Category Archives: public perceptions

Who’s running the life science companies’ public relations campaign in British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada)?

I started writing this in the aftermath of the 2021 Canadian federal budget when most of the action (so far) occurred but if you keep going to the end of this post you’ll find updates for Precision Nanosystems and AcCellera and a few extra bits. Also, you may want to check out my August 20, 2021 posting (Getting erased from the mRNA/COVID-19 story) about Ian MacLachlan and some of the ‘rough and tumble’ of the biotechnology scene in BC/Canada. Now, onto my analysis of the life sciences public relations campaign in British Columbia.

Gordon Hoekstra’s May 7, 2021 article (also in print on May 8, 2021) about the British Columbia (mostly in Vancouver) biotechnology scene in the Vancouver Sun is the starting point for this story.

His entry (whether the reporter realizes it or not) into a communications (or public relations) campaign spanning federal, provincial, and municipal jurisdictions is well written and quite informative. While it’s tempting to attribute the whole thing to a single evil genius or mastermind in answer to the question posed in the head, the ‘campaign’ is likely a targeted effort by one or more groups and individuals enhanced with a little luck.

Federal and provincial money for life sciences and technology

The Business Council of British Columbia’s April 22, 2021 Federal & B.C. Budgets 2021 Analysis (PDF), notes this in its Highlights section,

…
•Another priority reflected in both budgets is boosting innovation and accelerating the growth of technology-producing companies. The federal budget [April 19, 2021] is spending billions more to support the life sciences and bio-manufacturing industry, clean technologies, the development of electric vehicles, the aerospace sector, quantum computing, AI, genomics, and digital technologies, among others.
•B.C.’s budget [April 20, 2021] also provides funding to spur innovation, support the technology sector and grow locally-based companies. In this area the main item is the new InBC Investment Corporation [emphasis mine], first announced last summer. Endowed with $500 million financed via an agency loan, the Corporation will establish a fund to invest in growing and “anchoring” high-growth [emphasis mine] B.C. businesses.
…

Their in-depth analysis does not provide more detail about the life sciences investments in the 2021 Canadian federal budget or the 2021 BC provincial budget.

My May 4, 2021 posting details many of the Canadian federal investments in life sciences and other technology areas of interest. The 2021 BC budget announcement is so vague, it didn’t merit much more than this mention until now.

InBC Investment Corporation (BC’s contribution)

InBC Investment Corporation was set up on or about April 27, 2021 as three news ‘references’ (brief summaries with a link) suggest: InBC Investment Corp. Act, InBC Announcement, $500-million investment fund paves way for StrongerBC.

While the corporation does not have a specific mandate to fund the biotechnology sector, given the current enthusiasm, it’s easy to believe they might be more inclined to fund them than not, regardless of any expertise they or may not have specifically in that field.

Of most interest to me was InBC’s Board of Directors, which I tracked down to a BC Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation May 6, 2021 news release,

InBC Investment Corp. now has a full board of directors with backgrounds in finance, economics, impact investing and business to provide strategic guidance and accountability for the new Crown corporation.
InBC will support startups [emphasis mine], help promising companies scale up and work with a “triple bottom line” mandate that considers people, the planet and profits, to position British Columbia as a front-runner in the post-pandemic economy.
…
Christine Bergeron, president and chief executive officer of Vancity, will serve as the new board chair of InBC Investment Corp. The nine-member board of directors is made up of both public and private sector members who are responsible for oversight of the corporation, including its mission, policies and goals.
…
The InBC board members were selected through a comprehensive process, guided by the principles of the Crown Agencies and Board Resourcing Office. Candidates with a variety of relevant backgrounds were considered to form a strong board consisting of seven women and two men. The members appointed represent diversity as well as appropriate areas of expertise.
The following people were selected as members on the board of directors:

Christine Bergeron, president and CEO, Vancity
Kevin Campbell, managing director of investment banking, board of directors, Haywood Securities
Ingrid Leong, VP finance for JH Investments and chief investment officer, Houssian Foundation
Glen Lougheed, serial tech entrepreneur and angel investor
Suzanne Trottier, vice-president of Indigenous trust services, First Nations Bank Trust
Carole James, former minister of finance and deputy premier, Government of British Columbia
Iglika Ivanova, senior economist, public interest researcher, BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Bobbi Plecas, deputy minister, B.C.’s Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation
Heather Wood, deputy minister, B.C.’s Ministry of Finance

Legislation to provide the governance framework for InBC was introduced by the legislative assembly on April 27, 2021.
…

Board experience at growing a startup?

This group of people doesn’t seem to have a shred of experience with startups. Glen Lougheed’s “serial tech entrepreneur and angel investor” description means nothing to me and the description he provides in his LinkedIn profile doesn’t clear up matters,

I am a product and business development professional with an entrepreneurial attitude and strong technical skills. I have been building companies both mine and others since I was a teenager.

Having looked up the two companies for which he is currently acting as Chief Executive Officer, Lougheed’s interest appears to be focused on the use of ‘big data’ in marketing and communications campaigns.

Perhaps startup experience isn’t necessary since the board has been appointed to do this (from the BC Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation May 6, 2021 news release; click on the Backgrounder),

Responsibilities of the InBC Investment Corp. board of directors
The board of directors will be responsible for oversight of the management of the affairs of the corporation. This includes:

selecting and approving the chief executive officer and chief innovation officer and monitoring performance and accountabilities;
reviewing and approving annual corporate financial statements;
oversight of policies that relate to InBC’s mandate and holding the executive to account for its accountabilities with respect to InBC’s mandate;
oversight of InBC’s operations; and
selection and appointment of InBC’s auditor.

Relationships

So, we have two government civil servants, Wood (Deputy Minister of B.C.’s Ministry of Finance) and Plecas (Deputy Minister of B.C.’s Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation), and James, a BC Minister of Finance, who left the job several months ago. Then we have Lougheed, recently resigned (May 2021) as special advisor on innovation and technology to the BC Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.

It would seem almost half of this new board is or has been affiliated with the government and, likely, know each other.

I expect there are more relationships to be found but my interest is in the overall picture as it pertains to the biotechnology scene. This board (except possibly for Lougheed) does not seem to have any experience in the biotechnology sector or growing any sort of startup business in any technology field.

Presumably, the new chief executive officer (CEO) and new chief innovation officer (CIO) will have some of the necessary experience. Still, biotechnology isn’t the same as digital technology, an area where the BC technology community is quite strong. (The Canadian federal government’s Digital Technology Supercluster is headquartered in BC.)

I imagine the politics around who gets hired as CEO and as CIO will be quite interesting.

See the ‘Updates and extras’ at the end of this posting for more mention of this ‘secretive’ government corporation.

The BC biotech gorillas

AbCellera was BC’s biggest biotech story in 2020/21 (see my Avo Media, Science Telephone, and a Canadian COVID-19 billionaire scientist post from December 30, 2020 for more. Do check out the subsection titled “Avo Media …” for a look at an unexpectedly interlaced relationship). Note: The AbCellera COVID-19 treatment is not a vaccine or a vaccine delivery system.

It was a bit surprising that Acuitas Therapeutics didn’t get more attention although Hoekstra seems to have addressed that shortcoming in his May 7, 2021 article by using Thomas Madden and Acuitas as the hook for the story,

By early 2020, concern was mounting about a new, deadly coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China.
The World Health Organization had declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency just days before. There had been more than 400 deaths and more than 20,000 cases, most of those in China.
But the virus was spreading around the world. Deaths had occurred in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and the virus had been detected in the U.S. and Canada.
By early January of 2020, scientists in China had already sequenced the virus’s genome and made it public, allowing scientists to begin the research for a vaccine.
Scientists expected that could take years.
But, as a second case was confirmed in B.C. in early February, Thomas Madden, a world-renowned expert in nanotechnology who heads Vancouver-based biotech company Acuitas Therapeutics, flew to Germany. [emphases mine]
Acuitas was in the business of creating lipid nanoparticles, microscopic biological vehicles that could deliver drugs [emphasis mine] — for example, to specifically target cancers in the body.
…
Scientists are already beginning to say it’s likely that a booster vaccine will be needed [emphasis mine] next year to deal with the virus variants.
Madden, the head of Acuitas, says it makes absolute sense to use the new biotechnology, for example, the use of messenger RNA vaccines, to prepare and fight future pandemics.
Says Madden [emphasis mine]: “The technology in terms of what it’s able to do is absolutely phenomenal. It’s just taken us 40 years to get here.”

So, Hoekstra reminds us of the international nature and urgency of the crisis, then, introduces Acuitas as a vital and local player in solutions deployed internationally, and, finally, brings us back to Acuitas after providing an overview of the BC biotech scene and the federal and provincial government’s latest moves,

AbCellera Biologics is more of a supporting player, along with a number of other companies, in Hoekstra’s story,

Sandwiched in the middle, you’ll find what I think is the point of the story,

LifeSciences BC and the provincial government’s commitments

From Hoekstra’s May 7, 2021 article,

The importance of the biotech sector in providing protection against pandemics has caught the attention of the federal and B.C. governments. It has also been noticed by the private markets.
In its budget [April 19, 2021] earlier this month [sic], the federal government promised more than $2 billion in the next seven years to support “promising” life sciences and bio-manufacturing firms, research, training, education and vaccine candidates.
Some companies, including Precision NanoSystems, have already got federal funding. The Vancouver company received $18.2 million last year to help develop its self-replicating mRNA vaccine and another $25 million in early 2021 to assist building a $50-million facility to produce the vaccine.
Last fall, Symvivo received $2.8 million from the National Research Council to help develop its oral COVID-19 vaccine.
AbCellera has also received a pledge of $175.6 million to help build an accredited manufacturing facility in Vancouver [emphasis mine] to produce antibody treatments.
AbCellera expects to double its 230-person workforce over the next two years as it expands its Vancouver campus.
When AbCellera became a publicly traded company late last year, it raised more than $500 million and had a recent market capitalization, the value of its stock, of about $8.5 billion.
When the B.C. government delivered its throne speech recently, the contribution of the province’s life sciences sector in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic was highlighted, with Precision NanoSystems, AbCellera and StarFish Medical getting mentions. “Their work will not only help bring us out of the pandemic, it will position our province for success in the years ahead,” said B.C.’s Lt. Gov. Jane Austen in delivering the throne speech.
When the budget was released the following week [April 20, 2021], B.C. Finance Minister Selina Robinson said a new three-year, $500-million strategic investment fund would help support and scale up tech firms.
Despite their successes, B.C. biotech firms have faced challenges.
SaNOtize had to go to the U.K. to get support for clinical trials and AbCellera has been disappointed that despite Health Canada emergency approval of its COVID-19 treatment, provinces have been reluctant to use Bamlanivimab.
Hansen, AbCellera’s CEO and a former University of B.C. professor with a PhD in applied physics and biotechnology, said he believes that biotech is the most important frontier of technology.
In the past, while great science was launched from B.C.’s universities, not as great a job was done on turning that science into innovation, jobs [emphasis mine] and the capacity to bring new products to market, possibly because of a lack of entrepreneurship and polices to make it more attractive to companies to grow and thrive here and move here, notes Hansen.
Hurlburt [Wendy Hurlburt], the LifeSciences B.C. CEO, says that policies, including tax structure and patenting [emphasis mine], that encourages innovation companies are needed to support the biotech sector.
But, adds Hansen: “Here in Vancouver, I feel like we’re turning the corner. There’s probably never been a time when Vancouver’s biotech sector [emphasis mine] was stronger. And the future looks very good.”
…

Not only is the province involved but so is the City of Vancouver (more about that in a bit).

It’s not all about the cash

Hoekstra’s May 7, 2021 article helped answer a question I had in the title of another posting, January 22, 2021: Why is Precision Nanosystems Inc. in the local (Vancouver, Canada) newspaper? (See the ‘Updates and extras’ at the end of this posting for more to the answer.)

This campaign has been building for a while. In the “Is it magic or how does the federal budget get developed? subsection of my May 4, 2021 posting on the 2021 Canadian federal budget I speculated a little bit,

I believe most of the priorities are set by power players behind the scenes. We glimpsed some of the dynamics courtesy of the WE Charity scandal 2020/21 and the SNC-Lavalin scandal in 2019.
Access to special meetings and encounters are not likely to be given to any member of the ‘great unwashed’ but we do get to see the briefs that are submitted in anticipation of a new budget. These briefs and meetings with witnesses are available on the Parliament of Canada website (Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) webpage for pre-budget consultations.
…

AbCellera submitted a brief dated August 7, 2020 (PDF) detailing how they would like to see the Income Tax Act amended. It’s not always about getting cash, although that’s very important. In this brief, the company wants “… improved access to the enhanced Scientific Research & Experimental Development tax credit.”

There are many aspects to these campaigns including the federal Income Tax Act and, in this case, municipal involvement.

Vancouver (city government) and the biotech sector

About five weeks prior to the 2021 Canadian federal budget and BC provincial budget announcements, there was some news from the City of Vancouver (from a March 10, 2021 article by Kenneth Chan for dailyhive.com), Note: Links have been removed,

Major expansion plans are abound for AbCellera over the next few years to the extent that the Vancouver-based biotechnology company is now looking to build a massive purpose-built office and medical laboratory campus in Mount Pleasant (Vancouver neighbourhood).
It would be a redevelopment of the entire city block …
… earlier today, Vancouver City Council unanimously approved a rezoning enquiry allowing city staff to work with the proponent and accept a formal application for review.
This special additional pre-application step is required due to the temporary ban [emphasis mine] on most types of rezonings within the Broadway Plan’s planning area, until the plan is finalized at the end of 2021.
But city staff are willing to make this a rare exception due to the economic opportunity [emphasis mine] presented by the proposal and the healthcare-related aspects.
“The reasons for advancing this quickly are they are rapidly growing and would like to stay in Vancouver, and we would like them to… We’re very glad to have this company in Vancouver and want to provide them with a permanent home, but in order to scale up, the timeframe to produce their therapy [for viruses] is really time sensitive,” Gil Kelley, the chief urban planner of the City of Vancouver, told city council during today’s [March 10, 2021] meeting.
….

Roughly 10 days after the 2021 budgets are announced, there’s this from Kenneth Chan’s April 29,2021 article on dailyhive.com,

Plans for AbCellera Biologics’ major footprint expansion in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant Industrial Area are moving forward quickly.
Based on the application submitted this week, the Vancouver-based biotechnology company is proposing to redevelop 110 West 4th Avenue …
It will be designated as the rapidly growing company’s global headquarters.
… city staff are providing AbCellera with the highly rare, expedited stream of combining the rezoning and development application processes into one.
…
By the middle of this decade, AbCellera will have four locations in the area, including its current 21,000 sq ft office at 2215 Yukon Street and a new 44,000 sq ft office nearing completion at 2131 Manitoba Street, just south of its future main hub.
“We’re building state-of-the-art facilities in Vancouver to accelerate the development of new antibody therapies with biotech and pharma partners from around the world,” said Carl Hansen, CEO and president of AbCellera, in a statement.
…
AbCellera has gained significant international attention over the past year after it co-developed the first authorized COVID-19 antibody therapy for emergency use in high-risk patients in Canada and the United States.
In late 2020, the company closed a successful initial public offering, bringing in $556 million after selling nearly 28 million shares, far exceeding its original goal of raising $250 million. It was the largest-ever IPO [initial public offering] by a Canadian biotech company.
…
“We see this new site as a creative hub for engineers, software developers, data scientists, biologists and bioinformaticians to collaborate, innovate, and push the frontiers of technology.” [said Veronique Lecault, the COO of AbCellera]
Additionally, AbCellera is also planning to build a clinical-grade, antibody manufacturing facility in Metro Vancouver, funded in part by the $176-million investment it received from the federal government in Spring 2020 [see May 3, 2020 AbCellera news release].

Not cash but AbCellera did get an expedited process for rezoning and I imagine there will be more special treatment as this progresses. (See the ‘Updates and extras’ at the end of this posting for news about the expedited process.)

It’s likely there are other companies in the BC’s life science sector that are eyeing this development with great interest and high hopes for themselves.

What it takes

COVID-19 seems to have galvanized interest and support almost everywhere in the world for life sciences.

I don’t believe that anyone in the life sciences planned for or rejoiced at news of this pandemic. However, the Canadian biotech sector has been working for decades to establish itself as an important economic resource. and, sadly, COVID-19 has been a timely development.

All those years of lobbying, also known as, government relations, marketing, investor relations, public relations and more served as preparation for what looks like a concerted effort and it has paid off in BC at the federal level, provincial level, and municipal level (at least one).

The campaigns continue. Here’s Wendy Hurlburt, president and CEO of LifeSciences BC in a May 14, 2021 Conversations That Matter Vancouver Sun podcast with Stuart McNish. Note: Hurlburt makes an odd comment at about the 7 min. 30 secs. mark regarding insulin and patents.

Her dismay over lost opportunities regarding the insulin patent is right in line with Canada’s current patent mania. See my May 13, 2021 posting, Not a pretty picture: Canada and a patent rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines. As far as I’m aware, Canada’s stance has not changed. Interestingly, Hoekstra’s article doesn’t mention COVID-19 patent waivers.

By contrast, here’s what Frederick Banting (one of the discoverers) had to say about his patent, (from the Banting House Insulin Patents webpage),

About the sale of the patent of insulin for $1 Banting reportedly said, “Insulin belongs to the world, not to me.”
… On January 23rd, 1923 Banting, [Charles] Best, and [James] Collip were awarded the American patents for insulin which they sold to the University of Toronto for $1.00 each.
…

Hurlburt goes on to express dismay over taxes and notes that some companies may leave for other jurisdictions, which means we will lose ‘innovation’. This is a very common ploy coming from any of the technology sectors and can be dated back at least 30 years.

Unmentioned is the dream/business model that so many Canadian tech entrepreneurs have: grow the company, sell it for a lot of money, and retire, preferably before the age of 40.

Getting back to my point, the current situation is not attributable to one individual or to one company’s efforts or to one life science nonprofit or to one federal Network Centre for Excellence (NanoMedicines Innovation Network [NMIN] located at the University of British Columbia).

Note: I have more about the NMIN and Acuitas Therapeutics in a November 12, 2021 posting and there’s more about NMIN’s 7th annual conference and a very high profile guest in a September 11, 2020 posting.

Strategy at the federal, provincial, and local governments, with an eye to the international scene, has been augmented by luck and opportunism.

Updates and extras

Where updates are concerned I have one for Precision Nanosystems and one for AbCellera. I have extras with regard to Moderna and Canada and, BC’s special fund, inBC Investment Corporation. For anyone who’s curious about Banting and the high cost of insulin, I have a couple of links to further reading.

Precision Nanosystems

From an August 11, 2021 article by Kenneth Chan (Note: Links have been removed),

A homegrown pharmaceutical company has announced plans to significantly scale its operations with the opening of a new production facility in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats.
…
The new Evolution Block building will contain PNI’s new global headquarters and a new genetic medicine Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) biomanufacturing centre, which would allow the company to expand its capabilities to include the clinical manufacturing of RNA vaccines and therapeutics.
Federal funding totalling $25.1 million for PNI was first announced in February 2021 towards covering part of the development costs of such a facility, as part of the federal government’s new strategy to better ensure Canada has the domestic capacity to secure its own COVID-19 vaccines and prepare the country for future pandemics. It is estimated the vaccine production capacity of the new facility will be 240 million doses annually.
…
PNI’s location in the False Creek Flats is strategic, given the close proximity to the new St. Paul’s Hospital campus and the growing concentration of tech and healthcare-based industrial businesses.
…

AbCellera

From a June 22, 2021 article by Kenneth Chan (Note: Links have been removed),

…
The rapidly growing Vancouver-based biotechnology company announced this morning their 130,000 sq ft Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility will be located on a two-acre site at the 900 block of Evans Avenue, replacing the Urban Beach volleyball courts just next to the City of Vancouver’s Evans maintenance centre and the Regional Recycling Vancouver Bottle Depot.
…
GMP is partially funded by the $175 million in federal funding received by the company last year to support research into coronavirus treatment.
…
GMP adds to AbCellera’s major plans to build a new headquarters in close proximity at 110-150 West 4th Avenue in the Mount Pleasant Industrial Area — a city block-sized campus with a total of 380,000 sq ft of laboratory and office space for research and corporate uses.
…
Both campus buildings are being reviewed under the City of Vancouver’s rare streamlined, expedited process [emphasis mine] of combining the rezoning and development permit applications. AbCellera formally announced its campus plans in April 2021.
…
AbCellera gained significant international attention last year when it developed the world’s first monoclonal antibody therapy for COVID-19 to be authorized for emergency use in high-risk patients in Canada and the United States. According to the company, over 400,000 doses of its bamlanivimab drug have been administered around the world, and it is estimated to have kept more than 22,000 people out of hospital — saving at least 11,000 lives.
In late 2020, the company closed a successful initial public offering, bringing in $556 million after selling nearly 28 million shares, far exceeding its original goal of raising $250 million. It was the largest-ever IPO by a Canadian biotech company.
…

Moderna and Canada

It seems like yesterday that Derek Rossi (co-founder of Moderna) was talking about Canada’s need for a biotechnology hub. (see this June 17, 2021 article by Barbara Shecter for the Financial Post). Interestingly, there’s been an announcement of a memorandum of understanding (these things are announced all the time and don’t necessarily result in anything) between Moderna and the government of Canada according to an August 10, 2021 item on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news website,

Massachusetts-based drug maker Moderna will build an mRNA vaccine manufacturing plant in Canada within the next two years, CEO Stephane Bancel said Tuesday [August 10, 2021; Note the timing, the writ for the next federal election was dropped on August 15, 2021].
The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal government that will result in Canada becoming the home of Moderna’s first foreign operation. It’s not clear yet how much money Canada has offered to Moderna [emphasis mine] for the project.
…
Canada, whose life sciences industry has been decimated over the last three decades, wants in on the action. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to rebuild the industry, and the recent budget included a $2.2 billion, seven-year investment to grow the life science and biotech sectors.
Almost half of that targets companies that want to expand or set up vaccine and drug production in Canada. None of the COVID-19 vaccines to date have been made in Canada, leaving the country entirely reliant on imports to fill vaccine orders. As a result, Canada was slower out of the gate on immunizations than some of its counterparts with domestic production, and likely had to pay more per dose for some vaccines as well.
…
The location of the new facility hasn’t been finalized, but Bancel said the availability of an educated workforce will be the main deciding factor. He said the design is done and they’ll need to start hiring very soon so training can begin.

it’s not exactly a hub but who knows what the future will bring? I imagine there’s going to be some serious wrangling behind the scenes as the provinces battle to be the location for the facility. Note that Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne who made the announcement with Bancel in Montréal represents a federal riding in Québec. (BTW, Bancel is from France and seems to have spent much of his adult life in the US.) Of course anything can happen and I’m sure the BC contingent will make themselves felt but it would seem that Quebec is the front runner for now, assuming this memorandum of understanding leads to a facility. Given that we are in the midst of a federal election, it seems more probable than it might otherwise.

inBC Investment Corporation

Bob Mackin’s August 13, 2021 article for theBreaker.news sheds some light on how that corporation was formed so very quickly and more,

The B.C. NDP government rejigged the B.C. Immigrant Investor Fund last year, but refused to release the business case when it was rebranded as inBC Investment Corp. in late April [2021].
theBreaker.news requested the business case for the $500 million fund, which is overseen by a board of NDP patronage appointees, on May 6 [2021].
…
The 123-page document below is heavily censored — meaning the NDP cabinet is refusing to tell British Columbians the projected operating costs (including board expenses, salary and benefits, office space, operating and administration), full-time equivalents, and cash flows for the newest Crown corporation. inBC bills itself as a triple-bottom line organization, meaning it intends to invest on the basis of social, environmental and economic values.
When its enabling legislation was tabled, the NDP took steps to exempt inBC from the freedom of information law.

Thank you, Mr. Mackin.

More on Banting, insulin and patents

Caitlyn McClure’s 2016 article (Insulin’s Inventor Sold the Patent for $1. Then Drug Companies Got Hold of It.) for other98.com is a brief and pithy explanation for why insulin costs so much. Alanna Mitchell’s August 13, 2019 article for Maclean’s magazine investigates ‘insulin tourism’ and offers more detail as to how this situation has come about.

One last reminder, my August 20, 2021 posting (Getting erased from the mRNA/COVID-19 story) about Ian MacLachlan provides insight into how competitive and rough the bitotechnology scene can be here in BC/Canada.

Five country survey of reactions to food genome editing

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Weirdly and even though most of this paper’s authors are from the University of British Columbia (UBC; Canada), only one press release was issued and that was by the lead author’s (Gesa Busch) home institution, the University of Göttingen (Germany).

I’m glad Busch, the other authors, and the work are getting some attention (if not as much as I think they should).

From a July 9, 2021 University of Göttingen press release (also on EurekAlert but published on July 12, 2021),

A research team from the University of Göttingen and the University of British Columbia (Canada) has investigated how people in five different countries react to various usages of genome editing in agriculture. The researchers looked at which uses are accepted and how the risks and benefits of the new breeding technologies are rated by people. The results show only minor differences between the countries studied – Germany, Italy, Canada, Austria and the USA. In all countries, making changes to the genome is more likely to be deemed acceptable when used in crops rather than in livestock. The study was published in Agriculture and Human Values.
Relatively new breeding technologies, such as CRISPR [clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) gene editing, have enabled a range of new opportunities for plant and animal breeding. In the EU, the technology falls under genetic engineering legislation and is therefore subject to rigorous restrictions. However, the use of gene technologies remains controversial. Between June and November 2019, the research team collected views on this topic via online surveys from around 3,700 people from five countries. Five different applications of gene editing were evaluated: three relate to disease resistance in people, plants, or animals; and two relate to achieving either better quality of produce or a larger quantity of product from cattle.
“We were able to observe that the purpose of the gene modification plays a major role in how it is rated,” says first author Dr Gesa Busch from the University of Göttingen. “If the technology is used to make animals resistant to disease, approval is greater than if the technology is used to increase the output from animals.” Overall, however, the respondents reacted very differently to the uses of the new breeding methods. Four different groups can be identified: strong supporters, supporters, neutrals, and opponents of the technology. The opponents (24 per cent) identify high risks and calls for a ban of the technology, regardless of possible benefits. The strong supporters (21 per cent) see few risks and many advantages. The supporters (26 per cent) see many advantages but also risks. Whereas those who were neutral (29 per cent) show no strong opinion on the subject.
This study was made possible through funding from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and Genome BC.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Citizen views on genome editing: effects of species and purpose by Gesa Busch, Erin Ryan, Marina A. G. von Keyserlingk & Daniel M. Weary. Agriculture and Human Values (2021) Published: 30 June 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-021-10235-9

This paper is open access.

Methodology

I have one quick comment about the methodology. It can be difficult to get a sample that breaks down along demographic lines that is close to or identical to national statistics. That said, it was striking to me that every country was under represented in the ’60 years+ ‘ category. In Canada, it was by 10 percentage points (roughly). For other countries the point spread was significantly wider. In Italy, it was a 30 percentage point spread (roughly).

I found the data in the Supplementary Materials yesterday (July 13, 2021). When I looked this morning, that information was no longer there but you will find what appears to be the questionnaire. I wonder if this removal is temporary or permanent and, if permanent, I wonder why it was removed.

Participants for the Canadian portion of the survey were supplied by Dynata, a US-based market research company. Here’s the company’s Wikipedia entry and its website.

Information about how participants were recruited was also missing this morning (July 14, 2021).

Genome British Columbia (Genome BC)

I was a little surprised when I couldn’t find any information about the program or the project on the Genome BC website as the organization is listed as a funder.

There is a ‘Genomics and Society’ tab (seems promising, eh?) on the homepage where you can find the answer to this question: What is GE³LS Research?,

GE³LS research is interdisciplinary, conducted by researchers across many disciplines within social science and humanities, including economics, environment, law, business, communications, and public policy.

There’s also a GE³LS Research in BC page titled Project Search; I had no luck there either.

It all seems a bit mysterious to me and, just in case anything else disappears off the web, here’s a July 13, 2021 news item about the research on phys.org as backup to what I have here.

Social robots for seniors in Vancouver (Canada) & stereotypes

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Receiving an email newsletter from a local group about social robots has given me an excuse to write up a few ideas I’ve been mulling with regard to older adults, stereotypes, and the rush to innovate with ‘elder care’ technology.

A request for volunteer participants for a social robot survey

It seems that in the near future seniors in Vancouver could have a real life experience with an ‘artificial friend’ if these folks have anything to do with it. In a March 2021 Vancouver neighbourhood newsletter for seniors (specifically, the West End Seniors Network [WESN] newsletter), there was a notice for participants in a research project, Note: Some formatting changes have been made but text has not been altered,

Are you 50+ years old and interested in participating in research?
Take part in a 20-minuteonline survey about social robots – you can participate even if you have no experience with robots!
For more information, email Dr. Jill Dosso at
jill.dosso@ubc.ca.
Participants will be entered to win 1 of 3 iPad Minis.
To participate, visit: bit.ly/UBCrobot4 {the survey is now closed]
Principal Investigator:Dr. Julie Robillard
LOGOS: SSHRC [Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada\, Alzheimer Society British Columbia, Neuroethics Canada, Consequential Robots, AGEWELL [emphasis mine]

There’s an image of a dog/rabbit-like robot in the notice that looks something like this,

Courtesy: Consequential Robotics [downloaded from: http://consequentialrobotics.com/]

Before the survey was shut down, I tried contacting the researcher, Dr. Jill Dosso by email with some questions and had no success either time. So, I participated in the survey, which I found to be a little disconcerting.

If memory serves, I was asked about how powerful I felt relative to the three robots (all animal-like) featured in the survey. These and other puzzling (to me) questions meant I took significantly longer than 20 minutes to complete the survey.

Are my responses truly anonymous?

I did find some additional information in the consent form such as the project name. Also, the form stimulated a question about my data. Here’s the consent form,

Survey Consent for Collection, Storage and Use of Participant Information: SOcial Co-creation of Robotic Aging TEchnologieS (SOCRATES)
As an adult over the age of fifty in Canada, you are invited to participate in this survey by Dr. Julie Robillard, Assistant Professor in Neurology at The University of British Columbia (UBC). Dr. Robillard and her team are interested in gaining a better understanding of the attitudes of adults towards pet-like social robots. The results from this survey will be collected anonymously.
This survey will take 20 minutes [emphasis mine] of your time. Your progress on the survey is saved automatically so you can take a break at any time you need to and simply return to the survey link on the same device to resume your progress. The survey will be closed on Apr 30, 2021.
We will not use your responses to try to guess your identity. We encourage you not to provide any information that might identify you or another individual. When we report the results of this study, we will not report any information that may point to your identity.
In appreciation for your time, you will have the chance to enter in a draw to win one of three iPad minis. At the end of the survey, you will be redirected to a page where you can input your email address to be entered into a draw to win one of three iPad minis. Your survey responses and the information you provide for the purposes of the draw will be kept in separate files. This ensures that your survey responses will remain anonymous and cannot be linked back to you. You may enter the draw even if you chose to withdraw from the study, simply click to the end of the survey and you will be redirected to the page where you can input your email address to be entered into the draw. The draw winners will be contacted via email after the survey is closed.
Access to your information is limited [emphasis mine] to the survey administrator and the technical support team at UBC. [Could someone hack into the system?] The survey administrator will maintain the survey and analyze the results. You will not be identified in any reports, presentations, or publications that describe these results. Aggregate survey results may be shared with other researcher or publishers. Aggregated survey results will be available at the end of the study if requested.
As a participant in this survey, the information you choose to provide will be stored in UBC’s Secured Network electronically for 5 years [emphasis mine]. Participation in this survey is voluntary. There will be no consequences to you if you choose not to participate. You do not have to answer any question that you do not want to. This survey is anonymous and individual responses will not be linked back to you.
Who can I contact if I have any questions or concerns about the study?
If you have any concerns about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the research participant information line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at 604-822-8598 or if long distance e-mail RSIL@ors.ubc.ca or call toll free 1-877-822-8598. Our ethics ID is H19-03308.
Questions about your information and this survey may be directed to the Principal Investigator:
Dr. Julie Robillard
Assistant Professor of Neurology
B402 Shaughnessy
4480 Oak Street [Children’s & Women’s Hospital]
Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1 CANADA
[T] 604.875-3923
Email: jrobilla@mail.ubc.ca
Because this survey collects responses anonymously and cannot link the information back to you, it will not be possible to withdraw your consent after you participate.

There are stories online about how technically skilled people can use anonymized data to reveal your identity; I read one such story years ago on Slate.com. The journalist had gotten a friend to agree to the test and then approached a tech specialist. The surprise was that the specialist managed to crack the friend’s identity in under 24 hours.

Universities and hospitals are high value targets and this survey was run by university researchers one of whom is jointly associated with a local hospital. BTW, over the last 18 months, I’ve been alerted by both universities I attended that my data privacy has been breached.

It would be good to know more about how my data is being protected. As for the five year time limit, is the data designed to self-destruct like it does on Mission Impossible?

Two SOCRATES?

The first SOCRATES project was in the European Union and ran from 2017 to 2019. The research topic was focused on social robots with a special emphasis on their use in eldercare.

The second SOCRATES (SOcial Co-creation of Robotic Aging TEchnologieS) project (the survey somehow informs this project) is Canadian and currently ongoing. The research topic (from Julie Robillard’s New Frontiers in Research 2018 Exploration Grant summary‘ enter Julie Robillard’s name in the ‘Filter items’ field to quickly access the project) is focused on “Improving independence and quality of life for older adults can be realized by complementing human care with robotic assistive technologies.” The SOCRATES (two) grant runs from 2018 – 2021.

Getting back to the matter at hand, the survey I took seemed more focused on people with dementia than older adults in general and how any of it would result in ‘co-creation’ is a mystery to me.

Where are the older adults and ‘co-creation opportunities’?

As far as I can tell, the answer to both questions is ‘they are nowhere’ visible as part of this project. Yes, a few people associated with AGEWEll; Canada’s aging and technology network (mentioned at the of the survey) are probably over the age of 50 (or even 60) but there doesn’t seem to be a concerted effort to integrate older people into that organization or SOCRATES (Canadian version) for planning purposes.

As for the older researchers, they tend to be professionals in the field of geriatrics, gerontology, robotics, assistive technologies, etc. So, they’re still working and they have spent years inside echo chambers and other self-reinforcing environments.

Years ago I came across the term ‘downstream public consultation’. This survey is an example of that; the social robots have been designed and the participant is asked how they feel about it. The information gathered may or may not be used but it’s not integral to the social robot project itself.

There is also ‘upstream public consultation’ but that is much more work and more difficult. It does mean that the objects of the research (in this case, older adults) could have some say in the design and implementation of the programmes and/or technologies.

Old age has much in common with childhood and/or with poverty. The default position is that you are not treated as someone with a valid opinion or idea. Someone is always trying to research you and, more often than not, help you by getting to you to do something whether you like it or not.

It’s often well meaning research but you are always aware that you are the object and the one with all of the social capital/clout is the researcher. I am of course describing a power imbalance.

The power imbalance always exists but it is severe where older adults, children, and the poor are concerned. I don’t know that it can ever be wholly resolved but I do wish researchers would acknowledge its presence in the materials describing their research. For example,look here.

Blind spot: when do you think the internet was invented?

I find it fascinating that one of the concerns often expressed and almost always assumed in the gerontology/geriatric/artificial intelligence/robotics/telecommunications (an more) communities is that older adults are technologically/digitally illiterate.

Let’s think on this.

From Evan Andrews’ December 18, 2012 article for History television channel, “Who Invented the Internet?” (article updated October 28, 2019), Note: Links have been removed,

As you might expect for a technology so expansive and ever-changing, it is impossible to credit the invention of the internet to a single person. The internet was the work of dozens of pioneering scientists, programmers and engineers who each developed new features and technologies that eventually merged to become the “information superhighway” we know today.
Long before the technology existed to actually build the internet, many scientists had already anticipated the existence of worldwide networks of information. Nikola Tesla toyed with the idea of a “world wireless system” in the early 1900s, and visionary thinkers like Paul Otlet and Vannevar Bush conceived of mechanized, searchable storage systems of books and media in the 1930s and 1940s.
Still, the first practical schematics for the internet would not arrive until the early 1960s [emphasis mine], when MIT’s [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] J.C.R. Licklider popularized the idea of an “Intergalactic Network” of computers. Shortly thereafter, computer scientists developed the concept of “packet switching,” a method for effectively transmitting electronic data that would later become one of the major building blocks of the internet.
The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Originally funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET used packet switching to allow multiple computers to communicate on a single network.
…

Did you notice the date I highlighted? (Andrews does an excellent job of summarizing the events that led to the internet and the world wide web and it’s not a long read, “Who Invented the Internet?“)

The stereotype that almost all older adults are technologically/digitally illiterate

As I and others have noted, people were developing and building the internet some fifty years ago. Following on that thought, it seems certain that some of these people are now older adults.

Not everyone was a pioneer ‘building’ the internet but there were many, many people whose jobs were automated early (in the 1970s and 1980s) and required to use computers. Strangely, these early adopters were not the professionals, it was their office staff (clerks and secretaries).

The word ‘required’ means that older office staff needed to learn how to use these systems if they wanted a pension.

I’ve described two assumptions that are often made. (1) Older people are technologically/digitally illiterate. (2) Professionals jumped to learn new technologies. And, since professionals were often men in the 1970s and 1980s, here’s no. (3) Men are the most tech savvy.

The assumptions are not necessarily incorrect but they are problematic when applied thoughtlessly as a stereotype for an entire population.

(I have commented on the ‘age and tech savvy’ assumption elsewhere, most notably in my March 8, 2021 posting (scroll down to the ‘Older generation has less tech savvy’ bullet point, about 60% of the way down).

Is loneliness in older people different than loneliness in youth?

I haven’t seen any research that suggests there’s a difference in loneliness at different stages of one’s life meaning I have missed it or, perhaps, the question hasn’t been asked.

It’s striking to me that all of the research I’ve seen on social robots is focused on seniors and assuaging their loneliness. Suggestions for young people tend to other, more people-oriented or pet-oriented solutions. Could social robots for seniors lead to greater isolation from society?

In the SOCRATES research summary on Dr. Julie Robillard’s Neuroscience, Engagement, and Smart Tech (NEST) Lab research page, there’s this, “… A recent systematic review of controlled trials analyzing the impact of social robots on the well-being of older adults suggests [emphasis mine] that social robots can improve nine quality of life outcomes, including reducing loneliness, stress and anxiety. [emphasis mine] …”

I appreciate the delicacy of using the word ‘suggests’, meaning that based on the previous trials, these researchers can’t conclude with certainty that a social robot will reduce loneliness, etc.

Final thoughts

The researchers never to think to explain why these social robots are pet-like rather than one of the other types. What was striking to me was that the survey didn’t have a single question about play or teaching the robot how to do things or modifying/customizing the robot.

Getting back to stereotypes and older people, there’s nothing terribly wrong with the survey or the research intent; I just wish that a little more imagination and thought had been put into questioning some of the assumptions for the Canadian SOCRATES project and others of its ilk. And if the researchers did question some of the common assumptions about older people, I wish that they had made that clear in the research summary and/or the survey materials.

Little Lost Robot and humane visions of our technological future

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I stumbled across the Little Lost Robot website courtesy of someone (I apologize for not noting who it was) on my Twitter feed. It caught my eye as the approach to the possibilities of an increasingly robotic future is more hopeful than most I’ve seen and most of the ones I’ve featured here.

Here’s what they’re all about from the Little Lost Robot website,

About
Little Lost Robot is a new CIC [community interest company] founded by Artists Ruby Jennings and Joseph Wilk. Coming from contrasting artistic backgrounds their skills are wide ranging – from structural set design to creative coding. They use technology to create a vision of the future that is non-slick, human centric and gloriously humane in all its messy domestic parts.
…
Leviathan
A piece of work discussing our relationship as individuals with our ideas of the future world and our place in it. Leviathan is a moving, reactive, breathing object created from inorganic materials.
Leviathan challenges our relationship with the unknown and tendency to create monsters mirroring our own fears. Any technology sufficiently complex and disruptive to our social norms has lead to us to create those same robotic monsters of the unknown. While there is much to be concerned about in Robotics and its effects on society, understanding, ownership and transparency are they way to begin the debate and see the monster for what it is and our relationship with it. Robotics is a highly technical and academic field, heavily rooted in car automation and high cost, dangerous machines. Leviathan brings the mechanics of the robot but makes them soft and tangible. The expression of the human in puppetry, challenging our relationship with something that is both machine yet animal, industrial yet social. The alchemy of computing in responsiveness and behaviour and the history of our relationship with our planet and its animals through the reclaimed, recycled materials it is constructed from.
…
Stupid Cities
“Stupid Cities aims to improve the social equality of our cities by using placemaking tools to highlight how their current design creates disability. This project is a scream and shout about the barrage of times wheelchair users are told they do not belong in public spaces. Having to risk personal safety to try move around badly designed cities. How our digital route finding and placemaking tools ignore important factors for wheel-based transportation like gradient, obstacles, surface roughness, undipped curbs, narrow pavements, parked cars, stairs, etc. Environments full of micro-aggressions stop people engaging in society.”
Our goal is to create tools to empower, connect allies to share & create visibility for world wide change.

For anyone unfamiliar with the concept of a community interest company (CIC), Wikipedia offers this description (Note: Links have been removed),

A community interest company (CIC) is a type of company introduced by the United Kingdom government in 2005 under the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004, designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good.^[1] CICs are intended to be easy to set up, with all the flexibility and certainty of the company form, but with some special features to ensure they are working for the benefit of the community. They are overseen by the Regulator of Community Interest Companies.
CICs have proved popular and some 10,000 were registered in the status’s first ten years.^[2]

Getting back to Little Last Robot,

You can find this image and more on the Little Lost Robot blog.

Canada launches its AI dialogues

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Before launching into my critique, here’s the news about Canada’s artificial intelligence (AI) dialogues as I found it on the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) AI dialogues event page,

Open Dialogue:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada
Tell us what you think about Artificial Intelligence (AI).
March 30-April 30, 2021
The Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness Working Group is hosting regional virtual workshops to hear what you and members of your community think about AI.
These workshops will inform recommendations to the Government of Canada on how to boost public awareness of and foster trust in AI. The conversations will be grounded in an understanding of the technology, its potential uses, and its associated risks.
Each workshop is approximately 2.5 hrs in length and free to attend. Our goal is to engage more than 1,000 people across Canada, building on the results of a national survey that was conducted in December 2020.
What to expect
Opening plenary session (15 min)
Breakout session with 6-10 participants
BREAK (10 minutes)
Recommendations (40 min)
Closing remarks ( 8 min)
Closing plenary Session (22 min)

Registration

Oddly, there’s isn’t a registration link from the event page, you have to click on one of two (Regional or Youth) workshop tabs at the top of the page (this is from the Regional Workshops webpage),

Join us for a virtual workshop taking place in your region. Each workshop will include facilitated discussions based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) scenarios and provide an opportunity to share your views on AI.
To register by phone, please call Grace at 416-971-6937. If you require accommodations to participate, please contact events@cifar.ca.

The regions are split into the West (Pacific and Mountain time zones), Central (Central and Ontario time zones), and East (Newfoundland, Atlantic and Quebec time zones). There are French and English sessions in each of the three regions and they have included the North on the regional maps.

Questions

Sadly, the events team at CIFAR did not answer questions (I tried twice) nor did Julian Posada who is apparently the facilitator for the workshops,

During Spring 2021, I will be a visiting fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute where I will be associated with the Criticality of AI-based Systems research group. During the same period, I will be a facilitator for the public workshops organized by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada where Canadians will be asked about their perceptions towards artificial intelligence and AI systems.

He’s also a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto.

Note Posada has identified Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) as the workshop organizer but it’s not listed on CIFAR’s Open Dialogue: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada event page as an organizer or even one of the partners. There is this (from the event page),

The Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness Working Group includes representatives from: AI Global | AI Network of BC | Amii | Brookfield Institute | Canadian Chamber of Commerce | CIFAR | DeepSense/Dalhousie | Glassbox | Ivado | Kids Code Jeunesse | Let’s Talk Science | Mila | Saskinteractive | Université de Montréal

The partners, represented by logos, are the Government of Canada (as in Advisory Committee?), Algora Lab, Université de Montréal, CIFAR, and for the Youth Workshops, Let’s Talk Science, Kids Code Jeunesse, and workshop materials are being provided by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Everything makes more sense when you look at the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence webpage where you’ll see its an ISED committee.

Finally the questions

By the third time, I’d reworded a few things and added one or two question so, here’s the final list as sent to Julian Posada on Thursday, March 18, 2021,

(1) I understand it’s a joint CIFAR/Government of Canada Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness Working Group workshop series called Open Dialogue: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada, is that correct and the series will be held from March 30 – April 30, 2021?
(2) Are regular folks invited to join in or is this primarily for academics, business people, entrepreneurs, AI researchers, and other cognoscenti?
(3) Will a distinction be made between AI and robots?
(4) Are you facilitating all of the planned workshops? Will you also have assigned leaders for the breakout groups or will that be decided amongst the participants? If leaders are assigned, who are they?
(5) What do you have planned for your workshop(s)? e.g., Will participants be presented with various scenarios for discussion in the breakout groups? Or will participants be given specific topics to discuss, such as AI in the military? AI in senior’s facilities (e.g., social or companion robots for seniors? etc.
(6) Are the workshops being conducted over Zoom and is a Zoom account required for participation? Is there an alternative technology being used?
(7) Will AI be used to review and analyze the sessions and data gathered?
(8) Are there security measures in place for the session and for the data, specifically, participants’ personal data given up during registration?
(9) Will participants get a copy of the report afterwards or notified when it’s made available?

Since the workshops start on March 30, 2021 and I’m sure everyone’s busy and not able to spare time for questions, I’ve elected to publish what i can about the workshops despite a few misgivings.

Critique

I’m glad to see this initiative and to note that the North is included. It would be interesting to learn how these workshops have been publicized (I stumbled across them in a retweet of Julian Posada’s announcement on my Twitter feed). However, it’s not vital.

Priorities for the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence

Much more interesting to me is the purpose of these workshops. Yes, it’s a ‘dialogue’ on the CIFAR event page but the purpose for the Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence would seem to be ‘public awareness’,

Artificial intelligence (AI) represents a set of complex and powerful technologies that will touch or transform every sector and industry. It has the power to help us address some of our most challenging problems in areas like health and the environment, and to introduce new sources of sustainable economic growth. As a digital nation, Canada is taking steps to harness the potential of AI.
As announced by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development on May 14, 2019, the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence will advise the Government of Canada on building Canada’s strengths and global leadership in AI, identifying opportunities to create economic growth that benefits all Canadians, and ensuring that AI advancements reflect Canadian’ values. The Advisory Council will be a central reference point to draw on leading AI experts from Canadian industry, civil society, academia, and government.
Public Awareness Working Group
Recognizing the importance of a two-way dialogue with the Canadian public on AI, the Advisory Council launched a working group dedicated to public awareness in 2020. The Public Awareness Working Group is looking at mechanisms to boost public awareness and foster trust in AI. It also aims to ground the Canadian discussion in a measured understanding of AI technology, its potential uses, and its associated risks.
Commercialization Working Group
Recognizing that Canada has an imperative to commercialize its AI, and to capitalize on existing Canadian advantages in research and talent, the Advisory Council launched a working group dedicated to commercialization in August 2019 [emphasis mine]. The Commercialization Working Group explored ways to translate Canadian-owned artificial intelligence into economic growth that includes higher business productivity and benefits for Canadians.

The first order of business was commercialization in August 2019 and that’s to be expected given that this is ISED. The Public Awareness Working Group was launched at least four months after.

Priorities, eh?

Is awareness a dialogue?

As they very nicely note on the CIFAR AI dialogue event page, these workshops are going to help the government figure out “how to boost public awareness of and foster trust in AI.” It’s very flattering to be consulted this way.

So to sum this up, the ‘dialogue’ in the regional and youth workshops will be mined for ideas on how to boost public awareness and foster trust. You’re not really just getting an opportunity “to share your views on AI,” are you?

It seems a bit narrow but then they’ve already conducted a survey in December 2020, which has in all likelihood informed the content for these workshops and they have . Plus the workshop materials being provided by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO have in all likelihood been used elsewhere and repackaged for the Canadian market.

Hmmm I wouldn’t call this an ‘open dialogue’ since so much has already been done to frame it.

Abattoirs

Many years ago I read a fascinating article about Temple Grandin and her work redesigning abattoirs (slaughterhouses) to make them more humane. I don’t remember much about it but calming the cattle by dampening the noise while distracting them a little by making them move around rather then directly leading them to their deaths seemed the key elements to the redesign.

This ‘open dialogue’ reminds me of the article. The outcome is predetermined and we’re being distracted in the nicest way possible.

Mining the data?

Nine workshop sessions in total with one hour and 40 minutes (rough estimate) of discussion and recommendations for each session. That’s roughly 15 hours of material from the dialogues and recommendations to analyze.

Remember this question “(7) Will AI be used to review and analyze the sessions and data gathered?”

It’s hard to believe that CIFAR and its partners don’t have a system that could do the job or, at the very least, a system that could learn from the sessions.

Not necessarily evil

While I have a number of misgivings about these ‘dialogues’, I don’t expect that most of the people involved are trying to be nefarious. There are probably some good intentions (you know where those take you, yes?) but the overarching purpose here is commercialization which is made much easier with universal acceptance. (awareness + trust)

To be blunt, a dialogue with a predetermined outcome seems more like a script to me than an open conversation.

This sort of thing has been called a ‘public consultation’ but that term has gotten a bad reputation as it was used to disguise the kind of manipulation that I suspect is going on with this effort.

How they expect to foster trust in circumstances that are not conducive to that is a bit of a mystery to me. Plus, I have to wonder if these organizers or committee members have taken into the possible aftereffects of one of the great Canadian government debacles.

Phoenix pay system

It has its own entry on Wikipedia (Note: Links have been removed),

The Phoenix pay system is a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees, provided by IBM in June 2011 using PeopleSoft software, and run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The Public Service Pay Centre is located in Miramichi, New Brunswick. It was first introduced in 2009 as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, intended to replace Canada’s 40-year old system with a new, cost-saving “automated, off-the-shelf commercial system.” By July 2018, Phoenix has caused pay problems to close to 80 percent of the federal government’s 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments.^[1] The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, chaired by Senator Percy Mockler, investigated the Phoenix Pay system and submitted their report, “The Phoenix Pay Problem: Working Towards a Solution” on July 31, 2018, in which they called Phoenix a failure and an “international embarrassment”.^[1] Instead of saving $70 million a year as planned, the report said that the cost to taxpayers to fix Phoenix’s problems could reach a total of $2.2 billion by 2023. [emphasis mine]
…

The entry leaves out a couple of details. Yes, Harper’s government nurtured this disaster but it was (1) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his (2) Liberal government who implemented the system in February 2016. Whoever wrote this entry is very friendly to the Liberals so I don’t think the politicians were quite as uninformed as represented in the entry.

As for the cost to taxpayers, I think $2.2 billion by 2023 is an over modest estimate. For comparison, Australia’s Queensland Health Authority also had a pay system debacle. It was the same vendor (IBM) and, in 2013, the estimate to fix the problems was $1.2 billion Australian dollars (see this Dec.11.13 article by Robert N. Charette for the IEEE Spectrum or this Aug.7.13 article by Michael Madigan, Sarah Vogler, and Greg Stolz for The Courier Mail).

Note 1: I checked on a currency converter today (March 23, 2021) and $1 CAD = $1.04 AUS.

Note 2: For anyone unfamiliar with the organization, IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

I’m pretty sure $2.2 billion (which I think is an underestimate) does not include the human costs (anxiety, alcohol abuse, self-harm, suicide, etc.).

Plus

The situation was exacerbated as Catharine Tunney wrote in a February 18, 2020 article for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) online (Note: A link has been removed),

More than 69,000 public servants caught up in the Phoenix pay system debacle are now victims of a privacy breach after their personal information was accidentally emailed to the wrong people, says Public Services and Procurement Canada.
The problem-plagued electronic payroll system has improperly paid tens of thousands of public servants since its launch in 2016. Some employees have gone months with little or no pay, while others have been overpaid, sometimes for months at a time.
…
Earlier this month, a report naming 69,087 public servants was accidentally emailed to the wrong federal departments.
The report included the employees’ full names, their personal record identifier numbers, home addresses and overpayment amounts.
More than 161 chief financial officers and 62 heads of HR in 62 departments received the report in error, according to a statement posted to Public Services and Procurement Canada’s website on Monday.
…
Public Services and Procurement Canada isn’t the only department to accidentally breach the confidentiality of workers’ personal information.
According to figures recently tabled in the House of Commons, federal departments or agencies mishandled personal information belonging to 144,000 Canadians over the past two years.
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has long called out “strong indications of systemic under-reporting” of privacy breaches across government.

Final comments

Overhauling the government payroll system is not the same as introducing new artificial intelligence systems but the problem is that many of the same people in the upper echelons of Canada’s civil service (government employees) were and are instrumental in the deployment of these systems.

“Phoenix pay system an ‘incomprehensible failure,’ Auditor-General says” was the headline for a May 29, 2018 article by Michelle Zilio for the Globe and Mail. I might feel more trust if after the report, there’d been signs that things had changed. However, the government is still highly secretive and we have a ‘dialogue’ with a predetermined outcome (just like the public consultations of yesteryear).

As for M. Posada, the facilitator for one or more of the workshops, he seems relatively new to Canada (scroll down his University of Toronto profile page and click on Degrees),

M.A., Economic Sociology – School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) [École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, France]
B.A., Humanities – Sorbonne University [also in Paris]

As I noted in my December 10, 2021 posting where a chapter on science communication in Canada where two of the three authors were from other countries (Brazil and Australia), outsider perspectives can be quite valuable. (Both of the authors spent some time in Canada. At least one of them had taught here.)

In any event, I have to wonder how well he’s been briefed.

After my experience in something called “participatory budgeting” (City of Vancouver, 2019), where citizens were asked come together and decide how to spend $100,000 of the city budget in our neighbourhood, A surprising number of city employees were involved as ‘members’ of the working groups and ,of course, other employees at City Hall had veto power over what was eventually presented to the community for voting. I can say that at the end of the process I felt used.

It could be interesting but I warn against any high expectations if you’re looking for genuine dialogue. You can click through to registration from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) AI dialogues event page, choose either the Regional Workshops or Youth Workshops from the tabs at the top of the page.

Genius Makers, a history of AI, book launch on March 15, 2021

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“Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World” is being released on March 16, 2021.

The day before the book’s release date, March 15, 2021 at 12 pm, author Cade Metz will be having a ‘fireside chat’ with Graham Taylor, associate professor at the University of Guelph and Canada CIFAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research) AI (artificial intelligence) chair and Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Toronto faculty member, (Preregistration for the event will make you eligible for a prize draw, if you’re a Canadian resident.)

The curious can find out more about the Vector Institute in my March 31, 2017 posting about its inception.

Here are the ‘fireside chat’ details, from the Vector Institute’s Genius Makers event page,

Join author and New York Times technology writer Cade Metz and Canada CIFAR AI chair and Vector Institute faculty member Graham Taylor for a dynamic ‘virtual fireside’ discussion that explores the past, present and future of AI.
Vector Institute is proud to host this special event marking the launch of Metz’s new book, GENIUS MAKERS, which traces the thrilling history of artificial intelligence – including the mavericks who brought AI to leading companies and the world. Together, Metz and Taylor will explore the inspiration for writing the book, the experience of interviewing the trailblazers who have shaped the thrilling and still-unfolding evolution of AI and the challenges and opportunities ahead in Canada and beyond.
AI innovators, researchers, business leaders, policymakers and enthusiasts alike will benefit from new perspectives on unlocking the transformative potential of AI while balancing issues of national interests, shareholder value, commercialization, the pursuit of scientific knowledge and concerns about privacy and bias – and more.
An audience Q&A session will follow the discussion.
Agenda:
12 noon: Welcome and opening
12:05-12:40: Discussion, Cade Metz & Graham Taylor
12:40-12:55: Q&A Session
12:55-1pm: Wrap-up
REGISTER EARLY FOR A CHANCE TO WIN
Those who pre-register by Sunday, March 14, 2021, 11:59pmET are eligible to be entered in a draw for one of two complimentary copies of Genius Makers by Cade Metz. Draw to be held by 6pm ET on March 15; winners will be notified by email. Open to Canadian residents only.
Register

The description for Metz’s book (Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World) is interesting, I gather Dutton is the imprint under which Penguin Random House is publishing Metz’s book,

THE UNTOLD TECH STORY OF OUR TIME
What does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have, or might create?
With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.
Long dismissed as a technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence was a project consigned to the fringes of the scientific community. Then two researchers changed everything. One was a sixty-four-year-old computer science professor who didn’t drive and didn’t fly because he could no longer sit down—but still made his way across North America for the moment that would define a new age of technology. The other was a thirty-six-year-old neuroscientist and chess prodigy who laid claim to being the greatest game player of all time before vowing to build a machine that could do anything the human brain could do.
They took two very different paths to that lofty goal, and they disagreed on how quickly it would arrive. But both were soon drawn into the heart of the tech industry. Their ideas drove a new kind of arms race, spanning Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and OpenAI, a new lab founded by Silicon Valley kingpin Elon Musk. But some believed that China would beat them all to the finish line.
Genius Makers dramatically presents the fierce conflict between national interests, shareholder value, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the very human concerns about privacy, security, bias, and prejudice. Like a great Victorian novel, this world of eccentric, brilliant, often unimaginably yet suddenly wealthy characters draws you into the most profound moral questions we can ask. And like a great mystery, it presents the story and facts that lead to a core, vital question:
How far will we let it go?

Let me understand this: two men will be discussing how two men developed the current artificial intelligence scene and the titanic struggle taking place. Between US companies and between the US and China. (pause)

That’s certainly one way to look at it.

It seems odd that there’d be a ‘Canadian’ book launch, unless you consider this from my March 31, 2017 posting about the Vector Institute,

… Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “godfather” of deep learning for the breakthroughs he made while a professor at U of T, has worked for Google since 2013 in California and Toronto

I’m guessing Hinton might be one of Metz’s ‘genius makers’.

By the way, Hinton’s longest running academic association is with the University of Toronto (professor from 1987 – 98, 2001 – present).

Ada Lovelace Institute imagines AI (artificial intelligence) and data futures on March 3, 2021; International Women’s Day March 8, 2021 event coming up

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First off there’s news about an event, which is being hosted by the Ada Lovelace Institute’s Just AI initiative, from the Almost f uture AI event registration webpage,

Topic: An evening salon and reading of specially commissioned pieces of fiction on AI futures
Description: Artificial intelligence and data-driven technologies permeate all aspects of our lives. Their proliferation increasingly leads to encounters with ‘mutant algorithms’, ‘biased machine learning’, and ‘racist AIs’ that sometimes make familiar forms of near-future fiction pale in comparison.
In these examples, AI and machine learning tools inscribe a certain future based on predictions from past observations and they foreclose a multitude of other possible futures.
Faced with this potential to limit and constrain what might be, can fiction and narrative offer alternatives for how AI could and should be?
This evening salon will present near-future fiction pieces commissioned by the Ada Lovelace Institute’s JUST AI project to inspire and expand our thinking about our possible relationship to AI and data.
Join the event to listen to the first reading of two commissioned pieces and to discuss with the authors and invited experts.
Live (real-time) captioning will be provided for this event, if you have questions or request for access, please contact: lhickman@adalovelaceinstitute.org.
Chair:
– Alison Powell, Associate Professor, London School of Economics
Speakers:
– Adam Marek – writer of futuristic and fantastical short stories
– Squirrel Nation – reimagining and designing how to live in a warming world
– Tania Hershman – poet, writer, teacher and editor
– Yasemin J. Erden, Assistant Professor in Philosophy, University of Twente
Time: Mar 3, 2021 06:30 PM – 8 PM [GMT]

[downloaded from: https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/event/almost-future-ai-2/]

This artwork accompanying the Almost future AI announcement reminds me of a circuit board. In any event, I found this image and a bit more information about the Just AI programme/network and about their event on this Almost future AI webpage,

The JUST AI (Joining Up Society and Technology in AI) programme is an independent network of researchers and practitioners, led by Dr Alison Powell from LSE [London School of Economics], supported by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Ada Lovelace Institute. The humanities-led network is committed to understanding the social and ethical value of data-driven technologies, artificial intelligence, and automated systems. The network will build on research in AI ethics, orienting it around practical issues of social justice, distribution, governance and design, and seek to inform the development of policy and practice.
We are using Zoom for virtual events open to more than 40 attendees. Although there are issues with Zoom’s privacy controls, when reviewing available solutions we found that there isn’t a perfect product and we have chosen Zoom for its usability and accessibility. Find out more here.

I’m glad to see they’ve taken privacy concerns seriously enough to explain why they’re using Zoom. I wish more organizations took the time to inform participants in virtual and online events which technology is being used and to include a reference to or comment on privacy issues.

it’s a relief to see this level of congruence between Just AI’s and the Ada Lovelace Institute’s stated principles and its preliminary actions.

You can find out more about the Ada Lovelace Institute here and more about their Just AI programme here.

Before moving onto the next item and due to a very confused approach to naming (Ada Lovelace Day being both a ‘day’ and an organization), it seems like a good idea to mention that the Ada Lovelace Institute is not associated with the Ada Lovelace Day organization as per the Ada Lovelace Institute’s About webpage,

…
The Ada Lovelace Institute was established by the Nuffield Foundation in early 2018, in collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute, the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal Statistical Society, the Wellcome Trust, Luminate, techUK and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
…

One more March 2021 event

Staying on the Ada Lovelace theme, there’s an event on March 8, 2021 International Women’s Day being hosted by the organization called Ada Lovelace Day (there’s more confusion to come). Here’s more about the upcoming March 2021 event from the 2021 International Women’s Day event webpage,

Monday 8 March 2021 [1900 GMT]
We are celebrating International Women’s Day with an hour long live-streamed panel discussion titled Comedy and Communication, looking at how we can all use comedy techniques in our STEM communications and teaching.
The discussion will be hosted by comedy and science writer Dr Helen Pilcher, along with maths teacher Susan Okereke, comedian and science comedy producer Kyle Marian Viterbo, and biologist, YouTuber and science communicator Dr Sally Le Page. We will be live-streaming free on YouTube and Facebook for an hour from 19:00 GMT, and if you want reminders and links sent straight to your inbox, sign up now on Eventbrite.
…

The Ada Lovelace Day organization is at findingada.com, which is also the name for one of the organization’s initiatives, the ‘Finding Ada Network’. I find the naming conventions confusing, especially since there is an Ada Lovelace Day celebrated internationally and hosted by this organization (whatever it’s called) each year. In 2021, Ada Lovelace Day will be celebrated on Tuesday, October 12.

Debating the Motion (virtually) “A U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity” on November 6, 2020 at 7 pm ET

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Intelligence Squared (IQ2US) was featured here in a January 18, 2019 posting when the organization hosted a ‘de-extinction’ (or ‘resurrection’) biology debate. I was quite impressed with the quality of the arguments, pro and con (for and against) and the civility with which the participants conducted themselves. Fingers crossed their upcoming Nov. 6, 2020 debate proves as satisfying.

It should be noted that Bloomberg TV is co-hosting this event with Intelligence Squared (IQ2US) and IBM is sponsoring it.

Here’s more about the debate on the motion: A U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity, from an Oct. 26, 2020 Shore Fire announcement (received via email),

Next Friday evening [Nov. 6, 2020] at 7:00 pm ET, the nonprofit debate series
Intelligence Squared U.S. will hold a live debate on the motion “A
U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity.”
Two of their debaters have released statements commenting on today’s
news [emphasis mine; I have included information about the Oct. 26, 2020 news after this event information] out of NASA. One, Bidushi Bhattacharya, is a twenty-year veteran of NASA. The other, Avi Loeb, is one of the most prominent scientists working on space today.
… they will be debating for the motion “A U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity” with Intelligence Squared U.S. … . The debate will be viewable on Bloomberg TV’s new show ‘That’s Debatable’. Their opponents are Michio Kaku and Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan.
AVI LOEB STATEMENT:
“It was already known from previous studies that there is water ice on
the lunar surface. But the new study identified that it is more abundant
and exists all over the Moon. Interestingly, a month ago we published a
paper with my former postdoc, Manasvi Lingam, arguing that liquid water
may exist deep under the surface of the Moon and support sub-surface
life.
“The existence of significant amounts of water on the lunar surface can
be helpful for establishing a sustainable base there in the context of
NASA’s Artemis program with its international partners. This will be the
first step in advancing humanity to more distant destinations, such as
Mars and beyond. There is no doubt that our future lies in space, not
only for national security and commercial benefits but mainly for
scientific exploration aimed at opening new horizons to our
civilization. Earlier in October [2020], eight countries signed the Artemis
Accords [1], a set of international agreements drawn up by the US
concerning future exploration of the Moon and the use of its resources.
The Accords recognize that exploration of the Moon should be for
peaceful purposes.
“In analogy with the scientific exploration conducted in the South Pole,
it would be particularly interesting to search for life under the
surface of the Moon once we establish a scientific base there.”
BIDUSHI BHATTACHARYA STATEMENT
“Today’s [Oct. 26, 2020] announcement has huge implications for the commercial
development space sector. Private companies and startups now have a new
product development opportunity. I can see a path for leveraging today’s
off-planet capabilities to develop AI-based robotics to provide water
extraction services for NASA, so that the agency can continue to focus
on R&D.”
BIOS:
Theoretical Physicist & Professor
Abraham (Avi) Loeb is a theoretical physicist, author, and Harvard
professor. He was the longest-serving chair of Harvard’s astronomy
department (for nine years) and is an elected member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the
International Academy of Astronautics. Loeb is a member of the
President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology at the White
House and, in 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most
influential people in space.
Bidushi Bhattacharya: Rocket Scientist & Space Entrepreneur
Bidushi Bhattacharya is a rocket scientist and entrepreneur. After two
decades with NASA working on projects including the Hubble Space
Telescope and Galileo probe to Jupiter, Bhattacharya founded
Astropreneurs HUB, Southeast Asias first space technology incubator. She
currently serves on the Global Entrepreneurship Network Space Advisory
Board and is the CEO of Bhattacharya Space Enterprises, a Singaporean
startup dedicated to space-related education and training.

They found water (rather than the ice they had found before) on the moon and announced it on Oct. 26, 2020. To be more specific, they found the water in a crater named after a Jesuit priest, Christopher Clavius, who was also an astronomer and a mathematician. Given that piece of information it’s perhaps not that surprising that my cursory search yielded (near the top of the list) an Oct. 26, 2020 article about the discovery, Clavius, and the Jesuits’ interest in the stars by Molly Cahill for America Magazine The Jesuit Review (Note: Links have been removed),

On Oct. 26 [2020], NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, announced the discovery of water on the moon. The water was discovered on the moon’s sunlit surface, which “indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places,” according to a press release.
…
His [Christopher Clavius] observance in 1560 of a total solar eclipse as a student inspired his life’s work: astronomy. Clavius is known for his work on refining and modifying the modern Gregorian calendar, and as Billy Critchley-Menor, S.J., wrote in America, Clavius was even called the “Euclid of the 16th century” before his death in 1612. He was one of the first mathematicians in the West to popularize the use of the decimal point, and his contributions to astronomy influenced Galileo, even though Clavius himself assented to a geocentric solar system, believing the heavens rotated around the Earth.
…

Getting back to the debate, there’s a bit more information (about the two debaters arguing against the motion) in an Oct. 15, 2020 Shore Fire Media press release (Note: Links have been removed),

On Friday, November 6 [2020] at 7:00 PM ET Bloomberg Television will present the second episode of the new limited series “That’s Debatable,” presented in partnership with Intelligence Squared U.S. and sponsored exclusively by IBM, with an episode debating the motion “A U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity.” China is ramping up its national space industry with huge investments in next-generation technologies that promise to transform military, economic, and political realities. Could the U.S.-China space race drive innovation, rally public support for science and discovery, and launch humans into the next generation? Or would this competition catalyze an expensive global arms race, militarize space for decades to come, and destroy any hope of international peace and cohesion in the future?
Arguing in favor of the motion “A U.S.-China Space Race Is Good for Humanity” are Harvard physicist and member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology at the White House Avi Loeb and rocket scientist Bidushi Bhattacharya, who spent two decades with NASA working on the Hubble Space Telescope and Galileo probe. Arguing against the motion are theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, a co-founder of String Field Theory, and nuclear weapons and space policy expert Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan.
Filmed in front of a live virtual audience, “That’s Debatable” will be conducted in the traditional Oxford-style format with two teams of two subject matter experts debating over four rounds, moderated by veteran Intelligence Squared U.S. moderator John Donvan. The live virtual audience will vote via mobile for or against the motion to determine the winner, to be announced at the conclusion of the program.
“That’s Debatable” also presents some of the first AI-aided debates, designed to demonstrate how AI can be used to bring a larger, more diverse range of voices and opinions to the public square. …
During the debate, IBM Watson plans to use Key Point Analysis, a new capability in Natural Language Processing (NLP) developed by the same IBM Research team that created Project Debater, which is designed to analyze viewer submitted arguments [deadline was Oct. 18, 2020] and provide insight into the global public opinion on each episode’s debate topic.
… [Note: The BIOS for those ‘arguing for the motion’ is in the Oct. 26, 2020 announcement excerpted near the beginning of this post]
ARGUING AGAINST THE MOTION – BIOS
Michio Kaku: Theoretical Physicist & Bestselling Author
Michio Kaku is one of the most widely recognized figures in science. He is a theoretical physicist, international bestselling author, and co-founder of String Field Theory. His most recent book, “Future of Humanity,” projects the future of the space program centuries into the future. Kaku is a professor at the City University of New York.
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan: Nuclear Weapons & Space Policy Expert
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan is a distinguished fellow and head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, one of India’s leading think tanks. Rajagopalan also recently served as a technical advisor to the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Prevention of Arms Race in Outer Space. She is the author of “The Dragon’s Fire: Chinese Military Strategy and Its Implications for Asia.”
About Bloomberg Media:
Bloomberg Media is a leading, global, multi-platform brand that provides decision-makers with timely news, analysis and intelligence on business, finance, technology, climate change, politics and more. Powered by a newsroom of over 2,700 journalists and analysts, it reaches influential audiences worldwide across every platform including digital, social, TV, radio, print and live events. Bloomberg Media is a division of Bloomberg LP. Visit BloombergMedia.com for more information.
About Intelligence Squared U.S.:
A non-partisan, non-profit organization, Intelligence Squared U.S. was founded to address a fundamental problem in America: the extreme polarization of our nation and our politics. Their mission is to restore critical thinking, facts, reason, and civility to American public discourse. The award-winning debate series reaches millions of viewers and listeners through multi-platform distribution, including public radio, podcasts, live streaming, newsletters, interactive digital content, and on-demand apps including Roku and Apple TV. With over 180 debates and counting, Intelligence Squared U.S. has encouraged the public to “think twice” on a wide range of provocative topics. Author and ABC News correspondent John Donvan has moderated IQ2US since 2008.
About IBM Watson:
Watson is IBM’s AI technology for business, helping organizations to better predict and shape future outcomes, automate complex processes, and optimize employees’ time. Watson has evolved from an IBM Research project, to experimentation, to a scaled set of products that run anywhere. With more than 30,000 client engagements, Watson is being applied by leading global brands across a variety of industries to transform how people work. To learn more, visit: https://www.ibm.com/watson.
To learn more about Natural Language Processing and how new capabilities like Key Point Analysis are designed to analyze and generate insights from thousands of arguments on any topic, visit: https://www.ibm.com/watson/natural-language-processing.

You can find out more about Intelligence Squared and its other (nonBloomberg) events here.

Comedy club performances show how robots and humans connect via humor

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Caption: Naomi Fitter and Jon the Robot. Credit: Johanna Carson, OSU College of Engineering

Robot comedian is not my first thought on seeing that image; ventriloquist’s dummy is what came to mind. However, it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong about something. A May 19, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily reveals the truth about Jon, a comedian in robot form,

Standup comedian Jon the Robot likes to tell his audiences that he does lots of auditions but has a hard time getting bookings.
“They always think I’m too robotic,” he deadpans.
If raucous laughter follows, he comes back with, “Please tell the booking agents how funny that joke was.”
If it doesn’t, he follows up with, “Sorry about that. I think I got caught in a loop. Please tell the booking agents that you like me … that you like me … that you like me … that you like me.”
Jon the Robot, with assistance from Oregon State University researcher Naomi Fitter, recently wrapped up a 32-show tour of comedy clubs in greater Los Angeles and in Oregon, generating guffaws and more importantly data that scientists and engineers can use to help robots and people relate more effectively with one another via humor.
…

A May 18, 2020 Oregon State University (OSU) news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, delves furthers into this intriguing research,

“Social robots and autonomous social agents are becoming more and more ingrained in our everyday lives,” said Fitter, assistant professor of robotics in the OSU College of Engineering. “Lots of them tell jokes to engage users – most people understand that humor, especially nuanced humor, is essential to relationship building. But it’s challenging to develop entertaining jokes for robots that are funny beyond the novelty level.”
Live comedy performances are a way for robots to learn “in the wild” which jokes and which deliveries work and which ones don’t, Fitter said, just like human comedians do.
Two studies comprised the comedy tour, which included assistance from a team of Southern California comedians in coming up with material true to, and appropriate for, a robot comedian.
The first study, consisting of 22 performances in the Los Angeles area, demonstrated that audiences found a robot comic with good timing – giving the audience the right amounts of time to react, etc. – to be significantly more funny than one without good timing.
The second study, based on 10 routines in Oregon, determined that an “adaptive performance” – delivering post-joke “tags” that acknowledge an audience’s reaction to the joke – wasn’t necessarily funnier overall, but the adaptations almost always improved the audience’s perception of individual jokes. In the second study, all performances featured appropriate timing.
“In bad-timing mode, the robot always waited a full five seconds after each joke, regardless of audience response,” Fitter said. “In appropriate-timing mode, the robot used timing strategies to pause for laughter and continue when it subsided, just like an effective human comedian would. Overall, joke response ratings were higher when the jokes were delivered with appropriate timing.”
The number of performances, given to audiences of 10 to 20, provide enough data to identify significant differences between distinct modes of robot comedy performance, and the research helped to answer key questions about comedic social interaction, Fitter said.
“Audience size, social context, cultural context, the microphone-holding human presence and the novelty of a robot comedian may have influenced crowd responses,” Fitter said. “The current software does not account for differences in laughter profiles, but future work can account for these differences using a baseline response measurement. The only sensing we used to evaluate joke success was audio readings. Future work might benefit from incorporating additional types of sensing.”
Still, the studies have key implications for artificial intelligence efforts to understand group responses to dynamic, entertaining social robots in real-world environments, she said.
“Also, possible advances in comedy from this work could include improved techniques for isolating and studying the effects of comedic techniques and better strategies to help comedians assess the success of a joke or routine,” she said. “The findings will guide our next steps toward giving autonomous social agents improved humor capabilities.”
The studies were published by the Association for Computing Machinery [ACM]/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering’s [IEEE] International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI].

Here’s another link to the two studies published in a single paper, which were first presented at the 2020 International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI]. along with a citation for the title of the published presentation,

Comedians in Cafes Getting Data: Evaluating Timing and Adaptivity in Real-World Robot Comedy Performance by John Vilk and Naomi T Fitter. HRI ’20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot InteractionMarch 2020 Pages 223–231 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3319502.3374780

The paper is open access and the researchers have embedded an mp4 file which includes parts of the performances. Enjoy!

The Broad Institute gives us another reason to love CRISPR

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More and more, this resembles a public relations campaign. First, CRISPR (clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats) gene editing is going to be helpful with COVID-19 and now it can help us to deal with conservation issues. (See my May 26, 2020 posting about the latest CRISPR doings as of May 7, 2020; included is a brief description of the patent dispute between Broad Institute and UC Berkeley and musings about a public relations campaign.)

A May 21, 2020 news item on ScienceDaily announces how CRISPR could be useful for conservation,

The gene-editing technology CRISPR has been used for a variety of agricultural and public health purposes — from growing disease-resistant crops to, more recently, a diagnostic test for the virus that causes COVID-19. Now a study involving fish that look nearly identical to the endangered Delta smelt finds that CRISPR can be a conservation and resource management tool, as well. The researchers think its ability to rapidly detect and differentiate among species could revolutionize environmental monitoring.
…

Caption: Longfin smelt can be difficult to differentiate from endangered Delta smelt. Here, a longfin smelt is swabbed for genetic identification through a CRISPR tool called SHERLOCK. Credit: Alisha Goodbla/UC Davis

A May 21, 2020 University of California at Davis (UC Davis) news release (also on EurekAlert) by Kat Kerlin, which originated the news item, provides more detail (Note: A link has been removed),

The study, published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources, was led by scientists at the University of California, Davis, and the California Department of Water Resources in collaboration with MIT Broad Institute [emphasis mine].
As a proof of concept, it found that the CRISPR-based detection platform SHERLOCK (Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter Unlocking) [emphasis mine] was able to genetically distinguish threatened fish species from similar-looking nonnative species in nearly real time, with no need to extract DNA.
“CRISPR can do a lot more than edit genomes,” said co-author Andrea Schreier, an adjunct assistant professor in the UC Davis animal science department. “It can be used for some really cool ecological applications, and we’re just now exploring that.”
WHEN GETTING IT WRONG IS A BIG DEAL
The scientists focused on three fish species of management concern in the San Francisco Estuary: the U.S. threatened and California endangered Delta smelt, the California threatened longfin smelt and the nonnative wakasagi. These three species are notoriously difficult to visually identify, particularly in their younger stages.
Hundreds of thousands of Delta smelt once lived in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta before the population crashed in the 1980s. Only a few thousand are estimated to remain in the wild.
“When you’re trying to identify an endangered species, getting it wrong is a big deal,” said lead author Melinda Baerwald, a project scientist at UC Davis at the time the study was conceived and currently an environmental program manager with California Department of Water Resources.
For example, state and federal water pumping projects have to reduce water exports if enough endangered species, like Delta smelt or winter-run chinook salmon, get sucked into the pumps. Rapid identification makes real-time decision making about water operations feasible.
FROM HOURS TO MINUTES
Typically to accurately identify the species, researchers rub a swab over the fish to collect a mucus sample or take a fin clip for a tissue sample. Then they drive or ship it to a lab for a genetic identification test and await the results. Not counting travel time, that can take, at best, about four hours.
SHERLOCK shortens this process from hours to minutes. Researchers can identify the species within about 20 minutes, at remote locations, noninvasively, with no specialized lab equipment. Instead, they use either a handheld fluorescence reader or a flow strip that works much like a pregnancy test — a band on the strip shows if the target species is present.
“Anyone working anywhere could use this tool to quickly come up with a species identification,” Schreier said.
OTHER CRYPTIC CRITTERS
While the three fish species were the only animals tested for this study, the researchers expect the method could be used for other species, though more research is needed to confirm. If so, this sort of onsite, real-time capability may be useful for confirming species at crime scenes, in the animal trade at border crossings, for monitoring poaching, and for other animal and human health applications.
“There are a lot of cryptic species we can’t accurately identify with our naked eye,” Baerwald said. “Our partners at MIT are really interested in pathogen detection for humans. We’re interested in pathogen detection for animals as well as using the tool for other conservation issues.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Rapid and accurate species identification for ecological studies and monitoring using CRISPR‐based SHERLOCK by Melinda R. Baerwald, Alisha M. Goodbla, Raman P. Nagarajan, Jonathan S. Gootenberg, Omar O. Abudayyeh, Feng Zhang, Andrea D. Schreier. Molecular Ecology Resources https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13186 First published: 12 May 2020

This paper is behind a paywall.

The business of CRISPR

SHERLOCK™, is a trademark for what Sherlock Biosciences calls one of its engineering biology platforms. From the Sherlock Biosciences Technology webpage,

What is SHERLOCK™?
SHERLOCK is an evolution of CRISPR technology, which others use to make precise edits in genetic code. SHERLOCK can detect the unique genetic fingerprints of virtually any DNA or RNA sequence in any organism or pathogen. Developed by our founders and licensed exclusively from the Broad Institute, SHERLOCK is a method for single molecule detection of nucleic acid targets and stands for Specific High Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing. It works by amplifying genetic sequences and programming a CRISPR molecule to detect the presence of a specific genetic signature in a sample, which can also be quantified. When it finds those signatures, the CRISPR enzyme is activated and releases a robust signal. This signal can be adapted to work on a simple paper strip test, in laboratory equipment, or to provide an electrochemical readout that can be read with a mobile phone.

However, things get a little more confusing when you look at the Broad Institute’s Developing Diagnostics and Treatments webpage,

Ensuring the SHERLOCK diagnostic platform is easily accessible, especially in the developing world, where the need for inexpensive, reliable, field-based diagnostics is the most urgent
SHERLOCK (Specific High-sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter unLOCKing) is a CRISPR-based diagnostic tool that is rapid, inexpensive, and highly sensitive, with the potential to have a transformative effect on research and global public health. The SHERLOCK platform can detect viruses, bacteria, or other targets in clinical samples such as urine or blood, and reveal results on a paper strip — without the need for extensive specialized equipment. This technology could potentially be used to aid the response to infectious disease outbreaks, monitor antibiotic resistance, detect cancer, and more. SHERLOCK tools are freely available [emphasis mine] for academic research worldwide, and the Broad Institute’s licensing framework [emphasis mine] ensures that the SHERLOCK diagnostic platform is easily accessible in the developing world, where inexpensive, reliable, field-based diagnostics are urgently needed.

Here’s what I suspect. as stated, the Broad Institute has free SHERLOCK licenses for academic institutions and not-for-profit organizations but Sherlock Biosciences, a Broad Institute spinoff company, is for-profit and has trademarked SHERLOCK for commercial purposes.

Final thoughts

This looks like a relatively subtle campaign to influence public perceptions. Genetic modification or genetic engineering as exemplified by the CRISPR gene editing technique is a force for the good of all. It will help us in our hour of need (COVID-19 pandemic) and it can help us save various species and better manage our resources.

This contrasts greatly with the publicity generated by the CRISPR twins situation where a scientist claimed to have successfully edited the germline for twins, Lulu and Nana. This was done despite a voluntary, worldwide moratorium on germline editing of viable embryos. (Search the terms [either here or on a standard search engine] ‘CRISPR twins’, ‘Lulu and Nana’, and/or ‘He Jiankui’ for details about the scandal.

In addition to presenting CRISPR as beneficial in the short term rather than the distant future, this publicity also subtly positions the Broad Institute as CRISPR’s owner.

Or, maybe I’m wrong. Regardless, I’m watching.

Federal and provincial money for life sciences and technology

InBC Investment Corporation (BC’s contribution)

Board experience at growing a startup?

Relationships

The BC biotech gorillas

LifeSciences BC and the provincial government’s commitments

It’s not all about the cash

Vancouver (city government) and the biotech sector

What it takes

Updates and extras

Precision Nanosystems

AbCellera

Moderna and Canada

inBC Investment Corporation

More on Banting, insulin and patents

Methodology

Genome British Columbia (Genome BC)

A request for volunteer participants for a social robot survey

Are my responses truly anonymous?

Two SOCRATES?

Where are the older adults and ‘co-creation opportunities’?

Blind spot: when do you think the internet was invented?

The stereotype that almost all older adults are technologically/digitally illiterate

Is loneliness in older people different than loneliness in youth?

Final thoughts

More reading

Registration

Questions

Finally the questions

Critique

Priorities for the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence

Is awareness a dialogue?

Abattoirs

Mining the data?

Not necessarily evil

Phoenix pay system

Plus

Final comments

One more March 2021 event

The business of CRISPR

Final thoughts