A few months ago, I delivered a presentation to the Texoma Women’s Business Council about artificial intelligence or “AI” as it is more commonly known. In that presentation, I demonstrated OpenAI’s chat model called “ChatGPT.” The outcome of that presentation concluded in two forms. Fear of the power of this technology to take away jobs, and excitement over this technologies ability to make basic business task like marketing much easier. Our Wichita Falls community sometimes feels like it runs behind the times when it comes to new technology. Friends, I am here to tell you that the AI revolution is here and it will alter life in exciting and unanticipated ways. AI is poised to redefine the way we work, live and play, ushering in a new era of efficiency, creativity and connectivity right in our hometown.
In the realm of work, we see small businesses and nonprofit organizations already using AI to gain competitive advantages in productivity, marketing, and innovation. My friend, Jean Hall, the Executive Director at Big Brothers Big Sisters in Wichita Falls, uses ChatGPT in her marketing campaigns. Jean said, “ChatGPT has been super handy as a starting point for lots of areas of writing such as emails to supporters, social media post, press releases and grant narratives. It doesn’t bypass the whole writing process but it gives me a big boost.”
AI is no stranger to our home lives either, just ask Siri, Alexa or Google, all of which are AI assistants that understand human speech. The next generation of AI is set to be a ubiquitous personal assistant, enhancing convenience and personalization. Imagine an AI that will book your doctor visits based on your health information or fill out time consuming paperwork on your behalf.
This new technology will impact how our students learn as well. In Southwest Rotary’s 4-way speech contest held earlier this year, students were challenged to pick a topic and then apply the 4-way test of the things we think, say, or do. One student surprised me in arguing for AI tools like ChatGPT to be allowed to write his essays on his behalf. Our area teachers, families and students must navigate AI in the classroom to make sure that we are preparing the next generation for success.
Of course, the impact of AI is not confined to work and everyday life; it extends to leisure and entertainment as well. Recent strikes in Hollywood by the Screenwriters and Screen Actors Guilds are partially driven by concerns over the use of AI in Hollywood. Meanwhile, AI is set to impact every element of our culture and entertainment.
Writers and novelist are already receiving instant suggestions for plot twists or dialogue construction. Musicians can harness AI-generated harmonies to elevate their compositions. The result is an exciting fusion of human creativity and AI-augmented innovation that has the potential to reshape the artistic landscape.
In my opinion, the potential for AI to change how we work, live and play here in Wichita Falls, and around the world, is undeniable. Ethically, we need to closely scrutinize this advancement. We need to make sure that credit is given where it is due, that our businesses are rewarded for work, that our workers benefit, and that our students learn. We need to use this new technology wisely, and with care.
Steve Haviland is the founder and CEO of Business Technology Solutions Group (BTSG) an I.T. management firm serving Wichita Falls, Lawton, and Oklahoma City. You can learn more about Steve and BTSG online at www.btsg.io.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Techie tips: The AI Revolution is in Wichita Falls
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Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories breaking down the findings of a six-month study looking at possible solutions to the childcare crisis in Sioux Falls. Find an overview here.
Simplified: It costs more in one year to send your kid to a childcare center in Sioux Falls than it would to send them to a South Dakota state university. And as parents try to figure out how to balance careers and children, there aren’t many ways the math works out, according to the findings from the Sioux Falls Childcare Collaborative.
Why it matters
- Most parents – as many as 9 in 10 – in the city cannot afford childcare. Based on federal definitions of affordability, childcare should take no more than 7% of annual household income.
- In reality, parents are paying about $11,400 per year per child for childcare. In order to be “affordable,” a family would have to make more than $163,000 annually for one child. That’s nearly two and a half times the median household income in Sioux Falls.
- Embe CEO Kerri Tietgen, who’s also on the childcare collaborative leadership team gave the example of a four-person household where two parents are college educated and each working professional jobs for a combined income of $90,000 annually. They’d pay about a quarter of their income just in childcare.
- Even if one parent leaves the workforce, looking at average housing costs, health insurance, monthly student loan payments, utilities, food and other costs of living, there isn’t much (if anything) left over.
Oh boy. Is that the childcare crisis?
It’s a big part of it, yeah.
There are two other major factors at play: lack of available childcare slots and childcare workforce shortages.
- You’ll find a breakdown of that problem and proposed solutions in future stories in this series.
So what are the solutions for parents?
As Mayor Paul TenHaken said Monday night, there are no “home runs” here. Only singles.
Here’s where the Childcare Collaborative’s final report comes into play.
The report outlines a number of specific solutions to fix the affordability gap in childcare that essentially boil down to some combination of the following:
- Get businesses to pay part of the childcare costs for their employees
- Get the city or state government to pay a portion of childcare costs or help subsidize the costs providers face.
Uh oh. That sounds like you’re about to propose a tax increase.
Listen. I’m not proposing anything. I’m the messenger here.
That said, a tax increase is one of the many possible solutions laid out in the nearly 100-page final report from the Sioux Falls Childcare Collaborative. It’s a solution proposed, not the solution proposed.
Here’s a closer look at some of their ideas:
Use video lottery money. The state already uses a good chunk of video lottery revenue to help fund education. The collaborative proposes the city doing something similar with extra video lottery revenue it collects.
- The city gets an estimated $85,000 per year in fees associated with video lottery machines. The collaborative suggests taking that money to help fund an Office of Child and Youth Development to focus on solving this community issue.
Give more local control. Right now in state law, cities have the ability to impose what’s called a “non-ad valorem tax” (e.g. sales tax), but that tax is limited to 2%.
- The collaborative report suggests changing state law to either allow for a higher rate or removing the cap so that local communities can decide if they want to increase sales tax as a way to generate money to fund community efforts to make childcare more accessible and affordable.
Provide employer-paid assistance. Employers can provide and contribute to a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account as a pre-tax benefit for employees. Or, they can give vouchers to employees to help offset childcare costs.
- Some companies are already doing this. The report references Pioneer Bank & Trust, which offers $5,000 to employees to offset childcare costs. The success in retaining staff outweighs the costs of the program, per a South Dakota Searchlight article cited.
Create scholarship programs. The collaborative also suggests creating a community scholarship fund for families who earn too much to receive state aid for childcare, but too little to be able to afford it on their own – folks who fall between 209% and 350% of the federal poverty level. That’s a family of four with a household income of between $62,700 and $105,000.
- The report estimates a $2.5 million fund could help support up to 500 families.
Match funds businesses invest. Another type of scholarship program the report proposes is a Childcare Business Incentive Grant.
- In this setup, employers would pay at least $300 per child per month as an employee benefit, and the state would match with another $300 per month.
Split the bill three ways. A community tri-share program – modeled off a similar program in Michigan – would split childcare costs equally between the parents, the employer and the local community via a community fund.
- The collaborative estimates a one-year pilot program to test this concept could help 500 families for just shy of $2 million.
Where do we go from here?
The Sioux Falls Childcare Collaborative is just getting started, said Michelle Erpenbach, president of Sioux Falls Thrive, the organization coordinating the 90-member group.
- This group has been working hard, Erpenbach said, but now’s the time for everybody to get on board.
“We are all going to have to do this together,” she said.
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By Divyanshi Sharma: Over the last couple of months, there has been a rise in incidents where people have fallen prey to cyber scammers who manipulate them into depositing funds into various accounts. These fraudsters often entice their victims by offering them seemingly attractive “part-time job opportunities” that involve earning money through liking videos. Initially, to gain the victim’s trust, the scammers make small deposits into the victim’s account. However, once the victim starts developing a sense of reliance on the fraudster, the scam takes a turn and starts involving tasks that require handling larger sums of money.
Until now, a lot of people have been victims of this scheme and have lost their hard-earned money as a result. The most recent case of this scam occurred in Pune, affecting a software engineer who tried making some extra money when he got a lucrative ‘work from home’ part-time job offer.
Pune techie loses around Rs 16 lakh
According to a report in TOI, a Pune-based software engineer was duped of Rs 15.9 lakh by scammers who offered him a part-time work-from-home job. The scam was reportedly carried out between May 4 and May 8. A case has been registered and investigation is going on.
A police official told TOI that the victim works at a reputed software company and on May 4, received a message on an app that promised to pay him money for a part-time job. The task involved liking some videos and the victim was compensated fairly for the same initially. The man was then told to invest in other prepaid tasks to ‘earn more money’.
Initially, the victim made small investments, but after receiving commissions, he moved on to bigger investments. When the victim told his ’employers’ that he wants to withdraw his money, the fraudsters told him that in order to get his money back, he would have to pay up more.
In four days, the victim ended up transferring Rs 15.9 lakh to various bank accounts as well as UPI accounts. When the scammers continued demanding money, the man realised that he was being duped and approached the police.
Mumbai-based man falls for liking videos scam
A lot of such cases have surfaced in the past where victims are asked to ‘like videos to earn money’. Just last month, a Mumbai-based man lost Rs 8.5 lakh in a similar incident.
According to a report by Indian Express, fraudsters approached the victim with a job offer in which all he had to do was like YouTube videos.
At first, the tasks involved small sums of money and the victim received these small amounts multiple times in his bank account. Because of regular payment, the victim started trusting the scammer. Eventually, he was added to some groups on Telegram and was told that his money would be deposited in his ‘virtual account’. This ‘virtual account’ was a sham set up by the scammers to trick the man into believing that he was actually getting paid via the account.
The victim then began getting high-paying tasks and was added to certain ‘VIP task groups’, the police told Indian Express. However, when he said that he wanted to leave the group, he wasn’t allowed to do so and was given a new task that involved a much larger amount.
— ENDS —
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