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Category: economics – Page 51

Every year, the EU generates over 2.5 billion tonnes of waste – that’s 5 tonnes per person. The good news is that much of this waste can be recycled and reused. The bad news, however, is that doing so requires proper collection processes, which is often easier said than done.

“The challenge with waste collection is that it is a widely dispersed process,” says Tjerk Wardenaar, a consultant at EGEN, part of the PNO Group, the project’s lead partner. “Individual consumers discard small amounts of waste, local and regional authorities implement collection systems, waste management companies do the actual collecting, recycling companies recover materials, and so on.”

With the support of the EU-funded COLLECTORS project, Wardenaar aims to increase our understanding of how these various steps relate to one another. “Waste collection depends on a combination of social and technical factors,” he explains. “Our goal is to identify best practices that decision makers can use to implement an integrated waste collection system that supports Europe’s transition to a waste-free, circular economy.”

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Check out the on-demand sessions from the Low-Code/No-Code Summit to learn how to successfully innovate and achieve efficiency by upskilling and scaling citizen developers. Watch now.

Today, with the rampant spread of cybercrime, there is a tremendous amount of work being done to protect our computer networks — to secure our bits and bytes. At the same time, however, there is not nearly enough work being done to secure our atoms — namely, the hard physical infrastructure that runs the world economy.

Nations are now teeming with operational technology (OT) platforms that have essentially computerized their entire physical infrastructures, whether it’s buildings and bridges, trains and automobiles or the industrial equipment and assembly lines that keep economies humming. But the notion that a hospital bed can be hacked — or a plane or a bridge — is still a very new concept. We need to start taking such threats very seriously because they can cause catastrophic damage.

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Will today’s wars over oil be over water in the future? For years this question has been at the heart of a scientific debate on the causes of these wars and how they should be studied.

A study published in the prestigious Nature Sustainability by a group of researchers from the Politecnico di Milano has investigated the phenomenon, also in light of “new” types of in which paramilitary groups seem to capitalize on .

In order to define the relationship between water and conflict, speaking only of —or lack thereof—is not enough: in fact, conflicts tend to be associated with specific and complex socio-hydrological conditions, which in turn deal with the socio-economic value of water as a form of livelihood, especially in agriculture, and with the effects that human use of water has on the accessibility of this resource.

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As the US government begins to consider some of the legal implications for copyright in connection with the development and deployment of artificial intelligence, it is important to first step back to ensure that we are properly guided by context and a proper understanding of our goals — grounded in an informed grasp of the relationship of copyright to the development of AI, and a fair observation of the state of legal developments around the world. Far too many observers have oversimplified how various countries have addressed the relationship between copyright and AI. The reality is that all who have done so have rejected the notion that copyright is not implicated, and have developed legal norms which carefully limit the scope of any exceptions with an eye towards facilitating licensing, even when they seek to expand the development of AI as a national economic imperative.

I have written about the approach taken by the EU in the updated Copyright Directive, and note here that despite claims about Japan’s legislation, even their provisions — as manifested in the 2018 amendments, are designed to avoid conflict with the legitimate interests of copyright owners. While I don’t necessarily agree with Japan’s approach, it is important to highlight that even its exceptions, as I understand them: recognize that text and data mining/machine learning does in fact implicate copyright; apply only to materials that have been lawfully acquired; require that the use of each work is “minor” relative to the TDM effort; and provide that license terms must be honored. While it remains unclear to me that Japan’s goal of respecting copyright as required by international law has been achieved, it is important to understand that claims that Japan has removed copyright as an issue that must be addressed in the development of AI are inaccurate.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the world. Emerging technologies on a daily basis in AI capabilities have lead to a number of innovations including autonomous vehicles, self-driving flights, robotics, etc. Some of the AI technologies feature predictions on future and accurate decision-making. AI is the best friend to technology leaders who want to make the world a better place with unfolding inventions.

Whether humans agree or not, AI developments are slowly impacting all aspects of the society including the economy. However, some technologies might even bring challenges and risks to the working environment. To keep a track on AI development, good leaders head the AI world to ensure trust, reliability, safety and accuracy.

Intelligent behaviour has long been considered a uniquely human attribute. But when computer science and IT networks started evolving, artificial intelligence and people who stood by them were on the spotlight. AI in today’s world is both developing and under control. Without a transformation here, AI will never fully deliver the problems and dilemmas of business only with data and algorithms. Wise leaders do not only create and capture vital economic values, rather build a more sustainable and legitimate organisation. Leaders in AI sectors have eyes to see AI decisions and ears to hear employees perspective.

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