Connect with us

Spread & Containment

Apple Watch Series 8 review: Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst

Let’s pretend, for a minute, that you’re Apple. You didn’t create the smartwatch market, but you currently control more than one-third of it. You’re…

Published

on

Let’s pretend, for a minute, that you’re Apple. You didn’t create the smartwatch market, but you currently control more than one-third of it. You’re caught up in a yearly refresh cycle (of your own design). It’s not easy, but you’re used to it. That’s how your hardware — and pretty much everyone else’s — operates.

Last generation got a bigger display and faster charging. As for this year’s model, well, you implicitly understand that it’s going to be immediately overshadowed by a brand-new entry in the category. It’s big, it’s flashy, it’s aimed at a vibrant cross-section of the gadget-buying community, which — until now — you’ve ceded to companies like Garmin, which have made it the centerpiece of their entire play.

As problems go, it’s a pretty good one, effectively boiling down what you can do to maintain you’re sizable chunk of market share. Diversification is important: it’s a tacit acknowledgment that — particularly in the world of wearables — one size doesn’t fit all. This year, that’s taken the form of the massive Ultra and the lower-cost SE filling out the line alongside the new Series 8.

I certainly wouldn’t go as far as suggesting that the Apple Watch is at any kind of serious risk of surrendering the proverbial catbird seat here. But the remainder of the smartwatch market has begun to take an interesting shape in 2022. That’s due in part to Google’s Fitbit acquisition, which has led directly to its long-awaited fall Pixel Watch launch.

The company has also inked a deal with Samsung, which finds the pair teaming up for Galaxy Watches — it’s a move that found Wear OS suddenly occupying a much larger segment of the market overnight. Meanwhile, other wearables like the Oura Ring are taking the category in interesting new directions.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Apple Watch Ultra]

As a daily Apple Watch user, my list of complaints is relatively short. Feature suggestions, sure, and Android compatibility definitely, but little in the way of day to day issues with the product, save for one big glaring one: battery. I know it, you know it, Apple certainly knows it. It’s an issue that’s been brought into sharp relief with the addition of advanced sleep-tracking features. Simply put, it’s one thing to promise “all day” battery life. It’s another to add “all night” to the mix.

As I wound down for bed last night, the battery was at around 40% — sufficient to wait for the morning to charge. Aside from a 30-minute morning run on the treadmill and a couple of 10- to 15-minute walks in the afternoon, it wasn’t a heavy workout day for me. As ever, your mileage (both metaphorically and literally) will vary.

The somewhat ironic truth of the matter is that I’m a bad sleeper, and appreciate a good sleep tracker — but I’ve never had luck getting a restful night’s sleep with the Apple Watch (or most smartwatches for that matter) on. The truth of the matter is I don’t use these devices for sleep tracking when I’m not testing them. I had an under-mattress tracker from Withings I quite liked, before my rabbit chewed through it. Before you ask, yes, I realize this is very specifically a me problem. I’m just trying to be honest with you here.

In a previous version, the company offered a kind of workaround. A new addition to watchOS sent out an alert encouraging you to charge the device before bed if you dropped below a certain threshold. It’s a clever workaround — something akin to the addition of Continuity Camera on macOS Ventura to address the 720p cameras that were present on Macs until fairly recently. It’s helpful, for sure, but it’s more about addressing the symptoms than the disease.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Ultra, left; Series 8, right]

With the addition of the Ultra, the company has made it clear that, at the very least, it’s capable of making watches with much longer battery life. At 36 hours, the base-level battery claim is double that of the Series 8’s 18 (the same figure claimed for the Series 7). Now there are some key things that must be factored in here.

Namely, the Ultra is a very big watch. It’s big in the way outdoor, sporty watches tend to be. Having tried it on at the event the other week, I can say that it’s way too big for me to consider it for a daily driver. Some people like big watches. I am not one of them. However, what the 49mm case affords you is more internal space. Coupled with thinner walls afforded by the structural strength of titanium and a smaller haptic motor, and you’ve got a lot more room inside to play around with.

The Series 8 sports a 308mAh battery — an imperceptible smidgen down from the Series 7’s 309mAh battery (hence the nearly identical 18-hour claim). The Ultra’s, meanwhile, is 542mAh — amounting to a 76% increase in milliamp hours. That, coupled with a slight bump in screen size, doubles the brightness — from 1,000 to 2,000 nits — and things work out to approximately twice the battery.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

With watchOS 9, the company presents another workaround, in the form of Low Power Mode. The feature will be available for Series 7 and higher when the final version of the operating system rolls out. You access it by swiping up for settings, hitting the battery icon and tapping the “Low Power Mode” switch. From there, the company will tell you the trade-offs.

When enabled, you lose the always-on display, some Wi-Fi/cellular connectivity and real-time sensor monitoring like background heart rate, blood oxygen and irregular rhythms. It’s much less of a compromise than the existing Power Reserve Mode, which is a kind of last ditch feature that dumps pretty much all of the device’s functionality, beyond basic time telling.  When Low Power Mode is enabled, a yellow circle pops up on the top of the screen as a constant reminder. Personally, I’m willing to sacrifice most of those for extended battery (even if I’d rather not, for obvious reasons). Doing so brings the expected battery up to the Ultra’s base of 36 hours.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The always-on display is the most immediate loss — effectively reverting the Watch to the pre-Series 5 days. Of course, giving the number of people who are increasingly buying these products for health-related reasons (not to mention the doctors who are suggesting them to patients), obviously losing that background monitoring is less than ideal. In an ideal world, you wouldn’t need to make any trade-offs there, but for now, I’ll leave to math up to you as far as what makes the most sense here.

Low Power can be enabled indefinitely or for an interval of one, two or three days. Alternatively, if tap Workouts in Settings, you can specifically enable Low Power mode to trigger when exercising. When finished, it will automatically revert back to normal. When charging, the mode will switch off after hitting 80%. The inverse would be handy, as well, something akin to Power Reserve Mode, which turns it on (or prompts the action) when dipping below, say 40 or 50%.

The Ultra did, understandably, take some of the wind out of the Series 8’s sails. I would even go so far as to say it upstaged the iPhone 14, in terms of mindshare. People love to see something new — especially from Apple. In terms of overall focus, this isn’t entirely surprising. Arguably, the biggest update here is one you’ll hopefully never need to see. Let’s be honest, if you need Crash Detection, something has already gone terribly wrong. For that reason, I’m not able to test the feature directly, so I’m going to crib something from Apple’s own description here:

When Apple Watch detects a severe car crash, the device will check in with the user and dial emergency services if they are unresponsive after a 10-second countdown. Emergency responders will receive the user’s device location, which is also shared with the user’s emergency contacts. When combined, Crash Detection on Apple Watch and iPhone work seamlessly to get users help efficiently. When a severe car crash is detected, the emergency services call interface will appear on Apple Watch, as it is most likely to be in closer proximity to the user, while the call is placed through iPhone if it is in range for the best possible connection.

To enable the new feature, the company built a new version of the accelerometer and gyroscope, both of which are also found in all three new watches and four new iPhones. The company says the hardware and software were trained on the four primary kinds of crashes: head-on, rear-end, side-impact and rollovers.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

It joins other worst-case scenario features Emergency SOS, International Emergency Calling and Fall Detection — features that, again, you hope you’ll never need, but will likely be glad to have at your disposal if you do. Emergency SOS can be easily triggered by holding down the side button for 2-2.5 seconds. Doing so will pop up a small power button up top to turn the watch off, as well as a pair of sliders.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Apple Watch Series 8]

One triggers “Backtrack” in the newly redesigned Compass app. The feature (which was likely designed with Ultra users in mind) leverages the watch’s GPS to create a path as you walk. If you get lost (as one does), tapping Retrace Your Steps will help you find your way back. The feature also automatically triggers when you’re in an area with limited or no Wi-Fi signals. I’m looking to put that through the paces a bit more when we get our hands on the Ultra.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Apple Watch Series 8]

Sliding Emergency SOS (available on the cellular versions of the 8 and SE) all the way to the right, meanwhile, will notify local emergency services as well you emergency contact, while displaying your Medical ID badge. It’s a couple of steps, but it walks that difficult line of making it accessible while avoiding accidental triggering. If you give the device to a non-tech-savvy loved one with health issues, you’ll probably want to walk them through that process.

International Emergency Calling expands the feature for people traveling abroad, covering some 120 countries/regions across the world. The system can also be triggered if the watch detects a fall. These aren’t “sexy” features, by any measure — and that likely contributed to the somewhat muted response around the product’s launch. I’d hazard to guess that these kinds of additions aren’t exactly the kind of features that move the needle for too many users, but Apple is building up a strong case as a device for older users and those with known health issues.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Apple Watch Series 8]

Another major feature I was unable to take advantage of was improvements in Cycle Tracking. I’m hoping that’s something we’ll be able to rectify soon when we’re able to get the device on more staffers’ wrists. What I can say is that Apple added a pair of temperature sensors to the product to accomplish this. There’s one on the bottom of the watch, alongside most of the other sensors, and one embedded in the display.

The purpose of the latter is gauging the ambient room temperature as a baseline for the measurement. Again, quoting Apple here:

Utilizing the new temperature-sensing capabilities in Apple Watch Series 8, users can receive retrospective ovulation estimates. Knowing when ovulation has occurred can be helpful for family planning, and Apple Watch Series 8 makes it easy and convenient by providing these estimates in the Health app. Temperature sensing also enables improved period predictions.Utilizing the new temperature-sensing capabilities in Apple Watch Series 8, users can receive retrospective ovulation estimates. Knowing when ovulation has occurred can be helpful for family planning, and Apple Watch Series 8 makes it easy and convenient by providing these estimates in the Health app. Temperature sensing also enables improved period predictions.

Apple was also (rightfully) quick to discuss the privacy of the data collected here. Obviously, health data has always been extremely sensitive, but in light of recent national and state legislation, it’s clear how this manner of information in particular can be effectively weaponized against people who can get pregnant. That includes encryption and a required passcode to access, with the watch serving as a kind of 2FA.

Apple notes that these sorts of safeguards have been in place since the outset, which can’t necessarily be said for every third-party app — some of whom were seemingly scrambling in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling. The company effectively said as much without saying it at the Far Out event.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Shockingly, this is a very good night of sleep for me.]

The sensor can measure changes to temperature every five minutes, which can also be used to monitor changes in sleep state. It’s more of an additional data point than an attempt to actionable health information. At launch, the company is specifically focused on retrospective ovulation estimates and cycle deviations. It’s an important feature, and one that impacts a wide swath of potential Watch customers, so it’s a great place to start. As someone who follows the space closely, however, it’s hard not to speculate where it could be going.

We’ve seen this story play out countless times in the past: A company adds a sensor for a specific bit of functionality, recognizing that future updates could dramatically expand its feature set. While it’s true that wrist temperature isn’t necessarily indicative of core body temperature, it’s easy to imagine how such real time monitoring of such a metric can inform a whole lot of different health concerns.

[gallery ids="2389068,2389041,2389098,2389097,2389084,2389076,2389070,2389061,2389038"]

Oura’s use of temperature measurements as a potential early sign of COVID was enough to get its rings deployed among some of the country’s biggest sports leagues. The NBA, for example, utilized the wearable as part of its pandemic bubble protocol. Apple doesn’t have any such health studies to speak of at the moment, but I’d stay tuned to see how the company leverages the sensor in the future. The feature joins a slew of existing health sensors, including the ECG reader and blood oxygen monitor.

While the gyroscope and accelerometer have both been upgraded, the focus is specifically on G force for the aforementioned Crash Detection. That means things like automatic workout detection are in line with the Series 7. When running, I found it took around three minutes of activity to turn on. It will then backfill that time and add it to your total, though I often lose around 10 or so seconds in there, which is more or less inline with Samsung’s workout detection.

The app features some nice additions, breaking workouts into splits — in the case of my runs, it created a new one each time I hit a mile. Automatic Track Detection is a clever addition, as well. It utilizes Apple Maps data to determine when you’ve started running on a track, splitting the total into laps, so you don’t have keep track yourself. The feature should work with your local 400-meter track, if you’re in the U.S. That’s another one of those “coming later this year” features.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

WatchOS 9, meanwhile, brings a slew of its own updates. Now parents can set up Apple Watches for kids using their own phone. The company is planning further functionality there, including podcast listening, home keys and the ability to control smart home gadgets.

Medication tracking has been added, along with a slew of new watch faces, sleep stages and a breakdown of AFib history, to help those with the condition determine what in their life may be triggering the condition. Beyond that, there are some UI tweaks to the operating system, as well as changes to Reminders and Calendars, which let you edit directly from the small screen.

All told, Cycle tracking is the biggest marquee addition to the Watch this time out. Apple’s certainly not the first wearable maker to add temperature sensing to their device, nor is it making a whole lot of claims around what the sensor can do. For things like sleep tracking, it’s more of an additional data point that you can either take or leave. For those among us who have cycles to track, it may be a compelling reason for an upgrade.

In the early days of smartwatches, notifications were regularly pushed as the killer app. Pretty quickly, however, the focus shifted to health, where it has remained ever since. Generation by generation and piece by piece, the company has been building up a formidable health tracking suite, undergirded by encryption, 2FA and other important security features aimed at protecting that data. It’s always been an important piece of the puzzle, and these days it seems even more imperative than ever.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Additions like Crash Detection, meanwhile, add to a growing list of features one could label “peace of mind.”  Likely a small percentage of owners will deem them enough reason to upgrade, but also they likely will not sway holdouts — but they’re nice additions, nonetheless. There’s a reason so much stage time at the recent event was devoted to videos that were, quite frankly, bummers. This is the product’s current positioning. Sure there’s some fun stuff and a bit of the flare we normally see in these launches, but Apple is leaning in heavily on things like AFib monitoring, Crash Detection and S.O.S. — scenarios none of us particularly want to discuss but might welcome a product that could help us avoid worst case.

Low Power is a nice workaround to the problem of battery life. I can envision myself enabling it for those long days away from home when I don’t have quick access to a charge. But I continue holding out hope that the company will address it more head-on in a future update. (I’d add that if you’re fine operating in Low Power mode all the time, the SE might be a better choice.] Garmin digs aside, Apple has demonstrated that it’s able to get more on-board battery without disabling features. Now it’s a matter of finding its way onto a smartwatch that fits on more wrists.

What’s not up for debate, however, is that the company has built an impressive array of features, generation by generation. Getting back to the question that kicked off this 3,000-word review, the answer is seemingly simple for Apple: you make the product better one step at a time. That involves accepting that not every update is going to be a game changer, while being deliberate about things like health, which require getting things exactly right. Dropping a notification here and there is one thing, but you really don’t want to screw around with people’s wellness.

Image Credits: Brian Heater [Front: Apple Watch SE, Rear: Series 8]

The product officially received a Class II medical device classification when the FDA signed off on the Series 4’s ECG monitor back in 2018. Apple (and doctors) will be quick to point out that the product isn’t designed to diagnose any conditions (precise wording starts to get really important right around here), but a lot of people undoubtedly use it to monitor those previously diagnosed conditions day to day. For that reason, everything needs to be just right, even if it means waiting an extra year (or three) to roll out new features.

That Apple has long been dominant in the category is not from lack of competition. There are plenty of smartwatches on the market. But while the company’s not in any risk of surrending the top spot soon, fiercer competition from the likes of Samsung and Google can only help the space, moving forward.

read more about Apple's fall event, September 7, 2022

Apple Watch Series 8 review: Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Read More

Continue Reading

Government

“I Can’t Even Save”: Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load

"I Can’t Even Save": Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load

While Joe Biden insists that Americans are doing great…

Published

on

"I Can't Even Save": Americans Are Getting Absolutely Crushed Under Enormous Debt Load

While Joe Biden insists that Americans are doing great - suggesting in his State of the Union Address last week that "our economy is the envy of the world," Americans are being absolutely crushed by inflation (which the Biden admin blames on 'shrinkflation' and 'corporate greed'), and of course - crippling debt.

The signs are obvious. Last week we noted that banks' charge-offs are accelerating, and are now above pre-pandemic levels.

...and leading this increase are credit card loans - with delinquencies that haven't been this high since Q3 2011.

On top of that, while credit cards and nonfarm, nonresidential commercial real estate loans drove the quarterly increase in the noncurrent rate, residential mortgages drove the quarterly increase in the share of loans 30-89 days past due.

And while Biden and crew can spin all they want, an average of polls from RealClear Politics shows that just 40% of people approve of Biden's handling of the economy.

Crushed

On Friday, Bloomberg dug deeper into the effects of Biden's "envious" economy on Americans - specifically, how massive debt loads (credit cards and auto loans especially) are absolutely crushing people.

Two years after the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tame prices, delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are the highest in more than a decade. For the first time on record, interest payments on those and other non-mortgage debts are as big a financial burden for US households as mortgage interest payments.

According to the report, this presents a difficult reality for millions of consumers who drive the US economy - "The era of high borrowing costs — however necessary to slow price increases — has a sting of its own that many families may feel for years to come, especially the ones that haven’t locked in cheap home loans."

The Fed, meanwhile, doesn't appear poised to cut rates until later this year.

According to a February paper from IMF and Harvard, the recent high cost of borrowing - something which isn't reflected in inflation figures, is at the heart of lackluster consumer sentiment despite inflation having moderated and a job market which has recovered (thanks to job gains almost entirely enjoyed by immigrants).

In short, the debt burden has made life under President Biden a constant struggle throughout America.

"I’m making the most money I've ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck," 40-year-old Denver resident Nikki Cimino told Bloomberg. Cimino is carrying a monthly mortgage of $1,650, and has $4,000 in credit card debt following a 2020 divorce.

Nikki CiminoPhotographer: Rachel Woolf/Bloomberg

"There's this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing."

What's more, according to Wells Fargo, families have taken on debt at a comparatively fast rate - no doubt to sustain the same lifestyle as low rates and pandemic-era stimmies provided. In fact, it only took four years for households to set a record new debt level after paying down borrowings in 2021 when interest rates were near zero. 

Meanwhile, that increased debt load is exacerbated by credit card interest rates that have climbed to a record 22%, according to the Fed.

[P]art of the reason some Americans were able to take on a substantial load of non-mortgage debt is because they’d locked in home loans at ultra-low rates, leaving room on their balance sheets for other types of borrowing. The effective rate of interest on US mortgage debt was just 3.8% at the end of last year.

Yet the loans and interest payments can be a significant strain that shapes families’ spending choices. -Bloomberg

And of course, the highest-interest debt (credit cards) is hurting lower-income households the most, as tends to be the case.

The lowest earners also understandably had the biggest increase in credit card delinquencies.

"Many consumers are levered to the hilt — maxed out on debt and barely keeping their heads above water," Allan Schweitzer, a portfolio manager at credit-focused investment firm Beach Point Capital Management told Bloomberg. "They can dog paddle, if you will, but any uptick in unemployment or worsening of the economy could drive a pretty significant spike in defaults."

"We had more money when Trump was president," said Denise Nierzwicki, 69. She and her 72-year-old husband Paul have around $20,000 in debt spread across multiple cards - all of which have interest rates above 20%.

Denise and Paul Nierzwicki blame Biden for what they see as a gloomy economy and plan to vote for the Republican candidate in November.
Photographer: Jon Cherry/Bloomberg

During the pandemic, Denise lost her job and a business deal for a bar they owned in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. While they applied for Social Security to ease the pain, Denise is now working 50 hours a week at a restaurant. Despite this, they're barely scraping enough money together to service their debt.

The couple blames Biden for what they see as a gloomy economy and plans to vote for the Republican candidate in November. Denise routinely voted for Democrats up until about 2010, when she grew dissatisfied with Barack Obama’s economic stances, she said. Now, she supports Donald Trump because he lowered taxes and because of his policies on immigration. -Bloomberg

Meanwhile there's student loans - which are not able to be discharged in bankruptcy.

"I can't even save, I don't have a savings account," said 29-year-old in Columbus, Ohio resident Brittany Walling - who has around $80,000 in federal student loans, $20,000 in private debt from her undergraduate and graduate degrees, and $6,000 in credit card debt she accumulated over a six-month stretch in 2022 while she was unemployed.

"I just know that a lot of people are struggling, and things need to change," she told the outlet.

The only silver lining of note, according to Bloomberg, is that broad wage gains resulting in large paychecks has made it easier for people to throw money at credit card bills.

Yet, according to Wells Fargo economist Shannon Grein, "As rates rose in 2023, we avoided a slowdown due to spending that was very much tied to easy access to credit ... Now, credit has become harder to come by and more expensive."

According to Grein, the change has posed "a significant headwind to consumption."

Then there's the election

"Maybe the Fed is done hiking, but as long as rates stay on hold, you still have a passive tightening effect flowing down to the consumer and being exerted on the economy," she continued. "Those household dynamics are going to be a factor in the election this year."

Meanwhile, swing-state voters in a February Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll said they trust Trump more than Biden on interest rates and personal debt.

Reverberations

These 'headwinds' have M3 Partners' Moshin Meghji concerned.

"Any tightening there immediately hits the top line of companies," he said, noting that for heavily indebted companies that took on debt during years of easy borrowing, "there's no easy fix."

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 18:00

Read More

Continue Reading

Spread & Containment

Sylvester researchers, collaborators call for greater investment in bereavement care

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater…

Published

on

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Memorial Sloan Kettering Comprehensive Cancer Center

MIAMI, FLORIDA (March 15, 2024) – The public health toll from bereavement is well-documented in the medical literature, with bereaved persons at greater risk for many adverse outcomes, including mental health challenges, decreased quality of life, health care neglect, cancer, heart disease, suicide, and death. Now, in a paper published in The Lancet Public Health, researchers sound a clarion call for greater investment, at both the community and institutional level, in establishing support for grief-related suffering.

The authors emphasized that increased mortality worldwide caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, suicide, drug overdose, homicide, armed conflict, and terrorism have accelerated the urgency for national- and global-level frameworks to strengthen the provision of sustainable and accessible bereavement care. Unfortunately, current national and global investment in bereavement support services is woefully inadequate to address this growing public health crisis, said researchers with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and collaborating organizations.  

They proposed a model for transitional care that involves firmly establishing bereavement support services within healthcare organizations to ensure continuity of family-centered care while bolstering community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and a grief-informed workforce. The model highlights the responsibility of the health system to build bridges to the community that can help grievers feel held as they transition.   

The Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care at Sylvester is advocating for precisely this model of transitional care. Wendy G. Lichtenthal, PhD, FT, FAPOS, who is Founding Director of the new Center and associate professor of public health sciences at the Miller School, noted, “We need a paradigm shift in how healthcare professionals, institutions, and systems view bereavement care. Sylvester is leading the way by investing in the establishment of this Center, which is the first to focus on bringing the transitional bereavement care model to life.”

What further distinguishes the Center is its roots in bereavement science, advancing care approaches that are both grounded in research and community-engaged.  

The authors focused on palliative care, which strives to provide a holistic approach to minimize suffering for seriously ill patients and their families, as one area where improvements are critically needed. They referenced groundbreaking reports of the Lancet Commissions on the value of global access to palliative care and pain relief that highlighted the “undeniable need for improved bereavement care delivery infrastructure.” One of those reports acknowledged that bereavement has been overlooked and called for reprioritizing social determinants of death, dying, and grief.

“Palliative care should culminate with bereavement care, both in theory and in practice,” explained Lichtenthal, who is the article’s corresponding author. “Yet, bereavement care often is under-resourced and beset with access inequities.”

Transitional bereavement care model

So, how do health systems and communities prioritize bereavement services to ensure that no bereaved individual goes without needed support? The transitional bereavement care model offers a roadmap.

“We must reposition bereavement care from an afterthought to a public health priority. Transitional bereavement care is necessary to bridge the gap in offerings between healthcare organizations and community-based bereavement services,” Lichtenthal said. “Our model calls for health systems to shore up the quality and availability of their offerings, but also recognizes that resources for bereavement care within a given healthcare institution are finite, emphasizing the need to help build communities’ capacity to support grievers.”

Key to the model, she added, is the bolstering of community-based support through development of “compassionate communities” and “upskilling” of professional services to assist those with more substantial bereavement-support needs.

The model contains these pillars:

  • Preventive bereavement care –healthcare teams engage in bereavement-conscious practices, and compassionate communities are mindful of the emotional and practical needs of dying patients’ families.
  • Ownership of bereavement care – institutions provide bereavement education for staff, risk screenings for families, outreach and counseling or grief support. Communities establish bereavement centers and “champions” to provide bereavement care at workplaces, schools, places of worship or care facilities.
  • Resource allocation for bereavement care – dedicated personnel offer universal outreach, and bereaved stakeholders provide input to identify community barriers and needed resources.
  • Upskilling of support providers – Bereavement education is integrated into training programs for health professionals, and institutions offer dedicated grief specialists. Communities have trained, accessible bereavement specialists who provide support and are educated in how to best support bereaved individuals, increasing their grief literacy.
  • Evidence-based care – bereavement care is evidence-based and features effective grief assessments, interventions, and training programs. Compassionate communities remain mindful of bereavement care needs.

Lichtenthal said the new Center will strive to materialize these pillars and aims to serve as a global model for other health organizations. She hopes the paper’s recommendations “will cultivate a bereavement-conscious and grief-informed workforce as well as grief-literate, compassionate communities and health systems that prioritize bereavement as a vital part of ethical healthcare.”

“This paper is calling for healthcare institutions to respond to their duty to care for the family beyond patients’ deaths. By investing in the creation of the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care, Sylvester is answering this call,” Lichtenthal said.

Follow @SylvesterCancer on X for the latest news on Sylvester’s research and care.

# # #

Article Title: Investing in bereavement care as a public health priority

DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00030-6

Authors: The complete list of authors is included in the paper.

Funding: The authors received funding from the National Cancer Institute (P30 CA240139 Nimer) and P30 CA008748 Vickers).

Disclosures: The authors declared no competing interests.

# # #


Read More

Continue Reading

Spread & Containment

Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From The AI Revolution

Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From The AI Revolution

Authored by Per Bylund via The Mises Institute,

Artificial intelligence…

Published

on

Separating Information From Disinformation: Threats From The AI Revolution

Authored by Per Bylund via The Mises Institute,

Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot distinguish fact from fiction. It also isn’t creative or can create novel content but repeats, repackages, and reformulates what has already been said (but perhaps in new ways).

I am sure someone will disagree with the latter, perhaps pointing to the fact that AI can clearly generate, for example, new songs and lyrics. I agree with this, but it misses the point. AI produces a “new” song lyric only by drawing from the data of previous song lyrics and then uses that information (the inductively uncovered patterns in it) to generate what to us appears to be a new song (and may very well be one). However, there is no artistry in it, no creativity. It’s only a structural rehashing of what exists.

Of course, we can debate to what extent humans can think truly novel thoughts and whether human learning may be based solely or primarily on mimicry. However, even if we would—for the sake of argument—agree that all we know and do is mere reproduction, humans have limited capacity to remember exactly and will make errors. We also fill in gaps with what subjectively (not objectively) makes sense to us (Rorschach test, anyone?). Even in this very limited scenario, which I disagree with, humans generate novelty beyond what AI is able to do.

Both the inability to distinguish fact from fiction and the inductive tether to existent data patterns are problems that can be alleviated programmatically—but are open for manipulation.

Manipulation and Propaganda

When Google launched its Gemini AI in February, it immediately became clear that the AI had a woke agenda. Among other things, the AI pushed woke diversity ideals into every conceivable response and, among other things, refused to show images of white people (including when asked to produce images of the Founding Fathers).

Tech guru and Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen summarized it on X (formerly Twitter): “I know it’s hard to believe, but Big Tech AI generates the output it does because it is precisely executing the specific ideological, radical, biased agenda of its creators. The apparently bizarre output is 100% intended. It is working as designed.”

There is indeed a design to these AIs beyond the basic categorization and generation engines. The responses are not perfectly inductive or generative. In part, this is necessary in order to make the AI useful: filters and rules are applied to make sure that the responses that the AI generates are appropriate, fit with user expectations, and are accurate and respectful. Given the legal situation, creators of AI must also make sure that the AI does not, for example, violate intellectual property laws or engage in hate speech. AI is also designed (directed) so that it does not go haywire or offend its users (remember Tay?).

However, because such filters are applied and the “behavior” of the AI is already directed, it is easy to take it a little further. After all, when is a response too offensive versus offensive but within the limits of allowable discourse? It is a fine and difficult line that must be specified programmatically.

It also opens the possibility for steering the generated responses beyond mere quality assurance. With filters already in place, it is easy to make the AI make statements of a specific type or that nudges the user in a certain direction (in terms of selected facts, interpretations, and worldviews). It can also be used to give the AI an agenda, as Andreessen suggests, such as making it relentlessly woke.

Thus, AI can be used as an effective propaganda tool, which both the corporations creating them and the governments and agencies regulating them have recognized.

Misinformation and Error

States have long refused to admit that they benefit from and use propaganda to steer and control their subjects. This is in part because they want to maintain a veneer of legitimacy as democratic governments that govern based on (rather than shape) people’s opinions. Propaganda has a bad ring to it; it’s a means of control.

However, the state’s enemies—both domestic and foreign—are said to understand the power of propaganda and do not hesitate to use it to cause chaos in our otherwise untainted democratic society. The government must save us from such manipulation, they claim. Of course, rarely does it stop at mere defense. We saw this clearly during the covid pandemic, in which the government together with social media companies in effect outlawed expressing opinions that were not the official line (see Murthy v. Missouri).

AI is just as easy to manipulate for propaganda purposes as social media algorithms but with the added bonus that it isn’t only people’s opinions and that users tend to trust that what the AI reports is true. As we saw in the previous article on the AI revolution, this is not a valid assumption, but it is nevertheless a widely held view.

If the AI then can be instructed to not comment on certain things that the creators (or regulators) do not want people to see or learn, then it is effectively “memory holed.” This type of “unwanted” information will not spread as people will not be exposed to it—such as showing only diverse representations of the Founding Fathers (as Google’s Gemini) or presenting, for example, only Keynesian macroeconomic truths to make it appear like there is no other perspective. People don’t know what they don’t know.

Of course, nothing is to say that what is presented to the user is true. In fact, the AI itself cannot distinguish fact from truth but only generates responses according to direction and only based on whatever the AI has been fed. This leaves plenty of scope for the misrepresentation of the truth and can make the world believe outright lies. AI, therefore, can easily be used to impose control, whether it is upon a state, the subjects under its rule, or even a foreign power.

The Real Threat of AI

What, then, is the real threat of AI? As we saw in the first article, large language models will not (cannot) evolve into artificial general intelligence as there is nothing about inductive sifting through large troves of (humanly) created information that will give rise to consciousness. To be frank, we haven’t even figured out what consciousness is, so to think that we will create it (or that it will somehow emerge from algorithms discovering statistical language correlations in existing texts) is quite hyperbolic. Artificial general intelligence is still hypothetical.

As we saw in the second article, there is also no economic threat from AI. It will not make humans economically superfluous and cause mass unemployment. AI is productive capital, which therefore has value to the extent that it serves consumers by contributing to the satisfaction of their wants. Misused AI is as valuable as a misused factory—it will tend to its scrap value. However, this doesn’t mean that AI will have no impact on the economy. It will, and already has, but it is not as big in the short-term as some fear, and it is likely bigger in the long-term than we expect.

No, the real threat is AI’s impact on information. This is in part because induction is an inappropriate source of knowledge—truth and fact are not a matter of frequency or statistical probabilities. The evidence and theories of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei would get weeded out as improbable (false) by an AI trained on all the (best and brightest) writings on geocentrism at the time. There is no progress and no learning of new truths if we trust only historical theories and presentations of fact.

However, this problem can probably be overcome by clever programming (meaning implementing rules—and fact-based limitations—to the induction problem), at least to some extent. The greater problem is the corruption of what AI presents: the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation that its creators and administrators, as well as governments and pressure groups, direct it to create as a means of controlling or steering public opinion or knowledge.

This is the real danger that the now-famous open letter, signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others, pointed to:

“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”

Other than the economically illiterate reference to “automat[ing] away all the jobs,” the warning is well-taken. AI will not Terminator-like start to hate us and attempt to exterminate mankind. It will not make us all into biological batteries, as in The Matrix. However, it will—especially when corrupted—misinform and mislead us, create chaos, and potentially make our lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 06:30

Read More

Continue Reading

Trending