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Anyone following the rhetoric around <keyword id="107950" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Artificial-Intelligence" source="Orion">artificial intelligence</keyword> in recent years has heard one version or another of the cl<keyword id="6355999" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AI" source="Orion">ai</keyword>m that AI is inevitable. Common themes are that AI is already here and indispensable, and people who are bearish on it harm themselves. In the business world, AI advocates tell companies and workers that they will fall behind if they fail to integrate generative AI into their operations. In the sciences, AI advocates promise that AI will aid in curing hitherto intractable diseases. In higher education, AI promoters admonish teachers that students must learn how to use AI or risk becoming uncompetitive when it comes time to find a job. In national security, AI's champions say that either the nation invests heavily in AI weaponry, or it will be at a disadvantage against the Chinese and Russians, who are already doing so. The argument across these different domains is essentially the same: The time for AI skepticism has come and gone. The <keyword id="6355118" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="technology" source="Orion">technology</keyword> will shape the future, whether you like it or not. You have the choice to learn how to use it or be left out of that future. Anyone trying to stand in the technology's way is as hopeless as the manual weavers who resisted the mechanical looms in the early 19th century. In the past few years, my colleagues and I (Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston) have been studying the ethical questions raised by the widespread adoption of AI, and I believe the inevitability argument is misleading. <h2>History and hindsight</h2> This claim is the most recent version of a deterministic view of technological development. It's the belief that innovations are unstoppable once people start working on them. In other words, some genies don't go back in their bottles. The best you can do is harness them for your good purposes. This deterministic approach to tech has a long history. It's been applied to the influence of the printing press as well as to the rise of automobiles and the infrastructure they require, among other developments. But I believe that when it comes to AI, the technological determinism argument is both exaggerated and oversimplified. <h2>AI in the field(s)</h2> Consider the contention that businesses can't afford to stay out of the AI game. The case has yet to be made that AI is delivering significant productivity gains to the firms that use it. A report in The <keyword id="20856675" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="economist" source="keywords">Economist</keyword> in July 2024 suggests that so far, the technology has had almost no economic impact. AI's role in higher education is also still very much an open question. Though universities have, in the past two years, invested heavily in AI-related initiatives, evidence suggests they may have jumped the gun. The technology can serve as an interesting pedagogical tool. For example, creating a Plato chatbot that lets students have a text conversation with a bot posing as Plato is a cool gimmick. However, AI is already starting to displace some of the best tools teachers have for assessment and for developing critical thinking, such as writing assignments. The college essay is going the way of the dinosaurs as more teachers give up on the ability to tell whether their students are writing their papers themselves. What's the cost-benefit argument for giving up on writing, an important and useful traditional skill? In the sciences and medicine, the use of AI seems promising. Its role in understanding the structure of proteins, for example, will likely be significant for curing diseases. The technology is also transforming medical imaging and has been helpful in accelerating the drug discovery process. But the excitement can become exaggerated. AI-based predictions about which cases of COVID-19 would become severe have roundly failed, and doctors rely excessively on the technology's diagnostic ability, often against their own better clinical judgment. And so, even in this area, where the potential is great, AI's ultimate impact is unclear. In national security, the argument for investing in AI development is compelling. Since the stakes can be high, the argument that if the Chinese and the Russians are developing AI-driven autonomous weapons, the United States can't afford to fall behind has real purchase. But a complete surrender to this form of reasoning, though tempting, is likely to lead the <keyword id="19899807" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="u-s-" source="keywords">U.S.</keyword> to overlook the disproportionate impact of these systems on nations that are too poor to participate in the AI arms race. The major powers could deploy the technology in conflicts in these nations. And, just as significantly, this argument de-emphasizes the possibility of collaborating with adversaries on limiting military AI systems, favoring arms race over arms control.<h2> One step at a time</h2> Surveying the potential significance and risks of AI in these different domains merits some skepticism about the technology. I believe that AI should be adopted piecemeal and with a nuanced approach rather than subject to sweeping claims of inevitability. In developing this careful take, there are two things to keep in mind: -First, companies and entrepreneurs working on artificial intelligence have an obvious interest in the technology being perceived as inevitable and necessary, since they make a living from its adoption. It's important to pay attention to who is making claims of inevitability, and why. -Second, it's worth taking a lesson from recent history. Over the past 15 years, smartphones and the social media apps that run on them have come to be seen as a fact of life - a technology as transformative as it is inevitable. Then data started emerging about the <keyword id="6354774" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mental-health" source="Orion">mental health</keyword> harms they cause teens, especially young girls. School districts across the United States started to ban phones to protect the attention spans and mental health of their students. And some people have reverted to using flip phones as a quality of life change to avoid smartphones. After a long experiment with the mental health of kids, facilitated by claims of technological determinism, Americans changed course. What seemed fixed turned out to be alterable. There is still time to avoid repeating the same mistake with artificial intelligence, which potentially could have larger consequences for society.

Is AI dominance inevitable? A technology ethicist says no, actually

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Tourism is bigger than ever, with international tourists set to reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024.</li><li>A new book, "The New Tourist," talks about balancing tourism's impacts and being a mindful traveler.</li></ul>Whether carving their names on the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tourist-recorded-carving-colosseum-walls-sparking-outrage-2023-6">Coliseum in Rome</a> or haphazardly approaching <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tourists-surround-bear-two-cubs-yellowstone-national-park-sparking-debate-2023-8">bears at Yellowstone National Park</a>, tourists frequently make the news for behavior that's, frankly, very stupid.Well-behaved or not, all <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/overtourism-measures-limit-tourism-going-to-increase-venice-amsterdam-rome-2023-10">tourists can have negative impacts</a> on a destination, from too much traffic and congestion to rising rents and priced-out locals. And yet tourism can also bring economic and cultural benefits to a community — especially when it's done right.Paige McClanahan's new book, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-New-Tourist/Paige-McClanahan/9781668011775">"The New Tourist: Waking Up to the Power and Perils of Travel,"</a> is all about how tourism impacts the world, from the good to the bad, and how people who travel can be the right kind of tourist.McClanahan, an American journalist based in France, talked to Business Insider about what it means to be a new tourist, her experience living in a small touristy village in the French Alps, and why people should stop saying they're a "traveler, not a tourist."The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.BI: Why do you think your book — and conversations about how to be a better traveler — are important right now?Paige McClanahan: In 2024, we're expected to see <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.unwto.org/news/international-tourism-reached-97-of-pre-pandemic-levels-in-the-first-quarter-of-2024">1.55 billion international tourist arrivals</a>, which is breaking the pre-pandemic record. Tourism is growing. It's growing faster than the global economy. It's a huge force.At the same time, so many of us who are traveling are looking at our travels through a different lens. All of us, of course, were forced to stay at home during COVID because of pandemic restrictions, and I think that forced so many of us to reexamine this aspect of our lives that we had taken for granted.I'm hoping this book is arriving in a moment where it can really resonate with people because we're traveling more than ever, and I think we're more ready than ever to consider the implications of our travels. And actually surveys are showing that people are more concerned about sustainability, they're more concerned about their impacts on communities. They're willing to spend more to have a positive impact on the place. So I hope the book is coming really at the right moment to speak to that audience.Was there a specific moment or an experience you had traveling that sparked the idea for the book?In 2018, I moved with my family to a little village in the French Alps.I had a chance to see firsthand how tourism really brought life into this village that would otherwise have become a ghost town, probably 50 years ago. It brought life, it brought energy, it brought culture, it brought all sorts of activities for my family, for me and my children, that we wouldn't have had otherwise in this beautiful corner of the French Alps.At the same time, as a resident of a tourist destination, I, for the first time in my life, really had to deal with things like having a heaving grocery store for maybe six or eight weeks a year, or having the parking lot where drop kids off at school overflowing sometimes, or sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the road that leads to my house when I'm just trying to get home with my groceries.Tourism is so huge and it has so many impacts that go so much deeper below the surface than most of us think about when we're traveling. It was really so moving to this village that that inspired me to start looking at travel and tourism in my journalism.Everywhere I look, there's complexities, there's good and bad and it's so important.Can you describe what you mean by "the new tourist"? What does a new tourist look like?In the last chapter of the book, I respond to an essay that was written by an exceptional writer named Agnes Kard and published in The New Yorker last summer called "The Case Against Travel." She described some tourists as "unchanged changers" — people who go to a place and they change the place, they inflict their presence on the place, and they're unchanged. They themselves remain closed in their hearts and minds to the experience and they come away unmoved. So, I took that as my starting point. That's what I see as an old tourist. Let's have a new tourist be somebody who's a changed changer, changed and enlightened.A new tourist is someone who takes the time to educate themselves about the impact that their presence will have on the place they're visiting and uses that knowledge to do their best to minimize any negative impacts of their presence on the place and maximize any positive impacts, whether it's economic, social, or cultural impacts.And they're changed themselves. They come with a view to having their mind changed. They come with a level of humility. They come with a strong desire to really see the humanity in the people they're visiting and the beauty in the place they're visiting and don't see themselves as superior to the people or the place.It's a mindset shift, really, but I think that it's a really powerful mindset shift that can lead to very constructive impacts both the tourist destination and on the traveler herself.How might travel look differently for someone who's embraced that mindset? How would their behaviors change?To start as an example, how you decide where you're going to go on a trip. When you're thinking about where you want to go, really take some time to reflect. Are you going to a place because it's on some top 10 list that you saw, and you feel like you're obligated to cross it off? Or are you going for a deeper sort of reason, like you want to connect with the culture? Maybe there's something meaningful there that you want to take the time to really learn about or get engaged with when you're there. I think it starts with self-reflection and making sure your motivations for where you want to travel are coming from a deeper place and not a superficial bucket list.At a really practical level, maybe taking fewer trips, but staying longer and really taking the time to engage in a place. Because if you, as an American, come to Europe for two weeks and hit five major cities with two to three days in each place, that's not going to give you the chance to engage in a meaningful way with anybody who lives there or with the culture and history of the place. But if you come to Paris for two weeks, you settle in, and you're seeing the same people at the corner shop every day, you're going back to the same bar at the corner, the same cafe at the corner, and you have a chance to build some relationships. You have a chance to really get to know this corner of Paris. You have a chance to explore beyond the top five things to do and explore other perspectives of the city, not just the cliché.Visiting fewer places is also better for the climate and it's better for the economies of the places you're visiting because every tourist destination wants people to come and stay longer. Be a high-quality visitor. And hire a local tour guide, whether it's for an hour or half a day or a full day, or multiple days. It gives you a chance to really have a personal, human, one-on-one interaction with someone who lives in that place, and you're directly supporting a local.That's one of the highest aims we can have as new tourists: to come away with a real human connection and not just photos for our Instagram feed.You write in the book that the stigma around the word "tourist" needs to change. Why?I think the problem with somebody saying, "I travel a lot, but I'm not a tourist when I travel, I'm a traveler" — It's like, OK, sure, you're a traveler, but I want you to remember that you're a tourist too. If we dissociate ourselves from this phenomenon of tourism that means we don't feel any ownership over the problems that tourism presents. If tourism is something that only other people do, then why should we be bothered about the problems that come with it?If we implicate ourselves in tourism, if we say, "Yes, I'm a tourist," then we might hopefully feel some ownership over the problems with tourism and we might be inspired to actually do something to change it.Because if tourism is this thing that only other people do, and everyone in the world, all of us who are lucky enough to travel, see tourism as something that other people do, nothing's ever going to get better.

An American mom who moved to the French Alps experienced the impacts of over-tourism firsthand. She says there's a better way to do it       

<ul class="summary-list"><li>When Jeffery Smith and his wife are both working remotely, their kids are often around at home. </li><li> Setting boundaries so his kids understand not to disturb them has been a challenge, Smith said. </li></ul>This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Jeffery Smith, 46, the vice president of production operations at Basis Technologies, about how working remotely impacts his family life. The following has been edited for length and clarity.When my kids were very young, my wife and I both worked in the office full-time.Our routine was a tight, orchestrated dance. I drove the kids to preschool in the morning, and my wife would pick them up after work before starting dinner.After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, both of us began <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dream-job-in-office-work-full-time-flexibility-benefits-2024-3">working remotely</a>.Nowadays, our kids, who are nine and 12, usually walk home from school and are around in the house in the afternoons. It's an interesting dynamic because they don't always recognize that we're doing work.I get to spend more time around our kids, but I'm also worried about how the remote environment is shaping their view of work. I worry about how they'd handle a less flexible working environment when they're older.<h2 id="c05c5dce-82e5-4c04-9838-1ff9bc419575">Remote work has had a positive impact on my relationship with my kids</h2>I'm an engineering manager for an advertising company, and my wife works for a medical devices company.My company is remote-first. One of our mottos is "Flex with us, and we'll flex with you." It's pretty easy to step away during the workday as long as your manager's on board. I'm transparent about any time I take off during the day, letting colleagues know I'll get my tasks done later that night.It used to be more difficult to take my kids to the dentist and doctor, but now my wife and I can get to these appointments as long as we communicate our schedules.The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-ceo-employees-value-remote-work-more-office-snacks-2024-4">flexibility of remote work</a> has positively impacted my relationship with my kids overall. I spend more time around them, even if we aren't directly interacting. If I go upstairs to grab a glass of water, I can see what the kids are up to and get the debrief. It's like the new water cooler, except with your family instead of coworkers.As a kid, I didn't know anything about my father's work. He disappeared at 8 a.m. and reappeared at 5. When I have to tell my kids I can't be disturbed because I have an important meeting, it opens up conversations about what I do for work. I like sharing this side of myself with them.<h2 id="59d48663-63f0-4ec3-b3ad-cf6727a3a1e5">It's harder to separate 'dad' Jeff and 'work' Jeff</h2>I actually miss my <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/workers-say-employers-should-pay-for-commute-return-to-office-2024-4">commute</a>. I used to have a 45-minute journey home, which acted as buffer time for transitioning from "work" Jeff to "dad" Jeff.Now, after work, I have to transition straight into "dad" Jeff. If I'm angry about a meeting I've just had, it impacts my behavior with my family.Creating boundaries with our kids so that they understand when we're unavailable because of work has also been difficult.For example, my kids draw a lot. They always want to come into my office where I'm working and get paper from the printer when I'm on a call. My daughter will crawl in on all fours, not realizing my colleagues can see her in the background.Her attempt at discreetness shows she recognizes I'm working but doesn't grasp the seriousness of what I'm doing. She wouldn't crawl into a physical <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/everything-youll-ever-need-to-know-about-board-meetings-2010-6">board meeting</a>.<h2 id="3a71405f-5f25-4291-8000-9f658002ea7b">My son once said he thought work was more important to us than he was</h2>Our nine-year-old son is too young to remember us going to the office.One day, he had an assembly at school. I couldn't be there, and my wife couldn't stay until the end because she had a meeting. When she explained this to my son, he said, "That's OK. I understand work is more important."It was a gut punch for us. Work isn't more important than him, but how could we explain that and still not go to the assembly?During my childhood, I never expected my father to make it to an assembly. He was the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/breadwinner-in-marriage-stay-at-home-dad-advice-2023-6">breadwinner</a>, and I naturally internalized that work was more important because he was the one putting food on the table.Our generation is the first to raise kids in a remote work environment en-masse. You just don't know how your children internalize the little things you say, and I had to think about the silent expectations my son was building around our availability.It's important for my kids to understand when we're in work or parent mode so they can understand where a particular response is coming from, but remote work blurs this line.We explained to him that our flexibility around working hours has limits. We also explained what we both do for work and that sometimes our work requires thinking, so even if he can't hear us talking to someone on a call, it's important that we aren't interrupted.I don't know if he understood all of it, but he did say he realized that work is only sometimes more important, depending on what we need to do.<h2 id="8a479001-2a67-4854-8dcc-81485443cfa1">I worry that watching me work remotely will make my kids less resilient</h2>I hope that the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/return-to-office-hybrid-work-model-quit-jobs-2023-8">flexibility of remote work</a> gives my kids a sense of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-work-life-balance-advice-boss-lessons-job-2024-1">work-life balance</a>. I want to set healthy examples of integrating knowledge work with the rest of their lives. When I take time out of my day to take them to appointments and connect with them, I hope they recognize how important they are to me.But I also have fears about how <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/genz-millennials-summer-travel-debt-remote-work-blame-2024-6">remote work</a> will impact my children and their generation.I worry if they'll be able to transition into a less flexible environment. If they're teenagers flipping burgers to make extra cash, shift work doesn't have the same flexibility. You can't just leave for 30 minutes to run an errand.Most people in my circle are knowledge workers, so my kids don't really have a concept of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blue-collar-job-demand-growth-white-collar-layoffs-ai-2024-5">physical labor</a>, where there's often more structure to your routine. If their lives were to take them on a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-welder-blue-collar-work-earning-getting-fit-2024-7">trade skills path</a>, they might bring expectations around work with them that don't exist in that arena.We've taken steps to instill a strong <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/good-worth-ethic-working-class-2022-7">work ethic</a> in our kids. While they're home during the summer, we give them a checklist of things to do for some structure.I worry the environment they've grown up in will make them less adaptable and less resilient. I wonder how what we're displaying as parents will form their opinion of what work is.

My wife and I both work from home. I have a ton of fears about how remote work will impact my kids as they grow up.  

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Gen Z pays more in housing costs than millennials did a decade ago, according to WaPo.</li><li>In an economy battered by inflation, higher costs have created economic uncertainty for Gen Z.</li></ul>During the Great Recession and much of the 2010s, millennials bore the brunt of one of the biggest economic upheavals in generations.A tough job market — where layoffs and high unemployment sidelined many budding careers — defined the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-money-financial-economic-trauma-recession-student-debt-inflation-2022-2">earliest stages of adulthood</a> for many millennials.More than a decade after the Great Recession and over four years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gen Z is now enduring its own economic challenges.Gen Z is spending more on housing and car insurance than their millennial counterparts did at the same age, and the younger generation is also holding more debt than millennials did, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/06/22/gen-z-millennials-debt-inflation/">according to The Washington Post</a>.The newspaper reported that Gen Z workers are more likely to have attended college and earn higher pay than millennials, but debt is weighing them down: About 1 in 7 Gen Zers have hit their credit card limits."Gen Z consumers have seen their finances significantly impacted by the pandemic and its aftermath, even more so than the challenges faced by millennials as a result of the global financial crisis," TransUnion US research head Michele Raneri told the Post. "Both of these cohorts have emerged from a difficult financial situation, but Gen Z is having a harder time affording this new cost of living."These findings are significant as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both fight for Gen Z votes ahead of the November election.<h2 id="b8f6cb46-cd3c-40e6-9e1c-a71f25217d10">Spending more and more</h2>Gen Z is spending 31% more on housing costs compared to what millennials paid 10 years ago, a figure which also factors in inflation, according to the Post.According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, car insurance costs increased more than twofold for Americans aged 16 to 24 between 2012 and 2022, and health insurance costs spiked 46% for this group during the same time span.Debt accounted for 16% of Gen Z income at the end of 2023, whereas debt among millennials only accounted for 12% 10 years ago, the Post reported.Gen Z has seen an economic recovery since the throes of the pandemic, buoyed by a 4% unemployment rate. But with higher costs taking out a large chunk of their salaries, many Gen Z workers feel like they're falling behind.<div type="image" title="Biden Trump" height="1500" width="3000" msid="111212871" hostid="261"></div><h2 id="bd62f494-789b-4efe-bbc8-8b21f1e72225">Biden v. Trump redux</h2>In 2020, young voters overwhelmingly supported Biden. That year, the president carried <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/">voters aged 18 to 29</a> by 24 points (59% to 35%) over Trump, according to Pew Research.During that cycle, the leading issues among young voters included the economy, student-loan forgiveness, reproductive rights, climate change, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and racial inequality.This year, Gen Z has once again prioritized the economy as a defining issue of the election. And Biden — already struggling with younger voters over the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-gaza-ceasefire-morehouse-college-graduation-black-young-voters-2024-5">conflict in Gaza</a> — will have to craft a persuasive defense of his policies to ensure their support.In the latest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/13/us/elections/times-siena-poll-registered-voter-crosstabs.html">New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College swing-state poll</a> conducted in late April and early May, 18% of registered voters aged 18 to 29 listed the economy as their top issue.This age group was the most pessimistic of any generation regarding the economy: 59% rated it as "poor," while 32% rated it as "only fair." About 7% of registered voters said the economy was "good."Only 1% of registered voters aged 18 to 29 rated the economy as "excellent."Trump is campaigning in cities like New York and Philadelphia to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biden-philadelphia-pennsylvania-rally-black-swing-voters-2024-6">make inroads</a> with younger and more infrequent voters to cut into the Democratic margins that are key for Biden.The struggles of Gen Z — whether it's high rents or elevated insurance costs — are poised to be a defining issue for the Biden and Trump campaigns during this critical summer stretch. And whoever finds a way to address Gen Z concerns and craft potential solutions effectively will likely emerge as the presidential victor in November.

Gen Z pays more for housing and has more debt than millennials did 10 years ago. That will likely impact the presidential race.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The general public's attitude toward COVID is more relaxed than ever, even amid a summer surge.</li><li>Doctors say relaxed COVID precautions are to be expected and are not necessarily a bad thing.</li></ul>Gone are the days of scrubbing surfaces, sudden <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-shut-down-school-two-days-after-classes-started-2022-1">school closures</a>, and social distancing.Where a positive COVID-19 test once wrought panicked <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-19-mistakes-us-focus-on-contact-tracing-not-sequencing-2021-3">contract tracing </a>and guaranteed two weeks of isolation, these days, a diagnosis sparks relatively little worry for most people.Even amid a summer spike in cases — everyone from President <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-tests-positive-for-covid-19-2024-7#:~:text=President%20Joe%20Biden%20tested%20positive,Press%20Secretary%20Karine%20Jean%2DPierre.">Joe Biden</a> to the 2024 Summer Olympians seems to be battling the virus — the general public's attitude toward the pandemic that upended our lives more than four years ago is more relaxed than ever.The federal public health emergency for COVID expired in May 2023, officially <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-covid-19-global-health-emergency-is-over-who-says-2023-5">ending the crisis</a>, at least in name, more than three years after it was first declared. Since then, thanks to high infection and immunization rates, the country has continued climbing toward the herd immunity doctors so desperately sought in the early days of the pandemic, four medical professionals told Business Insider."The risk perception and anxiety around acute COVID infection has definitely lessened," said Dr. Anita Chopra, an internist at the University of Washington medical system. "People are interacting and mingling more like in pre-pandemic times."Healthcare professionals told BI that the public's more relaxed attitude toward COVID is ultimately a good thing. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/life-returning-to-normal-labor-market-vaccines-pandemic-2021-11">A return to normality</a> was the goal, after all.But COVID is still very present and very much a potential threat, especially for the immunocompromised and those unlucky enough to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-official-individuals-coronavirus-infection-unlucky-long-covid-2022-6">develop long COVID symptoms</a> — up to 10% of patients, according to some doctor estimates. Meanwhile, relaxed masking and declining vaccination rates, while to be expected at this point, could be linked to the rising case numbers doctors are seeing in clinics around the country, medical professionals told BI."We need to acknowledge that we're in a very different place now than we were at the height of the pandemic," said Dr. Eric Chow, chief of communicable disease epidemiology and immunizations at Public Health Seattle and King County. "But so long as COVID-19 continues to circulate, there are health implications to getting infected."<h2 id="8540c815-ae27-4465-8106-21a572b3f035">Evolving behaviors and beliefs</h2>Many of the early-day pandemic precautions have all but disappeared in 2024. Chief among them, according to doctors, are <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mask-mandates-lifted-states-reasonable-experts-2022-2">masking</a>, isolations, and vaccinations.Soon after the pandemic emerged, medical professionals emphasized masking as a key way to slow the spread of the virus.The face coverings quickly became a contentious cultural topic and among the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-decision-to-oppose-masks-bizarre-self-sabotaging-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-6">most politicized aspects</a> of COVID. But these days, even many who once championed masks have ditched the deterrent entirely. An August 2023 Yahoo News/YouGov <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/only-12-percent-of-americans-wear-mask-in-public-194019882.html">poll</a> of 1,665 US adults found that 12% of respondents said they were masking — down from 60% in January 2022. And doctors told BI that they've seen a steady decrease in masking since then."I think the public has appropriately adjusted their attitudes to what they hear in the news and what they see around them," said Dr. Edward Jones-Lopez, infectious disease specialist with Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California.More worrying to medical professionals is the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-vaccine-us-vaccination-sites-joe-biden-2021-4">decline in vaccinations.</a>While early immunization rates helped bolster immunity, vaccination uptake has been on the decline in recent years, and fewer and fewer people are keeping up to date with their booster shots, a preventive step the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#:~:text=Everyone%20aged%205%20years%20and,of%20updated%20COVID%2D19%20vaccine.">CDC recommends</a> in its COVID guidelines.Most medical professionals also recommend a yearly COVID-19 vaccine. There's a new shot coming out in September. But Chow, who previously worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the height of the pandemic, said most people aren't aware of the recommended vaccine schedule — a challenge that is indicative of a larger problem doctors are trying to navigate in this new COVID age."People are much more fatigued by COVID messaging," he said. "We're trying to right-size the appropriate message to make sure people continue to acknowledge the health impacts of COVID."<h2 id="3c719499-920d-46e7-b315-35ec4a1cdc50">The long COVID scare</h2>Relaxed attitudes are not necessarily a bad thing, according to doctors."I think it's to be expected as we learn more about the virus over these four years and as we've developed these other COVID countermeasures to address infection," said Dr. Jessica Bender, a primary care doctor at Harbor View Medical in Seattle and the co-director at the university's long COVID clinic.On the one hand, people are generally not getting as sick as they once did when ill with COVID, medical professionals told BI. On the other hand, this summer seems to have brought yet another COVID surge with a spike in cases.People don't typically equate respiratory illnesses with the warmer months, but an increase in summer socializing combined with the general decrease in preventive measures is likely fueling the uptick, Bender said.For an unlucky subset of patients, a COVID diagnosis — even in this new relaxed era — could mean <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/long-covid-survivor-its-wrecked-my-life-2022-1">long-term challenges.</a>Doctors define long COVID as any infection related to the virus that is present for at least three months, said Chopra, who treats patients at the UW long COVID clinic. The often <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/healthcare-workers-nurses-long-covid-impact-careers-labor-shortage-2022-5">debilitating</a> condition is indiscriminate in who it affects. Up to 10% of all people who get COVID are susceptible, according to Chopra, and patients of all ages, genders, races, and vaccination statuses can present with long COVID.<div type="image" title="A young girl gets a COVID vaccine" height="2661" width="4000" msid="112065018" hostid="261" sizebytes="341938"></div>Even as the country relaxes its COVID response, doctors said they are still seeing many new patients presenting with long COVID each day. The condition has at least <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/common-long-covid-symptoms-hair-loss-vertigo-low-libido-2022-7">200 known signs and symptoms</a> that range from shortness of breath to chronic fatigue and brain fog.Doctors told BI they'd treated several patients who have been forced to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/long-covid-symptoms-disability-insurance-unemployment-quit-job-2022-11">stop working</a> or rendered unable to participate in any physical activity because of a long COVID diagnosis. A 2023 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9721155/">study</a> published in the National Library of Medicine explored a possible link between long COVID and the risk of suicide because of the condition's tendency to inflict depression, anxiety, posttraumatic symptoms, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and cognitive deficits.Medical professionals are doing their best to understand long COVID, but admit that there's still much to learn. According to the CDC, about 17 million people <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/long-covid.htm">reported</a> having long-term COVID-19 in March 2024.For these people, the pandemic is still very real."When I treat people with long COVID, they are always masked," Chopra said.<h2 id="c71342ed-0973-4d09-978b-dae3bd11fc3e">The future of COVID</h2>As doctors look to the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/red-cross-says-world-is-dangerously-unprepared-for-next-pandemic-2023-1">future</a> of COVID, little is for sure."We always say the one thing that is predictable about COVID is its unpredictability," Chow said.But medical professionals told BI they are optimistic that even as the virus continues to evolve, the next few years will continue to look like the past year, with small seasonal surges and hopefully less intense illness.While lax attitudes may be a welcome sign of a cautious new normal, doctors said it's important to remember the lessons we've collectively learned from COVID. The precautions that proved useful against the virus protect people from other illnesses, too.Just because the world has adapted to COVID-19, medical professionals say, doesn't mean we should drop the hygiene, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/air-circulation-coronavirus-how-to-judge-ventilation-systems-2020-8">ventilation</a>, and masking lessons learned along the way."We've learned so much about how we can protect ourselves," Chow said. "It's hard to see people leave some of those precautions behind."Doctors recommend people gauge their individual risk, as well as the risk of those close to them when considering which precautions to take in this new COVID age. Most medical professionals still recommend masking, testing, and visiting a doctor after testing positive."We're aiming to get to a state where COVID is not a threat to our healthcare system," Bender said. "And not a threat to our lives and livelihoods.

Most people don't really care about COVID anymore. That's good — and bad. 

The <keyword id="43588" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="world-health-organization" source="Orion">World Health Organization</keyword> (WHO) warned that <keyword id="1334" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="china" source="Orion">China</keyword> is "under-representing the true impact" of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, especially the exact number of deaths. In a statement on Wednesday, Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said: "We believe that definition (of a <keyword id="8764262" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="covid" source="Orion">Covid</keyword> death) is too narrow," the BBC reported. China's figures "under-represent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, and particularly in terms of deaths", he added. Amidst the ongoing outbreak, China has stopped publishing the single-day tallies for Covid-19 cases and deaths. In December 2022, the country changed the criteria for what constitutes a Covid death, meaning only those who die of respiratory illnesses are counted. In his statement, Ryan added that China had increased its engagement with the WHO in recent weeks, and said he looked forward to receiving "more comprehensive data", reports the BBC. But he also suggested individual healthworkers could report their own data and experiences. "We do not discourage doctors and nurses reporting these deaths and these cases. We have an open approach to be able to record the actual impact of disease in society," the top WHO official was quoted as saying The UK science data company Airfinity estimates more than two million Covid cases a day in China, and some 14,700 deaths. Since China lifted key parts of its "zero-Covid" strategy almost a month ago, there have been reports of hospitals and crematoriums being overwhelmed. More than a dozen nations, including India, have introduced travel restrictions on travellers from China -- a move criticised by Beijing as being politically motivated and threatened to retaliate. No new Covid variants have been detected in China, despite the surge in cases. However, the WHO has warned this could be due to a decrease in testing. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/tcs-infosys-wipro-and-other-it-companies-earnings-preview-for-q3-fy23/articleshow/96731891.cms">December quarter likely to be a weak one for the IT sector – Infosys amongst top analyst picks</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/from-0-to-100-million-in-5-years-thats-how-long-startups-founded-in-2017-took-to-scale-up-says-redseer-report/articleshow/96739954.cms">From 0 to $100 million in 5 years – That’s how long startups founded in 2017 took to scale up, says Redseer report</a>

China under-representing true impact of Covid, says WHO

Businesses hate bike lanes. Sure, they reduce pollution, slow the pace of climate change, cut traffic fatalities, and make cities healthier and more pleasant. But they also take away parking spaces, which makes it tougher for shoppers to load up their cars with piles of stuff. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-calls-new-bike-lanes-safety-height-of-stupidity-2023-3">Freaked-out business owners</a> have been <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cycling-boom-us-streets-infrastructure-bike-lanes-history-united-states-2020-12">fighting bike lanes</a> coast to coast, in cities from San Diego to Cambridge, Massachusetts. They worry — not unreasonably — that anything that makes it harder for customers to get to their stops will eat into their already precarious margins. “As someone whose family had a small business when I was growing up, I know how invested you get in it,” says Joseph Poirier, a senior researcher at the urban-planning consultancy Nelson Nygaard. “It’s your whole life. Anything you think could threaten that, even if the government and their consultants tell you it’s not going to be a problem, is very scary. It makes sense.”It’s also wrong. Four decades’ worth of research proves it. I know this because I’ve read every study and report I could find that looked specifically at the economics of bike lanes since 1984 — 32 research articles, to be exact. The results show that making <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/road-rage-traffic-deaths-car-crashes-pedestrians-los-angeles-vermont-2024-2">streets friendlier for bikes</a> — and sidewalks friendlier for pedestrians — is actually good for business. The rise of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/e-bike-bicycle-lanes-infrastructure-save-money-fight-climate-change-2023-3">“complete streets” and “road diets,”</a> as urban planners call them, has been a huge boon to businesses in cities. I won’t walk you through every study, because most of them actually use survey data. Do you think bike lanes discourage shopping? How much do you spend when you ride your bike here? Surveys aren’t the most reliable way to look at this question. People lie, they misremember, they get stuff wrong. And anecdotal experience tends to loom too large. One angry customer who complains about <a target="_blank" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X9701700102">not being able to find parking</a> trumps the 10 who rode their bikes to your shop and didn’t say boo.More confoundingly, survey after survey has shown that business owners overestimate <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-parking-spots-in-us-affect-environment-and-affordable-housing-2023-4">how many of their customers drive</a> to their stores, versus walking or biking. In a study of the effects of street improvements on a <a target="_blank" href="https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/yorkblvd_mccormick.pdf">shopping corridor in Los Angeles</a> published in 2012, more than half of the store owners on the bike-laned part of the boulevard thought most of their customers drove. The actual number was 15%.So what we need is financial data. Revenue numbers. Sales taxes. Credit-card receipts. Employment figures. That’s the good stuff. And for methodological rigor, we want to case-match our study areas to similar neighborhoods that didn’t get bike lanes — and to numbers for the city overall, to establish a baseline.That cuts the number of useful studies to just about half a dozen. Here, in brief, is what they tell us.In 2013, a researcher at the University of Washington named Kyle Rowe looked at <a target="_blank" href="https://bikewalkkc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Bikenomics_v4.pdf">two shopping districts in Seattle</a> that got put on road diets. Rowe compared sales taxes in these “Neighborhood Business Districts” with those in similar districts in the city that didn’t get bike lanes. In one NBD, which replaced car lanes and three parking spots with two bike lanes, sales closely tracked those in the bike-less areas, both in peaks and troughs. Conclusion: Bike lanes did nothing to reduce business. And in the other NBD, which replaced 12 parking spaces with a bike lane, sales quadrupled.Was the spike in business because more cyclists came to shop? Rowe, a careful researcher, declines to make that leap. “It would be logical to assume that more bicyclists were coming to the NBD because of the new facility,” he writes, “but no conclusion can be made to connect mode choice to economic performance.” Still, there’s no mistaking the data: Adding bike lanes certainly didn’t hurt sales — and may have boosted them dramatically.A year later, the New York City Department of Transportation conducted the same kind of study on a larger scale, examining sales-tax data in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/dot-economic-benefits-of-sustainable-streets.pdf">seven retail-heavy neighborhoods</a>. A few were plaza-type hubs; the others were more linear retail corridors. All had been through the kind of extensive changes to pedestrian access, mass transit, traffic calming, landscaping, and bike paths that New York was pushing at the time. The results were striking. Compared with the overall business climate in each borough, sales in the bike-friendly areas soared by 84 percentage points in Brooklyn, 9 percentage points in Manhattan, and 32 percentage points in the Bronx. “Better streets,” the report concludes, “provide benefits to businesses in all types of neighborhoods,” from “lower-income neighborhoods with ‘mom &amp; pop’ retail” to “glitzier areas with sky-high rents.”The next couple of studies got even more specific. In 2018, Joseph Poirier, the urban planner I quoted earlier, looked at sales data from <a target="_blank" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198118792321">three retail neighborhoods in San Francisco</a> with newly installed bike lanes. Drawing on everything from industry coding conventions to map data, he was able to draw detailed distinctions among hundreds of businesses: what they sold (retail versus restaurants), where they were located (right next to a bike lane versus a few blocks away), and who their customers were (coffee shops serving locals, say, versus a furniture store serving the entire city).The results were mixed. In two of the three districts, shops and restaurants serving locals did way better than places serving a wider area. In the other district, sales tanked relative to the number of people a shop employed, suggesting that bike lanes gave an advantage to smaller businesses. “The takeaway is that it’s probably a minimal effect on businesses when you put in a bike lane,” Poirer says. “That actually makes a lot of sense. If you think of a busy downtown district, there’s not that many parking spaces relative to the number of people who come to the business.” In this case, bike lanes didn’t seem to help businesses much. But overall, it didn’t hurt them.In 2019 Poirer was on a team that did another study of San Francisco. They looked at <a target="_blank" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198119850465">businesses directly adjacent</a> to two kinds of bike infrastructure — Class II, which creates dedicated bike lanes denoted by a paint stripe, and Class III, where signs instruct cars and bikes to share the street. (Either way, blocks with the new lanes lost an average of three parking spaces.) Once again, the results were mixed. On Class II lanes, bars and barber shops and banks enjoyed increases in sales, while furniture stores and gas stations were more likely to experience decreases. Older businesses tended to decline more than new ones. Overall, in the year after the bike infrastructure went in, businesses on Class II streets lost a median of $27,921 compared with $19,390 for those on Class III lanes. But similar shops that weren’t on a bike lane lost $25,296. When it came to bike lanes, there were lots and lots of winners. But there were some losers, too.The most definitive study, to my eye, came in 2020. Jenny Liu and Wei Shi, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon produced a 260-page report looking at <a target="_blank" href="https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/33394">neighborhoods that got bike lanes and other street improvements</a> in Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Memphis. The team cross-referenced financial information like sales taxes with geographic data, so they could tell exactly where businesses were in relation to the street improvements. They ran three kinds of econometric analyses on each site. And they looked not only at revenue but also at the number of employees — per business and in total — in each study area. “I was really trying to be rigorous methodologically, to provide the kind of evidence that people can use to talk to their communities,” says Liu, the director of the Center for Urban Studies at Portland State.<div type="image" title="An older man in a baseball cap and parka rides a blue bicycle on a city shopping street, past parked cars and a yoga studio" height="2771" width="4000" msid="108304344" hostid="261" sizebytes="696084"></div>Like Poirier, Liu and Shi found that in many cases, only certain kinds of businesses benefited from the bike lanes and street improvements. Food and beverage did better; retail did worse. And just slapping a bike lane on a hectic thoroughfare didn’t do anyone any good. “On really large streets with high traffic volumes or speeds, even if you add a bike lane or pedestrian improvements, it still isn’t really inviting,” Liu says. “Just having street calming doesn’t always have positive results.”But overall, Liu’s team found, retail areas benefited from better streets. Sometimes nothing changed, but more often the areas near bike lanes wound up with more employees and more revenue. That was true in Portland, at two sites in San Francisco, one site in Minneapolis (at the other, retail did better than food), and one site in Memphis (at the other, food did a bit better than retail). Across the country, again and again, the numbers told the same story: Either “business activity remained pretty much constant,” Liu says, or “certain types of businesses became much more prosperous.” Back in the 1960s, when the advent of suburban flight and climate-controlled malls began to draw business away from America’s once thriving downtowns, cities tried to stanch the flow by banning cars on shopping streets. It was called, not exactly trippingly, “<a target="_blank" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01944368408977171">pedestrianization</a>,” and it was a disaster. Pedestrian-only plazas couldn’t compete with the Golden Age of the Automobile, and many downtowns turned into boarded-up wastelands. That extinction event is still encoded in the genetic memories of today’s retailers and restaurateurs.But things have changed. Nowadays, online retail is crushing brick-and-mortar worse than any half-assed pedestrian plaza ever could. What’s more, demand for new homes means lots of cities are putting them downtown, trading daytime workers for all-the-time residents close enough to ride a bike. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bicycle-lanes-cycling-pandemic-coronavirus-2020-10">COVID showed us</a> it’s worth giving up parking spaces for outdoor restaurants. America’s cities are undergoing nothing short of a total rethink of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-pandemic-might-have-redesigned-cities-forever/">what and whom downtowns are for</a>.<div type="image" title="A bike lane painted bright green separates a busy sidewalk with a pizza place and other shops from a bikeshare facility full of blue Citibikes and automotive traffic." height="3024" width="4032" msid="108304345" hostid="261" sizebytes="1827558"></div><a target="_blank" href="https://infrastructure.peopleforbikes.org/map/">Nationwide numbers</a> of bike lanes are tough to come by. By one count, there are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/us-bicycle-route-system/">nearly 20,000 miles</a> of bike-ready paths in the United States, but that includes rural routes and trails. Still, city after city is working to create European-style streets. <a target="_blank" href="https://bikeportland.org/2023/01/13/which-part-of-portland-is-winning-the-bikeway-network-race-369311">Portland</a> has over 430 miles of bike lanes, about the same as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cdot/provdrs/bike/news/2023/march/cdot-releases-updated-cycling-strategy-to-expand-bike-network-an.html#:~:text=Chicago%27s%20network%20of%20bicycle%20infrastructure,and%20other%20on%2Dstreet%20bikeways.">Chicago</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/cyclinginthecity.shtml">New York City</a> has more than 1,500; <a target="_blank" href="https://la.streetsblog.org/2023/10/17/too-many-disappointments-in-l-a-city-bikeway-mileage-during-fiscal-year-2022-23">Los Angeles has added</a> almost 1,000 miles since 2010. And every new mile of bike lane per square mile of city <a target="_blank" href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/1828-14">increases the number of cyclists</a> by 1%. The training wheels are about to come off the “complete street” movement.Now, advocates and policymakers should be honest about all this. Even if bike lanes boost revenues and employment overall, some individual businesses are going to win and some are going to lose. An older business selling heavier goods, or drawing from a wider watershed for its customer base, might well be in trouble. “Newer businesses who are thrilled with density and development around them are pivoting to a customer who’s younger, who’s arriving on a scooter or a bike,” says Larisa Ortiz, a managing director at the urban-planning consultancy Streetsense. “But this process of evolution toward bike lanes and mobility does not come without loss.”One way I’d propose to help businesses adjust to the total remaking of the urban landscape is the most American solution of all: Just hand them some money. All you’d have to do is build funds into the budgets for street-improvement projects to compensate adjacent businesses for any sales they wind up losing. If your business takes a hit from all the bikes, you get a pay-out.The most effective way to deal with opposition from local businesses is to just get the bike lanes built. Before-and-after surveys tend to show that in the long run, everyone winds up satisfied. “It’s a political question, and oftentimes it’s a very divided community when it comes to these types of projects,” Poirier says. “But once a street is changed, generally speaking, after six months or a year, nobody remembers what it used to look like. It’s the new normal.” All the data in the world may prove that bike lanes are good for business. But nothing beats experiencing them.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers">Adam Rogers</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

I read all the studies on the economic impact of bike lanes. Here's what I learned.

Babies born to mothers who suffered from Covid-19 during pregnancy seem to exhibit differences in neurodevelopmental outcomes at six weeks, according to a preliminary analysis. Researchers found that babies born to mothers who had been infected show greater difficulties in relaxing and adapting their bodies when they are being held, when compared to infants from non-infected mothers, especially when infection took place in late pregnancy. Moreover, infants born from infected mothers tend to show greater difficulty in controlling head and shoulder movement. These alterations suggest a possible <keyword id="8764262" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="covid" source="Orion">Covid</keyword> effect on motor function (movement control). "Not all babies born to mothers infected with Covid show neurodevelopmental differences, but our data shows that their risk is increased in comparison to those not exposed to Covid in the womb. We need a bigger study to confirm the exact extent of the difference," said Dr Rosa Ayesa Arriola from Marques de Valdecilla University Hospital in Santander, Spain. The analysis was presented in the 30th European Congress of Psychiatry held in Budapest. The initial evaluation compared babies born to 21 Covid positive pregnant women and their babies, with 21 healthy controls. The mothers underwent a series of tests, including hormonal and other biochemical tests (measuring such things as cortisol levels, immunological response, etc.) salivary tests, movement responses, and psychological questionnaires during and after pregnancy. The post-natal tests included the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), which measures the baby's movement and behaviour. "We found that certain elements of the NBAS measurement were changed in 6-week-old infants who had been exposed to the SARS-COV-2 virus. Effectively they react slightly differently to being held, or cuddled," said Agueda Castro Quintas from the University of Barcelona. "There is a great need to study both direct and indirect effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the health and well-being of parents and infants. Pregnancy is a period of life which shapes much of our subsequent development, and exposure to adversity in pregnancy can leave long-lasting biological footprints," added Dr Livio Provenzi, from the University of Pavia in Italy, who was not involved in this work. SEE ALSO <a class="tout-title-link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/india/news/covid-19-cases-are-on-a-rise-in-india-maharashtra-and-kerala-reporting-the-highest-surge-in-cases/articleshow/92030085.cms">COVID-19 cases are on a rise in India — Maharashtra and Kerala reporting the highest surge in cases</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/why-a-rate-hike-is-not-all-bad-news-for-you-and-how-you-can-take-advantage-of-rising-interest-rates/articleshow/92029328.cms">Why a rate hike is not all bad news for you – and how you can take advantage of rising interest rates</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/news/azim-premji-and-shiv-nadar-lose-20-billion-of-their-personal-wealth-thanks-to-the-great-indian-it-meltdown/articleshow/91988793.cms">Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar lose $20 billion of their personal wealth – thanks to the Great Indian IT meltdown</a>

Babies exposed to Covid in womb at risk of neurodevelopmental changes

<ul class="summary-list"><li>AI will force about 12 million workers to change jobs by 2030, a McKinsey partner said on Thursday. </li><li>Job losses will hit four key sectors, including administrative, customer service, and manufacturing.</li></ul>There's no way to sugarcoat it. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-job-market-ai-outlook-artificial-intelligence-workers-economy-productivity-2024-4">AI is going to disrupt a lot of jobs</a> in the coming years.The technology is set to bring about "12 million occupational transitions" between now and 2030, Kweilin Ellingrud, a senior partner at McKinsey and director of its Global Institute, said at the firm's media day this week. "That's about, give or take, the pace of occupational transitions we had during COVID."Some areas will see growth, namely roles in healthcare and STEM, Ellingrud said. About 85% of the jobs that AI will likely impact, meanwhile, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-at-risk-from-ai-replace-change-chatgpt-automation-study-2023-7">fit into four categories </a>— administrative assistance, customer service and sales, food service, and production and manufacturing, according to McKinsey.Many of those jobs involve repetitive work, data collection, and elementary data processing, all of which could be handled by automation, according to a McKinsey <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/generative-ai-and-the-future-of-work-in-america#/">report</a> co-authored by Ellingrud. The report estimated that about 11.8 million workers in roles with shrinking demand will need to move into new lines of work by 2030.But everyone should prepare for at least some changes to their current role.Between the widespread adoption of generative AI and what Ellingrud called "old school automation," about 30% of everyone's work will need to adapt to the changes the technology will bring to the workplace.

AI could disrupt the job market by 2030 as severely as COVID did in 2020

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A new study found that teen girls' brains aged faster during the pandemic.</li><li>Researchers measured cortical thinning, a natural process that can be accelerated by stress.</li></ul>This week, a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2403200121">new scientific paper</a> sent a ripple through the world of child psychology.Researchers at the University of Washington published brain scans of teenagers taken three years apart, in 2018 and 2021.The team expected significant findings, since the second scans were taken after all of the kids had their lives suddenly upended and socially stunted by COVID lockdowns.They hypothesized that girls would be more impacted, because they're more reliant on peer relationships for emotional support than teen boys. But "we didn't expect it to be as dramatic a difference," lead author Dr. Neva Corrigan told Business Insider.The average acceleration for teen girls was 4.2 years, compared to 1.4 for boys.While more research is needed, the study offers a glimpse into the effects the pandemic had on brain development. It comes at a time when teen girls have seen a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-report-teen-girls-alarming-rates-sadness-hopelessness-sexual-violence-2023-2">sharp rise in sadness and hopelessness</a>, often attributed to social media use.<h2 id="c81b7065-67f7-4f59-9455-c4636815bed5">Isolation may have played a role</h2>The original intention of the study was to track typical adolescent brain development, Corrigan, who specializes in MRI data acquisition and analysis, told BI. In 2018, her team took MRI data from 160 adolescents ages 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17, and planned to follow up at a later date.But after the pandemic, "we realized that we could no longer call this typical development," Corrigan said. "These kids had undergone a huge change in their lives." Her team knew they had a unique opportunity to examine how aspects of the pandemic, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/public-teacher-homeschool-own-kids-2024-5">remote learning</a>, affected the brain.In 2021, about 130 of the subjects returned for more testing. The team measured cortical thinning, a natural process that usually begins in late childhood and is believed to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791607/">improve cognitive performance</a>.The age acceleration was more than double the size in teen girls, and the regions most impacted were all related to social cognition, such as facial recognition and language comprehension.Because females generally rely more on <a target="_blank" href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17328705/">relationships for emotional support</a> than males, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-loneliness">loneliness</a> during the pandemic could have caused teen girls more stress, speeding up their cortical thinning.<h2 id="ca6c015e-1e33-410a-957c-fdee9576f795">Cortical thinning isn't always negative</h2>Corrigan said there's a lot we still don't know about cortical thinning, such as whether it's reversible.However, she said past studies have shown that accelerated cortical thinning can put people at higher risk for neurodegenerative disorders in old age, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.It can also increase the odds of developing psychiatric disorders such as depression or anxiety.At the same time, quicker brain aging isn't necessarily all bad. It's believed that the cortex thins to reduce the effect the environment has on brain development, Corrigan said. If the brain is less vulnerable to external stressors, "that could make these kids a little bit more resilient to stress," she said.<h2 id="47b59dfa-19bd-494b-98ab-6151b36b2682">There are still many unknowns</h2>Bradley S. Peterson, a pediatric psychiatrist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles who wasn't part of the study, told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/health/teen-brains-pandemic-girls.html">The New York Times</a> that it had some limitations. One was that the data came from different subsets of the group, rather than measuring each individual's brain changes.The study also didn't track the participants' individual habits, so it can't confirm if other elements of the pandemic, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/surgeon-general-social-media-warning-label-mental-health-crisis-children-2024-6">increased screen time</a>, contributed to quicker cortical thinning.Corrigan said the biggest takeaway for parents is to be mindful of the potential risks of their teens developing anxiety or depression. "Perhaps they can help stave that off by talking to their kids and providing emotional support for them."

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