What my world needs now

I just heard about another digital situation that I have no idea how to handle. A college instructor read a student’s final paper, found it “a word salad” and ran it through the school’s AI-content detector. Content detectors take note if writing shifts abruptly from one idea to another without much connection. They notice changes in tone—say from formal to casual. (If a person using AI to “write” a paper revises some of the AI’s words, deletes repeated words and includes personal stories, a content detector will likely determine that a human “wrote” the text.)

            False positives from content detectors are not unusual.

This instructor’s content detector determined that an AI generated his student’s paper.

The student ran her paper through another AI-content detector, and it determined that a human wrote the paper.

            The instructor refuses to meet with the student.

            How/can anyone prepare for this kind of situation?

            Can humans help? Or, is help now limited to what robots and Higher Powers provide?  

While technology thrives, so many of us struggle to survive. We don’t know what tech education we need—or where to get it. We look for jobs that pay enough for nutrient-dense food, clean water, shelter and health care. While we think we have more than enough screens and robots, public dollars build more new technologies.

Can we elect not to use a technology? Where do people preferring human relationships go?

My world needs study groups! We need to educate ourselves about our realistic options in this digital era. We need to discuss how to move toward living within the water, food and minerals provided by our watershed.

MORE WATER

The western United States faces its worst megadrought in a millennium. By 2050, flows from the Colorado River, which supplies water to more than 40 million Americans and supports much of the country’s food production, could shrink by 31%. Levels in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest freshwater reservoir, have dropped to around 25% of capacity. In 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation, which governs Lake Mead and Lake Powell and water distribution for the Colorado River’s southern end, told the seven states that draw from the Colorado to cut their consumption by as much as 40%—or the federal government will do it for them. Meanwhile, California, which draws from the Colorado, reservoirs and aquifers, faces a historic decline in water levels.

            Mining and processing lithium (critical to EV batteries and renewable energy storage) deplete and contaminate surface water.

Increased water use—i.e. by data centers, chip-making factories and lithium processing—plus warming temperatures decrease available water.

            Should water go to data centers and chip-making factories—or farmers?

            Who decides?

            Do we limit water use to what we acquire from snowpack and rainfall—or drain the aquifers?

            What can we do if/when water runs out?

Where can we talk about this?

Didi Pershouse’s wonderful, free book, Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function, explains how soil restoration generates water cycle health.

ADVICE FROM ED SNOWDEN 

At the 2024 Bitcoin Conference, Ed Snowden named that living and conducting business increasingly means using screens and agreeing to a corporation’s terms. Bitcoin has set flourishing societies on the path to poverty, while AI could compromise cryptocurrency users. How do we secure online transactions when the U.S. has no privacy law to protect us against corporations? The Internet leaves us with an unfair, unstable system. We’re competing constantly and cooperating rarely. Snowden says we need to shatter that design, work together—and maintain ability to disagree. We’re running out of time to fix these problems, and the consequences of ignoring them are about to get lots worse.

AI’s ENERGY USE

Sajjad Moazeni, a University of Washington professor who studies artificial intelligence and data centers, found that in just one day, ChatGPT used roughly as much power as 33,000 U.S. households use in a year.

Telecom consultant Doug Dawson reports that Culpepper County, Virginia has approved construction of 12 million square feet of new data centers. These data centers will use 2.5 gigawatts of power, more than 10 times what the County uses today. The boom will require new power generation facilities. PJM Interconnection, the local grid operator is working on two transmission line projects, costing nearly $5 billion, to handle 7.5 gigawatts of power. Proposed projects cross through conservation lands, including Sweet Run State Park, Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, the Appalachian Trail, numerous local parks, wetlands and privately held conservation easements.

SOLAR PVs

Before submitting its application to install 800 acres of solar panels with 39 batteries in South Santa Fe County, AES will hold a (required) neighborhood notification meeting on Thursday, August 22, in the Jemez Room at Santa Fe Community College from 5-7pm. See what New Mexicans for Responsible Renewables say about this proposal.

Also, read why Johnstown, NY has banned solar power and why upstate NY towns aren’t happy that the state has created an agency to okay wind and solar projects quickly.

EVs

Lithium ion batteries a growing source of PFAs pollution.

The Washington Post’s Julian Mark reports that a Tesla was in a junkyard for three weeks. Then it burst into flames.

YOUTH

Meta (Facebook) has added new capabilities for preteens—as long as they have parental approval. Where do parents get education for dealing with the metaverse???

            ScreenAgers has updated their website to Keep Phones “Away for the Day” at School—to help support cellphone bans at schools.

WEE BITS of GOOD NEWS

Judge Amit Mehta has agreed with the U.S. Department of Justice and dozens of state attorneys general that Google has an illegal monopoly on searches and has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. What will the remedy look like?

At Om Sleiman, young Palestinians grow their own food in the occupied West Bank.