May 5, 2023

By Saw Lahkbaw

Introducing you to the future that is here today!

The rise of AI is not just a technological breakthrough but also has a far-reaching political and moral implications. Machines can act more like human while the powerful will become even more powerful controlling new intelligent machines. 

Whereas, not knowing how to control powerful machines may create fear and loathing, pushing one even farther into a self-victimization abyss.

A habit of being dismissive to progress will no longer serve us well in this age. We may bury our heads in the sand, but the reality has bombed our back already. We need to rise up above this toxic dismissive culture and embrace the reality. 

We need a generation of digital confidence who are comfortable navigating in the new challenge. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI)  

- whether you like it or not, or you understand it or not — is rebellious, disruptive, and its progress is unstoppable. Everyone connecting to the internet already interacts with some forms of AI. You can stay detached, cynical, or ignorant of it and later be fearful of its power.  

Or learn to master it while many of us have the opportunity to equip ourselves and participate in the power distribution so that new generations of our people are not destined to be victims like previous generations. Our endless suffering is a testament that peaceful but powerless people can't have peace if they can't protect themselves. 

While the world celebrates the arrival of OpenAI and Chat-GPT and nation states and tech-driven organizations are formulating  how to take advantage of technology, international Karen community is consumed in AI generated social media sensations, watching, following, and spontaneously sharing petty-celebrity fighting, that in turn feeding AI Giants to promote that sensational junk to more viewers, repeating unverified information that are out of context with a skewed view perpetually locking down the whole community in the dark chamber. Disproportionately, the so-call social media news is doing a disservice to the community.  Without institutional guardrail, actors will bear no liability. 

Misinformation, disinformation, and AI generated sensational trends affect every society. To counter those virtual destruction, citizens of nation states in the democratic world have governments that formulate policies to protect their citizens. Without protection from the state and the government, our people will be vulnerable. On the political front, in our homeland, people need a government (the Kawthoolei Government) with state institutions that prepare, act, and react for the people. 

Digital knowledge empowers

And it is accessible.

Computer Science and AI fields may be misunderstood and appear inaccessible, but the application of it proliferates as well as the tools to start learning. 

The knowledge of how computer science is applied in industries should empower you. You are behind the scenes of development and application digital infrastructure. This knowledge will empower you to understand how industries operate on this ubiquitous digital technology.

Understanding the limit and capability of technology could inform and liberate you.  Being conscious that social media AI can take control of your screen time may help with willpower to get out of endless scrolling time waste.   

AI can be your personal Guardian Spirit.

AI can now act like a personal guardian spirit, checking the pattern of your steps and tapping on your shoulder when you misstep.  

AI is equipped and at work in many of the new production of many vehicles — driver assistance making millions of calculations in a second for a single safe decision. 

Google AI is looking out at you on the road — when the road you are heading on is congested, it suggests taking a new route. With location service on, Google is watching your move. Most new model vehicles are equipped with driver assistance. When your vehicle is dangerously close to another, AI will stop your vehicle from accelerating and pull back to save your life. Yet, AI not will stop humans from being foolish. 

Although AI may sound futuristic, Single-task AI is already consumer-ready and widely used in every industry. 

Self-driving cars may fail big in the big press, machine intelligence may be laughed at, but Machine Learning (ML, practical Artificial Intelligence) is maturing very quickly. 

Chat-GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer, such as text to image generator), the generative AI, is fun making an impact on learning, research, creative art, and even programming itself. It can rearrange the future of work, eliminating repetitive, tedious, monotonous backbreaking, or eye straining tasks. 

Programming is the New Literacy

Most science and technical majors in college now require some programming courses. It becomes a necessity to analyze and manipulate data to gain insight for research. Programming becomes a new literacy to read and write data in higher Ed.

Fluency in a programming language resembles fluency in a foreign language since a programming language is technically a language to communicate not only with machines but also with fellow programmers. Programming is to logically organize ideas for a solution.

In fact, programming requires principally imagination — little upfront infrastructure cost. 

Programming is easy

I encourage the Karen youth to explore Computer Science and Programing. Programming is easy and fun, however, designing scalable architecture to meet complex business workflow may not. Occasionally, you may need to produce a genius clever solution to tackle tough problems while your teammate runs out of ideas. 

Programming requires logical, clear thinking, imagining scenarios and holding hypotheses before implementing it. You give a solution not by opinion but by logical reasoning based on data.  

Machine Learning, AI, takes away the work of explicitly writing logic, but humans still need to monitor, fine-tune algorithms, and train the machines with instructions -- programming programs to program. 

Professional programmers must consider accessibility and security rather than just business logic. Most of the time, those requirements to build an inclusive, scalable, and secure system eat up more time. 

Stand on the shoulder of many giants.

However, no technology is built from scratch, rather a series of technology are built on top of each other. You usually don’t need to develop consuming works of foundational tools to build a larger system. You can also participate and learn from a wealth of knowledge from other successes and failures and adapt to your needs.  

Artificial Intelligence has been coined since the 1960s and studied for a couple of generations although the press makes it as if it was a recent phenomenon. 

AI for rebuilding Kawthoolei

Kawthoolei needs more builders, who can walk the walk. 

We needs change-makers, go-getters, problem-solvers capable of making changes at micro level. Making a change is often tedious, uncelebrated, and small-scale, but it is behind the scenes where the real change you wish to see is happening. 

Asking for pity is not sustainable and it does not work to free us from suffering. Karen people, the long persecuted, have been characterized as victims. Constantly publishing the spreadsheet of our suffering is neither empowerment nor does not do justice that intended. 

The international political order doesn’t guarantee to be on the side of victims and losers. In fact, it is the opposite. A nation must learn to stand up on its own feet.  Nonetheless, the international system does respect people who are organized and determined. As much as we cannot ask Ber-Yor to give us Kawthoolei, we cannot expect good-will wealthy organizations to build Kawthoolei for us. We need to stand up, organize, and be determined to command recognition. That requires informed talkers and capable workers. 

As much as Kawthoolei needs wise counsel of many that plan and strategize well, it needs people who can execute well.  

Nation states are competing in cyberspace. Cyber Security becomes a tangible national security not only for military intelligence but also infrastructure that now all rely on digital technology.  

There is a severe shortage of technocrats and technologists in Kawthoolei. Kawthoolei — the land is fertile and water abundant — can be self-sufficient if we harness all the renewable energy and natural resources efficiently. Many countries apply AI in agricultural work to be more predictable, more productive, less laborious, and more efficient harvest and distribution.  

Data collection on animals on the land and fish in the waters can also help with environment and ecosystem related services.  

Do it for Kawthoolei 

A beloved general of Kawthoolei Armed Forces said that in the territories we reclaim there are works to do to clear the areas before people can resettle. For that risky undertaking, AI driven landmine clearing robots could help. Many idea how to apply the power of AI will pop up when you start get involved. 

So, go learn the cutting edge to master the unstoppable. 

Go make innovation. 

Go build Kawthoolei. 

Go make a better world for the left-behind people and beyond. 

Have a question on how to start? Google it. That's what programmers do all day. There are accessible resources to get started. You need only time, interest, and energy to learn to be good at it. 

Views in this article are those of the author.

By the way, this article is written with the help of AI from research, edit, proofread, to reaching your feed.