Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?

Dirk Helbing, Bruno S. Frey, Gerd Gigerenzer,  and others
Scientific American
Originally posted February 25, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

One thing is clear: the way in which we organize the economy and society will change fundamentally. We are experiencing the largest transformation since the end of the Second World War; after the automation of production and the creation of self-driving cars the automation of society is next. With this, society is at a crossroads, which promises great opportunities, but also considerable risks. If we take the wrong decisions it could threaten our greatest historical achievements.

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These technologies are also becoming increasingly popular in the world of politics. Under the label of “nudging,” and on massive scale, governments are trying to steer citizens towards healthier or more environmentally friendly behaviour by means of a "nudge"—a modern form of paternalism. The new, caring government is not only interested in what we do, but also wants to make sure that we do the things that it considers to be right. The magic phrase is "big nudging", which is the combination of big data with nudging. To many, this appears to be a sort of digital scepter that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes. Could this overcome vested interests and optimize the course of the world? If so, then citizens could be governed by a data-empowered “wise king”, who would be able to produce desired economic and social outcomes almost as if with a digital magic wand.

The article is here.

Why genetic testing for genes for criminality is morally required

Julian Savulescu
Princeton Journal of Bioethics [2001, 4:79-97]

Abstract

This paper argues for a Principle of Procreative Beneficence, that couples (or single reproducers) should select the child, of the possible children they could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others. If there are a number of different variants of a given gene, then we have most reason to select embryos which have those variants which are associated with the best lives, that is, those lives with the highest levels of well-being. It is possible that in the future some genes are identified which make it more likely that a person will engage in criminal behaviour. If that criminal behaviour makes that person's life go worse (as it plausibly would), and if those genes do not have other good effects in terms of promoting well-being, then we have a strong reason to encourage couples to test their embryos with the most favourable genetic profile. This paper was derived from a talk given as a part of the Decamp Seminar Series at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, October 4, 2000.

The article is here.

King Introduces End-of-Life Counseling Bill

Jan 11, 2017
Press Release

Congressman Steve King released the following statement after re-introducing the End-of-Life Counseling Bill:

“A year ago this month, the government increased control over one of the most highly personal healthcare decisions an individual can make when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began paying doctors to counsel patients about end-of-life care,” said King. “Allowing the federal government to marry its need to save dollars with the promotion of end-of-life counseling is not in the interest of millions of Americans who were promised life-sustaining care in their older years in exchange for their compelled funding of the program during their working years.

Furthermore, this exact provision was removed from the final draft of Obamacare in 2009 as a direct result of public outcry. The worldview behind the policy has not changed since then and government control over this intimate choice is still intolerable to those who respect the dignity of human life. My legislation prohibits Medicare payments for end-of-life counseling, blocking this harmful regulation before our government imposes yet another life-devaluing policy on the American people. ”

The bill is here.

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." -Pericles

Cognitive science suggests Trump makes us more accepting of the morally outrageous

Joshua Knobe
Vox.com
Updated January 10, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

At the core of this research is a very simple idea: When people are reasoning, they tend to think only about a relatively narrow range of possibilities. You are sitting there in a restaurant, trying to decide what to order. Almost immediately, you determine that you are going to get either the chocolate cake or the cheese plate. You then start to consider the merits and drawbacks of each option. "Should I get the chocolate cake? Nah, too many carbs. Better get the cheese plate." One important question about human cognition is how people end up choosing one option over the other in a case like this.

But there is another question here that is even more fundamental — so fundamental that it’s easy to overlook. How did you pick out those two options in the first place? After all, there’s an enormous range of other options that would, at least in principle, have been possible. You could have stormed into the kitchen and started eating directly out of the chef's saucepan. You could have reached under the table and started trying to eat your own shoe. Yet somehow you manage to reject all of these possibilities before the reasoning process even begins. It’s not as though you think, "Should I try to eat my shoe? No, it’s not very tasty, or even edible." Rather, possibilities like this one never even enter your reasoning at all.

This is where the notion of normality plays its most essential role. Of all the zillions of things that might be possible in principle, your mind is able to zero in on just a few specific possibilities, completely ignoring all the others. One aim of recent research has been to figure out how people do this. Though the research itself has been quite complex, the key conclusion is surprisingly straightforward: People show an impressive systematic tendency to completely ignore the possibilities they see as abnormal.

The article is here.

Why is everyone talking about algorithms?

Discover Society
Originally published January 3, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

The notion of the algorithm though, is also becoming really quite powerful in its own right. The very notion of the algorithm has taken on a life of its own, especially in the popular media. Algorithms are becoming the shadowy figures that in some way embody our wider fears and concerns. The visions we have of algorithms chime with broader feelings of a loss of control, of accelerated lives that are speeding away from us, of our inability to cope with the unmanageable information that we are exposed to, or the feeling that our lives are governed for us and that we have less discretion, autonomy or voice.

The talk about algorithms is a product of the powerful role of algorithms in our lives, but the talk around algorithms also seems to tap into broader concerns about powerlessness and the limitations placed on our discretion and choice. The algorithm is coming to embody the sense of life as out of our control. Algorithms are evoked to speak to these fears and concerns. This is not to say that they don’t have material influences on our lives, they clearly have powerful consequences. But the idea of the algorithm is also now a powerful presence, jumping out suddenly from the mass of code within which everyday life is lived to give us the occasional fright or to remind us of our sense of limited autonomy.

The article is here.

The VSED Exit: A Way to Speed Up Dying, Without Asking Permission

by Paula Span
The New York Times
Originally published October 21, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

In end-of-life circles, this option is called VSED (usually pronounced VEEsed), for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking. It causes death by dehydration, usually within seven to 14 days. To people with serious illnesses who want to hasten their deaths, a small but determined group, VSED can sound like a reasonable exit strategy.

Unlike aid with dying, now legal in five states, it doesn't require governmental action or physicians' authorization. Patients don't need a terminal diagnosis, and they don't have to prove mental capacity. They do need resolve.

"It's for strong-willed, independent people with very supportive families," said Dr. Timothy Quill, a veteran palliative care physician at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

He was speaking at a conference on VSED, billed as the nation's first, at Seattle University School of Law this month. It drew about 220 participants -- physicians and nurses, lawyers, bioethicists, academics of various stripes, theologians, hospice staff. (Disclosure: I was also a speaker, and received an honorarium and some travel costs.)

What the gathering made clear was that much about VSED remains unclear.

Is it legal?

For a mentally competent patient, able to grasp and communicate decisions, probably so, said Thaddeus Pope, director of the Health Law Institute at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. His research has found no laws expressly prohibiting competent people from VSED, and the right to refuse medical and health care intervention is well established.

The article is here.

Canada Legalizes Physician-Assisted Dying

By Merrit Kennedy
NPR.org
Originally posted June 18, 2016

After weeks of debate, Canadian lawmakers have passed legislation to legalize physician-assisted death.

That makes Canada "one of the few nations where doctors can legally help sick people die," as Reuters reports.

The new law "limits the option to the incurably ill, requires medical approval and mandates a 15-day waiting period," as The Two-Way has reported.

The Canadian government introduced the bill in April and it passed a final Senate vote Friday. It includes strict criteria that patients must meet to obtain a doctor's help in dying.

The article is here.

We are zombies rewriting our mental history to feel in control

By Matthew Hutson
Daily News
Originally posted April 15 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Another possibility, one Bear prefers, is that we misperceive the order of events in the moment due to inherent limitations in perceptual processing. To put it another way, our brain isn’t trying to trick us into believing we are in control – just that it struggles to process a rapid sequence of events in the correct order.

Such findings may also imply that many of the choices we believe we make only appear to be signs of free will after the fact.

Everyday examples of this “postdictive illusion of choice” abound. You only think that you consciously decided to scratch an itch, make a deft football play, or blurt out an insult, when really you’re just taking credit for reflexive actions.

The article is here.

Panelists Debate Morality Of Assisted Suicide Bill

By Jenna Rudolfsky
The Cornell Daily Sun
Originally posted April 18, 2016

Panelists from the Cornell Law School hosted a discussion entitled “Death with Dignity” to debate the controversial issue of assisted suicide and pending New York state legislation last Thursday.

If the “Death with Dignity” bill passes, New York will become the sixth state to allow terminally ill patients to end their own lives with prescribed lethal medication, according to MSNBC.

Panelist Prof. Daryl Bem, psychology, whose wife committed assisted suicide, discussed her struggles with Alzheimer’s disease in explaining why he is in favor of assisted suicide.

The article is here.

Canadian Prime Minister Seeks to Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide

By Ian Austen
The New York Times
Originally posted April 14, 2016

The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation on Thursday to legalize physician-assisted suicide for Canadians with serious medical conditions.

The proposed law limits physician-assisted suicides to Canadians and residents, who are eligible to participate in the national health care system, preventing a surge in medical tourism among the dying from other countries. Assisted suicide is legal in only a few American states, including Oregon and Vermont.

Under Canada’s proposed law, people who want to die will be able to either commit suicide with medication provided by their doctors or have the doctors administer the dose. Family members will be allowed to assist patients with their death.

The article is here.

Good News! You're Not an Automaton

By Cass R. Sunstein
Bloomberg View
Originally published March 30, 2016

A good nudge is like a GPS device: A small, low-cost intervention that tells you how to get where you want to go -- and if you don’t like what it says, you're free to ignore it. But when, exactly, will people do that? A new study sheds important light on that question, by showing the clear limits of nudging. Improbably, this research is also good news: It shows that when people feel strongly, it’s not easy to influence them to make choices that they won’t like.

The focus of this new research, as with much recent work on behavioral science, is on what people eat. Numerous studies suggest that if healthy foods are made more visible or convenient to find, more people will choose them. We tend to make purchasing decisions quickly and automatically; if certain foods or drinks -- snickers bars, apples, orange juice -- are easy to see and grab, consumption will jump.

The article is here.

Note: The podcast on nudge theory and how it applies to psychotherapy can be found here.

Right-to-die report will call for prior consent in dementia cases

By Robert Fife and Laura Stone
The Globe and Mail - Ottawa
Originally published February 24, 2016

A special parliamentary committee will propose Parliament adopt a new physician-assisted dying law that includes advance consent for people in early stages of dementia, sources say.

In a report to be tabled in Parliament Thursday, sources say the joint Commons-Senate committee will also address how doctors should deal with people with debilitating mental disorders and young people enduring painful and terminal illnesses.

The report recommends the government should first see how medically assisted dying works with adults before allowing it for children or people with mental illnesses.

The article is here.

People Feel Less Responsible For Their Actions When They're Following Orders

By Katrina Pascual
Tech Times
Originally posted February 19, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Now, the modified experiment, conducted by University College London researchers, reflected the subjects' mental distance from their actions when obeying orders.

"We wanted to know what people actually felt about the action as they made it, and about the outcome. Time perception tells us something about the basic experiences people have when they act, not just about how they think they should have felt," said UCL professor and senior study author Patrick Haggard.

Results showed that when the subjects freely chose the action in coercive orders, there was a longer interval between the action and tone, which is produced when subjects gave their partner an electric shock by pressing a key.

The article is here.

Who Should Have The Right To Die?

By Nerdwriter
Originally posted October 28, 2015

Doctor-assisted suicide continues to be hotly debated in the United States, but the ideas – and specifically the words – used to support it have evolved in fascinating ways. Over nearly a century, there has been a shift away from terms related to death towards a focus on autonomy and dignity, drawing in no small part on the ideas of the 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

Mind Over Masters: The Question of Free Will

World Science Festival
Originally streamed May 30, 2015

Do we make conscious decisions? Or, as many scientists and philosophers argue, are all of our actions predetermined? And if they are predetermined—if we don't have free will—are we responsible for what we do? These are questions that have been debated for centuries, but now neurotechnology is allowing scientists to study brain activity neuron by neuron to try to determine how and when our brains decide to act. With neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers we’ll use the latest findings to explore the question of just how much agency we have in the world, and how the answer impacts our ethics, our behavior, and our society.

Why Free Will Makes No Sense

By Daniel Miessler
danielmiessler.com
Originally posted June 3, 2015

In this short presentation I discuss the flaws with the common and Compatibilist views on Free Will. It covers the following topics:

Definitions
Absolute and Practical Free Will
Experience is Not Reality
Moral Responsibility
The Ability to Do Otherwise
Real-world Implications of Discarding Free Will

Jean-Paul Sartre and Existential Choice

The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre thought that human beings live in anguish. Not because life is terrible. But rather because, we’re ‘condemned to be free’. We're ‘thrown’ into existence, become aware of ourselves, and have to make choices. Even deciding not to choose is a choice. According to Sartre, every choice reveals what we think a human being should be.

Narrated by Stephen Fry. Scripted by Nigel Warburton.

Release date: 13 Apr 2015

Born this way? How high-tech conversion therapy could undermine gay rights

By Andrew Vierra and Brian Earp
The Conversation
Originally published on April 21, 2015

Here is an excerpt:

We fully agree with the President and believe that this is a step in the right direction. Of course, in addition to being unsafe as well as ethically unsound, current conversion therapy approaches aren’t actually effective at doing what they claim to do – changing sexual orientation.

But we also worry that this may be a short-term legislative solution to what is really a conceptual problem.

The question we ought to be asking is “what will happen if and when scientists do end up developing safe and effective technologies that can alter sexual orientation?”

Based on current scientific research, it is not unlikely that medical researchers – in the not-too-distant future – will know enough about the genetic, epigenetic, neurochemical and other brain-level factors that are involved in shaping sexual orientation that these variables could in fact be successfully modified.

The entire article is here.

Traditional and Experimental Approaches to Free Will and Moral Responsibility

By Gunnar Björnsson and Derk Pereboom
Forthc., Justin Sytsma & Wesley Buckwalter (eds.)
Companion to Experimental Philosophy, Blackwell

1. Introduction

From the early days of experimental philosophy, attention has been focused on the problem of free will and moral responsibility. This is a natural topic for this methodology, given its  proximity to the universal concerns of human life, together with the intensity with which the issues are disputed. We’ll begin by introducing the problem and the standard terminology used to frame it in the philosophical context. We’ll then turn to the contributions of experimental philosophy, and the prospects for the use of this methodology in the area.

The problem of free will and moral responsibility arises from a conflict between two  powerful considerations. On the one hand, we human beings typically believe that we are in control of our actions in a particularly weighty sense. We express this sense of difference when we attribute moral responsibility to human beings but not, for example, to machines like thermostats and computers. Traditionally, it’s supposed that moral responsibility requires us to have some type of free will in producing our actions, and hence we assume that humans,  by contrast with such machines, have this sort of free will. At the same time, there are reasons for regarding human beings as relevantly more like mechanical devices than we ordinarily imagine. These reasons stem from various sources: most prominently, from scientific views that consider human beings to be components of nature and therefore governed by natural laws, and from theological concerns that require everything that occurs to be causally determined by God.

One threat to our having the sort of free will required for moral responsibility results from the view that the natural laws are deterministic, which motivates the position that all of our actions are causally determined by factors beyond our control. An action will be causally determined in this way if a process governed by the laws of nature and beginning with causally relevant factors prior to the agent’s coming to be ensures the occurrence of the action. An action will also be causally determined by factors beyond the agent’s control if its occurrence is ensured by a causal process that originates in God’s will and ends with the action. For many contemporary philosophers, the first, naturalistic version of causal determinism about action is a serious possibility, and thus the threat that it poses to our conception of ourselves as morally responsible for our actions is serious and prevalent.

The entire chapter is here.

Parents who wish no further treatment for their child

By M.A. de Vos, A.A. Seeber, S.K.M. Gevers, A.P. Bos, F. Gevers, and D.L. Williams
J Med Ethics 2015;41:195-200 doi:10.1136/medethics-2013-101395

Abstract

Background

In the ethical and clinical literature, cases of parents who want treatment for their child to be withdrawn against the views of the medical team have not received much attention. Yet resolution of such conflicts demands much effort of both the medical team and parents.

Objective

To discuss who can best protect a child's interests, which often becomes a central issue, putting considerable pressure on mutual trust and partnership.

Methods

We describe the case of a 3-year-old boy with acquired brain damage due to autoimmune-mediated encephalitis whose parents wanted to stop treatment. By comparing this case with relevant literature, we systematically explored the pros and cons of sharing end-of-life decisions with parents in cases where treatment is considered futile by parents and not (yet) by physicians.

Conclusions

Sharing end-of-life decisions with parents is a more important duty for physicians than protecting parents from guilt or doubt. Moreover, a request from parents on behalf of their child to discontinue treatment is, and should be, hard to over-rule in cases with significant prognostic uncertainty and/or in cases with divergent opinions within the medical team.

The entire article is here.