Computers were once considered high-end technology, only accessible to scientists and trained professionals. But there was a seismic shift in the history of computing during the second half of the 1970s. It wasn’t just that machines became much smaller and more powerful — though, of course, they did. It was the shift in who would use computers and where: They became available to everyone to use in their own home.
Today, quantum computing is in its infancy. Quantum computation incorporates some of the most mind-bending concepts from 20th-century physics. In the U.S., Google, IBM and NASA are experimenting and building the first quantum computers. China is also investing heavily in quantum technology.
As the author of “Quantum Computing for Everyone,” due out in March, I believe that there will be an analogous shift toward quantum computing, where enthusiasts will be able to play with quantum computers from their homes. This shift will occur much sooner than most people realize.
Rise of personal computers
The first modern computers were constructed in the 1950s. They were large, often unreliable, and by today’s standards, not particularly powerful. They were designed for solving large problems, such as developing the first hydrogen bomb. There was general consensus that this was the sort of thing that computers were good for and that the world would not need many of them.
Of course, this view turned out to be completely wrong.
In 1964, John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz wrote the BASIC language. Their goal was to design a simple programming language that would be easy to learn and would enable anyone to program. As a result, programming was no longer solely for highly trained scientists. Anyone could now learn to program if they wanted to.
This shift in computing continued when the first home computers appeared in the late 1970s. Hobbyists could now buy their own computer and program it at home. Parents and children could learn together. These first computers were not very powerful and there were a limited number of things that you could do with them, but they had an extremely enthusiastic reception.
As people played with their machines, they realized that they wanted more features and more power. The founders of Microsoft and Apple understood that the home computer had a bright future.
None of these activities existed in the 1950s. Nobody at the time knew that they wanted or needed them. It was the availability of a new tool, the computer, that led to their development.
Enter quantum
Classical computation, the kind of computation that powers the computer in your home, is based on how humans compute. It breaks down all computations into their most fundamental parts: the binary digits 0 and 1. Nowadays, our computers use bits – a portmanteau word from binary digits – because they are easy to implement with switches that are either in the on or off position.
Quantum computation is based on how the universe computes. It contains all of classical computing, but also incorporates a couple of new concepts that come from quantum physics.
Instead of the bits of classical computation, quantum computing has qubits. However, the outcome from a quantum computation is exactly the same as that from a classical computation: a number of bits.
The difference is that, during the computation, the computer can manipulate qubits in more ways that it can with bits. It can put qubits in a superposition of states and entangle them.
Both superposition and entanglement are concepts from quantum mechanics that most people are not familiar with. Superposition roughly means that a qubit can be in a mixture of both 0 and 1. Entanglement denotes correlation between qubits. When one of a pair of entangled qubits is measured, that immediately shows what value you will get when you measure its partner. This is what Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance.”
The mathematics needed for a full description of quantum mechanics is daunting, and this background is needed to design and build a quantum computer. But the mathematics needed to understand quantum computation and to start designing quantum circuits is much less: High school algebra is essentially the only requirement.
What will they be used for? Quantum computing has important applications in cryptography. In 1994, MIT mathematician Peter Shor showed that, if quantum computers could be built, they would be able to break current internet encryption methods. This spurred the construction of new ways of encrypting data that can withstand quantum attacks, launching the age of post-quantum cryptography.
It also looks as though quantum computing will probably have a large impact on chemistry. There are certain reactions that classical computers have difficulty simulating. Chemists hope that quantum computers will be efficient at modeling these quantum phenomena.
But I don’t think it makes much sense to speculate about what most people will be doing with quantum computers in 50 years. It may make more sense to ask when quantum computing will become something that anyone can use from their own home.
The answer is that this is already possible. In 2016, IBM added a small quantum computer to the cloud. Anyone with an internet connection can design and run their own quantum circuits on this computer. A quantum circuit is a sequence of basic steps that perform a quantum calculation.
Not only is IBM’s quantum computer free to use, but this quantum computer has a simple graphical interface. It is a small, not very powerful machine, much like the first home computers, but hobbyists can start playing. The shift has begun.
Humans are entering an age when it is straightforward to learn and experiment with quantum computation. As with the first home computers, it might not be clear that there are problems that need to be solved with quantum computers, but as people play, I think it’s likely they will find that they need more power and more features. This will open the way for new applications that we haven’t yet imagined.
Google’s 2002 April Fools’ Day joke purportedly disclosed that its popular search engine was not actually powered by artificial intelligence, but instead by biological intelligence. Google had deployed bunches of birds, dubbed pigeon clusters, to calculate the relative value of web pages because they proved to be faster and more reliable than either human editors or digital computers.
The joke hinged on the silliness of the premise – but the scenario does have more than a bit of the factual mixed in with the fanciful.
The prank had taken a page out of 20th-century behaviorist B. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning playbook by allegedly teaching pigeons to peck for a food reward whenever the birds detected a relevant search result.
It also adapted Victorian polymath Francis Galton’s vox populi – or the voice of the people – principle by purportedly putting the web search task to something of a vote. The more the flocks of pigeons pecked at a particular website, the higher it rose on the user’s results page. This so-called PigeonRank system thus rank-ordered a user’s search results in accord with the pecking order of Google’s suitably schooled birds.
Exploiting the well-established visual and cognitive prowess of pigeons, we taught our birds to peck either a blue or a yellow button on a computerized touchscreen in order to categorize pathology slides that depicted either benign or cancerous human breast tissue samples.
In each training session, we showed pigeons several slides of each type in random order on the touchscreen. Pigeons first had to peck the pathology slide multiple times – this step encouraged the birds to study them. Then the two report buttons popped up on each side of the tissue sample. If the tissue sample looked benign and the pigeons pecked the “benign” report button or if the presented tissue sample looked malignant and the pigeons pecked the “malignant” report button, then they received a food reward. However, if the pigeons chose the incorrect report button, then no food was given.
After two weeks of training, the pigeons attained accuracy levels ranging between 85 and 90 percent correct. Granted, this accomplishment falls short of their reading human text – although time will tell if that too is within the ken of pigeons – but the pigeons were quite able to make such highly accurate reports despite considerable variations in the magnification of the slide images.
We went on to test the pigeons with brand-new images to see if the birds could reliably transfer what they had learned; this is the key criterion for claiming that they’d learned a generalized concept of “benign/malignant tissue samples.” Accuracy to the familiar training samples averaged around 85 percent correct, and accuracy to the novel testing samples was nearly as high, averaging around 80 percent correct. This high level of transfer indicates that rote memorization alone cannot explain the pigeon’s categorization proficiency.
Finally, we put Google’s PigeonRank proposal to the test. With an expanded set of breast tissue samples, we assessed the accuracy of each of four pigeons against the “wisdom of the flock,” a technique we termed “flock-sourcing.” To calculate these “flock” scores, we assigned each trial a score of 100 percent if three or four pigeons correctly responded, and we assigned a score of 50 percent if two pigeons correctly responded. Three or four pigeons never incorrectly responded.
The accuracy scores of the four individual pigeons were 73, 79, 81 and 85 percent correct. However, the accuracy score of the “flock” was 93 percent, thereby exceeding that of every individual bird. Pigeons thus join people in evidencing better wisdom from crowds. Playing on Galton’s original term, you might call this vox columbae – or the voice-of-the-pigeons principle.
Although all of this may seem to be a bit of feathery fluff, over the past several years our report has resonated across several fields, going beyond pathology and radiology to include the burgeoning realm of artificial intelligence. It has been recognized in several articles including one quoting Geoff Hinton, a key figure behind modern AI: “The role of radiologists will evolve from doing perceptual things that could probably be done by a highly trained pigeon to doing far more cognitive things.” In other words, machines may eventually be programmed to match what pigeons can do, leaving the more interesting and challenging tasks to humans.
What began as an elaborate April Fools’ prank has thus proved to be more than a joke. Never underestimate the brains of birds. They’re really brainy beasts.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
As an experienced airline pilot, aircraft accident investigator and professor of aviation, I know that such major crash investigations are an enormous effort often involving many countries’ governments and input from dozens of industry partners. The inquiries can take months of painstaking work. They often yield important insights that improve flight safety for everyone long into the future. Here’s how an investigation generally goes.
The government of the country where the crash occurred takes the lead in the investigation. Also involved are investigators from the countries where the aircraft is registered, where the airline’s headquarters is, where the aircraft designer is based and where the aircraft was assembled. Countries where the engines or other major aircraft components were designed and assembled and those with citizens killed or seriously injured in the crash may also take part in the investigations.
The Ethiopian Airlines crash is under investigation by Ethiopian authorities, with the assistance of members of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Other countries – including Kenya, France, Canada, China, Italy and the U.K., which all lost several citizens in the crash – may ask to be part of the process.
Ethiopian investigators can seek technical advice not only from participating countries’ representatives, such as the NTSB, but also from the companies that made the plane and its engines – in this case, Boeing and CFM international, respectively.
From emergency to inquiry
At the beginning of the inquiry, the investigator-in-charge, usually an investigator from the lead country’s aviation safety board, coordinates with local first responders to determine what hazards may be present at the crash site, and ensures safe access for investigators to visit the wreckage. Dangerous debris could include hazardous cargo, flammable or toxic materials and gases, sharp or heavy objects and pressurized equipment. Human remains or blood from injured victims may also pose dangers of disease, meaning investigators must protect themselves against viruses, bacteria or parasites.
The investigators on the scene take photos and videos of the wreckage and collect as much physical evidence as they can. They also conduct interviews with eyewitnesses and draw charts showing the debris field and any indications of how the aircraft hit the ground, such as the angle of impact, the distribution of debris and other details.
If parts of aircraft can be salvaged, they can be moved to a secure facility such as a hangar for wreckage reassembling. This can assist in determining missing or damaged components, and gaining a fuller idea of what happened.
Investigators also collect all the documents related the plane, its crew and its recent flights for forensic analysis.
An early priority is locating the crucial evidence in what are often called the plane’s “black boxes.” There are two kinds. The flight data recorders keep track of flight parameters such altitude, heading, instrument readings, power settings and flight control inputs. The cockpit voice recorders store all communications with the aircraft, including from air traffic controllers, and record any conversations among cockpit occupants and other audible cockpit sounds for the two hours leading up to the crash. All that information lets analysts reconstruct, and even create video simulations of, the last moments of the plane’s flight.
If either of those devices is damaged, authorities may ask the aircraft’s manufacturer to verify the salvaged data. Ethiopian investigators have asked for foreign help to analyze the black-box data. They originally asked Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, but that agency said it didn’t have the technical know-how either. France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, one of the most experienced crash investigation agencies in the world, is handling them instead.
In the early stages of an investigation, there are a lot of people working on different aspects of the inquiry all at once. As the preliminary lead accident investigator for the Ghanaian MI-17 helicopter crash in Adukrom, Ghana, in January 2007, I had to coordinate the securing of the crash site and do field interviews of witnesses while charting the debris and recovering the “black box” for further analysis.
Technical groups assemble
Other teams look at technical aspects that might have contributed in any way to the crash. They look at air traffic control activity and instructions, weather, human performance issues like crew experience and training, maintenance records, emergency response, safety equipment, aircraft performance and subsystems.
They may disassemble the crashed plane’s engines or other components and use flight simulators to attempt to experience what the pilots were dealing with. Analysts even study the metals used to make components to see how they should perform – to later compare that information with what actually happened during the crash.
A team also interviews any survivors, rescue personnel and subject-matter experts. Forensic teams and medical examiners will analyze victims’ remains to identify them for family members and to examine the injuries they suffered, and test for any drugs, alcohol or even carbon monoxide in their bodies that might have impaired their judgment or performance.
In some cases, especially high-profile crashes, investigators will hold public hearings, at which they gather more evidence and make public some of what they have found. This helps assure the public that the process is open and transparent, and is not covering up the responsibility of any guilty party.
Findings and conclusions
After they rigorously analyze all the data, devise, test and evaluate different hypotheses for what could have happened, the investigative team must determine causes and contributing factors. The goal is to identify anything – acts someone did (or didn’t) do, properties of a materials, gusts of wind, and so on – that had any role in the crash.
The report should include both immediate causes – such as active failures of pilots or maintenance crew – and underlying reasons, like insufficient training or pressure to rush through a task.
Within 30 days after the crash, the investigation team must release a preliminary report to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N.-related global agency overseeing commercial air travel. A final report is normally expected to follow before a year has passed. In cases where a final report can’t be issued on that timeline, the team should release an interim report on each anniversary of the event, detailing the progress so far.
Improving safety
At any point during the investigation, investigators can recommend any preventative action that it has identified as necessary to improve flight safety. In the wake of the Lion Air crash, Boeing was reportedly working on a fix to a software system, but it didn’t get released before the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
The final report, including all the safety recommendations, is
released by the country that conducted the investigation to the public
and is aimed at improving aviation safety and not to apportion blame.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
The Grandmaster Liu for Qingcheng Taiji (Taichi) is coming to Silicon Valley bay area Sep 20th. This is a rare chance to learn the Six Forms from the master directly during the five days Taiji bootcamp.
Qingcheng Tai Chi originated from the birthplace of Taoism, Qingcheng Mountain, in Sichuan Province, China. Qingcheng
Mountain is one of the most important Taoist centers in China. It is
blanketed with dozens of ancient sacred temples. The mountain range has
thirty-six peaks, the tallest of which stands over 4,000 feet high.
Rising majestically from the plains of Chengdu in Sichuan province.
Qingcheng is intimately connected to the Dujiangyan (都江堰) irrigation
system, one of the world’s oldest, dating back to 256 BCE and still
functioning today. In the year 2000, Qingcheng and Dujiangyan were
inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Qingcheng Tai Chi, also known as Qingcheng Mountain Xuanmen (Profound Gate) Tai Chi, is the core of the famous Qingcheng Mountain Martial Arts School in China; one of the top lineage of Taoist kungfu. Qingcheng Tai Chi is not just a martial art. It encompasses philosophy, art, music, medicine, astrology, and started from the Han Dynasty; making it one of the oldest traditions of martial arts flourishing today. Qingcheng Tai Chi was traditionally practiced and passed by succession line of lineage heads of the Qingcheng Mountain Martial Arts School. Grandmaster Suibin Liu felt this Tai Chi would benefit the world and should not be owned by Lineage Holders only. He appealed his Master and got his approval to reveal the first 36 movements of Qingcheng Tai Chi. However, 36 movements was too difficult for everyone to master hence Master Liu further refined and condensed its essence down eventually to 6 forms.
Course Schedule and Content Details
Beginner Camp Sep 21-22: 2 Days Six Forms Qingcheng Tai Chi Boot Camp
Beginner Camp Sep 24-26 : 3 Eventing Six Forms Qingcheng Tai Chi Boot Camp
Qingcheng Circle Forms (Warm up)
Six Forms of Qingcheng Tai Chi
Standing Meditation
Intermediate Level Camp Sep 28-29: 2 Days Six Forms Qingcheng Tai Chi Boot CamP
6 Forms Adance
Standing Meditation
Meditation
Other Tai Chi’s techniques for health
Demonstration of advance Qingcheng Tai Ch
Videos
Watch Six Forms Qingcheng Taichi on youtube:
Watch Qingcheng Pai and Grandmaster Suibin Liu:
Photos
Master Liu teaching six forms Tai Chi at Qingcheng Mountain Main Gate:
Master Liu teaching Dreamwork’s KungFu Panda production designer Raymond Zibach
Master Liu teaching Indian Actor Aamir Khan
Master Liu Teaching 30 International Supermodels
Master Liu Teaching Students in Paris
Master Liu with European Students visiting Qingcheng Mountain
Master Liu with Students in France
Master Liu with Students in Silicon Valley, California
The Six Forms of Qingcheng Tai Chi is a routine specifically tailored
for everyone (non-martial artist and martial artist alike) for the
purpose of fitness, health enhancements and recovery. It’s particularly
well suited for sedentary people. It is the essence extracted from 2,000 years of Qingcheng
Mountain Tai Chi and Taoist Health knowledge. This exercise is for
people who do not have much time for exercise and can only practice for a
limited time and in a very limited space. It can also serve as martial artist’s foundational exercise.
Before the six form practice, a short set of circular movements exercise and warm-up the major joints of the
neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles (about
10mins). After warm-up, 5 to 10 repetitions of the six forms is
practiced (10-20 minutes; each six forms routine takes 2-3
minutes). In total, 20-30 minutes of six forms Tai Chi exercise with
warm-up exercises are recommended daily; which can be completed in two
or three sessions.
With consistent daily practice, there will be good results
within 3 to 5 days. With longer term adherence, one will notice
improvements for health conditions such as shoulder inflammation,
cervical spondylosis and cold hands; and increased vitality, and
physical fitness. Dis-eases and sub-health could be diminished and kept
at bay.
Qingcheng six forms is different from traditional Tai Chi;
movements such as raise the elbows, lift the shoulder, raise the head,
etc. are utilized and not shunned. Qingcheng Tai Chi has been developed
by Taoist priests over thousands of years for self-defense, fitness and
health enhancements and recovery using conventional and reversed
(yang/yin) modes of reasoning.
About Grandmaster Suibin Liu
Grandmaster Liu started studying Qingcheng Pai at age six under his
maternal grandfather. “I didn’t like it when I was young, but I was
bullied and weak.”
However, as Liu grew older, he became serious about his practice and
voracious about his research, exploring various styles from Shaolin,
Wudang, and Emei. He trained in Sun Bin Quan (孫臏拳) in Shandong Province.
“I bowed to more than ten masters and Daoist hermits. Most of my
martial arts masters were bodyguards and military coaches. I am a
disciple of Wang Shutian (王树田).” Professor Wang was a noted Sichuan
Grandmaster and one of the primary architects of China’s free-sparring
sport, Sanda (散打). Liu was a professional Sanda and boxing instructor
for ten years. “If young people don’t learn fighting, it’s just
flowery.”
Liu also graduated from Chongqing Medical School and practiced
medicine for twelve years, so his emphasis on health stems from more
than his Daoist style. In 1997, he grew away from fighting for sport and
went internal. “Taiji changed my life. After teaching Sanda for ten
years, I could fight, but my mind was not at peace. After learning
Taiji, I don’t try to win all the time. I don’t have as many injuries.
When you are middle-aged, if you don’t learn Taiji, you’ll die early and
that’s against the Dao.”
After a successful competitive career that got him up on the podium
six times in international competition, Liu returned to the study of
Qingcheng Pai under the 35th lineage holder, Grandmaster Yu Guoxiong
(余国雄). “Many young people win a few medals and can fight. They think
they are good, but they do not really have a smooth life. Maybe they
have a lot of anger issues because these people only learned the
surface. They did not learn Daoism. I was lucky. In the ‘90s, I started
following Grandmaster Yu.”
In 2001, Grandmaster Yu named Liu as his successor. “He passed down
the hallmarks of the lineage holders to me: the sword, the seal, the
robes and the quanpu (fist lyrics 拳譜).” The sword was a special
sword form that only the lineage holder receives. “I want to release it
but I cannot break the rules of tradition. There are three lu (literally
‘roads,’ but in this context it indicates separate forms 路). My teacher
gave me permission to share the first lu, but he passed away before
allowing me to share the rest.” The seal is a stone stamp, colloquially
called a “chop,” that is the official signature for Qingcheng Pai. Quanpu
are codified names of the techniques in a poetic form. These are
commonplace nowadays for most of the popular Chinese martial arts, but
for some more esoteric systems, these are still regarded as secret
transmissions.
Today, Grandmaster Liu has adopted the Daoist name Xinxuan (信玄) but
is far from becoming a hermit. In fact, he’s very active and even became
a Guinness Record holder in a televised event. However, this was not
the internationally recognized Guinness World Records established by the
Guinness Brewery in the 1950s. China had its own Guinness Records. Zhongguo Dianshi Jinisi Jilu (China Television “Guinness” Records – jinisi is
a phonetic translation of Guinness 中国电视吉尼斯纪录 ) was a Chinese production
that appropriated the concept for their own television show. It was
carried over a hundred TV stations in China and only stopped
broadcasting recently. In 2000, Liu set the record for extinguishing the
most candles by punching. He blew out thirteen candles set in a row 160
cm in length. “The first few are easy. The last few are very hard.”
Candle punching gained some popularity in the United States as a martial arts practice in the late ‘90s (see Candle Punching
by Jeff Bolt, February-March 1998). It’s a great party trick for Kung
Fu enthusiasts. “I don’t practice this technique anymore. It’s not good
for your health. You have to expend too much energy and must rest for a
long time afterwards. Candle punching trains speed and strength. My
speed was clocked at six punches per second by CCTV. It also teaches
penetrating power for your punches. When my teacher taught me, we only
trained for a distance of 30 cm, the thickness of a human body. But
later, the distance grew just from the students competing with each
other. The real Guinness World Records requested that I reprise the
stunt for them, but I declined. I’m too old already.”
Liu also holds another unusual record with the Chinese Jinisi.
In December 2012, he had thirty-eight Taiji practitioners recite
Qingcheng Taiji in Antarctica. That’s not really a category for the
Guinness Book of World Records, but it rates for Jinisi.
Liu created “Tai Chi Wisdom” system of courses and has coached many
universities and high-quality training institutions around the world.
His disciples and students are in more than 80 countries around the
world. He was selected as one of the top ten traditional martial artist
in promotion festivals of 2017. Many times, he was invited by disciples
to participate in large-scale activities at home and abroad, for
politicians, film and television stars, cultural celebrities,
entrepreneurs to do martial arts, Tai Chi shows, and health teaching;
publishing books and CDs (15 sets). A former speaker at China Tai Chi
Yoga; China-India International Yoga Festival, China Chronic Disease
Management Conference, Tai Chi Culture and Health Qigong International
Forum. Master Liu was also invited to be the martial arts instructor of
the movie Treasure Map, based on a famous novel written by Chinese Nobel
Laureate Mo Yan, that will be adapted into a 3D film.
Qingcheng Tai Chi Around the World
Grandmaster Liu has only 22 inner circle disciples but thousands of students. Of the 22 disciples, Daniel Crevier from Montreal, Canada, was Liu’s first foreign male apprentice and later Mariatu Kargbo from Sierra Leone become Liu’s 1st foreign female apprentice. The
decision to admit Mariatu Kargbo and Daniel Crevier as apprentices came
over the objections of older Qingcheng kung fu masters, Liu said. “They
said foreigners invaded our country in the past. But I said that the
Taoists promotes harmony and inclusiveness, let alone the fact that the
students have nothing to do with old invasions. I am strict in admitting
apprentices. But there were reasons to break the traditional rules for
them. The relation between a master and his apprentice is like kinship. I
should select the proper one. That’s why I have more than 20,000
students in the world, but only have admitted 22 apprentices.”, Liu said.
Liu said that Qingcheng Pai (school) is not exclusive to
Qingcheng Mountain county or China. It should benefit more people and
countries, letting them understand Chinese culture’s grandness and
humanity. “Learning kungfu is a good way for foreigners to know Chinese
culture,” Liu said.
Of the 650,000 residents of Dujiangyan region, Liu says over 200,000
study Qingcheng Pai, so many that, two years ago, China held a Tai Chi
Elite competition there and last year the World Championship. Liu also
says that Qingcheng Pai is in some fifty countries now, with some
100,000 outside of China, and 20,000 in France alone. Grandmaster Liu
had vowed to reach and benefit 100 million students.
Qingcheng Pai Tai Chi had a role in the 2011 international
blockbuster film Kung Fu Panda 2. Sichuan is home to many of the world’s
last surviving wild giant pandas. The Dreamworks team visited The
Dujiangyan Giant Panda Center for research, and Raymond Zibach, the
production designer for the film, modeled some of the Tai Chi postures
on Qingcheng Tai Chi as performed by Liu and his disciples.
Liu has also cultivated some very affluent patrons including some of
the most successful entrepreneurs in China today, top-ranking government
officials from thirteen Asian nations, and ambassadors and their
spouses from thirty-two countries. He has developed health programs for
Shell, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Already the author of several books, Liu
works to keep his time-honored tradition current by developing
smartphone training apps and special health programs.
His foremost health cultivation program is Six Form Qingcheng Tai
Chi. “I created this six forms out of thirty-six movements from the
first Tai Chi sequence. A lot of my CEO students suffer health issues,
including shoulders, pains, cold feet, and poor circulation. The goal
was to use the least movements over the shortest time, in the smallest
practice space to obtain qi energy in the fastest way. It only takes two
minutes of practice the six form.”
Grandmaster Liu sees that Tai Chi can help heal a broken world. “No
matter how much the world is changing, everyone still wants a healthy
body.”
Student Testimonials
Two years ago, I survived a heart attack. Western medicine failed to
improve my condition and condemned me to lifelong reliance on
medication; worst part was the side effects made my life miserable. I
was lucky, a Traditional Chinese Medical Doctor turned my condition
around. Once I got better, I started searching for an ideal exercise
regimen. I concluded Tai Chi as a suitable choice. However, the learning
curve for traditional Tai Chi was steep and most promise health
enhancements after many many years of practice. I continued
my search and found Qingcheng six form Tai Chi. After 9+ months of
practice on a consistent basis I am pleasantly surprised at the
benefits. Physically, I lost some unhealthy weight, my neck, shoulder
and back pain disappeared. On a mental, emotional and spritiual levels, I
am equanimous with a clear and calm mind and sense of inner power and
energy. This has been one of the best investments I have made!
Allan Chan, Semiconductor Marketing Professional in Silicon Valley, California
After I learnt Qingcheng circular and six forms Tai Chi with
Grandmaster Suibin Liu, and practiced for 30 minutes every day for more
than 1 month, my heart and lungs obstructions were relieved. My blood
circulation became better than before, and I’m rarely tired during the
day. The tightness of in my neck and knees are gone too
Linda Xu, Housewife in Silicon Valley, California
I have been suffering from frozen shoulders in the past five years. I
have tried various treatment options but none were very effective.
Since last fall, I had to stop yoga practice because of the pain in my
left shoulder. In March 2019, I accidentally saw a boot camp of
Qingcheng Tai Chi on Eventbrite, which promises to alleviate shoulder
problems, migraine problem, and cold hands and feet. I have all these
problems. I registered out of desperation but also with considerable
reservation because I had never practiced Tai Chi before and I did not
believe that it would help me. I have been practicing it for more than a
month now. My frozen shoulders have improved significantly. My hands
and feet are not as freezing cold as before. Indeed, after merely two
weeks of Tai Chi practice, I was amazed to find that I can do many yoga
poses again, including the shoulder stand. Thank you, Grand Master Liu,
for teaching me a simple routine that alleviates my problems. I am very
pleased that my new love (Qingcheng Tai Chi) helps me to bring back my
old love (Yoga).
王立华 (Li Hua Wang), Professor of International Business Management in Silicon Valley, California
Two years ago, Grandmaster Liu Suibin’s had his first class in the
San Francisco Bay Area, teaching Qingcheng Taiji six forms, and friends
recommended me to attend his class. I have never touched any Tai Chi
before, and did not believe in it’s efficacy, but I have to go because
of obligation. I thought I would attend only one day out of the
scheduled three days. However, who would have thought that after the
first day of class, the red dot on the palm of my right hand
disappeared. I had red spots on my palms for many years, and
I was amazed and immediately decided that this technique was so
powerful and I have to good fate to come across. I persisted in
practicing Master Liu’s recommended regimen that takes 30
minutes daily. It’s been twenty-two months now and the rejuvenation in
me is amazing. The renewed me naturally became an iron clad fan of
Qingcheng Taiji. The big surprises in life often happen serendipitously.
My deepest thanks and appreciation.
This course consists of beginner and intermediate level classes taught by Grandmaster Suibin Liu, visiting from Sichuan, China. Grandmaster Suibin Liu is the 36th Generation Head of the Qingcheng Mountain Taoist Martial Arts School that
holds many secret methods of Qigong and Tai Chi to develop and
strengthen one’s health and internal energy. This is a rare and precious
opportunity to learn directly from Grandmaster Suibin Liu.
The beginner class is suitable for students with no prior
knowledge of Tai Chi or exercising in general and will like to learn a
short but effective Tai Chi routine (QingCheng six forms) that can slowly but surely put one back onto the path of fitness and health. QingCheng six forms
is relatively easy to learn, and a single repetition can be performed
in 2 to 3 mins in very small space without special equipment. This six
forms Tai Chi is the condensed essence of Qingcheng Mountain Tai Chi.
The Intermediate class is suitable for students who had taken a
beginner class and will like to go deeper into Qingcheng Tai Chi and
learn other advanced Tai Chi health techniques as well.
The Six Forms of Qingcheng Taiji are a set of exercises is specially tailored for the people of the office. It has been refined from Qingcheng Mountain Daoist Health Culture and Qingcheng Taiji in the past 2000 years.
The Six Forms of Qingcheng Taiji are a set of exercises specially tailored for the people of the office. It has been refined from Qingcheng Mountain Daoist Health Culture and Qingcheng Taiji for the past 2000 years.
The martial arts foundation is for people who do not have much time for exercise and can only practice for a limited time and in a very limited space. The neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, ankles, and knees are slowly moved through the positive and negative movements seven times as a warm-up for the joint exercise. One set up of the Six Forms can be completed in 2-3 minutes and is recommended to adhere to 5-10 times a day, that is, 10-20 minutes. Plus each joint exercise for 10 minutes, a total of 20-30 minutes of exercise in one day, can be completed in two or three times a day.
After continuing the practice, there will be good results within 3-5 days. Long-term adherence, shoulder inflammation, cervical spondylosis, cold hands, special effects, quickly cultivated vitality, physical fitness has been improved. Disease and sub-health will eventually move away from your body. Because this routine has an auxiliary effect on cervical spondylosis of the shoulder, it will appear to raise the e
The martial arts foundation is for people who do not have much exercise time can practice for a limited time and in a very limited space. During the joint exerise as warm up, the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, ankles, knees, and ankles are slowly moved through the positive and negative movements seven times. One set up of the Six Forms can be completed in 2-3 minutes.
it is recommended to adhere to 5-10 times a day, that is, 10-20 minutes. Plus each joint exercise for 10 minutes, a total of 20-30 minutes of exercise in one day, can be completed in two or three times a day.
After continuing the practice, there will be good results within 3-5 days. Long-term adherence, shoulder inflammation, cervical spondylosis, cold hands, may feet have special effects, quickly cultivated vitality, physical fitness has been improved.. Disease and sub-health will eventually move away from your body. Because this routine has an auxiliary effect on cervical spondylosis of the shoulder, it will appear to raise the elbow, lift the shoulder, raise the head, etc., which is different from the traditional Taiji.
Qingcheng Taiji also knows as Qingcheng Mountain Xuanmen Taiji is the core content of the famous martial arts Qingcheng Mountain martial arts in China, connected with Qingcheng Mountain esoteric “Xuanmen Taiji Longevity “, as the top Daoism kongfu.
Qingcheng Taiji, also known as Qingcheng Mountain Xuanmen Taiji, is the core content of the famous martial arts Qingcheng Mountain martial arts in China, connected with Qingcheng Mountain esoteric “Xuanmen Taiji Longevity “, as the top Daoism kungfu.
Qingcheng Taiji is not just a martial art. It encompasses philosophy, art, music, medicine, astrology, and started from the Han Dynasty, one of the oldest extant traditions connected to any martial art today.
Qingcheng Mountain is one of the most important Daoist centers in China. It is blanketed with dozens of ancient sacred temples. The mountain range has thirty-six peaks, the tallest of which stands over 4000 feet high. Rising majestically from the plains of Chengdu in Sichuan province, Qingcheng is intimately connected to the Dujiangyan irrigation system (都江堰), one of the world’s oldest, dating back to 256 BCE and still functioning today. In 2000, Qingcheng and Dujiangyan were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Qingcheng Goes Global
Grandmaster Liu has only twenty-two indoor disciples but
thousands of students. Of the 650,000 residents of Dujiangyan region,
Liu says over 200,000 study Qingcheng Pai, so many that, two years ago,
China held a Taiji Elite competition there and last year the World
Championship. Liu also says that Qingzhen Pai is in some fifty countries
now, with some 100,000 outside of China, and 20,000 in France alone.
Qingcheng Taiji had a role in the 2011 international blockbuster film Kung Fu Panda 2. Sichuan is home to many of the world’s last surviving wild giant pandas. The Dreamworks team visited The Dujiangyan Giant Panda Center for research, and Raymond Zibach, the production designer for the film, modeled some of the Taiji postures on Qingcheng Taiji as performed by Liu and his disciples.
Liu has also cultivated some very affluent patrons including
some of the most successful entrepreneurs in China today, top-ranking
government officials from thirteen Asian nations, and ambassadors and
their spouses from thirty-two countries and counting. He has developed
health programs for Shell, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Already the author of
several books, Liu works to keep his time-honored tradition current by
developing smartphone training apps and special health programs.
His foremost health cultivation program is Six Form Qingcheng
Taiji (Zhanzhuang Gong Liu Shi 青城太极站桩功六式). “I created this six forms out
of thirty-six movements from the first Taiji lu. A lot of my CEO
students suffer health issues, including shoulders, pains, cold feet,
and poor circulation. The goal is to use the least movements over the
shortest time requirements in the smallest practice space to obtain qi
energy in the fastest way. It only takes two minutes of practice a day.
Grandmaster Liu sees that Taiji can help heal a broken world.
“No matter how much the world is changing, everyone still wants a
healthy body.”
About Grandmaster Suibin Liu
Grandmaster Liu is the 36th leader of Qingcheng Taiji. One of the thirty Chinese Taiji characters, ten leading martial arts figures, and six consecutive ambassadors for the China Health and Wellness International Forum
About Grandmaster Suibin Liu
Grandmaster Liu is the 36th leader of Qingcheng Taiji. One of the thirty Chinese Taiji characters, ten leading martial arts figures, and six consecutive ambassadors for the China Health and Wellness International Forum
Since childhood, he has been a master of the Chinese TV Guinness and the international and world martial arts competition. In 2001, Liu became Qingcheng martial arts 36th generation head, authorized by Grandmaster Justin Yue.
After graduating from Chongqing Medical University, he became a doctor for 12 years; Wu granted for 30 years; has created “Taiji Wisdom” system courses.
He has coached many universities and high-quality training institutions around the world. His disciples and students have been in more than 80 countries around the world. He was selected as one of the top ten traditional martial arts promotion festivals in 2017. Many times, he was invited to attend disciples to participate in large-scale activities at home and abroad, for politicians, film and television stars, cultural celebrities, entrepreneurs to do martial arts, Taiji show, and health teaching; publishing books and CDs 15 sets. A former lecturer of China Taiji·Yoga Yoga Taiji; China-India International Yoga Festival, China Chronic Disease Management Conference, Tai Chi Culture and Health Qigong International Forum.
Master Liu was also invited to be the martial arts instructor of the movie Treasure Map, a famous novella written by Chinese Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, will be adapted into a 3D film.
Since childhood, he has been a master of the Chinese TV
Guinness and the international and world martial arts competition. In
2001, Liu became Qingcheng martial arts 36th generation head, authorized
by Grandmaster Justin Yue.
Graduated from Chongqing Medical University, became a doctor 12
years; Wu granted for 30 years; has created “Taiji Wisdom” system
courses.
He has coached many universities and high-quality training
institutions around the world. His disciples and students have been in
more than 80 countries around the world. He was selected as one of the
top ten traditional martial arts promotion festivals in 2017. Many
times, he was invited to attend disciples to participate in large-scale
activities at home and abroad, for politicians, film and television
stars, cultural celebrities, entrepreneurs to do martial arts, Taiji
show, and health teaching; publishing books and CDs 15 sets. Former
lecturer of China Taiji·Yoga Yoga Taiji; China-India International Yoga
Festival, China Chronic Disease Management Conference, Tai Chi Culture
and Health Qigong International Forum.
Master Liu was also invited to be the martial arts instructor
of the movie Treasure Map, a famous novella written by Chinese Nobel
Laureate Mo Yan, will be adapted into a 3D film.
The fourth annual Silicon Valley DeepTech Summit™(DTS) on January 12, 2019, with the theme of Impacting one billion lives. DTS is organized by F50, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs, and http://SVDN.me (Silicon Valley Developer Network), and Community Media http://founderworld.org at Draper University. DTS has become one of the Bay Area’s flagship tech events for corporates and investors, featuring highly innovative technologies:
HealthTech: Medical devices, life sciences, biotech, digital health, integrated medicine, etc.
DeepTech: Greentech, blockchain, new material, energy, agtech, transportation, etc.
About the DeepTech Summit™ (DTS)
The DeepTech Summit™ (DTS) is organized by F50, Community Media SVE.io, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs, and SVDN (Silicon Valley Developer Network). It brings together over 50 tech communities and media partners from all over the world.
F50 finds and connects the next generation of world-changing tech innovations with global partnerships to power their long-term impact. The summit will feature 30+ extraordinary products and innovations, and 300+ attendees from world-leading corporations and the global investment ecosystem. The attendees are corporate executives, venture funds, selected VC partners, influential long-term investors, asset management companies, and a group of high-potential local founders.
This is a special event hosted by Silicon Valley Android Developers with Google Research team. They answered many developer questions!
Presenter #1: UX Research Lead, Bob Silverstein Topic: Are you interested in shaping the future of Google Products? We’re part of the Google user research community looking to build a variety of tools within Android Studio at Google. Feedback and expertise from users of these tools is essential to our mission. We’ll be discussing in detail these opportunities and how important they are towards the future of developer tools in our pipeline.
Presenter #2: UX Research Recruiting Coordinator, Emily Mazza Topic: How to sign up in our Google database, thank you gifts for participation and what the format of participation will look like in Google UX research studies.
On March 2, SpaceX plans to launch its first test of an unmanned Dragon vehicle which is designed to carry humans into low Earth orbit and to the International Space Station. If the test is successful, later this year, SpaceX plans to launch American astronauts from United States soil for the first time since 2011.
While a major milestone for a private company, SpaceX’s most significant achievement has been in lowering the launch costs that have limited many space activities. While making several modifications to the fuel and engines, SpaceX’s major breakthroughs have come through recovering and reusing as much of the rocket and launch vehicle as possible.
Between 1970 and 2000, the cost to launch a kilogram to space remained fairly steady, with an average of US$18,500 per kilogram. When the space shuttle was in operation, it could launch a payload of 27,500 kilograms for $1.5 billion, or $54,500 per kilogram. For a SpaceX Falcon 9, the rocket used to access the ISS, the cost is just $2,720 per kilogram.
I’m a space policy analyst, and I’ve observed that cost has been a major hurdle limiting access to space. Since the 1950s, the high cost of a space program has traditionally put it beyond the reach of most countries. Today, state and private actors alike have ready access to space. And while SpaceX is not the only private company providing launch services – Orbital ATK, recently purchased by Northrop Grumman, United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin are also players – it has emerged as the most significant.
SpaceX’s achievements
Frustrated with NASA and influenced by science fiction writers, Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. Though it suffered several setbacks, in 2008 it launched the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket, the Falcon 1. Falcon 9 flew for the first time the next year, and in 2012, the Dragon capsule became the first privately funded spacecraft to dock with the ISS. SpaceX has since focused on recovering key parts of the Falcon 9 to enhance reusability and reduce costs. This includes the Falcon 9’s first stage which, once it expends its fuel, falls back through the atmosphere reaching speeds of 5,200 miles per hour before reigniting its engines to land on a drone recovery ship.
In 2018 alone, SpaceX made 21 successful launches. The new Falcon Heavy rocket – a more powerful version of the Falcon 9 – launched in February. This rocket can lift 63,800 kilograms, equivalent to more than 27 Asian elephants, to low Earth orbit and 16,800 kilograms to Mars for just $90 million. The test payload was Musk’s own red Tesla Roadster, with a mannequin named Starman in the driver’s seat.
SpaceX’s technical advances and cost reductions have changed the direction of U.S. space policy. In 2010, the Obama administration moved away from NASA’s Constellation program, which called for the development of a family of rockets that could reach low Earth orbit and be used for long-distance spaceflight. With NASA falling significantly behind schedule, because of technological difficulties and budget cuts, the Obama administration was left with a choice of whether to boost funds for NASA or change direction.
In 2010, then-President Barack Obama toured Kennedy Space Center and even met with Elon Musk to get a firsthand look at SpaceX’s facilities. The administration chose to reorient the program to focus solely on deep space. For missions closer to home, NASA would purchase services from companies like SpaceX for access to low Earth orbit. Critics objected to budget cuts to NASA as well as concerns about whether the private sector would be able to follow through on providing launch services.
While NASA has struggled to develop its Space Launch System, an analysis from NASA’s Ames Research Center found that the dramatically lower launch costs SpaceX made possible offered “greatly expanded opportunities to exploit space” for many users including NASA. The report also suggested that NASA could increase its number of planned missions to low Earth orbit and the ISS precisely because of the lower price tag.
In addition to substantially affecting human spaceflight, SpaceX has also launched payloads for countries including Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and, most recently, Israel. On Feb. 21, 2019, a Falcon 9 launched a privately built Israeli lunar lander which, if successful, will be the first privately built lunar probe.
Overall, SpaceX has significantly reduced the barriers to space, making it more accessible and democratizing who participates in space-based commerce and exploration.
Challenges ahead
Despite SpaceX’s successes, it faces significant challenges. Earlier this year, SpaceX laid off 10 percent of its workforce to reduce costs. NASA remains suspicious of some of the launch procedures SpaceX plans to use, including the fueling of the rocket with astronauts on board, which was linked to an explosion of a Falcon 9 on the launchpad. The Department of Defense’s inspector general has also announced an investigation into how the Air Force certified the Falcon 9, though it is not clear what initiated the probe.
Among some in NASA, the concern is with Musk himself. In a video last year, Musk was seen smoking marijuana, which prompted NASA to initiate a safety review of SpaceX as well as Boeing, another company aiming to provide launch services. Musk has also found himself in hot water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding his tweets about another one of his companies, Tesla. In recent days, the SEC has asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt for apparently violating a settlement deal reached last year. While he is undoubtedly the driving force behind both Tesla and SpaceX, erratic behavior could make potential customers wary of contracting with them.
Musk, regardless of his personal missteps, and SpaceX have aggressively pushed technological boundaries that have changed minds, my own included, about the potential of private companies to provide safe and reliable access to space.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
In my research I use sensors and computers to monitor how the brain itself processes decision-making. Together with another brain-computer interface scholar, Riccardo Poli, I looked at one example of possible human-machine collaboration – situations when police and security staff are asked to keep a lookout for a particular person, or people, in a crowded environment, such as an airport.
It seems like a straightforward request, but it is actually really hard to do. A security officer has to monitor several surveillance cameras for many hours every day, looking for suspects. Repetitive tasks like these are prone to human errors.
Some people suggest these tasks should be automated, as machines do not get bored, tired or distracted over time. However, computer vision algorithms tasked to recognize faces could also make mistakes. As my research has found, together, machines and humans could do much better.
Two types of artificial intelligence
We have developed two AI systems that could help identify target faces in crowded scenes. The first is a facial recognition algorithm. It analyzes images from a security camera, identifies which parts of the images are faces and compares those faces with an image of the person that is sought. When it identifies a match, this algorithm also reports how sure it is of that decision.
The second system is a brain-computer interface that uses sensors on a person’s scalp, looking for neural activity related to confidence in decisions.
We conducted an experiment with 10 human participants, showing each of them 288 pictures of crowded indoor environments. Each picture was shown for only 300 milliseconds – about as long as it takes an eye to blink – after which the person was asked to decide whether or not they had seen a particular person’s face. On average, they were able to correctly discriminate between images with and without the target in 72 percent of the images.
When our entirely autonomous AI system performed the same tasks, it correctly classified 84 percent of the images.
Human-AI collaboration
All the humans and the standalone algorithm were seeing the same images, so we sought to improve the decision-making by combining the actions of more than one of them at a time.
To merge several decisions into one, we weighted individual responses by decision confidence – the algorithm’s self-estimated confidence, and the measurements from the humans’ brain readings, transformed with a machine-learning algorithm. We found that an average group of just humans, regardless of how large the group was, did better than the average human alone – but was less accurate than the algorithm alone.
However, groups that included at least five people and the algorithm were statistically significantly better than humans or machine alone.
Keeping people in the loop
Pairing people with computers is getting easier. Accurate computer vision and image processing software programs are common in airports and other situations. Costs are dropping for consumer systems that read brain activity, and they provide reliable data.
In our study, the humans were less accurate than the AI. However, the brain-computer interfaces observed that the people were more confident about their choices than the AI was. Combining those factors offered a useful mix of accuracy and confidence, in which humans usually influenced the group decision more than the automated system did. When there is no agreement between humans and AI, it is ethically simpler to let humans decide.
Our study has found a way in which machines and algorithms do not have to – and in fact should not – replace humans. Rather, they can work together with people to find the best of all possible outcomes.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
Global Capital Summit 2019 is organized by F50, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs, and Community Media SVE.io. The summit will feature 30+ speaking sessions including thought leader talk, investment trends, and extraordinary products and innovations, around 500 attendees from world-leading corporations, and the global investment ecosystem. The attendees are corporate executives, angel investors, venture funds, influential long-term investors, and a small group of high-potential local early founders.
GCS will feature the following content in the format of the keynote, fireside chat, panel, and presentations (preliminary, more to come):
Angel and Venture Investment
Is now the winter for startup or investor?
The rising of angel investors
Women in angel and venture investment
Emerging new forces at Sand Hill
Foreign investment in Silicon Valley: Iseral, China, Japan, India, Russia, Middle East
Universities and Incubators
Seeding the next generation founders
The global opportunities and challenges for early-stage startups
Future Technology
Improve one billion people’s health
AI & robots: the turning point
Greentech: How investors help sustainability
Corporate Ventures
Corporate in the startup ecosystem: the force awakens
Artificial intelligence systems are powerful tools for businesses and governments to process data and respond to changing situations, whether on the stock market or on a battlefield. But there are still some things AI isn’t ready for.
We are scholars ofcomputer scienceworking to understand and improve the ways in which algorithms interact with society. AI systems perform best when the goal is clear and there is high-quality data, like when they are asked to distinguish between different faces after learning from many pictures of correctly identified people.
When algorithms are at work, there should be a human safety net to prevent harming people. Our research demonstrated that in some situations algorithms can recognize problems in how they’re operating, and ask for human help. Specifically, we show, asking for human help can help alleviate algorithmic bias in some settings.
It’s important to remember, though, that AI can cement misconceptions in how a task is addressed, or magnify existing inequalities. This can happen even when no one told the algorithm explicitly to treat anyone differently.
For instance, many companies have algorithms that try to determine features about a person by their face – say to guess their gender. The systems developed by U.S. companies tend to do significantly better at categorizing white men than they do women and darker-skinned people; they do worst at dark-skinned women. Systems developed in China, however, tend to do worse on white faces.
The difference is not because one group has faces that are easier to classify than others. Rather, both algorithms are typically trained on a large collection of data that’s not as diverse as the overall human population. If the data set is dominated by a particular type of face – white men in the U.S., and Chinese faces in China – then the algorithm will probably do better at analyzing those faces than others.
No matter how the difference arises, the result is that algorithms can be biased by being more accurate on one group than on another.
Keeping a human eye on AI
For high-stakes situations, the algorithm’s confidence in its own result – its estimation of how likely it is that the system came up with the right answer – is just as important as the result itself. The people who receive the output from algorithms need to know how seriously to take the results, rather than assuming that it’s correct because it involved a computer.
Many types of AI algorithms already calculate an internal confidence level – a prediction of how well it did at analyzing a particular piece of input. In facial analysis, many AI algorithms have lower confidence on darker faces and female faces than for white male faces. It’sunclear how much this has been taken into account by law enforcement for high-stakes uses of these algorithms.
The goal is for the AI itself to locate the areas where it is not reaching the same accuracy for different groups. On these inputs, the AI can defer its decision to a human moderator. This technique is especially well-suited for context-heavy tasks like content moderation.
Human content moderators cannot keep up with the flood of images being posted on social media sites. But AI content moderation is famous for failing to take into account the context behind a post – misidentifying discussions of sexual orientation as explicit content, or identifying the Declaration of Independence as hate speech. This can end up inaccurately censoring one demographic or political group over another.
To get the best of both worlds, our research suggests scoring all content in an automated fashion, using the same AI methods already common today. Then our approach uses newly proposed techniques to automatically locate potential inequalities in the accuracy of the algorithm on different protected groups of people, and to hand over the decisions about certain individuals to a human. As a result, the algorithm can be completely unbiased about those people on which it actually decides. And humans decide on those individuals where algorithmic decision would have inevitably created bias.
This approach does not eliminate bias: It just “concentrates” the potential for bias on a smaller set of decisions, which are then handled by people, using human common sense. The AI can still perform the bulk of the decision-making work.
This is a demonstration of a situation where an AI algorithm working together with a human can reap the benefits and efficiency of the AI’s good decisions, without being locked into its bad ones. Humans will then have more time to work on the fuzzy, difficult decisions that are critical to ensuring fairness and equity.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
This week a team of scientists and physicians from the U.K. published news of a second HIV positive man, in London, who is in long-term (18-month) HIV remission after undergoing treatment for Hodgkins lymphoma. The unexpected success has launched a new round of discussion about a potential cure for HIV.
Since 2008, scientists have been trying to replicate the treatment that cured the “Berlin patient” of HIV. At the time, many in the field of HIV research were excited to learn that this man, who tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus in Berlin and had recently undergone treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, appeared to have been cured of his HIV. Until now, success in replicating that cure has been limited.
What is HIV?
HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. Since the virus was first discovered in the 1980s, more than 75 million people worldwide have been infected with HIV. Today, almost 37 million people live with HIV. Of these, about 1.1 million live in the U.S.
Infection with HIV almost always led to AIDS, which in turn was almost always fatal. The field was revolutionized in 1996 with the introduction of HIV anti-retroviral therapy medications. These drugs halt HIV from replicating and allow an infected person to regain a functioning immune system. These medications are so effective that today a person living with HIV has almost the same life expectancy of someone without HIV infection. However, these medications must be taken every day, have multiple distressing side effects, and can cost thousands of dollars each month.
Yet even with this life-extending treatment, a functional HIV cure, defined as when someone with HIV no longer tests positive for the virus and does not need to take these medications, has remained elusive.
The ‘cure’ treatment
All of that seemed to change when in 2008 at the Conference on Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, Massachusetts, the news broke of the Berlin patient, named Timothy Ray Brown, who seemed to have been cured of his HIV. In order to achieve that serendipitous “cure,” Brown had to undergo aggressive treatment for his acute myeloid leukemia that involved two hematopoietic stem cell transplantations – in which a patient’s bone marrow is damaged – and full body irradiation.
This complex treatment involves destroying a person’s own immune system with high doses of chemotherapy or radiation. Then the patient receives a transplant of new stem cells from either themselves or a donor.
This is a difficult treatment that carries a high risk of infection and other complications, such as graft-versus-host disease, blood clots and liver disease.
Researchers learned that Brown and the “London patient” both shared a novel treatment course. In the case of both Brown and now the London patient, the new blood cells transplanted into them were from donors who had two copies of a gene mutation for the CCR5 receptor. This CCR5 receptor mutation – present in about 1 percent of people of European descent – prevents HIV viruses from entering immune cells. This renders them resistant to most HIV infection.
However, it’s not just surviving the transplant that confers the HIV “cure” or remission. After receiving treatment, both patients were eventually taken off their anti-retroviral medications and subsequent examination showed that that even with very sensitive blood tests, the team could not detect HIV in their blood. The inability to find HIV in their blood, coupled with the missing CCR5 receptor, constitutes the HIV viral remission of the London patient announced earlier this week.
What the new case shows
Given recent disappointments after hematopoietic stem cell transplantations in people living with HIV, the team reporting on remission of the London patient does not describe their patient as cured. Neither should anyone else.
While a second patient experiencing HIV viral remission with a slightly less toxic cancer treatment is certainly encouraging progress, an 18-month remission does not equal a cure.
Also, while the London patient’s cancer treatment was less intense, with just chemotherapy and the stem cell transplant, it was still toxic and is not a course of treatment that otherwise healthy people living with HIV infection should embark upon.
Most importantly, the HIV community learned that Brown’s case was not unique. This gives us another, and perhaps greater reason, to hope for future revolutions in the HIV cure scientific agenda.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
About 25 million Americans who are aging in place rely on help from other people and devices such as canes, raised toilets or shower seats to perform essential daily activities, according to a new study documenting how older adults adapt to their changing physical abilities.
But a substantial number don’t get adequate assistance. Nearly 60 percent of seniors with seriously compromised mobility reported staying inside their homes or apartments instead of getting out of the house. Twenty-five percent said they often remained in bed. Of older adults who had significant difficulty putting on a shirt or pulling on undergarments or pants, 20 percent went without getting dressed. Of those who required assistance with toileting issues, 27.9 percent had an accident or soiled themselves.
The study, by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, focuses on how older adults respond to changes in physical function — a little-studied and poorly understood topic. It shows that about one-third of older adults who live in the community — nearly 13 million seniors — have a substantial need for assistance with daily activities such as bathing, eating, getting dressed, using the toilet, transferring in and out of bed or moving around their homes; about one-third have relatively few needs; and another third get along well on their own with no notable difficulty.
For older adults and their families, the report is a reminder of the need to plan ahead for changing capacities.
“The reality is that most of us, as we age, will require help at one point or another,” said Dr. Bruce Chernof, president of the SCAN Foundation and chair of the 2013 federal Commission on Long-Term Care. Citing Medicare’s failure to cover so-called long-term services and supports, which help seniors age in place, he said, “We need to lean in much harder if we want to help seniors thrive at home as long as possible.” (KHN’s coverage of aging and long-term care issues is supported in part by the SCAN Foundation.)
Previous reports have examined the need for paid or unpaid help in the older population and the extent to which those needs go unmet. Notably, in 2017, the same group of Johns Hopkins researchers found that 42 percent of older adults with probable dementia or difficulty performing daily activities didn’t get assistance from family, friends or paid caregivers — an eye-opening figure. Of seniors with at least three chronic conditions and high needs, 21 percent lacked any kind of assistance.
But personal care isn’t all that’s needed to help older adults remain at home when strength, flexibility, muscle coordination and other physical functions begin to deteriorate. Devices and home modifications can also help people adjust.
Until this new study, it hasn’t been clear how often older adults use “assistive devices”: canes, walkers, wheelchairs and scooters for people with difficulties walking; shower seats, tub seats and grab bars to help with bathing; button hooks, reachers, grabbers and specially designed clothes for people who have difficulty dressing; special utensils designed to make eating easier; and raised toilets or toilet seats, portable commodes and disposable pads or undergarments for individuals with toileting issues.
“What we haven’t known before is the extent of adjustments that older adults make to manage daily activities,” said Judith Kasper, a co-author of the study and professor at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The data comes from a 2015 survey conducted by the National Health and Aging Trends Study, a leading source of information about functioning and disability among adults 65 and older. More than 7,000 seniors filled out surveys in their homes and results were extrapolated to 38.8 million older Americans who live in the community. (Those who live in nursing homes, assisted living centers, continuing care retirement communities and other institutions were excluded.)
Among key findings: Sixty percent of the seniors surveyed used at least one device, most commonly for bathing, toileting and moving around. (Twenty percent used two or more devices and 13 percent also received some kind of personal assistance.) Five percent had difficulty with daily tasks but didn’t have help and hadn’t made other adjustments yet. One percent received help only.
Needs multiplied as people grew older, with 63 percent of those 85 and older using multiple devices and getting personal assistance, compared with 23 percent of those between ages 65 and 74.
The problem, experts note, is that Medicare doesn’t pay for most of these non-medical services, with some exceptions. As a result, many seniors, especially those at or near the bottom of the income ladder, go without needed assistance, even when they’re enrolled in Medicaid. (Medicaid community-based services for low-income seniors vary by state and often fall short of actual needs.)
The precariousness of their lives is illustrated in a companion report on financial strain experienced by older adults who require long-term services and supports. Slightly more than 10 percent of seniors with high needs experienced at least one type of hardship, such as being unable to pay expenses like medical bills or prescriptions (5.9 percent), utilities (4.8 percent) or rent (3.4 percent), or skipping meals (1.8 percent). (Some people had multiple difficulties, reflected in these numbers.)
These kinds of adverse events put older adults’ health at risk, while contributing to avoidable hospitalizations and nursing home placements. Given a growing population of seniors who will need assistance, “I think there’s a need for Medicare to rethink how to better support beneficiaries,” said Amber Willink, co-author of both studies and an assistant scientist at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.
That’s begun to happen, with the passage last year of the CHRONIC Care Act, which allows Medicare Advantage plans to offer supplemental benefits such as wheelchair ramps, bathroom grab bars, transportation and personal care to chronically ill members. But it’s unclear how robust these benefits will be going forward; this year, plans, which cover 21 million people, aren’t offering much. Meanwhile, 39 million people enrolled in traditional Medicare are left out altogether.
“We’ve had discussions with the [insurance] industry over the last couple of months to explore what’s going to happen and it’s a big question mark,” said Susan Reinhard, director of AARP Public Policy Institute, which publishes a scorecard on the adequacy of state long-term services and supports with several other organizations.
So far, she said, the response seems to be, “Let’s wait and see, and is this going to be affordable?”
We’re eager to hear from readers about questions you’d like answered, problems you’ve been having with your care and advice you need in dealing with the health care system. Visit khn.org/columnists to submit your requests or tips.
Source: from Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. More Read More
Valentine cards are filled with expressions of unequivocal adoration and appreciation. That’s fitting for the holiday set aside to express love and reaffirm commitment to one’s romantic partner.
But what if there’s more going on below the surface of these adoring declarations? How might thoughts and feelings that people are not even aware of shape their romantic relationships?
We are two psychology researchers interested in how the mind works, and how it affects a variety of experiences, including romantic relationships. In our studies, we’ve found that how people feel about their partners at a nonconscious level may be a bit more complicated than the typical message in a Valentine. Even for those who consciously express only love and fondness, thinking about a partner can elicit ambivalence – both positive and negative responses of which they’re not consciously aware.
Reactions you don’t know you have
People need to quickly, effortlessly and continuously make sense of their world: Who is a friend and who is not? What is desirable versus harmful? Human beings are always evaluating people, places and things on basic dimensions of goodness and badness.
But poets and song writers have long lamented that those you love are also those who can hurt you most. Psychologists too have long recognized that lovers’ thoughts are complex. It seemed to us that when it comes to romantic partners, people may not have positive reactions only.
Here’s how it works. Imagine that we were looking for evidence of how people felt about something that is clearly positive, like flowers. We would quickly flash the word flower on the screen, then replace it with a second word that is unambiguously good or bad in meaning, such as sunshine or garbage. Participants’ task is seemingly simple: ignore the first word and classify the second “target” word as good or bad.
Even though people are told to ignore flower, they can’t. Thinking of flowers brings to mind not just specific objective features – flowers have petals, a stem – but also feelings and attitudes about them – flowers are beautiful, good.
As a result, after seeing a positive word like flower, most people are faster at classifying targets, such as sunshine, as “good,” and slower at classifying targets, such as garbage, as “bad.” In fact, research shows that the first word, flower, triggers a motor response towards the “good” response. So, if the target word is also “good,” like sunshine, seeing flower facilitates the correct classification. But, when the target word is “bad,” like garbage, there is what psychologists call response competition; since flower triggers a motor response towards “good,” people need to override it to correctly classify a “bad” target.
Of course it works in the other direction too. If, instead of flower, the first word has negative connotations, such as cockroach, people are faster at classifying garbage as “bad” and slower at classifying sunshine as “good.”
Mixed emotions
We used this type of indirect method to assess the feelings that spontaneously come to mind when people think about their partners. So, instead of flower, imagine that the first word flashed was your nickname for your sweetheart.
Not surprisingly, people tend to be faster at classifying positive target words after seeing their partner’s name. But something very interesting happened when the second word was negative – people were also faster at classifying negative targets after seeing the name of their partner.
This boost in response speed to the negative targets was almost as big as when thinking about a cockroach! It’s as though thinking of one’s partner spontaneously brought to mind a negative evaluation.
So while the mere thought of a romantic partner whom you love is enough to spark a nonconscious positive evaluation, we also found that it may simultaneously elicit a nonconscious negative evaluation. Perhaps when thinking about romantic partners, people can’t help but think about both the good and bad.
Research like our study is just beginning to reveal the complexity of these nonconscious feelings toward partners. Why might someone simultaneously hold such conflicting emotions?
Psychologists have long considered ambivalenceto be pathological, characterized by anxiety and internal conflict, experienced only by a troubled few. Such consciously experienced ambivalence may well be problematic. But the sort of nonconscious ambivalence revealed by our research does not seem pathological. Rather, it appears typical and may occur even when you very much love your partner.
Research has found that positive nonconscious partner evaluations can predict relationship quality and stability. Now we need to figure out how negative nonconscious partner evaluations work.
So if you are feeling at some level a tinge of ambivalence towards your partner, know that you are far from alone. Perhaps on this Valentine’s Day, consider honoring your relationship by fully embracing the complexity of your feelings.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
There’s an old saying, “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” In other words, before you give up, take matters into your own hands and try a little harder.
As a psychology researcher, I believe this adage applies to relationships, too. Before you let go, look for the “knots” that might save you from accidentally letting a great relationship slip from your grasp. Relationship science suggests that the problem is that people tend to overemphasize the negative and underappreciate the positive when looking at their romantic partners.
If you could build the perfect relationship, what would it look like? Perhaps more importantly, how does your current relationship stack up? Expectations for today’s relationships are higher than ever. Now that relationships are a choice, mediocrity isn’t acceptable. It’s all or nothing, and no one wants to settle.
The secret to avoiding settling seems simple: have high standards and demand only the very best. Researchers refer to people who are pickier than others and always want the absolute best possible option as maximizers. Their counterparts are satisficers – those satisfied once quality surpasses a minimum threshold of acceptability. For them, “good enough” is perfectly fine. As long as their relationship exceeds their predetermined benchmarks for “high quality,” satisficers are content.
Maximizer personalities will tend to exhaust all options and explore many possibilities to secure the flawless partner. You might think that sounds ideal, even noble, almost like common sense. But there are hidden downsides. Call it the myth of maximization, because the research reveals that maximizers report more regret and depression and feel threatened by others whom they perceive as doing better. Maximizers also experience lower self-esteem and less optimism, happiness and life satisfaction. And they prefer reversible decisions or outcomes that are not absolute or final.
See the problem? In long-term relationships, people tend to prefer more of a “’til death do us part” approach rather than a “’til I find something better” tactic. Overall, the implication for your relationship is clear: The continuous pursuit of perfection could be fine for a car, but in your relationship it may result in failing to recognize the truly great relationship that’s right in front of you for what it is. Impossibly high standards can make an excellent relationship seem average.
You may also undervalue your relationship by being too quick to identify imperfections, notice the negatives and find problems. Blame what psychologists call the negativity bias, which is a tendency to pay attention to the bad or negative aspects of an experience.
In other words, when your relationship is going well, it doesn’t register. You take it for granted. But problems? They capture your attention. The bickering, insensitive comments, forgotten chores, the messes and the inconveniences – all stand out because they deviate from the easily overlooked happy status quo.
This tendency is so pronounced that when a relationship doesn’t have any major issues, research suggests that people inflate small problems into bigger ones. Rather than be thankful for the relative calm, people manufacture problems where none previously existed. You could be your own worst enemy without even realizing it.
Time to recalibrate. The key is separating the critical from the inconsequential in order to distinguish minor issues from real problems. Identifying the true dealbreakers will allow you to save your energy for real problems, and allow the minor stuff to simply fade away.
Data from a representative sample of over 5,000 Americans, ranging in age from 21 to over 76, identified the top 10 relationship dealbreakers:
Disheveled or unclean appearance
Lazy
Too needy
Lacks a sense of humor
Lives more than three hours away
Bad sex
Lacks self-confidence
Too much TV/video games
Low sex drive
Stubborn
Beyond that list, there are certainly annoyances that can become dealbreakers in otherwise generally healthy relationships. And if your partner disrespects, hurts or abuses you, those are behaviors that shouldn’t be ignored and should rightly end your relationship.
In a follow-up study, researchers asked participants to consider both dealbreakers and dealmakers – that is, qualities that are especially appealing. When determining whether a relationship was viable, it turned out the dealbreakers carried more weight. The negativity bias strikes again. The fact that people tend to focus more on the breakers than the makers is further evidence that we’re not giving some aspects of our relationship enough credit.
What have you been missing in your relationship? Surely there are boxes that your partner checks that you’ve neglected to notice. Start giving credit where credit is due.
In fact, some studies suggest you should give your partner even more credit than she or he might deserve. Instead of being realistic, give your partner the benefit of the doubt, with an overly generous appraisal. Would you be lying to yourself? Sure, a little bit. But research shows that these types of positive illusions help the relationship by decreasing conflict while increasing satisfaction, love and trust.
Holding overly optimistic views of your partner convinces you of their value, which reflects well on you – you’re the one who has such a great partner, after all. Your rose-colored opinions also make your partner feel good and give them a good reputation to live up to. They won’t want to let you down so they’ll try to fulfill your positive prophecy. All of which benefits your relationship.
It’s time to stop being overly critical of your relationship. Instead find the knots, the parts of your relationship you’ve been taking for granted that will help you hold on. If you know where to look and what to appreciate, you may just realize there are a lot more reasons to happily hold onto your relationship than you thought.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
The fourth annual Global Capital Summit (GCS)® on April 30, 2019, with the theme of Seeding the future, is set to share the voice and believe from earlier stage VCs, Angels, incubators, and funding network. GCS is one of the Silicon Valley Bay Area’s flagship events for the venture ecosystem including corporates, angels invertors, and venture investors, featuring investment and startup content in health tech and deeptech.
GCS finds and connects the next generation of world-changing tech innovations with partnerships to power their long-term impact. The summit will feature 20+ extraordinary products and innovations, and over 500 attendees from world-leading corporations and the global investment ecosystem. The attendees are corporate executives, angel ivnstors, selected VC partners, influential long-term investors, asset management companies, and a group of high-potential local founders.
Date: Thursday, May 1st
Location: Palo Alto, CA (exact location to be provided)
Time: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm Presentations, Fireside Chat, and Panels
GCS 2019 is actively looking for content and speakers from:
Large tech companies: Corporation development, venture arm, business development,
Public companies: Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., CVS Pharmacy, etc.
Leading Angels, VCs, PEs, M&A fund asset management companies
Growing or late-stage startups who are backed by tier-1 investors
Professors from tier-1 universities including Stanford, Berkeley and the University of SF
Benefits of Speaking at GCS
The GCS presentations and sessions will be featured in the following ways:
Each session will be video-recorded and uploaded to F50’s YouTube channel
Selected sessions will be transcribed and posted on SVE.io
Interviews and articles will be distributed by over 200 media contacts
F50’s social media channels and newsletters (LinkedIn, Twitter, Meetup etc. with over 50K subscribers), and F50’s private network of corporates, VCs, and angels
SVE.io and other associated entrepreneur and developer communities, with over 100,000 subscribers
F50’s global media partner network, with over 1M impressions worldwide
F50 identifies the most promising technology companies in North America by leveraging the collective intelligence of its deep roots of Silicon Valley-based developer and startup communities, the large reach of corporate partners and investor network, as well as industry experts.
We support the growth of these companies with corporate partnership, market development, and venture financing, together with our network of corporate members, Angel Investors, VC, PE, and experts.
Is there a financial relationship to what or how people communicate?
Placing a value on words can feel crude or highfalutin – unless you’re in academia, where words are often tied to money. More publications can lead to a promotion, and receiving grant aid can fund new research.
In a paper published on Jan. 30, I evaluated the financial value of words based on a sample of funded National Science Foundation grant abstracts. The data indicated that what researchers say and how we say it can foretell the amount of funding we are awarded. They also show that the writing funders idealize may not always match up with what they actually prefer.
The worth of words
Prior research shows a relationship between language patterns and the funding of personal online loans. Loan applications that had more complex writing – such as those with more words in the description – were more likely to receive full funding. Loan writers also received money if their text contained high levels of verbal confidence such as words that convey certainty (“definitely,” “always,” “clearly”).
To assess complexity and confidence indicators in the NSF sample, I ran over 7.4 million words through an automated text analysis program. The grants covered all NSF directorates, U.S. locations and nearly nine years of funding from 2010 to 2018.
Consistent with the online loans data, grant abstracts with more words and more markers of verbal confidence received more award money.
In fact, each additional word in the grant abstract is associated with a US$372 increase. The ideal word count across NSF directorates is 681 words. After this threshold, additional words associated with a decrease in award funding.
Two other results were telling about the NSF data. First, using fewer common words was associated with receiving more award funding, which is inconsistent with the NSF’s call and commitment to plain writing.
Second, the amount of award funding was related to the writing style of the grant. Prior evidence suggests that we can infer social and psychological traits about people, such as intelligence, from small “junk” words called function words. High rates of articles and prepositions, for example, indicate complex thinking, while high rates of storytelling words such as pronouns indicate simpler thinking.
NSF grant abstracts with a simpler style – that is, grant abstracts that were written as a story with many pronouns – tend to receive more money. A personal touch may simplify the science and can make it relatable.
Changing words to receive more change?
The data include only funded grants, and the relationships may not indicate a direct cause and effect. Therefore, such patterns are not a recipe for a marginal proposal to receive funding nor a “how-to” guide to outfund the competition.
Instead, the results demonstrate that real-world language data have rich psychological value. Just counting words can provide new insights into institutional processes such as grant funding allocation.
Most grant writers believe, and are even told by funders, that a competitive proposal starts with a great idea. This study suggests that another part of grantsmanship may be the proposal’s word patterns and writing style. Since most funded grants will contribute knowledge to science, one way to potentially enhance a funded proposal with more award money is to consider how the science is communicated in the writing phase.
Poet George Herbert suggested, “Good words are worth much, and cost little.” The NSF data offer a different perspective: More complex and confident stories tend to cost the NSF a lot. For researchers looking to support their work with more money, word patterns may be an inexpensive place to start.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here:Read More
Mistrust and regulatory uncertainty are strange problems for blockchain technology to have, though. The first widely adopted blockchain, bitcoin, was expressly created to allow financial transactions “without relying on trust” or on governments overseeing the currency. Users who don’t trust a bank or other intermediary to accurately track transactions can instead rely on unchangeable mathematical algorithms. Further, the system is decentralized, with data stored on thousands – or more – of internet-connected computers around the world, preventing regulators from shutting down the network as a whole.
As I discuss in my recent book, “The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust,” the contradiction between blockchain’s allegedly trust-less technology and its trust-needing users arises from a misunderstanding about human nature. Economists often view trust as a cost, because it takes effort to establish. But people actually want to use systems they can trust. They intuitively understand that cultures and companies with strong trust avoid the hidden costs that stem from everyone constantly trying to both cheat the system and avoid being cheated by others.
Blockchain, as it turns out, doesn’t herald the end of the need for trust. Most people will want laws and regulations to help make blockchain-based systems trustworthy.
Problems arise without trust
Bitcoin’s creator wrote in 2009 that “The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work.” With government-issued money, the public must trust central bankers and commercial banks to preserve economic stability and protect users’ privacy. The blockchain framework that bitcoin introduced was supposed to be a “trustless” alternative. Sometimes, though, it shouldn’t be trusted.
In 2016, for instance, someone exploited a flaw in the DAO, a decentralized application using the Ethereum blockchain, to withdraw about US$60 million worth of cryptocurrency. Fortunately, members of the Ethereum community trusted each other enough to adopt a radical solution: They created a new copy of the entire blockchain to reverse the theft. The process was slow and awkward, though, and almost failed.
A new type of investment, called initial coin offerings, further illustrates why blockchain-based activity still requires trust. Since 2017, blockchain-based startups have raised more than $20 billion by selling cryptocurrency tokens to supporters around the world. However, a substantial percentage of those companies were out-and-out frauds. In other cases, investors simply had no idea what they were investing in. The blockchain itself doesn’t provide the kind of disclosure that regulators require for traditional securities.
The initial coin offering faucet slowed to a trickle in the second half of 2018 as the predictable abuses of a “wild west” environment became clear. As regulators stepped in, the market shifted toward selling digital tokens under the same rules as stocks or other securities, despite the limits those rules impose.
The myth of decentralization
The other reason that regulators have a role to play is security. Blockchain networks themselves are typically very secure, and they eliminate the vulnerability of a single company controlling transactions. However, blockchains identify the owner of an account based on its cryptographic private key, a random-seeming string of numbers and letters. Steal the key, and you’ve got the money. Ten percent of initial coin offerings proceeds has already been stolen.
Most users acquire their cryptocurrency through an exchange such as Coinbase, which trades it for dollars or other traditional currencies. They also let the exchanges hold their private keys, because that makes transactions easier and more efficient. However, it also creates a point of vulnerability: If the exchange’s records are breached, the private keys aren’t secret anymore.
Some users hold their own keys, and there are new exchanges being developed that don’t require users to give them up. These will never be as convenient, though, because the burden of managing keys and keeping them safe falls on users. Regulation will be needed to protect consumers.
Government authorities will also have a role in restricting money laundering, terrorist financing and other criminal uses of cryptocurrencies. The more decentralized a system is, the harder it will be to identify a responsible party to police illicit conduct. Some users may not care, or may see that as a necessary cost of freedom. But networks optimized for criminals won’t ever achieve mainstream success among law-abiding citizens. Ordinary users will be scared off, regulated banks and financial services firms will be prohibited from interacting with them, and law enforcement will find ways to disrupt their activities.
Regulators around the world are working to balance the flexibility to transact in new ways through cryptocurrencies with appropriate safeguards. They aren’t all taking the same route, but that’s good. When the state of New York adopted rigid registration requirements called the BitLicense that few companies could meet, other jurisdictions saw the implementation problems and took different paths. Wyoming, for example, adopted a series of bills that clarify the legal status of cryptocurrencies while imposing reasonable protections. New York is now reevaluating the BitLicense, to avoid losing business activity.
If people trust blockchain systems, they’ll use them. That’s the only way they’ll see mass-market adoption. The jurisdictions with the best regulation – not the ones with the least – will attract activity. Like any technological system, blockchains combine software code and human activity. It’s not enough to trust the computers – which, after all, are built and programmed by people. For the technology to be used widely and wisely, there must be mechanisms to hold the humans accountable, too.
Kevin Werbach is a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the author of: