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January 29, 2024: Can we make better choices in tech?

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Today: Can we make better choices in tech?

• The world seems to have chosen the path of maximal technology, no matter the cost. Take the AI server farms that consume immense amounts of energy and clean water – and Big Tech is building more of them. But some people are making better choices – like the boarding school that got rid of smartphones. Tonight, we look at who’s making better – or worse – choices in tech.

• October 3, 2022 Techtonic with Douglas Rushkoff, speaking about his book “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”

• OpenAI CEO Altman says at Davos future AI depends on energy breakthrough (Reuters, Jan 16, 2024): "OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday said an energy breakthrough is necessary for future artificial intelligence, which will consume vastly more power than people have expected. Speaking at a Bloomberg event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Altman said the silver lining is that more climate-friendly sources of energy, particularly nuclear fusion or cheaper solar power and storage, are the way forward for AI." Altman said: "There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough. It motivates us to go invest more in fusion.”

• Resources on the Dec 11, 2023 playlist (for the interview with Guillaume Pitron, author of “The Dark Cloud”) describe the environmental impact of digital tech. For example, “a 20-question convo with ChatGPT equates to ~500 milliliters of water use, about the size of a water bottle” (source) and “Creating images with... ChatGPT’s Dall-E and Midjourney may produce more carbon than driving 4 miles” (source).

• What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation (Guardian, Jan 17, 2024): Buxton, a Massachusetts boarding school, gave all the students Light Phones (see Dec 2, 2019 show with Joe Hollier, cofounder of the Light Phone):

Most everyone agrees . . . that the school is better off without these hell devices. (And yes, that includes students.) There are fewer interruptions during class, more meaningful interactions around campus, and less time spent on screens. . . .

To an extent, Buxton saw a similar progression through the stages of panic, grief and ultimately some level of acceptance. “When it was announced I practically had a breakdown,” said then senior Max Weeks. And while he’s still not a fan of what he says was a “unilateral” decision to switch to the Light Phone, he said, overall, the experience “hasn’t been as bad as I expected”.

• It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber (by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic, Dec 19, 2023):

[S]tudents who spend less than one hour of “leisure” time on digital devices a day at school scored about 50 points higher in math than students whose eyes are glued to their screens more than five hours a day. This gap held even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors.

. . . Second, screens seem to create a general distraction throughout school, even for students who aren’t always looking at them.

. . . In sum, students who spend more time staring at their phone do worse in school, distract other students around them, and feel worse about their life.

• Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start” (Ars Technica, Jan 19, 2024)

From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches.

Some innocent people went to prison, while others were forced to make payments to the UK Post Office to cover the supposed shortfalls. So far, "only 93 convictions have been overturned and thousands of people are still waiting for compensation settlements," a BBC report said.

• The (British) Post Office scandal: First I heard of this was from DjLorraine. From Wikipedia on Paula Vennells:

Vennells was the CEO of Post Office Ltd during the latter part of the British Post Office scandal, which took place between 1999 and 2015 and involved over 900 subpostmasters being wrongly convicted of theft, false accounting and fraud, due to shortfalls at their branches that were in fact errors of the Horizon accounting software used by the Post Office. In 2013, Vennells hired forensic accounting firm Second Sight, headed up by Ron Warmington, to investigate the Horizon software losses. Warmington discovered the system was flawed and faulty, but Vennells was unhappy with Warmington's report and terminated their contract.

• Google Update Reveals AI Will Read All Your Private Messages (Forbes, Jan 28, 2024): “Bard will analyze the private content of messages ‘to understand the context of your conversations, your tone, and your interests.’ It will analyze the sentiment of your messages, ‘to tailor its responses to your mood and vibe.’ And it will ‘analyze your message history with different contacts to understand your relationship dynamics… to personalize responses based on who you’re talking to.’”

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