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+23 +1
AI and ethics aren’t mutually exclusive, says this data scientist
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.
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+10 +1
Modern soldiers can kill a target on computer, then head home for dinner — and it's giving them 'moral injury'
Pilots of unmanned combat drones are experiencing a new kind of moral dissonance, writes Adam Henschke.
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+3 +1
Ghostwriting as normal – The Share Collusion Project
What's the difference between plagiarism and ghostwriting in scholarship and science, where much hinges on issues of originality and reputation?
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+19 +1
The mindfulness conspiracy
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
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+17 +1
Supreme Court Won’t Address Perpetual Detention At Guantanamo
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.
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+16 +1
Google Staffers Share Stories of ‘Systemic’ Retaliation
Hundreds of Google staffers met on Friday and discussed what activists allege is a frequent consequence of criticizing the company: Retaliation. By Mark Bergen, Josh Eidelson.
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+27 +1
I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector
American companies continue to build surveillance tools that are used to violate human rights. Workers who refuse to comply deserve protections. By Jack Poulson.
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+4 +1
Do not weep for your dead: how to mourn as the Stoics did
Imagine you are at a child’s funeral. The child is yours. The air is numb with silence. An ache so deep you can barely breathe moves through you, until it bursts and you cry out loud. Somebody passes a tissue; another rests his hand on your shoulder. In time, your eyes run out of tears. But now there is a hole in your heart in the shape of a child, and it feels like it will never heal. Maybe it shouldn’t, you think to yourself. You lost a child. This stays with you. It’s supposed to stay with you. How should we grieve when someone close to us dies? Should we wail and gnash our teeth? Should we swallow our pain?
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+3 +1
Ethics committee raises alarm over 'predictive policing' tool
A computer tool used by police to predict which people are likely to reoffend has come under scrutiny from one force’s ethics committee, who said there were a lot of “unanswered questions” and concerns about potential bias.
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+34 +1
How philosophy helped one soldier on the battlefield
When I attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2002-3, the leadership training was excellent. It included discussion of the British Army’s values and the laws of armed conflict. However, I received no ethics training for the occasions when neither values nor laws would fully prepare me to make complex moral decisions in faraway fields populated by people with very different cultural norms.
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+13 +1
Scientists spur activity in brains of dead pigs, raising both hope and ethical questions
Scientists restore some activity within the brains of dead pigs, raising hopes it could lead to new therapies for stroke and other conditions.
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+19 +1
The Martyrdom of Julian Assange
The arrest Thursday of Julian Assange eviscerates all pretense of the rule of law and the rights of a free press. The illegalities, embraced by the Ecuadorian, British and U.S. governments, in the seizure of Assange are ominous. They presage a world where the internal workings, abuses, corruption, lies and crimes, especially war crimes, carried out by corporate states and the global ruling elite will be masked from the public. They presage a world where those with the courage and integrity to expose the misuse of power will be hunted down, tortured, subjected to sham trials and given lifetime prison terms in solitary confinement.
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+34 +1
YouTube and Facebook Social Messages Often Support Anti-Vaxx’ers
With billions of hours of YouTube content viewed daily, this social media network is a key enabler for anti-vaxxers to espouse anti-vaccination sentiments. According to a new study published in Vaccine on April 3, 2019, much of this content is meant to influence or reinforce public opinion on a variety of topics, including vaccines.
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+28 +1
Facebook Won't Stop Being Sketchy
What a week for Facebook. The news blitz began over the weekend, as the company responded to multiple recent controversies, from livestreaming to disappearing blog posts. Then on Wednesday, security researchers at UpGuard found that two different third-party apps left more than 540 million Facebook records unprotected in the cloud. On Friday, we reported that Facebook had been letting cybercrime groups operate in plain sight. It never ends.
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+15 +1
The Government Uses Images of Abused Children and Dead People to Test Facial Recognition Tech
If you thought IBM using “quietly scraped” Flickr images to train facial recognition systems was bad, it gets worse. Our research, which will be reviewed for publication this summer, indicates that the U.S. government, researchers, and corporations have used images of immigrants, abused children, and dead people to test their facial recognition systems, all without consent.
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+18 +1
Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system
Federal Aviation Administration managers pushed its engineers to delegate wide responsibility for assessing the safety of the 737 MAX to Boeing itself. But safety engineers familiar with the documents shared details that show the analysis included crucial flaws.
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+6 +1
Would It Be Better To Not Exist?
To be or not to be. That is the question. (Seriously.) David Benatar’s chapter “Why Coming Into Existence is Always a Harm” from his book Better Never To Have Been (2006) argues in favor of the latter: it’s better (for me) not to be. It seemed intuitively plausible at first,1 but upon reflection, I find myself unconvinced. I worry that Benetar-style anti-natalism involves contradiction, equivocation, or a false sense of commensurability. In this post, I’ll explain.
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+10 +1
Parents of dead West Point cadet wants to retrieve his sperm - raising ethical and legal questions
The story is drawing attention partly because it involves a military academy, but it also raises several ethical and legal concerns since there’s no law guiding who can make such requests and each hospital that conducts the procedure has its own set of rules.
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+7 +1
These 7 Rules Could Be The Universal Moral Code Shared by Every Culture, Study Finds
All the war, conflict, and misery that has beset civilisation for centuries and longer may lead you to think human society is tragically defined by a constant clash of irreconcilable cultures.
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+23 +1
'Vegan Threat To Dairy Should Be Taken Seriously' Says Farming Expert
The dairy sector should take 'the vegan threat to the sector' seriously, according to an industry expert. The warning comes as dairy farmers find themselves under increasing scrutiny due to the success of initiatives like Veganuary, as well as the publication of a map detailing the addresses of UK dairy farms by activist group Project Calf.
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