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Automation will continue to grow and expand within logistics operations through the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Automation uses technology to augment human effort across a myriad of tasks. In logistics, the potential for automation is massive, and the benefits are significant, especially when operations experience large variations or increases in demand. Scaling operations up typically requires additional staff who are often not immediately available, particularly during times when demand is also coming from other industries. Reacting quickly to market fluctuations requires fast action and additional capacity across the entire operation.

Logistics automation allows for rapid increases in capacity as demand changes. When used strategically, logistics automation increases productivity, reduces human error, and improves working efficiency. And with the right logistics automation software, hardware, and platforms resources in place, the impact on operational expenditures during periods of low demand are minimal and much lower than maintaining a large human workforce. As demand increases, the capacity is already in place and ready to be activated. While this gives logistics companies the flexibility needed to react quickly to changes in demand, there is the opportunity to do more.

See also: Logistics Market Needs Digital Transformation to Overcome Challenges

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into logistics automation amplifies AIs impact. AI reduces errors in common semi-skilled tasks such as sorting and categorizing products. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), for instance, improve package delivery, including the last mile of delivery which is typically the most expensive. AI helps AMRs with route planning and feature recognition, such as people, obstacles, delivery portals, and doorways.

Integrating logistics automation into any environment comes with challenges. It can be as simple as replacing a repetitive process with a powered conveyor or as complex as introducing a collaborative, autonomous robot into the workplace. When AI is added to this automation and integration process, the challenges become more complex, but the benefits also increase.

The effectiveness of individual automation elements increases as the solutions become more connected and more aware of all the other stages in the process. Putting AI closer to where the data is generated, and actions are taken, is referred to as edge AI. The adoption of edge AI is already redefining logistics automation.

Edge AI is developing rapidly, and its use is not restricted to logistics automation. The benefits of putting AI at the network edge have to be balanced with the availability of resources, such as power, the environmental operating conditions, the physical location, and the space available.

Edge computing brings computation and data closer together. In a traditional IoT application, most data is sent over a network to a (cloud) server, where the data is processed, and results are sent back to the edge of the network, such as at the physical piece of equipment. Cloud-only computing introduces latency, which is unacceptable in time-critical systems. One example where edge computing comes into play is capturing and processing the image data of a package locally during sorting enables the logistics automation system responds in as little as 0.2 seconds. Network latency in this part of the system would slow down the sorting process, but edge computing is removing that potential bottleneck.

While edge computing brings the computation closer to the data, adding AI to the edge makes the process more flexible and even less prone to error. Similarly, last-mile logistics relies heavily on humans, but this too is improved with AMRs using edge AI.

Adding AI has a significant impact on the hardware and software used in logistics automation, and there is an increasing number of potential solutions. Typically, the solutions used to train an AI model are not suitable for deploying the model at the networks edge. The processing resources used for training are designed for servers, where resources such as power and memory are almost infinite. At the edge, power and memory are far from infinite.

In terms of hardware, large multicore processors are not well suited for edge AI applications. Instead, developers are turning to heterogeneous hardware solutions optimized for AI deployment at the edge. This includes CPUs and GPUs, of course, but it extends to application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), microcontrollers (MCUs), and FPGAs. Some architectures, like GPUs, are good at parallel processing, while others, like CPUs, are better at sequential processing. Today, there is no single architecture that can really claim to provide the best solution for an AI application. The general trend is to configure systems using the hardware that offers the most optimal solution, rather than using multiple instances of the same architecture.

This trend points towards a heterogeneous architecture, where there are many different hardware processing solutions configured to work together, rather than a homogeneous architecture that uses multiple devices all based on the same processor. Being able to bring in the right solution for any given task, or consolidate multiple tasks on a specific device, provides greater scalability and the opportunity to optimize for performance per watt and/or per dollar.

Moving from a homogeneous system architecture to heterogeneous processing requires a large ecosystem of solutions and a proven capability to configure those solutions at the hardware and software level. Thats why its important to work with a vendor that has significant tier 1 partnerships with all the major silicon vendors, offering solutions for edge computing and working with them to develop systems that are scalable and flexible.

In addition, these solutions use general open-source technologies like Linux, as well as specialist technologies such as the robot operating system, ROS 2. In fact, there is a growing number of open-source resources being developed to support both logistics and edge AI. There is no single right software solution from this point of view, and the same is also true for the hardware platform on which the software runs.

To increase flexibility and reduce vendor lock-in, one approach is to use modularization at the hardware level, making hardware configuration within any solution more flexible. In practice, modularization at the hardware level allows an engineer to change any part of the systems hardware, such as a processor, without causing system-wide disruptions.

The ability to upgrade an underlying platform (whether that be software, processors, etc.) is particularly important when deploying a new technology like edge AI. Every new generation of processor and module technology often provides a better power/performance balance for an inferencing engine operating at the networks edge, so being able to take advantage of these performance and power gains quickly and with minimal disruption to the overall logistics automation system and edge AI hardware system design is a distinct advantage.

Modularization in the hardware is extended into the software by using a micro-service architecture and container technology like Docker. If a more optimal processor solution becomes available, even if it is from a different manufacturer, the software leveraging the processor is modularized and can be used in place of the module for the previous processor without changing the rest of the system. Software containers also provide a simple and robust way to add new features, which applies to running AI at the edge, for example.

The software inside of a container can also be modularized.

A modular and container approach to hardware and software minimizes vendor lock-in, meaning a solution is not tied to any one particular platform. It also increases the abstraction between platform and application, making it easier for end-users to develop their own applications that are not platform-dependent.

Deploying edge AI within logistics automation doesnt require replacing entire systems. Start by assessing the workspace and identifying stages that can really benefit from AI-powered automation. The main objective is to increase efficiency while decreasing operation expenditure, particularly in response to increased demand during a time of labor shortages.

There is an increasing number of technology companies working on AI solutions, but often these are aimed at the cloud, not edge computing. At the edge, the conditions are very different, resources may be limited, and there may even be a need for a dedicated private communications network.

Automation will continue to grow and expand within logistics operations through the use of technologies such as AI. These system solutions need to be designed for use in harsh environments, very different from the cloud or data center. We address this using a modular approach that offers highly competitive solutions, short development cycles, and flexible platforms.

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Artificial intelligence is Changing Logistics Automation - RTInsights

The Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Law are delivering their annual joint symposium for 2021. This year the topic is Artifical Intelligence: Future directions in technology and law.

Speakers will each give a 10-minute presentation, followed by a Q&A session. The event will be moderated by The Hon Dr Annabelle Bennett AC FAA FAAL SC.

Professor Lyria Bennett Moses FAAL: Director of Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation at UNSW, Sydney in the Faculty of Law and Justice. Professor Bennett Moses has written about the limitations of AI and data-driven approaches to decision-making in government, law enforcement and the legal system, and why it is crucial for everyone to understand how smart machines are impacting on our society.

Professor Sventha Venkatesh FAA FTSE: Co-Director, Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute at Deakin University, Alfred Deakin Professor, ARC Laureate Fellow, Co-Director of Applied Artificial Intelligence Institute and a leading Australian computer scientist who has made fundamental and influential contributions to the field of activity and event recognition in multimedia data.

Professor Toby Walsh FAA: Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of NSW a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence, a Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney, and leader of the Algorithmic Decision Theory group at CSIRO Data61.

Mr Edward Santow FAAL: served as Australias Human Rights Commissioner from 2016-2021. He recently started as Industry Professor - Responsible Technology at the University of Technology Sydney. He leads a major UTS initiative to build Australias strategic capability in AI and new technology. This will support Australian business and government to be leaders in responsible innovation by developing and using AI that is powerful, effective and fair.

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Artificial Intelligence: Future directions in technology and law - Australian Academy of Science

Chatbot Serves as Virtual College Adviser

Colleges have had success with chatbotsfor a few years, but high school students can now benefit from the first nationally accessible (and free) AI college adviser chatbot, Oli. The tool is the result of apartnership between Common App and Mainstay(formerly AdmitHub). Oli stands ready to help students around the clock with a wide range of tasks, such as selecting the right school, completing college and scholarship applications and understanding financial aid forms. It responds to questions via text and also sends users deadline reminders, updates and resources several times a week. When extra help is required, Oli connects students with a trained college adviser fromCollege Advising Corps.

RELATED:Counselors take an online approach to helping high school students with college decisions.

While education leaders and policymakers have been pushing tutoring as a solution to thecrisis of COVID-19 learning disruption, supporting every student in need with a human tutor isnt feasible nor affordable. Researcher Neil Heffernan, a computer science professor and director of the Learning Sciences and Technologies graduate program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is working on technology to support human tutors.

These AI-powered tutor chatbots would democratize private tutoring, something thats not available to many students. Heffernan believes that on-demand, AI-driven tutor chatbots are an important addition to the learning experience and will easily integrate across a schools system existing technology.

To me, AI is just a set of simple tools that we can use, in this case, to figure out some problems that teachers and kids are persistently having, says Heffernan. The real magic is giving human tutors and teachers a little bit of information on whats going on so they can be more efficient.

AI-enabled chatbots are likely coming soon to a school near you to help with class scheduling, tutoring, college applications, collecting feedback and a lot more.

Teachers shouldnt be scared, Heffernan says. Like many things in AI, the chatbots are going to slowly come in and, I hope, actually help kids when humans are not available.

KEEP READING:Schools can use artificial intelligence to keep students engaged in online learning.

Link:
Chatbots Allow Educators to Delegate Repetitive Tasks and Focus on Teaching - EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12

The Alaska State Capitol in Juneau. (James Brooks / ADN)

JUNEAU In five hours of public testimony late last month, a line of Alaskans criticized members of the Alaska Legislature for failing to come up with a reliable formula for Alaskas annual Permanent Fund dividend.

Legislators have heard similar testimony since 2017, but this years comments brought a new wrinkle: A growing number of Alaskans, dissatisfied with a lack of change, are calling for a constitutional convention to address the issue.

Voters are asked once every decade whether they want to call for a convention, and the next vote is in November 2022.

Because conventions arent limited to one subject, conservatives and libertarians are embracing the trend, saying it could allow them to pursue long-held goals like a ban on abortion, public funding for private schools, or changes to the way judges are picked.

Michael Chambers is a libertarian who is urging Alaskans to vote yes on the convention next year. He has a list of items hed like to see addressed and said the PFD issue is 100% helping the cause.

I dont mean this in a negative way, but for the low-information voter, it absolutely makes a difference, he said. The more the PFD festers out there and sits there, the more ... the low-information voters are the ones that say, Hey, wait a minute, this is enough!

Legislators say theyre not certain that a constitutional convention will bring conservative nirvana. Alaskas political divides could mean a convention split between conservatives and progressives, just as the Legislature is today.

What may start out looking like a solution on the PFD could turn into a social battleground like weve never seen in this state, said Senate President Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna.

I think there is a potential for unintended consequences beyond the scope of anything we can currently imagine, he said.

In a convention, uncertainty abounds

Alaska hasnt had a constitutional convention since its first, which took place in late 1955 and early 1956, but voters are asked every 10 years if they want to hold one.

In 1970, 1972, 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012 they said no, mostly by wide margins. (The 1970 vote passed by about 500 votes but was overturned by the Alaska Supreme Court, which said the wording of the question was too leading. A re-vote in 1972 changed the result.)

Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, said things could be different this time around.

I think theres a real chance that people could vote for a constitutional convention, he said, adding that any convention would be unpredictable.

If you go to a constitutional convention, you just dont know where it goes. You dont know whos going to be the delegates, you dont know how the decisions will be made. And you just dont know whats going to happen, he said.

Unless the Legislature passes a different guiding law, a convention would generally follow the rules in place in 1955.

Delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention at work, Fairbanks, winter 1955-56.

That means voters would likely be asked to vote for delegates during the 2024 election, and might be asked to approve a resulting draft in 2026.

Bob Bird, chairman of the Alaskan Independence Party, has been trying for years to convince Alaskans to vote for a convention, most recently in columns published by the Watchman, an Alaska-based Christian website.

He said hes been talking to groups he considers Ron Paul constitutionalist and said concerns about the Permanent Fund dividend unite them, but so does a desire to change the states judicial system.

The Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in favor of abortion rights, and there has been a steady conservative push to change Alaskas judicial selection laws in order to overturn those rulings.

I cant tell you which is the most energizing in regards to the call for a con-con, he said, using shorthand for the constitutional convention.

Chambers said that while it might seem ironic, hes seeing libertarian interest in a PFD amendment.

We libertarians believe in less government, and the best way for you to have less government is if they dont have money. And the easiest way in Alaska for them not to have money is to give it directly to the people, he said.

Opponents and proponents see momentum

Bird said hes seeing growing interest in a convention, regardless of the issue.

I think its a small snowball thats picking up momentum, he said.

Those concerned about a convention are also seeing that momentum.

A group called the Permanent Fund Defenders has been urging lawmakers to guarantee Permanent Fund dividend payments in the state constitution. For at least two years, members have been warning legislators that unless they act, voters might seek a convention.

Juanita Cassellius, a spokesperson for the group, said the prospect of a convention is worrying because it could turn into a can of worms. Despite that prospect, many Alaskans might be willing to risk it in order to end perennial debates over the dividend.

There is a very vocal group that will get attention because its a simple message, she said. I think it would be very catchy. And now, the people in our group are very afraid of that.

Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, represents one of the most conservative legislative districts in the state. He said that when the topic comes up in small groups, he reminds people that a convention of delegates is likely to resemble the mix of views present in the Alaska House of Representatives.

There, a coalition of independents, Democrats and moderate Republicans holds a narrow majority.

I think thats part of the issue: Theres a lot of unknowns, he said.

The Alaska Senate is taking the prospect of a convention seriously enough that some state senators have begun researching the potential costs and how a convention might operate.

Chambers and others said that if the Alaska Legislature fails to settle the dividend issue by the end of the 2022 regular legislative session, it will become a significant issue in next years races for governor and Legislature.

He speculated that the push will begin ramping up around February, because thats where campaigns start coming out and people start taking positions.

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Supporters of a big PFD are starting to back a constitutional convention. Alaska's conservatives and libertarians see an opportunity. - Anchorage...

Ever since President Trump started nominating new Supreme Court justices, reproductive health activists and court observers have sounded the alarm that Roe v. Wade was in jeopardy. Conservative legislators also took notepassing laws that would contradict Roe in case it did fall.

On September 1, in the middle of the night, the five most conservative Supreme Court justices issued an unsigned order denying an injunction against a new Texas law that bans most abortions and deputizes the citizenry to enforce the ban.

There is no silver lining, but there may be a layer of defense that hasnt been fully explored by activists and reproductive justice organizers to explore: the new progressive prosecutor movement.

Prosecutors are granted a high level of discretion under US law, and they have the authority to simply not criminally charge people using laws they know to be unjust or unconstitutional. Progressive prosecutors have mostly focused on non-enforcement efforts on low-level drug charges. However, in 2019, four Atlanta-area prosecutors promised they would not use a new Georgia law criminalizing abortions to prosecute people for obtaining them, regardless of whether there was a legal challenge to that law.

Such promises are not legally binding. The consequences of going back on their word would essentially amount to some of their left-leaning constituency remembering the betrayal in the next election cycle. But this use of prosecutorial discretionto not charge abortion patients or providerscould play a prominent role in our post-Roe society.

A starting place is to establish where your county DA stands on abortion.

The inverse is also true. Enterprising right-wing prosecutors can turn to new interpretations of old laws to criminalize abortion, even without a specific statute. In the 1990s, former Pinellas County, Florida, State Attorney Bernie McCabe attempted to prosecute a young girl under homicide statutes for getting an abortion.

Prosecutorial discretion is also probably why conservative donors who oppose mass incarceration, such as Charles Koch, never got involved in bankrolling pro-reform candidates in prosecutor elections. A decarceral Republican candidate for district attorney is essentially a libertarian, and many libertarians adamantly support the right to abortion without governmental inference. But funding candidates who might not prosecute people for abortion would alienate GOP allies needed for other parts of conservative donors political agenda. Relatively few Republicans think abortion should be legal.

Traveling from an abortion-ban state to get a legal abortion in a different state is still legal, because Congress never passed a federal law criminalizing abortion. Some Texas residents will be able to procure safe and legal abortions elsewhere; others who dont have the resources will not.

Groups like the ACLU and Color of Change have already been educating the public on the importance of district attorney races and knowing what ones DA stands for as a strategic lever for racial justice. Reproductive justice organizations might now consider doing the same.

A starting place is to establish where a county DA stands on abortion. Rarely have top prosecutors been asked to weigh in on the issue, and whether they run as Democrats or Republicans is not enough to know whether they support or oppose criminalization. Reproductive justice advocates should seek this information from as many DA offices as possible.

If the DAs refuse to not prosecute abortion, or glibly state that the law is the lawnot just downplaying, but outright ignoring, their own power of discretionthat information should be advertised where it will be seen by constituents who might not otherwise be aware. And if any DAs promise outright that they will not prosecute abortion-related charges, that promise should be publicly platformed, too.

In 2020, multiple plaintiffs sued in Tennessee to block a new law that would force abortion providers to tell patients it may be possible to reverse a medication-induced abortion in the middle of the procedure, under the threat of felony charges, fines and incarceration. To guide his decision, US District Judge William Campbell invited the four DAs named in the suitMemphis DA Amy Weirich, Davidson County (Nashville) DA Glenn R. Funk, Knox County DA Charme P. Allen and recently retired 15th District DA Tom Thompsonto state on-record that they would not prosecute providers for giving the required recitation but then stating they disagreed with it.

All of them filed the requested declaration except Nashville DA Funk, who filed a declaration that he would not enforce the new law because of his legal opinion that it is unconstitutional.

An October 2020 open letter from Fair and Just Prosecution also collected the signatures of dozens of locally elected prosecutors across the US who promised to not prosecute anyone who obtain abortions and health care professionals who provide themeven if the protections of Roe v. Wade were to be eroded or overturned.

Photograph via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 2.0

Originally posted here:
District Attorneys Could Be Key to the post-Roe v. Wade Abortion Battle - Filter