In the Age of AI

 Artificial Intelligence is quickly taking over jobs in America. The rates of job loss because of robots are growing larger and larger as time goes on. The issue is that it is cheaper to pay a robot than to pay a human, this is because you don't have to pay a robot an hourly wage. The robots come with a one-time fee when you purchase them, but over time it pays itself off and basically works for free. The only fee once it is paid off, is the cost of electricity to keep it running. My father works in the robotics industry and one of the new things that companies are doing is building warehouses called light-out warehouses where there are no humans involved at all. The robots don't need to see anything so there is no reason to have lights on in the warehouse because it just costs more money. 

The video explained that most of the job loss is not due to offshoring, it is actually due to robots taking jobs from people. There are many arguments against this because it's causing many problems across America. The video said that the loss of a job due to AI causes a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and suicide. They also said that children whose parents lost their job due to AI were more likely to repeat a grade level. These are all valid arguments but these large companies will do anything to save money. Not only are the robots cheaper they also get things done much quicker. A great industry to get into right now is AI repair because a whole warehouse can shut down if part of the assembly line is down.

Reflection on SCOTUS History

 The Supreme Court is the highest level court in the country. It is important to know the history of this court because it deals with cases that are related to the constitution. I first started learning about the Supreme Court in middle school and have been continually gaining more knowledge throughout my educational career. Although I do have a lot of knowledge of the Supreme Court, there were some things stated in the article by History.com. 

One interesting fact I read in this article was that the first meeting of the Supreme Court was held in New York City. I personally would've guessed that this meeting was held in Philadelphia. Another interesting thing about this meeting was that it had to be postponed a day because of transportation issues. It doesn't go in-depth on what these travel issues were but, it's interesting that a meeting this big had to be postponed when there were only six justices that had to meet. I also found it interesting that it took over a year for the Supreme Court to give its first decision on a case.

In my opinion, the most important take-away point from the Supreme Court is its case precedent. Over the Supreme Court's lifetime, it has seen some of the most influential cases in American history. These cases have set the standards for not only the Supreme Court, but also the lower courts on how cases should be handled. For example, one of the most famous cases, Texas v. Johnson, in which the Supreme Court ruled that burning a US flag is protected by the first amendment. This set the standard that it is completely legal to burn a US flag. 

The most surprising thing that I learned is that there were originally six justices on the Supreme Court. Today there are nine justices which makes sense because with an odd number of justices there can be no ties when voting. I'm not sure how this problem was not noticed before they officially made the Supreme Court. The article also says that the number of justices has changed multiple times and has ranged from five to ten justices. In 1869 it was decided that there would be nine justices, and that number hasn't changed since then.

The article didn't necessarily change the way that I thought of the Supreme Court. I've had a pretty good understanding of what they do and the types of cases they hear, for the past few years. One thing that was new to me was that the Chief Justice presides over trials of impeachment against the President of the United States. I thought this was interesting because the justices are nominated by the President.

My Top Five Sources of News and Information

My most used source of news and information is Twitter. I use Twitter every day to mainly hear news about sports. I have notifications on for the main news sources of all major sports. I follow sports heavily so I like to hear major news right away. I also follow some news sources on Twitter and some politicians but don't have my notifications on for their accounts. Another way I use Twitter is by exploring their trending page which shows the topics that have been tweeted about the most recently. I like Twitter because it is easy to use and it's also highly entertaining. 

My second most used source of news and information is my parents. I was never really into politics until Covid occurred because not only was a global pandemic going on but, there was also an election coming up. I quickly learned that there was so much about politics that I didn't understand. My parents always help explain different concepts that I don't quite understand. I also have multiple conversations with them every week about current events happening in the world.

My third most used source of news and information is television. My most-watched channel is probably ESPN because of my obsession with sports. For normal news channels, I like to watch different channels to see how their coverage of news differs. A lot of people that I meet strictly watch news channels based on their political beliefs but, I think it's great to get different perspectives from all the news channels. I like to use the TV to receive news because it's something to do in my free time or while I'm eating a meal. I also like it because it keeps me up to date with other things such as the weather.'

My fourth most used source of news and information is Instagram. I mainly follow people I know as well as athletes/celebrities, but I also follow some news pages. I don't want too many news posts on my feed because I don't use the app mainly for news. I don't like to use it for news that much because I don't like reading on the app. I think an app like Twitter is set up better to read paragraphs of information. I like to use the app to watch videos of things happening around the world.

My fifth most used source of news and information is the internet. I don't use this source as much because I will only really look things up to either fact-check something or to research something I'm heavily interested in. I wouldn't normally just look through various news websites to keep up with current events because I find that to be boring. I really only look up news websites if there are major events occurring in the world or if I'm unsure about something I read on another source of news. I like using this source because it is easy to use and you can get answers quickly.