A new report indicates Microsoft will expand AI products, but axe the people who make them ethical.

Koko, a mental health nonprofit, found at-risk teens on platforms like Facebook and Tumblr, then tested an unproven intervention on them without obtaining informed consent. “It’s nuanced,” said the founder.

When is ignorance is more liberating than limiting? If you're Donald Rumsfeld, this statement is helpful for sending your country into an unwitting war. If you’re me, it’s useful for much, much more. I believe ignorance isn't only a weapon to be used in political battles, arguments, or to manipulate and control populations. Ignorance is a powerful tool, and it canbe wielded for good.

If you’ve been on social media at all in the last decade, you may have noticed it becoming an increasingly toxic environment. Antisocial language is on the rise — but not only among the general public. An analysis of hundreds of thousands of tweets from US Members of Congress has found that the language in their posts has become more and more rude and disrespectful since 2009.

The food we choose to consume—who and what we choose to eat—is a hot topic given the serious ethical questions that arise and the global environmental damage for which industrial farming is clearly responsible. Discussions about "Should we eat animals?” and the cognitive dissonance associated with the choices we make have moved from the ivory tower into the homes of people worldwide.

The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday recognised access to a clean and healthy environment as a fundamental right, formally adding its weight to the global fight against climate change and its devastating consequences.

Why work if you don’t have to? The truth is, when someone is rewarded without working for it, they lose something very special.

If you don’t play an active role in raising your children, you’re leaving it to chance. Here are 15 ways to pass your values on to your kids.

In moral philosophy and mass culture alike, “nihilism” has a bad name. And little wonder. It is most often associated with meaninglessness, pessimism, and amoralism. At its heart, nihilism is a view of the world in which progress is not assured, a world without overarching meaning. Does that present a problem to the moral life?

Public discourse is in an accelerating downward spiral of coarse insult, free-flying contempt and general meanness. We will surely soon reach bottom, an inevitably inarticulate resting place where we quit wasting words and just mutely flip each other off. Since bemoaning our uncivil culture is almost as prevalent as incivility itself, let me forgo any ritual handwringing.

As a society we revel in stories of successful individuals that risked it all and won big. It’s so often the rags to riches, starving artist or the struggling entrepreneur that catches the headlines. Outside the world of start-up mythology however it’s more commonly risk aversion that keeps the world of business ticking over.

This documentary explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

Religion does not help us to explain nature. It did what it could in pre-scientific times, but that job was properly unseated by science. Most religious laypeople and even clergy agree: Pope John Paul II declared in 1996 that evolution is a fact and Catholics should get over it. No doubt some extreme anti-scientific thinking lives on in such places as Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in Kentucky, but it has become a fringe position. Most mainstream religious people accept a version of Galileo’s division of labour: ‘The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.’

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, many of us have kept saying we can’t wait for things to get back to normal. We want to be able to go out again, see our friends, and be in public places without feeling like we’re risking our health or that of others. Now that Covid-19 case counts have gone down and restrictions are starting to lift, it seems we’re at last on the path back to some semblance of normalcy. But as recent events have shown, the status quo before the pandemic wasn’t all that great for large swathes of the population, both in the US and around the world.

When Alexa replied to my question about the weather by tacking on “Have a nice day,” I immediately shot back “You too,” and then stared into space, slightly embarrassed. I also found myself spontaneously shouting words of encouragement to “Robbie” my Roomba vacuum as I saw him passing down the hallway.

As a data scientist and professor at Marquette University, Shion Guha knows computer science isn’t just about math. There are “lots and lots of issues” with artificial intelligence (AI), he says. He lists plenty of examples of AI that have had unintended consequences, from hiring filters to criminal sentencing decisions made by privately designed software.

Pilots of unmanned combat drones are experiencing a new kind of moral dissonance, writes Adam Henschke.

What's the difference between plagiarism and ghostwriting in scholarship and science, where much hinges on issues of originality and reputation?

The long read: It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism, but with its inward focus, mindful meditation may be the enemy of activism

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case brought by a Guantanamo Bay captive against his perpetual detention, even though war on terrorism has no end in sight. By Kevin Gosztola.