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Bill to expand road accident insurance coverage

PHILIPPINE STAR/MIGUEL DE GUZMAN

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

INSURANCE coverage for Filipinos injured in vehicular accidents must measure up to the cost of appropriate medical care, according to a newly filed bill supported by several members of the House of Representatives.

The proposed House Bill (HB) No. 10497, filed by Party-list Rep. Wilbert T. Lee last month, seeks to expand the Philippine Insurance Code of 2012 by providing financial compensation for bodily injuries, fractures, and disablement caused by traffic accidents.

“A road crash accident entails injuries to the person and property. For this bill, the lens shall be focused on damage to persons… ensuring that road crash victims receive appropriate, immediate, and subsequent medical care,” the bill’s introductory note stated.

Mr. Lee stipulated in the bill that financial indemnity for hospitalization must range between P1,000 and P40,000, depending on the type of medical treatment required for the injuries sustained from the road mishap.

It also provides dismemberment and disabilities insurance coverage of up to P100,000 as well as cash indemnity for victims amounting to no less than P50,000.

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority’s (MMDA) accident reporting system recorded around 92,853 road crashes annually over the past decade, with an annual average of 410 deaths.

“Among these fatalities, 51% are drivers, 36% are pedestrians, and 13% are passengers,” an MMDA statement released in May said. “These statistics emphasize the urgent need for enhanced road safety measures to protect all road users and reduce the number of preventable deaths.”

Senator wary of POGO ‘connections’

PHILSTAR FILE PHOTO/ SENATE PRIB/JOSEPH VIDAL

A PHILIPPINE senator has raised concern over the alleged involvement of a controversial former official of the defunct Technology and Resource Center (TRC) in the illegal operation of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hubs in Tarlac and Pampanga, which were raided this year.

“It seems that POGOs are deliberately tapping former and present officials they can easily corrupt,” Senator Ana Theresia N. Hontiveros-Baraquel said in a statement Monday, citing the POGO’s supposed ties with a convicted former deputy director general of the TRC.

She cited documents that showed the ex-official acting as an “authorized representative” for raided POGO hubs in Bamban, Tarlac and Porac, Pampanga, saying she would invite him to the Senate’s next hearing looking into crimes linked to these outfits.

The former TRC official had been sentenced to a 26-year jail term for his involvement in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam, which allowed legislators to fund small-scale projects in their districts that fell outside the national infrastructure program.

The program was voided by the Supreme Court in 2013 for being illegal.

Defense Secretary Gilberto C. Teodoro, Jr. last week said criminal syndicates posing as POGOs, which are mostly Chinese gambling companies that operate online casinos from the Philippines, are national security threats and must be stopped.

“I call on my fellow public servants to join the growing call to ban POGOs now,” Ms. Hontiveros-Baraquel said. “We must show these POGOs that the Philippines does not have a price.” — John Victor D. Ordoñez

Gov’t urged to uphold labor rights

TWO pro-labor umbrella organizations have called on the leadership of the Philippine government to effectively address labor rights violations to scratch the country off the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) list of the world’s worst nations for workers’ rights.

The Federation of Free Workers (FFW) and the Nagkaisa Labor Coalition (NAGKAISA) called the attention of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and Labor Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma on Monday over issues cited by the ITUC such as killings, abductions, red-tagging, and targeted violence against Filipino union leaders

Jose Sonny G. Matula, chairman of NAGKAISA and president of FFW, demanded an independent investigation into the killing of 72 unionists, enhanced legal protections, and government accountability.

“The FFW emphasizes the urgent need for comprehensive reforms and stricter enforcement, in collaboration with social partners, and changes to labor laws to protect workers and their rights,” the group stated.

In a separate development, the Philippines was elected to two posts in the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Governing Body at the recent International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

For four three-year terms until 2036, the Philippine government will serve on the Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) and the Board of the ILO’s International Training Center (ITC) in Turin, Italy. This is the first time the Philippines will serve in both posts.

“The country’s membership in the Governing Body, the CFA, and the ITC Board is an affirmation of its commitment to promote and respect international labor standards, and a recognition by ILO member-States of its ability to play a leadership role on ILO matters,” the Department of Labor and Employment said. — Chloe Mari A. Hufana

6 die, 4 hurt in GenSan road mishap

A HEAD-ON collision between a tricycle and an Isuzu Forward truck leaves victims scattered on the pavement on Makar-Siguel Highway in General Santos City on Friday. Police reported six people dead and four others injured. — PHILIPPINE STAR/JOHN FELIX M. UNSON

COTABATO CITY — Six people packed in a tricycle, including a one-year-old girl, were killed when it collided head-on with a truck along the highway in Barangay Tambler in General Santos City (GenSan), police reported on Monday.

Except for six-year-old Zowie Natalie M. Cañedo, who died of her injuries in a hospital, five of the road crash victims died on the spot. They were Lathicia Jane F. Enan, 1; Jeremy Michael D. Culanan, 11; Rosilene B. Pajaro, 28; Marivic S. Enan, 28; and the tricycle driver, Jay F. Cañedo, 32.

Gen. Percival Augustus P. Placer, director of the Police Regional Office-12, said four other passengers of the same tricycle — Sphyc Raven M. Cañedo, 13; Mary Rose P. Enan, 12; Chriespair M. Cañedo, 8; and Kristen Joy F. Enan, 7 — were being treated for their injuries at a hospital.

The driver of the Isuzu truck involved in the collision has been detained by police, but radio reports on Monday said that based on the initial traffic investigation, the tricycle had veered into the lane of the oncoming truck.

Two police investigators, Chief Master Sgt. Ronald T. Bautista and Senior Master Sgt. Limuel P. Aves, separately said that the victims cramped in the tricycle had come from a beach resort and on their way home when the accident happened along Makar-Siguel Highway. — John Felix M. Unson

DOH warns against complacency about Dengue

STOCK PHOTO | Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

The Department of Health (DOH) observed a decrease in Dengue cases but warns the public to stay vigilant as the rainy season begins.

“We should not be complacent…especially the El Niño has ended and we are now at the onset of the rainy season which brings more water that can potentially be the breeding site of our Aedes (Dengue-carrying) mosquito.” medical officer from DOH Disease Prevention and Control Bureau, Dr. Kim Patrick Tejano, said during the DOH’s media conference on Saturday (June 15). 

Dengue cases decreased by 26% to 3,992 from May 12 to May 25 compared to the previous period of April 28 to May 11 with 5,359.

The Health Department has recorded the highest number of dengue cases for the past five years in the National Capital Region (NCR), Region 3 (Central Luzon), and Region IV-A (CALABARZON).

According to Mr. Tejano, the DOH continuously monitors cases in highly urbanized areas, where more people store water.

Stagnant waters are favorable breeding sites for Aedes mosquitos which are more evident in highly urbanized areas, Mr. Tejano added.

From the start of January up to May 25, recorded dengue cases are at 67,874, while 189 deaths were recorded. Edg Adrian A. Eva

CoA flags Legazpi City accounts

PHILIPPINE STAR/ MICHAEL VARCAS

THE COMMISSION on Audit (CoA) has flagged the failure of the Legazpi City government to reclassify 19 completed construction projects worth P25.9 million into local government unit (LGU) property assets, casting doubt on their actual construction and the audit account of its P231-million construction program.

In calling out the city government, state auditors put a spotlight on the “doubtful accuracy of the year-end balance of the Construction-in Progress (CIP) account amounting to ₱230,959,091.32 due to an inclusion of 19 completed projects amounting to ₱25,869,396.51 which were not reclassified to appropriate Property, Plant, and Equipment (PPE) accounts.”

The Legazpi City government did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The CoA recommended that the LGU direct its accountant to resolve the improperly classified construction projects under its audit account by coordinating with the city’s engineering office. 

CoA also flagged P25.8 million worth of property still recorded under the city government’s books despite being transferred to local barangays. This made the PPE accounts of the city “unreliable,” the CoA report said.

In addition, state auditors also flagged the city government’s untitled parcels of land amounting to P83.6 million. The lack of proper documentation and papers exposes the government properties to land disputes, they said. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

World falling behind on environment, health and hunger goals — UN report

A PROP depicting a water tap with cascading plastic bottles is displayed by activists near the Shaw Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, April 23, 2024. — REUTERS

SINGAPORE — The world is way off track on most of the sustainable development targets agreed in 2015, such as tackling poverty and hunger, says a United Nations (UN) report which cites funding shortfalls, geopolitical tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN’s annual Sustainable Development Report ranks the performance of its 193 member states in implementing 17 wide-ranging “sustainable development goals” (SDGs), which also include improving access to education and health care, providing clean energy and protecting biodiversity.

It found that none of the 17 goals were on course to be met by 2030, with most targets showing “limited or a reversal of progress.” It urged countries to address chronic funding shortfalls and also revamp the United Nations system itself.

“What this report is showing is that even before the pandemic hit, progress was already too slow,” said Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and lead author of the report.

“Once the pandemic hit, and other crises — including military conflicts — then it is a story of stagnation.”

The report identified the tackling of hunger, the creation of sustainable cities and the protection of biodiversity on land and water as particular areas of weakness. Political goals like press freedom have also seen a “reversal of progress.”

It said Finland, Sweden and Denmark ranked at the top of the list of countries, and China has also made faster than average progress, but the world’s poorest countries have fallen further behind.

Mr. Lafortune said developing countries needed more access to international finance, adding that institutions like credit rating agencies should be encouraged to take a country’s long-term environmental and economic wellbeing into consideration, rather than just its short-term liquidity.

The report also assessed countries on their willingness to cooperate globally through UN institutions. The United States was ranked in last place.

“A large majority of countries are supportive of collaborating… but there are a number of great powers that do not play by the rules of the game,” said Mr. Lafortune. — Reuters

Global central banks recalibrate as the big policy easing of 2024 fizzles

REUTERS

WASHINGTON — Six months ago the world’s major central banks were primed for a move that anyone with a credit card or hoping to buy a home or run a business would cheer: A global shift to lower interest rates that would make borrowing cheaper and loans more available across the board.

Rate cuts are “a topic of discussion out in the world and also a discussion for us,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference last December, when the mood among investors was giddy over the prospect of looser financial conditions, and organizations like the International Monetary Fund worried that Mr. Powell and company would jump the gun, cut rates too fast, and undermine efforts to tame inflation.

Those fears were misplaced, it turns out.

The joint easing of monetary policy that appeared imminent at the end of 2023 has largely fizzled as major central banks confronted inflation that proved more persistent than expected, and economic and wage growth that proved more resilient.

Some modest steps have been made, including initial cuts this month by the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Canada.

But that was largely to deliver on a promise made when inflation seemed to be falling fast, and the mood in Frankfurt, London, Washington and elsewhere has since shifted from the central bank version of “start your engines” to something more akin to “hold your horses.”

After rapidly raising interest rates in 2022 and 2023 to fight inflation, the initial move to loosen policy will be “consequential,” Mr. Powell said at a press conference last week when new projections from Fed policymakers showed them anticipating only a single quarter-percentage-point rate cut by the end of the year, down from the three projected in December and March.

“When we do start to loosen policy, that will show up in significant loosening and financial market conditions,” Mr. Powell said. “You want to get it right.”

BUMPS ALONG THE WAY
Most economists polled by Reuters now expect only one or two Fed rate cuts this year instead of the four seen in a survey last December, before Mr. Powell surprised markets by suggesting a pivot to lower rates would come relatively soon. But economists have been more consistent in their views than market pricing.

Economists polled by Reuters six months ago expected the Bank of England (BoE) to wait until the third quarter to cut borrowing costs, in line with current nearly-unanimous expectations for a move in August. Market pricing back in December, meanwhile, implied a first cut in May followed by three more over the year.

While headline inflation has tumbled to close to the BoE’s 2% target, it was much higher than expected in the key services sector in April, and 6% annual wage growth in May remained roughly double the level consistent with the target.

Accordingly, the BoE is expected to keep rates on hold in its last policy meeting of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s term — meaning that the move towards lower borrowing costs will await Britain’s next government instead.

Economists’ predictions for the ECB’s first move have also held up, correctly forecasting a cut in June. But again, market pricing has shifted dramatically: back in December it implied 140 basis points of cuts in the year ahead, starting in March. Now market prices barely correspond to one further rate cut this year.

ECB policymakers, however, have long warned of “bumps in the road” as they bring inflation back to target and — by indicating early on that the first cut would not come until June — signaled markets might have been getting ahead of themselves.

Those “bumps” may now include how markets have been unnerved by French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to hold a snap parliamentary election that could in usher in a far-right government in Paris next month.

But for now, ECB President Christine Lagarde and her team remain broadly confident that inflation will still tick down to the 2% target by the end of 2025.

“Central banks are managing the trade-off between inflation and economic growth,” aware that overly restrictive policy could undermine a fragile recovery in the euro zone economy, ECB policymaker Mario Centeno told Reuters in an interview.

“In the end, the difference between now and a few months ago is not so big. The disinflation story is still intact,” the Portuguese central bank governor said.

NO VICTORY DECLARATION
As always, managing expectations is part of the story.

Back in December when the three-cuts-for-2024 outlook first appeared in Fed policymaker projections, Mr. Powell in his post-meeting press conference cautioned that “no one is declaring victory” over inflation. But the general tenor of his remarks — with references to “real” and “great” progress being made on inflation — appear to have cemented views that rate cuts were about to commence.

From one perspective, while the first cut may as Mr. Powell said last week be “consequential,” the symbolic opening of an expected steady decline in borrowing costs, the exact timing may be less so in terms of its macroeconomic effect. 

The current strict language about cuts, from Mr. Powell at least, may even be more about managing expectations than they are about the actual outlook – of keeping the door open for rates to stay where they are longer again still than anticipated.

Data just before and after the Fed’s meeting last week pointed strongly to weakening price pressures, and investors have largely sloughed off Mr. Powell’s comments and Fed policymakers’ new projections to stick with bets that rates will be lowered beginning in September.

Still, the slide has been a big one, with major central banks now allowing “restrictive” monetary policy to weigh on banks, businesses and households for months longer than anticipated. Some worry that may trigger a breaking point.

“Continued restrictive policy risks pushing labor demand down too much and pushing unemployment higher than the current 4%, which the Fed is projecting for the end of the year,” Nick Bunker, the economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote in response to last week’s Fed decision. “The labor market has seemed invincible for much of the past two years, but its armor can’t last forever.” — Reuters

Young British royals say ‘We love you, Papa’ in Father’s Day message

X.COM/KENSINGTONROYAL

LONDON — The three young children of British heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife Kate released a Father’s Day message and photograph on Sunday, saying “We love you, Papa.”

The photo shows the three children, Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, hugging William on a beach, with the photograph taken from behind as they all look out to sea.

The caption says the photo was taken by Kate and reads: “We love you, Papa. Happy Father’s Day,” followed by two red hearts and G, C & L.

The photograph was released a day after Kate, Britain’s Princess of Wales, was seen in public for the first time since she revealed she was undergoing treatment for cancer.

Kate, William and the children joined King Charles and other members of the royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after watching a military parade to celebrate the monarch’s official birthday.

The princess, 42, spent two weeks in hospital in January after she underwent major abdominal surgery. Two months later she announced in a video message that tests had revealed the presence of cancer and she was receiving preventative chemotherapy.

She is still undergoing treatment, but she said in a statement on Friday that she was able to attend the “Trooping the Color” event because she was making good progress, although she noted that she was “not out of the woods” yet.

In a separate post on Sunday, the couple shared a photograph of William as a child playing football with his father, Charles. — Reuters

As Thailand moves to pass same-sex marriage law, couple wait to tie the knot

PIXABAY 

BANGKOK — Thai lesbian couple Vorawan “Beaut” Ramwan and Anticha “An” Sangchai are patiently waiting for the passage of their country’s same-sex marriage law so that they can cement their relationship after four years together.

“Once the law comes into effect, we will sign our marriage license,” said Anticha, a university lecturer. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

The marriage equality bill is expected to pass through its final reading in Thailand’s upper house of parliament on Tuesday, said Wallop Tangkananuruk, chairman of the senate committee for the bill.

It will then be sent to the king for approval and come into force 120 days after being published in the Royal Gazette, making Thailand the third territory in Asia after Taiwan and Nepal to legalise same-sex marriage.

The Southeast Asian nation, known for its vibrant cultural scene and tolerance, has long been a popular destination for LGBTQ+ travellers.

Thousands of LGBTQ+ revellers and activists gathered for a parade through the streets of Bangkok this month, joined by Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who came dressed in a rainbow shirt to celebrate Pride Month.

For Anticha and Vorawan, marriage equality represents more than a ceremony. It is a marker that their relationship is recognized and granted the same legal protections as heterosexual couples, they said.

“The passage of this law is a (social) movement, pushing the boundaries by acknowledging our existence, “ Anticha said.

The law also formalizes their ability to look after one another legally, said Vorawan.

“It would give us a more sense of security for our lives,” said the 32-year-old nurse. “It’s something that we’ve never had before.” — Reuters

China’s factory output disappoints; property sector stuck in doldrums

REUTERS

BEIJING — China’s May industrial output lagged expectations and a slowdown in the property sector showed no signs of easing despite policy support, adding pressure on Beijing to shore up growth.

Apart from retail sales that beat forecasts due to a holiday boost, the flurry of data on Monday was largely downbeat, underscoring a bumpy recovery for the world’s second-largest economy.

May industrial output grew 5.6% from a year earlier, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed, slowing from the 6.7% pace in April and below expectations for a 6.0% increase in a Reuters poll of analysts.

However, retail sales, a gauge of consumption, in May rose 3.7% on year, accelerating from a 2.3% rise in April and marking the quickest growth since February. Analysts had expected a 3.0% expansion due to a five-day public holiday earlier in the month.

“May activity data and our high-frequency trackers for the first half of June suggest significant cross-sector divergences remain in the economy – strong exports and manufacturing activity, relatively stable consumption, and still-depressed property activity,”Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note.

Fixed asset investment rose 4.0% in the first five months of 2024 from the same period a year earlier, versus expectations for a 4.2% rise. It grew 4.2% in the January to April period.

Manufacturing investment in the first five months showed robust growth of 9.6%, underpinned by China’s emphasis for “quality growth” through technological breakthroughs and innovation this year.

But economists have warned that rising trade tensions with the West over China’s so-called over-capacity may impose more challenges to Chinese solar and electric vehicle producers.

Private sector investment grew 0.1% in January-May, down from 0.3% in the first four months, pointing to still weak confidence among private businesses. By comparison, investment in the state sector jumped 7.1% in the first five months.

Asian share markets were mostly softer following the mixed data with the Chinese blue chip CSI300 index slipping 0.2%.

EXPORTS-LED RECOVERY
Exports helped bolster the economy, with steel and aluminium output posting sharp jumps in May.

“Exports drove industrial growth and manufacturing investment significantly, but real estate weakness still hit household consumption and investment,” said ZhaoPeng Xing, senior China strategist at ANZ.

China’s property market slump, high local government debt and deflationary pressure remain heavy drags on economic activity. The latest figures point to an uneven growth that reinforces calls for more fiscal and monetary policy support.

With banks facing narrowing interest margins and a weakening currency remaining key constraints limiting Beijing’s scope to ease monetary policy, China’s central bank left a key policy rate unchanged as expected on Monday.

“We still see the likelihood of a cut to the Loan Prime Rate (LPR) this month, particularly on the 5-year tenor, as this will help banks to retain households’ mortgage loans,” said Zhou Hao, chief economist at Guotai Junan International.

But chief China economist at Citi Yu Xiangrong expects a total 20-basis-point policy rate reduction in the second half of this year, but no LPR cut on June 20.

PROPERTY DATA WORSEN
China’s economy grew a faster-than-expected 5.3% in the first quarter, but analysts say the government’s annual growth target of around 5% is ambitious as the property sector remains in the doldrums.

Property investment fell 10.1% year-on-year in January-May, deepening from a decline of 9.8% in January-April. 

New home prices slipped 0.7% in May from April, marking the 11th straight month-on-month decline and steepest drop since October 2014, according to Reuters calculations based on NBS data.

The central bank last month announced a relending program for affordable housing to accelerate sales of unsold housing stock.

NBS spokesperson Liu Aihua told a media briefing on Monday that the property market is undergoing adjustment and it will take some time for policy measures to kick in.

The property sector, which accounted for around a quarter of economic output before the downturn, has been hit by a regulatory crackdown as well as demographic and broad economic pressures. The government has launched a slew of measures to help homebuyers, such as easing mortgage rules.

But tepid demand at home has kept a lid on consumer prices as confidence remains low in the face of a protracted property sector crisis. New bank lending rebounded far less than expected in May and some key money gauges hit record lows.

The job market overall was steady. The nationwide survey-based jobless rate hit 5.0% in May, the same as that in April.

Beijing has vowed to create more jobs linked to major projects, promote domestic demand and pledged greater fiscal stimulus to shore up growth. Reuters

AI is not a magic wand – it has built-in problems that are difficult to fix and can be dangerous

FREEPIK

Disclaimer: This asset – including all text, audio and imagery – is provided by The Conversation. Reuters Connect has not verified or endorsed the material, which is being made available to professional media customers to facilitate the free flow of global news and information.

 

by , Associate Professor in Computational Intelligence, Charles Darwin University

 

By now, all of us have heard and read a lot about artificial intelligence (AI). You’ve likely used some of the countless AI tools that are becoming available. For some, AI feels like a magic wand that predicts the future.

But AI is not perfect. A supermarket meal planner in Aotearoa New Zealand gave customers poisonous recipes, a New York City chatbot advised people to break the law, and Google’s AI Overview is telling people to eat rocks.

At its core, an AI tool is a particular system that addresses a particular problem. With any AI system, we should match our expectations to its abilities – and many of those come down to how the AI was built.

Let’s explore some inherent shortcomings of AI systems.

One of the inherent issues for all AI systems is that they are not 100% accurate in real-world settings. For example, a predictive AI system will be trained using data points from the past.

If the AI then comes across something new – not similar to anything in the training data – it most likely won’t be able to make the correct decision.

As a hypothetical example, let’s take a military plane equipped with an AI-powered autopilot system. This system will function thanks to its training “knowledge base”. But an AI really isn’t a magic wand, it’s just mathematical computations. An adversary could create obstacles the plane AI cannot “see” because they are not in the training data, leading to potentially catastrophic consequences.

Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about this problem apart from trying to train the AI for all possible circumstances that we know of. This can sometimes be an insurmountable task.

You may have heard about AI making biased decisions. Usually, bias happens when we have unbalanced data. In simple terms, this means that when training the AI system, we are showing it too many examples of one type of outcome and very few of another type.

Let’s take the example of an AI system trained to predict the likelihood a given individual will commit a crime. If the crime data used for training the system mostly contains people from group A (say, a particular ethnicity) and very few from group B, the system won’t learn about both groups equally.

As a result, its predictions for group A will make it seem these people are more likely to commit crimes compared to people from group B. If the system is used uncritically, the presence of this bias can have severe ethical consequences.

Thankfully, developers can address this issue by “balancing” the data set. This can involve different approaches, including the use of synthetic data – computer-generated, pre-labelled data built for testing and training AI that has checks built into it to protect against bias.

Another issue with AI can arise when it’s been trained “offline” and isn’t up to date with the dynamics of the problem it is meant to work on.

A simple example would be an AI system developed to predict daily temperature in a city. Its training data contain all the past information on temperature data for this location.

After the AI has finished training and is deployed, let’s say a severe climactic event disrupts the usual weather dynamics. Since the AI system making the predictions was trained on data that didn’t include this disruption, its predictions will become increasingly inaccurate.

The way to solve this issue is training the AI “online”, meaning it is regularly shown the latest temperature data while being used to predict temperatures.

This sounds like a great solution, but there are a few risks associated with online training. We can leave the AI system to train itself using the latest data, but it may get out of control.

Fundamentally, this can happen because of chaos theory, which, in simple terms, means most AI systems are sensitive to initial conditions. When we don’t know what data the system will come across, we can’t know how to tune the initial conditions to control potential instabilities in the future.

Sometimes, the training data just isn’t fit for purpose. For example, it may not have the qualities the AI system needs to perform whatever task we are training it to do.

To use an extremely simplified example, imagine an AI tool for identifying “tall” and “short” people. In the training data, should a person who is 170cm be labelled tall or short? If tall, what will the system return when it comes across someone who is 169.5cm? (Perhaps the best solution would be to add a “medium” label.)

The above may seem trivial, but issues with data labelling or poor data sets can have problematic consequences if the AI system is involved in medical diagnosis, for example.

Fixing this problem is not easy, since identifying the relevant pieces of information requires a great deal of knowledge and experience. Bringing on board a subject matter expert in the data collection process can be a great solution, as it can guide the developers on what types of data to even include to begin with.

As (future) users of AI and technology, it is important for all of us to be aware of these issues to broaden our perspective on AI and its prediction outcomes concerning different aspects of our lives. – Reuters