Microsoft, Intel, Adobe team up to halt all questioning of the narrative under the guise of stopping “disinformation” online

By Ethan Huff – DC Clothesline, February 26, 2021

(Natural News) To combat the prolific spread of “disinformation” online, a cohort of the world’s most powerful tech corporations is working on a project that aims to forever silence opposing voices on the internet.

Microsoft, Intel, BBC, and Adobe, along with lesser-known Truepic and Arm, have joined forces to develop new censorship tools, the likes of which the world has never seen.

In this age of digital censorship, where prominent buzzwords are used as justification to silence free speech, the coalition sees a new opportunity to trample the First Amendment while claiming some kind of moral high ground for preserving “truth” online.

“There’s a critical need to address widespread deception in online content – now supercharged by advances in AI and graphics and diffused rapidly via the internet,” wrote Microsoft in a celebratory blog post on behalf of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). … Continue reading >>>

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Facebook admits to nearly as many fake or clone accounts as the U.S. population
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg likes to brag about the number of people who use his social media site. In fact it is clear as he talks big numbers about how many users the site boasts, that he thinks the world loves him for creating this technological wonder. He’s wrong of course.

Lay Off Cambridge Analytica, Facebook Are The Evil Doers

Information Technology firm Cambridge Analytica are being attacked by the hysterical mainstream media mob for their alleged role in the alleged collusion between The Kremlin and Donald Trump to steal the US Presidency in 2016, and similar abuse of private date to influence the result of the Brexit vote. It should be Facebook under attack, Cambridge Analytica only took advantage of a deal Facebook offers on the open market …

Trump blocks Sale Of US Tech Company To China

President Trump has reportedly blocked the attempted acquisitions of a US technology company by a Chinese firm. while his opponents accuse him of breaking election promises and betraying votes, although they offer little evidence to support their claims, the increasingly tough policy against China’s acquisition of US companies continues, despite the firing of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who supported Trmp’s “economic nationalism.”

Trump blocks Sale Of US Tech Company To China

Fan Bois Mad For Apple’s New “FaceID” But Is It A Powerful New Mass Surveillance Tool

On Tuesday, Apple revealed their newest phone. The new line was anticipated by Apple users and is another cult favorite. But many are rightly skeptical of the “FaceID” feature.
FaceID, is a tool that would use facial recognition to identify individuals and unlock their phones for use. Unsurprisingly, this has generated some major anxiety about mass spying and privacy concerns. Retailers already have a desire for facial recognition technology.

Welcome to the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Technological Deceit
Pretty soon, computer wizardry and artificial intelligence will allow video footage to be created that is practically indiscernible from the real deal. Add holographic technology, and soon a person apparently be speaking live on screen and you’d never know it was fake. The ethical ramifications of AI and technology are simply mind-boggling.

WikiLeaks have today released documents from the Vault 7 cache, a group of leaked information which contains details on the CIA Angelfire spyware tool which was developed to facilitate loading and execution of implants targeting computers using Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Electrosensitivity – the Wi – Fi disease.
So you thought people who wear tinfoil hats are crazy conspiracy theorists? Not so fast there, some of them might actually be onto something.While these people are not tinfoil hat wearers either literally or in a metaphorical sense, the measures they take to avoid exposure to electromagnetic radiation (radio – activity) can seem rather paranoid until you know more about them.

Google: Benefactor Of Mankind Or Evil Empire (or buch of idiotic nerds who got lucky?)
They way Google has come to dominate the internet just as the internet has come to dominate our lives can’t all be down to good luck and careful planning can it? As this page develops you will see how sinister forces guided Google to their current position.

Shock, Horror! Millennials Safe Space Violated As Facebook Algo Accident Exposes Them To Diverse Ideas Late last month (August 2016,) the Zuckerbugger’s zoons put an algorithm in charge of the Facebook “trending” feature, to select the most popular topics, articles and keywords on the web in a narrow timeframe and with due respect for the ‘safe space’ of millenials who can be traumatised if they encounter microaggrrrrressions in the form of controversial ideas or unorthodox opinions …

Government Paid Trolls Are Using ‘Psychology-Based Influence Techniques’ in Social Media
Have you ever come across someone on the Internet that you suspected was a paid government troll? Well, there is a very good chance that you were not imagining things. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we now have solid proof that paid government trolls are using “psychology-based influence techniques” on social media websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Zuckerberg reveals Facebook Working On Apps ‘Smarter Than Humans’
In an online Question and Answer session this week Facebook supremo and founding megalomaniacal sociopath Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company is engaged in building AI systems “that are better than humans at our primary senses.”

Facebook begins Europe-wide censorship campaign against free speech.
Facebook Inc (FB.O) has commenced the Europe-wide censoring of posts and comments the ruling elite do not like, thus making good the promise given to Hausfrau – Volksfuhrer Merkel by the social media and data theft site’s founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Philanthropic” Mark Zuckerberg Will Place Facebook Shares In A For-Profit LLC
Sorry to seem the The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but somebody has to blow the whistle on the latest self serving stunt of the self server in chief, Mark Zuckerbugger but the great act of philanthropy with which the Inyaface Datatheft Book chief celebrated the birth of his child is, like everything else billionaire philanthropists do, not quite as straightforward as it has been presented in mainstream media.

How Google Destroyed the Internet
The idea of the internet was that it would be a communications tool that freed information by making all public domain documents, libraries and archives accessible for everyone. Unfortunately the corporate monopoly men of Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Facebook and political control freaks had other ideas. They also understood the technolgy while the hippies and liberals ignored professionals warnings that internet systems would become a perfect toool of censorship.

Corporate plundering of the UK purse has to stop – Facebook pays zero tax again
Our finance expert looks at the latest tax avoidance scandal and wonders why the governments financial agencies are always to eager to go after small time tax and benefit fraud and yet year after year turn a blind eye to the blatant criminality of global corporations in their tax evasion techniques.

Has Zuckerbugger Been Messing With Your Mind?
It has been revealed that Facebook has been collaborating with the US government and creepier fringes of the academic community in carrying out experiments to manipulate users emotions. “Facebook users have reacted angrily to a “creepy” experiment carried out by the social network and two American universities to manipulate their emotions.”

Facebook boss Zukerberg Wants To Own The Internet
Facebook’s latest acquisition Whatsapp cost $19bn, that’s $40 per user. Whatsapp charge their users $1 per year. That means it will take Facebook 40 years to recover their outlay. And people are buying shares in this company? Insane.

Facebook Are Nazis – We Told You So
All the Greenteeth Labyrinth pages have consistently warned that the most successful internet companies, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter etc. are led by people with authoritarian, even fascistic tendencies and a world domination complex which manifests itself as a desire to establish a monopoly position in their field. Facebbk are at the forfront of this fascist cartel.

Facebook’s Stockmarket Launch Fizzles Out
Facebook’s much hyped stock market launch fell flat. We examine the folly of trying to pass off a social networking fad as a real, monrey making business.

Google’s New Privacy Policy: ‘All Your Base Belong Us’.Google has defended its decision to change the way it handles users’ personal data as its new policy comes into force today. The internet search giant will now be able to use information about what people are entering into its search engine to target adverts according to users’ interests under the changes. Google Evil Empire In New Privacy ViolationOnce again the neo-Nazi nerds at Google are in trouble for playing fast and loose with our privacy. Google have bypassed browser privacy setting to track our movements on the web, the bettrer to target us with ads for poxy shite no sane person would buy. What is it these arseholes find difficult to understand about the idea that in the real world or cyberspace same rules apply …
Facebooks Latest Violation Of Users PrivacyThe Daily Stirrer looks at Facebooks latest embarrassing climbdown after initially denying a new data mining scheme covertly violates users privacy …
Google’s Schmidt Tells US Senators “We’re Not MocrosoftGoogle executive chairman Eric Schmidt, giving his testimony to the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that focuses on antitrust began by recalling a ghost of the committee’s past: Microsoft. Schmidt never actually mentioned its arch enemy but it is clear …
Facebook Privacy Piracy
Is Facebook’s Crisis A Tipping Point For Privacy?

 

Recommended real news: Back to business as usual on COVID – 19 (8 April 2020)

COVID-19 Computer Models Continue To Deteriorate

Wikimedia Commons, Tomasz Sieniki

Posted By: Edwin Mora on Technocracy News April 7, 2020

Reminiscent of erroneous global warming computer models, those created by overzealous Technocrats for COVID-19 have proven to be just as bad, but because they are ‘scientists’, they will not be held accountable for their folly. ⁃ TN Editor

The number of people hospitalized across the United States as a result of the novel coronavirus illness (COVID-19) is reportedly only a fraction of what some health experts using Artificial Intelligence technology projected a few days ago.

On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters that in his state alone, the epicenter of the viral outbreak in the United States, new coronavirus hospitalizations dropped by about 75 percent, from 1,427 four days ago to 358 on Sunday.

Highlighting the drop in new hospitalizations in NY, the state hardest hit (131,239 cases; 4,758 deaths as of Monday) by the coronavirus, Alex Berenson, former New York Times reporter who has been following the U.S. outbreak closely, observed on Twitter on Monday: “It’s over, guys. It’s already over.”

Jim Malatras, an aide for Gov. Cuomo, reportedly indicated that projections are now showing that New York is unlikely to need 110,000 hospital beds, as previously thought.

The new forecasts show “a much lower demand” that stands in the estimated 20,000-30,000 range, Jesse McKinley, the New York Times bureau chief in the NY capital of Albany, wrote on Twitter on Monday.

That means the new projections for the number of hospital beds needed in NY are between about 70 and 80 percent lower than initially estimated … Contunue reading

MORE FROM OUR SITES ON:
Failings of Artificial Intelligence
Fear and Panic pandemic

 

Covid19 Death Figures “A Substantial Over-Estimate”

by Kit Knightly for Off – Guardian

A few weeks ago we reported that, according to the Italian Institute of Health (ISS), only 12% of Italy’s reported Covid19 deaths actually listed Covid19 as the cause of death.

Given that 99% of them had at least one serious co-morbidity (and that 80% of them had two such diseases) this raised serious questions as to the reliability of Italy’s reported statistics.

Prof Walter Ricciardi, advisor to Italy’s health minister, explained this was caused by the “generous” way the Italian government handles death certificates:
“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.”

Essentially, Italy’s death registration process does not differentiate between those who simply have the virus in their body, and those who are actually killed by it.

Given the amount of fear and panic Italy’s comparatively alarming numbers caused around the world, you would think other nations would be eager to avoid these same mistakes. Surely all the other countries of the world are employing rigorous standards for delineating who has, and has not, fallen victim to the pandemic, right?

Wrong …>>>

Coronavirus deaths: Are The Authorities Deceiving Us?

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Covid-19 drags French economy into deep recession the likes of which it has not seen since 1945

© Reuters / Gonzalo Fuentes

MOREMORE

from Reuters Paris

The Bank of France said on Wednesday that the country’s economy shrank around six percent in the first quarter of this year, its worst performance since the end of WWII.

According to official figures, the economy dropped 0.1 percent in the last three months of 2019 as the coronavirus pandemic decimated business activity. With two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the country is now technically in recession.

Economic activity plunged 32 percent in the last two weeks of March as the crisis deepened, said the French regulator. It has listed construction, transport, restaurants and lodging among the worst affected sectors of the economy … Continue reading >>>

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Oil Prices Tumble As Russia Balks At Proposed US Production Cut

from Zero Hedge

As oil traders look with dread and fear to tomorrow’s OPEC+ teleconference one day after crude oil tumbled amid speculation that the production cut standoff will not be resolved there was a sliver of hope that oil prices may rebound after Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia, Russia and allied oil producers will agree to deep cuts to their crude output at talks this week but only if the United States and several others join in with curbs to help prop up prices that have been hammered by the coronavirus crisis.

However, in an attempt to have its cake and eat it too, the U.S. DOE said on Tuesday that U.S. output is already falling without government action, in line with the White House’s insistence that it would not intervene in the private markets. And as reported on Tuesday morning, super-major Exxon announced that it would slash capex by up to 30%, which would impact output by several hundred thousands barrels per day… but only in 2021 and onward. In other words, any organic decline would take place slowly, over the course of the next two years.

“With regards to media reports that OPEC+ will require the United States to make cuts in order to come to an agreement: The EIA report today demonstrates that there are already projected cuts of 2 (million bpd), without any intervention from the federal government,” the U.S. Energy Department said … Continue reading >>>

MORE on the economic war between east and west

Kissinger says ‘even US’ can’t defeat Covid-19 alone. His solution? Global NWO government, of course

by Helen Buyniski for RT, 8 April, 2020

Henry Kissinger, eminence grise of imperial US foreign policy, has warned in an op-ed that no government – even his beloved hegemon – can defeat Covid-19 alone, implying that the New World Order he’s always preached must follow.

If the US doesn’t couple its efforts to rebuild its own economy with the first steps toward creating a global government, humanity is doomed, Kissinger wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Kissinger laments that the pandemic has led to the return of a “walled city” model of nationalist governance, suggesting that “exploration at the frontiers of science” alone can save humanity from disease in his vision of a globalist utopia. But developing cures takes time, and the notion that countries should be discouraged from protecting themselves in the interim is suicidal. If anything, one of the reasons Italy, Spain, and France were hit so hard by coronavirus was the EU’s dysfunctional insistence on open borders amid the pandemic.

“Global trade and movement of people” are all well and good, but the pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of the globalist system like never before. It will take years for nations to rebuild, and repeating their mistakes is not something they can afford to do … Continue reading >>>

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Google is the enemy and must be destroyed, or freedom dies forever

Google monster” Source: Giles Nabiney via http://www.101touches.com/

 

It’s the Artificial Intelligence that manipulates people through a billion tablet computers, mobile phones, email accounts, and search engine of choice, and the mangers claim their goal is to enhance our lives by knowing us better than we know ourselves, and nudging us with constant suggestions and warning to make better, wiser decisions than we could ever make for ourselves. “Don’t be evil,” the corporate motto read in the early days, although that has now been dropped because it became something of an embarrassment when people worked out it was incomplete, the full version read, “Don’t be evil, that’s our job.”

The Google empire is anything but a force for good, As we have reported the corporation enjoys an unhealthily cosy relationship with governments and security agencies, with only the European Union, China and Russia having proved capable of standing up to it and Dave Hodges of The Common Sense Show warns if it isn’t broken up soon then we can all kiss our collective future goodbye. Google plans to track every move we make through our devices, governments want to control everything we do. Naturally the two are happy to collaborate for the purpose of advancing thir agendas.

The way Google gains influence with government is through its increasingly creepy and intrusive surveillance and data gathering and analysis technologies, which are now being included in devices that are nothing to do with the internet. Soon, if Google gets its way, everyone on the planet will be monitored, tracked, and controlled by Google algorithms overseen by a technocratic elite who plan to censor all internet content and suppress all dissent throughput the liberal democracies of the developed world. Anyone who dares to challenge the establishment narrative will be identified and targeted.

Right now, more than 98 percent of mainstream media outlets the world over are controlled by just six corporations. And all of these corporations, says Hodges, are Cultural Marxists who hate the working classes, and despise everything for which, after 5000 years of civilisation, our nations have evolved to value.

Even Fox News, which presents itself as media for conservatives, is merely controlled opposition that’s funneling its viewers right into the same slaughterhouse as all of the other news outlets. Sadly, this leaves about two percent of the media, several outlets of which are now banned by Google, to tell people the truth.

“At the forefront of the propaganda that keeps America paralyzed is Google,” Hodges explains about the source of the problem. “Google has moved past Monsanto (a.k.a. Monsatan) as the most evil corporation in the world.”

Back in the summer, it was announced that Google was developing a “special” search engine for communist China that allows for only state-sanctioned “news” to show up in the results. Pretty much par for the course where the regime in China is concerned yo might think. But what mainstream media are not reporting is that Google has similar plans for the U.S.A, the European Union, Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan and anywhere else with a reasonable level of prosperity.

MORE ON THIS SITE:
Independent Study Says Google Influenced Midterm Elections, May Have Cost Republicans Seats: Study

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Leaked Google Emails Reveal Internal Discussion On Burying Articles From Conservative Outlets

Study from Vanderbilt professor finds Google tracking is even creepier than we thought

Google Extends Its Powers, Become The Master Spy Of The Digital Age

UK Parliament Seizes Internal Facebook Documents

EU Consumer Groups Accuse Google Of Breaking Privacy Laws by Covertly Tracking Users

Google threat to democracy

The Importance Of Freedom Of Speech and Information

Free Speech Is Under Attack And Journalism Is Dead

Leaked Google Emails Reveal Internal Discussion On Burying Articles From Conservative Outlets

More posts on Google

 

So Turing Got It Wrong?

I encounter many articles from sources between eager geeks, silicon valley billionaire pasychopaths and highly qualified academics on topics related to artificial intelligence, neural networks and deep learning. But as they witter on about algorithms, big data and ever more powerful computers they do not seem to grasp  there is more to human conscious intelligence which we are nowhere near to understanding but which must be understood if we are to to model human intuition.

The Turing Test, developed in the 1950s by computer pioneer Alan Turing was intended to discriminate between humans and machines by asking  certain questions of a machine or a human and observing answers which a human is expected to give and that would be impossible for a machine to answer. We can consider this emotional intelligence as an area the machine would not be able to understand.

The only machine yet claimed to have passed the test was presented to judges as a 12 year old Ukrainian boy who had not been learning English for very long. Nothing like cheating to get the result you want is there? Machine learning models can learn some probabilistic parameters to come up with an output representations but cannot understand the emotions or expression or feelings behind a statement.

There is more than just probability estimation in human intelligence. A more relevant question is how can we model consciousness? If we could model consciousness,we could then have an understanding whether an individual is experiencing an emotion and that it will reflect in the way it is giving out those answers.

So the ultimate question is “How do we model Consciousness?”

That’s is the great question all the people who post on A I, neural networks, deep learning and the rest should be able to answer, but cannot.

We have no idea how human consciousness evolved, what triggered that leap from the mammal mind (some would say the mammal brain, because the mind is the home of that mystery which makes us human.) Both evolutionists and religionists agree there is “something” about humankind that separates us from even the large brained animals, but nobody can explain what a human mind actually is.

Some years ago I had an extended stay in hospital after a catastrophic brain haemorrhage. It took out about 35% of my brain tissue and the initial prognosis was there would be little left of what made me who I am. Amazingly my memory, together with language and cognitive skills survived almost intact (I was paralyzed on one side but I was still me.) Nobody was offering explanations though I asked many times, wanting to understand what had happened to me, until some months later, while talking to an endocrinologist who was investigating the blood disorder that had led my blood pressure to spike, and he said, “We are only just beginning to understand that the brain and the mind are two very different things.”

What is the human mind? How does it relate to the brain? Dogs, Chimpanzees and Dolphins can be playful and can relate to members of other species, but they cannot handle abstract ideas. Why do we not see animals with minds? There are no physical characteristics of the human brain that suggest they provide thecreative and processing power that defines human thought and problem solving skills.

If we think of just a few of the qualities which make homo sapiens sapiens (literally ‘man who knows he knows’) unique among all living creatures we start to get an idea of the magnitude of task facing those who aspire to create human — like intelligence in a computer.

I have always said, “the only way we can hope to create true artificial intelligence is by radically redefining what we mean by intelligence.”

 

Google DeepMind’s Dodgy NHS deals were investigated — but tough questions avoided

from Business Insider

An independent review panel has raised a number of concerns about how Google DeepMind is working with the National Health Service (NHS) in a report published on Wednesday.

Artificial Intelligence subsidiary DeepMind tasked the panel with scrutinising its NHS partnerships after New Scientist revealed that the company had quietly been given access to 1.6 million patient records to develop a kidney monitoring app called Streams without their prior knowledge.

The unpaid panel includes ex-Cambridge MP Julian Huppert, The Co-Operative Group’s current chief digital officer Mike Bracken, venture capital investor Eileen Burbidge, and six other members.

The panel’s 22-page report, which cost DeepMind £59,315, raised concerns about subjects including:

• The lack of clarity in the original information sharing agreement (ISA) with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
• 11 “minor” vulnerabilities that were found across the app, the API (application programming interface), and the servers in DeepMind’s data centre
• And the lack of work on public engagement, particularly in relation to the links between DeepMind Health and Google.

While there were criticisms, the report — published two days after the UK data watchdog ruled that DeepMind’s first deal with the NHS was illegal — also commends DeepMind for its overall high level of data security, and for openly publishing its new contracts with the NHS with minimal redactions. The report provides a number of recommendations for DeepMind to consider when working with the NHS in future.

Read more >>>

McDonalds Is Replacing 2,500 Minimum Wage Workers With Digital Cashiers: Here Is Its Math

While the latest employment figures in the USA appeared to signal a pick up in the jobs market, with unemployment benefit claim falling, only people unaware if the statistical prestadigitation used to massage the figures (people unemployed for two years or more are not counted as unemployed – they are, to borrow a term from the old Soviet Union, ‘unpersoned.’) oblivious to the carnage among the broader restaurant and fast-food sector or what financial news website Zero Hedge calls the waiters and bartenders economy.

McDonald’s are doing particularly well, after several years of looking like the sick man of the stock market, the fast food chani’s latest innovation has sent share prices soaring. In a report published this week, analyst Andrew Charles, the calculates the jump in sales as a result of Ronald McDonald’s new Experience of the Future strategy of replacing minimum wage workers with digital ordering and payment kiosks (shown above). As a result of legally mandated increases in minimum wages, the biggest employer of minimum wage workers will replace cashiers in at least 2,500 restaurants by the end of 2017 and another 3,000 over 2018. Cowen also mentioned plans for the fast food chain to roll out mobile ordering across 14,000 U.S. locations by the end of 2017.
Here is a snapshot of the figures that Cowen, used to come up with the cost-savings as McDonalds increasingly lays off more and more minimum wage workers and replaces them with “Big Mac ATMs” It shows the full costing and identifies the increases in minimum wage mandated under the Obama administration as the reason  why the Ronald McDonald’s little munchkins, the client-facing minimum wage  workers are now obsolete. And you can bet in a highly competitive business other fast food chains will be quick to follow suit.

McD is cultivating a digital platform through mobile ordering and Experience of the Future (EOTF), an in-store technological overhaul most conspicuous through kiosk ordering and table delivery. Our analysis suggests efforts should bear fruit in 2018 with a combined 130 bps contribution to U.S. comps. We believe mobile ordering better supplements the drive-thru business where 70%+ of U.S. sales are transacted. In our view, MCD’s differentiation lies in the operational enhancements of mobile ordering that includes curbside pick-up of orders in order to not disrupt the drive-thru.

We are most excited for mobile ordering, Experience of the Future and the launch of fresh beef to help drive U.S. same store sales in 2018. We provide analysis for the latter three, which cumulatively we expect to contribute roughly 150 bps to U.S. same store sales in 2018, respectively. This gives us confidence to raise our 2018 U.S. same store sales forecast from 2% to 3%, in excess of Consensus Metrix’s 2.5%.

Experience of the Future Features Lower ROI Than Mobile Order, But Offers Greater Potential Longer Term

We are constructive on the use of guest facing technology for the restaurant industry. MCD’s longer-term U.S. story revolves around Experience of the Future (EOTF), a holistic operational and technological overhaul to the store base. MCD’s March 2017 investor meeting centered around the initiative with interactive displays. Perhaps the most conspicuous piece of Experience of the Future lies in digital kiosk ordering, which have seen success in International Lead Markets. Additionally, food ordered via the kiosk is delivered to the customer’s table. We believe EOTF better enhances the instore experience, which represents roughly 30% of domestic sales compared to mobile ordering, which allows customers to avoid leaving their cars.

Our ROI math suggests EOTF leads to a 9% cash/cash return in Year 1 in the 55% of domestic stores that do not require a store remodel, and 5% in the 45% of stores that require a remodel, which is a predecessor to implementing EOTF. Our math is premised on total costs of $150,000 for the Experience of the Future enhancement, and $700,000 of all-in costs when including EOTF as well as a store remodel. MCD has offered to pay 55% of the cost for Experience of the Future, in excess of the 40% the company contributed to the store remodel initiative beginning in 2010, for restaurants that commit to the program by the end of 2017.

McDonald’s targets a high-teens return on incrementally invested capital (ROIIC, or McSpeak for evaluating ROI), improving to the mid-20% range beginning in 2019. We believe EOTF’s ROI is captured over time as the sales lift does not dissolve as in the case of a traditional restaurant remodel. Rather, the lift should sustain as we expect consumers to increasingly embrace technological change. This is evidenced across concepts, such as Panera’s experience with 2.0, as well as McDonald’s own experience in Canada, where kiosks saw 12-13% sales mix in Year 1 and 27% in Year 2. We also note kiosk ordering will also likely lead to labor savings over time which should help boost ROIIC, but is unlikely for the foreseeable future.

 

In 2017, MCD expects to end the year with EOTF offered in 2,500 domestic locations from 500 at 2016-end. MCD targets the majority of domestic locations to feature EOTF by 2020, but has not given intermediary targets. The amount of stores adding EOTF depends on franchise reception to the initiative but we see positive indicators given our checks as well as the company’s disclosure that 90% of franchisees approved of the initiative after taking the same interactive tour that was given at the March 2017 investor day.

We estimate 3,000 locations to add EOTF in 2018, which should lead to a 70 bps contribution to U.S. same store sales assuming an even cadence of restaurants adding the initiative over the course of the year. Further we assume the mix of stores adding EOTF in 2018 reflects the mix of overall stores needed to add EOTF, or 55% of stores that already have a remodel while 45% require a store remodel. McDonald’s  has previously announced plans to remodel 650 restaurants in 2017, which we expect will also add EOTF.

Or to put it more succinctly, the great achievement of the Social Justice Warriors and the Community Organiser In Chief in the closing stages of the Obama presidency has succeeded not in doubling the wages of low paid workers but in putting them out of jobs.

Throughout the US presidential election campaign one of the main policy pledges of Democratic nomination contender Bernie Sanders was that the minimum wage would be lifted to $15 per hour. This current move by McDonalds is a direct reaction to minimum wage laws in some states where liberals dominate the state legislature. The jobs being lost to technology are simply not worth $15 an hour, so well done Bernie Sanders & Co. as predicted in January 2016 thanks to your economic illiteracy many thousands of people who used to earn minimum wage will have no job at all.

MCDONALDS is using the excuse of 15 dollar an hour minimum wage, to eliminate PEOPLE from their workforce, however to maintain profits they need people with money who can afford to buy their toxic-shiteburgers. The endless pursuit of the lowest possible labor coast means ‘things’ and ‘services’ cost less BUT what do you do when nobody below the to ten per cent is still working (strike that, I’m still in the top ten per cent and I haven’t worked for twenty years,) How will the global economy keep growing when the majority of people have no money to buy anything but the most basic essentials?

And I promise you the top ten per cent are not going to be buying many burgers from McDonalds. The new serfdom is going to be worse than the 12th century version and the path there is going to see a bigger die off than the Black Death. What was it Ted Turner desired? A reduction in global population to six hundred million?

They’re not just killing off minimum wage jobs – they’re slashing all they can at levels all the way up to the top. Anything to make better numbers.
Katos’s picture

John Steinbeck said “the bank is a monster that men created.” It’s true, but does not go far enough, the global corporations are monsters too, and all monsters are insatiable! Steinbeck also said if the monster does not grow it dies, and if the monster is to grow it must be fed. Think about that, who feeds the monsters but the wage slaves. And when the wage slaves cannot produce enough to satisfy the monster, it will consume them, starting at the bottom. Then the people who comtrol the monster will find find that the botton was supporting them the whole time!

As thousands of stores close across Europe and the USA close, partly due to online competition and partly to people having no money for anything but essentials, the corporations think they can solve the problem by replacing people with robits and Artificial Intelligence?

AI is a pipe dream. Show me the program that writes its own classes and functions, fixes its own bugs, and I’ll start to believe. Many prominent computer science programs in the country have already changed their course names from “AI” to “Machine Learning” for just this reason – as complex as algorithmic design has gotten, machine learning is still just a series of complex decision trees. It’s only natural that they become more accurate as they’re fed more data and refined. Incredible tools for good and for evil, but hardly conscious.

There’s a bizzare religiosity to transhumanism and AGI has become its de-facto “Deus ex Machina.” As I’ve yet to find a “God” (in the religious sense) that actually exists, I’m left to assume that transhumans will follow in the footsteps of their Trinity-based counterparts and use an entrenched (technological) Priest class to sell their “God” to the largely tech – illiterate masses.

I mean, your average schmuck already believes their Amazon Alexa is some kind of AI. When you try to explain to them that it’s simply a device for retrieval, manipulation, and presentation of stored data (like all computers), their eyes glaze over as their preference for a world of “magic” watched over by machines of loving grace kicks in.

As for the zero cost promise of automation, if molecular printing and near-free energy show up anytime soon, this is a possibility; but certain industries are already highly automated with no such overwhelming price/supply effect. Look at the way food production is going, almost entirely automated, getting cheaper all the time yet still suffering from the ravages of inflation, to say nothing of the quality!

We have little to fear from automation and Artifical Intelligence. Except for the minimum wage workers of course.

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Designer babies, human / animal hybrids, these things have been in wet dream territory for scientists for a long time. But now due to techniques such as DNA editing, they are getting worryingly close to reality. And as has been demonstrated many times, scientists have zero uderstanding of where the ethical boundaries lie.

IBM Lays Billion Dollar Bet On Artificial Intelligence System Called Watson: They’ll Lose
This publication has always been sceptical of the claims made by computer scientists that’the thinking computer is just around the corner’. The fact is pointy heads have been saying arificual intelligence would be with us in two or three years for the past forty years. And the old computer professional who owns the site says we are no nearer than when he wrote his fisrt program.

Nothing Good Has Come Of The InternetWhen a technophobe denounces the internet as anti – social, anti jobs, a force for dumbing down or a waste of time it can easily be dismissed but when the CEO of a major technology company like Sony saays nothing good has ever come of the internet we should perhaps listen..

The Robotification Of Human Society Is being Implemented

Are you ready to surrender your humanity to science, accept having computer chips implanted in your skull that will link your brain to the internet (via a Google server) and let your life be controlled by machines? That’s what The Controllers are planning for you …

Internet Access As A Human Right?A survey carried out by the BBC found a majority of people around the world believe internet access should be a basic human right. We suspect a bit of statistical rigging because the majority of people in the world live below the poverty line and probably have more urgent priorities than surfing the net.

Is The Internet Making Us All Stupid.The more gullible and wide eyed among academics like to burble ecstatically about how the internet has ushered in a new age of creativity. We have to wonder just how much time these self styled experts have spent surfing scial networking sites

Web Induced DementiaIn most civilised societies there are laws governing what outrageous claims advertisers can make for their products. This does not apply on the web it seems, where ‘revolutionary new world changing technology’ means ‘not fit for purpose’

Computer Cops Will Arrest You Before You Commit A Crime
Innocent until proved guilty has always been a basic principle of British and before the Union, English and Scottish justice. Since late in the ninth century when King Alfred signed into law the Liber Judicialis, the presumption of innocence has stood.Thinking of committing a crime was not punishable, only in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” has Thought Crime ever been a punishable offence. Until now …

Is Technology Creating Physical and Psychological Hazards In The Digital Age?
Scientific research used to be the area of work that trailblazers, those with an unquenchable desire for new experience and a hyperactive sense of adventure wanted to be involved in. Now those who label themselves ‘scientists’ seem to have become the high priests of an ultra – conservative religion, determined at all costs to block progess that may lead to understanding that the dogmas of the past are just wrong

The Mummers: The Controlling system And The Illusion Of Freedom
We live in a world of deception, where truth is an ephemeral thing, slippery as an eel and shadowy as a spectre. What we are expercted to perceive as reality is just spin and misinformation designed to ensure the elite maintain their control. There’s eff all you can do just get on with your life, say the shills for big government and authoritarianism. But are we really nothing more than slaves of the system?

Google’s Brave New World Of Artificial Intelligence – And The Destruction Humanity
Almost every day we hear scientists burbling about artificial intelligence and how very soon machines will be smarter than humans. As scientists are nowhere near as smart as humans its hard to see how science can build something smarter. The problem is of course we don’t understand what contsitutes intelligence – those who think academic qualifications are the only indicator are retards. So where will this madness to replace us with machines end?

Transhumanism – What The Elite And Their Science Whores Have Planned For You
Transhumanism, the creation of – or turning us into – part human, part machine cyborgs is generating a lot of discussion and a lot of spontaneous ejaculations in the scientific community as they contemplate having their brains replaced by a computer. There are no limits on the ambitions of scientists fantasies, they even envisage creating robots that can interbreed with us, but how much is realistic?

Don’t be Evil, Google Will Do It For You
Google have abandoned their “Don’t Be Evil motto. Good thing really, they are becoming more evil every day. The latest plans to integrate our brains with their servers may seem like a science fiction freaks wet dream, but these creepy nerds are serious …

Google wants to change the way you see the world
News Used To Be Important – Now It’s Just EntertainmentPeople talk about technology, mainly television, cellulat telephones and the internet having given us an unprecedented ability to communicate. But have they? OK, we can trade meaningless messages with strangers on the other side of the world, we can join the cacophony of social netwoks where everybody yells at once and nobody listens, or we can sit in isolation, shouting inmto the void. But none of those are communicating. Technology has actually inhibited communication. …

Google Evil Empire In New Privacy ViolationOnce again the neo-Nazi nerds at Google are in trouble for playing fast and loose with our privacy. Google have bypassed browser privacy setting to track our movements on the web, the bettrer to target us with ads for poxy shite no sane person would buy. What is it these arseholes find difficult to understand about the idea that in the real world or cyberspace same rules apply …

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Google Plans Artificial Intelligence To Kill Human Jobs

(Picture credit: ibiblio.com)

Artificial intelligence, far from being a boon to humanity might easily lead to mass unemployment and social breakdown if computers continue in extending their capacity to replace humans in jobs, experts warned days after it emerged that Google had beaten competitors to buy a firm specialising in this kind of technology.

Dr Stuart Armstrong, from the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, issued his warning after news that Google had paid £400m for the British artificial intelligence firm DeepMind was revealed.

While Dr. Armstrong welcomed the internet search and advertizing giant’s decision to set up an ethics board to supervise the development and application of artificial intelligence, saying that such advances in technology carried a number of risks. Armstrong said computers had the potential to take over people’s jobs at a faster rate than new roles could be created. He cited logistics and administration as professions that were particularly vulnerable to the development of artificial intelligence.

Machines have already largely replaced humans in manufacturing while more and more sales functions are being carried out online. Only a few years after community High Streets filled with empty shops, now office developments are full of empty call centres. Dr. Armstrong also warned about the implications for uncontrolled mass surveillance if computers were taught to recognise human faces. “There’s a variety of short term risks for artificial intelligence, everyone knows about the autonomous drones”, he added.

Such concerns are often swept aside by “computer scientists” and media “experts” who are really just nerds so besotted with technology they hail every advance as a major step forward for humanity and never pause to consider that there might be a downside.

Some studies carried out by social scientists however have been looking into which jobs are the most vulnerable and there’s quite a lot of them in logistics, administration, insurance underwriting but ultimately a huge swathe of jobs are potentially vulnerable to improved artificial intelligence.” The Daily Stirrer has previously reported in this in ‘Will Humans become Redundant In Your Lifetime‘.

Such concerns have been reiterated by Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London, who commented: “I think it is a very good thing that Google has set up this ethics board and I think there certainly are some short term issues that we all need to be talking about. “It’s very difficult to predict and that is of course a concern but in the past when we’ve developed new kinds of technologies then often they have created jobs at the same time as taking them over but it certainly is something we ought to be discussing.”

But will the nerds and the media wannabes allow discussion of what ought to be discussed? There’s an old adage that goes, “If you don’t use it you’ll lose it.” With a constant stream of propaganda from technology companies, academics and politicians brainwashing impressionable people into believing computers should be left to do the thinking because they are better at it than us, what will happen to our intelligence if we let computers do everything for us?

As computers become more intelligent while humans dumb down, they’ll stop being our slaves and become our competitors or worse. The race will be on to stay more intelligent than the machines and parents will have to select the right genes for their kids so that they stay ahead. Slaves to the machines, what a dystopian future we will be handing to future generations. We’re innovating ourselves into oblivion.

The DeepMind company was set up in 2011 by neuroscientist and former chess prodigy Demis Hassabis, along with partners Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman. The company specialises in intellectual property, namely algorithms and machine learning techniques for simulation, e-commerce and games. Phew, games; that’s a relief, I was beginning to think these people were a serious business.

Like Google’s other recent acquisition Nest, a major player in developing The Internet Of Things we are told although while they talk about developing intelligent fridges, microwave ovens and flat screen television their product portfolio to date is a thermostat which does exactly what analogue thermostats have done for over a century. Still while the nerds dream of the day when algorithms rule the world, they are not doing any real damage like developing new weapons of mass destruction for tyrants and war criminals to play with.

Deep Mind is also working in an area called Deep Learning which involves machines being ‘taught’ (nerds love to humanize machines, they mean programmed) to recognise patterns in massive aglomerations of data so computers will begin to learn how to recognise mundane objects such as cars, food items and possibly human faces.

Google anticipate using DeepMind’s expertise to improve the functions of its current products such as the Google Glass, the project that will stick Google’s ads and ‘suggestions’ in your face and generally distract you while you are driving a car, rock climbing, skiing, making love to your Google robot fuck buddy having a dump. The company also plans to extend its current artificial intelligence work such as the development of self-driving cars (so yo can get jiggy with your robot friend and simultaneously respond to Google’s ads and ‘suggestions’, while being driven to work, to distraction or to insanity.

Mao Tse-tung once said it is better to employ 1000 men to dig a ditch than to use one JCB and one man to dig the ditch, because if you employ 1000 men you put 1000 chickens on the dinner table for 1000 families instead of 1 chicken on the JCB driver’s table, and a pile of money in the JCB owner’s bank – or something like that. The evil old tyrant was on the right track.]

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