The preparation for a project before it has received an EIA could proceed with Cabinet endorsement.

It appeared Prayut realised the negative implications of the order after it was issued. He said he had instructed the government’s spokesperson team to explain the details of the order to the press for fear the public could misunderstand what the government was trying to achieve.

Government Spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd stressed the point, saying the EIA and the environmental and health impact assessment (EHIA) would not be bypassed by the order.

“The government will not allow the economy to override the environment, and we will not take the EIA/EHIA as a ritual to rubber-stamp projects,” he said. “The PM as such has stressed that if the EIA/EHIA has failed, the concerned projects must be dropped accordingly,” Sansern told the Nation.

He pleaded for understanding of the government’s reasoning for trying to shore up sluggish economic growth via this order issuance.

But the public, who have experienced a long fight to improve the health of people and the environment, especially those working in civil sectors, are not convinced one bit.

They have been stepping up campaigns, not only against this latest order but the whole bunch of orders issued under the absolute power afforded the NCPO chief, Prayut, under Article 44 of the interim constitution.

The public scepticism about the latest order was aired at a public forum organised by major environmental networks yesterday.

Based on years of experience, Weerawat Theeraprasart, the former chairman of the EHIA-screening Independent Commission on Environment and Health, said assessing a project’s impact on the environment or people’s health could not run in parallel with a its preparation but must be a pre-condition of it being approved. That ensures projects are thoroughly scrutinised first to stop irreparable damage being done to the environment and/or people’s health, Weerawat said.

This particularly makes sense for the types of projects addressed in the order, ranging from transportation infrastructure to irrigation facilities, because these projects are large scale, and could have wide-ranging negative implications for the environment and/or people’s health, he said.

By being able to endorse projects before their EIA/EHIA reports are completed, the NCPO has given the economy propriety over the environment, and what will follow will be increased pressure coming from every direction to get the reports passed – even from the government, he said.

He said that would cause fierce confrontations occurring in designated development areas, something the military would not wish to see.

Besides what they said would be the wide-ranging negative implications for the environment and so-called peace assurance, environmental advocates believe the order is tantamount to the apparent enforcement against the will of the people.

The EIA and EHIA, they said, are the result of years fighting and a social evolution to generate room for public participation in development proposals and the thorough consideration of matters important to their lives.

With one order, they believe this long evolution and the will of the people have been side-tracked in a manner similar to what has happened to their democracy.

They said it would result growing calls for Article 44 to be scrapped.

I could not agree more after listening to the debate since the order was issued, and I see no need to justify my argument any more.

To ensure that conflicts will not break out over this decision, it is not too late for the government to take time out to contemplate the issue, or even correct what may have gone wrong, as the powers-that-be should care most about good governance for the sake of their own people.

“I have never relied on anyone or their money. I left Pheu Thai after Thaksin told me in a Skype chat to bring the Shinawatras, the Damapongs and the Wongsawats into the party,” Chavalit said, referring to three families Thaksin is related to by blood or marriage.

Chavalit, a retired Army general who once led a party called New Aspiration, joined Pheu Thai in 2009 and left two years later.

Speaking to the media at his home recently, Chavalit said he has no interest in whether Thaksinreturns or not. “Conflicts still exist and I have no power to bring him back,” he added.

Thaksin fled Thailand just before the Supreme Court sentenced him in absentia to two years in jail in 2008 for abuse of power. He also faces other charges for dereliction of duty during his tenure as premier.

Yet judging from the recent speech he delivered in the United States, Thaksin appears to be convinced that “some power” will help him return as free man in the near future. Chavalit, however, disagrees—and his remarks could imply that Thaksin faces major problems.

For starters, Pheu Thai will certainly face an uphill task if it continues sticking with its goal to bring the “big boss” back as a free man. The party seems to have forgotten that when the last government it led passed the amnesty law, it prompted public outrage and months of street protests leading to a military coup in May 2014.

If Pheu Thai wins the next election and opts for the same path to try and help Thaksin, then the nightmare will return and Thaksin—who has been in self-exile overseas—will find himself in an even more difficult position.

Yet it looks like Thaksin still hasn’t given up his desire to return to power and possibly achieve his ultimate goal of ” “being prime minister for 20 years and becoming a statesman someday”.

In order to realise that goal, Thaksin still has to rely on the Shinawatra, Damapong and Wongsawat clans, though some members – his sister ex-PM Yingluck and brother-in-law ex-PM Somchai Wongsawat – are mired in legal problems.

Experience has taught Thaksin that he cannot rely on any nominee prime minister who does not come from one of these three clans. For instance, his proxy premier Samak Sundaravej brought him much disappointment. He could have returned home when Samak and the People Power Party ran the government, yet they did little to help him with his legal problems.

Clearly for Thaksin, blood is thicker than water, and members from any of the three families are certainly more reliable and trustworthy than outsiders.

Many political observers are convinced that Thaksin’s proxy Pheu Thai has a good chance of winning the next election, and the prime ministerial candidate is bound to be someone “closest to the big boss”.

However, it looks like Chavalit’s recent remark was a veiled warning to Thaksin that it may not be a good idea for him to continue relying on someone from one of the three clans. Now, let’s wait and see if Thaksin heeds what his old ally has to say.

Previously, IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

Since the 1900s, when computers emerged in the form of tabulation; and the 1950s when computers were software-driven and static; to today’s era of machine-learning algorithms, AI is becoming more and more crucial to human life, especially in a context of human-machine collaboration.

In fact, AI, which includes cognitive computing, is already at work in healthcare and other fields in Thailand.

Bangkok’s Bumrungrad Hospital is a good example. It has been using IBM Watson for Oncology to treat cancer patients over the past year. How does the system work?

According to IBM scientists Gerald Tesauro and Murray Campbell, cognitive computing works in tandem with human doctors. At Bumrungrad, there are about 40 general cancer doctors who use the system to provide more accurate evidence-based treatment to patients in a timely fashion.

In the case of healthcare, IBM Watson will first analyse a patient’s medical records, using its advanced capabilities about the meaning and context of clinical notes and reports. It also takes into account key patient information written in plain English that may also be critical to selecting a treatment pathway.

Second, the system identifies potential evidence-based treatment options by combining attributes from the patient’s file with clinical expertise, external research and data – helping the doctor to make their decision more quickly and accurately.

Third, the system finds and provides supporting evidence from a wide variety of sources, and ranks them as supporting evidence for each option.

Overall, the system draws from a huge amount of information, called Big Data. It includes literature and rationales curated by MSK, a leading US cancer treatment centre, as well as more than 290 medical journals, more than 200 textbooks, and 12 million pages of text.

All these computing tasks can be done within a short time and can be replicated in other areas of work to benefit from the so-called augmented intelligence in which human and machine intelligence is combined to deliver faster and more accurate solutions.

This can be applied to medicine, education, banking, insurance, law, government, retailing, manufacturing and many other industries.

According to Tesauro and Campbell, cognitive computing which is now capable of addressing some “messy” real life issues, rather than just playing winners in board and other games, has the potential to transform industries and professions, leading to greater productivity, and more highly informed decision-making.

Prior to the advent of Google’s AlphaGo computer, IBM also succeeded in incorporating elements of AI, machine learning, deep question answering and natural language processing.

Its computer programme then played the American quiz show Jeopardy and beat the world’s best human players. But scientists like Campbell believe we are at least 50 years away from creating fully autonomous systems that manifest human-level cognitive faculties.

However, Campbell and Tesauro noted it’s now the time to increase the leverage of AI and human intelligence in a meaningful way to tackle more “messy” problems in real life.

While computers may not yet be as intelligent as humans, they can now compute web-scale data sets with cloud-scale computing power, and extract insights using highly sophisticated algorithms for machine learning.

The IBM scientists said that research efforts should also be shifted from the sci-fi fantasy of machines that fully replicate human general intelligence to more realistic development of collaborative machines that can work with humans.

This will make the best use of each other’s different strengths – as in the case of Dr Watson who works side by side online in real time with real-life doctors at Bumrungrad Hospital.

Campbell and Tesauro also shared the opinion that in the foreseeable future, it appears the challenges of a complex world will require a combination of people and machines working together toward a more productive and better world.