When it comes to saving for retirement, you have several choices as to where to park your cash. Two of the most popular choices are the 401(k) and the individual retirement account (IRA).

If you work for a company that offers a 401(k), you may already be enrolled in this type of retirement account. IRAs, on the other hand, aren't tied to your employer, so to open this account you'll just need to find a brokerage. Although each type of retirement account has its perks, there are a few reasons why you might choose a Roth IRA over a 401(k).

Image source: Getty Images.

When you invest in a 401(k) or traditional IRA, your savings are tax-deferred. That means your initial contributions won't be taxed, but you will need to pay income taxes on your withdrawals in retirement.

A Roth IRA is the opposite: You'll pay taxes when you make the initial contributions, but then your distributions are tax-free. This can be an advantage in retirement because you won't need to worry about taxes affecting your disposable income. And when you don't need to account for taxes in your spending plan, it can be easier to determine how long your savings will last.

Not only can a Roth IRA save you money on income taxes during retirement, but it can also reduce the amount you pay in Social Security taxes.

Approximately half of seniors pay taxes on their benefits in retirement, according to a report from the Senior Citizens League. How much you pay in taxes, however, will depend on your "provisional income." This is half your annual benefit amount plus your adjusted gross income.

If your provisional income is higher than $25,000 per year (or $32,000 per year for married couples filing jointly), you'll owe taxes on up to 85% of your benefit amount.

However, withdrawals from your Roth IRA do not count toward your provisional income. That means you can spend more in retirement without exceeding Social Security's income limit, which will reduce the amount you pay in taxes on your benefits.

With a 401(k), your investment options are limited. You typically only have access to a selection of mutual funds chosen by the plan administrator, some of which may charge higher-than-average fees. But because your 401(k) is controlled through your employer, your only options are to invest in the options available or forego contributing to a 401(k).

IRAs offer a wide variety of investments to choose from. Between stocks, bonds, ETFs, index funds, and mutual funds, you can select the type of investment that best fits your needs. Investing in a Roth IRA can be a smart move for those who want to take a more hands-on approach to investing, because you can create a more personalized portfolio than you could with a 401(k).

All this isn't to say that 401(k)s never have their place in your investment strategy. While Roth IRAs do boast several key benefits, the 401(k) does have its merits as well.

For one, many 401(k)s offer matching contributions from your employer. Matching contributions are basically free cash that you can collect just by saving in your 401(k), and they're a perk you won't find with an IRA. If you have access to employer matching contributions, it may be wise to invest enough in your 401(k) to earn the full match. Then you can invest the rest of your savings in a Roth IRA.

In addition, you're allowed to save more per year in a 401(k) than in a Roth IRA. For 2021, you can contribute up to $19,500 per year in a 401(k) and $6,000 per year in an IRA. For those over age 50, you can contribute $6,500 per year in your 401(k) and $1,000 per year in your IRA. If you're a super saver, you might choose to max out your Roth IRA first and then stash the rest of your savings in a 401(k).

While each retirement account has its advantages and disadvantages, the Roth IRA outshines the 401(k) in a few areas. By investing strategically and choosing the right account for you, it will be easier to build a healthy nest egg by retirement age.

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3 Reasons a Roth IRA Is Better Than a 401(k) - The Motley Fool

USS Sterett (DDG-104) steams through the night in the Gulf of Oman on Sept. 17, 2020. US Navy Photo

This post has been updated to include additional information from Adm. Gildays remarks.

After it took the better part of nine months to convince Mark Espers Pentagon that the naval force needed greater investment to be ready to deter or defeat China and Russia even if that investment came at the expense of the Army or the Air Force the Navy and Marine Corps will have to start anew with the incoming Biden administration, the chief of naval operations said today.

The two sea services in January wrapped up an extensive effort to plan out a future force design that would allow them to distribute small but lethal units across wide swaths of ocean, sensing and fighting their way through whatever obstacles an adversary could pose. But then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper was not convinced and said in no uncertain terms that if the Navy wanted to grow the fleet theyd have to find the money internally.

Even as of mid-summer, Esper still wasnt convinced to increase Navy and Marine Corps topline, USNI News understands.

By late September, he changed his mind.

Given the serious reform efforts put forward by the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations and their commitment to continue them I agreed to provide additional funding from across the DoD enterprise, funding that was harvested from ongoing reform efforts such as Combatant Command reviews, Fourth Estate reforms, and other initiatives, Esper said in early October when announcing the results of his Future Naval Force Study. Together, these additional funding streams will increase the shipbuilding account to 13 percent within the Navys topline, matching the average percentage spent for new ships during President Reagans buildup in the 1980s.

However, Esper was fired just weeks after he started promising Cold War-era levels of investment in Navy shipbuilding.

I think that we made a lot of progress in the last year with Secretary Esper and his staff in terms of coming to a place where there was a realization that weve under-invested in naval forces for too long and we needed to, not double down, but increase the investment in naval forces, perhaps at the expense of other areas. That we were making the argument that we believe we need overmatch in the maritime, based on the adversaries that were facing, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said today while speaking at the U.S. Naval Institutes annual Defense Forum Washington event. We think that our analysis withstood the rigors through the [Future Naval Force Study], in a CAPE-led analytical effort, and delivered an FNFS and discussions about a topline in [Fiscal Year 2022] that would support an increase in those investments.

With a change in administration coming before that FY 2022 budget is released, I think internally certainly well have challenges again with the new administration in terms of explaining the rationale for making the investments in the naval force and heading down in the direction the commandant and I want to go in, he said.

Espers vision for the future fleet included all the same elements the Navy and Marine Corps had touted in their own Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment that Esper rejected in February though the two plans differ in how aggressively they seek to overhaul the fleet from larger and more powerful platforms to smaller manned and unmanned ones that can distribute their offensive weapons and challenge an adversarys targeting. Its unclear if the future Biden administration would support high enough funding levels to make the changes as quickly as Esper had suggested he wanted to in his last weeks on the job.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper tours the avenger class minesweeper USS Devastator, docked at Naval Support Activity Bahrain on Oct. 28, 2020. DoD Photo

Gilday said that, as the sea services modernize the fleet and grow in size, he would not do so at the expense of readiness.

We cant afford a navy much bigger than about 306 to 310 ships, based on the composition of the fleet that we have today. And so it is going to require more Navy topline. We have found money inside the Navy budget, but not enough to sustain that effort to give you the numbers that you really need to fight in a [Distributed Maritime Operations]/[Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment] fight, he said during the event.

Gilday said the new fleet needs more submarines, fewer big surface combatants, more small combatants, more unmanned, more logistics ships, and a new composition for the amphibious fleet. He also needs to invest in future offensive technologies like hypersonic weapons and defensive technologies like lasers powerful enough to serve in a missile defense role.

Some of these efforts may take longer to fully realize, due to the long service lives of ships and the time it will take for larger combatants to age out and be replaced by smaller or unmanned ships.

Still, Gilday said there were some actions he wanted to get after on a quicker timeline: specifically, this decade he wants to deliver the Constellation-class frigate, design and begin building the DDG Next that will follow the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, develop a network to tie manned and unmanned platforms together, and significantly scale up the unmanned presence in the fleet. For DDG Next, he said he hoped to see the design start in 2026 so that construction could begin in 2028, on the heels of the Arleigh Burke production line ending.

Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite has promised billions of dollars in savings a year to help pay for some of these investments, with Esper promising something of a dollar-matching effort to help get the Navy where it needed to be. Braithwaite has on several occasions declined to say what cuts hes eyeing or give a total dollar amount that can be reinvested in the future fleet.

Gilday said today he wanted to divest some legacy gear, such as the original four Littoral Combat Ships that the Navy uses just for mission package testing and would not deploy overseas. The CNO said he doesnt want to put any more money into those ships when it could be used to buy more lethality for the fleet.

Additionally, Gilday said a second challenge the Navy faces today is convincing lawmakers to let the sea services move out quickly on new programs such as a light amphibious warship, small logistics ships, unmanned systems and more.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower and projection forces, visit the General Dynamics Electric Boat Quonset Point Facility in Rhode Island on Dec. 12, 2019. US Navy Photo

I think we have challenges up on the Hill, particularly the Navy, with respect to unmanned. And with DDG Next, he said, referring to the next large combatant that will follow the Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers. So we are fighting the ghosts of our past, whether its LCS, Zumwalt, the challenges weve had with Ford we need to explain how were not going to repeat the mistakes weve had in the past. And we cant just say it, we have to show them what we are doing systematically to build a little bit, test a little bit, and then move to scaling but when our confidence is high enough to do so.

In a later panel, Naval Sea Systems Command chief Vice Adm. Bill Galinis detailed what his command is doing to help build that confidence in future systems.

On unmanned systems, he said the technology already exists and doesnt need to be improved, they just need to do a lot of testing to prove out its reliability. He cited a recent trip by a large unmanned surface vessel from the Gulf Coast to California via the Panama Canal with little to no manned intervention there. He said NAVSEA and the Defense Department were pushing hard to prove and to improve the reliability and maturity of USVs and the components within them.

On more complex systems like the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, Galinis said NAVSEA is investing in significant land-based testing. In Philadelphia the Navy has built a propulsion plant and drive train to wring out the technology as individual components and as an integrated system. Similarly, on the Flight III destroyers, the Navy has now connected its first radar array to the new electrical system to ensure they can work together as a system.

Galinis added that, for the Navys newest ship program the Constellation-class frigate NAVSEA is still working through what kind of land-based testing and other prototyping efforts will be needed to drive down risk and raise confidence in the program.

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CNO: Navy Will Have to Convince Biden Administration to Invest in Larger, Lethal Fleet - USNI News

The interior of Jacobs' headquarters in Dallas.

Dallas-based engineering giant Jacobs is buying a majority stake in an innovation consulting firm that places a $2.4 billion enterprise value on the company.

Jacobs $995 million equity investment in PA Consulting amounts to a 65% stake. The remaining 35% will be held by PA employees, following the exit of existing majority stakeholder Carlyle Group.

Jacobs also will assume $845 million of PAs debt and provide up to a $130 million credit line to fund growth.

Over the last several years we have transformed Jacobs to a leading technology-enabled solutions provider, said Jacobs chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou in a statement. This strategic partnership is an intentional move in accelerating our strategy.

PA has seen its revenue grow from $459 million in 2016 to an estimated $715 million this year. The companys 3,200 employees work in the United Kingdom, U.S., Europe and the Nordics. It has operated an innovation center in Cambridge, England, for 50 years.

Founded in 1943, PAs recent work includes the Virgin Hyperloop, advances in gene therapy manufacturing with Ori Biotech, an inhaler used in tuberculosis research and a failure-predicting tool for public utilities.

Jacobs said it expects to ramp up PAs growth, particularly in the U.S., by targeting high growth sectors like health and life sciences, public services, consumer and manufacturing, and defense and security.

'We see Jacobs as the ideal partner for PA, leveraging their client relationship networks and global platform to position us for the next phase of growth, said PA Consulting CEO Ken Toombs in a statement.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of Jacobs fiscal 2021 second quarter.

Jacobs is one of the largest public companies in Dallas-Fort Worth, with $13.6 billion in fiscal 2020 revenue and 55,000 employees globally.

Last week, both Jacobs and PA Consulting made smaller acquisitions.

Jacobs acquired Reston, Va.-based cyber and intelligence company The Buffalo Group. PA Consulting bought a Boston-area engineering company, Cooper Perkins, that specializes in electromechanical device design.

Terms of those deals werent disclosed.

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Dallas-based Jacobs investment puts $2.4 billion value on innovation firm - The Dallas Morning News

A Porsche 911 Speedster is presented at the Paris Motor Show on October 4, 2018 in Paris.

Christophe Archambault | AFP | Getty Images

German automaker Porsche is investing about $24 million in the development of "e-fuels," which officials say is a climate-neutral fuel to replace gasoline in nonelectric vehicles.

Production of such a fuel would allow the company and potentially other automakers a way to continue producing vehicles such as Porsche's iconic 911 sports car with a traditional engine alongside, or rather than, a new electric model. While electric vehicles can offer outstanding performance, the driving dynamics of the vehicles are different than traditional engines.

"We would like and love cars like the 911 with high-rev combustion engines or turbocharged engines still as cars you could drive in the future without having the burden of a CO2 footprint, an unnecessary CO2 footprint," Michael Steiner, Porsche's director of research and development, said Wednesday during a virtual media event.

Officials said e-fuels can act like gasoline, allowing owners of current and classic vehicles a more environmentally friendly way to drive. It also could use the same fueling infrastructure as current fuels rather than billions in investments for new infrastructure for electric vehicles.

The announcement does not change Porsche's target to have half of Porsche models sold by 2025 to be electrified, including all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Porsche, owned by Volkswagen, announced the investment in partnership with Siemens' renewable energy unit and other international companies such as energy firm AME and the petroleum company ENAP from Chile. It includes developing and implementing a plant in Chile that is expected to yield the "world's first integrated, commercial, industrial-scale plant" for making synthetic climate-neutral fuels, also known as e-fuels.

The pilot project is expected to begin e-fuel production at the plant as early as 2022. Porsche is expected to be the primary customer for the green fuel, starting with use in vehicles for motorsports and its driving experience centers.

The plant and process will be powered by renewable wind energy, a reason why Chile was chosen for the plant along with "excellent climate conditions."

E-fuels are produced by a complex process using water, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The CO2 is filtered from the air and combined with hydrogen from the water to produce synthetic methanol, according to officials. The result is "renewable methanol," which the companies say can be converted into gasoline using an MTG (Methanol to Gasoline) technology to be licensed and supported by Exxon Mobil.

The only emissions from the vehicles would be carbon produced that was initially pulled from the air to make the synthetic fuel. The vehicles would still need to use oil to lubricate the engine.

Continued here:
Porsche investing $24 million in 'e-fuels' to supplement electrification of sports cars - CNBC

Dec 2, 2020 at 8:26 p.m. UTCUpdated Dec 3, 2020 at 1:30 p.m. UTC

Ethereum art(CoinDesk archives)

Those new to crypto, such as the institutional investors recently buying into bitcoins digital gold narrative, might now be looking around for the next big thing.

With the long-anticipated arrival of phase 0 of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade launching on Dec. 1, that could be the networks native token, ether (ETH). But analysts say ether should be judged on its own merits and not as a bitcoin replacement.

Ive always thought this digital asset space is huge and its not just bitcoin because there are going to be different applications for different things, Raoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of financial media group Real Vision, said in Real Visions documentary Ethereum An Investigation, which was released on Nov. 30. I think of the two [bitcoin and ether] as having a very nice combined asset allocation.

For Pal, an early bitcoin investor, the rationale seems even more plausible these days: As bitcoins price hits a new all-time high, the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization is now more expensive and thus potentially a riskier bet for new investors.

It can be expected investors are looking for a new opportunity in crypto at affordable prices. Given that ether is trading roughly 59% below its all-time high of $1,432.88, it is tempting to believe theres a bargain to be had. Whats more, the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade to increase the networks scalability, security and energy efficiency has generated a lot of hype.

However, at least for now, analysts and traders who spoke with CoinDesk dont think ether will replace the FOMO over bitcoin.

For institutional investors, they are buying BTC for the digital gold narrative, Ryan Watkins, senior research analyst at Messari, told CoinDesk. ETH just isnt in that conversation yet.

Ether benefits from spillover and likely has more conversation around it from crypto-natives, Vishal Shah, founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, told CoinDesk. For the uninitiated, [it is] hard to see how bitcoin is not the sole on-ramp.

Some analysts say that as more institutions pour money into bitcoin and push up its price, ether and other cryptocurrencies will gradually decouple from bitcoin.

Indeed, while bitcoin this week logged a record high price, ether isnt even close to its all-time high of $1,448.18. Data from CoinDesk shows the 90-day correlation coefficient between the prices of the top two cryptocurrencies, while still strong, has gradually weakened a bit since the summer from as high as 0.93 to nearly 0.7 at the beginning of December.

The thing about correlation is it can disappear at any time, Ashwath Balakrishnan, research analyst at digital asset research firm Delphi Digital, told CoinDesk. In that case, you want to understandthe core fundamentals of what you hold because if you hold ether as a proxy [to your] bitcoin exposure, and [when] prices decouple, you are now exposed to something very different.

Bitcoin has been used by many investors this year as a hedge against a drop in the purchasing power of U.S. dollars. Ether is considered the currency of the world computer, which aims to build an ecosystem of decentralized applications.

The close historical correlation between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be due to how tiny the digital-asset ecosystem is relative to the global economy. The total market capitalization of crypto assets is estimated at $562 billion, a mere 1.7% of the S&P 500 stock indexs combined market cap of $32.2 trillion. With almost every crypto asset built on different fundamentals, non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies may be trending with bitcoin prices simply because the nascent market is still so small and insular.

Correlation data doesnt tell the whole story. Prices may move in tandem but the degree to which that happens is another matter. When the explosive decentralized finance (DeFi) boom hit the market during the summer, ethers price rallied to its highest in more than two years because most DeFi projects are built on the Ethereum blockchain. At the time, bitcoin was struggling to break a similar two-year record.

The market will have to wait and see what kind of real impact the ongoing Ethereum upgrade could have on its native currency because the final phase of the process is scheduled to be completed in 2023. But a major fundamental upgrade on the network underpinning ether could lead its price to move on its own fundamentals, instead of merely following bitcoins price.

The heart of ETH 2.0, which makes the entire system possible, is ether, according to a report by Messari. ETH will not only be Ethereums native store of value asset and fuel for transactions, but will also be Ethereums ultimate source of security from its role in the [proof-of-stake] system.

Thus, while bitcoin can be seen as somewhere between a store of value and a commodity on the asset superclass triangle, ether could ultimately become the first asset to be a combination of all three classes of assets: capital assets, commodities and stores of value.

When ethers price starts to be driven by its own catalysts, holding it as a proxy to having BTC exposure will not work as expected, Balakrishnan added.

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Why Ethereum and Bitcoin Are Very Different Investments - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

A California developer is trying to raise $1 billion to invest in Black and Latino communities. If successful, it would be one of the largest commercial real-estate funds ever to focus on minority neighborhoods.

Martin Muoto, chief executive of the real-estate firm SoLa Impact LLC, already runs three funds totaling $180 million. They focus on affordable housing and some commercial real estate in minority neighborhoods around South Los Angeles. The funds, which raised money from individual partners in large investors like the private-equity firm General Atlantic, have recorded double-digit average annual returns since the first fund launched in 2014.

Now, Mr. Muoto is trying to use a similar approach in cities across the U.S. that suffer from a shortage of affordable housing and from what he said are regulatory barriers that make it tougher to build. His new Black Impact Fund is focusing on large metropolises like Philadelphia and Atlanta, as well as midsize cities like Fresno, Calif.

SoLa has been investing in opportunity zones, a program created by the 2017 federal tax overhaul that allows investors to defer and reduce taxes if they reinvest capital gains in designated low-income communities.

Critics of the program say it sometimes misses the mark, like when states earmark neighborhoods where development is already taking place. That could give investors a significant tax break without creating many new jobs or more affordable housing in poorer neighborhoods.

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Developer Aims to Raise $1 Billion for Investing in Minority Communities - The Wall Street Journal

A video being shared on social media makes the false claims that deaths linked to COVID-19 have stopped, the vaccine will be untested and that it will modify your DNA.

Reuters Fact Check. REUTERS

Shared 1,900 times on Facebook, the live video (here) shows a man speaking outside the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham, UK.

The man makes multiple claims in the nearly one hour-long video, a selection of which will be covered in this fact check.

CLAIM 1 COVID-19 DEATHS CEASED IN JUNE

Speaking into a microphone, the man questions the mad urgency to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 because deaths from the disease allegedly ceased back in June (timecode 0:55).

However, this is not true. On June 1, the UK had recorded 38,263 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test (here). By Nov. 29 this had risen to 58,443.

CLAIM 2 THE VACCINE WILL BE RUSHED AND UNTESTED

Immediately after this, the man questions why pharmaceutical companies and governments are rushing out a vaccine that hasnt even been tested properly.

While there has been an unprecedented global effort to find a vaccine to mitigate devastating impact the pandemic has had on society, this does not mean the vaccine will not be properly tested.

In a previous Reuters fact check, the MHRA, which is an executive agency of the UK governments Department of Health and Social Care, confirmed that any vaccine that is distributed will go through the necessary safety checks (here).

Based on the available published reports from the clinical trials, we dont currently anticipate any specific safety concerns with COVID-19 vaccines. We expect the general safety profile to be similar to other types of vaccines., the agency told Reuters at the time.

A COVID-19 vaccine will only be deployed once it has been proven to be safe and effective through robust clinical trials and approved for use.

CLAIM 3 THE VACCINE WILL CHANGE YOUR DNA

The man goes on to claim that the COVID-19 vaccine will alter a persons DNA. Its transhumanism, youll no longer be regarded as a human being, he claims (time code 3:55).

As a previous Reuters fact check explains, the vaccine will not genetically modify human DNA (here).

False. Deaths from COVID-19 did not cease in June. Any vaccine that is approved for distribution will have gone through the necessary clinical trials. The COVID-19 vaccine does not have the ability to alter a persons DNA.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.

Originally posted here:
Fact check: UK deaths linked to COVID-19 did not stop in June - Reuters

Big computers conquered chess quite easily. But then there was the Chinese game of go (pictured), estimated to be 4000 years old, which offers more degrees of freedom (possible moves, strategy, and rules) than chess (210170). As futurist George Gilder tells us, in Gaming AI, it was a rite of passage for aspiring intellects in Asia: Go began as a rigorous rite of passage for Chinese gentlemen and diplomats, testing their intellectual skills and strategic prowess. Later, crossing the Sea of Japan, Go enthralled the Shogunate, which brought it into the Japanese Imperial Court and made it a national cult. (p. 9)

Then AlphaGo, from Googles DeepMind, appeared on the scene in 2016:

As the Chinese American titan Kai-Fu Lee explains in his bestseller AI Super-powers,8 the riveting encounter between man and machine across the Go board had a powerful effect on Asian youth. Though mostly unnoticed in the United States, AlphaGos 2016 defeat of Lee Sedol was avidly watched by 280 million Chinese, and Sedols loss was a shattering experience. The Chinese saw DeepMind as an alien system defeating an Asian man in the epitome of an Asian game.

Thirty-three-year-old Korean Lee Se-dol later announced his retirement from the game. Meanwhile, Gilder tells us, that defeat, plus a later one, sparked a huge surge in Chinese investment in AI in response: Less than two months after Ke Jies defeat, the Chinese government launched an ambitious plan to lead the world in artificial intelligence by 2030. Within a year, Chinese venture capitalists had already surpassed US venture capitalists in AI funding.

AI went on to conquer poker, Starcraft II, and virtual aerial dogfights.

The machines won because improvements in machine learning techniques such as reinforcement learning enable much more effective data crunching. In fact, soon after the defeats of human go champions, a more sophisticated machine was beating a less sophisticated machine at go. As Gilder tells it, in 2017, Googles DeepMind launched AlphaGo Zero. Using a generic adversarial program, AlphaGo Zero played itself billions of times and then went on to defeat AlphaGo 1000 (p. 11). This incident went largely unremarked because it was a mere conflict between machines.

But what has really happened with computers, humans, and games is not what we are sometimes urged to think, that machines are rapidly developing human-like capacities. In all of these games, one feature stands out: The map is the territory.

Think of a simple game like checkers. There are 64 squares and each of two players is given 12 pieces. Each player tries to eliminate the other players pieces from the board, following the rules. Essentially, in checkers, there is nothing beyond the pieces, the board, and the official rules. Like go, its a map and a territory all in one.

Games like chess, go, and poker are vastly more complex than checkers in their degrees of freedom. But they all resemble checkers in one important way: In all cases, the map is the territory. And that limits the resemblance to reality. As Gilder puts it, Go is deterministic and ergodic; any specific arrangement of stones will always produce the same results, according to the rules of the game. The stones are at once symbols and objects; they are always mutually congruent. (pp 5051)

In other words, the structure of a game rules out, by definition, the very types of events that occur constantly in the real world where, as many of us have found reason to complain, the map is not the territory.

Or, as Gilder goes on to say in Gaming AI,

Plausible on the Go board and other game arenas, these principles are absurd in real world situations. Symbols and objects are only roughly correlated. Diverging constantly are maps and territories, population statistics and crowds of people, climate data and the actual weather, the word and the thing, the idea and the act. Differences and errors add up as readily and relentlessly on gigahertz computers as lily pads on the famous exponential pond.

Generally, AI succeeds wherever the skill required to win is calculation and the territory is only a map. For example, take IBM Watsons win at Jeopardy in 2011. As Larry L. Linenschmidt of Hill Country Institute has pointed out, Watson had, it would seem, a built-in advantage then by having infinitemaybe not infinite but virtually infiniteinformation available to it to do those matches.

Indeed. But Watson was a flop later in clinical medicine. Thats probably because computers only calculate and not everything in the practice of medicine in a real-world setting is a matter of calculation.

Not every human intellectual effort involves calculation. Thats why increases in computing power cannot solve all our problems. Computers are not creative and they do not tolerate ambiguity well. Yet success in the real world consists largely in mastering these non-computable areas.

Science fiction has dreamed that ramped-up calculation will turn computers into machines that can think like humans. But even the steepest, most impressive calculations do not suddenly become creativity, for the same reasons as maps do not suddenly become the real-world territory. To think otherwise is to believe in magic.

Note: George Gilders book, Gaming AI, is free for download here.

You may also enjoy: Six limitations of artificial intelligence as we know it. Youd better hope it doesnt run your life, as Robert J. Marks explains to Larry Linenschmidt.

Continued here:

Are Computers That Win at Chess Smarter Than Geniuses? - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

In The Queens Gambit, the recent Netflix drama on a chess genius, the main character is incredibly focused and driven. You might even say machine-like. Perhaps, you could go so far as to say shes a little bit like an incredibly single-minded Artificial Intelligence (AI) program like AlphaGo.

Hoping not to give any spoilers here, but in the drama, Beth eventually succeeds not just because shes a chess prodigy, able to see the board many moves ahead. She succeeds because she teams up with fellow players who give her hints and tips on the psychology and habits of her main Big Boss opponent.

In other words, she employs tactics, strategy, reasoning and planning; she sees more than the board. She reads the room, one might say. Emotions play a huge part in all she does and is key to her eventual triumph in Moscow.

And this is why were potentially in a lot of trouble in AI. AlphaGo cant do any of what Beth and her friends do. Its a brilliant bit of software, but its an idiot savantall it knows is Go.

Right now, very few people care about that. Which is why I fear we may be headed not just into another AI Winter, but an almost endless AI Ice Age, perhaps decades of rejection of the approach, all the VC money taps being turned off, lack of Uni research fundingall the things we saw in the first AI Winter of 1974-80 and the second of 1987-93.

Only much, much worse.

Im also convinced the only way to save the amazing achievements weve seen with programs like AlphaGo is to make them more like Bethable to see much, much more than just the board in front of them.

Lets put all this in context. Right now, we are without doubt enjoying the best period AI has ever had. Years and years of hard backroom slog at the theoretical level has been accompanied by superb improvements in hardware performancea combination that raised our game really without us asking. Hence todays undoubted AI success story: Machine Learning. Everyone is betting on this approach and its roots in Deep Learning and Big Data, which is fine; genuine progress and real applications are being delivered at the moment.

But theres a hard stop coming. One of the inherent issues for Deep Learning is you need bigger and bigger neural network and parameters to achieve more than you did last time, and so you soon end up with incredible numbers of parameters: the full version of GPT-3 has 175 billion. But to train those size of networks takes immense computational powerand even though Moores Law continues to be our friend, even that has limits. And were set to reach them a lot sooner than many would like to think.

Despite its reputation for handwaving and love of unobtanium, the AI field is full of realists. Most have painful memories of what happened the last time AIs promise met intractable reality, a cycle which gives rise to the concept of the AI Winter. In the UK, in 1973 a scathing analysisthe infamous Lighthill Reportconcluded that AI just wasnt worth putting any more money into. Similarly fed up, once amazingly generous Defence paymasters in the US ended the first heuristic-search based boom, and the field went into steep decline until the expert systems/knowledge engineering explosion of the 1980s, which also, eventually, also went cold when to many over-egged promises met the real world.

To be clear, both periods provided incredible advances, including systems that saved money for people and improved industries. AI never goes away, either; anyone working in IT knows that theres always advanced programming and smart systems somewhere helping outwe dont even call them AI anymore, they just work without issue. So on one hand, AI wont stop, even if it goes out of fashion once again; getting computers and robots to help us is just too useful an endeavour to stop.

But what will happen is an AI Winter that will follow todays boom. Sometime soon, data science will stop being fashionable; ML models will stop being trusted; entrepreneurs offering the City a Deep Learning solution to financial problem X wont have their emails returned.

And what might well happen beyond that is even worse not just a short period of withdrawal of interest, but a deep, deep freeze10, 20, 30 years long. I dont want to see that happen, and thats just not because I love AI or want my very own HAL 9000 (though, course I doso do you). I dont want to see it happen because I know that Artificial Intelligence is real, and while there may be genuinely fascinating philosophical arguments for and against it, eventually we will create something that can do things as well as humans can.

But note that I said things. AlphaGo is better than all of us (certainly me) at playing games. Google Translate is better than me at translating multiple languages, and so on. What we need are smart systems that are better at more than one thing can start being intelligent, even at very low levels, outside a very narrow domain. Step forward AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, which are suites of programs that apply intelligence to a wide variety of problems, in much the same ways humans can.

We're only seeing the most progress in learning because that's where all the investment is going

For example: weve only been focused on learning the last 15 years. But AI done properly needs to cover a range of intelligence capabilities, of which being able to learn and spot patterns is just one; there's reasoning, there's understanding, there's a lot of other types of intelligence capabilities that should be part of an overall Artificial Intelligence practice or capability.

We know why that iswere focused on learning because we got good traction with that and made solid progress. But there's all the other AI capabilities that we should be also looking at and investigating, and were just not. Its a Catch-22: all the smart money is going into Machine Learning because that's where we're seeing the most progress, but we're only seeing the most progress in learning because that's where all the investment is going!

To sum up, then: we may not be able to stave off a Machine Learning AI Winter; perhaps its an inevitable cycle. But to stave off an even worse and very, very destructive AI Ice Age, I think we need to widen the focus here, get AGI back on its feet, and help our Beths get better at a lot more than just chess or were just going to see them turned off, one by one.

Andy Pardoe, founder and managing director, Pardoe Ventures

See the original post here:

An AI winter may be inevitable. What we should fear more: an AI ice age - ITProPortal

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Klamath County Libraries continue to offer a variety of online activities throughout December intended for children, families and teens, according to a news release.

n Winter Performance Series: Saturdays at 3 p.m. from Dec. 5-19. Join library staff for three live video performances of music, magic, and more. Head to http://www.klamathlibrary.org/winterseries for more information and to sign up for the video link. For all ages.

n Oregons Amazing Animals! Dec. 14-31. Learn all about the creatures of Oregon from giant sloths of the distant past to the critters you can find in your own back yard with the Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Take home a fun, hands-on activity kit, and explore adaptations that help animals survive and thrive in Oregons diverse habitats!

Kits are available while supplies last at Bonanza, Keno, Merrill, Malin, Chiloquin, South and the downtown Klamath County Library beginning Monday, Dec. 14. The video component will be available on klamathlibrary.org from Dec. 14-31. For ages 4-12.

n Camp Write Stuff: Weekdays after school. Join fellow authors each morning to bounce ideas or just leverage a little friendly peer pressure to make yourself work on that fiction youve been putting off. Email Sarah at smiller@klamathlibrary.org for the link to join! For ages 12-18.

n Baby Bouncers Storytime Online: Tuesdays at 11 a.m. Join us each week for stories, games, and catchy songs! Register once at klamathlibrary.org/babybouncers or by emailing Katie at khart@klamathlibrary.org, and join in as much as you like! This story time is aimed at newborns through 18 months, but all are welcome.

n Teen Dungeons & Dragons: Tuesdays. We have everything you need to play just bring a healthy dose of imagination! We have three playgroups, which meet at different times on Tuesdays. Email Sarah at smiller@klamathlibrary.org to get your character started! For ages 12-18.

n Teen Gaming Hour: Thursdays at 4 p.m. Were finding the imposter, trading fruit and more every Thursday at 4 p.m. Join us each week for co-op gaming fun. Email Vesta at vkerns@klamathlibrary.org for the link to participate. For ages 12-18.

n Preschool Power Storytime Online: Fridays at 11 a.m. Come for stories, songs and more, live on Zoom. Register at klamathlibrary.org/preschoolpower or by emailing Vesta at vkerns@klamathlibrary.org, and join as many sessions as you like! Suggested for children 3-5. (Please note there is no Preschool Power on Friday, Dec. 25 due to the Christmas holiday.)

n Lemon Brick Road Studios Comics Club: Saturday, Dec. 12 from 12-3 p.m. Our ongoing comics club for artists and writers from sixth grade through high school senior hangs out online on the second Saturday of every month. Email Sarah at smiller@klamathlibrary.org or club advisor Professor Franny at franny.howes@gmail.com to get the link to join in.

n Teen Discord! Did you know the Klamath County Library has a Discord server for teens to hang out? Its true! The conversations happening there inspire quite a bit of our online events. Email Sarah at smiller@klamathlibrary.org for more info.

For more information call 541-882-8894, visit the Youth Services desk, or see the calendar at http://www.klamathlibrary.org/library-events-calendar.

Originally posted here:
Library hosts online family activities in December | Limelighter - Herald and News