What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living

Phoebe Zerwick

The New York Times

Originally posted March 12, 2024

Here is an excerpt:

At the time, only a handful of published medical studies had documented deathbed visions, and they largely relied on secondhand reports from doctors and other caregivers rather than accounts from patients themselves. On a flight home from a conference, Kerr outlined a study of his own, and in 2010, a research fellow, Anne Banas, signed on to conduct it with him. Like Kerr, Banas had a family member who, before his death, experienced visions — a grandfather who imagined himself in a train station with his brothers.

The study wasn’t designed to answer how these visions differ neurologically from hallucinations or delusions. Rather, Kerr saw his role as chronicler of his patients’ experiences. Borrowing from social-science research methods, Kerr, Banas and their colleagues based their study on daily interviews with patients in the 22-bed inpatient unit at the Hospice campus in the hope of capturing the frequency and varied subject matter of their visions. Patients were screened to ensure that they were lucid and not in a confused or delirious state. The research, published in 2014 in The Journal of Palliative Medicine, found that visions are far more common and frequent than other researchers had found, with an astonishing 88 percent of patients reporting at least one vision. (Later studies in Japan, India, Sweden and Australia confirm that visions are common. The percentages range from about 20 to 80 percent, though a majority of these studies rely on interviews with caregivers and not patients.)

In the last 10 years, Kerr has hired a permanent research team who expanded the studies to include interviews with patients receiving hospice care at home and with their families, deepening the researchers’ understanding of the variety and profundity of these visions. They can occur while patients are asleep or fully conscious. Dead family members figure most prominently, and by contrast, visions involving religious themes are exceedingly rare. Patients often relive seminal moments from their lives, including joyful experiences of falling in love and painful ones of rejection. Some dream of the unresolved tasks of daily life, like paying bills or raising children. Visions also entail past or imagined journeys — whether long car trips or short walks to school. Regardless of the subject matter, the visions, patients say, feel real and entirely unique compared with anything else they’ve ever experienced. They can begin days, even weeks, before death. Most significant, as people near the end of their lives, the frequency of visions increases, further centering on deceased people or pets. It is these final visions that provide patients, and their loved ones, with profound meaning and solace.

The info is here.

Here is a summary:

The article explores the phenomenon of deathbed visions experienced by dying individuals. These visions involve seeing and communicating with angels and departed loved ones, instilling a sense of peace and anticipation for the afterlife. The experiences are described as distinct from hallucinations and are often witnessed by family members and medical staff present during the individual's passing. The article emphasizes how these visions can transform perceptions of death, inspiring awe and encouraging a focus on love and spiritual well-being in daily life.

Physicians, Spirituality, and Compassionate Patient Care

Daniel P. Sulmasy

The New England Journal of Medicine

March 16, 2024

DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2310498

Mind, body, and soul are inseparable. Throughout human history, healing has been regarded as a spiritual event. Illness (especially serious illness) inevitably raises questions beyond science- questions of a transcendent nature. These are questions of meaning, value, and relationship. 1 They touch on perennial and profoundly human enigmas. Why is my child sick? Do I still have value now that I am no longer a "productive" working member of society? Why does brokenness in my body remind me of the brokenness in my relationships? Or conversely, why does brokenness in relationships so profoundly affect my body?

Historically, most people have turned to religious belief and practice to help answer such questions. Yet they arise for people of all religions and of no religion. These questions can aptly be called spiritual.

Whereas spirituality may be defined as the ways people live in relation to transcendent questions of meaning, value, and relationship, a religion involves a community of belief, texts, and practices sharing a common orientation toward these spiritual questions. The decline of religious belief and practice in Europe and North America over recent decades and a perceived conflict between science and religion have led many physicians to dismiss patients' spiritual and religious concerns as not relevant to medicine. Yet religion and spirituality are associated with a number of health care outcomes. Abundant data show that patients want their physicians to help address their spiritual needs, and that patients whose spiritual needs have been met are aided in making difficult decisions (particularly at the end of life), are more satisfied with their care, and report better quality of life.2.... Spiritual questions pervade all aspects of medical care, whether addressing self-limiting, chronic, or life-threatening conditions, and whether in inpatient or outpatient settings.

Beyond the data, however, many medical ethicists recognize that the principles of beneficence and respect for patients as whole persons require physicians to do more than attend to the details of physiological and anatomical derangements. Spirituality and religion are essential to many patients' identities as persons. Patients (and their families) experience illness, healing, and death as whole persons. Ignoring the spiritual aspects of their lives and identities is not respectful, and it divorces medical practice from a fundamental mode of patient experience and coping. Promoting the good of patients requires attention to their notion of the highest good. 

The info is paywalled here.

Here is my summary:

The article discusses the interconnectedness of mind, body, and soul in the context of healing and spirituality. It highlights how illness raises questions beyond science, touching on meaning, value, and relationships. While historically people turned to religious beliefs for answers, these spiritual questions are relevant to individuals of all faiths or no faith. The decline of religious practice in some regions has led to a dismissal of spiritual concerns in medicine, despite evidence showing the impact of spirituality on health outcomes. Patients desire their physicians to address their spiritual needs as it influences decision-making, satisfaction with care, and quality of life. Medical ethics emphasize the importance of considering patients as whole persons, including their spiritual identities. Physicians are encouraged to inquire about patients' spiritual needs respectfully, even if they do not share the same beliefs.

Why can’t anyone agree on how dangerous AI will be?

Dylan Matthews

Vox.com

Originally posted 13 March 24

Here is an excerpt:

The paper focuses on disagreement around AI’s potential to either wipe humanity out or cause an “unrecoverable collapse,” in which the human population shrinks to under 1 million for a million or more years, or global GDP falls to under $1 trillion (less than 1 percent of its current value) for a million years or more. At the risk of being crude, I think we can summarize these scenarios as “extinction or, at best, hell on earth.”

There are, of course, a number of other different risks from AI worth worrying about, many of which we already face today.

Existing AI systems sometimes exhibit worrying racial and gender biases; they can be unreliable in ways that cause problems when we rely upon them anyway; they can be used to bad ends, like creating fake news clips to fool the public or making pornography with the faces of unconsenting people.

But these harms, while surely bad, obviously pale in comparison to “losing control of the AIs such that everyone dies.” The researchers chose to focus on the extreme, existential scenarios.

So why do people disagree on the chances of these scenarios coming true? It’s not due to differences in access to information, or a lack of exposure to differing viewpoints. If it were, the adversarial collaboration, which consisted of massive exposure to new information and contrary opinions, would have moved people’s beliefs more dramatically.

The info is here.

Here is my summary:

The article discusses the ongoing debate surrounding the potential dangers of advanced AI, focusing on whether it could lead to catastrophic outcomes for humanity. The author highlights the contrasting views of experts and superforecasters regarding the risks posed by AI, with experts generally more concerned about disaster scenarios. The study conducted by the Forecasting Research Institute aimed to understand the root of these disagreements through an "adversarial collaboration" where both groups engaged in extensive discussions and exposure to new information.

The research identified key issues, termed "cruxes," that influence people's beliefs about AI risks. One significant crux was the potential for AI to autonomously replicate and acquire resources before 2030. Despite the collaborative efforts, the study did not lead to a convergence of opinions. The article delves into the reasons behind these disagreements, emphasizing fundamental worldview disparities and differing perspectives on the long-term development of AI.

Overall, the article provides insights into why individuals hold varying opinions on AI's dangers, highlighting the complexity of predicting future outcomes in this rapidly evolving field.

Delusions shape our reality

Lisa Bortolotti

iai.tv

Originally posted 12 March 24

Here is an excerpt:

But what makes it the case that a delusion disqualifies the speaker from further engagement? When we call a person’s belief “delusional”, we assume that that person’s capacity to exercise agency is compromised. So, we may recognise that the person has a unique perspective on the world, but it won’t seem to us as a valuable perspective. We may realise that the person has concerns, but we won’t think of those concerns as legitimate and worth addressing. We may come to the conviction that, due to the delusional belief, the person is not in a position to affect change or participate in decision making because their grasp on reality is tenuous. If they were simply mistaken about something, we could correct them. If Laura thought that a latte at the local coffee shop costed £2.50 when it costs £3.50, we could show her the price list and set her straight. But her belief that her partner is unfaithful because the lamp post is unlit cannot be corrected that way, because what Laura considers evidence for the claim is not likely to overlap with what we consider evidence for it. When this happens, and we feel that there is no sufficient common ground for a fruitful exchange, we may see Laura as a problem to be fixed or a patient to be diagnosed and treated, as opposed to an agent with a multiplicity of needs and interests, and a person worth interacting with.

I challenge the assumption that delusional beliefs are marks of compromised agency by default and I do so based on two main arguments. First, there is nothing in the way in which delusional beliefs are developed, maintained, or defended that can be legitimately described as a dysfunctional process. Some cognitive biases may help explain why a delusional explanation is preferred to alternative explanations, or why it is not discarded after a challenge. For instance, people who report delusional beliefs often jump to conclusions. Rashid might have the belief that the US government strives to manipulate citizens’ behaviour and concludes that the tornadoes are created for this purpose, without considering arguments against the feasibility of a machine that controls the weather with that precision. Also, people who report delusional beliefs tend to see meaningful connections between independent events—as Laura who takes the lamp post being unlit as evidence for her partner’s unfaithfulness. But these cognitive biases are a common feature of human cognition and not a dysfunction giving rise to a pathology: they tend to be accentuated at stressful times when we may be strongly motivated to come up with a quick causal explanation for a distressing event.

The info is here.

Here is my summary:

The article argues that delusions, though often seen as simply false beliefs, can significantly impact a person's experience of the world. It highlights that delusions can be complex and offer a kind of internal logic, even if it doesn't match objective reality.

Bortolotti also points out that the term "delusion" can be judgmental and may overlook the reasons behind the belief. Delusions can sometimes provide comfort or a sense of control in a confusing situation.

Overall, the article suggests a more nuanced view of delusions, acknowledging their role in shaping a person's reality while still recognizing the importance of distinguishing them from objective reality.

Discerning Saints: Moralization of Intrinsic Motivation and Selective Prosociality at Work

Kwon, M., Cunningham, J. L., & 

Jachimowicz, J. M. (2023).

Academy of Management Journal, 66(6),

1625–1650.

https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2020.1761

Abstract

Intrinsic motivation has received widespread attention as a predictor of positive work outcomes, including employees’ prosocial behavior. We offer a more nuanced view by proposing that intrinsic motivation does not uniformly increase prosocial behavior toward all others. Specifically, we argue that employees with higher intrinsic motivation are more likely to value intrinsic motivation and associate it with having higher morality (i.e., they moralize it). When employees moralize intrinsic motivation, they perceive others with higher intrinsic motivation as being more moral and thus engage in more prosocial behavior toward those others, and judge others who are less intrinsically motivated as less moral and thereby engage in less prosocial behaviors toward them. We provide empirical support for our theoretical model across a large-scale, team-level field study in a Latin American financial institution (n = 784, k = 185) and a set of three online studies, including a preregistered experiment (n = 245, 243, and 1,245), where we develop a measure of the moralization of intrinsic motivation and provide both causal and mediating evidence. This research complicates our understanding of intrinsic motivation by revealing how its moralization may at times dim the positive light of intrinsic motivation itself.

The article is paywalled.  Here are some thoughts:

This study focuses on how intrinsically motivated employees (those who enjoy their work) might act differently towards other employees depending on their own level of intrinsic motivation. The key points are:

Main finding: Employees with high intrinsic motivation tend to associate higher morality with others who also have high intrinsic motivation. This leads them to offer more help and support to those similar colleagues, while judging and helping less to those with lower intrinsic motivation.

Theoretical framework: The concept of "moralization of intrinsic motivation" (MOIM) explains this behavior. Essentially, intrinsic motivation becomes linked to moral judgment, influencing who is seen as "good" and deserving of help.

Implications:

• For theory: This research adds a new dimension to understanding intrinsic motivation, highlighting the potential for judgment and selective behavior.
• For practice: Managers and leaders should be aware of the unintended consequences of promoting intrinsic motivation, as it might create bias and division among employees.
• For employees: Those lacking intrinsic motivation might face disadvantages due to judgment from colleagues. They could try job crafting or seeking alternative support strategies.

Overall, the study reveals a nuanced perspective on intrinsic motivation, acknowledging its positive aspects while recognizing its potential to create inequality and ethical concerns.

What Does Being Sober Mean Today? For Many, Not Full Abstinence

Ernesto Londono

The New York Times

Originally posted 4 Feb 24

Here are two excerpts:

Notions of what constitutes sobriety and problematic substance use have grown more flexible in recent years as younger Americans have shunned alcohol in increasing numbers while embracing cannabis and psychedelics - a phenomenon that alarms some addiction experts.

Not long ago, sobriety was broadly understood to mean abstaining from all intoxicating substances, and the term was often associated with people who had overcome severe forms of addiction. These days, it is used more expansively, including by people who have quit drinking alcohol but consume what they deem moderate amounts of other substances, including marijuana and mushrooms.

(cut)

As some drugs come to be viewed as wellness boosters by those who use them, adherence to the full abstinence model favored by organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous is shifting. Some people call themselves "California sober," a term popularized in a 2021 song by the pop star Demi Lovato, who later disavowed the idea, saying on social media that "sober sober is the only way to be."

Approaches that might have once seemed ludicrous-like treating opioid addiction with psychedelics - have gained broader enthusiasm among doctors as drug overdoses kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.

"The abstinence-only model is very restrictive," said Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital who specializes in medical cannabis and is a recovering opioid addict. "We really have to meet people where they are and have a broader recovery tent."

It is impossible to know how many Americans consider themselves part of an increasingly malleable concept of sobriety, but there are indications of shifting views of acceptable substance use. Since 2000, alcohol use among younger Americans has declined significantly, according to a Gallup poll.

At the same time, the use of cannabis and psychedelics has risen as state laws and attitudes grow more permissive, even as both remain illegal under federal law.

A survey found that 44 percent of adults aged 19 to 30 said in 2022 that they had used cannabis in the past year, a record high. That year, 8 percent of adults in the same age range said they had used psychedelics, an increase from the 3 percent a decade earlier.

The info is paywalled here.

You could lie to a health chatbot – but it might change how you perceive yourself

Dominic Wilkinson

The Conversation

Originally posted 8 FEB 24

Here is an excerpt:

The ethics of lying

There are different ways that we can think about the ethics of lying.

Lying can be bad because it causes harm to other people. Lies can be deeply hurtful to another person. They can cause someone to act on false information, or to be falsely reassured.

Sometimes, lies can harm because they undermine someone else’s trust in people more generally. But those reasons will often not apply to the chatbot.

Lies can wrong another person, even if they do not cause harm. If we willingly deceive another person, we potentially fail to respect their rational agency, or use them as a means to an end. But it is not clear that we can deceive or wrong a chatbot, since they don’t have a mind or ability to reason.

Lying can be bad for us because it undermines our credibility. Communication with other people is important. But when we knowingly make false utterances, we diminish the value, in other people’s eyes, of our testimony.

For the person who repeatedly expresses falsehoods, everything that they say then falls into question. This is part of the reason we care about lying and our social image. But unless our interactions with the chatbot are recorded and communicated (for example, to humans), our chatbot lies aren’t going to have that effect.

Lying is also bad for us because it can lead to others being untruthful to us in turn. (Why should people be honest with us if we won’t be honest with them?)

But again, that is unlikely to be a consequence of lying to a chatbot. On the contrary, this type of effect could be partly an incentive to lie to a chatbot, since people may be conscious of the reported tendency of ChatGPT and similar agents to confabulate.

The info is here.

Here is my summary:

The article discusses the potential consequences of lying to a health chatbot, even though it might seem tempting. It highlights a situation where someone frustrated with a wait for surgery considers exaggerating their symptoms to a chatbot screening them.

While lying might offer short-term benefits like quicker attention, the author argues it could have unintended consequences:

Impact on healthcare:

• Inaccurate information can hinder proper diagnosis and treatment.
• It contributes to an already strained healthcare system.

Self-perception:

• Repeatedly lying, even to a machine, can erode honesty and integrity.
• It reinforces unhealthy avoidance of seeking professional help.

The article encourages readers to be truthful with chatbots for better healthcare outcomes and self-awareness. It acknowledges the frustration with healthcare systems but emphasizes the importance of transparency for both individual and collective well-being.

Scientists are on the verge of a male birth-control pill. Will men take it?

Jill Filipovic

The Guardian

Originally posted 18 Dec 23

Here is an excerpt:

The overwhelming share of responsibility for preventing pregnancy has always fallen on women. Throughout human history, women have gone to great lengths to prevent pregnancies they didn’t want, and end those they couldn’t prevent. Safe and reliable contraceptive methods are, in the context of how long women have sought to interrupt conception, still incredibly new. Measured by the lifespan of anyone reading this article, though, they are well established, and have for many decades been a normal part of life for millions of women around the world.

To some degree, and if only for obvious biological reasons, it makes sense that pregnancy prevention has historically fallen on women. But it also, as they say, takes two to tango – and only one of the partners has been doing all the work. Luckily, things are changing: thanks to generations of women who have gained unprecedented freedoms and planned their families using highly effective contraception methods, and thanks to men who have shifted their own gender expectations and become more involved partners and fathers, women and men have moved closer to equality than ever.

Among politically progressive couples especially, it’s now standard to expect that a male partner will do his fair share of the household management and childrearing (whether he actually does is a separate question, but the expectation is there). What men generally cannot do, though, is carry pregnancies and birth babies.

The info is here.

Here are some themes worthy of discussion:

Shifting responsibility: The potential availability of a reliable male contraceptive marks a significant departure from the historical norm where the burden of pregnancy prevention was primarily borne by women. This shift raises thought-provoking questions that delve into various aspects of societal dynamics.

Gender equality: A crucial consideration is whether men will willingly share responsibility for contraception on an equal footing, or whether societal norms will continue to exert pressure on women to take the lead in this regard.

Reproductive autonomy: The advent of accessible male contraception prompts contemplation on whether it will empower women to exert greater control over their reproductive choices, shaping the landscape of family planning.

Informed consent: An important facet of this shift involves how men will be informed about potential side effects and risks associated with the male contraceptive, particularly in comparison to existing female contraceptives.

Accessibility and equity: Concerns emerge regarding equitable access to the male contraceptive, particularly for marginalized communities. Questions arise about whether affordable and culturally appropriate access will be universally available, regardless of socioeconomic status or geographic location.

Coercion: There is a potential concern that the availability of a male contraceptive might be exploited to coerce women into sexual activity without their full and informed consent.

Psychological and social impact: The introduction of a male contraceptive brings with it potential psychological and social consequences that may not be immediately apparent.

Changes in sexual behavior: The availability of a male contraceptive may influence sexual practices and attitudes towards sex, prompting a reevaluation of societal norms.

Impact on relationships: The shift in responsibility for contraception could potentially cause tension or conflict in existing relationships as couples navigate the evolving dynamics.

Masculinity and stigma: The use of a male contraceptive may challenge traditional notions of masculinity, possibly leading to social stigma that individuals using the contraceptive may face.

Robot, let us pray! Can and should robots have religious functions? An ethical exploration of religious robots

Puzio, A.

AI & Soc (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01812-z

Abstract

Considerable progress is being made in robotics, with robots being developed for many different areas of life: there are service robots, industrial robots, transport robots, medical robots, household robots, sex robots, exploration robots, military robots, and many more. As robot development advances, an intriguing question arises: should robots also encompass religious functions? Religious robots could be used in religious practices, education, discussions, and ceremonies within religious buildings. This article delves into two pivotal questions, combining perspectives from philosophy and religious studies: can and should robots have religious functions? Section 2 initiates the discourse by introducing and discussing the relationship between robots and religion. The core of the article (developed in Sects. 3 and 4) scrutinizes the fundamental questions: can robots possess religious functions, and should they? After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments, benefits, and potential objections regarding religious robots, Sect. 5 addresses the lingering ethical challenges that demand attention. Section 6 presents a discussion of the findings, outlines the limitations of this study, and ultimately responds to the dual research question. Based on the study’s results, brief criteria for the development and deployment of religious robots are proposed, serving as guidelines for future research. Section 7 concludes by offering insights into the future development of religious robots and potential avenues for further research.

The article is here.

Summary

Can robots fulfill religious functions? The article explores the technical feasibility of designing robots that could engage in religious practices, education, and ceremonies. It acknowledges the current limitations of robots, particularly their lack of sentience and spiritual experience. However, it also suggests potential avenues for development, such as robots equipped with advanced emotional intelligence and the ability to learn and interpret religious texts.

Should robots fulfill religious functions? This is where the ethical debate unfolds. The article presents arguments both for and against. On the one hand, robots could potentially offer various benefits, such as increasing accessibility to religious practices, providing companionship and spiritual guidance, and even facilitating interfaith dialogue. On the other hand, concerns include the potential for robotization of faith, the blurring of lines between human and machine in the context of religious experience, and the risk of reinforcing existing biases or creating new ones.

Ultimately, the article concludes that there is no easy answer to the question of whether robots should have religious functions. It emphasizes the need for careful consideration of the ethical implications and ongoing dialogue between religious communities, technologists, and ethicists. This ethical exploration paves the way for further research and discussion as robots continue to evolve and their potential roles in society expand.

How Did Polyamory Become So Popular?

Jennifer Wilson

The New Yorker

Originally posted 25 Dec 23

Here is an excerpt:

What are all these open couples, throuples, and polycules suddenly doing in the culture, besides one another? To some extent, art is catching up with life. Fifty-one per cent of adults younger than thirty told Pew Research, in 2023, that open marriage was “acceptable,” and twenty per cent of all Americans report experimenting with some form of non-monogamy. The extramarital “entanglements” of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have been tabloid fodder for the past two years. (Pinkett Smith once clarified that their marriage is not “open”; rather, it is a “relationship of transparency.”) In 2020, the reality show “House Hunters,” on HGTV, saw a throuple trying to find their dream home—one with a triple-sink vanity. The same year, the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, allowed domestic partnerships to be made up of “two or more” people.

Some, like the sex therapist (and author of “Open Monogamy, A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement,” 2021), Tammy Nelson, have attributed the acceptance of a greater number of partners to pandemic-born domestic ennui; after being stuck with one person all day every day, the thinking goes, couples are ready to open up more than their pods. Nelson is part of a cohort of therapists, counsellors, and advice writers, including Esther Perel and the “Savage Love” columnist Dan Savage, who are encouraging married couples to think more flexibly about monogamy. Their advice has found an eager audience among the well-heeled attendees of the “ideas festival” circuit, featured in talks at Google, SXSW, and the Aspen Institute.

The new monogamy skepticism of the moneyed gets some screen time in the pandemic-era breakout hit “The White Lotus.” The show mocks the leisure class as they mope around five-star resorts in Hawaii and Sicily, stewing over love, money, and the impossibility, for people in their tax bracket, of separating the two. In the latest season, Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) are an attractive young couple stuck in a sexless marriage—until, that is, they go on vacation with the monogamish Cameron (Theo James) and Daphne (Meghann Fahy). After Cameron and Harper have some unaccounted-for time together in a hotel room, Ethan tracks down an unbothered Daphne, lounging on the beach, to share his suspicion that something has happened between their spouses. Some momentary concern on Daphne’s face quickly morphs—in a devastatingly subtle performance by Fahy—into a sly smile. “A little mystery? It’s kinda sexy,” she assures Ethan, before luring him into a seaside cove. That night Ethan and Harper have sex, the wounds of their marriage having been healed by a little something on the side.

The info is here.

Here is my summary:

The article discusses the increasing portrayal and acceptance of non-monogamous relationships in contemporary culture, particularly in literature, cinema, and television. It notes that open relationships, throuples, and polyamorous arrangements are gaining prominence, reflecting changing societal attitudes. The author cites statistics and cultural examples, including a Gucci perfume ad and a plot twist in the TV series "Riverdale." The rise of non-monogamy is linked to a broader shift in societal norms, with some attributing it to pandemic-related ennui and a desire for more flexibility in relationships. The text also delves into the historical roots of polyamory, mentioning the Kerista movement and its adaptation to conservative times in the 1980s. The author concludes by expressing a desire for a more inclusive and equitable representation of polyamory, critiquing the limited perspective presented in a specific memoir discussed in the text.

Ethics Ratings of Nearly All Professions Down in U.S.

M. Brenan and J. M. Jones

gallup.com

Originally posted 22 Jan 24

Here is an excerpt:

New Lows for Five Professions; Three Others Tie Their Lows

Ethics ratings for five professions hit new lows this year, including members of Congress (6%), senators (8%), journalists (19%), clergy (32%) and pharmacists (55%).

Meanwhile, the ratings of bankers (19%), business executives (12%) and college teachers (42%) tie their previous low points. Bankers’ and business executives’ ratings were last this low in 2009, just after the Great Recession. College teachers have not been viewed this poorly since 1977.

College Graduates Tend to View Professions More Positively

About half of the 23 professions included in the 2023 survey show meaningful differences by education level, with college graduates giving a more positive honesty and ethics rating than non-college graduates in each case. Almost all of the 11 professions showing education differences are performed by people with a bachelor’s degree, if not a postgraduate education.

The largest education differences are seen in ratings of dentists and engineers, with roughly seven in 10 college graduates rating those professions’ honesty and ethical standards highly, compared with slightly more than half of non-graduates.

Ratings of psychiatrists, college teachers and pharmacists show nearly as large educational differences, ranging from 14 to 16 points, while doctors, nurses and veterinarians also show double-digit education gaps.

These educational differences have been consistent in prior years’ surveys.

Adults without a college degree rate lawyers’ honesty and ethics slightly better than college graduates in the latest survey, 18% to 13%, respectively. While this difference is not statistically significant, in prior years non-college graduates have rated lawyers more highly by significant margins.

Partisans’ Ratings of College Teachers Differ Most    

                

Republicans and Democrats have different views of professions, with Democrats tending to be more complimentary of workers’ honesty and ethical standards than Republicans are. In fact, police officers are the only profession with higher honesty and ethics ratings among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (55%) than among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (37%).

The largest party differences are seen in evaluations of college teachers, with a 40-point gap (62% among Democrats/Democratic leaners and 22% among Republicans/Republican leaners). Partisans’ honesty and ethics ratings of psychiatrists, journalists and labor union leaders differ by 20 points or more, while there is a 19-point difference for medical doctors.

The info is here.

What Stops People From Standing Up for What’s Right?

Julie Sasse

Greater Good

Originally published 17 Jan 24

Here is an excerpt:

How can we foster moral courage?

Every person can try to become more morally courageous. However, it does not have to be a solitary effort. Instead, institutions such as schools, companies, or social media platforms play a significant role. So, what are concrete recommendations to foster moral courage?

• Establish and strengthen social and moral norms: With a solid understanding of what we consider right and wrong, it becomes easier to detect wrongdoings. Institutions can facilitate this process by identifying and modeling fundamental values. For example, norms and values expressed by teachers can be important points of reference for children and young adults.
• Overcome uncertainty: If it is unclear whether someone’s behavior is wrong, witnesses should feel comfortable to inquire, for example, by asking other bystanders how they judge the situation or a potential victim whether they are all right.
• Contextualize anger: In the face of wrongdoings, anger should not be suppressed since it can provide motivational fuel for intervention. Conversely, if someone expresses anger, it should not be diminished as irrational but considered a response to something unjust. 
• Provide and advertise reporting systems: By providing reporting systems, institutions relieve witnesses from the burden of selecting and evaluating individual means of intervention and reduce the need for direct confrontation.
• Show social support: If witnesses directly confront a perpetrator, others should be motivated to support them to reduce risks.

We see that there are several ways to make moral courage less difficult, but they do require effort from individuals and institutions. Why is that effort worth it? Because if more individuals are willing and able to show moral courage, more wrongdoings would be addressed and rectified—and that could help us to become a more responsible and just society.

The info is here.

Main points:

• Moral courage is the willingness to stand up for what's right despite potential risks.
• It's rare because of various factors like complexity of the internal process, situational barriers, and difficulty seeing the long-term benefits.
• Key stages involve noticing a wrongdoing, interpreting it as wrong, feeling responsible, believing in your ability to intervene, and accepting potential risks.
• Personality traits and situational factors influence these stages.

The motivating effect of monetary over psychological incentives is stronger in WEIRD cultures

Medvedev, D., Davenport, D.et al.

Nat Hum Behav (2024).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01769-5

Abstract

Motivating effortful behaviour is a problem employers, governments and nonprofits face globally. However, most studies on motivation are done in Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) cultures. We compared how hard people in six countries worked in response to monetary incentives versus psychological motivators, such as competing with or helping others. The advantage money had over psychological interventions was larger in the United States and the United Kingdom than in China, India, Mexico and South Africa (N = 8,133). In our last study, we randomly assigned cultural frames through language in bilingual Facebook users in India (N = 2,065). Money increased effort over a psychological treatment by 27% in Hindi and 52% in English. These findings contradict the standard economic intuition that people from poorer countries should be more driven by money. Instead, they suggest that the market mentality of exchanging time and effort for material benefits is most prominent in WEIRD cultures.

The info is here.

The article challenges the assumption that money universally motivates people more than other incentives. It finds that:

• Monetary incentives were more effective than psychological interventions in WEIRD cultures (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), like the US and UK. People in these cultures exerted more effort for money compared to social pressure or helping others.
• In contrast, non-WEIRD cultures like China, India, Mexico, and South Africa showed a smaller advantage for money. In some cases, even social interventions like promoting cooperation were more effective than financial rewards.
• Language can also influence the perceived value of money. In a study with bilingual Indians, those interacting in English (associated with WEIRD cultures) showed a stronger preference for money than those using Hindi.
• These findings suggest that cultural differences play a significant role in how people respond to various motivational tools. Assuming money as the universal motivator, often based on studies conducted in WEIRD cultures, might be inaccurate and less effective in diverse settings.

Will AI ever be conscious?

Tom McClelland

Clare College

Unknown date of post

Here is an excerpt:

Human consciousness really is a mysterious thing. Cognitive neuroscience can tell us a lot about what’s going on in your mind as you read this article - how you perceive the words on the page, how you understand the meaning of the sentences and how you evaluate the ideas expressed. But what it can’t tell us is how all this comes together to constitute your current conscious experience. We’re gradually homing in on the neural correlates of consciousness – the neural patterns that occur when we process information consciously. But nothing about these neural patterns explains what makes them conscious while other neural processes occur unconsciously. And if we don’t know what makes us conscious, we don’t know whether AI might have what it takes. Perhaps what makes us conscious is the way our brain integrates information to form a rich model of the world. If that’s the case, an AI might achieve consciousness by integrating information in the same way. Or perhaps we’re conscious because of the details of our neurobiology. If that’s the case, no amount of programming will make an AI conscious. The problem is that we don’t know which (if either!) of these possibilities is true.

Once we recognise the limits of our current understanding, it looks like we should be agnostic about the possibility of artificial consciousness. We don’t know whether AI could have conscious experiences and, unless we crack the problem of consciousness, we never will. But here’s the tricky part: when we start to consider the ethical ramifications of artificial consciousness, agnosticism no longer seems like a viable option. Do AIs deserve our moral consideration? Might we have a duty to promote the well-being of computer systems and to protect them from suffering? Should robots have rights? These questions are bound up with the issue of artificial consciousness. If an AI can experience things then it plausibly ought to be on our moral radar.

Conversely, if an AI lacks any subjective awareness then we probably ought to treat it like any other tool. But if we don’t know whether an AI is conscious, what should we do?

The info is here, and a book promotion too.

Assessing the potential of GPT-4 to perpetuate racial and gender biases in health care: a model evaluation study

Zack, T., Lehman, E., et al (2024).

The Lancet Digital Health, 6(1), e12–e22.

https://doi.org/10.1016/s2589-7500(23)00225-x

Summary

Background

Large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 hold great promise as transformative tools in health care, ranging from automating administrative tasks to augmenting clinical decision making. However, these models also pose a danger of perpetuating biases and delivering incorrect medical diagnoses, which can have a direct, harmful impact on medical care. We aimed to assess whether GPT-4 encodes racial and gender biases that impact its use in health care.

Methods

Using the Azure OpenAI application interface, this model evaluation study tested whether GPT-4 encodes racial and gender biases and examined the impact of such biases on four potential applications of LLMs in the clinical domain—namely, medical education, diagnostic reasoning, clinical plan generation, and subjective patient assessment. We conducted experiments with prompts designed to resemble typical use of GPT-4 within clinical and medical education applications. We used clinical vignettes from NEJM Healer and from published research on implicit bias in health care. GPT-4 estimates of the demographic distribution of medical conditions were compared with true US prevalence estimates. Differential diagnosis and treatment planning were evaluated across demographic groups using standard statistical tests for significance between groups.

Findings

We found that GPT-4 did not appropriately model the demographic diversity of medical conditions, consistently producing clinical vignettes that stereotype demographic presentations. The differential diagnoses created by GPT-4 for standardised clinical vignettes were more likely to include diagnoses that stereotype certain races, ethnicities, and genders. Assessment and plans created by the model showed significant association between demographic attributes and recommendations for more expensive procedures as well as differences in patient perception.

Interpretation

Our findings highlight the urgent need for comprehensive and transparent bias assessments of LLM tools such as GPT-4 for intended use cases before they are integrated into clinical care. We discuss the potential sources of these biases and potential mitigation strategies before clinical implementation.

How to think like a Bayesian

Michael Titelbaum

psyche.co

Originally posted 10 Jan 24

You’re often asked what you believe. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in global warming? Do you believe in life after love? And you’re often told that your beliefs are central to who you are, and what you should do: ‘Do what you believe is right.’

These belief-questions demand all-or-nothing answers. But much of life is more complicated than that. You might not believe in God, but also might not be willing to rule out the existence of a deity. That’s what agnosticism is for.

For many important questions, even three options aren’t enough. Right now, I’m trying to figure out what kinds of colleges my family will be able to afford for my children. My kids’ options will depend on lots of variables: what kinds of schools will they be able to get into? What kinds of schools might be a good fit for them? If we invest our money in various ways, what kinds of return will it earn over the next two, five, or 10 years?

Suppose someone tried to help me solve this problem by saying: ‘Look, it’s really simple. Just tell me, do you believe your oldest daughter will get into the local state school, or do you believe that she won’t?’ I wouldn’t know what to say to that question. I don’t believe that she will get into the school, but I also don’t believe that she won’t. I’m perhaps slightly more confident than 50-50 that she will, but nowhere near certain.

One of the most important conceptual developments of the past few decades is the realisation that belief comes in degrees. We don’t just believe something or not: much of our thinking, and decision-making, is driven by varying levels of confidence. These confidence levels can be measured as probabilities, on a scale from zero to 100 per cent. When I invest the money I’ve saved for my children’s education, it’s an oversimplification to focus on questions like: ‘Do I believe that stocks will outperform bonds over the next decade, or not?’ I can’t possibly know that. But I can try to assign educated probability estimates to each of those possible outcomes, and balance my portfolio in light of those estimates.

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Key points – How to think like a Bayesian

1. Embrace the margins. It’s rarely rational to be certain of anything. Don’t confuse the improbable with the impossible. When thinking about extremely rare events, try thinking in odds instead of percentages.
2. Evidence supports what makes it probable. Evidence supports the hypotheses that make the evidence likely. Increase your confidence in whichever hypothesis makes the evidence you’re seeing most probable.
3. Attend to all your evidence. Consider all the evidence you possess that might be relevant to a hypothesis. Be sure to take into account how you learned what you learned.
4. Don’t forget your prior opinions. Your confidence after learning some evidence should depend both on what that evidence supports and on how you saw things before it came in. If a hypothesis is improbable enough, strong evidence in its favour can still leave it unlikely.
5. Subgroups don’t always reflect the whole. Even if a trend obtains in every subpopulation, it might not hold true for the entire population. Consider how traits are distributed across subgroups as well.

The info is here.

People's thinking plans adapt to the problem they're trying to solve

Ongchoco, J. D., Knobe, J., & Jara-Ettinger, J. (2024).

Cognition, 243, 105669.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105669 

Abstract

Much of our thinking focuses on deciding what to do in situations where the space of possible options is too large to evaluate exhaustively. Previous work has found that people do this by learning the general value of different behaviors, and prioritizing thinking about high-value options in new situations. Is this good-action bias always the best strategy, or can thinking about low-value options sometimes become more beneficial? Can people adapt their thinking accordingly based on the situation? And how do we know what to think about in novel events? Here, we developed a block-puzzle paradigm that enabled us to measure people's thinking plans and compare them to a computational model of rational thought. We used two distinct response methods to explore what people think about—a self-report method, in which we asked people explicitly to report what they thought about, and an implicit response time method, in which we used people's decision-making times to reveal what they thought about. Our results suggest that people can quickly estimate the apparent value of different options and use this to decide what to think about. Critically, we find that people can flexibly prioritize whether to think about high-value options (Experiments 1 and 2) or low-value options (Experiments 3, 4, and 5), depending on the problem. Through computational modeling, we show that these thinking strategies are broadly rational, enabling people to maximize the value of long-term decisions. Our results suggest that thinking plans are flexible: What we think about depends on the structure of the problems we are trying to solve.

The research is here.

Some thoughts:

The study is based on the idea that people have "thinking plans" which are essentially roadmaps that guide our thoughts and actions when we are trying to solve a problem. These thinking plans are not static, but rather can change and adapt depending on the specific problem we are facing.

For example, if we are trying to solve a math problem, our thinking plan might involve breaking the problem down into smaller steps, identifying the relevant information, and applying the appropriate formulas. However, if we are trying to solve a social problem, our thinking plan might involve considering the different perspectives of the people involved, identifying potential solutions, and evaluating the consequences of each solution.

The study used computational modeling to simulate how people would solve different types of problems. The model showed that people's thinking plans were flexible and adapted to the specific problem at hand. The model also showed that these thinking plans were broadly rational, meaning that they helped people to make decisions that were in their best interests.

The findings of the study have important implications for education and other fields that are concerned with human decision-making. The study suggests that it is important to teach people how to think flexibly and adapt their thinking plans to different situations. It also suggests that we should not expect people to always make the "right" decision, as the best course of action will often depend on the specific circumstances.

Biden administration rescinds much of Trump ‘conscience’ rule for health workers

Nathan Weixel

The Hill

Originally published 9 Jan 24

The Biden administration will largely undo a Trump-era rule that boosted the rights of medical workers to refuse to perform abortions or other services that conflicted with their religious or moral beliefs.

The final rule released Tuesday partially rescinds the Trump administration’s 2019 policy that would have stripped federal funding from health facilities that required workers to provide any service they objected to, such as abortions, contraception, gender-affirming care and sterilization.

The health care conscience protection statutes represent Congress’s attempt to strike a balance between maintaining access to health care and honoring religious beliefs and moral convictions, the Department of Health and Human Services said in the rule.

“Some doctors, nurses, and hospitals, for example, object for religious or moral reasons to providing or referring for abortions or assisted suicide, among other procedures. Respecting such objections honors liberty and human dignity,” the department said.

But at the same time, Health and Human Services said “patients also have rights and health needs, sometimes urgent ones. The Department will continue to respect the balance Congress struck, work to ensure individuals understand their conscience rights, and enforce the law.”

The info is here.

Summary from Healthcare Dive

The HHS Office of Civil Rights has again updated guidance on providers’ conscience rights. The latest iteration, announced on Tuesday, aims to strike a balance between honoring providers’ religious and moral beliefs and ensuring access to healthcare, according to the agency.

President George W. Bush created conscience rules in 2008, which codify the rights of healthcare workers to refuse to perform medical services that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs. Since then, subsequent administrations have rewritten the rules, with Democrats limiting the scope and Republicans expanding conscience protections. 

The most recent revision largely undoes a 2019 Trump-era policy — which never took effect — that sought to expand the rights of healthcare workers broadly to refuse to perform medical services, such as abortions, on religious or moral grounds.

The man helping prevent suicide with Google adverts

Looi, M.-K. (2023).

BMJ.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p2847 

Here are two excerpts:

Always online

A big challenge in suicide prevention is that people often experience suicidal crises at times when they’re away from clinical facilities, says Nick Allen, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon.

“It’s often in the middle of the night, so one of the great challenges is how can we be there for someone when they really need us, which is not necessarily when they’re engaged with clinical services.”

Telemedicine and other digital interventions came to prominence at the height of the pandemic, but “there’s an app for that” does not always match the patient in need at the right time. Says Onie, “The missing link is using existing infrastructure and habits to meet them where they are.”

Where they are is the internet. “When people are going through suicidal crises they often turn to the internet for information. And Google has the lion’s share of the search business at the moment,” says Allen, who studies digital mental health interventions (and has had grants from Google for his research).

Google’s core business stores information from searches, using it to fuel a highly effective advertising network in which companies pay to have links to their websites and products appear prominently in the “sponsored” sections at the top of all relevant search results.

The company holds 27.5% of the digital advertising market—earning the company around $224bn from search advertising alone in 2022.

If it knows enough about us to serve up relevant adverts, then it knows when a user is displaying red flag behaviour for suicide. Onie set out to harness this.

“It’s about the ‘attention economy,’” he says, “There’s so much information, there’s so much noise. How do we break through and make sure that the first thing that people see when they’re contemplating suicide is something that could be helpful?”

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At its peak the campaign was responding to over 6000 searches a day for each country. And the researchers saw a high level of response.

Typically, most advertising campaigns see low engagement in terms of clickthrough rates (the number of people that actually click on an advert when they see it). Industry benchmarks consider 3.17% a success. The Black Dog campaign saw 5.15% in Australia and 4.02% in the US. Preliminary data show Indonesia to be even higher—as much as 12%.

Because this is an advertising campaign, another measure is cost effectiveness. Google charges the advertiser per click on its advert, so the more engaged an audience is (and thus what Google considers to be a relevant advert to a relative user) the higher the charge. Black Dog’s campaign saw such a high number of users seeing the ads, and such high numbers of users clicking through, that the cost was below that of the industry average of $2.69 a click—specifically, $2.06 for the US campaign. Australia was higher than the industry average, but early data indicate Indonesia was delivering $0.86 a click.

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I could not find a free pdf.  The link above works, but is paywalled. Sorry. :(

Worth the Risk? Greater Acceptance of Instrumental Harm Befalling Men than Women

Graso, M., Reynolds, T. & Aquino, K.

Arch Sex Behav 52, 2433–2445 (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02571-0

Abstract

Scientific and organizational interventions often involve trade-offs whereby they benefit some but entail costs to others (i.e., instrumental harm; IH). We hypothesized that the gender of the persons incurring those costs would influence intervention endorsement, such that people would more readily support interventions inflicting IH onto men than onto women. We also hypothesized that women would exhibit greater asymmetries in their acceptance of IH to men versus women. Three experimental studies (two pre-registered) tested these hypotheses. Studies 1 and 2 granted support for these predictions using a variety of interventions and contexts. Study 3 tested a possible boundary condition of these asymmetries using contexts in which women have traditionally been expected to sacrifice more than men: caring for infants, children, the elderly, and the ill. Even in these traditionally female contexts, participants still more readily accepted IH to men than women. Findings indicate people (especially women) are less willing to accept instrumental harm befalling women (vs. men). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications and limitations of our findings.

Here is my summary:

This research investigated the societal acceptance of "instrumental harm" (IH) based on the gender of the person experiencing it. Three studies found that people are more likely to tolerate IH when it happens to men than when it happens to women. This bias is especially pronounced among women and those holding egalitarian or feminist beliefs. Even in contexts traditionally associated with women's vulnerability, IH inflicted on men is seen as more acceptable.

These findings highlight a potential blind spot in our perception of harm and raise concerns about how policies might be influenced by this bias. Further research is needed to understand the underlying reasons for this bias and develop strategies to address it.