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Can someone here point me towards the most current literature/sources on this topic? I’ve seen Beneckes EU-parliament talk and found the numbers presented there

Can someone here point me towards the most current literature/sources on this topic? I’ve seen Beneckes EU-parliament talk and found the numbers presented there (probably the same ones you can see in the paper) very concerning. What does figure 4 look like in 2023? Where can I subscribe to stay up to date? What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help?

debacle 4y ago
> What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help? ...nothing? Contrary to very wishful thinking, technology is not the tool to solve all problems, and it will never be a replacement for civic engagement.
- samstave 4y ago
  Well, one could hack Monsanto and find all the secret emails which talk about how bad glyphosate is for the actual environment-eco-system that used to be in balance with insects.
  - mywacaday 4y ago
    We don't have to hack, why not have and FDA like model where all information has to be made available or discoverable during an audit.
- FredPret 4y ago
  Technology != Comp Sci. We are a technological species in that we evolved with fire and clothing, and after tool use. For any mess we find ourselves in, the solution - if there is one - will involve tech and engineering.
- jitlle 4y ago
  I think that comment was intended as a parody of what a absurdly stereotypical HN user might write.
- kuhewa 4y ago
  We don't even yet have the data to describe temporal trends in insect diversity and abundance rigorously and at scale, let alone attribute drivers. There is definitely scope for ML to assist in producing/validating/collating data. Civic engagement is going to be more effective with science behind it, otherwise it is up against campaign donors and lobbyists who can accurately point out there isn't enough data to demonstrate insecticides have caused a crash in insect populations, and to act as if they have would be threatening rural economies and food security without cause.
- adrianN 4y ago
  ML companies could help by developing cheap methods to reduce the use of pesticides.
tokai 4y ago
Check out papers that cites this one. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=13771116398962506989&as_sdt=5,39&sciodt=7,39&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1377111639896250698...
lamontcg 4y ago
> What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help? plaster the internet with chatbots doing fake engagement in order to swing political bias the other direction. the other side of the argument is already doing it.
frontierkodiak 4y ago
We don’t have the data to make much more than directional claims re: macro trends in insect biodiversity. Ecological monitoring is tedious and labor-intensive; insects are simply too minute, too diverse, and too numerous to be surveilled at scale. Scale is necessary to make multi-decadal claims across millions of taxa; this is probably why some of the most rigorous studies^1 have produced findings that complicate the idea of an insect armageddon. I’m working on a tool to make insect (focused esp. on pollinators) monitoring 10,000x cheaper. We do not currently understand the scale of insect declines, much less are we able to design targeted interventions. In the past decades, mammalian and avian declines were largely reversed, mostly thanks to ambitious multiyear monitoring efforts that enabled limited conservation resources to be allocated efficiently. We should replicate this model with insects. I plan to make this possible by radically reducing the cost of data. I’ve been toying with this idea for a few years, but I finally made the leap to building my startup^2 full-time a few months back (coming from entomology/ecology). Hoping for an alpha release & demo study this summer. I'm happy to chat with anyone interested. Especially interested to meet those working and funding in this space. 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1269-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1269-4 2. https://polli.ai https://polli.ai Note: This site is austere (I blame CUDA troubles for stealing my time this month). Expect something more representative by April.

debacle 4y ago

> What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help? ...nothing? Contrary to very wishful thinking, technology is not the tool to solve all problems, and it will never be a replacement for civic engagement.

samstave 4y ago
Well, one could hack Monsanto and find all the secret emails which talk about how bad glyphosate is for the actual environment-eco-system that used to be in balance with insects.
- mywacaday 4y ago
  We don't have to hack, why not have and FDA like model where all information has to be made available or discoverable during an audit.
FredPret 4y ago
Technology != Comp Sci. We are a technological species in that we evolved with fire and clothing, and after tool use. For any mess we find ourselves in, the solution - if there is one - will involve tech and engineering.
jitlle 4y ago
I think that comment was intended as a parody of what a absurdly stereotypical HN user might write.
kuhewa 4y ago
We don't even yet have the data to describe temporal trends in insect diversity and abundance rigorously and at scale, let alone attribute drivers. There is definitely scope for ML to assist in producing/validating/collating data. Civic engagement is going to be more effective with science behind it, otherwise it is up against campaign donors and lobbyists who can accurately point out there isn't enough data to demonstrate insecticides have caused a crash in insect populations, and to act as if they have would be threatening rural economies and food security without cause.
adrianN 4y ago
ML companies could help by developing cheap methods to reduce the use of pesticides.

tokai 4y ago

Check out papers that cites this one. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=13771116398962506989&as_sdt=5,39&sciodt=7,39&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1377111639896250698...

lamontcg 4y ago

> What can companies in the ML/analytics space do to help? plaster the internet with chatbots doing fake engagement in order to swing political bias the other direction. the other side of the argument is already doing it.

frontierkodiak 4y ago

We don’t have the data to make much more than directional claims re: macro trends in insect biodiversity. Ecological monitoring is tedious and labor-intensive; insects are simply too minute, too diverse, and too numerous to be surveilled at scale. Scale is necessary to make multi-decadal claims across millions of taxa; this is probably why some of the most rigorous studies^1 have produced findings that complicate the idea of an insect armageddon. I’m working on a tool to make insect (focused esp. on pollinators) monitoring 10,000x cheaper. We do not currently understand the scale of insect declines, much less are we able to design targeted interventions. In the past decades, mammalian and avian declines were largely reversed, mostly thanks to ambitious multiyear monitoring efforts that enabled limited conservation resources to be allocated efficiently. We should replicate this model with insects. I plan to make this possible by radically reducing the cost of data. I’ve been toying with this idea for a few years, but I finally made the leap to building my startup^2 full-time a few months back (coming from entomology/ecology). Hoping for an alpha release & demo study this summer. I'm happy to chat with anyone interested. Especially interested to meet those working and funding in this space. 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1269-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1269-4 2. https://polli.ai https://polli.ai Note: This site is austere (I blame CUDA troubles for stealing my time this month). Expect something more representative by April.