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When Hurricane Melissa began moving toward Jamaica earlier this week, Amazons chief meteorologist was watching closelynot just for the companys global shipping operations, but also to see how its disaster relief team might need to act. “As soon as the hurricane formed, we had eyes on it,” says Abe Diaz, principal technical product manager for Amazon’s disaster relief team. “We’ve been tracking this for multiple days.” [Photo: Amazon] Inside an Amazon fulfillment center near Atlanta, pallets are stacked with disaster relief supplies, from medical supplies to solar-powered lights. Its one of 15 massive disaster relief hubs that the company has stationed inside warehouses around the world. In the wake of the record-breaking hurricane that hit Jamaica, with flooding and 185-mile-an-hour winds that destroyed homes and infrastructure, the hub was poised to send shipments to partners like the Red Cross. When the team spoke to Fast Company yesterday, they were planning a potential shipment of power supplies on a cargo plane for today. “Damage assessments are still underway at both of the airports and then they’re going to be prioritizing life-saving, rescue and response teams for access first,” says Jeff Schweitzer, who leads Amazon’s global disaster relief operations. If all went as planned, though, the power systems would also be on a flight, ready to support first responders and “provide augmented power in areas that just simply won’t have power for weeks to come,” he says. Other early shipments will likely include tarps and solar lights that can also charge phones. Each delivery will happen only after nonprofits or agencies on the ground assess the situation and order what they need. “As with everything at Amazon, we work backwards from the customer,” Diaz says. [Photo: Amazon] In the warehouse, some pallets are wrapped in color-coded shrink wrap, to help nonprofits easily tell from a distance what’s inside, such as diapers. One pallet is designed to include everything needed for a nonprofit to set up a mobile office. Amazon first began its disaster relief work in 2017, after conversations with organizations about how difficult it is to get the right supplies quickly after disasters. Since then, it has been closely working with organizations to understand what they need and to track data about what’s used in each event so it can better prepare. [Photo: Amazon] The team works to find the most efficient products to donatefor example, water filters instead of bottled water. “It makes no sense for us to send a whole bunch of water bottles and fly them out to Jamaica when high-efficiency water filters can do 100 times the volume with just a pallet of product,” Diaz says. “These are the kind of items that we’re just trying to be really smart on what is needed and what we’re getting there.” [Photo: Amazon] The hubs, which are each located inside existing Amazon fulfillment centers to make use of the company’s existing infrastructure and workers, are each filled with products most likely to be needed locally. A hub near L.A. is stocked with supplies for wildfires, such as masks. The Atlanta hub has kits for cleaning up homes after a floodfrom gloves and shovels to respiratorsthat have been used in previous hurricanes and events like the floods in Central Texas this summer. [Photo: Amazon] Organizations also make their own preparations; the World Food Programme, for example, prepositioned a shipment of food and other suplies to the area before Hurricane Melissa hit. But Amazon can quickly respond as more is needed, with pallets ready to be sent out as soon as a request comes in. It’s one example of corporate philanthropy that makes use of a company’s core competency, rather than simply giving money to causes. (Amazon also uses its delivery infrastructure to help food banks reach more clients at home.) Toyota did something similar when it donated kaizen training to the Food Bank for New York City, helping cut wait times for dinner from an hour and a half to 18 minutes.
Category:
E-Commerce
A first-of-its-kind refinery has been in the works for a decade and half. Set to be completed this year, the facility is design to produce climate-friendly jet fuel, a material in increasing demand in response to climate commitments and regulations around the world. The refinerycalled the Freedom Pines Fuelswas designed to showcase new methods of producing the fuel, and was receiving government support to help clean up air travel. Now, a year behind schedule due to a hurricane and equipment glitches, the project hit another roadblock this summer, when a major shift in U.S. energy policy under the new administration threw a wrench into the business model. It’s now a story of a company quickly adapting under pressure, and an illustration of the challengesand continued opportunityof clean energy in a more hostile political environment. The goal of the company behind the project, Illinois-based LanzaJet, is to produce a close facsimile of the kerosene-based fuel that powers jets and many helicopters and propeller planes todaywithout using petroleum. Instead, the Freedom Pines Fuels plant in the forest hamlet of Soperton, Georgia, will use ethanol to make whats known as sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. LanzaJet was ready to start with ethanol made from Brazilian sugarcane, until a new U.S. law forced a quick shift to midwestern corn. The fuels that make modern travel possiblekerosene, gasoline, and dieselare typically refined from crude oil, rich in hydrocarbon molecules that release copious energy when burned. But burning them also inundates the atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon dioxide. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] SAF is essentially lab-grown jet fuel, made from carbon already in the environment, rather than pumped up from oil wells. It’s a tweaked formulationfor instance, with less sulfurdesigned to burn cleaner. Sugarcane and corn are two of many possible carbon sources, along with cornstalks, twigs, vegetable oil, factory exhaust, and even garbage. The CO2 released by making and burning SAF should, in theory, be offset by the carbon captured to make more SAF, forming a closed loop. The Freedom Pines Fuels plant is a mini version of a typical refinery, slated to produce nine million gallons of SAF and a million of green diesel fuel in its first year. (A standard crude-oil refinery could churn a billion or more gallons of fuels.) But the Georgia plant is meant to be big enough to show the technology can work at scale. “Most process technology companies . . . almost never build plants of this magnitude,” says Jimmy Samartzis, a climate-focused airline industry veteran who became CEO when LanzaJet was founded in 2020. “It’s expensive, it’s big. But we thought and feltaccurately, looking back on it todayit was the right move to make.” Before the 2024 election, the federal government was also promising generous financial support for Freedom Pines. A Potential Market Boom LanzaJet is backed by companies that are counting on, or stand to benefit from, the shift to carbon-neutral jet fuel, including All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Southwest Airlines, and plane maker Airbus. The UNs International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has committed the industry to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In addition, laws and regulations, such as in Singapore, the U.K., and the European Union, have started requiring airlines or suppliers to blend SAF into the jet fuel supply, beginning at around 12%, then ramping up in later years. More such requirements are in the works in India, Indonesia, and Japan. The European Union is by far the most ambitious. From a mere 2% SAF blend required today, quotas rise steeply about every five years, hitting 70% in 2050. Theres further demand from companies, such as LanzaJet backer Microsoft, striving to meet aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals. In addition to reducing its own footprint, Microsoft has announced plans to buy SAF Certificates,” which subsidize the cost of the fuel to boost its usage. SAF has a long way to go in making a dent. It will account for just 0.7% of all jet fuel in 2025, according to the International Air Transport Association. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] Obviously, if you look at the size of the overall aviation fuel space, in theory the [SAF] market is potentially huge for those that can offer a product at a competitive price, says John MacDonagh, senior research analyst at capital markets research firm PitchBook. LanzaJet has raised “approximately” $400 million, according to Samartzis, from these companies and other backers, including energy producers Shell and Suncor, the U.S. Department of Energy, airport operator Groupe ADP, and Bill Gatess Breakthrough Energy fund. Another backer is LanzaTech. Founded in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005, it relocated its headquarters to Skokie, Illinois, in 2014. The company has engineered microbes to convert waste such as carbon monoxide and dioxide from factories into ethanol, as another route to carbon-neutral fuel and other chemicals. In 2010, LanzaTech and the U.S. Department of Energy started collaborating on technology to transform ethanol into jet fuel. In 2020, LanzaTech spun out LanzaJet as a new company to continue the work. LanzaJet is dipping a toe into the SAF market with Freedom Pines, with plans to build more plants, such as a collaboration with British Airways to open a facility in the U.K. by 2028. LanzaJet has also announced partnerships in India, Japan, and Kazakhstan to build additional facilities. But as it continues to announce expansion overseas, things have gotten messy back at home. SAF Meets MAGA
Category:
E-Commerce
As the largest art and design school in the United Stateswith nearly 17,000 students enrolled at its Savannah and Atlanta campusesthe Savannah College of Art and Design prides itself on offering a course of study for almost every type of creative person. Along with degree programs in animation, film and television, game development, graphic design, and illustration, SCAD tempts students with courses in beauty and fragrance, sneaker design, luxury and brand management, and equestrian studies. There’s a new degree program this school year, in Applied AI, that is attracting a different sort of attention. As I learned directly from faculty, students, and industry veterans, and read on Reddit forums, the idea is enticing to someand prompting others to question the schools priorities and its very reason for existing. Using AI Right The idea behind the Applied AI program at SCAD is to . . . . . . equip students with the knowledge and skills that employers want: SCADs website boasts that within a year of graduation, 99% of students are typically employed, pursuing further education, or both. According to SCAD, the Applied AI program will prepare students for professions including AI product developer, AI design strategist, AI story engineer, autonomous agent designer, and ethical design strategist. SCAD is also offering a minor in Applied AI thats open to students across all majors. This is a researched best guess about a changing employment landscape, says Nye Warburton, chair of interactive design and game development at SCAD, who leads the Applied AI program. Our assumptions are that AI will create new domains in product development, design, story, and ethically focused systems. Our major is designed to develop the skills and practices that we see emerging in those fields. Guided by input from creative and design leaders in industry, the Applied AI curriculum was developed by Warburton in collaboration with SCAD’s curriculum and assessment team, the deans of the school of creative technology and the school of animation and motion, and various professors and department chairs. It has three pillars: story, action, and impact. We already have foundational and general education classes at SCAD, says Warburton, referring to offerings such as drawing and design thinking, math and English. So if you’re a writer or an architect, or whatever, you still need to have those fundamental understandings. The AI story classes, he stresses, are not about that kind of basic storytelling, but aim to help students build more resilience and understanding of their purposewhat they want to use AI foras they move forward. The impact component of the program involves making sure students understand intellectual property, environmental issues, and other broad concerns about the use of AI. The last component of this is an impact test, currently in development, that students will have to pass after their sophomore year. We dont let you go to the higher levelsdesigning AI agents and doing capstone workuntil youve placed out of these civics classes. The action part of the program looks at workflow practices and application-specific ways of using them, says Eric Allen, associate chair of interactive design and game development and an instructor in the Applied AI program. Major game studios, for example, are already using AI models for generating and amalgamating ideas, he says. And, of course, they vibe code, building plugins that can help them in their workflows. SCAD aims to engage faculty from across the school to teach these interdisciplinary classes, focusing on uses of AI that are most relevant to their fields. In addition to current faculty who will teach these cross-disciplinary classes, SCAD is in the process of hiring a dedicated Applied AI faculty. One of our main goals for curriculum development is to embrace design and art workflows and push [them] further with applied AI learnings, Warburton says. It is an opportunity to invent new collaborative interdisciplinary things. And my hope is that thats where the jobs will bein the intersection between these disciplines, even if traditional disciplines become disrupted. Disruption and de-skilling Of course, AI is already disrupting fields like gaming, film and animation, graphic design, and copywriting. In a 2024 State of the Game Industry report from the Game Developers Conference, 84% of developers indicated that they were somewhat or very concerned about the ethics of using generative AI, which has already contributed to large-scale layoffs in the industry. According to an industry tracker, an estimated 14,600 people were laid off from game development positions in 2024, up from 10,500 layoffs in 2023. Generative AI is an automation technology, full stop, says Reid Southen, a concept artist whose credits include movies The Hunger Games, The Woman King, and Matrix Resurrections. While he agrees that there are cases where AI tools can speed up certain tasks and potentially benefit artists, he says, “There’s no world in which it creates jobs. He and other artists are reporting less work and lower payand theyre increasingly asked by clients to fix up concepts originally created with AI. Adding insult to injury, image video-generating models such as Midjourney, Stability AIs Stable Diffusion, and Open AIs Sora are all facing lawsuits over the alleged use of copyrighted imagery in their development. Another concern is that AI will lead to a broad de-skilling. As an artist, you make thousands of micro-decisions while making a piece of art, Southen says. Every brushstroke or click is a choice, and both you and the work evolve throughout that process. With AI, you give it a few large decisions about what you want, and it makes all those micro-decisions for you and fills in all the gaps. Warburton understands the threat to artistry and industry know-how. I think it is an obligation to vehemently defend the expertise that we have. The friction is, How do you use these new tools to augment these skills, as opposed to just prompting your way through it? I’m worried that we’re not going to have a senior level of talent in the future, he says, noting that junior-level designers wont learn how to make creative decisions. Enthusiasm varies For these reasons and more, enthusiasm for the new AI curriculum varies widly among SCAD faculty and students. Many in industrial design, UX, architecture, and interior design are proactively moving forward in AI, Warburton says. They have a clear idea of how they can integrate it into their processes. The business classes are really interested in how we do simulations and predictive models. I thought photography would be way against it, but a lot of the professors said theyve already been disrupted by digital, so theyre kind of ready for [AI]. On the other hand, he says, Im not a very popular human being in certain majorssuch as illustration and sequential art (comic books, graphic novels). What I hear a lot is, I cant make a graphic novel with AI because the publishing industry will never accept it. The schools animation department is ambivalent. The animation professors are really into it, because they see the possibility of the pipeline accelerations like rigging and compositing and different kinds of rendering. However, the students are very against it, Warburton says, noting that students express concerns about the use of artist data in training generative models, and issues with AIs environmental impact. However, I personally believe that automation anxiety is the root. Since the program was announced this fall, four students have declared Applied AI as their major, and 25 have declared it as their minor. (The first official Applied AI class, AI 101featuring exercises in developing a personal story, and a crash course on LLMs and image modelsstarts this winter.) The school expects the number to increase significantly next academic year. A cold day in hell As always, the most honest discussion seems to be happening on Reddit. The general consensus among students here is that the ai major is a joke. and so are the bots studying it, writes Redditor @sunadherstars. I just graduated from the SEQA [sequential art] program like this past quarter and let me tell you: itll be a cold day in hell before they ever push AI, writes @electricaaa. The entire department is extremely against it, no matter how much the administration tries to push it. Still, theres no doubt that for companies hiring creative talent, familiarity with AI is high on their wish list. Ami Frost, who will graduate from SCAD with a BFA in industrial design in December, reports that thats a recent shift. Some friends have actually gotten jobs because they know AI. I think learning how to use AI is definitely going to be a good stepping point in your career, like it or not. Taking a few extra classes to get better at AI makes sense, says a recent SCAD graduate in UX and industrial design, who preferred not to give their name in order to be able to speak more freely. But a degree drastically impacts the trajectory of your life. Would you want to choose something based on the hottest trend? Imagine if [SCAD] had started offering a major in NFTs when those were the next big thing. I think AI is too new to really have had the time for a robust education on how to use it to emerge. Personally, I’d rather wait for a boat to be fully constructed before taking it for a four-year ride down the Nile. SCADs critics have often felt that the school operates more like a business than a traditional academic institution (even though it operates as a nonprofit). For the fiscal year ending June 2024, the school reported revenue in excess of expenses of more than $220 million, and president and founder Paula Wallace received compensation of more than $2.6 million. (Yearly undergrad tuition and fees, minus room and board, is currently $42,665.) But while it may be tempting to write off the Applied AI degree as a slapdash money grab, its worth noting that SCADs rivals are increasingly AI-curious. ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, and Rhode Island School of Design in Providence both offer classes that integrate AI. Last year, Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, launched an AI certificate program similar to SCADs minor. Perhaps todays new generative AI tools will become like once-novel programs such as Adobe and CAD, absorbed seamlessly into the design process. If they take designers jobs, though, or thwart students ability to learn the basics, there may be no one left to use them.
Category:
E-Commerce
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