Vulnerable People and Places Blog

Housing First Program: Is it an effective way to end homelessness? Homelessness is a debilitating experience for individuals that can deeply traumatize and impact one’s quality of life, as well as the safety and experience of people living in urban cities such as Portland. The Housing First program has been adopted in many cities as a potential solution to the homelessness crisis, aiming to address the issue at its source by providing housing first, and other mental or rehabilitation services second to individuals in need.  The idea behind this program is the assumption that no one can heal or recover from mental health or substance abuse issues without having their basic human needs met such as a safe and stable shelter. The organization “Path Home” offers rapid rehousing services and claims housing as a “human right”. I would argue in support of these types of organizations as I fully believe every human deserves access to safe and sustainable housing, health care, and food. Rese...

  Why AI Will Have a Difficult Time Replacing Creative Careers Artificial intelligence has the ability to produce images, write stories, generate music, edit videos, and assist with graphic design. Because of these advancements, many artists are concerned that AI could eventually take over in creative careers. However, having the capacity to generate creative content won’t be enough to allow AI to replace a creative’s mastermind that works in creative industries. There’s more to a creative approach than just producing a finished product. Graphic designers, writers, filmmakers, animators, musicians, photographers, and other creative professionals often execute their ideas through different experiences, audiences, cultures, emotions, and personal perspectives. For example, a designer often prioritizes on a set of goal that expands beyond visually attractive. They start to recognize what a client wants and narrows down to the intended audience, respond to feedback, solve problems, rec...

  How AI Is Changing Education? Artificial intelligence is quickly introducing new ways for students to learn that influences how teachers approach education. Tools that now feature AI can help students research topics, understand difficult concepts, brainstorm ideas, and receive feedback more efficiently than a traditional approach. For teachers, AI can provide more developing lessons and learning materials as well as finding new ways to support students with different learning needs. However, the constant rise of AI also raises concerns about how much students should rely on it. Once they get used to generating an answer in a span of a few seconds, students may use it as a replacement for researching, writing, and solving problems themselves. This encourages people to ask an important question regarding education: How can schools use AI without allowing it to replace critical thinking? According to UNESCO, generative AI can potentially be beneficial to students, teachers, and res...

    AI is everywhere in our lives whether we like it or not. People use it every day for all kinds of simple tasks. Yet, there are a growing number of people who use AI to help not only with organizing data and making suggestions, but also with managing their own mental health. In these cases, the AI acts as a “virtual therapist” to provide counsel for those seeking help. This seems like an appealing solution at first. Mental health resources are becoming more expensive and less accessible over time. Appointments can take months and even years to follow through. In that time, people might spiral and see their mental condition worsen without professional intervention. AI can combat these issues by being a readily available and comparatively cheap resource. However, there are quite a few dangers and downsides that come with turning a virtual chatbot into a therapist in lieu of a real professional. Firstly, AI chatbots and LLMs are prone to inaccurate assessments. Studies have fo...

If you don’t own any of your things. The companies that provide them own you. You pay $8 a month for Netflix. It’s dirt cheap! Seems like a pretty good deal, given the extensive library of media. It’s so easy to just watch content; no need to go to the store and buy a physical disk. There isn’t any point to buying a film and owning it in perpetuity. It’s on Netflix! Until it isn’t.  Digital products are a relatively recent innovation. A lot of digital products are treated like physical ones. You can buy a copy, and it is yours; you could send it to your friend, copy it to other computers; the possibilities are endless. Owning something digitally is different from a physical product because it isn't something you take home in your shopping cart. Digital products still exist in the reach of their producer. They exist in a way that their producer can still hold onto it while you "bring it home in your shopping cart". You can "bring the item home," but it is not you...

     Can AI data centers create a new kind of carbon emission? Apparently, because of the amount of energy that data centers take to power, that are called high-performance computing resources, take new heights of carbon emissions and struggles in environment sustainability. It has made such an impact, that a study that is linked here, is about the deficiency factors of power and productivity, and the toll it take on renewable energy sources that already exist.      These high-performance computing systems (or HPC) are for super computers, and the article goes into the purposes for these computers, mainly data science outside of artificial intelligence. While having the ability to have a cloud for data and important code in computer science, the carbon footprint of having many of these data centers will further deteriorate  the earth with the amount of climate change caused by big corporations for products that are not as significant for humanity....

      Have you ever wondered what's actually going on with new AI data centers? There's more to it than most people realize. The technological components of one of these new data centers are not just about the power of AI, but risks that people seem to underestimate. Because of the rapid growth of AI in corporations and it's seemingly limitless capability has made things move quicker in investing in this opportunity. The convenience of more productivity being automated, has a bigger cost that everyday citizens see and experience.      The expansion of AI data centers across the United States takes up a lot of land, and the amount of power used constantly is not good for our environment. With long-term planning and interconnection, issues arise such as imbalances of how long it takes data centers to be built, which can be a couple of years. In that time of construction, the county or region the data center is being built on could have drastic changes an...