Lifeboat Foundation

If you walk down the street shouting out the names of every object you see — garbage truck! bicyclist! sycamore tree! — most people would not conclude you are smart. But if you go through an obstacle course, and you show them how to navigate a series of challenges to get to the end unscathed, they would.

Most machine learning algorithms are shouting names in the street. They perform perceptive tasks that a person can do in under a second. But another kind of AI — deep reinforcement learning — is strategic. It learns how to take a series of actions in order to reach a goal. That’s powerful and smart — and it’s going to change a lot of industries.

Two industries on the cusp of AI transformations are manufacturing and supply chain. The ways we make and ship stuff are heavily dependent on groups of machines working together, and the efficiency and resiliency of those machines are the foundation of our economy and society. Without them, we can’t buy the basics we need to live and work.

Smart strategies like this can help workers learn to embrace technological change. If the government helps people plan their next move if and when they’re no longer needed in their current job, workers will be able to roll with the economy’s punches more easily. Combined with national health insurance, education and retraining assistance — and a robust unemployment insurance system — it could make terror of job loss a thing of the past.

The U.S. government must assuage people’s anxiety about technology upending their working lives, in part by helping them forge new career paths.

Machine learning techniques have contributed to progress in science and technology fields ranging from health care to high-energy physics. Now, machine learning is poised to help accelerate the development of stronger alloys, particularly stainless steels, for America’s thermal power generation fleet. Stronger materials are key to producing energy efficiently, resulting in economic and decarbonization benefits.

“The use of ultra-high-strength steels in power plants dates back to the 1950s and has benefited from gradual improvements in the materials over time,” says Osman Mamun, a postdoctoral research associate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). “If we can find ways to speed up improvements or create new materials, we could see enhanced efficiency in plants that also reduces the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.”

Mamun is the lead author on two recent, related journal articles that reveal new strategies for machine learning’s application in the design of advanced alloys. The articles chronicle the research outcomes of a joint effort between PNNL and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). In addition to Mamun, the research team included PNNL’s Arun Sathanur and Ram Devanathan and NETL’s Madison Wenzlick and Jeff Hawk.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. ’s chips are everywhere, though most consumers don’t know it.

The company makes almost all of the world’s most sophisticated chips, and many of the simpler ones, too. They’re in billions of products with built-in electronics, including iPhones, personal computers and cars—all without any obvious sign they came from TSMC, which does the manufacturing for better-known companies that design them, like Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.

TSMC has emerged over the past several years as the world’s most important semiconductor company, with enormous influence over the global economy. With a market cap of around $550 billion, it ranks as the world’s 11th most valuable company.

WARREN, Mich. – Starting today, General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is gathering hundreds of employees, dealers, investors, analysts, media and policymakers to share details of its strategy to grow the company’s electric vehicle (EV) sales quickly, efficiently and profitably.

“Our team accepted the challenge to transform product development at GM and position our company for an all-electric future,” said Mary Barra, GM chairman and CEO. “What we have done is build a multi-brand, multi-segment EV strategy with economies of scale that rival our full-size truck business with much less complexity and even more flexibility.”

The heart of GM’s strategy is a modular propulsion system and a highly flexible, third-generation global EV platform powered by proprietary Ultium batteries. They will allow the company to compete for nearly every customer in the market today, whether they are looking for affordable transportation, a luxury experience, work trucks or a high-performance machine.

After a decade of design and fabrication, General Atomics is ready to ship the first module of the Central Solenoid, the world’s most powerful magnet. It will become a central component of ITER, a machine that replicates the fusion power of the Sun. ITER is being built in southern France by 35 partner countries.

ITER’s mission is to prove energy from hydrogen fusion can be created and controlled on earth. Fusion energy is carbon-free, safe, and economic. The materials to power society with hydrogen fusion for millions of years are readily abundant.

Continue reading “ITER Global Fusion Energy Project: After a Decade of Design and Fabrication, Worlds Most Powerful Magnet Ready” »

When you put these three factors together—the bounty of technological advances, the compressed restructuring timetable due to covid-19, and an economy finally running at full capacity—the ingredients are in place for a productivity boom. This will not only boost living standards directly, but also frees up resources for a more ambitious policy agenda.

AI and other digital technologies have been surprisingly slow to improve economic growth. But that could be about to change.

Because it was, 62 years ago, the first fully reusable space vehicle, two stages, both reusable. The same concept of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo.

X15 made 200 flights at suborbital altitude, 100 km.

Continue reading “On This Day in Space! June 8, 1959: X-15 makes first glide flight” »

Health, Equity, And Economic Growth — Dr. Helene Gayle, MD, MPH, President and CEO, The Chicago Community Trust.

Dr. Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH, is President and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust (CCT), one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations, and under her leadership, CCT has adopted a new strategic focus on closing the racial and ethnic wealth gap in the Chicago region.

Continue reading “Dr. Helene Gayle — President / CEO, Chicago Community Trust — Health, Equity and Economic Growth” »