runsmooth

Axon's rep basically says that their mass surveillance cameras don't see colour, just people. Then follows with the main factor is skin tone (??). A problem that was essentially noted as far back as...2019. What development in the technology is she talking about?

According to Ann-Li Cooke, Axon Enterprise’s director of responsible AI:

In response to the report, Cooke said there has been a development in the technology since 2019.

“There are gaps in both race and gender at that time,” she said. “As we did our due diligence on evaluating multiple models, we were also looking to see if there were race-based differences, and we found that in ideal conditions, that is not the case.

“Race is not the limiting factor today, the limiting factor is on skin tone. And so when there are varying conditions, such as distance [or] dim lighting, there will be different optical challenges with body-worn camera[s] — and all cameras — in detecting and matching darker-skinned individuals than lighter-skinned individuals.”

Also note that the facial-recognition technology seems to have a fatal flaw when it comes to women with darker skin.

However, Gideon Christian, an associate professor of AI and law at the University of Calgary, said the inequities attached to facial-recognition technology are too great to ignore and that he believes there is not enough recent research to suggest any significant improvement.

“Facial-recognition technology has been shown to have its worst error rate in identifying darker-skinned individuals, especially black females,” he said.

In some case studies, Christian said facial-recognition technology has shown about a 98 per cent accuracy rate in identifying white male faces, but that it also has about a 35 per cent error rate in identifying darker-skinned women.

You know what was a problem with the technology back in 2019? LLMs are coded by primarily white males, and their idea for "normal" hard codes bias into the models. These "AI" products essentially show their coders' bias by discriminating what falls outside of that normal.

For example, from "How tech's white male workforce feeds bias into AI", by Aimee Picchi:

The report highlights several ways AI programs have created harmful circumstances to groups that already suffer from bias. Among them are:

An Amazon AI hiring tool that scanned resumes from applicants relied on previous hires' resumes to set standards for ideal hires. However, the AI started downgrading applicants who attended women's colleges or who included the word "women's" in their resumes.
Amazon's Rekognition facial analysis program had difficulty identifying dark-skinned women. According to one report, the program misidentified them as men, although the program had no problem identifying men of any skin tone.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-bias-problem-techs-white-male-workforce/

Another Asian being harassed by Westjet? This time their elderly father takes a hit in the eye?

I suppose Charlet Chung received the Westjet star treatment since they didn't strike her or any of her party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgKErAzKWgA

I sense that these Crown Corps need to evolve to be insulated against basically unregulated politicians. Perhaps there's a more aggressive model where the Crown Corps can become a fully private entity with strict obligations of reporting to the public, and consistent obligations of stakeholder consults. But hard baked restrictions - like the judicial branch - requiring the Corps staff to fully disassociate from political parties: fully recorded communications, no donations, no public support of any political party.

Unleash them with the sole objective of providing a whatever public good they're supposed to, but without the political interference and the risk of politicians being captured by lobbyists.

What's really concerning is that apparently the Italians had already "neutralized" the operation that ran this terrifying human safari. But surely they would also have records of who engaged such services?

I watched the video included with the article. One of those poor, poor seniors was asked whether she was kept informed. She said no, saying she only gets updates from the internet and her Facebook.

I'm not the first to ever say it, but there's a clear lack of infrastructure when someone still turns to the very same company's platform for updates and barely knows what's going on. There's no respect for community here, no involvement of stakeholders, no thought to the people who live there. For what? A corporate installation that may be built on fuddy duddy accounting to keep up appearances for an AI Bubble?

Canadians are already familiar with private health care. Anyone with a pet who needed medical attention knows the gut wrenching pain of going to a vet, expecting a standard level of care and pricing, only to learn from friends and family that they've been fleeced at 2 to 5 times the price. But you needed help at the time and it was meant to happen is what we tell ourselves.

It's the invisible hand right?

You know...the one you see making jazz hands providing below average care and attention to your pet, and the other that basically steals your wallet and uses you like a piggy bank?

I write from experience, but I'm not the only one. So now you just want to switch pets to humans?

Call the election, UCP. Alberta will see you out.

Some folks - myself included - don't even believe that "AI" as currently described matches even the hype.

Canadians should be ready to go full into cash. We'll wait for the explosion and buy up the fancy server racks, chips, hard drives, and other hardware at pennies on the dollar to set up our own data centres that will actually do real tasks besides AI slop.

Dr. Ken Cheung struggles for a few seconds to describe how he views himself within Alberta’s rapidly privatizing health-care system.

“I feel like I’m a conscientious objector,” said Cheung, an anesthesiologist for 25 years at Calgary’s Foothills Medical Centre.

As a supporter of public health care, Cheung said he objects to a policy that requires him to work in one of Alberta’s private, for-profit chartered surgical facilities, or CSFs.

Those CSFs are now churning out tens of thousands of surgeries, mostly in Calgary and Edmonton, every year under a United Conservative Party government.

For years, the UCP have played word salad about how they're going to open X beds, and facilities will be built in some regional point. For years, everyone has asked the obvious question of how these places are going to be staffed. Well, now we know the answer, don't we? They're forcing public healthcare staff into the private sector...at higher costs to society.

This is basically Loblaws showing up raising the price of bread and telling people to suck it - then providing their pennies on the dollar gift card and calling it a day. Alberta is getting thugged and shaken down by the UCP when they're sick and most vulnerable.

I'd like to piggyback off these remarks to add that Canada did have a secure digital communication system in Blackberry. I point out that system was criticized for being closed and "slow" to adapt to the changes brought by Apple.

But I'd simply take the view that Canada gave up on Blackberry. Blackberry's entire reputation was based on secure communications catered towards corporate and enterprise environments - whether we liked it or not. Canada just gave way to less secure, more convenient American competitors. In so doing, we gave up a real option to American digital communications. Oh and by the way, the Americans still don't have an answer to having all their telecommunication back doors getting hacked open.

Why do we have to listen to what this guy says his words meant back then? Is he an esteemed author? Do we have to analyze his intent? WHERE IS JA??

And you know people are getting nervous when the brother has to crawl out and “set the record straight”.

I don't agree with the tariffs. Canada does have an auto industry, but as far as Electric Vehicles or batteries are concerned, there's not much to protect. We don't have a proper competitive product for EVs, and Canada doesn't have the infrastructure investments needed to make EVs competitive with ICE vehicles. We're a smaller market with a huge hinterland and hard winters, and that poses some natural challenges for EVs.

Also, we're saddled with the Americans, and even they don't appear to be pursuing EVs or battery technologies at the highest levels with maximum effort. What are these tariffs for, exactly?

Even if Chinese companies were allowed to sell to the Canadian markets, they'd likely be shipped in as final products, and we'd hope they're not watered down.

Canada's relationship with the US is not good at the moment, and the Americans are emphasizing onshoring and US manufacturing. Canada will have to balance what it wants with these real considerations. We may have the right value proposition for local manufacture, but that depends on how far out we look into the horizon.

So with all of this in mind, the Vauxhall Advance wants to ask Canola farmers to willingly offer their business as sacrifice to some tariffs that don't even look like they're accomplishing much? If anything, China's negotiations amount to a gesture of please reconsider while we offset your product with other agricultural products from the Belt and Road initiative.

I think that's a difficult message for the canola farmers to swallow. Everyone sees what happened to the American soy farmers. They're done. Even after negotiations between the US and China led to a truce, the resulting supply glut and the rise of new competitors in South America will leave a lasting impression.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-soybean-glut-could-defeat-us-export-hopes-after-trade-thaw-2025-11-12/

These are indeed good examples.

Perhaps over the last 50 years, there are parts of Asia that build whole neighbourhoods with public transit in mind, and mixed-use zoning. They don't have nearly the same learning curve to conquer as Alberta does...and they almost certainly don't take +10 years to figure out how a line is supposed to interact with traffic lights.

I suppose "transit oriented development" are critical baby steps...but to some these are really small baby steps.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/highly-anticipated-metro-lrt-line-opens-to-public/