Slashdot Mirror
How Artificial Intelligence Can Fight Air Pollution In China
An anonymous reader writes: IBM is testing a new way to help fix Beijing's air pollution problem with artificial intelligence. Like many other cities across the country, the capital is surrounded by many coal burning factories. However, the air quality on a day-to-day basis can vary because of a number of reasons like industrial activity, traffic congestion, and the weather. IBM is testing a computer system capable of learning to predict the severity of air pollution several days in advance using large quantities of data from several different models. "We have built a prototype system which is able to generate high-resolution air quality forecasts, 72 hours ahead of time," says Xiaowei Shen, director of IBM Research China. "Our researchers are currently expanding the capability of the system to provide medium- and long-term (up to 10 days ahead) as well as pollutant source tracking, 'what-if' scenario analysis, and decision support on emission reduction actions."
will do just fine.
This isn't "intelligence" its a rules based "if" tree, albeit a fast, massive tree, but its not intelligent, just brute force.
Once the machines eliminate all those pesky humans, they won't be polluting any longer. And the machines can burn all the dinosaur remains, and eventually human remains they want, as machines don't care about breathing.
Dave: "HAL, open the pod bay door."
HAL: "Sorry, Dave, I cannot do that."
Dave: "Why not, HAL?"
HAL: "You stink, Dave."
Dave: "HAL, please clarify."
HAL: "You didn't take a bath, Dave. You will pollute the ship."
Table-ized A.I.
Seems to me that this is more about going around the problem than addressing it. Force factories to implement better pollution control mechanisms, increase the cost of goods a % and take care of the problem....
It will just kill every human in China. No more Pollution. Problem solved.
If you expect an AI to fix a problem caused by humans, you're looking at the wrong place. Especially when said problem can easily be fixed, by removing the main factor (humans).
"the capital is surrounded by many coal burning factories"
and
"decision support on emission reduction actions."
I don't think they need a computer to figure this one out. Other countries still rely on coal for energy generation but have managed to markedly reduce air pollution. Do what they did.
... seriously... use coal if you want but for the love of god put some filters on those things.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I know grammar is a foreign concept here, but couldn't the editors try to do a little of it now and then?
I mean, the editors actually doing their job once a day probably wouldn't hurt...much.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
...with deep learning algorithms. Now when they breathe the same shitty air, it will have been predicted with some degree of accuracy by a complex computer model! If you can't do anything to help, do what you know how to do, I guess.
So, prediction fixes air pollution how exactly? it's not like factories are going to shut down for any reason.
I don't get how this helps.
They are saying they might be able to predict air pollution. That is very different from doing anything to fight against air pollution. I guess you need to understand it first before you can do anything about it.
But I don't think the model will significantly help our understanding of air pollution to fix it. We know where the pollution comes from. we just need to cut the source.
These idiots have yet another warehouse explosion... And to think the Space Nutters thought China will be on the Moon selling dim sum by 2020... They can't even correctly store chemicals.
Force the power plants to use their pollution control equipment. And make sure the coal fired power plant are always the last to be dispatched.
Yes by all means lets research and spend YEARS developing an AI to solve this problem, when we could simply buy condoms and/or birth control pills and/or vasectomies for every sex-having male and female in the country and be done with it.
Having children IS NOT A BIRTHRIGHT.
Computer do not breathe, hence it is very kind from AI to help fixing this issue.
they could just give their environmental regulators the authority to enforce their existing environmental laws.
In the film Under the Dome, Chinese journalist Chai Jing astonishes a Chinese audience with a film clip from California where Cal DoT stops a truck and actually checks that it has all the mandatory safety and emissions equipment. That never happens in China. China has tough emissions standards on paper, but the law is written so that the regulators don't have any enforcement powers. So Chinese manufacturers simply slap stickers on vehicles claiming they have all the mandatory emissions equipment without installing any of it. Technically this is a crime, but the law's written so there's literally nothing anyone can do about it.
And if you don't think environmental regulations make a difference, this is what New York looked like in 1970. Note that that isn't a sepia tinted black and white photo, it's true color. Granted it shows an exceptionally bad day, but before the Clean Air Act got strengthened in the mid 70s bad smog was pretty common. If you look at pictures of American cities from the 70s you'd think that photo technology of the day put a blue or yellow haze on stuff in the distance (like this). It wasn't the film, cities actually looked that way a lot of the time.
Predicting bad pollution days isn't "fighting" pollution, it's living with it. If you want to fight pollution you've got to stop people from polluting. You've got to catch them at it, fine them, and in some cases throw them in jail. Pollution like they have in China is nothing short of manslaughter on a national scale. 1.6 million people die every year from it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... marketing. The cat brain neurocomputer was a scam: http://news.discovery.com/tech... http://www.wired.com/2009/11/d... http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-... Henry Markram said "I thought that having gone through Blue Brain so carefully, journalists would be able to recognize that what IBM reported is a scam - no where near a cat-scale brain simulation, but somehow they are totally deceived by these incredible statements. I am absolutely shocked at this announcement. Not because it is any kind of technical feat, but because of the mass deception of the public."
btw a few days ago China had some VIPs and wanted to great them with clear blue skies. So they shut down the factories for a couple of days. Sure enough, beautiful skies. They can stop it when they want to.
The article does not describe how IBM's technology fights the air pollution (as claimed in the title). It only shows how it describes its spread, which I guess is rather useless. Pollution needs to be addressed at the source, by better technology, better laws and stricter controls. This AI prediction model will do nothing towards those strategies.
Leave Beijing if you want to breathe.
Instead of a bunch of nonsense how about doing what actually must be done. Simply disallow any use of coal. Ideas such as cleaning up smoke stack effluents mean nothing at all. The reason is dead simple. The current social-economic set up means an ever increasing number of smoke stacks so cleaning up exhaust means next to nothing at all. Stop new construction on all industries that contribute to pollution and fore the ones allowed to stay in business to use only clean power sources. The chaos and poverty that will follow such a solution is a natural punishment for being so ignorant as to allow industry to get the way it is right now.
Too bad it takes artificial intelligence to do something actual intelligence could fix.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Kill all humans... kill all humans... must kill all the humans.