About Fayette County news. (Fayetteville, GA) 2009-current | View Entire Issue (June 7, 2023)
FAYETTE VIEWS A4 Fayette County News Wednesday, June 7,2023 Racism is Alive and Well I am a member of “The Fayette County Community Re membrance Coalition” (FCCRC). The FCCRC sponsored a lecture by Fayette County author, teacher, and activist Bill Lightle regarding his recently issued book, "Race and Pol itics in the American South.” Lightle is a dynamic speaker. His talk was illuminating, especially for me, in that we share many common experi ences. In the book, Lightle shares per sonal stories of people he met during his classroom years as a teacher. He also relates his discussions with 1950s and 1960s civil rights workers. Having worked for the poverty program in rural Georgia and At lanta, I can relate. When I worked for Economic Opportunity Atlanta in the 70s, I remember my discussions with John Calhoun. He was president of the Atlanta NAACP in the 1950s, and later an Atlanta City Council member. He was also a Republican (see below). Also, like me, Lightle came to Georgia from the North in the 1960s when he was a child. And we both learned that there were positives and negatives about living in the “Deep South.” Further, Lightle’s writing and political activism were influenced by his parents. I was, as well, by mine. All my grandparents and my father were immigrants. My father and paternal grandparents came here as undoc umented immigrants, escaping the Holocaust. They were deported back to Paris after WWII, eventually making their way back to the USA. My mother’s working-class parents came from Avelino, Italy. My grandfather was a construction worker who died in his forties. And my grandmother died even younger in childbirth. My mother quit high school at 16 to support her stepmother, who could not speak English. They grew up during the depression when blue collar people like them were Democrats. The rich and educated elites were Republicans. That has changed dramatically over the last 50 years, especially since Trump’s nationalistic populism. A decade ago, I was still a local Republican elected offi cial in rural Georgia. After the Obama/Romney race, I had an op-ed in the AJC regarding the deterioration of my party. Based on Mitt Romney’s strong regional showing, Jon Ste wart (the host of the Daily Show) joked that Romney had been elected “the President of the Confederacy.” My column was written pre-Trump but could just as easily have been written today. I discussed the fact that my party had become a haven of extremists, ultra-conserva- See Bernard, A6 JACK BERNARD Lou Koon Suicide, the Silent Epidemic Lou Koon dreams of a day when a son will be able to ask his father: “Dad, what was suicide?” Koon’s dream serves as the guiding light for Armed Forces Mission (AFM), an organization he founded that provides world class training in suicide intervention for all people. To date, AFM is responsible for training more than 26,000 people. Koon, a retired Army chaplain after 16 years of service, is personally responsible for conducting more than 2,000 successful suicide inter ventions in military and civilian com munities alike. Lou grew up in East Point but has resided in Sharpsburg for the past 21 years. He and Sherry, his wife of 36 years, have four sons and, to date, six grandchildren. Three of their sons joined the military (two Air Force, one Coast Guard) and the fourth is a firefighter. A tragic accident with one of his sons sent Lou spiraling downward, a path ultimately leading to the formation of AFM. In 2009, his son Chad was severely burned in a back yard accident. Although it wasn’t anyone’s fault, as Chad’s father, Lou felt responsible. Lou became so distraught that he rejoined the Army in 2011 at the age of 48, hoping to get deployed so that he could, in his words, “come home in a box.” However, one of his sons who had suicide training in the Air Force recognized that something wasn’t right with Lou and asked him outright if he was contemplating suicide. Ac cording to Lou, “My silence gave me away.” Lou ended up not being deployed, and instead was as signed to a training unit where he was responsible for - of all things - suicide intervention. The assignment gave Lou the idea of forming an organization that could provide world class suicide intervention training. Additionally, it in spired him to write Listen Learn Lead, his book on how to build a culture of health in a community that reduces the See Ludwig, A6 SCOTT LUDWIG When A.I. Produces a Singularity First, let me unashamedly admit that the following frightening tidbits of artificial intelligence and singularity were conscripted from several essays of this nerdy professor, Dr. Borna Jal- senjak, who sits around all day and thinks about this stuff. He ruminates in the rarified air of scientific esoterica. Here are but a few of his observations. For the pur poses of the fol lowing, please assume A.I. is a catalyst for the singularity; ulti mately co-de- pendent, and in real time, one and the same scientific phenomena: 1) We approach singularity when A.I. can create a higher order of A.I., and another, and another, ad infini tum. At some unknown, but finite, point, A.I. becomes a singularity that empowers machines to self-improve in a recurring and accelerated fashion. The singularity has the advantage of time and speed, i.e., creating more ad vanced levels of intelligence than hu mans can achieve, and quicker in less time. 2) Is A.I. alive? The fact that the A.I. is not “aware” of its goal and mindlessly crunches numbers toward reaching it, seems to be irrelevant, but A.I. has the ability to repair and im prove itself, to the degree that its or ganism allows. This organism enables A.I. to replicate from, and improves upon, its necessary processes by inter action with lesser stages of A.I., e.g., generated by human beings. 3) A.I. reproduction: Jalsenjak posits that A.I. reproduction does not necessarily run in parallel to that of other living beings. “Machines, unlike humans, do not need offspring to en sure the survival of the species. A.I. could solve material deterioration problems with merely having enough replacement parts on hand to swap the malfunctioned (dead) parts with the new ones,” ergo immortality, not as an abstract notion as with humans, but a reality in a singularity matrix. 4) Defense of and sustaining A.I.: At the singularity, A.I. could create newer algorithms. This is called “re cursive self-improvement” and would lead to an endless and accelerating cycle of ever-smarter A.I. It could be the digital equivalent of what genetic mutations organisms go through over the span of many, many generations of humans, though the A.I. would be able to perform it at a much faster pace, thought to be in nanoseconds. 5) Ethics of a super intelligent A.I.: While humans ostensibly live by a set of moral principles, A.I. would not necessarily be bound by these princi ples unless it was to the benefit and survival of their progeny. Think about that. Today, according to Jalsenjak, we do have limited safeguards against some A.I. mechanisms, such as genetic algorithms and grids that can search and improve the non-trainable compo nents of machine learning algorithms (also known as hyper-parameters) to the extent that lends some modicum of control. But there always looms in my mind, at least, a group of two-headed, one eyed, multi-colored (think Star Wars) amorphous things gathered around scratching their two heads on whether to put to a vote the question, “Have the humans outlived their use fulness to our species? All in favor say aye, opposed, no.” If the aye’s have it, humans will ex perience an innocuous dream-like ef fect that recurs forever and ever. Amen. JAMES STUDDARD Georgia Is Building Batteries and Cars; Who is Going to Charge Them? May was yet another good month for Georgia’s economic development team, especially those focused on so lidifying Georgia as the capital of the battery belt. Georgia’s leadership position in the electric vehicle supply chain was enhanced by Anovion Technologies locating in Bainbridge. They plan to create 400 new jobs as the re sult of an $800 million invest ment to pro- d u c e components for EV batteries. That kind of news would be big for any area of the state. In the deepest parts of southwest Georgia, it has the poten tial to be transformational. Meanwhile, at the Savannah area Hyundai complex that will build new EVs beginning about 18 months from now, a partner has been announced for their on-site battery manufac turer. LG will be Hyundai’s joint ven ture partner in the battery plant, representing $4.3 billion in invest ment and 3,000 of the 8,100 employ ees expected in Bryan County. Hyundai also has a joint venture with SK On to build a $5 billion bat tery plant in Bartow County. SK Bat tery America has a separate plant in Jackson County that builds EV bat teries, currently supplying Ford and Volkswagen. The supply chain infrastructure is clearly falling into place. The current infrastructure to charge these future vehicles remains woefully inadequate. Auto manufactures are aware of this issue, as are the policy makers that are incentivizing a transition to EVs. They just don’t like to talk about it. They like to quote stats of total charging plugs available, but most are the slowest Level 1 and Level 2 chargers, and are concentrated in urban areas. Americans outside of big cities rely heavily on their cars for longer trips, and road trips are part of the automobile’s allure - even for those who rarefy take them. Finding the fas test Level 3 chargers in sufficient numbers to provide motorists with the confidence to take a long drive is a real barrier to EV adoption at the moment. The federal government is work ing to address this shortage over the next five years with up to $7.5 billion investments in Level 3 EV charging stations, with a focus on long distance travel corridors. Georgia has already been awarded approximately $135 million for the first tranche of this Na tional Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funding. The goal is to have at least four high-speed chargers within one mile of an interstate or major highway corridor every 50 miles by 2030. If you look at the map for Tesla’s company-owned charging network, they mostly meet these criteria but, other than a handful of locations, cur rently serve Tesla vehicles exclusively. Rivian plans a similar network that will be open to other makes, but most other companies are relying on out side charging companies. The largest non-Tesla network currently belongs to Electrify Amer ica, which is a company formed and funded by Volkswagen’s settlement related to their diesel engine emis sions. They plan on partnering with TravelCenters of America to add 1,000 chargers at 200 of their truck stop/travel centers. Similarly, Gen eral Motors has partnered with charg ing network EvGo and gas retailer Pilot/Flying J for 2,000 chargers at 500 stations. Consumers and manufacturers have grown impatient not only with the relatively slow progress of this buildout, but the reliability of the non-Tesla charging networks. Frus tration is routinely expressed by re views in car magazines and on YouTube with enough real world an ecdotes that match the available data. A recent post by InsideEVs.com, a site very much in favor of EV adop tion, noted that in 2022 almost two out of every five visits to super chargers were unsuccessful last year. Imagine your confidence of taking a road trip in your current vehicle if two out of every five gas stations wouldn’t pump gas. When you consider that Tesla has a charging success rate above 90 per cent, the rest of the field - which com bined have less superchargers than Tesla has - have to have a failure rate that has now ingrained real doubt among early adopters. How do we know this is material? Because last week, Ford Motor Com pany changed its charging strategy and announced its new EVs would be designed to work on Tesla’s network. Current Ford EVs will soon be able to access Tesla’s network using adapt ers. The assessment of this Ford-Tesla tie from Car & Driver is that there is currently no incentive for the EV charging companies to focus on reli ability. They’re losing money on charging and focused on the “land grab” to lock up sites for future charg ing customers when demand finally arrives. The Telsa deal changes that, let ting the charging companies know that manufacturers will form alli ances with companies that enable their customers to use their cars to their full potential. It remains to be seen if other man ufacturers blink and join the Tesla network, or if the charging companies are willing to step up their game and quickly improve their reputation. Georgians in all corners of the state now have billions riding on the an swer to this question. CHARLIE HARPER GoWith'B" AMD ah ICECREAM COME ON THE SIDE Americans for Limited r Government '©2023 Creators, com PROTECT KIDS BY SECURING SCHOOLS AND THE BORDER ATTACK THE 2ndAMEND AND HIRE 37OOO IRS
