Human Behavior

Behavioral Biometrics: The Solution for Frictionless Authentication – PaymentsJournal

Preventing fraud and friction seem to be diametrically opposed goals, since robust authentication has historically meant additional steps and security measures that add time to the customer online experience. Customer expectations for seamless login have only grown, but so has attempted fraud. How does one reconcile those two facts?

As we can see in NuDatas most recent case study about a large U.S. bank seeking a seamless customer authentication, the answer lies in behavioral biometrics capabilities.

Digitalization is permeating every aspect of modern life. As a result, user expectations for digital experiences are at a record high and strong security protections are critically important. However, frictional login processes such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), one-time password (OTP), security questions, and login confirmation via email may cause customers to move away to competitors who offer a better experience.

Behavioral biometrics helps organizations to not depend as much on those irritating authentication processes, and instead validate users by how they behave. By recognizing each individual users behavior without looking at their personal information, companies can automatically remove friction to create a more seamless process for the user. NuDatas behavioral biometrics technology builds user profiles based on hundreds of inherent behaviors, and as demonstrated in the NuData case study, it can do so with high accuracy to help companies improve their user experience.

Any behavioral biometrics model requires a training period to learn to recognize the behavior of each individual user. While physical biometrics such as thumbprints or facial recognition can be learned instantly, behavioral profiles can take up to three months to develop. The NuData algorithm, however, can build an online user profile in 30 days or less. In addition, these tools can provide value from day one leveraging models that recognize how good and bad users normally behave. This is important for companies as they need to protect their environments and offer a better experience from the get-go.

14% of attacks mimic human behavior that can bypass bot-detection tools. To combat the threat, some behavioral players look at passive biometrics parameters such as typing cadence or even how users hold their phone.

The good or risky user profiles are built based on the most significant patterns for each population, as we can see from the case study. Risky traffic, for example, often shows fast typing and location and IP mismatches; trusted traffic shows recognized typing patterns and input behavior, as well as familiar devices being used.

According to Statista, global online banking is forecast to reach 2.5 billion users by 2024. But every significant technological advancement has brought a commensurate increase in fraud activity.

Behavioral biometrics can help companies turn the fraud strategy on its head: instead of focusing on the risky traffic, companies can better recognize the trusted users and offer them a better and more customized experience. 76% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand because of a positive experience. Moreover, the NuData model can eliminate risky traffic from the start, before it can do any harm to the company.

To learn more how behavioral biometrics actually works and recognizes users without additional friction, take a look at NuDatas case study.

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Behavioral Biometrics: The Solution for Frictionless Authentication - PaymentsJournal

Human Behavior

New applied behavior analysis master’s accepting applicants | Around the O – AroundtheO

Students now can earn a masters degree in applied behavior analysis, a scientific approach to studying and improving behavior, through a new College of Education online program.

The Applied Behavior Analysis Program is currently led by interim director Wendy Machalicek, an associate professor in the Department of Special Education and a board-certified behavior analyst at the doctoral level.

I think one of the more exciting things about this program is that it allows the student to individualize their area of specialization, Machalicek said. This is a masters degree in the science of human learning and behavior, which applies to all of us in all settings.

Behavior analysts work with their clients to assess skills, develop goals and then apply interventions. For example, goals might involve increasing a clients social communication skills, academic engagement, exercise or positive self-talk. An intervention to increase aerobic exercise might include client weekly goal-setting, text prompts from the behavior analyst, graphical feedback on minutes spent exercising at target heart rate, and self-managed positive reinforcement.

When teaching complex skills, like teaching an adult with an intellectual disability to make a meal, behavior analysts model the steps, prompt step completion, and break down a teaching session into smaller actions to make it more manageable.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so behavior analysts also ask clients to give feedback on the goals, procedures and outcomes of intervention to ensure each element is feasible, acceptable and effective.

That means people need to agree that were working on socially important goals, and that our procedures are acceptable and the outcomes are acceptable, Machalicek said. We want to incorporate their voices into how we train future behavior analysts and how we evaluate progress.

Behavior analysts often work with clients in a variety of settings to support autistic individuals or those who have intellectual or developmental disability. That includes students with and without disabilities in early childhood and pre-K through 12th grade education, in health care settings to address substance misuse and mental health, and in business settings to improve employee performance and safety.

To address such a wide range of applications, the Applied Behavior Analysis Program will offer courses on the principles of behavior, experimental analysis, research methods and ethics. Graduates will learn how to design and conduct their own research that guides practice.

We want graduates to leave this program with a lifelong love of learning, Machalicek said.

The consistent use of research findings and client feedback guides analysts decision-making throughout their careers.

In addition to awarding a masters degree in applied behavior analysis during the first year, the online program also supports students in getting experience hours during an optional second year.

The experience hours, when combined with a masters degree, may make it possible for graduates to sit for the board-certified behavior analyst exam.

A board certified behavior analyst certification can be combined with other certifications like psychology, education, special education, speech language pathology, social work, occupational therapy and more. Additional training and licensure can enhance job opportunities.

Theres a national shortage of behavior analysts, special educators, school psychologists and speech language pathologists, Machalicek said. So theres a growing need for individuals to support children in their behavior and their learning in schools.

The program is unique because unlike institutions offering fast-paced certificate-only programs, UOs applied behavior analysis program will give faculty members the valuable time necessary to help students develop into compassionate providers.

For us, it was really important that we turn out behavior analysts who can engage in compassionate care, who are culturally responsive, and can work across cultures with people from different backgrounds than their own, Machalicek said.

That means it is especially important for graduates to understand diverse perspectives. The program is developing a task list for students that focuses on diversity, equity, social justice and inclusion, where students acknowledge biases and learn to work across cultures.

Kimberly Marshall, a board-certified behavior analyst at the doctoral level, will join the UO as a lecturer and the new Applied Behavior Analysis Program coordinator in the fall. She will teach several of the courses in the program.

Marshall specializes in verbal behavior and research about effective teaching. She says students must be trained in neurodiversity-affirming practices, which are practices that acknowledge that there is a range of differences in behavior and brain function.

It is imperative that behavior analysts come to interventions with an open mind about the priorities for the intervention, Marshall said, and are able to focus on what is important to the client and the clients community.

The Applied Behavior Analysis Program is currently seeking community members, including autistic individuals and family members, to participate in an advisory board that will help determine how to train and evaluate students.

The priority deadline to apply for the program is June 1, and the final deadline is Aug. 1. An informational webinar will be held May 6; information is available on the program website.

If we turn out 15 students who understand the science of human behavior and learning really well, they can impact the lives of thousands of people during their career, Machalicek said. That magnification of our efforts in the College of Education is truly something magnificent.

By Madeline Ryan, College of Education

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New applied behavior analysis master's accepting applicants | Around the O - AroundtheO

Human Behavior

Endowed by their Creator: exploring human rights in the age of transhumanism – The Sociable

In giving themselves godlike abilities, the technocratic elites are moving towards a transhumanist future powered by their own intelligent design that could give them the divine authority to rewrite human rights as we know them.

Through gene editing, synthetic biology, and the merger of humans and technology, governments and corporations are fundamentally altering what it means to be human.

In a future where humans are no longer considered to be natural humans, what would that mean for human rights?

History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods Yuval Noah Harari

The American Declaration of Independence holds that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Rights are rights because they are considered to come from the creator they are God-given and therefore, every citizen is born with these natural rights.

Article 1 of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights also says that humans are born free: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Ourintelligent design is going to be the new driving force of the evolution of life Yuval Noah Harari

In the era of transhumanism; however, our technocratic elites are looking to replace God, the creator with their own intelligent design.

In doing so, technocrats become the creator the higher power that endows humanity with certain rights.

In making themselves godlike through their own devices, the cyborg priesthood wouldnt have to answer to anybody.

Rules do not apply to gods. Gods are meant to be worshipped. Gods can be vengeful.

Now, the peoples elected representatives face a fateful choice: restore citizen controls of technology or surrender to the cyborg theocracy James Poulos, 2021

Unless ordinary Americans regain a hands-on mastery of our most powerful digital tools, we will become compliant posthumans or ungovernable psychotics, sacrificing what is left of our civilization and nation to vengeful new gods James Poulos, 2021

In his written testimony to Congress in December, 2021, author James Poulos observed that our technoethical elite believe that we will fully merge with our technology and become as gods.'

He added that unless ordinary Americans regain a hands-on mastery of our most powerful digital tools, we will become compliant posthumans or ungovernable psychotics, sacrificing what is left of our civilization and nation to vengeful new gods.

Pouloss message to lawmakers was clear: restore citizen controls of technology or surrender to the cyborg theocracy.

Putting technocrats in the place of God could give them the unaccountable, divine authority to redefine human rights as they see fit from their position as the creator.

You dont have to be a religious person in order to appreciate the role that the concept of God plays in the construction of human rights.

Can humans be endowed with natural rights without a higher power to endow them?

Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled Hermetic Principle of Polarity, The Kybalion, 1908

The technocrats transhumanism agenda is lined with half-truths, where the promise of superhuman abilities will likely be reserved only for a select chosen class while the programmable plebs exist in a constant state of surveillance and control until they become irrelevant.

For the chosen ones, they could receive human performance enhancement that would give them the ability to never tire, think smarter, move faster, jump higher, see farther, hear better, hit harder, live longer, adapt stronger, and calculate quicker than any other human being on the planet.

For the rest of us programmable plebs, the fourth industrial revolution is already merging our physical, biological, and digital identities in order to monitor, manipulate, and reprogram our behavior.

If and when humans become fully integrated with machines on a large scale, where will the technology end and the human begin?

Eventually, they [our technoethical elite] believe, we will fully merge with our technology and become as gods' James Poulos, 2021

Its like what Obi-Wan Kenobi said about Darth Vader in Star Wars, Hes more machine now than man, twisted and evil.

Technology and bioengineering can blur the lines of who or what is responsible for a persons behavior the human, the technology, or the humans behind the technology.

This concept of who is ultimately calling the shots between humans and technology can be expanded to the notion of public-private partnerships.

For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which is a founding partner of the GAVI vaccine alliance has historically given more money to the World Health Organization (WHO) than every single nation state except the US.

When it comes to WHO policy recommendations that affect billions of people around the world, whos ultimately calling the shots governments elected by the people, or unelected and unaccountable globalists with ulterior motives?

Permittinghuman enhancement could aggravate existing social or economic inequalities World Health Organization, 2021

In July, 2021 the heavily-Gates-funded WHO published a series of reports on human genome editing recommendations and governance frameworks, which acknowledge the profound ethical implications surrounding human performance enhancement.

According to the WHOs Human genome editing: a framework for governance report:

Who will own the technology that resides within us or the genes that were altered synthetically?

Will human performance enhancement be reserved only for soldiers and the elite, or will it be made available to all?

What happens when technology embedded within the human body becomes obsolete?

Can a genetically-modified soldier ever return to a normal, civilian life?

Governments, corporations, and armies are likely to use technology to enhance human skills that they need like intelligence and discipline while neglecting other human skills like compassion, artistic sensitivity, and spirituality Yuval Noah Harari

Militaries around the world are already making some of the biggest strides towards transhumanism because of the advantages their super soldiers would have over their adversaries.

In April, 2022 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a broad agency announcement looking for Human Performance Enhancement solutions for military use that include:

When humans fully integrate with machines, or are otherwise genetically altered through synthetic biology, will we still be able to call ourselves Homo sapiens?

Would our natural rights endowed at birth still apply to us after we are no longer considered natural humans?

The DARPA announcement follows a November, 2021 Pentagon-sponsored RAND report on human performance enhancement that revealed the US Department of Defense was looking into adding reptilian genes that provide the ability to see in infrared, and making humans stronger, more intelligent, or more adapted to extreme environments.

What sort of advantages would a person with godlike abilities have over a natural human being?

According to the RAND report, Technological Approaches to Human Performance Enhancement, modalities for human performance enhancement (HPE) can be grouped into three principal categories:

For the US Defense and Intelligence communities, human performance enhancement offers the potential to increase strength, speed, endurance, intelligence, and tolerance of extreme environments and to reduce sleep needs and reaction timescould aid in the development of better operators.

But what is to become of these super soldiers once their tour of duty has ended?

What happens when I leave the military? Does my implant get removed? Do I get to keep my implant? Does my implant get upgraded? Military Officers concerns about neural implants

According to the session, When Humans Become Cyborgs, at the 2020 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the majority of military officers were primarily concerned about ownership and bodily integrity when it came to neural implants.

These military officers wanted to know:

Hardware may be implanted and removed from the human body without affecting the course of human evolution as long as it isnt passed down to the next generation.

Genetically modifying human biology; however, can indeed forever alter the course of what it means to be human as the alterations can be passed from parents to their children.

The ability to edit biology can be applied to practically any cell type, enabling the creation of genetically modified plants or animals, as well as modifying the cells of adult organisms including humans Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 2017

Humanity can also split into several different species depending on the types of genetic engineering taking place.

Just as human performance enhancement can create indefatigable superhumans with superior immune systems, improved cognitive abilities, and enhanced digestive systems, it can just as well create a weaker class of humans by removing their God-given abilities to defend themselves against viruses, to cognitively think for themselves, or to even break-down certain foods in their bodies.

When WEF founder Klaus Schwab talks about the fourth industrial revolution as not only changing what we are doing, but changes who we are fundamentally, hes not speaking in metaphors.

Schwab is telling us that technology is becoming part of our anatomy, both above and below our skin.

Klaus Schwab, 2015:

"And you see the difference of the #4IR is it doesn't change what you are doing, it changes you. If you take #genetic editing just as an example, it's you who are changed. And, of course, this has a big impact on your identity." #mRNA pic.twitter.com/SV7AmBBjGF

In his 2017 book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Schwab remarked that synthetic biology will provide us with the ability to customize organisms by writing DNA.

Whats more, The ability to edit biology can be applied to practically any cell type, enabling the creation of genetically modified plants or animals, as well as modifying the cells of adult organisms including humans.

Schwab also observed that The list of potential applications is virtually endlessranging from the ability to modify animals so that they can be raised on a diet that is more economical or better suited to local conditions, to creating food crops that are capable of withstanding extreme temperatures or drought.

The science is progressing so fast that the limitations are now less technical than they are legal, regulatory and ethical Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 2017

Following the logic, this means that humans can also be modified to be raised on a diet that is more economical or better suited to local conditions.

When it comes to editing human biology, Schwab argues, the science is progressing so fast that the limitations are now less technical than they are legal, regulatory and ethical.

Seeing how the unelected globalists wish to drastically reduce meat consumption worldwide, the idea of modifying humans to be raised on a steady diet of bugs and lab-grown protein while potentially making people physically ill after consuming meat would definitely help achieve that goal.

In fact, NYU professor Matthew Liao has suggested on numerous occasions that engineering humans to be intolerant or allergic to meat would serve the climate change agenda because it would cut down on greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions.

Just as some people are naturally intolerant to milk or crayfish, like myself, we could artificially induce mild intolerance to meat by stimulating our immune system against common bovine proteins Matthew Liao, TED Talk, 2013

In his 2013 TED Talk, Liao remarked, Just as some people are naturally intolerant to milk or crayfish, like myself, we could artificially induce mild intolerance to meat by stimulating our immune system against common bovine proteins.

The professor has also suggested giving hormone treatments to children, so they dont grow to be so big and tall, because being smaller is environmentally friendly and more energy efficient.

If too much of the data becomes concentrated in too few hands, humanity will split, not into classes, it will split into different species Yuval Noah Harari

Software requires updates from time-to-time.

If there were ever an agenda to normalize software upgrades for a transhumanist future, then incentivizing or coercing the general population into routinely accepting updates to their bodies in the form of booster shots would definitely fit that bill.

In order for technology to give humans godlike abilities, it requires a complete surrender of all bodily autonomy to whomever controls the data.

That same data can also be used to enslave all of humanity.

Whether intentions are noble or nefarious, the ability to hack humans requires massive biological data collection in real-time.

Biological knowledge multiplied by Computing power multiplied by Data equals the Ability to Hack Humans Yuval Noah Harari

Once enough biometric data is collected, all that is needed is a lot of computing power to figure out how to hack human beings, which means governments and corporations know more about you than you know yourself.

On one end of the spectrum, the military and anyone else who is rich and powerful enough to get their hands on the technologies can give themselves superhuman abilities.

On the opposite end, people like you and I end up with human behavior modification instead of human performance enhancement.

How did we get to this point?

Organisms are algorithms Yuval Noah Harari

The road to transhumanism starts with digital identity, which lays the technological framework to monitor and record the personal details of every individual on the planet.

From there, the data stored in interoperable digital wallets can merge with the biometric data collected in real-time from devices connected to the human body via the Internet of Bodies.

Once technology gets in-and-under the skin to collect as much intimate data about you as possible, you are well on the way to transhumanism and the beginning of what could be the worst totalitarian surveillance regime in human history.

After all the genetic editing and the technological manipulation stemming from the fourth industrial revolution, will we still be able to call ourselves human?

How much of our humanity will be left after the synthetic overwrites the organic?

If we are to split into different species, can our rights be split as well?

When the time comes, will you bow down to your technocratic, cyborg priest class in service of their AI god?

Or will you risk being made irrelevant if it means theres even the slightest chance of winning the great battle for the preservation of humankind as we know it?

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Endowed by their Creator: exploring human rights in the age of transhumanism - The Sociable

Human Behavior

Fellow-Actor’s ‘Perspective’ on Amber Heard Testimony Goes Viral – Newsweek

Amber Heard's emotional testimony about the alleged abuse she had endured at the hands of Johnny Depp has been assessed by an actor in a TikTok video that has gone viral.

On Wednesday, Heard took the stand to detail her allegations against Depp, who sued the actor for $50 million amid claims she had defamed him in her 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post, in which she said that she had been the victim of domestic abuse.

While Depp was not named, his lawyers have argued that it was obvious she was referring to him. In turn, Heard has counter-sued for $100 million for nuisance, with her lawyers arguing that the op-ed was a matter of public interest.

With the trial now in its fourth week, the Aquaman actor told the courtroom in Fairfax, Virginia, on Wednesday that it had been "the most painful and difficult thing I've ever gone through."

"This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything," Heard said. "Hear people that I knewsome well, some notmy ex-husband with whom I shared a life, speak about our lives in the way that they have."

Hours after Heard spoke of alleged drug use and domestic violence during her testimony, actor Meredith Anne Bull shared a TikTok video in which she gave her take on the testimony.

Bull, who voiced the character Dawn in the 2015 movie Strange Magic, said in the clip: "So I've been a professional actor since I was 7 years old. And today, watching Amber's testimony from an actor's perspective, I noticed some very interesting things.

"As actors, it's our jobs to study human behavior, to really nail down the tiny little moments, details, movements, physicalities that really make authentic moments real."

The actor and musician then played a clip of Heard testifying in court as she looked around the courtroom and apparently made eye contact with the jurors.

"What I saw today was like [a] massive performance to the jury: 'Do you believe me?'" Bull said. "Now, of course, every human being is different, everybody is going to have a different way to express their emotion.

"But knowing that she has a performer background, to see her being so big and seeing that she's trying to get eye contact with every juror... I don't know about you, but anytime I recall trauma, I am not trying to see if every person is making eye contact with me.

"If anything, I'm actually probably shying away from eye contact because it's such a vulnerable, [personal] moment, especially what she was talking about, which is abuse and [domestic violence] and all sorts of crazy stuff. I thought that was a little weird."

Bull, who has 1.8 million followers on TikTok, concluded her clip with a disclaimer that "everybody shares their trauma in different ways."

The video has clocked up 540,000 views in the hours since it was uploaded.

During her testimony on Wednesday, Heard was asked to recall the first time Depp allegedly hit her. "I will never forget it," she said. "It changed my life."

She said she asked him about a tattoo on his arm that looked like black marks. He told her it said "wino," and she laughed, believing he was joking. Depp then slapped her "across the face," she testified.

"I felt safe talking to my mom because I knew she understood those dynamics and she wouldn't judge me for staying with him, for loving him even though this was happening to me," Heard said.

The exes' court battle comes almost two years after Depp lost a 2020 libel case against British tabloid The Sun, which had labeled the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory star a "wife-beater," in reference to Heard's allegations of domestic abuse during their divorce proceedings in 2016.

While Depp had repeatedly denied ever having been violent to Heard during the three-week libel trial in London, a judge found that The Sun's claims that the Kentucky-born actor was abusive to Heard were "substantially true."

The trial in Fairfax, Virginia continues.

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Fellow-Actor's 'Perspective' on Amber Heard Testimony Goes Viral - Newsweek

Human Behavior

‘It matters … when your water goes away’: Reexamining the end of Utah’s ‘lost oasis’ – KSL.com

An aerial view of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah's West Desert on July 22, 2015. The area was prehistorically a wetland before it and Lake Bonneville disappeared. (Rick Bowmer, Associated Press)

Estimated read time: 8-9 minutes

This article is published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a solutions journalism initiative that partners news, education and media organizations to help inform people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake and what can be done to make a difference before it is too late. Read all of our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.

SALT LAKE CITY Daron Duke is captivated by an image he's projected on a screen he's shared with curious archaeologists and prehistoric aficionados.

It's a pair of pictures in northwest Utah: Blue Lake, south of Wendover by the Utah-Nevada border, and the desert surrounding it. One is a relatively small wetland while the other looks like it could be from the surface of the moon. This, he says, essentially captures the vast difference of some 10,000 years in what is Utah's West Desert today, although it's difficult to really picture the kind of place the West Desert once was.

"Imagine more plants, more cattails, bulrush (and) willow sprawled all over the entirety of it," Duke, a Nevada-based principal for the Far Western Anthropological Research Group, said during an online event hosted by the Utah State Historic Preservation Office on Wednesday.

As the second photo demonstrates, the entire West Desert is now about the exact opposite of what the area once was. The planet warmed as it left the Pleistocene era and Lake Bonneville receded to what is now the Great Salt Lake. And as the Great Salt Lake now dries to the lowest level in its recorded history, there's plenty more moonscape to go around.

While many conservation experts, lawmakers and others focus on the Great Salt Lake's decline, Duke continues to research the "lost oasis" that is the West Desert. His studies offer clues that help historians understand what the area was once like and how it was used at the end of the Pleistocene, which is about the same period of time where human activity in modern-day Utah begins.

Most of what is considered the Great Basin today is massive stretching through most areas west of the Rocky Mountain and east of the Sierra-Nevada mountain ranges reaching as far south as the Mojave Desert and as north as present-day Oregon. These areas are mostly desert now but once were a massive series of thriving lakes, rivers and wetlands.

The portion near the old Lake Bonneville was no exception. When the prehistoric lake began to recede about 14,000 or 15,000 years ago, there was still plenty of water left behind to make it a productive area to live, because temperatures were cool enough that water didn't really evaporate as much as does today.

"For the nothingness it is now, the contrast is that it wouldn't only have been an attractive wetland for people and animals and everything else just life in general, it would have been the biggest one in the entire Great Basin and entire desert (space in the) West," Duke said. "It's creating a freshwater wetland and it looks like that's what really began attracting people."

It's why he isn't surprised even if it's possibly from coincidence that some of the earlier evidence of human life in Utah, which dates as far back as at least 13,000 years ago, is found in the northwest corner of the state.

The artifacts include Clovis points and other items that appear to be related to hunting tools, even if that's still more of a theory. One artifact found in the West Desert was even found to have elephant antiserum, which Duke says, would indicate mammoths once roamed the land and were probably hunted by the earliest human inhabitants.

His work, however, centers on what's known as the Wishbone Site located on U.S. Air Force land about 30 miles south of Interstate 80 in Tooele County. The barren landscape is close to what would have been the edge of the wetlands in the past.

Archaeologists were drawn to the site after finding charcoal and fragments of waterfowl bone eroded out of the ground about a decade ago. It was a unique find because the mixture of wind, salty land and moisture underneath the desert can quickly destroy prehistoric evidence; however, it can also preserve the past when the conditions are right.

The artifacts collected turned out to be burnt willow wood, as well as bones, waterfowl gastroliths, fragments of prehistoric tools and tobacco seeds dating back 12,300 years ago. The latter of those finds appears to have been grown on the land when it was possible to do so; it is also the earliest known human use of tobacco in all of North and South America.

All of these help archaeologists piece together how the land was used thousands of years ago when it was habitable.

"It just gives you some insight to the people I mean this is a campfire scene we're getting here (with) all the little pieces of what's going on out here," Duke explains. "(It's) a fireside activity, eating ducks ... and then enjoying tobacco."

Subsequent studies of the area have helped determine the various plants that once grew on the land, like red maids and pitseed goosefoot. Archaeologists plan to dig at another site in the area in the near future, too.

But the prehistoric window experts have found in the West Desert is only about 3,000 years and closes 10,000 years ago. The humans' hunting tools seem to shrink over that span, too, indicating the animals humans were hunting had died off. The end of the window is also about the same time scientists believe megafauna became extinct.

The end of the Pleistocene era came as Earth began to shift into a warming period known as the Holocene epoch. Duke refers to this as "Global Warming 1.0," essentially, as the era drastically shifted the climate of the region. The Great Basin slowly and surely became a desert with little to no evidence that it was once a thriving wetland.

This led to a change in human behavior, too. What started as "high mobility" led to a more "localized" civilization, Duke says.

This is evident in the range of obsidian-based prehistoric tools. The range of the oldest obsidian tools is all over the West, from near present-day Beaver in southern Utah, to northeast Idaho and as west as northern Nevada. The range shrinks for similar tools dating back 9,000 years ago, which are primarily found in areas closest to where the original obsidian source is in Utah.

"We have this to tell us a big dynamic is going on. As you leave the ice age ... things kind of start drying up on them in other areas of the Great Basin," Duke said. "They went from long, mobile ranges and probably a much sparser population on the landscape. ... It's like the faucet went off out here and people changed."

Artifacts in Utah indicate people started shifting away from the wetlands and moved to the highlands, like Danger Cave near Wendover. New innovations, like grinding pickleweed seeds, appear as the drying of the old wetlands continues.

This change is also when artifacts of life closer to Utah Lake begin to pick up. It's one of the places where people and animals migrated.

Elizabeth Hora, an archeologist for the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, in March presented her findings of the region where freshwater remained, referring to its wetlands as a "prehistoric grocery store." Her research of artifacts also indicates people became even more localized as the Great Basin dried up further.

The Great Basin region only continues to dry up with the 20-year Western megadrought, which is considered the worst in 1,200 years. It has caused the Great Salt Lake and other Western bodies of water to dry up at alarming rates, as global temperatures reach new record highs.

It matters in a desert when your water goes away. It mattered to these folks in the past and it matters now.Daron Duke, principal for the Far Western Anthropological Research Group

Does this make the end of the West Desert wetlands more relevant today?

It's difficult to understand the human connection of prehistoric human life to modern times because there were fewer people with vastly different lifestyles living thousands of years ago, Hora said. On top of that, most of what's known of prehistoric life is the result of piecing together fragments of the past, so it's impossible to know how it really changed human thinking.

Yet the story of the lost oasis does seem to show a connection to patterns today, in the sense that humans and animals follow the water. Its availability and scarcity change behaviors and lifestyles, leading to adaptation and innovation.

It still remains to be seen what the final impact of the ongoing megadrought is, other than it's already changing the ways people consume water in the West and by the Great Salt Lake.

"It matters in a desert when your water goes away," Duke says. "It mattered to these folks in the past and it matters now. They couldn't stop it. Can we? I don't know."

Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general news, outdoors, history and sports for KSL.com. He previously worked for the Deseret News. He is a Utah transplant by the way of Rochester, New York.

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'It matters ... when your water goes away': Reexamining the end of Utah's 'lost oasis' - KSL.com

Human Behavior

People With This Face Shape Are Seen As More Aggressive: Study – Newsweek

People's face shapes influence how aggressive they are perceived to be, and this effect is most pronounced in young men and elderly women, a new study has suggested.

Researchers in Australia set out to investigate something called the facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR), defined as the "width of a face divided by the vertical distance between the highest point of the upper lip and the highest point of the eyelids." In other words, a wider face results in a higher FWHR.

According to the study, a higher FWHR in men has been associated with a number of perceptions about their character, including "dominance, aggression, threat and masculinity"though the accuracy of this is debated. It's also important to note that this study only investigated perceived aggression regarding face shape, and not actual aggression.

The study said that FWHR has been speculated as a "secondary sexual characteristic" that might change between sexes during periods of life associated with mate selection. Evidence for sexual dimorphismdifferences between male and femaleregarding FWHR has been mixed.

Now, researchers at the University of New South Wales School of Psychology have used a facial image database of the passport photos of more than 17,607 consenting Australians and 121 study participants to rate how aggressive they perceived them to be.

Ignoring perceptions of aggression for the moment, the researchers found that the overall average FWHR of the faces was 2.18. Age was a factor in the average score, with the FWHR tending to decrease the older people got. Sex was also a factor, with females generally having a larger FWHR than males.

However, this varied over time. Males had a significantly greater FWHR compared to females at ages 27 to 33, but females had a significantly greater FWHR compared to males at ages 48 older.

Regarding perceptions of aggression, the 121 participants were asked to rate 1,893 of the passport photos that were selected based on a high or low FWHR compared to other faces in their age ranges.

The researchers found that high-FWHR faces had higher perceived aggressiveness than low-FWHR faces and that this varied with age and sex.

The researchers found that "the relationships between the FWHR and perceived aggressiveness for males was strongest for the youngest age group of faces (2733 years old), but from 3461 years old, this relationship was strongest for female faces. These results suggest that the effect of FWHR on perceived aggressiveness ratings varies as a function of age and sex," according to the study.

Again, it is important to note that the study did not investigate whether people with higher FWHR scores were more aggressive than those with lower scores; merely that they were perceived to be. The researchers added that "stereotypes of older women can be particularly harmful, as they lead to appearance-based discrimination".

David White is the lead investigator in the Face Research Lab at the University of New South Wales in Australia and co-author of the research. He told Newsweek: "Prior work has shown that people with wider faces are perceived to be more aggressive, and there also appear to be some benefits of having a wider facefor example one study showed that CEOs with wider faces tended to lead more profitable companies.

"Most of this work has been focussed on young male faces, but our study shows that this effect on perceived aggressiveness also holds for female faces, and also throughout adulthood," White said. "In fact, we find the strongest effect of FWHR in females later in life. The implications of this finding have not been fully explored, but it does have some interesting implications for matriarchal societies and potentially for improving rates of female leadership in the workplace."

"Researchers in this field find that people readily make inferences about a person from their facial appearance," White continued. "They agree in the inferences they drawso some people are prone to being perceived as having certain behavioural tendencies simply from how they look.

"But it is extremely important to note that the evidence suggests that these inferences are almost always wrongthey are a very poor predictor of these behavioural tendencies and personality types. First impressions count, but they can not be counted on."

The researchers also acknowledge that there are limitations with their study; for example, they speculated that increasingly fewer males apply for passports later in life which would have skewed the results in terms of age, for example.

Danielle Sulikowski, a senior lecturer at the School of Psychology at Charles Sturt University in Australia and president of the Australasian Society for Human Behaviour and Evolution, who was not involved in the research, told Newsweek she thought it was a "nice study" and that the use of passports was "an excellent way" to sample a large section of the population, albeit not a completely representative one.

Asked whether the study might raise ethical concerns about judging people on their appearance, Sulikowski said: "The work itself doesn't raise ethical concerns. There is ample evidence that people make these inferences in real life. Seeking to understand the facial cues that people rely on for such judgements is neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of the behaviour itself. But there are numerous ethical issues that could be considered in this space."

FWHR has been used in other studies to determine human behavior. In 2017, researchers in Canada studied if face shape could reveal a person's sex drive and how likely they are to cheat in relationships.

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Human Behavior

TTI Success Insights Names Acumen Dynamics, LLC as Research Partner of the Year – PR Web

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (PRWEB) May 05, 2022

TTI Success Insights (TTI SI), an industry leader in research-based assessments and talent management solutions, announced Dr. David Pistrui of Acumen Dynamics, LCC as the Research Partner of the Year.

The Research Partner of the Year Award acknowledges the individual whose partnership has helped TTI SI uncover new insights and discoveries in human behavior and motivation.

As the Managing Director of Acumen Dynamics, Dr. Pistrui brings so much value to TTI Success Insights. The breadth and depth of his work are both incredible, and we all benefit from his expertise and experience, said Dr. Ron Bonnstetter, Senior Vice President of Research & Development at TTI SI.

Acumen Dynamics, LLC is dedicated to the development and delivery of applied entrepreneurial education and practical knowledge to help organizations align vision and strategy.

TTI Success Insights Award winners were honored with special recognition during a virtual award ceremony on April 13th, 2022, hosted at the TTI SI headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ.

About TTI Success InsightsTTI Success Insights is an industry-leading assessment provider based in Scottsdale, AZ that is dedicated to revealing human potential through assessment solutions and research. TTI SI has administered over 30 million assessments worldwide and holds a direct presence in 58 countries around the world. To learn more, visit ttisuccessinsights.com.

About Acumen Dynamics, LLCAcumen Dynamics, LLC is focused on the development of practical knowledge and skills to help organizations align vision with execution. Built on over 20 years of experience working with businesses and nonprofit organizations across the world, they are dedicated to providing practical performance management systems. Learn more about Acumen Dynamics, LLC at acumendynamics.com

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TTI Success Insights Names Acumen Dynamics, LLC as Research Partner of the Year - PR Web

Human Behavior

Tracking COVID in wastewater is the future but not in Florida – Tampa Bay Times

As COVID-19 testing continues to recede in Florida, it is far behind other states in tracking the virus with promising technology that relies on wastewater.

The Florida Department of Health received more than $1.2 million from the federal government last summer to build a statewide system to detect the virus in wastewater. Eight months later, the state wont say whether such a program exists.

A department spokesperson said federal money mostly went towards increasing lab capacity but did not elaborate.

Without a state wastewater testing network, 12 of Floridas 67 counties turned to outside help to track the virus. Pinellas Countys program is funded by the federal government. Others, such as in Hillsborough, are paid for by a private company.

But that patchwork approach has limitations.

On April 15, testing in Pinellas and five other counties ended when federal funding expired. Data collected by the six counties went dark just as the states average daily infections jumped 80 percent in two weeks.

This is our best early warning sign, said University of Miami microbiologist Helena Solo-Garbiele. But without it: We lose our ability to detect surges.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says testing will resume, it took three months to restart after the last interruption of funding.

Colorado, however, wasnt affected. It took advantage of the same federal grant that Florida received to build its network and now tests 60 percent of the states population. That system still functions as infections rise across the U.S.

The strength of wastewater surveillance is that it doesnt rely on human behavior: No one has to decide to get tested for COVID-19. Nor is anyone prevented from being tested by factors beyond their control.

Infected individuals shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their waste, sending virus particles into sewage water. Researchers can determine in real-time whether infections are spreading through a community by sampling its wastewater.

It doesnt matter if you get tested or not, if youre symptomatic or asymptomatic, Solo-Gabriele said. If you poop, youre in the sample.

That helps health officials quickly detect viral surges because at this point in the pandemic, she said, the official case count is likely missing a lot of infections. Every day, the CDC reports the number of positive COVID-19 cases detected across the country, but that count includes only test results that are reported to state and federal health agencies.

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As public testing sites disappear, Floridians have turned to at-home tests the results of which are not reported to health officials or have foregone testing altogether.

That makes CDC data less reliable. In the past month, Florida recorded the fewest test results since June 2020.

The limitation of wastewater tracking is that it cannot reveal exactly how many infections are in a community at a given time. Public health officials still need data from testing sites, hospitals and other facilities to find that out and to calculate positivity rates.

But public health officials can use wastewater tracking to gain a holistic understanding of the pandemic and react to rapidly changing conditions, said Edwin Oh, a microbiologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The more important question here is: What is the trend over the last two or three weeks? he said. If we start seeing those trends (rise), we will definitely start seeing cases showing up in the hospital soon after.

Nevada started analyzing sewage in February 2020, when clinical tests were still scarce. Health officials detected COVID-19 in wastewater basically at the same time that we had our first confirmed case, Oh said.

When omicron hit the state in December, he said, the variant was identified using wastewater data. Researchers tracked its spread from high-tourist areas around Las Vegas to the rest of the state by looking at where the variant appeared in sewage water.

But for tracking to work, health officials have to use the data to deploy testing and vaccination resources quickly enough. That didnt happen in Nevada, Oh said.

Weve been fighting each surge as a sort of catch-up game, he said. The next time this happens, hopefully public health organizations are a little bit more prepared (and) a little bit more ready to believe in the data.

Two Pinellas treatment plants may be the countys best early-warning system to track the growing BA.2 wave and the ones that will come later.

Tucked away in a residential neighborhood between St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park, the South Cross Bayou water plant is one of two county utilities that monitor residents infection levels. The other is the William E. Dunn Water Reclamation Facility in Palm Harbor.

South Cross Bayou serves about 220,000 residents. The William E. Dunn plant serves about 82,000. Together they cover almost a third of Pinellas nearly 1 million residents. Earlier this month, Tampa Bay Times reporters toured the South Cross Bayou plant. More than 20 million gallons of raw sewage that is flushed, rinsed and poured down Pinellas drains flows daily through the plants pipes.

For every 1,000 gallons of sewage, about one teaspoon is sucked up by the plants sampling equipment and deposited into a refrigerated plastic jug atop a beige building on the plants outskirts. Twice a week, samples from that jug are decanted into small bottles and shipped to a lab.

Youre looking at 200,000 people in one shot, said Pinellas County microbiologist Bina Nayak, gesturing toward the murky gray liquid accumulating in the jug. Can you imagine testing 200,000 people versus just one wastewater sample?

Nayak was coordinating research projects for Pinellas County Utilities when she heard about the CDCs wastewater testing. She urged county officials to join.

We had to step up to the plate, Nayak said, for the sake of the community, our customers, and the public health agencies that would use the data.

In total, 11 Florida wastewater plants serving portions of six counties are part of the CDC program. That means wastewater surveillance only tests 1 out of every 5 Floridians.

On April 15, the last date that data was available, viral levels at the two Pinellas plants were the highest since early March.

During the tour of the South Cross Bayou plant, Nayak climbed the two-story metal staircase to the top of the headworks building where samples are collected. She weaved through a maze of tubes and instruments, toward a metal box that holds the sampling equipment.

Beneath her, a 20-foot metal screen removed leaves, diapers and other non-processables from the 300 gallons of raw sewage that rushed past each second. Every time the screen cycled through the muck, the machinery burped up a dizzying bouquet of odors.

It smells like gold to me, Nayak joked, adjusting her neon blue hardhat in the unseasonably muggy April heat. There is so much good data in there, as long as you actually use it.

The federal program that funds testing in Pinellas County was meant to be temporary while states built their own capability, said Amy Kirby, a CDC microbiologist who leads the surveillance system.

Researchers have been looking for pathogens like polio and influenza in wastewater for years, Kirby said, but the effort to build the infrastructure has never been worth the return on investment until COVID-19 came along.

The pandemic left state and local health agencies scrambling to roll out testing as quickly as possible. So now theres this patchwork of programs and funding, she said, and not all the wastewater surveillance activities in the U.S. are linked to the national system.

One of the largest players in the private testing market is Biobot Analytics, an MIT start-up that wants to market the technology.

Last year the company raised $20 million. It already has contracts with more than 700 municipalities in all 50 states, according to the Boston Globe, including Hillsborough County. But Biobot does not report that data to the CDC. Instead the company shares the data on its website, using its methodology.

Biobot, which collects data from six Florida counties, said its up to local governments to share COVID-19 data with the CDC.

The company started collecting Hillsboroughs data in June 2021. A county spokesperson said they havent received any reports from Biobot.

The amount of coronavirus detected in Hillsboroughs wastewater has doubled in the past month, according to Biobots website. Its an estimate based on the countys Northwest Regional Water Reclamation Facility and the city of Tampas Howard F. Curren facility.

Its unclear if Biobots data-sharing policy will affect the nations wastewater surveillance program. The company took over the federal program on April 15, when it was awarded a $10.2 million contract to oversee the next year of testing.

That contract covers 500 utility providers across the country, according to the CDC. But Biobot and the CDC say the company wont share COVID-19 data from the 700 utilities not covered by the contract.

The federal government hoped to avoid this jumble of programs by enlisting state agencies to oversee their own surveillance systems, Kirby said. In August 2021, Florida and 32 other states received federal money to establish their own testing, according to the CDC. So far 14 states have done it.

Colorado used $9.4 million of that funding to increase staffing and capacity through July 2023. Officials hope to expand statewide. Colorados Department of Health and Environment reports up-to-date data on its website and shares it with the CDC.

Florida Department of Health spokesperson Jeremy Redfern said Thursday in an email that state labs collect sewage samples to identify COVID-19 variants and that officials helped the utility companies get this project going so they could report to the CDC.

The state does not report wastewater data, however, and there is no statewide system for doing so. Last month the Times requested the states application to obtain the $1.2 million federal grant. The department has yet to provide it.

Edwin Oh, the Nevada microbiologist, said tracking will become more important as the country dedicates fewer resources to future COVID-19 waves.

The need for contact tracing is really going away for many public health organizations and testing sites are harder and harder to find, he said. And thats exactly why I truly believe that wastewater surveillance will be here to stay.

Editors note: This story was updated with a response from the Florida Department of Health.

Tampa Bay: The Times can help you find the free, public COVID-19 testing sites in the bay area.

Florida: The Department of Health has a website that lists testing sites in the state. Some information may be out of date.

The U.S.: The Department of Health and Human Services has a website that can help you find a testing site.

The COVID-19 vaccine for ages 5 and up and booster shots for eligible recipients are being administered at doctors offices, clinics, pharmacies, grocery stores and public vaccination sites. Many allow appointments to be booked online. Heres how to find a site near you:

Find a site: Visit vaccines.gov to find vaccination sites in your ZIP code.

More help: Call the National COVID-19 Vaccination Assistance Hotline.

Phone: 800-232-0233. Help is available in English, Spanish and other languages.

TTY: 888-720-7489

Disability Information and Access Line: Call 888-677-1199 or email DIAL@n4a.org.

OMICRON VARIANT: Omicron changed what we know about COVID. Heres the latest on how the infectious COVID-19 variant affects masks, vaccines, boosters and quarantining.

KIDS AND VACCINES: Got questions about vaccinating your kid? Here are some answers.

BOOSTER SHOTS: Confused about which COVID booster to get? This guide will help.

BOOSTER QUESTIONS: Are there side effects? Why do I need it? Heres the answers to your questions.

PROTECTING SENIORS: Heres how seniors can stay safe from the virus.

GET THE DAYSTARTER MORNING UPDATE: Sign up to receive the most up-to-date information.

Were working hard to bring you the latest news on the coronavirus in Florida. This effort takes a lot of resources to gather and update. If you havent already subscribed, please consider buying a print or digital subscription.

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Human Behavior

NBC’s Lester Holt suggests ‘free will’ is partly to blame for the 1 million COVID deaths – Fox News

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt closed his newscast on Wednesday with a somber monologue about the 1 million COVID death milestone that was just reached in the U.S., but suggested that "free will" is partly to blame for the devastating death toll.

"Today's soul-crushing milestone comes just as we begin to peek out from behind our masks lower our guard willing the pandemic to be over," Holt told viewers while showing COVID-era images, including caskets. "But the slowly rising tally of the dead won't let it be and forces us to confront some tough questions like how many of those 1 million deaths might have been prevented."

NBC'S TODAY GUSHES OVER AMERICAN-TURNED-CHINESE OLYMPIC ATHLETE EILEEN GU, AVOIDS UYGHUR CONCENTRATION CAMPS

"We counted on the tools, the vaccines, the masks, the distancing, but we forgot about the unpredictability of free will, mistrust in science and simple human behavior," the anchor said as images of anti-mandate protests appeared on-screen.

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt hosts an NBC News town hall event with U.S. Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden in Miami, Florida, U.S., October 5, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)

Holt pondered "what such a moment called for" as the U.S. reached various death toll milestones, saying the pandemic has "changed our rituals of death and grief" by keeping loved ones physically separated, perhaps only connected virtually.

NBC'S LESTER HOLT SAYS WE DON'T NEED TO HEAR BOTH SIDES TO DEFINE TRUTH: FAIRNESS IS OVERRATED

"One million dead sounds like an ending to a horrible story, not a chapter, but that's what it is. A number that shakes our consciousness, demands our attention, forces us to pause and consider who and what we have lost," Holt continued, adding, "You've got to believe there are better days ahead."

OLYMPIA, WA - APRIL 19: Hundreds gather to protest the state's stay-at-home order, at the Capitol building on April 19, 2020 in Olympia, Washington. Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee instituted the order last month in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). (Karen Ducey/Getty Images)

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Much of the media demonized anyone who protested lockdowns as well as mask and vaccine mandates throughout the pandemic.

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NBC's Lester Holt suggests 'free will' is partly to blame for the 1 million COVID deaths - Fox News

Human Behavior

Kai-Fu Lee: The Real Story of AI – Caixin Global

Artificial intelligence (AI) is smart software and hardware capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. AI is the elucidation of the human learning process, the quantification of the human thinking process, the explication of human behavior, and the understanding of what makes intelligence possible. It is mankind's final step in the journey to understanding ourselves, and I hope to take part in this new, but promising science.

I wrote these words as a starry-eyed student applying to Carnegie Mellon Universitys Ph.D. program almost 40 years ago. Computer scientist John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence even earlier at the legendary Dartmouth Conference in the summer of 1956. In the first three and a half decades of my AI journey, AI as a field of inquiry was essentially confined to academia, with very few successful commercial adaptations.

AIs practical applications once evolved slowly. In the last five years, however, AI has become the worlds hottest technology. A stunning turning point came in 2016, when AlphaGo, a machine built by Deepmind engineers, defeated Lee Sedol in a five-round Go match known as the Google DeepMind Challenge Match. Go is more complex than chess by 1-million-trillion- trillion-trillion-trillion times. Also, compared to chess, the game of Go is believe to require true intelligence, wisdom, and Zen-like intellectual refinement. People were shocked that the AI competitor was capable of beating the human champion.

AlphaGo, like most of the commercial breakthroughs in AI, was built on deep-learning, an omni-use technology that can learn automatically from large datasets. Deep learning was invented many years ago, but only recently has there been enough computing power to demonstrate their efficacy, and sufficient training data to achieve exceptional results. Compared to when I started working in AI 40 years ago, we now have about 1 trillion times more compute power to experiment with AI, and storing the necessary data is 15 million times cheaper.

AI is now at a tipping point. The days of slow progress are over. In just the past five years, AI has beaten human champions in Go, poker, and the video game Dota II. It has become so powerful that it can learn chess in four hours and play invincibly against humans. But its not just games. The technology has surpassed humans in speech and object recognition, powered digital humans with uncanny realism in both appearance and sound, and passed college entrance and medical licensing exams. It is outperforming judges in fair and consistent sentencing, and radiologists in diagnosing lung cancer, as well as powering drones that will change the future of delivery, agriculture and warfare. Finally, AI is enabling autonomous vehicles that are safer than people on highway driving.

As AI continues to advance and applications blossom, where does it all lead?

In my 2018 book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, I addressed the proliferation of data (or new oil) that powers AI and how the United States and China are leading the AI revolution, with the U.S. leading research advances and China building more applications for its large population using the corresponding big data. I also predicted new advances from big-data-driven decision-making to machine perception to autonomous robots and vehicles. I projected that AIs new applications in digital industries, finance, retail and transportation would build unprecedented economic value, but also create problems around the loss of human jobs, as well as other issues.

We now must look ahead to the next frontiers. As Ive traveled the world talking about AI, Im constantly asked, Whats next? What will happen in another five, 10, or 20 years? What will the future hold for us humans?

These are essential questions for our moment in history, and everyone working in the technology space has an opinion. Some believe that were in the midst of an AI bubble that will eventually pop, or at least cool off. Those with more drastic and dystopian views believe everything from the notion that AI giants will hijack our minds and form a utopian new race of human cyborgs to the arrival of an AI-driven apocalypse. Each of these projections may be born out of genuine curiosity or understandable fear, but they are usually speculative or exaggerated. They miss the complete picture.

Speculation varies wildly because AI appears complex and opaque. Ive observed that people often rely on three sources to learn about it: science fiction, news and influential people. In science fiction books and TV shows, people have seen depictions of robots that want to control or outsmart humans, and super-intelligence turned evil. From the news, whose currency is often negative and outlying examples rather than quotidian examples of progress, people read about autonomous vehicles killing pedestrians, technology companies using AI to influence elections, and people using AI to create fake news and deep fakes. Relying on thought leaders ought to be the best option, but unfortunately most are experts in business, physics, or politics, not artificial intelligence technology. Their predictions often lack scientific rigor. What makes things worse is that journalists tend to quote these leaders out of context, in order to attract eyeballs. So, it is no wonder that the general view about AI has turned cautious and even negative, built on misinformation or half-truths.

To be sure, aspects of AI development deserve our scrutiny and caution, but it is important to balance these concerns with exposure to the full picture of this crucially important technologys potential. AI, like most technologies, is neither inherently good nor evil. And like most technologies, AI will eventually produce more positive than negative impacts in our society. Think about the tremendous benefits of electricity, mobile phones, and the internet. In the course of human history, we have often been fearful of new technologies that seem poised to change the status quo. In time, these fears usually go away, and these technologies become woven into the fabric of our lives and improve our standard of living.

I believe there are many exciting applications and scenarios in which AI can enhance our society profoundly. Firstly, AI will create tremendous value for our society PriceWaterhouseCooper estimates $15.7 trillion by 2030 which will help reduce hunger and poverty. AI will also create efficient services that will give us back our most valuable resource time. It will take over routine tasks, and liberate us to do more stimulating or challenging jobs. Lastly, humans will work symbiotically with AI, with AI performing quantitative analysis, optimization and routine work, while we humans contribute our creativity, strategy and passion. Each humans productivity will be amplified, allowing us to realize our potential. AI is poised to make profound contributions to humanity, while causing challenges that can be addressed.

Amid what seems like a feedback loop of negative stories about AI, I believe its important to tell these other stories, too. To answer that question of what happens next, I decided to write another book about AI. This time, I wanted to extend the horizon a bit further to imagine the future of the world and our society in 20 years time, or 2041. My aim is to tell the real AI story, in a way that is candid and balanced, but also constructive and hopeful. This book is based on realistic AI, or technologies that either already exist, or can be reasonably expected to mature within the next 20 years. The stories in this book offer a portrait of our world in 2041, based on technologies with a greater than 80% likelihood of coming to pass over that timeframe. I may overestimate or underestimate some. But I believe this book will represent a responsible and likely set of scenarios.

How can I be so confident? Over the past 40 years, I have been involved in AI research and product development at Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Google LLC, and managed $3 billion in technology investments. So, I have hands-on experience about the time and process to take an academic paper to a pervasive product. Further, as an adviser to governments on AI strategy, I can make better predictions based on my knowledge of policy and regulation frameworks, and the reasoning behind them. Also, I avoid making speculative predictions about fundamental breakthroughs and rely mostly on applying and extrapolating the future of existing technologies. Since AI has penetrated less than 10% of our industries, there are many opportunities to reimagine our future with AI infusion into these industries. In short, I believe that even with few or no breakthroughs, AI is still poised to make a profound impact on our society. And this book is my testimony.

Ive been told that one of the reasons that AI Superpowers had an impact on readers was that it was accessible to people with no prior knowledge of AI. So when I embarked on this new book, I asked: What can I do to tell stories about AI in a way that makes them even more widely appealing? The answer, of course, was to work with a good storyteller! I decided to reach out to my former Google colleague Chen Qiufan. After Google, I started a venture capital firm. Qiufan did something more adventurous he became an award-winning science fiction writer. I was delighted that Qiufan agreed to work on the project with me, and to dovetail his creativity with my judgement on what technology will be capable of in 20 years.

We named our book AI 2041 because that is 20 years from the initial publication of this book. But it didnt slip our notice that the digits 41 happen to look a bit like AI.

We hope the stories entertain readers, while deepening their understanding of AI, as well as challenges posed by AI. We also hope that the books roadmap of the coming decades will help our readers prepare themselves to capture the opportunities and confront the challenges that the future will bring. Most of all, we hope all readers will agree that the tales in AI 2041 reinforce our belief in human agency that we are the masters of our fate, and no technological revolution will ever change that.

Kai-Fu Lee is chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures.

The views and opinions expressed in this opinionsection are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial positions of Caixin Media.

If you would like to write an opinion for Caixin Global, please send your ideas or finished opinions to our email: opinionen@caixin.com

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

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