By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it. Of course this problem is not limited to the field of AI. Jacques Monod wrote: "A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." (Monod 1974.) My father, a physicist, complained about people making up their own theories of physics; he wanted to know why people did not make up their own theories of chemistry. (They do.) Nonetheless the problem seems to be unusually acute in Artificial Intelligence. The field of AI has a reputation for making huge promises and then failing to deliver on them. Most observers conclude that AI is hard; as indeed it is. But the embarrassment does not stem from the difficulty. It is difficult to build a star from hydrogen, but the field of stellar astronomy does not have a terrible reputation for promising to build stars and then failing. The critical inference is not that AI is hard, but that, for some reason, it is very easy for people to think they know far more about Artificial Intelligence than they actually do.
The implementation of monetary policy involves the use of direct regulatory administrative measures and indirect instruments to influence the supply and demand for money. In this sense, the formulation of monetary policy operations—that is, the adoption of specific policy instruments and targets aiming at dealing with liquidity issues—is highly diverse among countries. During the last two decades, the IMF has explicitly advocated the use of market-based instruments to implement monetary policy, that is, to try to steer liquidity by influencing money markets through open market operations and auctions instead of relying on direct controls on credit and interest rates.
Income support for the elderly population has long been a priority for policy makers. In many countries, various programs were introduced in the 19th century to support seniors’ incomes and have been credited with raising the incomes of the poorest seniors and reducing the incidence of elderly poverty.
In Canada, the introduction and expansion of retirement income programs such as Old Age Security (1952), the Guaranteed Income Supplement (1967), and the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans (1966) is often credited with improving the well-being of elderly Canadians. Continued monitoring and evaluation of seniors’ incomes and the effectives of these programs is essential to ensure the maintenance of seniors’ standard of living.
