatch parts of pictures to blend together. This is not how any of this works.

Glaze, Nightshade, and Artshield are all frauds.

Most users of generative AI use it as a toy rather than a means to replace art commissions. Impact on art commissions is anecdotal, and the position that every AI gen was a stolen commission was literally the same argument the RIAA used when suing Napster grandmas for millions.

AI was represented as the primary strike issue for the writers and actors' guilds, and was represented as a binary yes/no option. This was not the case, and the unions didn't want to ban AI use, but to make it an optional tool for the writer/artist to use if they desire, and they won that.

Workplace replacement by major entertainment corps, while a real issue, would not be addressed by regulation. Megacorps like Disney and Nintendo have enough material to create their own internal datasets. Labor action is how you solve this problem, and the guilds already took those steps.

And those are just the big ones. Even the little hullabaloos are rife with lies and misinformation.

These kinds of talking points have to start someplace, and I'm pretty sure that place is the copyright alliance.

A supposed nonprofit that works for the likes of Disney to expand the power they have over media and "intellectual property." What the heritage foundation is for Christian Nationalism, the Copyright Alliance is for Media Consolidation.

The same people are going after archive.org.

An honest critic would come forward with honest arguments and address the oppositions counterpoints. But instead we see arguments crafted to keep things as angry and heated as possible.

When an arguement is debunked, the base assumptions are never addressed, another argument is simply put in its place. When the copyright argument doesn't get traction, all of a sudden its about power use. Power use gets debunked and we've got people talking about chains of provenance for ideas.

Each time the policy prescription is something that would greatly advantage the Disneys, RIAAs, Adobes and Nintendos of the world and expand their power at the expense fair use and everyone else.

And as they say, the system's results are its purpose.

Am I saying that it's likely that the Copyright Alliance and their corporate backers are using R.J. Palmer and his pals to manipulate people worried about new technology into becoming a reactionary mob to further their own economic advantage?

Yes. And if they aren't, then the end results are exactly the same regardless.

If you hate AI, and the reasons you started hating AI are all debunked arguments, but you still hold that position, you might want to evaluate that position from square one with the new information. And while you're at it, you might consider why the people that told you the misinfo didn't think it was important enough to check for accuracy before sending out, yet imperative enough that it demanded immediate rage and action.

Yes, the AI companies are all out to make money (they're companies, after all). So are the people "opposing" them. Just because OpenAI sucks doesn't mean that Adobe has your best interests at heart.

And notice who they sue. Midjourney (the most popular public generator, and one that appears to be funded solely by subs and not VC cash) and Stable Diffusion, the free, open-source version of the tech.

It's fair use for me, lawsuits for thee.

Edit: Fixed Links.

Quoted Tweet:

Like yeah, it might be the case that fair use comes in. It's just that it hasn't yet. Look at the lawsuit over Github Copilot. Basically all of the claims about infringement on outputs were thrown out because they can't prove that code is reproduced....

Me:

right, this is the thing everyone is missing about the ai shit which is why all their cases keep getting basically thrown out of court - copyright infringement happens on output, not on input. the most compelling arguments i've seen are centered around DMCA (...)

i.e, that the people building datasets are doing so by circumventing DRM. but anything about fair use and shit is putting the cart before the horse because the model is self-evidently not infringing on anything... it's not, like... a picture, or a story or whatever. it's numbers

that's the hurdle they have to jump when trying to argue that the model is infringing - you have to prove that this model (NOT ITS OUTPUTS), just by itself, is copyright infringement on your images/words/whatever. and since it's a stack of numbers that's... proving to be hard!

if you wanted to sue someone for infringing your copyright with stable diffusion you have to wait for them to infringe your copyright first, like generating an illegal mickey mouse, and then sue THAT PERSON. but they're trying to short circuit the process - suing the paintbrush

[holiest-helll]

Cura te Ipsum

K. Hayes, Acrylic on Canvas, 2018. various sizing. NFS.

This painting series is very important to me, as it’s my first big solo project that I’m able to share with people something that I’m very passionate, and that’s self awareness, and how I used that to begin my self care journey. I suffer with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in this series I touch on my own experiences, and how I used self care to propel myself into a better place. At the center of this series, the concept I worked with was foundations as it’s my philosophy that in order for people to be their best, it starts at our foundation, ourself. I incorporated various “foundations” that work together to communicate the importance of self care.   All alluding to the idea of self-care each painting has a relationship with each other. By creating connections amongst colors, patterns, and symbols my paintings communicate indirect suggestions on how people could practice self-care and begs the question, is there more that people can do to take care of themselves? By using familiar symbols people will be able to develop a personal connection with with the art, helping them further their self-care journey. Common imagery ranges from tear drops, to pills, to crowns, plants and more, all of these symbols have a connection that the viewer has to put together for themselves, so they can take care of themselves in their own way. Color choice was a big part of this process. I used primary colors more frequently, as they are the foundation to colors beyond red, yellow and blue. Relationships between colors are imperative to these paintings because of the color connotations which occur when viewers interpret colors. I decided early on that with this series of paintings the colors used were going to be chosen based on the emotion associated with the color.  There are psychological effects that go along with colors, relating them to anger, calming, anxiety and other intense emotions. Throughout art history, we can see certain colors used to provoke an emotion. The Fauves were known for their use of color in relation to emotion. Henri Matisse was a leader of this group and was well known for  using  color and form as means of communicating the artist's emotion.  Matisse’s Joy of Life is a popular example of using color in abstract places unlike reality. His use of color was responsive only to the emotional expression the imagery conveyed. The yellow grass symbolizes joy. The greens symbolize growth and harmony, the pink indicates romance, and so on. As an artist I think it’s important that we utilize tools like psychology in an effort to connect with viewers.  This series touches on an important conversation people should be having. In the millennial generation self-care is often represented on social media. In fall of 2018 there was a trend on twitter in which participants did non productive activities in the name of self care and this begged the question, what does self care mean? If you were to google what self care is you would get thousands of methods that are all different. As an artist I had control over what self-care methods I wanted to promote, so I had to do some reflecting on how I practice self-care.  Mental health plays a huge role in this painting series as it was the main motivator for my act on self-care. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, addiction and more are all motivating factors in my art as they are all somehow involved in my life. Anxiety, as dictionary.com puts it, is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiety can stop someone from doing something different, and unfortunately shelters and keeps back whoever it has in it’s grasp. I experienced this feeling everyday up until I reached out and got help. I practiced the method of talking to someone (highlight speaking painting),  to acknowledge there was a problem, and that helped us diagnose the issue, and thus help by prescribing medicine (highlight pill painting). By doing these two things, by talking to someone and by taking my medicine I was able to feel better, and feeling better made me a better me. That is one of my relationships to my paintings, and it’s my hope that other people can create relationships with my paintings in an effort to further their self-care practices. Using simple steps like breathing, drinking water, and even counting are easy ways to help anxiety when you feel it rising in the pit of your chest. Depression is a mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep. Depression is something that I still struggle with, which is why in a lot of the paintings, the backgrounds are blue; acting as a metaphor for the underlying neverending feeling that depression gives me, despite being at the highest points of my life so far. The symbols I use allow, you the viewer to make personal connections and it makes this series very subjective to the viewer and how they want to interpret the methods at hand. In my series I have 4 self portraits and in them I took my own personal experiences and I worked to create imagery people would understand, so that there was context for the series as a whole, from the artists’ perspective. In my self portraits I incorporated many things I like, such as stripes, big eyelashes, good brows, and I also put in plant imagery to symbolize my growth and what I have achieved in not only self care, but what I achieved with this series as a whole.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. But this is my senioro art project. I was in a tough spot but this is what came of it. Cheers.

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.” ― Donald A. Norman

Game Changers | Series Seven Reflection For Series Six, we turned our attention to Flourishing Future: Designing for a better normal as we attempted to unpack the provocation How do we in schools keep challenging binary thinking for designing a better normal? In Series Seven of the Game Changers Podcast, we once again have eleven remarkable educators – a financial literacy guru, an immersive learning designer, a Director of Student Opportunity & Careers Education, a global citizenship educational leader, an inclusive education champion, a foundational Principal, an Imagine If explorer, a Principal of marginalised youth in society, an entrepreneurial education superstar and two visionaries of the transition from high school to life. Each challenged our binary thinking and inspired us with their version of intentionally designing a better normal – all Game Changers who continue to light the torch for us and show us the way to build schools (and even society) differently. 

Each Series Seven Game Changers guest reminded us that those school leaders and educational sectors that understand potential futures, and what each might mean for them, and have the courage to plan ahead, will be the best prepared to support young people to succeed and flourish in the obvious reality of our new tomorrow. That we need to re-examine the purpose of schooling for our times and ensure that it is based on the facts and best predictions about the impact of this relentless change. It means realising that our decision on our vision today will lead to consequences in the future that we may or may not live to see, but others will, especially our COVID Children and the generations that follow.

Our Series Seven Game Changers helped us explore the key ingredients for designing a better normal, so that each young person in a school might begin to flourish in their today and into their future. We started Series Seven with Founder of Money School, Lacey Filipich. 

Episode One | Lacey Filipich Key learnings – I first met the effervescent Lacey at s p a c e in 2019. I was instantly drawn to her infectious smiles, smarts and optimistic concept of money and its real human value. Our conversation in Series Seven highlighted the value of flipping the ‘time poor’ narrative, this deficit thinking economics, to the concept of being time rich, a half glass full story line, when viewing financial management, an important literacy for all learners, that focuses on lifting up, from a conversation around limiting waste and liberating hope.

Episode Two | Mond Qu Key learnings – Encounters that evoke feelings of awe often lead to new relationships with self, place and the other. These moments of awe give us a profound sense of hope and the ability to see the bigger picture. Each teaches us that there might be something magical in beauty of everyday life, that we can be forever grateful for. Working in research, practice, and teaching internationally, Mond challenges all educators and learners to iterate in this space of encounter and embrace the challenges of the 21st century. In this episode, he discusses why we all should adopt a designer mindset in a world that needs us to be more curious, more creative, more diverse than ever before, through being open to exploring the power of habits and intentionality immersive encounters of wonder and awe. 

Episode Three | Samantha Jean McFetridge Key learnings – Outstanding organisations like Foundations for Young Australians (FYA) have illustrated to us, through extensive reports that there is a new work order, that career pathways aren’t as linear as they used to be with young people expected to have 17 jobs across 5 careers in their lifetime. Our conversation with Samantha reminded us that entrepreneurial-minded learners achieve success by applying knowledge, creatively and resourcefully; be it in STEM, business, creative arts, trade, social enterprise, professional or any other type of knowledge. And that this ability is recognised globally as critical to 21st century learning and active citizenship. Understanding that this is not just about building a business but empowering all learners to build their own future through discovering possibilities available to them, via a comprehensive career’s education framework.

Episode Four | Hamish Curry Key learnings – Our chat with Hamish reminded me of the significance of place. This thinking is centred around the notion that learning can take place anywhere, anytime. Where young people can access knowledge at a touch of a button. Therefore, schools need to commit to creating authentic learning experiences that enable learners to connect deeper with self, place and especially the other. This more personal exchange with real-world contexts and in-country immersions allows all learners to consider the social change, dialogue and bridge building needed to better connect to local and global communities. It allows for all learners to construct global perspectives and their own meaning not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom and outside of school. And we cannot ignore that virtual reality ensures that the entire world is the new classroom.

Episode Five | Tanya Sheckley Key learnings – The rise and rise and rise of personalised learning. Alongside our changing notions of what constitutes a classroom, Tanya reminded us that our ideas about the way teaching is delivered must also be reshaped. That the old ‘one size fits all’ model is outdated and has no place in the agenda for today’s schooling, for today’s tomorrow. As a result, teachers will need to develop individualised learning plans for students, each home to a unique life, which will enable each student to access curriculum and learning designed at a pace that best suits their abilities and divergent needs, that allows them to engage with knowledge, skills, and wisdom, that are most beneficial to them.

Episode Six | Scott Donohoe Key learnings – True vulnerability is waking up each day and choosing courage over comfort. School leaders have a responsibility to shepherd all in their learning community to a post pandemic next, new, or better normal. Scott is one of those school leaders that has a capacity of tuning in and outward and being brave enough to anticipate evolution and opportunity born from moments of real struggle and challenge and flipped to opportunity and hope. He realises that courage is about overcoming all obstacles when most of the society are frozen in an old reality. He realises that courage is to not be afraid to become and reveal who you really are, for self and the places and people you serve and lead.

Episode Seven | Loni Bergqvist Key learnings – Imagine If students have more opportunities to learn at different times in different places. With anytime, anywhere learning becoming the better normal for our students. Where online tools facilitate opportunities for a more highly personalised learning experience of individually targeted stretch and challenge tasks. One that is self-paced, self-determined and incorporates relevant and real-world inquiry-based learning. Resulting in all classrooms being flipped, meaning the knowledge and skills part is learned outside the classroom, at home. Where on campus class time becomes one of character appreciation, deep collaboration, teamwork and the practical application or transfer of knowledge and understanding, of real-life issues. Where taking tests will be replaced by students’ growth and achievement through creative and collaboration projects to problem solve wicked and relevant real-world questions. Well, this exits via Loni and her team at Imagine If.

Episode Eight | Sally Lasslett Key learnings – Our encounter with Sally animated what truly matters in education, people. Sally and the brilliant staff at The Hestor Hornbrook Academy understand that their vocation is being an important champion to their students, many of which have had an adverse childhood or experienced significant trauma. And why do these educators do what they do - well, from my perspective they get that every person in our schools is home to a unique life. This learning community isn’t about a handout, but a hand forward and up, where each feels seen, respected, safe, valued and understood. Sally reminded me of my why, and the profoundness of why I will forever be a teacher. The greatest vocation in the world.

Special Series | Nicole Dyson and Will Stubley & Saxon Phipps Key learnings – Phil’s chats with Nicole, Will and Saxon reminded me of crowdsourced classes, entrepreneurship or self-directed learning is almost certainly at the core of the future of learning. To not allow learners to ‘play’ with information, platforms, and ideas is to ignore them access to the tools and patterns of 21st Century life. And that in a progressive learning environment, students should constantly be generating original ideas from multiple sources of information–and be doing so guided by teachers, mentors, and communities, all in pursuit of self-knowledge and self-created meaning and creativity. Highlighting the role of teaching becomes much more about coaching and guiding students to not only build their knowledge, skills, and attributes, but to also make better sense of what they are learning, to fully flourish in life.

From each of our Series Seven Game Changers we learnt the significance for learning communities to be deeply tuned into the sign of times, this new world we live in. That we have a responsibility to shepherd all in our learning communities as they emerge from the pandemic towards designing a better normal in doing school. That this is about anticipating the opportunity born from moments of real struggle and challenge. And about planning and executing an incremental and unstoppable evolution towards better outcomes for all learners. While overcoming all obstacles when many in society are still frozen in an old reality. 

Thank you to Lacey, Mond, Samantha, Hamish, Tanya, Scott, Loni, Sally, Nicole, Will and Saxon for sharing your story and passion. And thank for reminding us all that each person in our learning communities is home to a life. It is as simple and complex as that. Born from the construct of love – of self, for place and the other.

Listen to our Series Seven: Epilogue via streaming platforms - SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play.

[flo-ggs]

Who We Don’t See On TV

In 2018 and 2019, there were a total of twenty-six recurring transgender characters who appeared on television, including streaming services. About one in six Americans report that they personally know at least one transgender person ("Where We Are On TV"). More than ninety percent of American households watch television on a regular basis (Leavitt 41). What this means is that for five out of six Americans, the only trans people they ever see—and this is assuming there are any—are a handful of characters on TV. If you live in America, and pay any attention, you know that vitriol directed the way of the trans community is pervasive—and it's not so hard to imagine feeling the same way if your only experience of trans people comes from Fox News and Ace fucking Ventura. That's just one example—but media in general presents a skewed perspective of just about every minority group, with one obvious exception.

Cultivation theory provides a psychological model for how media alters our perception of the world around us. The information we take in and the stories we're told change the way we contextualize what we see, reshaping or reinforcing the framework on which we hang our experiences ("Cultivation Theory"). If you see a Muslim committing an act of terror on television—and then see the same thing happen again and again—you'll begin to draw a connection between the two ideas. That's an obvious and simplified example, but there are innumerable subtler ways in which media builds connections between concepts that gradually become part of our own perception of the world. It's worth examining what connections exactly are being drawn, who's drawing them, and how exactly they're changing the world we live in.

Essentially every demographic—with, of course, the exception of one very special minority group—is drastically underrepresented in entertainment media. There are many subtle issues with the state of diversity in entertainment, but this isn't one of them—it's a simple fact that our math is just off. The selection of people who are represented in media differs significantly from the actual population—the world of entertainment is not like ours. A study of 900 films released from 2007-2016 found that 31% of speaking roles were female—a demographic which famously constitutes almost exactly half of the population (Smith 6). This is as clear-cut as it gets—I fail to imagine what a reasonable explanation for this inequity could sound like. Other statistics featured in the report are the total 1.1% of movie characters who were LGBT (far fewer than exist in reality) and the 2.7% who were depicted as disabled (the real-life statistic is closer to 1 in 4), among others (Smith 8, CDC). The simple fact of underrepresentation is far from the extent of the problem; there's also the issue of the quality of that representation, which is overwhelmingly inadequate. 

While a great diversity of characterization exists among ingroup characters—just about every white man that can be written, has—minority characters tend to be constructed from a limited bank of stereotypes. Characters from the least-represented demographics suffer the most from this oversimplification. Indigenous Americans, for instance, are very seldom seen on-screen, and when they are, they're depicted most often not as modern people but as 18th and 19th century stereotypes (Leavitt 40). The less we see of a group of people, the flatter and less realized those few glimpses are. It's clear that the majority-white population of writers who rely on other media for cues on how to represent marginalized groups, in the absence of diverse characterizations, are falling back on decades- or centuries-old stereotypes to tell their stories, and in that way, ill representation begets ill representation. That brings us to the problem of artists. A hefty majority of the people producing mainstream art are, not surprisingly, the same kind of people we see in front of the camera—white fellas. In the timespan covered by the Annenberg study, women made up 4% of film directors, while 6% were Black—and directors of other ethnicities were sequestered to an even more vanishingly small niche. The common factor is that every aspect of the entertainment industry is full to bursting with white guys, despite them being a comparatively small portion of the population.

The big question is: why is this an issue? And the answer is obvious and intuitive but nonetheless it's going to take a few pages to answer here.

In 2017, the most popular dream career among children in the US was to be a doctor. In 2019, two years later, more children aspired to be internet personalities than any other profession (Taylor). Children now feel that they are living in a world where "Youtuber" is a viable and fulfilling career. Which is to say that the landscape of media children were consuming palpably altered their worldview—they're identifying themselves with the people that entertain them, wishing to model their own lives after theirs. Media doesn't just entertain us—it is, in part, a substance with which we construct our self-image and our expectations of the world around us. This is especially true of young people, and when young people are presented with entertainment that belittles, stereotypes, or simply omits them, it can inflict real damage. It's been demonstrated that exposure to television is associated with lower self-esteem in all children with the exception of white boys—striking evidence of both the reality and real negative outcomes of  inadequate representation. The messaging may not always be clear to us, but it gets through to children: you are not the type of person that we value. 

One group that is constantly and severely devalued in this way is indigenous Americans. Contemporary depictions are so infrequent and negative as to subject them to what is known as "relative invisibility"—an almost total absence of any realistic or aspirational representations in culture (Leavitt 41). The effect of this pattern of representation is far from negligible. A study of indigenous American students found that greater exposure to media with indigenous American characters actually led to increased negative feelings about themselves, their place in the community, and their future aspirations (Leavitt 44). It's apparent from this result that a greater quantity of representation is not, on its own, an inherent positive. Exposure to a narrow and largely negative range of portrayals of oneself can narrow and negativize one's worldview and self-image. It's easy to imagine how one's dreams for the future could begin to feel futile if the only professions media seems to think you're suited for are mystical wise man and noble savage. Quantity of representation is not enough—in fact, if the quality of representation is lacking, greater saturation can actually do more harm than good, causing real harm to marginalized people whose self-identity and mental health may be damaged by poor portrayals.

When films and shows with stereotypical representations of indigenous Americans are released, indigenous Americans aren't the only ones watching. The same is true of Black people, Muslims, queer people, and every other heavily stereotyped community. While self-esteem is a real issue, we must also be concerned with the esteem in which others hold us. Prejudice presents a serious threat to many—prejudice informed in part by the media that we constantly consume. 

There are real-life political consequences of entertainment. Evidence indicates a relationship between audiences viewing negative portrayals of Black people and negative opinions about policies related to affirmative action, policing, and other race-related legal issues, as well as a general tendency to hold unfavorable beliefs regarding Black intelligence, work ethic, and criminality (Mastro). This is deeply relevant as policy regarding the legal treatment of Black people is one of the most significant issues in the public consciousness, especially in the last few years. The concept of Black people as innately criminal, reinforced by stereotypical media portrayals, has been and continues to inform the debate around issues such as police violence and reform. Voters watch movies and television—so do congresspeople—and the way certain communities look in movies and television contributes to policy decisions that will save or end lives.

The Latin American community deals with similar portrayals in media—they are most often shown as inarticulate, unintelligent, unskilled laborers or criminals (Mastro). These portrayals, too, are highly relevant to American politics. The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump relied heavily on leveraging negative stereotypes about Latin American and specifically Mexican immigrants—they were characterized as violent, predatory, and a threat to the American way of life. Those stereotypes, however, were not invented for the purpose of promoting Donald Trump as a presidential candidate—their utility as a political tool came from the fact that this was already a popular way of viewing Mexican immigrants. The widespread stereotypes about Latin American people are reinforced and reiterated by our entertainment, and in this case, formed the foundation of a winning presidential campaign.

There are good examples, too—in the 1990s and 2000s, American support for gay marriage rocketed from around 20% to nearly 60%, an incredibly rapid change in public opinion caused largely by advocacy in the media (Baume). Gay marriage was then nationally legalized in 2015. The way people are portrayed in our entertainment has serious real-world consequences, good and bad; human lives depend on how the most vulnerable people in our society are shown to the rest of us.

The solution isn't just more. That's part of it, but as we know, increasing the quantity of representation can be harmful rather than helpful if that representation isn't also high-quality. There is some correlation between the two—a greater number of portrayals of a group generally means more divergence from stereotypes—but there's a more fundamental issue at play. There are an abundance of stories that involve characters from marginalized groups, and yet the overwhelming majority of people producing stories in the mainstream are the same white men. As a culture, we enjoy stories about different types of people, but seem to be very comfortable allowing those stories to be told to us by an extremely homogenous group of writers and directors. The entertainment industry often even seems uncomfortable allowing minority actors to play minority roles; although casting white actors to play people of color has mostly fallen out of fashion, it's still commonplace to cast non-disabled and non-queer actors to play disabled and queer characters. This isn't necessarily an unacceptable practice in itself, but it's common enough to create a sense that queer and disabled actors are being actively excluded from entertainment. Of the limited number of disabled characters who appear on-screen, only 5% are played by disabled actors (Pearson). Actors such as Adam Pearson, who was never considered for the leading role in a film about Joseph Merrick (whose condition Pearson shares), are routinely passed up in favor of non-disabled actors (Pearson). Queer actors are similarly underrepresented. As one would expect, minority representation is vastly increased by the presence of minority directors and writers—movies by Black directors have six times as many Black speaking roles on average (Smith 3). The possibility of high-quality, equal representation is clearly tied to increasing diversity behind the camera.

But—what if straight white men just make better entertainment? Maybe they make up such a huge majority of the media industry because their work is simply more valuable. From a certain angle, this is sort of true. The value assigned to entertainment is, in part, determined by the critical response it receives, and media critics are mostly white men. In 2017, 78% of the top film critics were men, and 82% were white (Choueiti 2). It's not strange to enjoy media you see yourself represented in, and it's not surprising that the media we consume the most is mostly comprised of people who look like the people who we allow to determine its quality.

The entertainment industry as it stands today is a self-congratulatory stew of white men. Most representation of anyone outside that group is done on their terms, and as such, lacks both quantity and quality. The only way to break out of the narrow range of representations of marginalized people is to inundate the entertainment business with those people. We need women, queer people, people of color, and disabled people in the media, behind cameras and in front of them. The way these people are portrayed has real and severe consequences—for their mental health, physical safety, and place within our culture. Diversity in entertainment is not a frivolous issue. It matters, a lot, and it won't solve itself. 

Works Cited

Baume, Matt. "Why Opinion Changed So Fast On Gay Marriage." Youtube, uploaded by Matt Baume, 25 June 2015.

"CDC: 1 in 4 US adults live with a disability." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 August 2018.

Choueiti, Marc et al. "Critic's Choice?: Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Film Reviewers Across 100 Top Films of 2017." Annenberg Foundation, USC Annenberg, June 2018.

"Cultivation Theory." Communication Theory, 2012.

Indiana University. "TV viewing can decrease self-esteem in children, except white boys." ScienceDaily, 30 May 2012.

Leavitt, Peter et al. "'Frozen in Time': The Impact of Native American Media Representations on Identity and Self-Understanding." Journal of Social Issues, 2015.

Mastro, Dana. "Race and Ethnicity in US Media Content and Effects." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, Oxford University Press. 26 September 2017.

Pearson, Adam et al. "'Actors don't black up, so why do they still crip up?' – video." The Guardian, 10 September 2018.

Smith, Stacy L., Choueiti, Marc. "Black Characters in Popular Film: Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content held in the Hand of the Black Director?" USC Annenberg, 2011.

Smith, Stacy L. et al. "Inequality in 900 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBT, and Disability from 2007-2016." Annenberg Foundation, USC Annenberg, July 2017.

Taylor, Chloe. "Kids now dream of being professional YouTubers rather than astronauts, study finds." Make It, CNBC, 19 July 2019.

[perfectirishgifts]

8 Leading Women In The Field Of AI

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/8-leading-women-in-the-field-of-ai/

8 Leading Women In The Field Of AI

These eight women are at the forefront of the field of artificial intelligence today. They hail from … [] academia, startups, large technology companies, venture capital and beyond.

It is a simple truth: the field of artificial intelligence is far too male-dominated. According to a 2018 study from Wired and Element AI, just 12% of AI researchers globally are female.

Artificial intelligence will reshape every corner of our lives in the coming years—from healthcare to finance, from education to government. It is therefore troubling that those building this technology do not fully represent the society they are poised to transform.

Yet there are many brilliant women at the forefront of AI today. As entrepreneurs, academic researchers, industry executives, venture capitalists and more, these women are shaping the future of artificial intelligence. They also serve as role models for the next generation of AI leaders, reflecting what a more inclusive AI community can and should look like.

Featured below are eight of the leading women in the field of artificial intelligence today.

Joy Buolamwini: Founder, Algorithmic Justice League

Joy Buolamwini has aptly been described as “the conscience of the A.I. revolution.”

Her pioneering work on algorithmic bias as a graduate student at MIT opened the world’s eyes to the racial and gender prejudices embedded in facial recognition systems. Amazon, Microsoft and IBM each suspended their facial recognition offerings this year as a result of Buolamwini’s research, acknowledging that the technology was not yet fit for public use. Buolamwini’s work is powerfully profiled in the new documentary Coded Bias.

Buolamwini stands at the forefront of a burgeoning movement to identify and address the social consequences of artificial intelligence technology, a movement she advances through her nonprofit Algorithmic Justice League.

Buolamwini on the battle against algorithmic bias: “When I started talking about this, in 2016, it was such a foreign concept. Today, I can’t go online without seeing some news article or story about a biased AI system. People are just now waking up to the fact that there is a problem. Awareness is good—and then that awareness needs to lead to action. That is the phase that we’re in.”

Claire Delaunay: VP Engineering, NVIDIA

From SRI to Google to Uber to NVIDIA, Claire Delaunay has held technical leadership roles at many of Silicon Valley’s most iconic organizations. She was also co-founder and engineering head at Otto, the pedigreed but ill-fated autonomous trucking startup helmed by Anthony Levandowski.

In her current role at NVIDIA, Delaunay is focused on building tools and platforms to enable the deployment of autonomous machines at scale.

Delaunay on the tradeoffs between working at a big company and a startup: “Some kinds of breakthroughs can only be accomplished at a big company, and other kinds of breakthroughs can only be accomplished at a startup. Startups are very good at deconstructing things and generating discontinuous big leaps forward. Big companies are very good at consolidating breakthroughs and building out robust technology foundations that enable future innovation.”

Rana el Kaliouby: CEO & Co-Founder, Affectiva

Rana el Kaliouby has dedicated her career to making AI more emotionally intelligent.

Kaliouby is credited with pioneering the field of Emotion AI. In 2009, she co-founded the startup Affectiva as a spinout from MIT to develop machine learning systems capable of understanding human emotions. Today, the company’s technology is used by 25% of the Fortune 500, including for media analytics, consumer behavioral research and automotive use cases.

Kaliouby on her big-picture vision: “My life’s work is about humanizing technology before it dehumanizes us.”

Daphne Koller: CEO & Founder, insitro

Daphne Koller’s wide-ranging career illustrates the symbiosis between academia and industry that is a defining characteristic of the field of artificial intelligence.

Koller has been a professor at Stanford since 1995, focused on machine learning. In 2012 she co-founded education technology startup Coursera with fellow Stanford professor and AI leader Andrew Ng. Coursera is today a $2.6 billion ed tech juggernaut.

Koller’s most recent undertaking may be her most ambitious yet. She is the founding CEO at insitro, a startup applying machine learning to transform pharmaceutical drug discovery and development. Insitro has raised roughly $250 million from Andreessen Horowitz and others and recently announced a major commercial partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb.

Koller on advice for those just starting out in the field of AI: “Pick an application of AI that really matters, that is really societally worthwhile—not all AI applications are—and then put in the hard work to truly understand that domain. I am able to build insitro today only because I spent 20 years learning biology. An area I might suggest to young people today is energy and the environment.”

Fei-Fei Li: Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University

Few individuals have left more of a mark on the world of AI in the twenty-first century than Fei-Fei Li.

As a young Princeton professor in 2007, Li conceived of and spearheaded the ImageNet project, a database of millions of labeled images that has changed the entire trajectory of AI. The prescient insight behind ImageNet was that massive datasets—more than particular algorithms—would be the key to unleashing AI’s potential. When Geoff Hinton and team debuted their neural network-based model trained on ImageNet at the 2012 ImageNet competition, the modern era of deep learning was born.

Li has since become a tenured professor at Stanford, served as Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud, headed Stanford’s AI lab, joined the Board of Directors at Twitter, cofounded the prominent nonprofit AI4ALL, and launched Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute (HAI). Across her many leadership positions, Li has tirelessly advocated for a more inclusive, equitable and human approach to AI.

Li on why diversity in AI is so important: “Our technology is not independent of human values. It represents the values of the humans that are behind the design, development and application of the technology. So, if we’re worried about killer robots, we should really be worried about the creators of the technology. We want the creators of this technology to represent our values and represent our shared humanity.”

Anna Patterson: Founder & Managing Partner, Gradient Ventures

Anna Patterson has led a distinguished career developing and deploying AI products, both at large technology companies and at startups.

A long-time executive at Google, which she first joined in 2004, Patterson led artificial intelligence efforts for years as the company’s VP of Engineering. In 2017 she launched Google’s AI venture capital fund Gradient Ventures, where today she invests in early-stage AI startups.

Patterson serves on the board of a number of promising AI startups including Algorithmia, Labelbox and test.ai. She is also a board director at publicly-traded Square.

Patterson on one question she asks herself before investing in any AI startup: “Do I find myself constantly thinking about their vision and mission?”

Daniela Rus: Director, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)

Daniela Rus is one of the world’s leading roboticists.

She is an MIT professor and the first female head of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), one of the largest and most prestigious AI research labs in the world. This makes her part of a storied lineage: previous directors of CSAIL (and its predecessor labs) over the decades have included AI legends Marvin Minsky, J.C.R. Licklider and Rodney Brooks.

Rus’ groundbreaking research has advanced the state of the art in networked collaborative robots (robots that can work together and communicate with one another), self-reconfigurable robots (robots that can autonomously change their structure to adapt to their environment), and soft robots (robots without rigid bodies).

Rus on a common misconception about AI: “It is important for people to understand that AI is nothing more than a tool. Like any other tool, it is neither intrinsically good nor bad. It is solely what we choose to do with it. I believe that we can do extraordinarily positive things with AI—but it is not a given that that will happen.”

Shivon Zilis: Board Member, OpenAI; Project Director, Neuralink

Shivon Zilis has spent time on the leadership teams of several companies at AI’s bleeding edge: OpenAI, Neuralink, Tesla, Bloomberg Beta.

She is the youngest board member at OpenAI, the influential research lab behind breakthroughs like GPT-3. At Neuralink—Elon Musk’s mind-bending effort to meld the human brain with digital machines—Zilis works on high-priority strategic initiatives in the office of the CEO.

Zilis on her attitude toward new technology development: “I’m astounded by how often the concept of ‘building moats’ comes up. If you think the technology you’re building is good for the world, why not laser focus on expanding your tech tree as quickly as possible versus slowing down and dividing resources to impede the progress of others?”

From AI in Perfectirishgifts

[architectuul]

Zoo Story: The Future

Have an online walk through the past, present and future of the Lisbon Zoological Garden with the Gulbenkian Foundation, which was online before the online event started. 

Map of the original edition “Guia do Turista em Lisboa” (1929) [property of Manuel dos Santos and Ascenção Araujo, Lisbon] modified by the curators with the satellite image of Lisbon (2020).

The project for the Future Architecture Platform 2020 will take you to the Lisbon’s Zoological Garden designed by Raul Lino asking questions like what role is the Zoo expected to fulfill in the contemporary city and what will it be in the future? For more check up online virtual exhibition “Staged Nature: Zoo of zoos” curated by Enrico Porfido and Claudia Sani from País(vi)agem with Arian Lehner and Theresa Margraf from Mies.TV, with whom we had a short talk about it.

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How do you see the future? Enrico Porfido: Do you mean the future of the zoo or the future in general? Because I don't really see any future coming... In this direction, with such a pessimistic interpretation of the imminent future, it doesn't make sense to make many plans for the future. But hidden somewhere, there is also an optimistic point of view where, “thanks” to COVID-19, this crisis represents an opportunity to change our way of living, interpreting and reading our realities. During the study and research phase for the exhibition in Gulbenkian Foundation we understood that the Zoo is not only a place where animals are kept, but it is a place where different themes can be discussed. For example, our approach to nature, its valorisation and the relationship with the historical city. It’s not only an issue of animals in a cage, but our anthropocentric approach to reality! If we can start changing it in the zoo, we might be able to change it also outside it, in our everyday life.

The original map of the Lisbon Zoological Garden, designed by Raul Lino at the beginning of XXth century | Source © Archive of Gulbenkian Art Library

How did you develop this project in the time of pandemics? Arian Lehner: The whole development of this project was very interesting, because we were all apart, in different cities. In the process of creating the exhibition we had a lot of discussions, where we very early understood how to talk about the zoo as an urban piece in the city. One important point which triggered an idea and vision for the future, was the thought of a biologist, who said that the zoo is showing naked animals itself without their natural environment. Such spaces like a zoo might in future  show a variety of glimpses into different places of the world, where  it won’t necessarily be needed to keep living animals in cages.

Why is then important in the whole environmental context? Arian Lehner: A zoo can transform into a condition of  heterotopia which creates different worlds inside it. Animals will be linked to their environments to understand what is relevant to survive. It is a glimpse into the world, within your own city so you don’t have to travel around the world to understand other ecosystems.

Zebra, elephant and giraffe pavilion house designed by Raul Lino. | Source © Archive of Gulbenkian Art Library

You used different media for dissemination of the project, could you explain more?   Enrico Porfido: More than innovative, I would rather say that we were complementary. We are two groups that cover different  dissemination channels and networks. AtPais(vi)agem we are more traditional-academic, while Mies. TV has a more digital approach. I think it worked well because we mixed those two worlds!The main idea was to enlarge the public audience of the Gulbenkian Foundation’s archive within sharing their drawings via digital tools. So, we decided to drop an old-fashioned-paper archive in a contemporary digital media! This goes in the direction that the Gulbenkian Foundation took even before COVID. Indeed, they already had in mind those virtual exhibitions as instruments for making their archives accessible to as many people as possible.

Which types of media did you use? Arian Lehner: Because of the huge variety of new media, we did not fear of putting theoretical architecture-content in this new digital field. If you can buy shoes on Instagram, why can’t we use the same platforms for academic discourse as well? Our goal was to bring the content of Pais(vi)agem to as many people as possible in an understandable way. The exhibition consists of short and long texts, short and long videos, animations, sounds in order to make it understandable. Our exhibition is not closed but it’s a kind of open source, where you can learn and link to many other sites. Such as the cooperation with postcards by Modern in Belgrade

Postcard from Belgrade: "Belgrade Zoo's Ark: A Voyage to the Great War Island" designed by Hristina Stojanović, Modern in Belgrade.

The cooperation with BINA - Belgrade international week of architecture? Enrico Porfido: The collaboration with BINA was a nice experience, although we couldn’t develop it as much as we planned due to COVID restrictions. During the digital talk in September, we compared the zoo situation between Belgrade and Lisbon with local experts and this was really inspiring. And it also ended up in an ephemeral collaboration with the collective Modern in Belgrade, that supported our project sending some “postcards” from the Belgrade’s zoo.

Creating an open-source exhibition? Arian Lehner: This is a process of democratisation of information. We created a digital exhibition that doesn’t translate everything into representation through worlds or images drafted by the curators. What we have is live interviews with experts in the zoo, we didn’t do any representation or transcripts but left the video without the filter so you can listen directly to the experts themselves.      

Map "A walk to discover Raul Lino's architecture in the Lisbon Zoological Garden" designed by the exhibition curatorial team

An amazing change of discourse and presentation coming from an institution like Gulbenkian; what did Future architecture bring to you? Enrico Porfido: From our experiences, there are many new synergies coming out from this adventure. During the Future Architecture fellowship, we started to build new connections and to consolidate our network. This platform has this big added-value of generating interesting synergies. In our small collective, we decided that there is no more time to work for somebody else or being employed for somebody that you don’t want to work for.  We decided it’s time to do something different, because we have limited time to express ourselves. We are aware of what our generation of architects is doing today and which are our opportunities to raise our voice without being arrogant.

Arian Lehner: This current  fear or the future has a  global dynamic. It is not restricted to one nation alone, but the entire planet is facing challenges. Future Architecture Platform is some kind of global dynamic too – obviously a positive one – which is very important because we work within a transnational network and dissemination of information and knowledge.

The Rhinoceros' pavilion | Photo, illustration by the exhibition curatorial team

What would you say about the future after this talk Enrico? Enrico Porfido: That we have a long way to go! Especially for making people understand that architects do not only design houses.  Architects are not just builders! Our superpower is to read reality and territories. There are many tools that we can use, in such a way architects can work as coordinators. We can gather and guide different experts from biology, ecology, anthropology, history, etc. because we can understand the territorial dynamics and coordinate different expertises. Territories have different scales within themselves and architects have the sensibility to understand, observe and work within them.

Is this something connected to a generation? Enrico Porfido: I guess it’s the approach we have to reality. The oldest architects’ generation would probably answer this question in the same way of how they work – alone.This is why we had so many names, the archistars of the recent past and present. But there are not 30yo archistars, why?

The Elephants' pavilion | Photo, illustration by the exhibition curatorial team

How could we develop tourism so that it could work as a creator of new destinations? Enrico Porfido: We can change the way of planning tourism but there is one thing that we all need to understand:we are all tourists at somebody else’s place. You don’t like to hear chatting in the bar under your place, but how is it when you visit another city? I don’t think you care much about the residents.I am obviously generalizing, but here in Barcelona we see the tourist issue as a really strong problem. I can agree that the massive tourism brings along some negative aspects, but we all need to learn how to cohabit. We need to be more tolerant as residents and more educated as tourists. We need to find new models for tourism. I have no clear idea how we should plan the tourism of the future, but I guess people will start to travel more for knowledge and for experiencing the reality of a specific place.  Tourism is a social phenomenon, so when the society “goes massive” also tourism does it.

The Giraffes' house | Photo and illustration by the exhibition curatorial team

Arian Lehner: Psychologically speaking: I travel to somewhere far away because I want to experience different smells, sounds and newspaces. This uniqueness makes travelling attractive, rather than staying at home in the monotony of one’s own life. The important part of visiting places is that you are “only visiting” and many places you just want to see but not live there for the rest of your life. It’s really like a refreshment and before coming back to your monotonous life, which is also safe. Are there different ways though that can create the same effect of travelling somewhere else, diving in a completely different world, place, space? Maybe this could in future be visiting your local zoo because everything will look different, because of different elements that this place is composed of, maybe it is a techno park with different robots. In this way you don’t need to fly away somewhere else to be yet again in a city that has the same Starbucks, the same looking Airbnb – but you can have a different psychologically effect like visiting a different place. That is an interesting challenge.

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Staged Nature: Zoo of zoos: A walk through the past, present and future of the Lisbon Zoological Garden, Gulbenkian Foundation via Future Architecture Platform, 2020 (illustration exhibition curatorial team)

País(vi)agem is an independent research group, which aims to investigate the relation between tourism, landscapes and local communities, co-founded by Enrico Porfido and Claudia Sani in 2015. Enrico is based in Barcelona and working as researcher and freelance consultant on tourism and strategic planning. Claudia became a project manager in the office Urban Act in France, dealing with urban ecology and social district regeneration. In 2020 Elisa Brunelli joined the members’ board.

Mies.TV is a documentation and investigation platform with the goal to initiate discussion on the topic, resolve understanding and reflect on how the role of an architect is changing. The channel has filmed over two hundred interviews ensuring a vast archive of data to enable a thorough and widespread illustration of different standpoints and how these are positioned within a global perspective. Through open screenings, architecture festivals, television shows and panel discussions  aims to communicate architecture to an audience internal and external to the realm of architecture with the use of modern tools.

[mbti-notes]

Hi, I’m confused. How does one differ between letting people be who they are (live and let live) and simultaneously stand up for what is morally right? If someone behaves morally wrong, should I intervene in the name of my moral conviction, even if it worsens the conflict between me and the person in question? Of course this depends on the severity of the moral disruption, but at times this can get rather blurry (when the moral disruption is not that severe). How do you think about this? /isfp.

There is a field of study called moral philosophy. It teaches people different methods of moral reasoning. Moral reasoning involves constructing logical and persuasive arguments to justify moral beliefs, claims, and actions. While people are born with primitive moral instincts, moral reasoning is a learned skill, a higher order cognitive ability. If you have aptitude in critical reasoning, moral reasoning shouldn’t be very difficult to learn, since they rely on the same basic principles. Most people don’t put much thought into their moral beliefs since they just adopt them in a piecemeal fashion from experience and environment. Perhaps they believe whatever their parents, society, peers, religion, etc, taught them to believe. Perhaps they just trust their “gut feelings”. When you ask people why they hold certain moral beliefs, most of them aren’t able to offer an explanation other than “it’s just the right thing to do”. Well, what happens when what you call “right” is what I call “wrong”?

In the generic example that you use, you say that you want to stand up for what is morally right and intervene in a situation. Okay. Are you able to define and explain what you mean by “morally right”? What criteria or standards do you use as measurement, and are they logically suitable? You say it depends on the “severity”? So, how do you define and measure severity of moral “disruption”? And how do you determine, on a person level, what is severe enough for you to take action? You need moral reasoning to sort out these questions.

Also, some aspects of morality are objective, some aspects are subjective. For example, objective reasoning might involve appealing to what most reasonable people would agree is morally wrong. Objective reasoning is more effective when you want to persuade people. Some people recognize a bad situation and might not intervene if they don’t know what to do or if they believe that intervening will make things worse, so it would be unfair to label them a bad person for not intervening. Whether you decide to intervene and make yourself part of a problematic situation is a subjective decision, based on your personal judgment. My threshold for intervening might be lower/higher than your threshold, and there’s nothing wrong with that, since your decisions are ultimately your own. The main point is whether you’re able to adequately justify your choice with a logical and persuasive moral argument.

Example: Let’s say that you saw two burly men fighting in a bar. Do you intervene? Well, if I’m a tiny little person with no knowledge of how to handle these situations, I’m probably not going to intervene. But if you are big and burly and well-practiced in martial arts, you might feel quite confident in your ability to intervene successfully. The two of us came to different moral decisions, but is one necessarily better or worse than the other? Nope, because we each had very good personal reasons to choose as we did, subjectively speaking. Objectively speaking, these two people are presumably both “consenting” to take part in this fight to settle a dispute, so is there enough moral harm being done that requires an outside party’s intervention? That’s a more difficult question to answer.

Sometimes, the harm being done is quite obvious and should be put to a stop immediately, like in the case of severe child abuse. But many moral problems and dilemmas aren’t easy to figure out, usually because they involve high stakes or “winners” and “losers”. Moral reasoning is a tool for weighing the costs and benefits of various possible solutions, which helps you make moral decisions more carefully and rationally. Do you want your moral beliefs to be consistent and trustworthy? Do you want to be persuasive when you make moral claims? Do you want to feel justified when you take moral action? If someone challenges your decision and the only reply you have is “it’s just what I believe”, then you won’t get very far in handling complicated situations, since anyone of any belief can say that. You don’t have to be a moral philosophy professor to reflect more carefully on why you believe what you believe and come up with good reasons for why you should or shouldn’t do something. Anyone of normal intelligence can do it, and although your thinking will not be as sophisticated as the professor, you will still get some important insights into yourself and make decisions more carefully. Without a strong foundation of moral reasoning, it’s hard to feel genuinely confident in your ability to handle moral problems. 

[engineer-ai]

Why Bill Gates thinks gene editing and AI could save the world

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been attempting to improve the condition of worldwide wellbeing through his nonprofit foundation for 20 years, and today he told the nation’s premier scientific gathering that propels in artificial intelligence and gene editing could accelerate those enhancements exponentially in the years ahead.

"We have an open door with the advance of tools like artificial intelligence and gene-based editing technologies to fabricate this new age generation of health solutions so they are available to everybody on the planet. Furthermore, I'm very excited for this," Gates said in Seattle during a keynote address at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Such tools promise to have a dramatic impact on several of the biggest challenges on the agenda for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, created by the tech guru and his wife in 2000.

When it comes to fighting malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases, for example, CRISPR-Cas9 and other gene-editing tools are being used to change the insects��� genome to ensure that they can’t pass along the parasites that cause those diseases. The Gates Foundation is investing tens of millions of dollars in technologies to spread those genomic changes rapidly through mosquito populations.

Millions more are being spent to find new ways fighting sickle-cell disease and HIV in humans. Gates said techniques now in development could leapfrog beyond the current state of the art for immunological treatments, which require the costly extraction of cells for genetic engineering, followed by the re-infusion of those modified cells in hopes that they’ll take hold.

For sickle-cell disease, “the vision is to have in-vivo gene editing techniques, that you just do a single injection using vectors that target and edit these blood-forming cells which are down in the bone marrow, with very high efficiency and very few off-target edits,” Gates said. A similar in-vivo therapy could provide a “functional cure” for HIV patients, he said.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence gives Gates further cause for hope. He noted that that the computational power available for AI applications has been doubling every three and a half months on average, dramatically improving on the two-year doubling rate for chip density that’s described by Moore’s Law.

One project is using AI to look for links between maternal nutrition and infant birth weight. Other projects focus on measuring the balance of different types of microbes in the human gut, using high-throughput gene sequencing. The gut microbiome is thought to play a role in health issues ranging from digestive problems to autoimmune diseases to neurological conditions.

“This is an area that needed these sequencing tools and the high-scale data processing, including AI, to be able to find the patterns,” Gates said. “There’s just too much going on there if you had to do it, say, with paper and pencil to understand the 100 trillion organisms and the large amount of genetic material there. This is a fantastic application for the latest AI technology.”

Similarly, “organs on a chip” could accelerate the pace of biomedical research without putting human experimental subjects at risk.

“In simple terms, the technology allows in-vitro modeling of human organs in a way that mimics how they work in the human body,” Gates said. “There’s some degree of simplification. Most of these systems are single-organ systems. They don’t reproduce everything, but some of the key elements we do see there, including some of the disease states — for example, with the intestine, the liver, the kidney. It lets us understand drug kinetics and drug activity.”

The Gates Foundation has backed a number of organ-on-a-chip projects over the years, including one experiment that’s using lymph-node organoids to evaluate the safety and efficacy of vaccines. At least one organ-on-a-chip venture based in the Seattle area, Nortis, has gone commercial thanks in part to Gates’ support.

High-tech health research tends to come at a high cost, but Gates argues that these technologies will eventually drive down the cost of biomedical innovation.

He also argues that funding from governments and nonprofits will have to play a role in the world’s poorer countries, where those who need advanced medical technologies “essentially have no voice in the marketplace.”

“If the solution of the rich country doesn’t scale down … then there’s this awful thing where it might never happen,” Gates said during a Q&A with Margaret Hamburg, who chairs the AAAS board of directors.

But if the acceleration of medical technologies does manage to happen around the world, Gates insists that could have repercussions on the world’s other great challenges, including the growing inequality between rich and poor.

“Disease is not only a symptom of inequality,” he said, “but it’s a huge cause.”

Other tidbits from Gates’ talk:

When it comes to agriculture, climate change is making the challenges facing farmers in developing countries even more acute, Gates said. More extreme weather conditions could bring more floods, more droughts and more pests and plant diseases capable of wiping out crops. Gates pointed to efforts at CGIAR to develop more resilient strains of corn, rice and other crops, and at the University of Cambridge to build healthier soil. The Gates Foundation recently established a new initiative called Gates Ag One to support such innovations.

Gates said he was concerned about two trends in the distribution of health information. “One is that titillating false information is more engaging than true information,” he said. The flap over the false linkage between vaccines and autism serves as an example of that, he said. “And then there’s this general notion of, hey, if the experts say something, are they somehow biased or naive?” he noted. “This is a fight. Will we go through a cycle where it’s not as acute as it is today? I don’t know. Right at the moment, it doesn’t feel that way.”

Gates said he subscribed to psychologist Steven Pinker’s view that the world is getting better. “Despite that there’s plenty to worry about … we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the progress has been absolutely phenomenal,” he said. “Many people are literally ahistorical to think that in a meaningful sense, 20 years ago or 40 years ago, life was better. That’s just not the case. Yes, there are huge problems, but if you’re a woman, if you’re gay, if you were subject to certain diseases, if you lived in developing countries, 40 years ago was dramatically worse than it is today.”

[betterhealthvalues]

Health Care Reform - Why Are People So Worked Up?

Why are Americans so worked up about health care reform? Statements such as "don't touch my Medicare" or "everyone should have access to state of the art health care irrespective of cost" are in my opinion uninformed and visceral responses that indicate a poor understanding of our health care system's history, its current and future resources and the funding challenges that America faces going forward. While we all wonder how the health care system has reached what some refer to as a crisis stage. Let's try to take some of the emotion out of the debate by briefly examining how health care in this country emerged and how that has formed our thinking and culture about health care. With that as a foundation let's look at the pros and cons of the Obama administration health care reform proposals and let's look at the concepts put forth by the Republicans?

Access to state of the art health care services is something we can all agree would be a good thing for this country. Experiencing a serious illness is one of life's major challenges and to face it without the means to pay for it is positively frightening. But as we shall see, once we know the facts, we will find that achieving this goal will not be easy without our individual contribution.

These are the themes I will touch on to try to make some sense out of what is happening to American health care and the steps we can personally take to make things better.

A recent history of American health care - what has driven the costs so high?

Key elements of the Obama health care plan

The Republican view of health care - free market competition

Universal access to state of the art health care - a worthy goal but not easy to achieve

what can we do?

First, let's get a little historical perspective on American health care. This is not intended to be an exhausted look into that history but it will give us an appreciation of how the health care system and our expectations for it developed. What drove costs higher and higher?

To begin, let's turn to the American civil war. In that war, dated tactics and the carnage inflicted by modern weapons of the era combined to cause ghastly results. Not generally known is that most of the deaths on both sides of that war were not the result of actual combat but to what happened after a battlefield wound was inflicted. To begin with, evacuation of the wounded moved at a snail's pace and this caused severe delays in treating the wounded. Secondly, many wounds were subjected to wound care, related surgeries and/or amputations of the affected limbs and this often resulted in the onset of massive infection. So you might survive a battle wound only to die at the hands of medical care providers who although well-intentioned, their interventions were often quite lethal. High death tolls can also be ascribed to everyday sicknesses and diseases in a time when no antibiotics existed. In total something like 600,000 deaths occurred from all causes, over 2% of the U.S. population at the time!

Let's skip to the first half of the 20th century for some additional perspective and to bring us up to more modern times. After the civil war there were steady improvements in American medicine in both the understanding and treatment of certain diseases, new surgical techniques and in physician education and training. But for the most part the best that doctors could offer their patients was a "wait and see" approach. Medicine could handle bone fractures and increasingly attempt risky surgeries (now largely performed in sterile surgical environments) but medicines were not yet available to handle serious illnesses. The majority of deaths remained the result of untreatable conditions such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, scarlet fever and measles and/or related complications. Doctors were increasingly aware of heart and vascular conditions, and cancer but they had almost nothing with which to treat these conditions.

This very basic review of American medical history helps us to understand that until quite recently (around the 1950's) we had virtually no technologies with which to treat serious or even minor ailments. Here is a critical point we need to understand; "nothing to treat you with means that visits to the doctor if at all were relegated to emergencies so in such a scenario costs are curtailed. The simple fact is that there was little for doctors to offer and therefore virtually nothing to drive health care spending. A second factor holding down costs was that medical treatments that were provided were paid for out-of-pocket, meaning by way of an individuals personal resources. There was no such thing as health insurance and certainly not health insurance paid by an employer. Except for the very destitute who were lucky to find their way into a charity hospital, health care costs were the responsibility of the individual.

What does health care insurance have to do with health care costs? Its impact on health care costs has been, and remains to this day, absolutely enormous. When health insurance for individuals and families emerged as a means for corporations to escape wage freezes and to attract and retain employees after World War II, almost overnight a great pool of money became available to pay for health care. Money, as a result of the availability of billions of dollars from health insurance pools, encouraged an innovative America to increase medical research efforts. More Americans became insured not only through private, employer sponsored health insurance but through increased government funding that created Medicare and Medicaid (1965). In addition funding became available for expanded veterans health care benefits. Finding a cure for almost anything has consequently become very lucrative. This is also the primary reason for the vast array of treatments we have available today.

I do not wish to convey that medical innovations are a bad thing. Think of the tens of millions of lives that have been saved, extended, enhanced and made more productive as a result. But with a funding source grown to its current magnitude (hundreds of billions of dollars annually) upward pressure on health care costs are inevitable. Doctor's offer and most of us demand and get access to the latest available health care technology in the form of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostic tools and surgical procedures. So the result is that there is more health care to spend our money on and until very recently most of us were insured and the costs were largely covered by a third-party (government, employers). Add an insatiable and unrealistic public demand for access and treatment and we have the "perfect storm" for higher and higher health care costs. And by and large the storm is only intensifying.

At this point, let's turn to the key questions that will lead us into a review and hopefully a better understanding of the health care reform proposals in the news today. Is the current trajectory of U.S. health care spending sustainable? Can America maintain its world competitiveness when 16%, heading for 20% of our gross national product is being spent on health care? What are the other industrialized countries spending on health care and is it even close to these numbers? When we add politics and an election year to the debate, information to help us answer these questions become critical. We need to spend some effort in understanding health care and sorting out how we think about it. Properly armed we can more intelligently determine whether certain health care proposals might solve or worsen some of these problems. What can be done about the challenges? How can we as individuals contribute to the solutions?

The Obama health care plan is complex for sure - I have never seen a health care plan that isn't. But through a variety of programs his plan attempts to deal with a) increasing the number of American that are covered by adequate insurance (almost 50 million are not), and b) managing costs in such a manner that quality and our access to health care is not adversely affected. Republicans seek to achieve these same basic and broad goals, but their approach is proposed as being more market driven than government driven. Let's look at what the Obama plan does to accomplish the two objectives above. Remember, by the way, that his plan was passed by congress, and begins to seriously kick-in starting in 2014. So this is the direction we are currently taking as we attempt to reform health care.

Through insurance exchanges and an expansion of Medicaid,the Obama plan dramatically expands the number of Americans that will be covered by health insurance.

To cover the cost of this expansion the plan requires everyone to have health insurance with a penalty to be paid if we don't comply. It will purportedly send money to the states to cover those individuals added to state-based Medicaid programs.

To cover the added costs there were a number of new taxes introduced, one being a 2.5% tax on new medical technologies and another increases taxes on interest and dividend income for wealthier Americans.

The Obama plan also uses concepts such as evidence-based medicine, accountable care organizations, comparative effectiveness research and reduced reimbursement to health care providers (doctors and hospitals) to control costs.

The insurance mandate covered by points 1 and 2 above is a worthy goal and most industrialized countries outside of the U.S. provide "free" (paid for by rather high individual and corporate taxes) health care to most if not all of their citizens. It is important to note, however, that there are a number of restrictions for which many Americans would be culturally unprepared. Here is the primary controversial aspect of the Obama plan, the insurance mandate. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to hear arguments as to the constitutionality of the health insurance mandate as a result of a petition by 26 states attorney's general that congress exceeded its authority under the commerce clause of the U.S. constitution by passing this element of the plan. The problem is that if the Supreme Court should rule against the mandate, it is generally believed that the Obama plan as we know it is doomed. This is because its major goal of providing health insurance to all would be severely limited if not terminated altogether by such a decision.

As you would guess, the taxes covered by point 3 above are rather unpopular with those entities and individuals that have to pay them. Medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors and insurance companies all had to "give up" something that would either create new revenue or would reduce costs within their spheres of control. As an example, Stryker Corporation, a large medical device company, recently announced at least a 1,000 employee reduction in part to cover these new fees. This is being experienced by other medical device companies and pharmaceutical companies as well. The reduction in good paying jobs in these sectors and in the hospital sector may rise as former cost structures will have to be dealt with in order to accommodate the reduced rate of reimbursement to hospitals. Over the next ten years some estimates put the cost reductions to hospitals and physicians at half a trillion dollars and this will flow directly to and affect the companies that supply hospitals and doctors with the latest medical technologies. None of this is to say that efficiencies will not be realized by these changes or that other jobs will in turn be created but this will represent painful change for a while. It helps us to understand that health care reform does have an effect both positive and negative.

Finally, the Obama plan seeks to change the way medical decisions are made. While clinical and basic research underpins almost everything done in medicine today, doctors are creatures of habit like the rest of us and their training and day-to-day experiences dictate to a great extent how they go about diagnosing and treating our conditions. Enter the concept of evidence-based medicine and comparative effectiveness research. Both of these seek to develop and utilize data bases from electronic health records and other sources to give better and more timely information and feedback to physicians as to the outcomes and costs of the treatments they are providing. There is great waste in health care today, estimated at perhaps a third of an over 2 trillion dollar health care spend annually. Imagine the savings that are possible from a reduction in unnecessary test and procedures that do not compare favorably with health care interventions that are better documented as effective. Now the Republicans and others don't generally like these ideas as they tend to characterize them as "big government control" of your and my health care. But to be fair, regardless of their political persuasions, most people who understand health care at all, know that better data for the purposes described above will be crucial to getting health care efficiencies, patient safety and costs headed in the right direction.

A brief review of how Republicans and more conservative individuals think about health care reform. I believe they would agree that costs must come under control and that more, not fewer Americans should have access to health care regardless of their ability to pay. But the main difference is that these folks see market forces and competition as the way to creating the cost reductions and efficiencies we need. There are a number of ideas with regard to driving more competition among health insurance companies and health care providers (doctors and hospitals) so that the consumer would begin to drive cost down by the choices we make. This works in many sectors of our economy but this formula has shown that improvements are illusive when applied to health care. Primarily the problem is that health care choices are difficult even for those who understand it and are connected. The general population, however, is not so informed and besides we have all been brought up to "go to the doctor" when we feel it is necessary and we also have a cultural heritage that has engendered within most of us the feeling that health care is something that is just there and there really isn't any reason not to access it for whatever the reason and worse we all feel that there is nothing we can do to affect its costs to insure its availability to those with serious problems.

OK, this article was not intended to be an exhaustive study as I needed to keep it short in an attempt to hold my audience's attention and to leave some room for discussing what we can do contribute mightily to solving some of the problems. First we must understand that the dollars available for health care are not limitless. Any changes that are put in place to provide better insurance coverage and access to care will cost more. And somehow we have to find the revenues to pay for these changes. At the same time we have to pay less for medical treatments and procedures and do something to restrict the availability of unproven or poorly documented treatments as we are the highest cost health care system in the world and don't necessarily have the best results in terms of longevity or avoiding chronic diseases much earlier than necessary.

I believe that we need a revolutionary change in the way we think about health care, its availability, its costs and who pays for it. And if you think I am about to say we should arbitrarily and drastically reduce spending on health care you would be wrong. Here it is fellow citizens - health care spending needs to be preserved and protected for those who need it. And to free up these dollars those of us who don't need it or can delay it or avoid it need to act. First, we need to convince our politicians that this country needs sustained public education with regard to the value of preventive health strategies. This should be a top priority and it has worked to reduce the number of U.S. smokers for example. If prevention were to take hold, it is reasonable to assume that those needing health care for the myriad of life style engendered chronic diseases would decrease dramatically. Millions of Americans are experiencing these diseases far earlier than in decades past and much of this is due to poor life style choices. This change alone would free up plenty of money to handle the health care costs of those in dire need of treatment, whether due to an acute emergency or chronic condition.

Let's go deeper on the first issue. Most of us refuse do something about implementing basic wellness strategies into our daily lives. We don't exercise but we offer a lot of excuses. We don't eat right but we offer a lot of excuses. We smoke and/or we drink alcohol to excess and we offer a lot of excuses as to why we can't do anything about managing these known to be destructive personal health habits. We don't take advantage of preventive health check-ups that look at blood pressure, cholesterol readings and body weight but we offer a lot of excuses. In short we neglect these things and the result is that we succumb much earlier than necessary to chronic diseases like heart problems, diabetes and high blood pressure. We wind up accessing doctors for these and more routine matters because "health care is there" and somehow we think we have no responsibility for reducing our demand on it.

It is difficult for us to listen to these truths but easy to blame the sick. Maybe they should take better care of themselves! Well, that might be true or maybe they have a genetic condition and they have become among the unfortunate through absolutely no fault of their own. But the point is that you and I can implement personalized preventive disease measures as a way of dramatically improving health care access for others while reducing its costs. It is far better to be productive by doing something we can control then shifting the blame.

There are a huge number of free web sites available that can steer us to a more healthful life style. A soon as you can, "Google" "preventive health care strategies", look up your local hospital's web site and you will find more than enough help to get you started. Finally, there is a lot to think about here and I have tried to outline the challenges but also the very powerful effect we could have on preserving the best of America's health care system now and into the future. I am anxious to hear from you and until then - take charge and increase your chances for good health while making sure that health care is there when we need it.