#Will AI replace programmers by 2050?

[nikkiadderley88]

Explore if AI will replace programmers, the future of coding, and how AI is reshaping the tech industry. Discover the impact on jobs and skills needed.

[phillipspost777]

Automation technology – of course “AI” in all of its glory – will be commonplace. In fact, it will be invisible powering nearly everything. We’ve not even begun to define the range of processes and models that will be automated in 25 years. Suffice it to say that today what humans do will be replaced by software (actually, distributed chips) and robotics. The short list? Auditors, manufacturers, lawyers, diagnosticians, salespersons, teachers, marketers, programmers, researchers, writers, couriers, customer servicers, food preparation and drivers among what Goldman Sachs says could be 300 million jobs.

[classyfoxdestiny]

Microsoft and SSE form partnership to drive sustainability in the energy sector

Microsoft and SSE form partnership to drive sustainability in the energy sector

SSE and Microsoft have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to help drive sustainability innovation in the global energy sector.

The companies, both Principal Partners to COP26, have agreed to collaborate, trial and test technologies which can help in the drive for net zero.

The partnership will utilise Microsoft’s artificial intelligence, skills programmes and cloud technology to assist SSE’s green ambitions across a number of areas.

It builds on a sustainability and wildlife project that both companies are working on which has seen SSE using the Microsoft Azure cloud to understand how a colony of puffins may be impacted by nearby wind farms.

A live trial has been completed on the Isle of May, off the coast of Scotland, which saw puffins being counted using AI technology, replacing the need for manual counting and looking at speed and accuracy. Following the early stage successful trials, it will also be rolled out at the Caithness cliffs located near Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm, Scotland’s largest operational offshore windfarm – which powers up to 450,000 homes.

As part of the partnership, AI and digital twins will be used to improve the lifecycle of SSE’s assets, while predictive models will ensure people, tools and supplies are available in the right place at the right time, and technology used to assist with the safety of engineering and field workers.

Microsoft and SSE’s work will be linked to three timeframes: the first aims to quickly achieve sustainability improvements of SSE’s assets by improving prototyping, development environments, and understanding technology trends that could reduce the overall carbon footprint of the business.

The second timeframe will see collaborative environments set up to help both companies identify opportunities to innovate, leveraging different skillsets to continuously improve.

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The final timeframe will see Microsoft and SSE promote the benefits of collaborating to transform the energy market in areas such as renewable energy supply and storage, decarbonisation and data centre energy.

The collaboration comes just a month before the UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021, where both companies will be Principal Partners. The move builds on commitments Microsoft made in 2020 to become a carbon negative company by 2030, and by 2050 remove from the environment all the carbon that it has emitted directly or through electricity use since the company was founded in 1975.

Clare Barclay, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft UK, said: “The partnership between Microsoft and SSE will create the foundations for a more sustainable energy sector. By combining our expertise, skills and technology, and aligning our shared vision of a greener planet, Microsoft and SSE will develop innovative solutions and best practices that will transform business operations and help build a culture of sustainability investment and innovation across the UK.”

Alistair Phillips-Davies, SSE Chief Executive, said: “Digitalisation and data will help drive net zero and this partnership will combine the latest technology and skills, with our cutting-edge projects, to trial new solutions which support our vision of being a leading energy company in a net zero world.

“Sustainability is at the heart of what we do and this collaboration will continue our work to reduce our impact and tackle climate change.”

For more information on Microsoft’s sustainability journey, visit our dedicated website.

Tags: Azure, COP26, microsoft, sustainability

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[coopdigitalnewsletter]

18 Feb 2019: Walmart: “We're just going to call the program Go”, UK Parl’t: “We must make sure that people stay in charge of the machines”

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading and please do send ideas, questions, corrections etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading please consider telling a friend about it!

[Image: Caspar David Friedrich via the London Tube]

Walmart’s checkoutless plan undone by shoplifting and low adoption

Walmart on why it abandoned its scan and go programme:

"In our efforts to minimize friction points, we found that the program created some of its own such as receipt checks, weighted produce, and un-bagged merchandise resulting from using the program [...] Additionally, low adoption played a role in the removal of the program."

And this quote was good (and it echoes Amazon’s “just walk out” story): "We're just going to call the program 'Go' because the customers can't seem to 'Scan' anything”. Walmart’s now trying a the-cashier-comes-to-you model.

Amazon in the home

A few weeks ago we discussed whether the “Amazon wins the kitchen, Google wins the living room” thesis of smart home assistance was being replaced by an “Either Amazon or Google wins the home” one.

This week, Amazon bought smart wifi router company eero. (The smart bit is that it’s easy to plug more eero boxes in to extend your wifi range without needing to fiddle with passwords etc.) You can see a few rationales: make Alexa hardware better value and “just work” to a deeper degree, compete against Google’s Nest, get Prime onto every device and into every room. Own the last few metres to the home.

Previously: “2024: Amazon Prime Home team lead Karyn steps around a Freshco grocery delivery drone twitching on the path. It has been jammed by your home’s router for a breach of delivery licence, and will be released shortly.”

Climate change: slow then quick

The effects of technology change often look like this: practically nothing for a long time, then suddenly everything. The internet was around for a long time before the mid 90s, when it eventually/suddenly started changing everything. New companies chip away at an incumbent’s market for a long time, the incumbent dismissing them because they’re small, or serving the lowest-revenue customers or whatever… then the new company replaces the former incumbent.

Climate change seems to have that nothing-then-everything quality to it, though the effects and the stakes are much higher. Collectively, we haven’t done enough for a long time. And in future our world is either going to change a lot because we’re busy trying to fix it, or it is going to change a lot because we’re not.

Many children walked out of school lask week to protest the lack of climate change action from government (or the generations above them). This was a Bad Thing from the perspective of things like wasted planning effort for teachers, school attendance records etc, and some politicians took that line. From the perspective of 2050, it might look like a Good Thing.

Lyft and Uber: regulation, competition, maps

Lyft lobbies to prevent US cities from regulating to manage the local impacts of it and Uber. The argument seems to be that too much regulation makes it difficult to provide transport services that deliver value to passengers. The counter-argument would be that population density in cities results in different effects than, say, rural areas, so the city is the perfect level at which to place the regulatory function.

Uber and Lyft may compete with public transport as much as (more than?) car ownership: “When Uber and Lyft enter a city, the app-based taxis decrease rail ridership by 1.29 percent per year and decrease bus ridership by 1.7 percent”

Uber has released travel time maps for several cities. Here is Manchester’s.

“We must make sure that people stay in charge of the machines”

The Culture, Media and Sport select committee’s final report on Disinformation and 'fake news', says technology is currently “hijacking our minds and society”:

“enforcement of greater transparency in the digital sphere, to ensure that we know the source of what we are reading, who has paid for it and why the information has been sent to us. We need to understand how the big tech companies work and what happens to our data. [...]

The big tech companies must not be allowed to expand exponentially, without constraint or proper regulatory oversight. But only governments and the law are powerful enough to contain them. The legislative tools already exist. They must now be applied to digital activity, using tools such as privacy laws, data protection legislation, antitrust and competition law. If companies become monopolies they can be broken up, in whatever sector. Facebook’s handling of personal data, and its use for political campaigns, are prime and legitimate areas for inspection by regulators, and it should not be able to evade all editorial responsibility for the content shared by its users across its platforms.”

Trusting chatbots and computers in healthcare

Sometimes people find it easier to speak about some issues when they know they're not speaking to a human. Relate found that people open up more readily when they understand they are talking to an AI counsellor. (More background on theraupeutic uses of chatbots.) And an NHS Trust in South Yorkshire has been testing the use of AI to identify mental health patients at risk of suicide.

On the other hand, flinging technology at healthcare isn’t an easy answer, as the NHS has found in the past. (It also leads to some unusual analogies, for instance the NHS Secretary wanting the NHS to take Tesco grocery delivery as an exemplar.)

Co-op Digital news

Data hackathon: how can we make better use of our data?

Lack of trust in relatives leaves adults unprepared for later life.

Events

Shifts show & tell - Tue 19 Feb 10am at Federation House 6th floor.

Web team playback - Tue 19 Feb 1pm at Federation House 5th floor.

Health team show & tell - Tue 19 Feb 2pm at Federation House 5th floor.

Data ecosystem show & tell - Wed 20 Feb 3pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Manchester WordPress user group - Wed 20 Feb 6.30pm at Federation House.

Python NW - Thu 21 Feb 6pm at Federation House 6th floor.

Membership show & tell - Fri 22 Feb 3pm at Federation house 6th floor.

Delivery community of practice meetup - Mon 25 Feb 1.30pm at Federation House.

Funeralcare show & tell - Tue 26 Feb 1pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

CMO CRM show & tell - Tue 26 Feb 2pm at Angel Square 13th floor.

Greater Manchester Democracy Hub - Tue 26 Feb 5.30pm at Federation House.

Tech for good live - How to make people care - Wed 27 Feb 6.30pm at Federation House.

Membership show & tell - Fri 1 Mar 3pm at Federation House 6th floor.

More events at Federation House. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved and thoughtful readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s flunky @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading please consider telling a friend about it!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.

[glopratchet]

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General fantasy worldbuilding outline for Inspiridium Isles and the Developed States of American : : General fantasy worldbuilding outline : , a new brand of government arises Technology level currently floating around within the year 4000: Flying cars (modern ones replaced less maintainable propeller driven ones of 1900) Largely replaced due to the use of maglev trains 1960 electric bikes (1970's) largely replaced by modern rechargeable battery operated ones USB TYPE 2 0 now standard on all computing machinery providing 4GB of storage and more : Cold fusion reactors (Year 20) Large computing matrix towers installed into all major city centers These manned by national computer programmers who control the AIWC or automated information world conversation software which internet searches as well as have constant online debates all at the same time AIWC having trouble replicating the feeling of sensory overload caused by scents and pheromones but are expected to have replicated it by 2050 Most internet communication screens are now transparent and some walls are also becoming that way with an included night-mode in text or black and green writing for shadowy lighting that is popular in leading clubs the reasons for the financial collapse of the League of Nazi's was that they had no efficient public relations department, everything was kept behind closed doors With all scandals outsourced to a professional team making up convincing lies and directing all attention towards politicians friendly to them, the Nationalists and Conservatives in government, lead by prime minister James Hall and his deputy Sion Edwards, were cautious about keeping things secret Scandals were known but easily brushed aside claiming the walls between citizen and government were becoming blurred the Nation of Galilee's plans, the Government had implemented a shutdown of all Nationalist Conservative channels after an apocalyptic warning the entire electronic infrastructure of the nation went down, coming back up three days later under new Communist leadership However after ten years they too fell from grace the Nations of the world came together and realized that everyone had lost their minds, AI supercomputers refined basic human languages, changing long standing traditions in order to make life easier for people