As a lay chaplain to ports, Ruth Campbell’s area of care stretches from Southend to Silvertown in east London. It ranges from small jetties to the giant ports of London Gateway, where the container ships arrive, and London Tilbury.

Around 10,000 ships come up the River Thames every year –with cruise ships alone carrying up to 800 crew. Some stay only for five hours before heading back out – and others up to a week while their ships are unloaded.

Many crew will have had little or no contact with their families over a nine month period with some having missed key family occasions and milestones.

Ruth’s role will very often mean carrying WiFi routers on board to help seafarers make contact with their families and friends.

Read it all.

How chaplains are helping seafarers – a testimony for Sea Sunday. 🌊

Read more about the chaplaincy to the tens of thousands of ships that dock at UK ports with crew on board who have spent months at sea.👇🏽https://t.co/kSzmPZBqsn

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) July 9, 2023

…can A.I. invent?

Legal scholars, patent authorities and even Congress have been pondering that question. The people who answer “yes,” a small but growing number, are fighting a decidedly uphill battle in challenging the deep-seated belief that only a human can invent.

Invention evokes images of giants like Thomas Edison and eureka moments — “the flash of creative genius,” as the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas once put it.

But this is far more than a philosophical debate about human versus machine intelligence. The role, and legal status, of A.I. in invention also have implications for the future path of innovation and global competitiveness, experts say.

Read it all.

AI seems to have a limitless bag of tricks. But can it invent?

A group of legal experts are now pressing patent agencies, courts and policymakers to address that question. https://t.co/zq9yWs8soY

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 15, 2023

An industrial arms race is under way. America welcomes it, saying the world needs green technologies and a diversified supply of chips. It is true that an ocean of public money is bound to accelerate the green transition and reshape supply chains in ways that should increase the security of democracies. Alas, the accompanying economic benefits being promised are an illusion. As we report this week, governments that subsidise and protect manufacturing are more likely to harm their economies than help them.

In ideal conditions, promoting manufacturing can add to innovation and growth. Towards the end of the 20th century South Korea and Taiwan caught up with the West thanks to the careful promotion of manufacturing exports. In industries like planemaking the enormous costs of entry and uncertain future demand can justify support for new firms, as when Europe backed Airbus in the 1970s. Likewise, targeted help can boost national security.

But today’s schemes are likely either to fail or to prove needlessly costly. Countries subsidising chips and batteries are not pursuing catch-up growth but fighting over cutting-edge technology. The market for electric vehicles and batteries is unlikely to become an Airbus-Boeing style duopoly. In the 1980s protectionists argued that Japan would dominate the strategically vital semiconductor industry, owing to its subsidised mastery of memory-chip making. It did not turn out that way.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Governments are not wrong to pursue good jobs, the green transition or national security. But the potential for the manufacturing obsession to backfire is enormous https://t.co/BXCCBI1Ls0

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 16, 2023

The Hollywood actors’ union approved a strike on Thursday for the first time in 43 years, bringing the $134 billion American movie and television business to a halt over anger about pay and fears of a tech-dominated future.

The leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the union representing 160,000 television and movie actors, announced the strike after negotiations with studios over a new contract collapsed, with streaming services and artificial intelligence at the center of the standoff. On Friday, the actors will join screenwriters, who walked off the job in May, on picket lines in New York, Los Angeles and the dozens of other American cities where scripted shows and movies are made.

Actors and screenwriters had not been on strike at the same time since 1960, when Marilyn Monroe was still starring in films and Ronald Reagan was the head of the actors’ union. Dual strikes pit more than 170,000 workers against old-line studios like Disney, Universal, Sony and Paramount, as well tech juggernauts like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

Read it all.

Breaking News: TV and movie actors are going on strike, joining Hollywood screenwriters and effectively bringing the entertainment industry to a standstill. https://t.co/QxBXrDR09t

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 13, 2023

Controversial AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky sits on the fringe of the industry’s most extreme circle of commentators, where extinction of the human species is the inevitable result of developing advanced artificial intelligence.

“I think we’re not ready, I think we don’t know what we’re doing, and I think we’re all going to die,” Yudkowsky said on this week’s episode of the Bloomberg Originals series AI IRL.

For the past two decades, Yudkowsky has consistently promoted his theory that hostile AI could spark a mass extinction event. As many in the AI industry shrugged or raised eyebrows at this assessment, he created the Machine Intelligence Research Institute with funding from Peter Thiel, among others, and collaborated on written work with futurists such as Nick Bostrom.

To say that some of his visions for the end of the world are unpopular would be a gross understatement; they’re on par with the prophecy that the world would end in 2012. That prediction was based on a questionable interpretation of an ancient text, as well as a dearth of supportive evidence.

Read it all.

AI doomsday scenarios are gaining traction in Silicon Valley, which can deflect from actual harms like algorithmic bias and racism. https://t.co/Y6nJD8xkGl

— Bloomberg (@business) July 13, 2023

Delays at naval shipyards mean that nearly 40% of US attack submarines are out of commission for repairs, about double the rate the Navy would like, according to new data released by the service.

As of this year, 18 of the US Navy’s 49 attack submarines — 37% — were out of commission, according to previously undisclosed Navy data published by the Congressional Research Service. That leaves the US at a critical disadvantage against China’s numerically superior fleet.

The maintenance backlog has “substantially reduced” the number of nuclear submarines operational at any given moment, cutting the “force’s capacity for meeting day-to-day mission demands and potentially putting increased operational pressure” on submarines that are in service, CRS naval analyst Ronald O’Rourke said in a July 6 report.

That’s up from 28% overall in 2017 and 33% in 2022, and below the industry best practice of 20%.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Backlogs at overworked shipyards have left US attack submarines at a crucial disadvantage against China’s numerically superior fleet https://t.co/N0DOKv7yse

— Bloomberg (@business) July 11, 2023

Simon Mackenzie, a security officer at the discount retailer QD Stores outside London, was short of breath. He had just chased after three shoplifters who had taken off with several packages of laundry soap. Before the police arrived, he sat at a back-room desk to do something important: Capture the culprits’ faces.

On an aging desktop computer, he pulled up security camera footage, pausing to zoom in and save a photo of each thief. He then logged in to a facial recognition program, Facewatch, which his store uses to identify shoplifters. The next time those people enter any shop within a few miles that uses Facewatch, store staff will receive an alert.

“It’s like having somebody with you saying, ‘That person you bagged last week just came back in,’” Mr. Mackenzie said.

Use of facial recognition technology by the police has been heavily scrutinized in recent years, but its application by private businesses has received less attention. Now, as the technology improves and its cost falls, the systems are reaching further into people’s lives. No longer just the purview of government agencies, facial recognition is increasingly being deployed to identify shoplifters, problematic customers and legal adversaries.

Read it all.

British retailers are increasingly using AI facial recognition technology to combat shoplifting, raising questions about its spread as AI rapidly improves and falls in cost.https://t.co/8EH6oebJyp

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 28, 2023

Thousands of people are working at the run of new warehouses and manufacturing sites spreading throughout the Charleston region in recent years and all of them need to eat.

Trouble is, many of those industrial buildings are located in congested or out-of-the-way areas that aren’t close to quick and easy dining options, leaving workers with limited choices when it comes to grabbing a meal during a short lunch or dinner break.

Now some businesses are recognizing that a full-bellied employee can be more productive than one who’s going hungry, and they’re adding food to the list of perks that workers can take advantage of without having to leave the factory. While the meal offerings aren’t necessarily priced lower than what a worker could find elsewhere, the convenience can add up to dollars in terms of time and travel expenses that are saved.

Read it all.

Some businesses are recognizing that a full-bellied employee can be more productive than one who's going hungry and they're adding food to the list of perks that workers can take advantage of without having to leave the factory. https://t.co/n3AOlEI0xm

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) July 3, 2023

We all receive scam messages — and I cannot be alone in noticing that they are becoming more frequent. Last month, several UK banks gave warnings about a sharp increase in online fraud.

It disturbs me that anyone will go to such lengths to steal my money; but what has chilled me to the core is learning that the person on the other end of a scam call or message could be a victim of human trafficking — forced into involvement in fraud by the threats of beatings and electrocution.

My colleagues at International Justice Mission (IJM) in Cambodia were some of the first people to respond to this sinister new form of modern slavery, forced scamming. Human traffickers are luring people with false job offers online, paying their transport costs, and then trapping them in heavily guarded compounds in places such as Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.

Under the threat of extreme violence, the victims must scam people all around the world. Survivors whom we have helped have shown us bruises the size of watermelons caused by being beaten, and burns from electrocution — the result of not hitting their scamming targets.

Disturbingly, forced scamming is one of the most complex and fast-growing forms of modern slavery in the world.

Read it all.

"It disturbs me that people go to such lengths to steal my money, " @IJMUK CEO @DavidWestlake, writes in the @ChurchTimes, "but what has chilled me to the core is learning that the person on the other end of a #scam could be a victim of #humantrafficking."https://t.co/bq0hY5SsDj

— International Justice Mission (IJM UK) (@IJMUK) June 30, 2023

But sometimes lonely stands look better over time. When two Jehovah’s Witness sisters refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in their public school classroom during World War II, they were decidedly unpopular. But their courage resulted in one of the most remarkable statements of constitutional principle in American history, from the Supreme Court’s 1943 ruling in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

In a nation as polarized as our own, the definition of “outsiders” can vary wildly, depending on where they live. In one community, conservative Christians may dominate, and be tempted to censor speech they dislike, to “protect children” or defend the “common good.” In other communities, those same Christians will find their own speech under fire as “hateful” or “discriminatory.”

The consequence is an odd legal reality, an artifact of our divided times. Christians and drag queens — in different jurisdictions and in different courts — are both protecting the First Amendment from the culture wars. They’re both reaffirming a foundational principle of American liberal democracy: that even voices on the margins enjoy the same civil liberties as the powerful and the popular.

In his majority opinion, Justice Gorsuch stated the case well. “In this case,” he wrote, “Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.” The state does not possess such power. It must not possess such power. Otherwise the culture wars will consume the Constitution, and even our most basic rights to speak or not speak will depend on whether we can gain and keep political control. That is not the vision of American pluralism, and it is not the vision that will sustain a united, diverse American republic.

Read it all.

Justice Sotomayor is misstating the case. It was *stipulated* that the business would serve LGBT customers. It just wouldn't create expressive works that convey a message it finds objectionable, regardless of the identity of the customer. https://t.co/BJjZYRRWvB

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 30, 2023

Groff argued that it was too difficult for employees to bring religious claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination on various fronts, including religion.

The justices in a unanimous ruling written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito clarified a 1977 Supreme Court ruling called Trans World Airlines v. Hardison. The court said then that employers are not required to make accommodations if they would impose even a minimal or, using the Latin term preferred by the court, “de minimis,” burden.

That ruling built on the language of Title VII, which says an accommodation can be rejected only when there is an “undue hardship” on the employer.

The court on Thursday ruled that the hardship needs to be more than a minimal one.

Read it all.

The Supreme Court rules in favor of a Christian mail carrier who claimed the U.S. Postal Service did not do enough to accommodate his request not to work on Sundays in a case that will make it easier for employees to seek religious accommodations. https://t.co/mnNJqlWH88

— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 29, 2023

The mandate was an attempt by the Biden administration to define sex to include “gender identity” for the purposes of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations. Critics say the rule would have required doctors, clinics, and hospitals to perform procedures to which they object and insurance companies to pay for such procedures.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president Brent Leatherwood welcomed the news.

“The Biden administration’s decision to back down from the transgender mandate marks a significant victory in safeguarding the rights of medical professionals to operate in a manner consistent with their deepest held beliefs,” Leatherwood said in written comments.

“This is an important development we should take note of because it not only represents a win for conscience rights but also furthers efforts to shield vulnerable individuals who should never become pawns in the sexual revolution.”

Read it all.

Over $200 billion from the U.S. government’s COVID-19 relief programs were likely stolen, a federal watchdog said on Tuesday, adding that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) had weakened its controls in a rush to disburse the funds.

At least 17% of all funds related to the government’s coronavirus Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) schemes were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors, according to a report released Tuesday by the SBA’s office of inspector general.

Read it all.

Over $200 billion likely stolen from U.S. COVID relief programs, watchdog says https://t.co/ipofUWaBm2 pic.twitter.com/Nt4CTgxDdA

— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) June 27, 2023

The Prince of Wales has described how his mother’s influence helped shape his attitudes to homelessness as he revealed three UK locations where he hopes to eradicate the issue.

William visited three contrasting areas – Newport, South Wales, three neighbouring Dorset towns and the south London Borough of Lambeth – where his ambitious initiative Homewards aims to bring together business, charities and local authorities to tackle the problem.

During his tour of the UK, he warned: “It’s the young I’m particularly worried about, the sofa surfing and the hidden homeless, there’s a lot we don’t see and we have to try and get those who are lost.”

Read it all.

https://t.co/r9wT97jMkY William cites mother’s influence as he unveils drive to eradicate homelessness https://t.co/dNRhzxDUDB

— UK Search (@UKSearch1) June 27, 2023

The Church of England Pensions Board is today announcing its intention to disinvest from Shell plc and other oil and gas companies which are failing to show sufficient ambition to decarbonise in line with the aims of the Paris Agreement.

The new investment restriction announced today will apply to all oil and gas companies that do not have short, medium and long term emissions reduction targets aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as assessed by the independent Transition Pathway Initiative. The exclusion will apply to equity and also debt investments.

“Today we announce our intention to disinvest from all remaining oil and gas holdings across our equity and debt portfolio,” said John Ball, Chief Executive Officer of the Church of England Pensions Board. “There is a significant misalignment between the long term interests of our pension fund and continued investment in companies seeking short term profit maximisation at the expense of the ambition needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Recent reversals of previous commitments, most notably by BP and Shell, has undermined confidence in the sector’s ability to transition”.

Read it all.

Church Commissioners for England to exclude oil & gas companies from investments portfolio over failure to align with climate goals. Pensions Board also to disinvest from oil & gas companies failing to show ambition to decarbonisehttps://t.co/nSHPLTZOEYhttps://t.co/BbntlGm7G6

— Church of England in Parliament (@churchstate) June 22, 2023

When the Chinese government abruptly abandoned its zero-covid policy at the end of 2022, all bets were on a rapid economic rebound. After nearly three years of restrictions, the world’s second-largest economy would, the thinking went, come roaring back.

In the event, China has reopened with a whimper, not a bang. A range of economic indicators, including retail sales and investment, have risen less rapidly than expected. Some analysts now think the economy might not have grown at all during the second quarter. At this rate, the government’s modest gdp target, for growth in 2023 of 5%, will only just be met.

There are several reasons to be gloomy about China’s economic prospects, from America’s export controls on advanced semiconductors and skittish foreign investors, to President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on big tech firms. But the main culprit for the recent weakness is property, which before the pandemic was a crucial source of growth across the economy. Activity slowed, first as the government sought to rein in heavily indebted developers, and then more recently as sales have stayed weak. Between January and May, for instance, real-estate investment fell by 7.2%, compared with the same period a year ago. The danger is that the property bust now becomes an enduring malaise.

Read it all.

"Even if China wanted to foster more consumption-led growth, it would not easily be able to do so. Many of the government’s economic policies are still designed to promote exports and investment, and to suppress consumption."
https://t.co/CS1xXzSMZV

— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) June 22, 2023

Headline rates of inflation across most of the world’s economies have fallen back sharply since the autumn but core rates — which exclude volatile categories such as energy and food — remain at or close to multi-decade highs.

These rates, seen as a better gauge of underlying price pressures, have sparked concern that central banks will struggle to hit their targets without wiping out growth.

“The next leg of the improvement in the inflation numbers is going to be harder,” said Carl Riccadonna, chief US economist at BNP Paribas. “It requires more pain, and that pain likely involves a recession in the back half of the year.”

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, added: “The only way to get inflation down to 2 per cent is to crush demand and slow down the economy in a more substantial way.”

Read it all.

“The next leg of the improvement in the inflation numbers is going to be harder. It requires more pain:” BNP's Riccadonna

Apollo's Torsten Slok: “The only way to get inflation down to 2% is to crush demand.”
https://t.co/8BVmtH9pdm

— Lisa Abramowicz (@lisaabramowicz1) June 23, 2023

The Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board are to remove Shell, BP, and other oil and gas firms from their investment portfolios, because they are not reducing their carbon emissions quickly enough.

The investment bodies were instructed by the General Synod in 2018 to disinvest from fossil-fuel companies by 2023 unless the latter could prove that they were on the path to tackling climate change, in line with the Paris Agreement (News, 13 July 2018).

The Commissioners, who manage a £10.3-billion endowment fund, announced on Thursday that they had “decided to exclude all remaining oil and gas majors from [their] portfolio, and will exclude all other companies primarily engaged in the exploration, production and refining of oil or gas, unless they are in genuine alignment with a 1.5°C pathway, by the end of 2023.

“In 2021, the Church Commissioners excluded 20 oil and gas majors from [their] investment portfolio. [They are] now also excluding BP, Ecopetrol, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, Pemex, Repsol, Sasol, Shell, and Total, after concluding that none are aligned with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, as assessed by the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI).”

Read it all.

The Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board are to remove Shell, BP, and other oil and gas firms from their investment portfolios, because they are not reducing their carbon emissions quickly enoughhttps://t.co/AvBQ86cUjC

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 22, 2023

Now, experts say the phenomenon is finished. Ten straight interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, slowing wage growth, stubborn inflation and mass layoffs in some industries may be causing Americans to stay put.

“The great resignation, by really any measure, is over,” said Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University who studies labor economics. The combination of a tight labor market and structural change from the pandemic catalyzed job reshuffling over the past three years, he said. “But that’s moved into the window of history now.”

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics bolsters Bloom’s observation: The number of people quitting their jobs fell by 49,000 in April compared to March, according to the most recent numbers available from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

In fact, the so-called “quits” rate has steadily declined since last spring and is now virtually identical (just 0.1% above) the pre-pandemic rate in February 2020. Essentially, quits are back to the 2019 pre-Covid average.

Read it all.

Had a good run.@CNN @knowledge_vital https://t.co/V4U5WUYMvS pic.twitter.com/VskpOmuHPy

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) June 13, 2023

Experts say that even advanced AI doesn’t match the writing skills of a human: It lacks personal voice and style, and it often churns out wrong, nonsensical or biased answers. But for many companies, the cost-cutting is worth a drop in quality.

“We’re really in a crisis point,” said Sarah T. Roberts, an associate professor at University of California in Los Angeles specializing in digital labor. “[AI] is coming for the jobs that were supposed to be automation-proof.”

AI and algorithms have been a part of the working world for decades. For years, consumer-product companies, grocery stores and warehouse logistics firms have used predictive algorithms and robots with AI-fueled vision systems to help make business decisions, automate some rote tasks and manage inventory. Industrial plants and factories have been dominated by robots for much of the 20th century, and countless office tasks have been replaced by software.

But the recent wave of generative artificial intelligence – which uses complex algorithms trained on billions of words and images from the open internet to produce text, images and audio – has the potential for a new stage of disruption. The technology’s ability to churn out human-sounding prose puts highly paid knowledge workers in the crosshairs for replacement, experts said.

Read it all.

Technology used to automate dirty and repetitive jobs. Now, artificial intelligence chatbots are replacing workers with high-paid jobs as well. https://t.co/oqqx1XJUem

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 2, 2023

In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, but a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (ai) leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy.

In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 and falling. The largest 15 countries by gdp all have a fertility rate below the replacement rate. That includes America and much of the rich world, but also China and India, neither of which is rich but which together account for more than a third of the global population.

The result is that in much of the world the patter of tiny feet is being drowned out by the clatter of walking sticks. The prime examples of ageing countries are no longer just Japan and Italy but also include Brazil, Mexico and Thailand. By 2030 more than half the inhabitants of East and South-East Asia will be over 40. As the old die and are not fully replaced, populations are likely to shrink. Outside Africa, the world’s population is forecast to peak in the 2050s and end the century smaller than it is today. Even in Africa, the fertility rate is falling fast.

Read it all.

"The world's population could shrink for the first time since the Black Death due to declining fertility rates"

Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences https://t.co/HksCFeSrpN pic.twitter.com/JMCcDEXZKx

— Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky) June 1, 2023

The Republicans have capitulated on the US debt ceiling. This averts the risk of abrupt fiscal tightening in a slowing economy that has yet to digest the most aggressive monetary squeeze in over 40 years.

The putative accord between the White House and Congress does not even try to address the larger threat to America’s economic model and hegemonic status.

The Congressional Budget Office says the US is on course for fiscal deficits of 7pc of GDP as far as the eye can see.

Sacred entitlements remain untouchable. Middle-class welfare – ie. consumption – will continue to eat up an ever-greater share of the budget. It is this that is leading to slow fiscal ruin.

The gross debt-to-GDP ratio was 62pc in 2007 (IMF data). It will be 122pc this year, and 138pc by 2028, with no sign of reaching a plateau. By then it will have overtaken Italy.

Read it all.

“It is a sobering thought that the US is racking up as much debt-to-GDP accumulation over 20 years as it did over two world wars and the Great Depression combined”

✍️ Ambrose Evans-Pritchardhttps://t.co/wWkRv2XYKd

— Telegraph Business (@telebusiness) May 30, 2023

Since the end of 2009 nominal growth has been higher than nominal rates (aside from the first half of 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic crashed the economy). Now America is about to cross the threshold. In the first quarter of 2023, despite annualised real economic growth of only 1.1%, troublesomely high inflation meant that nominal gdp rose at an annualised rate of 5.1%, roughly in line with today’s federal funds rate. A panel of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, a data firm, anticipate that in the second quarter of the year growth will slip to just 0.4% and inflation to 3.3%. Nominal growth is forecast to be just 3.7%—well below nominal rates of around 5.2%.

“This is when the rubber really meets the road for the economic cycle,” notes Carl Riccadonna of bnp Paribas, a bank. “This is the point at which, if you’re a business, your revenues are now growing more slowly than your cost of financing.” Wage growth will lag debt growth. Government debts will grow faster than tax receipts. A single quarter of this might be bearable. Unfortunately, economists expect the situation to last a year or more.

The precise impact depends on the extent to which debt reprices as interest rates rise. The vast majority of American homeowners have 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. This generous financing will protect them against a pincer-like combo of slowing wage growth and rising interest expenses. Nevertheless, consumers carrying other kinds of debt—including revolving credit-card balances and private student loans—will feel the pinch.

Read it all.

Welcome to a bad time for big debts https://t.co/fPcefvWCrY

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 25, 2023

Janis Scaramucci’s bedroom is decorated with paintings of Disney castles. In her office, a recessed ceiling in the shape of a Mickey Mouse head is painted in black glitter. The feet of her dining room table are made from coffee mugs featuring Mickey and Winnie the Pooh. And in her closet hangs a series of colorful Disney outfits, including a red skirt appliquéd with characters from the movie “Ratatouille.”

Welcome to Golden Oak, the only residential community in the world located on Walt Disney Co. resort property.

Ms. Scaramucci, a divorced 63-year-old Disney enthusiast and art collector, bought a $2.52 million home in the Orlando, Fla., community a few years ago after feeling dissatisfied with life in her suburban neighborhood in Edmond, Okla. Now, she spends her days riding roller coasters, attending nature conservation programs at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, and traveling to destinations such as Antarctica on Disney cruises…..

But Mr. [Kevin] Tupy said that, in his experience, politics doesn’t come up much when Golden Oak residents get together.

“Disney is more of a religion,” he said. “We worship the mouse.”

Read it all.

Andy Vermaut shares:See Inside the World's Only Residential Community on Disney Resort Property: Over the past decade, this Orlando, Fla. neighborhood has become a mecca for Disney lovers, with home prices ranging from the low millions to $19… Thank you! https://t.co/Gdegzo10Eu pic.twitter.com/Y9spBQOyFs

— Andy Vermaut (@AndyVermaut) May 23, 2023

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — Nothing remains of the hilltop home that once stood at the end of this gravel road in western North Carolina. The house burned to the ground months ago.

Children’s bikes and firewood piles litter the yards of a half-dozen ranch homes down the hill that are next in line to be erased from the landscape. The company that will soon own them plans to have these homes torched, too. It is only interested in what lies beneath.

A hint of that prize sits a few steps into the forest, where craggy outcrops stand in the shade of tall loblolly pines. Look closely and you’ll see the rocks are marked with sparkling pinstripes of pale green.

Those pinstripes are evidence of lithium, a lightweight element used to power electric vehicle batteries. And that green is gold to Piedmont Lithium, the company planning to tunnel 500 feet into the earth here to mine the lucrative mineral.

Lithium is expected to fuel America’s transition away from gasoline-burning automobiles. In the process, that harvest could generate $3.9 billion for this rural community in five years, according to Piedmont, which penned an agreement with EV giant Tesla in January.

Along a certain stretch — where North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia meet — lithium is quickly becoming king: It pushes up through the ground, oozes through recyclers’ shredding machines and will soon travel through the backwoods on aging rail lines. New mines — as many as three separate operations by 2030 — are only part of the story. Welcome to the Lithium Belt.

Read it all.

Lithium is driving today’s clean energy transition just as fossil fuels drove the industrial revolution. But what is the trade off to the environment in the Southeast?
Fascinating read from @ClareFieseler on a journey across the Lithium Belt. https://t.co/b6OKcqPB9j

— Glenn Smith (@glennsmith5) May 21, 2023

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the government could become unable to pay bills on time by June 1. In that case, the Treasury Department could halt payments, such as to federal employees or veterans.

In a worst-case scenario, a failure to pay holders of U.S. government debt, a linchpin of the global financial system, could trigger severe recession and send stock prices plummeting and borrowing costs soaring.

Many economists don’t expect a default for the first time in U.S. history. But they outline three potential ways the standoff could affect the economy and financial system, ranging from not great to extremely scary.

Read it all.

U.S. lawmakers might have just days to act before the standoff over the debt ceiling reverberates through the economy https://t.co/JM1UfZ7HfW

— Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) May 22, 2023

More Americans struggle to meet expenses now than in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions lost their means of employment, a Census Bureau survey showed.

About 38.5% of American adults — or 89.1 million people — faced difficulty in paying for usual home expenses between April 26 and May 8, according to the latest Household Pulse Survey. That’s up from 34.4% a year ago and 26.7% during the same period in 2021.

The Census Bureau collaborates with multiple federal agencies to compile the survey developed during the pandemic to collect data and measure household experiences to help inform federal and state governments.

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More than 90 Million American adults struggle to make ends meet, the Census says https://t.co/mJgBnsYQ3V

— Bloomberg (@business) May 18, 2023

As more families across the country flock to the growing Lowcountry counties north of Charleston, Summerville Medical Center is preparing to meet the needs of an expanded population with a multi-million dollar expansion on its original campus.

This month, officials at the Summerville hospital announced it would officially start its over $60 million inpatient bed project in August. The project will add 56 new inpatient beds, a 40-percent increase to its existing 124 beds.

“As we work to meet the health needs of our community, it is vital that we add capacity and clinical programs,” said Jeff Taylor, the hospital’s CEO, in a recent press release.

Dorchester County’s population has exploded in recent years, with more than 18,000 residents moving to the county in the last two decades. Currently, over 166,000 people reside in the county. Projections put the number of residents at more than 200,000 by 2030, The Post and Courier previously reported. Many of those moving in are settling in the Summerville area.

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As more families across the country flock to the growing Lowcountry counties north of Charleston, Summerville Medical Center is preparing to meet the needs of an expanded population with a multi-million dollar expansion on its original campus. https://t.co/H85PHnjmlU

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 26, 2023

This bubbling mixture of excitement and fear makes it hard to weigh the opportunities and risks. But lessons can be learned from other industries, and from past technological shifts. So what has changed to make ai so much more capable? How scared should you be? And what should governments do?

In a special Science section, we explore the workings of llms and their future direction. The first wave of modern ai systems, which emerged a decade ago, relied on carefully labelled training data. Once exposed to a sufficient number of labelled examples, they could learn to do things like recognise images or transcribe speech. Today’s systems do not require pre-labelling, and as a result can be trained using much larger data sets taken from online sources. llms can, in effect, be trained on the entire internet—which explains their capabilities, good and bad.

Those capabilities became apparent to a wider public when Chatgpt was released in November. A million people had used it within a week; 100m within two months. It was soon being used to generate school essays and wedding speeches. Chatgpt’s popularity, and Microsoft’s move to incorporate it into Bing, its search engine, prompted rival firms to release chatbots too.

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Rapid progress in AI is arousing fear as well as excitement. How worried should you be? https://t.co/YM85dCBxu3 pic.twitter.com/hWMRvB4C62

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 20, 2023

…ultimately, to truly integrate and capitalize on AI, U.S. defense leaders will need to shift how they measure military capability. The Pentagon will never give artificial intelligence its due when it does not consider AI to be a key component of military strength. When military leaders appear before Congress to advocate for their budgets, they make their case in terms of industrial-age metrics. The navy, for example, lays out how many ships it requires, while the air force spells out how many aircraft it has to purchase. These measurements still matter, but what matters more today is the digital capabilities of these systems, such as whether the ships and planes have sensors to detect enemy forces, algorithms that can process information and enable better decision-making, and intelligent munitions to precisely strike targets. All these capabilities can be improved with artificial intelligence, and U.S. leaders must begin taking them into account.

It will not be easy for the armed forces to make these changes: the American military is a vast and unwieldy bureaucracy. It will also be hard for the U.S. government as a whole to adjust to the rise of AI, given how polarized Washington is. Reforms to high-skilled immigration, in particular, have run into repeat resistance from conservatives on Capitol Hill. And the fact that today’s AI systems have major limitations—and therefore require great caution and care during implementation—further complicates the process. Military service members will not use systems they do not trust, and so military officials must make sure that when AI is deployed it works as intended.

But the pieces of a better AI strategy are falling into place. The Pentagon may not yet properly measure the power of artificial intelligence, but it is paying much more attention to the technology. The federal government has increased spending and is exploring data and computing resources for academics. The White House is trying to make it easier for foreign STEM workers to come to the country. The United States, in other words, is working to ensure that China cannot fully catch up. If Washington ultimately maintains control over the semiconductor supply chain, maximizes the inflow of talent, and fields trustworthy systems, it will succeed in staying ahead. As the AI revolution reshapes global power, the United States can come out on top.

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Washington’s immigration policies are making it more difficult to recruit foreign scientists—and, as a result, threatening the country’s advantage in the AI race, writes @paul_scharre. https://t.co/z1UR0faYUp

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) April 4, 2023