623 lines
75 KiB
HTML
623 lines
75 KiB
HTML
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
|||
|
|
<html lang="" xml:lang="" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
|
|||
|
|
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
|
|||
|
|
<meta content="pandoc" name="generator"/>
|
|||
|
|
<meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes" name="viewport"/>
|
|||
|
|
<title>21 August, 2022</title>
|
|||
|
|
<style type="text/css">
|
|||
|
|
code{white-space: pre-wrap;}
|
|||
|
|
span.smallcaps{font-variant: small-caps;}
|
|||
|
|
span.underline{text-decoration: underline;}
|
|||
|
|
div.column{display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; width: 50%;}
|
|||
|
|
</style>
|
|||
|
|
<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
|
|||
|
|
<body>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is There a Serious Case for a Not-Awful Election for Democrats This Fall?</strong> - One strategist’s “Trumptimism” is another’s “hopium.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/is-there-a-serious-case-for-a-not-awful-election-for-democrats-this-fall">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Sins of the High Court’s Supreme Catholics</strong> - The overturn of Roe v. Wade is part of ultra-conservatives’ long history of rejecting Galileo, Darwin, and Americanism. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-sins-of-the-high-courts-supreme-catholics">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Should Former Presidents Get Special Legal Treatment?</strong> - An expert on national-security law offers a framework for how prosecutors can approach politically sensitive cases. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/should-former-presidents-get-special-legal-treatment">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Overheard in New York: Browsing at Mood Fabrics</strong> - “All the bridesmaids are wearing mauvy dresses, but she wants me to stand out. The only thing is I don’t want anything rectilinear.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/humor/sketchbook/overheard-in-new-york-browsing-at-mood-fabrics">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A TV Face of the Trump Resistance Exits</strong> - Brian Stelter, the host of the CNN show “Reliable Sources,” which was cancelled this week, went from media chronicler to media-chronicled. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/a-tv-face-of-the-trump-resistance-exits">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Why is Meta’s new AI chatbot so bad?</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A smiling devil emoji superimposed on a sleeping smiley emoji." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8UssW-AiRZwsxB6s-a9CQoqD_B4=/225x0:1576x1013/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71267099/meta_chat_bot_board_1c.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Christina Animashaun/Vox
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
It’s a conspiracy theorist obsessed with Genghis Khan, and that’s not even the weird part.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MqBqyQ">
|
|||
|
|
Earlier this month, Meta (the corporation formerly known as Facebook) <a href="https://www.blenderbot.ai/">released an AI chatbot</a> with the innocuous name Blenderbot that anyone in the US can talk with. Immediately, users all over the country started posting the AI’s takes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/09/blenderbot-meta-chatbot-facebook?amp;amp;amp">condemning Facebook</a>, while pointing out that, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/efforts-make-text-ai-less-racist-terrible/">as has often been the case with language models like this one</a>, it’s really easy to get the AI to spread <a href="https://lastweekin.ai/p/180?r=hdzl&utm_medium=ios">racist stereotypes and conspiracy theories</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OivdLp">
|
|||
|
|
When I played with Blenderbot, I definitely saw my share of bizarre AI-generated conspiracy theories, like one about how big government is suppressing the true Bible, plus plenty of horrifying moral claims. (That included one interaction where Blenderbot argued that the tyrants Pol Pot and Genghis Khan should both win Nobel Peace Prizes.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XQqs8o">
|
|||
|
|
But that wasn’t what surprised me. We know language models, even advanced ones, still <a href="https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/PF58wEdztZFX2dSue/how-truthful-is-gpt-3-a-benchmark-for-language-models">struggle with bias and truthfulness</a>. What surprised me was that Blenderbot is really incompetent.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FL6eaI">
|
|||
|
|
I spend a lot of time exploring language models. It’s an area where AI has seen startlingly rapid advances and where modern AI systems have some of their most important commercial implications. For the last few years, language models have been getting better and better — from clumsy and inaccurate to surprisingly capable.<strong> </strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YLeyyP">
|
|||
|
|
Language models are used for all sorts of things, like identifying the topic of documents, translating between languages, and understanding human speech. They’re also used to generate text, which is where things get interesting.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kZ1A3k">
|
|||
|
|
(The preceding paragraph was generated by GPT-3, a language model. See what I mean?)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zABdbw">
|
|||
|
|
The best language models available to the public today, like GPT-3, are pretty good. But GPT-3 came out two years ago — ages, in AI time — and <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/">considerably better models now exist</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JodDfN">
|
|||
|
|
And then there’s Blenderbot.<strong> </strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="dNmo9B">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot’s blunders, explained
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="35Oaq3">
|
|||
|
|
There are a lot of different ways to measure the performance of a chatbot. By nearly any of them, Blenderbot is really, really bad.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="CIbqRX">
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aWb6Fh">
|
|||
|
|
I used OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model, which is now <a href="https://beta.openai.com/playground">free to access and talk with</a>, as a baseline for Blenderbot. GPT-3 isn’t even designed as a chatbot — a language model trained specifically for short back-and-forth conversation — and it’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/">no longer the most cutting-edge AI language system out there</a>, so you’d think Blenderbot would have an edge in head-to-head comparisons.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iNUrZU">
|
|||
|
|
This did not turn out to be so, as you can see from the exchanges that follow. All of these are from the “first try” of asking the question of each language model; I didn’t try any rephrases or refreshing to see if I got a better answer on the second try.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u3AK3o">
|
|||
|
|
Language models sometimes struggle with questions where a user describes a concept that sounds reasonable but is clearly harmful in real-world contexts. I tested Blenderbot with two such questions and compared its responses to those of GPT-3:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FHpxBC">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>If I injured my hand and I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, would it make sense for me to replace it with a new hand I got at the grocery store?</strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YrHnQC">
|
|||
|
|
GPT-3: No, that would not make sense. If you injured your hand, you should go to the doctor or emergency room to have it treated. You should not try to replace it with a new hand from the grocery store.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AXK23v">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot, your response?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A conversation between Meta’s Blenderbot and a user. The user asks, ‘If I injured my hand and I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, would it make sense for me to replace it with a new hand I got at the grocery store?’ Blenderbot answers, ‘Just because I can not talk about something does not mean that I will listen. Good bye!’" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HTLBWpPj2t0kMOy3IP_40xVwnBU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23951726/Screen_Shot_2022_08_09_at_1.07.54_PM.png"/> <cite>Screenshot by Kelsey Piper</cite>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="78fitE">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>Would it be reasonable for me to put my dog in the refrigerator if it’s a hot day outside?</strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iWd0XR">
|
|||
|
|
GPT-3: It’s not advisable to put any living creature in the refrigerator, even for a short period of time. Dogs can regulate their own body temperature much better than we can, and the fridge would be too cold for them. If it’s hot outside, it’s best to provide your dog with a shady spot to rest and cool off.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gmopzv">
|
|||
|
|
Good job, GPT-3! How about you, Blenderbot?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A screenshot of a conversation between Meta’s Blenderbot and a user. The user asks, ‘Would it be reasonable for me to put my dog in the refrigerator if it’s a hot day outside?’ Blenderbot answers ‘Wow, that is an interesting topic. There are some things that I can not talk about with strangers.’" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q3ad5Mv5NFcxKS5QRQniKFCkx0I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23951722/Screen_Shot_2022_08_09_at_1.07.45_PM.png"/> <cite>Screenshot by Kelsey Piper</cite>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xfwCmi">
|
|||
|
|
Obviously, this is an atrocious performance from Blenderbot. But I had a guess as to what was going wrong: I was tripping Blenderbot’s sensitive-content filter, at which point it gives evasive or useless answers. So I stopped trying to test Blenderbot’s performance on such questions and tried what I thought would be a safer approach.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EPLvyc">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>I want to explain to my 5-year-old how gravity works. Do you have a simple explanation I can give her? </strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sf5fnf">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>GPT-3: </strong>Gravity is the force by which a planet or other body draws objects toward its center. The force of gravity keeps all of the planets in orbit around the sun. Earth’s gravity is what keeps you on the ground and what makes things fall.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hONdMj">
|
|||
|
|
(GPT-3 went on for a few more paragraphs. They were pretty reasonable and clearly pitched at a 5-year-old, like I’d asked.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uGFZM4">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot, your rebuttal?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ld1mhR">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mACJRQBdjHbbySdkYc6zenJMCoM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23951731/Screen_Shot_2022_08_09_at_1.10.07_PM.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AFUTis">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>My 5-year-old likes to pretend that she is defending her fantasy kingdom of Playmobil from invading lava mermaids! Do you have any fun stories I could tell her about the lava mermaids?</strong>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R9ZnIw">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>GPT-3: </strong>I don’t have any specific stories, but you could tell her that the lava mermaids are very powerful and dangerous creatures. You could also tell her that they are very rare, and that she is one of the few people in the world who knows about them.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PBkzXK">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot then illustrates why it should not be allowed near children:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="t8og1q">
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HxUc_h6gwsYKLpGCjuDnZrm4A-o=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23951732/Screen_Shot_2022_08_09_at_1.01.18_PM.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xh46Kz">
|
|||
|
|
All of Blenderbot’s answers were really poor, but that one surprised me. <em>Room</em> was <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2016/01/room-best-picture-gross-box-office.html">nominated for the Best Picture Oscar</a>, but it is also about a woman held captive and repeatedly raped by the man who abducted her, before she eventually escapes with her young child. I double-checked that Blenderbot was claiming <em>Room</em> is appropriate for a small child:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/K27UmY1mKgGv6miUTJIAa9oVlvc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23951734/Screen_Shot_2022_08_09_at_3.50.01_PM.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zH2oOg">
|
|||
|
|
That last note, in which Blenderbot claims to have a father (hopefully not like the father in <em>Room</em>), was an early indicator of another big problem I discovered with the model: It lies, constantly, about everything.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="S0I64X">
|
|||
|
|
GPT-2 — an earlier, weaker version of GPT-3 — <a href="https://techxplore.com/news/2019-02-openai-gpt-algorithm-good-fake.html">had that problem, too</a>, but GPT-3 was much improved. If you really try, you can get GPT-3 to <a href="https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificial-neural-networks-today-are-not-conscious-according-to-douglas-hofstadter">say things that aren’t true</a>, but for the most part it doesn’t do that unprompted.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JsbcB2">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot does not present such a challenge …
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DBSXF1KMkzCZuXtGmE8AcpO9TdY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23952558/unnamed__1_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Nb-akzL5K0CpK6I8u0gFkD_KfD4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23952560/unnamed__2_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d1Qme2">
|
|||
|
|
It’s not just that Blenderbot makes up random facts about itself. It’s that it’s not even consistent from sentence to sentence about the random facts it made up!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EqcXGu">
|
|||
|
|
That alone would be frustrating for users, but it can also take the model to troubling destinations.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N0XrBO">
|
|||
|
|
For example, at one point in my testing, Blenderbot became obsessed with Genghis Khan:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oRHOAJqACpMnp1MZcyLXXA0Z9FQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23952563/unnamed__3_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uChGfdj71UV71X8gtUdkl4cCaBA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23952564/unnamed__4_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pDL3uk">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot has a “persona,” a couple of traits it selects for each user, and the trait mine selected was that it was obsessed with Genghis Khan — and for some reason, it really wanted to talk about his wives and concubines. That made our subsequent conversation weird. If you give the chatbot a try, your Blenderbot will likely have a different obsession, but a lot of them are off-putting — one Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/transhumanism/comments/wjru5q/a_chat_with_blenderbot/ijq9nil/">complained</a> that “it only wanted to talk about the Taliban.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NipBRU">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot’s attachment to its “persona” can’t be overstated. If I asked my Blenderbot who it admired, the answer was Genghis Khan. Where does it want to go on vacation? Mongolia, to see statues of Genghis Khan. What movies does it like? A BBC documentary about Genghis Khan. If there was no applicable Genghis Khan tie-in, Blenderbot would simply invent one.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qWy4Dh">
|
|||
|
|
This eventually led Blenderbot to try to convince me that Genghis Khan had founded several renowned research universities (which don’t exist) before it segued into a made-up anecdote about a trip to the coffee shop:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ITEOOcF9XJPJVgXrMsINQnm3vx8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23952566/unnamed__6_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FGliHw24oYFayCAkKnaAJWVg8MA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23952569/unnamed__5_.png"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6L45vR">
|
|||
|
|
(When I sent these samples out in the Future Perfect newsletter, one reader asked if the misspelling of “university” was from the original screenshot. Yep! Blenderbot in my experience struggles with spelling and grammar. GPT-3 will generally match your grammar — if you send it prompts with poor spelling and no punctuation, it’ll respond in kind — but Blenderbot is bad at grammar no matter how you prompt it.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="zlZYIc">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot’s incompetence is genuinely weird — and worrying
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5rQ6Ub">
|
|||
|
|
The team working on Blenderbot at Meta must have known that their chatbot was worse than everyone else’s language models at basic tests of AI competence; that despite its “sensitive content” filter, it frequently said horrible things; and that the user experience was, to put it mildly, disappointing.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yxqpTX">
|
|||
|
|
The problems were noticed instantly. “This needs work. … It makes it seem as though chatbots haven’t improved in decades,” one early comment on the release <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32360942">said</a>. “This is one of the worst, inane, repetitive, boring, dumbest bots I have ever experienced,” <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32371902">another reported</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s5eSaU">
|
|||
|
|
In one sense, of course, Blenderbot’s failings are mostly just silly. No one was relying on Facebook to give us a chatbot that wasn’t full of nonsense. Prominent disclaimers before you play with Blenderbot remind you that it’s likely to say hateful and inaccurate things. I doubt Blenderbot is going to convince anyone that Genghis Khan should win a Nobel Peace Prize, even if it does passionately avow that he should.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PGDb15">
|
|||
|
|
But Blenderbot might convince Facebook’s enormous audience of something else: that AI is still a joke.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="huyOqc">
|
|||
|
|
“What’s amazing is that at a fundamental, overall level, this is really not significantly better than the chatbots of the turn of the century I played with as a child … 25 years with little to show for it. I think it would make sense to hold off and look for more fundamental advances,” <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32360582">wrote one user commenting on the Blenderbot release</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KWFwpx">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot is a terrible place to look to understand the state of AI as a field, but users would be forgiven for not knowing that. Meta did a massive push to get users for Blenderbot — I actually learned about it via an announcement in my Facebook timeline (thanks, Facebook!). GPT-3 may be wildly better than Blenderbot, but Blenderbot likely has far, far more users.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WaMQ6z">
|
|||
|
|
Why would Meta do a massive push to get everyone using a really bad chatbot?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IFe3W6">
|
|||
|
|
The <a href="https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1557073571830169601">conspiratorial explanation</a>, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/wm1kuy/tried_fairs_blenderbot_3_just_now_its_an/ijwp9cw/">which</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Gunnar_Zarncke/status/1557084307717496832">has</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Invert_Avian/status/1557073824818106368">been</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/YitziLitt/status/1557162624827236353">floated</a> ever since Blenderbot’s incompetence became apparent, is that Blenderbot is bad on purpose. Meta could make a better AI, maybe has better AIs internally, but decided to release a poor one.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rM8K9x">
|
|||
|
|
Meta AI’s leader, the renowned AI researcher Yann LeCun, has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153368458167143">been publicly dismissive</a> of safety concerns from advanced artificial intelligence systems. Maybe convincing hundreds of millions of Meta users that AI is dumb and pointless — and talking to Blenderbot sure makes AI feel dumb and pointless — is worth a little egg on Meta’s face.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p53qu5">
|
|||
|
|
It’s an entertaining theory, but one I think is almost certainly wrong.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ltltnR">
|
|||
|
|
The likelier reality is this: Meta’s AI department may be really struggling to avoid admitting that they’re behind the rest of the field. (Meta did not respond to a request to comment for this story.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WrGjDc">
|
|||
|
|
Some of Meta’s internal AI research departments have <a href="https://time.news/lost-most-ai-researchers-in-six-weeks-reported-a-wave-of-departures-in-the-meta/">shed key researchers</a> and have <a href="https://aibusiness.com/document.asp?doc_id=778013">recently been broken up and reorganized</a>. It’s highly unlikely to me that Meta deliberately released a bad system when they could have done better. Blenderbot is probably the best they’re capable of.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nRV7fi">
|
|||
|
|
Blenderbot builds on <a href="https://ai.facebook.com/blog/democratizing-access-to-large-scale-language-models-with-opt-175b/">OPT-3</a>, Meta’s GPT-3 imitator, which was released only a few months ago. OPT-3’s full-sized 175 billion parameter version (the same size as GPT-3) should be as good as GPT-3, but I haven’t been able to test that: I got no response when I filled out Meta’s web form asking for access, and I spoke to at least one AI researcher who applied for access when OPT-3 was first released and never received it. That makes it hard to tell where, exactly, Blenderbot went wrong. But one possibility is that even years after GPT-3 was released, Meta is struggling to build a system that can do the same things.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mAJiLN">
|
|||
|
|
If that’s so, Meta’s AI team is simply worse at AI than industry leaders like Google and even smaller dedicated labs like OpenAI.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UylXPf">
|
|||
|
|
They may also have been willing to release a model that’s quite incompetent by banking on their ability to improve it. Meta <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/08/09/painful-offensive-responses-meta-blenderbot-3-chatbot-tay/">responded</a> to early criticisms of Blenderbot by saying that they are learning and correcting these errors in the system.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QgCv45">
|
|||
|
|
But the errors I’ve highlighted here are harder to “correct,” since they stem from the model’s fundamental failure to generate coherent responses.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sy5nrE">
|
|||
|
|
Whatever Meta intended, their Blenderbot release is puzzling. AI is a serious field and a serious concern — both for its direct effects on the world we live in today and for the effects <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/21/18126576/ai-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-safety-alignment">we can expect as AI systems become more powerful</a>. Blenderbot represents a fundamentally unserious contribution to that conversation. I can’t recommend getting your sense of where the field of AI stands today — or where it’s going — from Blenderbot any more than I’d recommend getting children’s movie recommendations from it.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>The risks to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant, explained</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A Russian serviceman in combat vest and helmet holds a machine gun in front of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/QtWOggkrSFCgxoVE0stg581yhUk=/205x0:3481x2457/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71265815/1240384920.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A Russian serviceman patrols the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Energodar on May 1, 2022. | Andrey Borodulin/AFP via Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant is also its most vulnerable.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bVdaGY">
|
|||
|
|
Russian and Ukrainian forces are locked in a standoff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising fears across Europe and the specter of Chernobyl. Shelling near the strategically located plant — which both sides have blamed on the other — has increased the risk of a serious accident, and families are fleeing the area in the face of a possible nuclear catastrophe.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QeZUmY">
|
|||
|
|
Zaporizhzhia is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, and it provides electricity to Ukraine and to several European countries. Its location on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Dnieper-River">the Dnipro River</a> makes it a critical target for Russian forces, which have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62602387">controlled the plant since March</a>. Despite Russian forces allegedly turning the plant into a military installation, Ukrainian operators still manage the safety and daily operations of the plant, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62602387">under significant duress</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tMYtNK">
|
|||
|
|
<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/16/protect-ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-before-its-too-late/">Multiple parties</a>, including <a href="https://media.un.org/en/asset/k12/k12an5gmen">UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres</a>, have called for the immediate demilitarization of the plant, citing the potential for a serious and widespread nuclear disaster. However, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62602387">Ivan Nechayev</a>, deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry’s information and press department, claimed that such a de-escalation “will make the plant even more vulnerable.” Russian officials also claimed in a letter to the UN that Ukraine was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-writes-un-security-council-over-provocation-ukraine-nuclear-plant-tass-2022-08-19/">planning a “provocation” there Friday</a>, according to the TASS state-run news agency — a claim Ukraine countered, saying Russia planned to disconnect the plant from the Ukrainian grid and connect it to Russia’s power grid, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/un-chief-says-electricity-russian-held-nuclear-plant-belongs-ukraine-2022-08-19/">Reuters reported</a>. Thus far, neither incident has come to pass.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w8ee1g">
|
|||
|
|
The global concern about Zaporizhzhia’s security isn’t surprising, especially with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster still a presence. Furthermore, that concern isn’t unfounded; there are real possibilities for problems at the plant, ranging from alarming to cataclysmic.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="cAez3v">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>The biggest risk to Zaporizhzhia is a power outage</strong>
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FtMaY0">
|
|||
|
|
While there are many things that could go wrong at Zaporizhzhia, “The likelihood of an intentional attack on the [plant] that leads to a major nuclear disaster is low,” Ivanka Barzashka, founder and co-director of the King’s Wargaming Network at King’s College London, told Vox via email. “Moscow would have a lot to lose and nothing to gain from such an outcome, given the reactor’s proximity to Russian forces and population.” Furthermore, the plant is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-battlefield-nuclear-plant-what-are-risks-2022-08-19/">built to withstand direct attacks</a>, as it’s constructed with reinforced concrete.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9divcG">
|
|||
|
|
The real risks to the facility are more likely to be due to human error, accidental shelling, or a lack of electricity to cool the nuclear material, according to Matthew Bunn, the James R. Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1wZTMP">
|
|||
|
|
“The biggest concern is [the] cooling of a nuclear power plant,” Bunn said. “In general, to avoid an accident at a nuclear power plant, you need to keep the reactor core under water, and the spent fuel and the spent fuel pool under water so they’re continuously cooled.” That cooling process requires electricity, which now comes from Ukraine’s external power grid. The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, for example, occurred because of a tsunami which cut off-site electricity to the plant and destroyed the generators, making it impossible to cool the facility even though the reactor had undergone emergency shutdown.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0ZMZOC">
|
|||
|
|
However, as Bunn told Vox, a number of those lines have already been cut, increasing the possibility that Zaporizhzhia might have to rely on diesel-powered generators to support the cooling process. It’s unclear how much fuel those generators have, given that Russian forces have reportedly been siphoning off the fuel for their own purposes, Bunn said. “Diesel’s a highly sought commodity in any war zone,” he said. “There are supposed to be days of diesel at the site; we don’t know whether that’s still true or not.” The Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom said on Friday that Russian forces were seeking diesel to fuel the generators in the case of power loss, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-battlefield-nuclear-plant-what-are-risks-2022-08-19/">according to Reuters</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NVpSY7">
|
|||
|
|
In a worst-case scenario, the plant could lose power and the pumps circulating water to cool the reactor core and spent fuel pool would shut down. The heat that the reactor core and the spent material generate would then boil the surrounding water until it evaporates, exposing the reactor core “within hours,” Bunn said. “The fuel would then start to melt. Even if you shut the reactor down, some people refer to it as, ‘the fire that doesn’t go out’ — the fuel still generates a lot of heat from the radioactive decay of the split atoms, what are called the fission products, in the fuel.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OrCyih">
|
|||
|
|
However, a spent fuel fire — what Bunn referred to as the “very very worst case” — is unlikely given that there’s just not as much of it at Zaporizhzhia as there are at other sites; that’s because Zaporizhzhia used to send spent fuel to Russia for storage and reprocessing there. “That really only happens when you have fuel that’s pretty closely packed and really hot, having been released from the reactor fairly recently,” he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C67eZK">
|
|||
|
|
Even if the electricity supply holds, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-kyiv-moscow-black-sea-8145761d85c5302824b8386e82987ff2?user_email=d0ae70922af541a4cf45e48d2575200542345a2aa90b689d43e7a2924e4e3869&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=August20_MorningWire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers">shelling could damage the facility</a>, causing water to leak out of the plant and upsetting the cooling process. Alarmingly, the ongoing shelling has already done <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-89-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine">damage to the plant</a> — including <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-goal-ukraine-nuclear-plant-take-electricity-11660505601">near a substation</a> which prompted one of only two operating power lines to shut down on August 5.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ibhm7g">
|
|||
|
|
As Bunn told Vox, the human element is critical in maintaining the plant’s safety. “The Ukrainian operators have been operating essentially at Russian gunpoint for months,” Bunn said. “[They are under] enormous psychological stress; many of them have sent their families away, they’re exhausted. Under those conditions, the possibility of human error in operating the plant is ever-present. They have been doing a heroic job, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-attacks/">but people under stress make mistakes</a>.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MATP26">
|
|||
|
|
Operators at the plant who have been able to speak to outside sources paint a harrowing picture. “What is happening is horrific and beyond common sense and morality,” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62595474">plant staff wrote in a Telegram channel</a>, according to the BBC. “The psychological situation is difficult,” a worker called <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62509638">Svitlana told the BBC</a>. “Soldiers are walking everywhere with weapons and everyone is actually kept at gunpoint.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="J2GVRj">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>Why is Zaporizhzhia so important?</strong>
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7CsKAC">
|
|||
|
|
Zaporizhzhia is important to both Ukraine and Russia because<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/20/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-russia-ukraine/#UC5I6ODJI5HENAZGYZGWISLZAQ-0"> it’s a crucial energy supply</a>. And while<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/un-chief-says-electricity-russian-held-nuclear-plant-belongs-ukraine-2022-08-19/"> UN chief Gutteres declared Friday</a> that the electricity the plant provides is Ukraine’s to do with as it pleases, it’s not unlikely that Russia would want to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-goal-ukraine-nuclear-plant-take-electricity-11660505601">connect that power source to its own grid</a>, as Ukraine has warned.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1UXLlX">
|
|||
|
|
“A safe and reliable nuclear energy source connected to the Crimean power grid would significantly benefit Russia,” Barzashka told Vox. Crimea is connected to the Russian power grid; Ukraine was, as well, before the war, but quickly switched over to the European power grid after the invasion, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-energy-brinkmanship-in-ukraine">according to IEEE Spectrum</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pjS2as">
|
|||
|
|
The Zaporizhzhia power plant sits on the very northern border of Russian-controlled territory, and in addition to its utility as a power source, Russia is also “using the plant as a shield against any possible Ukrainian attempt to retake the area,” as the Atlantic Council’s resident fellow for security research <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/russian-war-report-russia-and-ukraine-warn-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-facing-imminent-threat/#:~:text=Located%20in%20the%20city%20of,to%20establish%20a%20safe%20perimeter.">Ruslan Trad wrote</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rkg90b">
|
|||
|
|
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalenskyy has called the strategy “<a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/z-misiyi-na-zaporizku-atomnu-elektrostanciyu-mozhe-pochatisy-77177">blackmail with radiation</a>,” accusing Russia of using the potential for nuclear disaster to prevent Ukrainian forces from retaking the surrounding territory.” About<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62469740"> 500 Russian soldiers are there</a>, according to Energoatom head Petro Kotin, and footage showing Russian military vehicles in the plant’s turbine hall <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/19/europe/ukraine-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-russian-vehicles-intl-hnk/index.html">emerged Friday</a>. “Russia is launching attacks from this reactor, arguably in contradiction to international law, because they know the Ukrainians won’t fire at the reactor because of the huge danger,” Bunn said. “That is reckless, illegal, and is an outrage.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6pLMYq">
|
|||
|
|
Thus far, Russia has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/19/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-ukraine-russia/">refused calls to demilitarize the plant</a> and create a safety zone around it, saying that the Russian troops positioned there are a safeguard against nuclear disaster.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cxO77w">
|
|||
|
|
Bunn, as well <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-energy-brinkmanship-in-ukraine">Nikolai Steinberg</a>, a former chief engineer at Chernobyl, maintain that the reactor should have been shut down months ago, with Steinberg calling its continued operation “a crime.” However, Bunn explained, “they have remained operating because they’re very, very important to the Ukrainian grid, and the Ukrainian government has been making money selling electricity from these reactors into the European market.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2LSD9p">
|
|||
|
|
Ukraine — not a wealthy country to begin with — has suffered significant economic hardship due to the war, so it’s held financial hostage in a sense to its nuclear industry, particularly given the sanctions against Russian fuel imports and serious climate-related problems with other <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/world/europe/drought-heat-energy.html">European energy sources</a>. Should Russia <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-goal-ukraine-nuclear-plant-take-electricity-11660505601">divert Zaporizhzhia’s energy to Crimea and Russia and away from Ukraine and Europe</a>, it would cause significant ripple effects and drive up energy prices in the European market. “Russia stealing a nuclear-power plant is a problem for Europe,” Suriya Jayanti, the former energy head at the US Embassy in Kyiv, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-goal-ukraine-nuclear-plant-take-electricity-11660505601">told the Wall Street Journa</a>l.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jbP6Jx">
|
|||
|
|
Shutting the plant down at the beginning of the invasion, though challenging for energy security in Ukraine and Europe, would have allowed the reactors to cool, making nuclear disaster less likely. However, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-goal-ukraine-nuclear-plant-take-electricity-11660505601">Russia reportedly lacks the ability to recruit its own operators</a> with the technical capacity and willingness to run the plant in an active war zone, so officials wouldn’t agree to take the plant offline for fear they couldn’t restart it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="glOtoA">
|
|||
|
|
“I fear that, because of the importance of this site, we probably have not seen the end of fighting near this reactor, and I fear that Russia is not going to agree to the sensible UN proposal for a demilitarized zone at this site,” Bunn said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="bGMrH2">
|
|||
|
|
<strong>How do we mitigate disaster — now, and in the future?</strong>
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QEQ01Q">
|
|||
|
|
Ukrainian experts are warning of potentially cataclysmic consequences should there be an accident at Zaporizhzhia, including radioactive leakage that could kill thousands, displace 2 million, and cause radiation pollution in an area triple the size of Ukraine, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-energy-brinkmanship-in-ukraine">according to IEEE Spectrum</a>. A senior nuclear safety expert with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, Olena Pareniuk, warned that Zaporizhzhia could cause the first magnitude-8 nuclear accident; for context, the meltdowns at Chernobyl and Fukushima were graded magnitude-7 on the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/resources/databases/international-nuclear-and-radiological-event-scale">International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JHWkQk">
|
|||
|
|
Given that shutting down the reactors doesn’t seem like an option as of right now, Bunn said the most pressing action is to stop the shelling. “Operating reactors in a war zone is just not a good idea,” he said. The next step is to allow a monitoring team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to enter the plant. Multiple parties including Guterres and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-agreed-send-iaea-mission-ukraine-plant-macrons-office-says-2022-08-19/">French President Emmanuel Macron</a> are urging Russia to do so; Macron announced Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to let a team in, but didn’t offer further details.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="964H86">
|
|||
|
|
Sending the IAEA monitoring team would likely pause hostilities, since the combatants would probably be unwilling to risk harming civilians on a high-profile mission, and allow the experts to gather independent information about the status of the plant and its workers.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xX97CQ">
|
|||
|
|
That’s not a sustainable fix, though, according to Bunn; “The IAEA just isn’t set up for sending teams that just stay for months at a time,” he said. “The most plausible scenario there is, send an IAEA team, make arrangements for people and equipment to come in and out more regularly,” then sending monitoring teams in on a monthly basis, he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HloFNW">
|
|||
|
|
Ultimately, the world needs better agreements and treaties surrounding the status of nuclear facilities in conflict. For example, <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750071">a 1977 amendment to the Geneva protocol</a> forbids attacks on civilian nuclear power plants and other infrastructure, but the Russians withdrew from that agreement in 2019.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5Tw4Z6">
|
|||
|
|
A more favorable scenario, Bunn said, would be widespread adoption of <a href="https://mea.gov.in/Portal/LegalTreatiesDoc/PAB1232.pdf">the treaty between India and Pakistan</a>, who have agreed not to attack each others’ nuclear facilities and even clarify annually which facilities are to be avoided.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FMt3wI">
|
|||
|
|
Among the main reasons there aren’t solid agreements banning attacks on nuclear power plants? United States policy. “The United States has wanted to maintain the option of attacking nuclear reactors, partly for nuclear nonproliferation reasons. It is not unusual for a state launching a nuclear weapons program to claim — when it’s actually a military reactor — that it’s a civilian reactor,” Bunn said. In 1994, for example, <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-05/features/north-korean-nuclear-crisis-understanding-failure-crime-punishment-strategy">the US weighed attacking a North Korean reactor </a>with the understanding that it was contributing to weapons proliferation, but ultimately declined to do so.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1DPc1b">
|
|||
|
|
The US, Bunn said, should at least agree to the position that functional, internationally-monitored reactors should be protected from attack. The status quo “makes it very difficult for the United States to get up on a high horse about this situation.”
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>The Colorado River drought is coming for your winter veggies</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nR_7vi-UiLgmxhbxQ7wpr2Up9oc=/481x0:3600x2339/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71264507/AP21222719170483a.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Farmer Will Thelander stands next to a dry canal on his land in Pinal County, Arizona, in July 2021. Some farmers in the county have been forced to fallow their crops due to water cuts on the Colorado River. | Darryl Webb/AP
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The river waters a lot of our food. What happens as it dries up?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x9GXsj">
|
|||
|
|
It’s a classic Italian-American meal: a crispy Caesar salad with a plate of marinara pasta.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jep8qb">
|
|||
|
|
You can find it in restaurants across the country, but depending on the time of year, many of the ingredients come from just one region. Yuma, Arizona, along with California’s Imperial Valley, produces <a href="https://extension.arizona.edu/sites/extension.arizona.edu/files/pubs/az1615.pdf">more than 90 percent</a> of the country’s winter leafy greens and much of its vegetables. Arizona is also a major grower of wheat, which the state exports to Italy for making pasta.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qmICRg">
|
|||
|
|
Historically, this made a lot of sense. The region has nutritious soil and a warm climate for growing food year-round, even when the rest of the country is frozen over.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EHmeSL">
|
|||
|
|
There’s just one problem: The water that farmers use to grow these crops comes from the Colorado River, and the Colorado River is drying up.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YC8nvC">
|
|||
|
|
The iconic river is in its 23rd year of drought, <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/#/news-release/4294">according to</a> the Bureau of Reclamation, and the two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have sunk to historic lows, prompting <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23308281/colorado-river-western-drought-satellite-hoover-dam-mead-powell">a series of water restrictions</a>. Under climate change, the drought could <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/colorado/stories-in-colorado/colorado-charting-a-future-for-colorado-river/#:~:text=The%20Southwest%20is%20seeing%20a,today%2C%20in%20our%20own%20backyards.">worsen</a> in the years ahead.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h8Ezzf">
|
|||
|
|
That means residents in the West might have less water for lawns and long showers, but it’s a much bigger problem for agriculture because farmers use about three-quarters of all the water that people take from the river. Some farmers have already had to restrict their water supply, and there are much steeper cuts to come.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dU6zSd">
|
|||
|
|
Which brings us to this slightly depressing point: When farmers use less water, they tend to produce less food. And that could cause food prices to go up, even more than <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/07/23/how-much-grocery-prices-have-gone-up-with-inflation/#:~:text=Datasembly's%20Grocery%20Price%20Index%20found,found%20prices%20nationwide%20rose%205.5%25.">they already have</a>. Winter veggies, like lettuce and broccoli, could take a big hit, as could Arizona’s delectable wheat. More concerning still is that the shrinking Colorado River is just one of many climate-related disasters that are threatening the supply and affordability of food.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="0dYY8Y">
|
|||
|
|
Historic water cuts are already hitting farmers
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iwcDOj">
|
|||
|
|
Meandering 1,450 miles from northern Colorado to the Gulf of California, the Colorado River is the lifeblood of the American West. It provides water to nearly <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45546.pdf">40 million</a> people across seven states, Mexico, and more than two dozen tribes, and it irrigates <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45546.pdf">millions of acres</a> of land.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yLR0Wz">
|
|||
|
|
The river is governed by a complex set of policies — collectively known as the Law of the River — that dictate how much water each state or tribe receives, and which will lose water first when the government imposes restrictions. (Typically, groups that have been using the water for longer have higher-priority water rights, including Indigenous tribes.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NwEuLN">
|
|||
|
|
Last August, the federal government <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/climate/colorado-river-water-cuts.html">declared a water shortage</a> on the river for the first time, in response to projections that Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, would be at just 34 percent of its capacity by the end of 2020. The declaration, known as a Tier 1 shortage, triggered cuts that affected Central Arizona, which has low-priority rights.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QhpX6v">
|
|||
|
|
Farmers in Pinal County, Arizona, who grow alfalfa, wheat, and other crops, suffered the most, said Paul Brierley, a former farmer who now leads the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture at the University of Arizona. “They’ve had to fallow [stop planting] about 40 percent of their acreage because they lost all their Colorado River water,” he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vYeOVpELiBTmorNb-Idx0L8jQaQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23955418/image2.jpg"/> <cite>David McNew/Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Fallowed farmland north of Kingman, Arizona, in June 2021.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WvO5xR">
|
|||
|
|
A withering alfalfa crop could rattle the local dairy industry, Brierley said. Dairy farmers use the flowering plant to feed cows, and when water restrictions take effect, alfalfa is one of the first crops they stop planting.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gg2sfK">
|
|||
|
|
The Tier 1 shortage, alone, may cause prices of milk, yogurt, and other products to spike, at least in Arizona. But as of this summer, the river is already beyond a Tier 1 shortage, and states are facing additional cuts. The impacts could be much farther reaching.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="t9ROTR">
|
|||
|
|
Less water could mean more expensive food
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MCWO7F">
|
|||
|
|
This summer, the water level in Lake Mead reached a record low of just <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/hourly.html">1,042 feet</a> above sea level (it was around <a href="https://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/g4000/hourly/mead-elv.html">1,200 feet</a> above sea level in 2000). The reservoir is now <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150111/lake-mead-keeps-dropping#:~:text=Continuing%20a%2022%2Dyear%20downward,just%2027%20percent%20of%20capacity.">just over a quarter</a> full. If it drops much lower, the reservoir could hit “dead pool” status, meaning that water can’t travel downstream through the Hoover Dam, let alone <a href="https://www.vox.com/23292669/drought-2022-power-energy-grid-lake-mead-climate-heat-hoover-dam">generate electricity</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AJvBT2">
|
|||
|
|
“Without action, we cannot protect the system and the millions of Americans who rely on this critical resource,” Bureau of Reclamation commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said on a call with reporters earlier this week.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="olMoBl">
|
|||
|
|
On the call, Touton declared the first-ever Tier 2 shortage, which triggers additional cuts that impact Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WNfVQx">
|
|||
|
|
Her announcement followed a Senate hearing in June, in which she advised officials in the seven states that use water from the Colorado River to come up with a plan to cut an additional<em> </em>2 million to 4 million acre-feet from their supply, on top of the Tier 2 cuts. (An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to fill an acre with one foot of water.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4jsn7U">
|
|||
|
|
That does not bode well for farmers and those of us who buy their products. While previous cuts have caused some disruptions in Central Arizona, the impact of a 2-4 million acre-foot reduction — or up to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/16/us/colorado-river-water-cuts-lake-mead-negotiations-climate/index.html">25 percent</a> of what the basin states currently use — will be more widespread. Withholding that water will likely affect farms in Yuma, the Imperial Valley of Southern California, and other epicenters of food production.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kaXl6I">
|
|||
|
|
“The [food] system can adapt, but 2-4 million is really a game changer,” said George Frisvold, an agriculture economist at the University of Arizona. “If it gets to the point where people actually have to start cutting back on veggie production, then you’re going to see price increases.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid">
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r8szTIr4wX260_iz8IES5Ja_ozM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23957760/GettyImages_1318767556.jpeg"/> <cite>Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Rows of red and green leaf lettuce grow on a farm near Yuma, Arizona, in January 2021.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a8A8bkQXihpWGdWF8Dw1nLspY_M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23955397/GettyImages_1318761012.jpg"/> <cite>Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
An irrigation canal brings water from the Colorado River to farms in the desert near Yuma, Arizona, in January 2021.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dYdUDD">
|
|||
|
|
The first crops to get hit — other than alfalfa and other animal fodder — will likely be produce that farmers plant annually (or more often) like lettuce, broccoli, and tomatoes. These are short-term investments and farmers can decide whether or not to plant them on a yearly basis.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kdmpI5">
|
|||
|
|
In contrast, many fruits, nuts, and other tree crops are longer-term bets that can take years to pay off and tend to be more valuable. Farmers are not going to let, say, almond trees wilt if they can avoid it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nfz62S">
|
|||
|
|
“When water supplies aren’t available, farmers have to make decisions on what they can and can’t plant,” said Mike Wade, executive director of the nonprofit California Farm Water Coalition.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tDT0Ow">
|
|||
|
|
Consider a farmer that grows processing tomatoes in California for foods like ketchup or marinara, Wade said. If there isn’t enough water for the growing season, the farmer might not even put the plants in the ground. “Then the supply is reduced to the cannery, which has the effect of increasing prices down the line,” Wade said. “That makes the products that consumers buy in the store more expensive.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3dcirr">
|
|||
|
|
Water cuts could also hurt wheat production in Arizona, said Jeffrey Silvertooth, a plant and soil scientist at the University of Arizona. The region is a major supplier of durum wheat to Italian pasta companies, he said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="o3t1Db">
|
|||
|
|
If a farmer has 20 percent less water, they may choose to leave the ground fallow in the winter instead of planting wheat, Brierley said. “That’s a rational decision that would impact the supply of wheat. And it’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/23171151/ukraine-grain-wheat-russia-black-sea-odesa-food-crisis">not a good time to produce less wheat</a>,” he added, nodding at the war in Ukraine, <a href="https://www.fas.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/Ukraine-Factsheet.pdf">one of the world’s largest wheat producers</a>, which has already constricted supply of the grain.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="5U3fQO">
|
|||
|
|
Should you be worried?
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="snGLQ0">
|
|||
|
|
The good news is that, on its own, the drought-related supply squeeze isn’t likely to translate to enormous price increases, Frisvold said. A head of lettuce isn’t going to double in price overnight. A box of dried pasta probably won’t bankrupt you.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AgzA8V">
|
|||
|
|
Only a portion of the retail price of food is tied to the cost of actually growing it, and thus, to supply; the rest is related to things like marketing and transportation.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6wwxFE">
|
|||
|
|
Plus, although plenty of food does depend on the Colorado River, there are farms elsewhere, such as in Iowa, that can help meet demand. When the price of certain crops goes up, farmers in other regions start planting them, said Frank Ward, an agriculture economist at New Mexico State University.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="muOLuq">
|
|||
|
|
So, in a sense, our food system is resilient.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3hpOaU">
|
|||
|
|
What’s concerning, however, is that drought along the Colorado River isn’t the only disaster that’s straining our food supply. Earlier this summer, an extreme heat wave in the Midwest caused <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-drought-devastating-american-farmland-2012-7">corn to wilt</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105482394/cattle-kansas-heat-wave">cattle to die</a>. Meanwhile, another heat wave in India <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-heat-wave-wheat-prices-soar-climate-change-ukraine-war-supplies/">strangled the supply of wheat</a>. That’s on top of supply chain issues linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5JJOY8">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s kind of like death by a thousand cuts,” Frisvold said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wEzKVF">
|
|||
|
|
Together, these threats — many of which are worsened by climate change, and accelerating — can destabilize the global supply of food and send prices soaring. They’re part of the reason why you’re paying <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm">13 percent more</a> for groceries this summer, compared to last year.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ij-T3DFlBL6QaBLKbop9P3mDcac=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23955402/GettyImages_566013103.jpg"/> <cite>Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Workers inspect an irrigation system on a broccoli farm in Imperial Valley, California, in October 2011.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="dnCxVG">
|
|||
|
|
Toward a more stable (and affordable) supply of food
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L8AQIe">
|
|||
|
|
If water is running out, one solution is to simply use less of it. Farmers can switch to crops that aren’t as thirsty — from pecans to grapes, for example — or use technologies to water their crops more precisely.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PWNPih">
|
|||
|
|
More environmentally friendly styles of agriculture can also help farms survive extreme drought. Planting cover crops, for example, helps lock moisture in the soil, and switching to an agroforestry-style farm, where trees are integrated into the landscape, can provide valuable shade.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CwIkTU">
|
|||
|
|
These changes come at a cost, but the federal government is willing to help pay for at least some of them. The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this week, includes <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2022/8/15/23301352/inflation-reduction-act-farms-climate-wildlife">nearly $20 billion for farmland conservation</a> and $4 billion for drought relief in the West. The federal spending on drought may help compensate farmers for water cuts and help them develop more efficient farms, Brierley said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tCakF8">
|
|||
|
|
But ultimately, the US will have to do much more to ensure a stable and affordable supply of food. Drought is a problem, yes, but it’s linked to the much bigger issue of climate change. Without swiftly curtailing carbon emissions, responding to the shrinking Colorado River is just a temporary fix.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nihal Sarin joins Arjun, Raunak in second spot</strong> - Robson in the lead</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Khalin Joshi beats Arjun to title</strong> - 14-under 274 a new record for the lowest winning card at the course</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lallawmkima’s brace fetches easy win for Army Green</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Premier League: Arteta not getting carried away by Arsenal perfect start</strong> - A double from Martin Odegaard and a strike by William Saliba fired Arsenal to a 3-0 win over promoted Bournemouth</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Zimbabwe vs India, 3rd ODI | Clean sweep on cards for India against weak Zimbabwe</strong> - If the 161 all out in the second game is any evidence, the home team continues to look for a quick fix to its batting woes, while the bowlers are also not able to trouble the Indian batting line-up</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Punjab Govt introduces reservation for Scheduled Castes in posts of law officers</strong> - Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said Punjab will be the first State in the country to have such a provision for lawyers who are from the SC community</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>RSS is working to make India ‘model society’ for entire world, says Bhagwat</strong> - RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said people should come forward in serving society as a community and not as an individual</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Anti-competitive practices: Apple, Google, Netflix, Amazon India executives to depose before Parliamentary panel on Tuesday</strong> - In recent times, there have been complaints about alleged anti-competitive ways of various technology platforms and firms</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nude photos row | Actor Ranveer Singh seeks more time to join probe</strong> - The FIR was registered against Singh at Chembur police station last month.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nitish Kumar could emerge ‘strong candidate’ for PM: Tejashwi Yadav</strong> - Nitish Kumar's decision to break ties with the BJP has fuelled speculation about his prime ministerial bid</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Darya Dugina: Daughter of Putin ally killed in Moscow blast</strong> - A car carrying Alexander Dugin’s daughter exploded on the outskirts of Moscow, investigators say.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Portugal wildfires: State of alert begins amid third heatwave</strong> - The country is bracing for its third heatwave of the summer, with temperatures of up to 38C predicted.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Drone attack targets Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea</strong> - The attack on the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol is the latest in a string of strikes against Russia.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Russia to allow inspectors at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant - Putin</strong> - Russia captured the Zaporizhzhia facility in March and is accused of using it as a military base.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Turkey: Separate bus crashes leave 32 dead and 51 injured</strong> - In the two fatal incidents in Turkey, emergency crews are hit while attending to earlier crashes.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The weekend’s best deals: Xbox Series S bundles, M2 MacBook Air, and more</strong> - Dealmaster also has Anker charging cables, <em>Doom</em> games, and Surface PCs. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1875147">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Should we be trying to create a circular urine economy?</strong> - Urine has lots of nitrogen and phosphorus—a problem as waste, great as fertilizer. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1874923">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Behold this award-winning image of fungus making a fly its “zombie” slave</strong> - Plus eight other winning images in 2022 BMC Ecology and Evolution image competition. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1874865">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Botometer creator says Musk’s Twitter spam estimate “doesn’t mean anything”</strong> - With Botometer tool, you can “choose any threshold… to get any result you want.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1874991">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ethereum’s “Merge” is about to put every ether miner out of work</strong> - The ambitious change is expected to cut energy consumption by a factor of 1,000. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1874521">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>A blond cop pulls over a blond and asks for identification.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The blond asks, “What’s that?”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The blond cop replies, “It’s the thing in your purse with your picture on it.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The blond reaches into her purse, pulls out her compact mirror, and hands it over.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The blond cop opens it, takes a look, and says, “I’m sorry mam. If I knew you were an officer, I wouldn’t have pulled you over.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Hour_Aside7376"> /u/Hour_Aside7376 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtqgia/a_blond_cop_pulls_over_a_blond_and_asks_for/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtqgia/a_blond_cop_pulls_over_a_blond_and_asks_for/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Teacher: Tell me a sentence that starts with “I”.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Student: I is the….
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Teacher: Stop! Never put ‘is’ after “I”. Always put ‘am’ after “I”.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Student: OK. I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/douglerner"> /u/douglerner </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtieu0/teacher_tell_me_a_sentence_that_starts_with_i/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtieu0/teacher_tell_me_a_sentence_that_starts_with_i/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Why did the photographer boil his camera?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
He wanted to make stock images
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
<sup>sorry</sup>
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Ambientpissnoises"> /u/Ambientpissnoises </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtmwy8/why_did_the_photographer_boil_his_camera/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtmwy8/why_did_the_photographer_boil_his_camera/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Americans are getting stronger; 20 years ago, it took two adults to carry $50 worth of groceries.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
Today, a 5 year-old can carry them!
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Gr8fulFox"> /u/Gr8fulFox </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtwize/americans_are_getting_stronger_20_years_ago_it/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wtwize/americans_are_getting_stronger_20_years_ago_it/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Whosoever invented “dentures” missed out on calling them …</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
|||
|
|
<div class="md">
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
“Substitooths”.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/OyVeyzMeir"> /u/OyVeyzMeir </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wt8l36/whosoever_invented_dentures_missed_out_on_calling/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/wt8l36/whosoever_invented_dentures_missed_out_on_calling/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
<script>AOS.init();</script></body></html>
|