ChatGPT, the chopping-edge chatbot from OpenAI that was unveiled in November 2022, can resolve math equations, generate a heritage term paper, compose a sonnet and virtually almost everything in amongst. So it is not shocking that lots of educators assistance banning the chatbot in faculties to prevent plagiarism,cheating and just plain inaccuracy.
In response to these considerations, some key districts have banned the chatbot in faculties. In December, the Los Angeles Unified College District “preemptively” blocked entry to ChatGPT although “a danger/profit evaluation is carried out,” a district spokesperson instructed the Washington Put up. And in January, New York Metropolis Public Schools banned accessibility to ChatGPT from units and networks that the school owns, per the Washington Post. A spokesperson for the NYC Office of Training instructed Chalkbeat that the choice was created “due to worries about destructive impacts on university student discovering and considerations with regards to the safety and precision of articles.”
But not everybody is on board with a total ban — some in the schooling globe say instead of banning it, educate little ones how to use it well and quite, and it could be a beneficial academic device.
A person matter that specialists do concur on: Do not just dismiss it.
“ChatGPT is just just one far more piece in the puzzle that’s accelerating transform in conditions of training and instruction,” explained Trevor MacKenzie, an English trainer in Victoria, Canada.
The largest problem with ChatGPT: cheating
ChatGPT is the primary edge of a new wave of chatbots based on so-identified as generative language products. They are experienced on massive sample sets of composing, and their crafting is considerably far more structurally complex than prior generations of bots.
The chatbot is so good at building human-like responses that Alex Lawrence, professor at Weber Point out University, explained it as “the best dishonest instrument at any time invented,” the Wall Avenue Journal reported.
It would look like the worry is warranted. As CNN reported, ChatGPT is potent more than enough to have handed law tests in four courses at the College of Minnesota and a check at the College of Pennsylvania Wharton Faculty of Small business. It’s well worth noting, nevertheless, that it does from time to time stumble also. ChatGPT’s attempt at “basic equations of rocketry,” for case in point, was unsuccessful, NPR noted.
And according to study knowledge from Study.com of 1000 students aged 18 and up, additional than 89 per cent of pupils who responded said they had made use of ChatGPT to support with a research assignment, 48 per cent admitted they had utilized it for an at-residence check, and 53 {4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} had utilized it to write an essay.
Lecturers faced a comparable situation when Wikipedia was introduced. The anxiety, then, like the fear now, is that learners would plagiarize info from Wikipedia alternatively of sourcing the data themselves.
Not like Wikipedia, there is no supply attribution with ChatGPT, which provides a further concern.
One particular of the most worrying items about ChatGPT, in accordance to Nadav Ziv, research affiliate with the Stanford Heritage Education Team, is that it makes info devoid of citing resources. He explained it as “free-standing details,” or facts that is not attributable to a resource.
As a examination, Ziv requested ChatGPT to write an essay on the causes of the American Revolution, which it did, but there were being no sources attached to the details. Background can be subjective with scholarly disagreement, so the fret, he said, is that with no attribution, pupils could possibly address the data as truth without having taking into thought how the resource can impression trustworthiness.
An inevitable portion of the foreseeable future
Ziv thinks that banning ChatGPT, like banning Google or any useful resource on the net, is just about difficult to do. It’s not only that students will proceed to use these methods with or with no a ban, but it’s actually vital that college students know how to properly interact with technology like ChatGPT. “I consider it’s more about getting ready college students to safely and proficiently have interaction with ChatGPT,” he explained, “understand its limits, fully grasp its opportunities.”
Yotam Ophir, professor of communication at the College at Buffalo, pointed out a recurring sample with the introduction of new engineering: Each individual time a new technologies is launched, we obtain ourselves having difficulties with how it forces individuals to rethink the issues they do. The most effective comparison, he said, is calculators, which, like ChatGPT, numerous located threatening to education and learning. The fret, he defined, was about the risk of calculators and statistical application finally changing mathematicians.
The introduction of these new systems, he reported, can be disruptive in nature and spark a rethinking of values, which is from time to time essential.
“ChatGPT will be a component of their [students’] life,” he claimed. “There is no heading again.”
So as an alternative of prohibiting pupils from applying it, Ophir mentioned, educators ought to consider the reason of training in the to start with put. “If the intent is to put together children for the earth of tomorrow, and I believe it ought to be,” he said, “then ChatGPT is going to be a element of their lives.”
A advantageous instructional resource
There are a handful of distinctive methods to effectively integrate ChatGPT into new curriculums, say some specialists.
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, professor of psychology at Temple College and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, defined that when pupils master to generate, the most essential techniques they are genuinely creating are getting equipped to produce a potent thesis from the details they have collected and then using paragraphs to support that thesis.
This ability of figuring out the ideal proof to use, she argued, would continue to be in the purview of individuals to establish. This are unable to be changed by technologies. In the upcoming, Hirsh-Pasek thinks, we will price curiosity, significant considering and creative imagination over rote memorization, and ChatGPT will enable foster these expertise.
“We in fact aid learners a lot more by displaying them how to request the appropriate issues, which I assume is an significant talent,” she reported, incorporating that she encourages students to use their “mental muscles” to make what they are performing on greater than what they received from ChatGPT.
One more benefit of ChatGPT? Supporting teachers rethink how they educate.
In accordance to MacKenzie, ChatGPT forces teachers to change their instructional tactics and accelerate change, enabling lecturers to replicate not just on what they educate but how they train.
“If lecturers teach from a stance that simply will allow understanding to be a sequence of transactions (assign, transform in, repeat),” he discussed, “then ChatGPT forces instructors to change to a more system-targeted teaching stance where we more over and above the transactional and into a room of authentically acquiring competencies.”
And then there is also a way for ChatGPT to be made use of to instruct learners about intellectual house and plagiarism, according to Olga Polites, chief of the New Jersey chapter of Media Literacy Now and a trainer with 40 years of encounter.
The point that ChatGPT doesn’t cite sources for the data it generates can be applied to teach pupils about their moral obligation to be the originator of the material that they are developing. “This is what ChatGPT does,” she mentioned, “it phone calls into query whether or not you are the originator.”
How teachers steer clear of the ChatGPT pitfalls
Indeed, there are benefits to incorporating ChatGPT into the classroom, but how do teachers do it properly and prevent the prospective for cheating and misinformation?
MacKenzie believes it all begins with a sturdy formative evaluation apply, which, as he clarifies, is furnishing coaching and comments in the course of the approach of a scholar acquiring a process or an assignment.
So alternatively of basically searching at the last product or service without offering opinions in the method, a formative assessment signifies a teacher is involved in the entirety of the course of action of the assignment becoming done. It would be difficult to cheat applying ChatGPT because, in concept, with this kind of assessment, practically nothing a pupil turns in would be a surprise to the trainer — it would be simple to distinguish between the student’s get the job done and the get the job done of ChatGPT.
Equally, Hirsh-Pasek thinks the solution is in readjusting the way instructors educate.
“Part of this is going to be a pedagogical shift and a mind change,” she mentioned. The results of studying, she stated, have to have to be discovering how to be a lot more collaborative, learning how to make communities, creative thinking and resourceful innovation, and the self confidence to consider challenges even if they lead to failure. But all these competencies, she reported, are antithetical to the present school system. But ChatGPT, like covid, can be the motor for transform, she argues.
“Covid and ChatGPT are engines that are relocating us towards adjust,” she stated, “because they are so spectacular that they pointed out how frail we are.”
Thanks to Brett Zach for copy editing this article.
Updated February 21, 2023 at 4:32 p.m. EST|Published February 21, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
(Video: Illustrations by Tara Jacoby for The Washington Post)
Comment
Few know this, but I have 3,000 employees working for me at home. They don’t punch a clock, but they toil day and night. We never speak, but we meet for a few moments every few days. I supply them with as much food as they can eat, and in return, they furnish an endless supply of black gold.
Composting is something most people assume they can’t or won’t do. And I get it. I was once a non-composter too. I’ve heard about the potential problems: The smells, the flies, the rats, it’s a hassle, no space, an unspoken fear of the unknown. I, too, have battled the fruit fly.
Climate Coach
The Climate Coach column and newsletter host an honest discussion about the environmental choices we face in our daily lives. We’ll approach these questions with curiosity, optimism — and vigilant skepticism.
Read more.
But it turns out, these problems are all avoidable. A new crop of ways to compost has emerged over the past few years. American composters are a growing breed. Their numbers have ticked up over the years thanks to more municipal collection programs — mandatory in states like Vermont — as well as growing interest among those aware of the impact, and value, of their kitchen scraps.
It’s also much easier. New technology and services are available to meet that demand, whether you want a sleek appliance or a ready-made worm farm. If you aren’t composting yet, get ready. As the country aims for net-zero emissions, composting may start to become as common as recycling. Plus, you’ll get the best tomatoes of your life.
The food waste problem
Americans have never wasted so much food: 400 pounds per household. That’s about 35 percent of the total U.S. food supply ending up in the trash, according to ReFED, a California-basednonprofit organization dedicated to ending food waste.
Today, Americans compost about 6 percent of kitchen scraps. The rest ends up mainly in landfills where it rots, generating methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent in the short term than carbon dioxide. Virtually none of our food waste ends up as compost fertilizing our yards or fields, depriving the soil of many of the nutrients that must be added withnatural-gas-derived nitrogen fertilizer.
Homes generate most of the emissions from wasted food in the United States. It’s not just vegetables, leftovers and overripe avocados being squandered. It’s also the energy that went into plowing fields, fertilizing crops, running tractors and then trucking food to get it onto your plate. Most food-related emissions,it turns out, are generated long before your scraps hit the landfill.
Yet, unlike other forms of waste, there is little social stigma or cost attached to it. “If you were to walk down the street and throw half a bag of potato chips on the sidewalk, people would look at you as if it were an awful offense,” says Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFED. “But if you throw it in the garbage can, they don’t think much of it.”
Composting, unlike recycling, has yet to gain mainstream acceptance. This is changing slowly. At last count, nine states haverestricted sending food waste to landfills. Vermont is the first state to ban the disposal of food scraps in the trash or landfills for households.
Some cities are trying to scale up composting: Austin gives residents vouchers to buy compost bins. Los Angeles County discounts them for residents. But commercial composting hasn’t been scaled up to match our municipal waste stream. Doing so will require more than $1 billion, according to ReFED estimates. Of the 5,000 composting facilities nationwide, only 500 accept food scraps, ReFED estimates.
So for now, composting friends, most of you are on your own. Luckily, you need not share my admiration for red wigglers to compost.
What’s the best composting setup for you?
For this I turned to Amy Landers, who runs Gardens That Matter,an online gardening cluboffering classes and a community to help people garden. Her composting credentials date back to an eighth-grade science project, and she now composts on her farm outside Asheville, N.C. Her largest composting venture? The dead horse of a neighbor, whose owner couldn’t bear to send her beloved pet to the landfill. Everything but the bones was gone in about a year.
Most people, says Landers, overthink composting. “If it was ever alive, it can be composted,” she says. A large, hot, well-run compost pile — no trivial feat — can digest almost any organic matter, eventually. But even something more modest in your backyard can handle quite a bit.
In fact, most of the organic materials coming into your home from groceries to junk mail to paper bags are just soil in waiting. Think of compost as a luxury high-rise for microorganisms. Bacteria, fungi, nematodes, worms, sow bugs and other invertebrates all thrive in compost. When mixed into soil, compost allows it to hold more water and nutrients. Plants respond by growing larger roots, increasing yields and even sending sugars to the roots to feed more bacteria.
Landers advises playing it safe when you’re first starting, if you’re nervous: Go light or omit oils, meats, orange peels, dairy and bones. Pet waste is a no-no. Plastic too. But don’t stress. Many prohibitions are not hard and fast rules. “A lot of the composting guidelines are built for the safest, lowest-risk situation,” she says. “Your compost bin should never keep you up at night.”
Here are the best composting operations no matter your level of commitment, or your living situation:
A 400-square-foot apartment
Anyone can collect food scraps in a bin. The main problem for urban dwellers is to find a spot for the food to break down and do its thing. They have more options now.
Hundreds of cities and private firms collect curbside composting. GreenBlue, an environmental nonprofit organization, has mapped them out. It’s a no-brainer to take advantage of these. If your city doesn’t offer compost pickup, it may have drop-off sites. To find or create a place near you, try MakeSoil, a nonprofit entity that matches people with food scraps to composting sites. If you live near one, it’s easy enough to store a few days’ worth of compost in a bin, freezer or bucket to take there.Another option: You can band together with neighbors or a community garden to start your own.
If you have easy access to off-site compost, that’s the way to go. But if you want to compost in your apartment, you have several choices.
More involved (and expensive):
There’s the emerging (almost) composting space. These are slick devices starting around $300 that process food scraps at the click of a button. Appliances like the Vitamix FoodCycler, Lomi and Mill grind up scraps and then dehydrate them. The resulting food grounds — not yet true compost since they are mostly dried-out organic matter — can be added to any garden strip or sent back to the company to be fed to livestock.
Mill’s bin, for example, fills up over the course of about three weeks for an average U.S. household. The device turns food waste into dried particles that are sent back to the company via the Postal Service for chicken feed. Membership for Mill’s service gets you all the equipment, shipping and filter refills for $33 per month.
Mill co-founder Matt Rogers, who helped launch the Nest smart thermostat, this year started to help households, and eventually cities, deal with their food waste problem. “It’s too hard to do the right thing right now,” he says. Based on an independent life cycle analysis, Mill estimates each household with its appliance prevents about half a ton of carbon emissions per year,equivalent to driving about 1,200 miles, primarily by avoiding landfills and replacing crops grown for livestock poultry. The machine uses the same amount of energy as a dishwasher — about $6 per month.
I was skeptical the energy penalty of operating the appliance would outweigh climate benefits, but Sally Brown, a soil scientist at the University of Washington who consulted with the company, says it’s still a net positive for the environment since it avoids methane emissions from landfills and crop production for poultry. “This is why I’m excited about these appliances,” says Brown. “They make it easy. You have no excuse not to use one of these.”
Except, perhaps, price. The Lomi VIP sells for about $542.
Most involved (with side benefits):
There are small vertical worm farms with several trays that fit under the sink or in a closet. Done right, they don’t smell or attract flies. You mix food scraps with some shredded paper or other brown material the worms love. Within days, the worms begin creating crumbly black soil and move upward as new food is added to each layer. You can order bags of live red wiggler worms online (imagine earthworms), and they’ll happily root around in your scraps and soil. It’s a bit of work, but some composters enjoy the process (and do-it-yourself versions exist). Your affinity for the little invertebrates will probably determine whether this is for you.
One benefit? It’s the world’s best houseplant fertilizer. “Vermicompost outdid everything,” says Brown. (More on worms later.)
Your options widen if you have outside space, even if it’s not very much.
One technique popular in the United Kingdom is the green cone digester. A perforated basket is buried a few feet underground or in a container on a hard surface. A green double-walled plastic cone sits above it. You dump in food scraps. The trapped heat from the sun and natural organisms in the soil rapidly decompose everything inside, an oxidation process that happens more slowly with true compost.This process breaks down as much as 90 percent of the volumeinto nutrients that migrate into the soil as they decompose, nourishing nearby plants.
You don’t get compost out of the system, but it’s an easy way to return two poundsof daily kitchen waste to the soil within an area of a few square feet — even pet waste, allegedly, according to the manufacturer, since the temperature inside can exceed 122 degrees Fahrenheit. You can buy digesters online, or through your waste authority in places like Vermont.
Another option replaces the more traditional big tumblers or plastic bins, both of which require more tending than some people might like. The Aerobin Composter, an Australian invention, essentially combines the benefits of the large plastic bin — a hot, self-contained and pest-resistant container — with an internal air conduit so compost receives enough air to keep the microbes happy. It’s insulated to trap heat and requires no mixing. Worms are optional. One with rave reviews sells for $379.99 at Costco. That’s pricey, but gardeners say the cost is quickly offset by a steady stream of rich compost, which they would otherwise buy for as much as $30 a bag.
Plus, you’ll avoid the fate of my intrepid editor, who installed two large plastic composting bins in her backyard. Her intentions were good. Each was filled to the brim with eggshells, yard waste, kitchen scraps, a Christmas tree and at least one coconut. But without the right moisture level and aeration, the microbes and worms failed to thrive. The composting process has ground to a halt. Two years later, she’s living with the equivalent two large garbage cans.
Now she knows how to restart the process — and she has her eye on an Aerobin.
I live in a condo with a small backyard. I have a little concrete pad where I use a flow-through system called the Urban Worm Farm. It’s essentially a large canvas cone hung on a frame. You dump organic matter on top. The worms, which prefer the freshly added food, migrate up, allowing you to empty mature compost at the bottom over time.
Worms used for composting can consume about a third of their own weight daily. A farm like mine with a few thousand worms can process one or two pounds of scraps and waste per day, according to the manufacturer. About half emerges as compost.
I haven’t had a problem with smells or pests. When the mixture appeared too wet, I shredded a few paper bags and added them. The worms seemed to throw a party in their new, drier digs. Ultimately, I’ve found the little creatures, once you get to know them, are charming in their own way. Now, I can wait as long as two weeks before throwing out the trash. And the compost? Well, you should see the tomatoes I grow.
correction
A previous version of this article misstated the first name of Sally Brown, a soil scientist at the University of Washington. She is Sally Brown, not Sarah Brown. The article has been corrected.
Search engine optimization stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the observe of enhancing the high quality and amount of site visitors to a website via organic and natural search motor benefits. In other terms, it is the method of optimizing a web-site to seem bigger in the search engine effects web pages (SERPs) for appropriate search queries.
For power business websites, Website positioning is notably essential simply because the electricity industry is hugely competitive, and customers and firms alike frequently switch to look for engines to find info about power products and expert services. By optimizing their site for suitable look for phrases, electricity firms can enhance their visibility in lookup motor effects and draw in more possible customers to their web-sites.
Search engine optimization can enable energy businesses in a selection of methods, together with:
Enhanced website targeted visitors: By position higher in the look for engine benefits internet pages, power businesses can draw in much more web site, people and potential shoppers.
Enhanced model recognition: By showing up increased in search engine final results, vitality corporations can raise their manufacturer visibility and recognition.
Greater lead technology: By targeting the appropriate research terms, power companies can attract additional qualified prospects to their web page, rising the chance of conversion.
Increased user working experience: Search engine marketing ideal practices this kind of as optimizing website velocity and cellular responsiveness can strengthen the consumer encounter for web site visitors.
General, Website positioning is an essential aspect of digital marketing for strength businesses wanting to increase their on the internet existence and entice additional shoppers through their internet sites.
Search engine optimization Move-BY-Phase
Developing an powerful Search engine marketing approach for your electricity web site will involve a number of measures. Below is a simple step-by-stage strategy for Search engine marketing on your energy web site:
Conduct key word investigate: Start by studying and determining the search phrases and phrases that are applicable to your electrical power company’s items, solutions, and focus on audience. Use key phrase investigation instruments like Google Key word Planner or SEMrush to find key phrases with large look for quantity and reduced competition.
Optimize website composition: Ensure that your internet site has a obvious composition that is easy to navigate for both of those users and research motor crawlers. Use descriptive, key phrase-loaded URLs and produce a sitemap to support lookup engines realize the content material and structure of your web site.
Improve internet site content material: Use the keywords recognized in move a single to enhance your website’s material, which includes meta titles, descriptions, and headings. Be certain that your information is superior high quality, pertinent, and engaging for your goal audience.
Enhance web page speed: Enhance your website’s loading speed to enrich person encounter and increase research engine rankings. Use a resource like Google PageSpeed Insights to discover parts the place your website’s pace can be enhanced.
Build large-high quality one way links: Establish a tactic to establish higher-excellent one way links to your power web page from respected, relevant internet websites. This can consist of building large-excellent articles, guest posting on relevant internet sites, and partaking with field influencers.
Check and evaluate benefits: Use equipment like Google Analytics and Google Lookup Console to check your website’s traffic, research motor rankings, and other crucial metrics. Examine the information to discover locations for enhancement and refine your Seo tactic accordingly.
By adhering to these measures, you can develop an effective Seo prepare for your power website that allows you strengthen your lookup engine rankings, generate far more targeted traffic to your website, and appeal to additional prospects to your organization.
Technology is advancing rapidly, and job opportunities in the tech industry are also increasing. As a result, coding and programming are among the most in-demand skills in the tech industry. These skills are essential for many tech jobs, from creating software to developing websites.
In most cases, programming and coding are the foundation of any tech-related application, making it a skill that keeps growing and expanding. With this in mind, we’ll introduce you to high-paying tech jobs that require coding and programming.
1. Computer Programmer
A computer programmer, or coder, is responsible for creating the instructions that software programs and computers use to perform specific tasks. They also work to fix any issues and improve the functionality of existing code.
In addition, computer programmers write and test codes that facilitate software programs. They use languages such as C++, Java, and Python and tools such as Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) to write, debug, and maintain code. Furthermore, they work closely with software engineers and developers to ensure that the software meets an organization’s needs.
2. Web Developer
Web developers employ various programming languages to build websites and web-based applications. They may also maintain and update these sites and take user and client feedback into account when making improvements to the design and functionality.
Specifically, they use languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create the front-end of a website and may also work with back-end technologies such as PHP, Ruby, and Python to create more dynamic websites. Finally, they work closely with web designers and front-end developers to ensure that the website is visually appealing and easy to navigate.
3. Information Technology Manager
Information technology managers oversee and direct the IT department’s operations and long-term planning. This includes promoting innovation, organizing and planning projects, determining the department’s structure, and managing the allocation of resources.
IT Managers are responsible for the overall technology strategy of an organization. They work with a team of developers, programmers, and other IT staff to develop and implement technology solutions to satisfy a client’s needs.
These technical managers ensure the appropriate development and deployment of technical solutions. They are also responsible for managing the budget and resources of the IT department and ensuring that the technology being used aligns with the organization’s goals.
4. Front-End Developer
The primary duty of front-end developers is to create the visual and interactive elements of web and mobile applications and design the user interface. They collaborate with back-end developers to ensure the code is efficient and effective. They also assist with troubleshooting and coding.
Front-end developers are in charge of a website’s design and user experience. They use languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create the look and feel of a website and work closely with web designers to ensure that the website is aesthetic and easy to navigate. Front-end developers are one of the top programming careers in high demand. Their relevance in the industry has become largely significant.
5. Software Engineer
Software engineers have the duty of designing and creating computer software and applications. They may also maintain, test, and evaluate existing programs.
Software engineers design and develop software programs. They use different programming languages and tools, such as C++, Java, and Python, to create software that meets the needs of a business or organization. They also assess and debug code to ensure the software is reliable and free of errors.
6. Full-Stack Developer
Full-stack developers are responsible for the front-end and back-end development of websites, mobile applications, and other computer programs. They design and implement the user interface and the underlying code that powers the application.
To achieve this, full-stack developers use programming languages and technologies like HTML, CSS, and Python to create a seamless user experience. Consequently, these developers are familiar with both front-end and back-end technologies and hold one of the highest-paid tech jobs in the industry.
7. Security Engineer
Security engineers protect an organization’s computer systems and networks from threats and unauthorized access. They may work for an IT security firm, serving multiple clients, or in-house for a single company or institution.
Employers of security engineers include government offices and private and public companies. The primary focus of a security engineer is to ensure the security and safety of an institution’s computer and network systems.
Essentially, these engineers design and implement security measures to protect an organization’s data and systems. They use firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and encryption to protect against cyber threats. They also conduct regular security audits and risk assessments to identify and remediate vulnerabilities.
8. Back-End Developer
Back-end developers create, manage, and maintain the back-end of web and mobile-based applications. This includes the servers, application code, and databases that power the application. They also work closely with front-end developers, providing support for web technologies such as HTTP, HTML/DOM, and JavaScript, as well as web services like SOA and REST.
Back-end developers focus on the server side of a website or application to enhance its functionality. In addition, they work closely with front-end developers to ensure that the website is responsive and interactive.
9. Cloud Engineer
Cloud engineers are the backbone behind the designing, building, and maintenance of cloud-based infrastructure. They work with cloud services such as AWS, Azure, and GCP to design, implement and maintain cloud-based solutions for an organization.
In addition, they help companies move their infrastructure to the cloud and ensure that the cloud infrastructure is secure and scalable. With their programming skills, they can troubleshoot applications to identify any problems with a cloud infrastructure.
10. Database Developer
In simple terms, database developers build and maintain databases. They use languages such as SQL and NoSQL to create, update, and query databases. In addition, they work with various database management systems such as MySQL, MongoDB, and Oracle to scale databases and carry out specific tasks like data partitioning.
With these developers, organizations can harness the benefits of database maintenance to simplify data recovery and protect against threats. Furthermore, their knowledge of coding enables them to design databases that are secure, scalable, and efficient.
Begin Your Coding Journey Today
Coding and programming skills are essential for many jobs in the tech industry. From computer programmers to cloud engineers, these skills are in high demand and can lead to a rewarding career in a short period.
So how do you begin your coding journey? Start with the basics and take out time to build on the knowledge and skills you acquire. You’ll be amazed at the myriad of opportunities waiting for you at the end of the learning curve.
In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is essential for businesses of all sizes. With so much competition in the market, it can take time to stand out and attract new customers. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help businesses increase their online visibility, drive traffic to their website, and generate leads, ultimately leading to more sales and revenue. But is SEO still a viable marketing strategy during a recession?
The Importance of SEO for Businesses
SEO is the practice of optimizing your website and online content to improve your rankings on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. With over 3.5 billion searches conducted on Google alone daily, appearing at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) can be a significant source of traffic for your website. Optimizing your website with relevant keywords, creating quality content, and building authoritative backlinks can improve your search engine rankings and attract more traffic to your site.
Here are some reasons why SEO is crucial for businesses:
Increased Website Traffic:
Higher rankings on SERPs can drive more traffic to your website, leading to increased sales and revenue. The more visible your website is, the more likely people will visit and engage with your business.
Enhanced User Experience:
SEO also helps to improve the user experience of your website visitors. By optimizing your site for search engines, you are also making it more accessible and user-friendly for your target audience.
Cost-Effective:
SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy compared to other forms of digital marketing. Unlike paid advertising, SEO is a long-term investment that can continue to drive traffic to your site for months or even years.
Does SEO Still Work During a Recession?
A recession can be a challenging time for businesses, with many cutting back on their marketing budgets. Nevertheless, a recession may still arrive at some point soon. However, even during a recession, SEO can be a crucial marketing tool for businesses to maintain or improve their online visibility. In fact, some experts argue that SEO is even more critical during a recession.
Here are some reasons why SEO can still work during a recession:
Increased Online Activity During Recession:
During a recession, people spend more time online, searching for ways to save money or find the best deals. By focusing on SEO, businesses can capitalize on this trend and attract more traffic to their website.
Long-Term Benefits apart from Recession:
SEO is a long-term investment that can continue to drive traffic to your website even after a recession has ended. By continuing to invest in SEO during a recession, businesses can set themselves up for success in the future.
Cost-Effective:
As mentioned earlier, SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy that can be an excellent option for businesses with limited budgets.
Now, here are the Effective SEO Strategies for Boosting Brand Awareness
Creating brand awareness is one of the essential steps to succeed in any online business. In this digital age, businesses must implement smart SEO strategies to stand out in the crowd. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps improve your website’s visibility on the search engine result page (SERP), thereby attracting more traffic to your website. Here are some proven ways to build brand awareness using SEO:
Partnering with a Digital Marketing Agency:
You can partner with a reliable digital marketing agency to achieve quick results in building brand awareness. Such asWowbix, New Jersey SEO company, can help promote your brand and create awareness in the digital market.
Creating and Optimizing Content:
Creating high-quality and engaging content is an effective way to attract and retain visitors to your website. Articles, podcasts, infographics, and videos are content types you can create to boost brand awareness. Optimizing your content with relevant keywords and meta descriptions can also help improve your website’s visibility in search results.
Using Essential Keywords:
Using specific and relevant keywords in your content can help attract visitors with precise search intent. Long-tail keywords are more specific and targeted, and they can attract high-converting traffic to your website.
Building Links:
Building high-quality backlinks is crucial in getting your website to rank higher in SERP. You can build backlinks by creating unique and valuable content that other websites will want to link to. Guest posting, public relations, broken link building strategy, and email outreach are ways to build backlinks.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, SEO remains a powerful and essential tool for businesses to build their online presence and thrive in the digital landscape, even in challenging economic times. By focusing on building brand awareness through effective SEO strategies, such as creating high-quality content, building backlinks, using relevant keywords, and partnering with digital marketing agencies or SEO consultants, businesses can drive organic traffic to their websites, attract potential customers, and increase sales. While economic downturns can pose significant challenges for businesses, investing in SEO can help them stay competitive, establish themselves as industry leaders, and emerge stronger in the long run. So, whether you are a small start-up or a well-established corporation, harnessing the power of SEO can help you achieve your business goals and secure your place in the online marketplace.
The pace of technological change has taken a giant leap forward and created opportunities for investors. ChatGPT has been compared to the invention of the internet, robots are being introduced to workforce. And agricultural technology is being more widely implemented to try to solve for a growing global population. Jeff Spiegel, US Head of BlackRock, Megatrend International and Sector ETFs, will help us decode some of these new technologies and better understand the impact on both our lives and our portfolios.
Transcript
Oscar: Welcome to The Bid, where we break down what’s happening in the markets and explore the forces changing the economy and finance. I’m your host, Oscar Pulido. As the stock market continues to see volatility with inflation and interest rate hikes, the pace of technological change has taken a giant leap forward and created opportunities for investors.
ChatGPT has been compared to the invention of the internet, robots are being introduced to workforce. And agricultural technology is being more widely implemented to try to solve for a growing global population. Today we’ll be discussing the top three technologies we see shaping the future.
I’m pleased to welcome Jeff Spiegel, US Head of BlackRock, Megatrend International and Sector ETFs, to help us decode some of these new technologies and better understand the impact on both our lives and our portfolios.
Jeff, welcome.
Jeff: Thanks for having me back, Oscar!
Oscar: Jeff, there was plenty happening during the holiday season – we had rate hikes, we had inflation, we had people maybe taking some time off. But we also had, notably, the release of ChatGPT, which sounds a little bit science fiction-y to me when I say it out loud, but maybe you can walk us through this technology and tell us how is it changing the world? How quickly do you see it progressing?
Jeff: Sure. I took some time off – I hope you did. Unfortunately, I spent most of my time off playing with ChatGPT, so that begs the question, what makes ChatGPT special? Well, it’s an advanced AI chat bot that can understand and create human-like conversation. It was released by a firm called OpenAI, the tools free to use, it quickly captured the attention of social media. It gathered over a million users just in its first five days, which is a record for any sort of application.1
So, the G P T stands for generative pre-trained transformer. It uses a transformer algorithm which is based on a neural network or a computer program that mimics the way the actual human brain works. It was trained using a massive amount of data from the internet, books, Wikipedia articles, and other pieces of writing that amount to about 300 billion words.2
As I said, I’m guilty of having spent way too much time playing with it, seeing how it thinks, seeing whether I could trick it. But the tech is, at the end of the day, a lot more than a novelty.
Jeff: So, two ways in particular that we think ChatGPT could really revolutionize the world.
The first is in search, so GPT could really upend the search model as we know it, and really as we’ve known it since the 1990s. Now, that search model has fostered a massive business, $680bn in digital advertising that occurs on platforms like Google, and that can be disrupted if you think about it, if you don’t actually need to look at a list of hits, but if you could just ask the generative AI a question and be told the answer.3 That would be a massive disruption to a lot of existing businesses.
So, the second area is in the services industry. GPT can perform a wide variety of tasks that are currently done by humans, or at least augment them.
So, with the US still facing a labor shortage, about 4 million workers4 and aging populations around the globe, companies able to create AI tools that enhance productivity and efficiency of their employees could really benefit.
A lot of jobs required good research, vocabulary, and grammar skills. ChatGPT can actually level up a huge portion of the population that may not be as good at those things today.
It’s also worth noting that GPT is only one kind of generative AI – it’s trained on words. Other generative AIs can be trained on other data – visual data. In the case of DALL-E, which is an AI artist also from OpenAI, as well as AIs that use neural networks to process, for example, spatial or numerical data.
Actually, the ultimate breakthrough, what we’re really looking for in AI, and what a lot of people in the field are most excited about, is what’s called Multi-modal AI. Now, that’s AI that can be trained in all of these ways at the same time. To really mimic a human and to operate in multiple domains in the real world, you have to be able to master more than just text-based information – it can think in text, it can think in numbers, it can think in space.
Oscar: So, you mentioned a number of things, and going back, the disruptive nature of this technology to some existing business models like search engine, you talked about how it differs from similar AI technologies, but you also touched on how you were using it and you didn’t realize you were interacting with it, so it tricked you. Therefore, I guess the question is there any safety concerns, with respect to the usage of this technology, or what should we be thinking about if it can trick a human?
Jeff: So luckily, I knew what I was dealing with, but if I hadn’t been told in advance, it probably would’ve tricked me, and so to your point, that’s the danger. People who were testing ChatGPT were quick to realize that they could do a number of things that maybe were a little less than ethical.
Coders realized that they could use the tool to win quick coding contests. Teachers have caught many a student using the bot to plagiarize essays, and some people who uploaded their photos to a DALL-E like app received back renderings that felt sexualized, that made them look skinnier or buffer, younger, even nude.
Jeff: So, the saying “garbage in and garbage out” really applies on this latter point. To the extent that the data available to train AIs has pervasive bias or represent societal features that may not be ideal, an AI generally can’t make that determination. It can’t filter out that sort of bad data – or inappropriate data – effectively.
Solving for this is going to be critically important, and it’s really going to be a hotly contested debate, because if you think about it, there’s a lot of subjectivity involved in where bias lies and what’s culturally positive versus what’s culturally negative amidst all of this massive amount of data, or remember 300 billion data points, that the AI can absorb. How do you sift through that?
Jeff: But we do think there are ways to use these safely and effectively and ethically today. And probably three things to keep in mind.
The first is understand the limits and consequences of what an app like this can do. AIs can fool us into thinking that they understand more than they do, and that can cause problems. ChatGPT gives really confident answers, but it doesn’t think independently. And if it takes as gospel, for example, a Wikipedia page, it may very confidently make claims that are debatable or simply outright wrong.
Second, know what you’re giving up. Every time we ask ChatGPT a question, the conversation is logged and it’s stored.
Sometimes it’s analyzed by a human to make improvement, sometimes not. But either way, it’s important to remember that we’re giving up some data to online tools like ChatGPT, and that means it’s probably wise not to share sensitive information or photos.
Third, use these tools to improve your work not to do your work. So today I’d say AI can be helpful if we’re looking for a light assist. You could ask a chat bot to rewrite a paragraph in the active voice. A non-native English speaker could ask ChatGPT to remove grammatical errors from an email before sending it. A student could ask the bot for suggestions on how to make an essay more persuasive, but you need a human in the loop to make sure the outputs are correct, not to mention that they’re in context, that they’re appropriate, and that they’re sensitive.
This is all fascinating as I’m listening to it, and something that comes to mind is why don’t we put this to the test right now. And in fact, for our audience, we’re going to introduce another special guest here that Jeff is going to ask some questions to. And that special guest is ChatGPT.
ChatGPT: Hello, Jeff and Oscar.
Jeff: Okay, let’s do this. ChatGPT, what is 153 times 257.
ChatGPT: The answer is 30,061.
Jeff: So pretty basic question, basic work for the kind of calculator people have had in their pockets for years and years. But for any of you lightning math wizards, actually you know the answer is not 39,061. It’s 39,321. Pretty amazing that an app that can trick me into thinking it’s a person can’t do basic math.
So, let’s ask another. Hey ChatGPT, no offense, but why are you bad at math?
ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I’m not bad at math but I don’t have the capability to perform calculations as humans do. My training data includes vast amounts of text about mathematical concepts and equations, so I can answer questions about math, provide explanations and generate mathematical text, but I cannot perform arithmetic operations or solve mathematical problems.
Jeff: So, ironically, what we’re learning here is ChatGPT actually “knows” that it’s bad at math, but it didn’t tell me that – it gave me a wrong answer with confidence.
I’ll elaborate a little bit more on ChatGPT’s answer to why this isn’t working, why it can’t do what seems like a basic function for a calculator.
The idea is that the multiplication process involves carrying over digits and performing complex operations on large numbers. That’s beyond the capabilities of this underlying technology because it’s in the deterministic domain, meaning there’s a definitive right answer. Multiplication is a simple rule, but text-based generative AI cannot comprehend deterministic rules.
Neural networks cannot learn rules, simply because they are not designed to do so. They’re multiplying and adding up inputs, weights, and biases, but they’re not designed to learn simple, or we would think simple “If-Else” logic.
Oscar: So, as we’ve been talking about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence more broadly, you’ve referred to it as a way to perhaps help humans with tasks that they’re performing. Let’s take that a step further, now let’s talk about robots that are using artificial intelligence. We’re certainly seeing more robots in the workplace and production lines; how might robots impact the labor market? Is there a risk that they are making jobs that humans perform obsolete, or is it actually they’re helping?
Jeff: So, I’m a history major, I’m a history buff. The first industrial robot was actually rolled out by General Motors in 1959.5 The robot, called The Unimate, was a hydraulic arm that performed repetitive tasks such as welding. Seven years later, the Unimate, a friendly robot, entered pop culture when it appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to play golf.
But that raises the question, what’s happened from now to then? Well, what’s happened is that the average cost of an industrial robot has fallen by 50{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} over the past 30 years, increasing the affordability of adoption.6
So, robots are largely economically viable today in a way that they hadn’t been historically, but country to popular concerns, they generally haven’t been used to replace human factory workers. Instead, they’ve been used to free up those workers to focus on higher-value tasks or supercharge the workers’ output by essentially engaging together.
As a result, robots represent one of the most powerful tools in fighting a lot of today’s economic challenges. Open jobs in US actually exceed unemployed workers by about 5 million people.7 Annual wage growth is 6{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca},8 supply chain pressures are a standard deviation above historical averages,9 a record number of jobs may be near or re-shored,10 and the US and global populations are aging really rapidly.
Let’s look at some of the most powerful robotics use cases and why economic conditions and innovation together are why the market estimates a 23{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} compound annualized growth rate for robotics through 2030.11
And we’ll look at this through the lens of logistics and the lens of healthcare. Let’s start with logistics.
80{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} of warehouse operators agree that they’re going to rely more on automation in the future.12 Look forward in 2023 to seeing Autonomous Mobile Robots – AMRs – proliferate. AMRs, unlike their more common cousins, Autonomous Guided Vehicles, or AGVs, don’t require predefined paths or human oversight. AMRs are particularly helpful in healthcare settings, hospital settings. Cleaning robots are leveraging UV light to sanitize surfaces while navigating crowded spaces with large physical equipment and multiple moving pieces. Robots are already reducing warehouse error rates by up to 67{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca}.13 And robots help address warehouse injuries.
So today, over 200,000 non-fatal accidents happen every year in US warehouses.14 That causes companies a cost of over $84m a week.15 And most importantly, it causes pain and suffering for employees. So, we can solve a lot of those problems with modern robotics, and again, focusing on the ability to help the individual human and make our lives better, we come to healthcare, surgical robots are game changers.
A surgical robot will have one arm with a camera, giving the surgeon a view of an affected area at up to 10 times magnification versus the human eye.16 A second robotic arm will hold surgical instruments, allowing a degree of precision and steadiness that simply isn’t possible with human hands. The smaller resulting incisions improve outcomes and shorten recovery times, reducing pain, reducing blood loss, and reducing scarring.
Today, globally, only about 3{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} of surgeries are performed robotically.17 And you can imagine how much tremendous runway that allows for growth. But again, as we were talking about with ChatGPT, no one’s pulling the surgeon out of the equation. The surgeon needs to be involved. The surgeon needs to be monitoring, the surgeon needs to be operating the robot. This is really about how AI, robotics, and human beings can work together.
As technology is becoming more powerful, efficient, and cheaper, robots are actually more ubiquitous. North America robot sales have reached record highs over three straight quarters.18 We’ve also seen a range of robots enter our day-to-day lives. They vacuum floors, they mow lawns, they craft the perfect cup of coffee, and in some places, they even provide companionship.
Oscar: You’re certainly painting a picture where robots are helping the labor markets, not replacing humans, but I think you used the word “supercharge” what the humans can do in their day-to-day. Maybe we can talk a little bit about agricultural technology and where you see robots and AI playing a role there. Because I think as of last count, there’s about 8 billion people on planet Earth, or we’re approaching that number by 2050. There is projected to be 10 billion people on planet Earth that we need to feed.19 So how do robots help the agricultural processes that we have in place now?
Jeff: So, Thomas Malthus, a philosopher, famously proclaimed hundreds of years ago that we would run out of food because the population of the world would just continue increasing. And there was only so much food that could be created.
What we’ve actually learned in the hundreds of years since is through better technology, better cultivation, genetically modified crops, we can actually increase the total food yield. Even as population rises, AI and robotics are going to be the next game changer in that progression. As we look to the future, disruptive technologies such as precision agriculture and agricultural robots can affect meaningful change towards more sustainable production and consumption.
AgTech makes it possible to produce more food on less land with less water in more locations. The resulting efficiency gains and lower food production costs are really game-changing, and we can dig into a few specific innovations that you’re going to see bring together a lot of what we were already talking about in AI and in robotics.
We’ll start with smart crop monitoring. This is really about AI. Here we’re using real-time sensors and imaging to deliver water and nutrients within a farm system to where they’re most needed, helping produce more food with less, and that enables increased yield through more efficient use of natural resources and inputs, and improved land and environmental management.
So, agricultural producers are already turning to this technology to drive growth. The global market for precision agriculture reached 7 billion in 2021.20 By 2030, it could almost triple to over 21 billion.21 That’s a 13{4224f0a76978c4d6828175c7edfc499fc862aa95a2f708cd5006c57745b2aaca} compound annual growth rate.22 Second, area controlled environmental agriculture, often referred to by the initialism CEA, takes place in enclosed growing structures like greenhouses and warehouses, which provide protection from outdoor elements and maintain optimal growing conditions. The term vertical farming is really evocative here – literally, stacking layers of agricultural production atop one another. CEA makes it possible to produce food year-round in urban environments and much closer to consumers.
So, imagine walking into your local grocery store on a snowy winter morning but picking up freshly harvested lettuce, juicy tomatoes, and sweet blackberries, all of which were harvested in your home city just a few hours prior. Vertical farming makes this possible because it allows farmers to grow crops indoors at scale in stacked layers all year round.
Produce grown in indoor vertical farms travels only about 43 miles on average to reach grocery store shelves, compared to 2000 miles for conventionally cultivated product.23
So, bringing together our topics today, robots are also on the rise in farming drones overhead that monitor crop health, robots in field automatically watering plants, and autonomous tractors driving themselves all working 24X7 around the clock.
While adoption is still nascent, commercial agricultural robots are helping forward-thinking farmers and agribusiness to produce more food on less land, and with fewer chemical.
Oscar: It sounds like a very futuristic world that you talk about, but that’s the point I think, is that the technological innovation that’s going on is required.
On the topic of technology, maybe we can talk about the CHIPS Act that was passed last year, and maybe you can describe, what did that piece of legislation actually mean?
Jeff: It’s critical for any discussion of technology in 2023 to note that de-globalization and geopolitical competition are really important considerations that are impacting the sector. When you think about the Chips and Science Act and its $53 billion to support American Semiconductor capacity, “[it’ll] lead to the geographical realignment of manufacturing capacity away from Asia,” and that’s according to Tony Kim, our leading technology portfolio manager here in the fundamental active equity business at BlackRock, who oversees 30 billion in tech assets.
Here and in other sensitive technologies like batteries, quantum computing and artificial intelligence, government intervention through carrots – think fiscal spending – but also sticks – tariffs and regulation are likely to continue. That’s going to create opportunities for investors. It’s also going to create challenges.
Oscar: When you hear about all the technological innovation going on, a lot of which you just spelled out, people draw the comparison to the change that went on during the 19th century industrial revolution. There was a lot of fears at the time and misconceptions, which also then carry through to today – people fearful of all this change that you’re talking about going forward. So, how could these fears and misconceptions challenge progress, and what should investors be thinking about?
Jeff: I think President Kennedy (sic) actually said it best, when looking at this sort of progress, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Personally, I think the future is bright. I think the rise of robotics and AI will be a milestone. So, stay tuned, stay positive, because if we embrace change in progress, our descendants, I believe, will look at today’s robotics and AI revolution as improving the world at a scale even beyond that of the Industrial Revolution itself.
Oscar: Jeff, I’ve said this before, when you’ve been a guest, you’ve given us a lot of great facts to consider, and I want to thank you for joining us on the bid, and actually we had two guests today. I want to thank ChatGPT as well.
ChatGPT: You are welcome.
Jeff: Thanks for having me, Oscar.
Oscar: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Bid.
Sources:
1 Yahoo News, Steve Mollman, 12/9/22
2 Sciencefocus.com, “ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about OpenAI’s GPT-3 tool”
3 Shopify, Digital Ad Spend 2021-2026
4 5U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Understanding America’s Labor Shortage
5 Automate.org, “The First Industrial Robot”
6 McKinsey, “Automation, Robotics and the Factory of the Future”
7 Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 2022
8 Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker
9 NY Fed, Global Supply Chain Pressure Index
10 WSJ – U.S. Companies on Pace to Bring Home Record Number of Overseas Jobs, 8/23/22
11 Market Research Future, “Global Robotics Market Research Report,” August 2021.
12 FetchRobotics, July 2022
13 Robots 247, 8/14/21
14 Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2021 “Employer Related Workplace Injuries and Illnesses”
15 Liberty Mutual Insurance Workplace Safety Index
:quality(100)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/thesummit/DKCGPL4XGZD65NNJTUFWWWKR6Y.jpg "Is ChatGPT the future of cheating or the future of teaching?")
