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Press Release Sample #1 by Kathleen Madrid del Rosario Manuel Written in August 2022. Source: https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/a-new-textiles-economy The textiles industry, one of the most important industries in the world, is catching up on sustainability practices in today’s circular economy. ------------------------------ The 2017 “A New Textiles Economy” Report on working towards sustainability of the textiles industry for a better future for all A report has come out that presents a viable way for the textiles industry to be sustainable in the circular economy. The 2017 Report, “A New Textiles Economy”, has been produced by a team of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation along with McKinsey & Company, a management consulting company with 165 offices in 65 countries, and a host of experts and organizations such as H & M and Nike. The Report starts with information that the textiles industry (textiles, fabric and fibre) is one of the most important industries in the world. Textiles are important because everyone comes across textiles almost everyday. The most common textiles are clothes, and almost everyone in the world wears some form of clothing. The Report continues citing the losses in the textile industry due to underutilization of clothes. The losses when clothes are underutilized (bought then used for a shorter time then sent to the disposal) amounts to 500 billion US dollars a year. The Report also cites what happens when some textiles are washed. Some clothes when washed release microfibers (fibres which are less than 10 micrometers) in the environment. Microfibres contribute to pollution in the ocean. The Report was lauded by many. Cyrus Wadia, VP, Sustainable Business & Innovation, Nike, Inc. said “This report is important and signalling the type of systemic innovation and collaboration required to unlock a future that protects our athletes and the planet while also powering sustainable business growth.” Tim Kasten, Deputy Director, Economy Division, UN Environment said: ”This report will surely inspire many success stories and practices from all actors which are called to transform the textile value chain.” The textile industry at present is polluting. Many resources are wasted and the environment is polluted. A new textiles economy is being brought forth that would be beneficial to people, society, business, environment, planet and the entire industry itself. The Report proposes Ambitions for the New Textiles Economy namely (1) Phase out substances of concern and microfibre release, (2) Increase clothing utilization, (3) Radically improve recycling and (4) Make effective use of resources and move to renewable inputs. All of these Ambitions for the New Textiles Economy will pave the way forward for a new textiles industry in the circular economy “where clothes, fabric and fibres are kept at their highest value during use, and re-enter the economy after use, never ending up as waste.” In this system, people would have access to high-quality and affordable clothing while at the same time using renewable resources and value in the supply chain for better clothes at a good price and a favourable salary for workers in textiles and an overall better planet and environment. Finally, the Report recognizes the valuable role all organizations in the textile industry must play, along with policymakers, business owners across the value chain contribute to ensuring the transition to a new textiles economy where all stakeholders are working towards sustainability in a circular economy of regeneration and restoration.

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My name is Kathleen and some of the jobs I held were as Communications Specialist and Business Reporter. I am a homeschooling mother now.

I was inspired to research and write this article after reading Tom Taulli’s article, “Facial recognition bans: what do they mean for AI (Artificial Intelligence) in Forbes.com. Here is his article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2020/06/13/facial-recognition-bans-what-do-they-mean-for-ai-artificial-intelligence/?sh=1ea18c6a46ee

 

The New Buzzword is Artificial Intelligence

By Kathleen Madrid del Rosario Manuel

Metro Manila, March 5 2021

Machines should only do what humans cannot. --- Jack Ma

In an article, Alibaba founder Jack Ma: ‘AI will cause more people pain than happiness’

Machines, because of machine learning, and human data scientists who have found a way to aggregate and sift through myriad of data, have brought about a point of view that says machines will automatically replace some humans in jobs.

The human spirit and endurance has been such that spacecraft have astronauts and oil rigs are manned by engineers. The loneliest job in the world, according to an article by Kristina Rudic in vault.com, entitled World’s Loneliest Job, is a fire lookout at Gila National Forest. Gila National Forest, located in New Mexico and a lookout is supposed to warn about fire that may start and consume the forest. Months on end, the looker will be by himself, a pair of binoculars for his companion in his work.

We marvel at the tests of limits and endurance people could take. Loneliness is seen from the outside, with people noticing who they think is lonely when what they really see is a human used to little or no human contact and quite accustomed to it.

That is what the pandemic COVID-19 served to reinterate. That human life is fragile and should matter, whether lonely, alone or not. Here we see how artificial intelligence could make even more people lonely and detached.

What about artificial intelligence and how it is laying claim to the future? AI, hand in hand with machine learning, are producing computers, equipment and robots whom they say will take over our jobs and do our work for us.

The cost of AI has caused a shift in resource management and maximization for companies, both those big companies and medium to small corporations, who now must get data scientists and software and hardware specialists who will feed them dashboard metrics which will supposedly increase productivity, sales, level operations and make their employees, clients, customers and management prepared for the new future (with AI versus a pre-AI future).

I have read articles about the doomsday scenario robots and artificial intelligence will cause to the world population. I get a bit apprehensive everytime, being a mother of children below 18, and aspiring to go back to the workforce and thinking if a self-driving car will make it in the streets of Metro Manila.

I think AI use should be used in three main things. One, is is to increase food security hand-in-hand with the farmers and fishermen and traders, to the supermarkets, stores and restaurants. Two, AI can be used to assist humans, not replace them, their life, their raison d’etre and their work, job, livelihood or business. Three, artificial intelligence has use in cybersecurity.

Artificial intelligence should be there to make us feel secure, not whittle or whitewash us out.

There must be a way for AI to come up with ideas the promote food and job security and decrease the risk of cyberspace attacks on our website real estate.

This idea is to promote robots working for, and alongside humans, instead of being a threat to both job and peace of mind.

Robots are there to assist and not challenge or else there will be selectivity in all aspects. Considering the limitations of neural networks and considering the breakdown of machines and thus constant upkeep, what will happen is we will keep using AI and machine learning in industries and occupations which we no longer want to handle or thrive, or give to the Third-world economies to do as outsourced work.  

It is an idea that AI and machine learning will create a hegemony of work culture, that we get to select which jobs should be peak and increasing in number. Corollarily, that AI and machine learning gets to choose which jobs to render extinct or useless., through robots or machines or programs.

This should not be the case. The selectivity must be such that artificial intelligence should be used to select which industries and professions to favor and make more productive, not curry to or banish.

If we are not careful, what will be left are designers and developers of software, hardware and programs for the robots that increase farm productivity instead of the very humans and institutions they are trying to replace. We will be left with Salesforce engineers and experts and no longer be with the sales personnel who are responsible for doing business and territorial development and expansion or product designers who see how humans actually use and re-use their products and services.

If we do not have AI and machine learning regulations, what we will have a surplus of are data scientists whose predicative ability lies only within the data that was gathered and encoded by humans themselves, the very thing they are trying to replace with the machines they are designing and machine and robot creators and maintenance personnel.

The threat is to remove frontliners and for self-driving cars, the drivers themselves. You go visit a website and what will talk with you are chatbots who seem artificial even though they are intelligent (“Thank you for choosing tulle in white. The feel of tulle is soft and fairy-like.”) Cars may be invented that deliver what you ordered although cannot control when the human steps on something slippery and bashes his head on the car-deliveryman. Human interaction is what is being humanly interrupted.

Although they say that in as little as thirty years, many of the scenarios, actual and imaginable, will have been thought of by data scientists and mined for data, programmed by their AI software engineers and maintained by their AI hardware engineers, one misses the point exactly by going full force with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Big data, big tech and data science misses the big picture for two reasons. One cannot see and encapsulate all the possible scenarios, including the effects of the emotions and thought processes that come into why humans do something. A machine, though without feeling, is ultimately not afraid or sad but is quite used to being what it is, an object we take pains turning into a pedigreed object that must be maintained.

Data science, data encryption, data encoding and data gathering will be the most sought after jobs as we set to encode and enter data that will be examined, studied and analyzed, for past information, a predictable present and a hoped for future with management-set objectives. This spells a foreboding because jobs will be skewed towards serving the pedigreed objects that are programs and robots, they that are dashboard and metrics sources, and computing jobs.

Another reason big data, data science and big tech do not see is that human explanation separates hard science into soft science. AI cannot begin to figure out why and how humans will do something (like they have come up with AI, machine learning, robots and neural network programming), just that they do.

There will be no rise of the machines but always, a selectivity, on what machines will rise, what industries artificial intelligence could be useful for, and who will be on the receiving end, job-wise and life-wise.

None the wiser, the new buzzword is artificial intelligence but just how intelligent these machines, robots and software and programs are still depends on a human. We must be careful about the rise of these machines because we still need humans for these machines’ upkeep. Enough with the statement the simplistic machines will replace humans and more of using AI and machine learning for the majority and common good.

References:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/alibaba-jack-ma-artificial-intelligence-more-pain-than-happiness

https://www.vault.com/blogs/job-search/the-worlds-loneliest-job

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