Leonid Bershidsky
Bloomberg.com
Originally posted March 19, 2018
Nectome promises to preserve the brains of terminally ill people in order to turn them into computer simulations -- at some point in the future when such a thing is possible. It's a startup that's easy to mock. 1 Just beyond the mockery, however, lies an important reminder to remain skeptical of modern artificial intelligence technology.
The idea behind Nectome is known to mind uploading enthusiasts (yes, there's an entire culture around the idea, with a number of wealthy foundations backing the research) as "destructive uploading": A brain must be killed to map it. That macabre proposition has resulted in lots of publicity for Nectome, which predictably got lumped together with earlier efforts to deep-freeze millionaires' bodies so they could be revived when technology allows it. Nectome's biggest problem, however, isn't primarily ethical.
The company has developed a way to embalm the brain in a way that keeps all its synapses visible with an electronic microscope. That makes it possible to create a map of all of the brain's neuron connections, a "connectome." Nectome's founders believe that map is the most important element of the reconstructed human brain and that preserving it should keep all of a person's memories intact. But even these mind uploading optimists only expect the first 10,000-neuron network to be reconstructed sometime between 2021 and 2024.
The information is here.
Monday, April 9, 2018
Do Evaluations Rise With Experience?
Kieran O’Connor and Amar Cheema
Psychological Science
First Published March 1, 2018
Abstract
Sequential evaluation is the hallmark of fair review: The same raters assess the merits of applicants, athletes, art, and more using standard criteria. We investigated one important potential contaminant in such ubiquitous decisions: Evaluations become more positive when conducted later in a sequence. In four studies, (a) judges’ ratings of professional dance competitors rose across 20 seasons of a popular television series, (b) university professors gave higher grades when the same course was offered multiple times, and (c) in an experimental test of our hypotheses, evaluations of randomly ordered short stories became more positive over a 2-week sequence. As judges completed repeated evaluations, they experienced more fluent decision making, producing more positive judgments (Study 4 mediation). This seemingly simple bias has widespread and impactful consequences for evaluations of all kinds. We also report four supplementary studies to bolster our findings and address alternative explanations.
The article is here.
Psychological Science
First Published March 1, 2018
Abstract
Sequential evaluation is the hallmark of fair review: The same raters assess the merits of applicants, athletes, art, and more using standard criteria. We investigated one important potential contaminant in such ubiquitous decisions: Evaluations become more positive when conducted later in a sequence. In four studies, (a) judges’ ratings of professional dance competitors rose across 20 seasons of a popular television series, (b) university professors gave higher grades when the same course was offered multiple times, and (c) in an experimental test of our hypotheses, evaluations of randomly ordered short stories became more positive over a 2-week sequence. As judges completed repeated evaluations, they experienced more fluent decision making, producing more positive judgments (Study 4 mediation). This seemingly simple bias has widespread and impactful consequences for evaluations of all kinds. We also report four supplementary studies to bolster our findings and address alternative explanations.
The article is here.
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Can Bots Help Us Deal with Grief?
Evan Selinger
Medium.com
Originally posted March 13, 2018
Here are two excerpts:
Muhammad is under no illusion that he’s speaking with the dead. To the contrary, Muhammad is quick to point out the simulation he created works well when generating scripts of predictable answers, but it has difficulty relating to current events, like a presidential election. In Muhammad’s eyes, this is a feature, not a bug.
Muhammad said that “out of good conscience” he didn’t program the simulation to be surprising, because that capability would deviate too far from the goal of “personality emulation.”
This constraint fascinates me. On the one hand, we’re all creatures of habit. Without habits, people would have to deliberate before acting every single time. This isn’t practically feasible, so habits can be beneficial when they function as shortcuts that spare us from paralysis resulting from overanalysis.
(cut)
The empty chair technique that I’m referring to was popularized by Friedrich Perls (more widely known as Fritz Perls), a founder of Gestalt therapy. The basic setup looks like this: Two chairs are placed near each other; a psychotherapy patient sits in one chair and talks to the other, unoccupied chair. When talking to the empty chair, the patient engages in role-playing and acts as if a person is seated right in front of her — someone to whom she has something to say. After making a statement, launching an accusation, or asking a question, the patient then responds to herself by taking on the absent interlocutor’s perspective.
In the case of unresolved parental issues, the dialog could have the scripted format of the patient saying something to her “mother,” and then having her “mother” respond to what she said, going back and forth in a dialog until something that seems meaningful happens. The prop of an actual chair isn’t always necessary, and the context of the conversations can vary. In a bereavement context, for example, a widow might ask the chair-as-deceased-spouse for advice about what to do in a troubling situation.
The article is here.
Medium.com
Originally posted March 13, 2018
Here are two excerpts:
Muhammad is under no illusion that he’s speaking with the dead. To the contrary, Muhammad is quick to point out the simulation he created works well when generating scripts of predictable answers, but it has difficulty relating to current events, like a presidential election. In Muhammad’s eyes, this is a feature, not a bug.
Muhammad said that “out of good conscience” he didn’t program the simulation to be surprising, because that capability would deviate too far from the goal of “personality emulation.”
This constraint fascinates me. On the one hand, we’re all creatures of habit. Without habits, people would have to deliberate before acting every single time. This isn’t practically feasible, so habits can be beneficial when they function as shortcuts that spare us from paralysis resulting from overanalysis.
(cut)
The empty chair technique that I’m referring to was popularized by Friedrich Perls (more widely known as Fritz Perls), a founder of Gestalt therapy. The basic setup looks like this: Two chairs are placed near each other; a psychotherapy patient sits in one chair and talks to the other, unoccupied chair. When talking to the empty chair, the patient engages in role-playing and acts as if a person is seated right in front of her — someone to whom she has something to say. After making a statement, launching an accusation, or asking a question, the patient then responds to herself by taking on the absent interlocutor’s perspective.
In the case of unresolved parental issues, the dialog could have the scripted format of the patient saying something to her “mother,” and then having her “mother” respond to what she said, going back and forth in a dialog until something that seems meaningful happens. The prop of an actual chair isn’t always necessary, and the context of the conversations can vary. In a bereavement context, for example, a widow might ask the chair-as-deceased-spouse for advice about what to do in a troubling situation.
The article is here.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
The Ethics of Accident-Algorithms for Self-Driving Cars: an Applied Trolley Problem?
Sven Nyholm and Jilles Smids
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
November 2016, Volume 19, Issue 5, pp 1275–1289
Abstract
Self-driving cars hold out the promise of being safer than manually driven cars. Yet they cannot be a 100 % safe. Collisions are sometimes unavoidable. So self-driving cars need to be programmed for how they should respond to scenarios where collisions are highly likely or unavoidable. The accident-scenarios self-driving cars might face have recently been likened to the key examples and dilemmas associated with the trolley problem. In this article, we critically examine this tempting analogy. We identify three important ways in which the ethics of accident-algorithms for self-driving cars and the philosophy of the trolley problem differ from each other. These concern: (i) the basic decision-making situation faced by those who decide how self-driving cars should be programmed to deal with accidents; (ii) moral and legal responsibility; and (iii) decision-making in the face of risks and uncertainty. In discussing these three areas of disanalogy, we isolate and identify a number of basic issues and complexities that arise within the ethics of the programming of self-driving cars.
The article is here.
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
November 2016, Volume 19, Issue 5, pp 1275–1289
Abstract
Self-driving cars hold out the promise of being safer than manually driven cars. Yet they cannot be a 100 % safe. Collisions are sometimes unavoidable. So self-driving cars need to be programmed for how they should respond to scenarios where collisions are highly likely or unavoidable. The accident-scenarios self-driving cars might face have recently been likened to the key examples and dilemmas associated with the trolley problem. In this article, we critically examine this tempting analogy. We identify three important ways in which the ethics of accident-algorithms for self-driving cars and the philosophy of the trolley problem differ from each other. These concern: (i) the basic decision-making situation faced by those who decide how self-driving cars should be programmed to deal with accidents; (ii) moral and legal responsibility; and (iii) decision-making in the face of risks and uncertainty. In discussing these three areas of disanalogy, we isolate and identify a number of basic issues and complexities that arise within the ethics of the programming of self-driving cars.
The article is here.
Friday, April 6, 2018
Complaint: Allina ignored intern’s sexual harassment allegations
Barbara L. Jones
Minnesota Lawyer
Originally published March 7, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Abel’s complaint stems from the practicum at Abbott, partially under Gottlieb’s supervision. She began her practicum in September 2015. According to the complaint, she immediately encountered sexualized conversation with Gottlieb and he attempted to control any conversations she and other students had with anybody other than him.
On her first day at the clinic, Gottlieb took students outside and instructed Abel to lie down in the street, ostensibly to measure a parking space. She refused and Gottlieb told her that “obeying” him would be an area for growth. When speaking with other people, he frequently referred to Abel, of Asian-Indian descent, as “the graduate student of color” or “the brown one.” He also refused to provide her with access to the IT chart system, forcing her to ask him for “favors,” the complaint alleges. Gottlieb repeatedly threatened to fire Abel and other students from the practicum, the complaint said.
Gottlieb spent time in individual supervision sessions with Abel and also group sessions that involved role play. He told students to mimic having sex with him in his role as therapist and tell him he was good in bed, the complaint states. At these times he sometimes had a visible erection, the complaint also says. Abel raised these and other concerns but was brushed off by Abbott personnel, her complaint alleges. Abel asked Dr. Michael Schmitz, the clinical director of hospital-based psychology services, for help but was told that she had to be “emotionally tough” and put up with Gottlieb, the complaint continues. She sought some assistance from Finch, whose job was to assist Gottlieb in the clinical psychology training program and supervise interns. Gottlieb was displeased and threatening about her discussions with Schmitz and Finch, the complaint says.
The article is here.
Minnesota Lawyer
Originally published March 7, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Abel’s complaint stems from the practicum at Abbott, partially under Gottlieb’s supervision. She began her practicum in September 2015. According to the complaint, she immediately encountered sexualized conversation with Gottlieb and he attempted to control any conversations she and other students had with anybody other than him.
On her first day at the clinic, Gottlieb took students outside and instructed Abel to lie down in the street, ostensibly to measure a parking space. She refused and Gottlieb told her that “obeying” him would be an area for growth. When speaking with other people, he frequently referred to Abel, of Asian-Indian descent, as “the graduate student of color” or “the brown one.” He also refused to provide her with access to the IT chart system, forcing her to ask him for “favors,” the complaint alleges. Gottlieb repeatedly threatened to fire Abel and other students from the practicum, the complaint said.
Gottlieb spent time in individual supervision sessions with Abel and also group sessions that involved role play. He told students to mimic having sex with him in his role as therapist and tell him he was good in bed, the complaint states. At these times he sometimes had a visible erection, the complaint also says. Abel raised these and other concerns but was brushed off by Abbott personnel, her complaint alleges. Abel asked Dr. Michael Schmitz, the clinical director of hospital-based psychology services, for help but was told that she had to be “emotionally tough” and put up with Gottlieb, the complaint continues. She sought some assistance from Finch, whose job was to assist Gottlieb in the clinical psychology training program and supervise interns. Gottlieb was displeased and threatening about her discussions with Schmitz and Finch, the complaint says.
The article is here.
Schools are a place for students to grow morally and emotionally — let's encourage them
William Eidtson
The Hill
Originally posted March 10, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
However, if schools were truly a place for students to grow “emotionally and morally,” wouldn’t engaging in a demonstration of solidarity to protest the all too recurrent slaughter of concertgoers, church assemblies, and schoolchildren be one of the most emotionally engaging and morally relevant activities they could undertake?
And if life is all about choices and consequences, wouldn’t the choice to allow students to engage in one of the most cherished traditions of our democracy — namely, political dissent — potentially result in a profound and historically significant educational experience?
The fact is that our educational institutions are often not places that foster emotional and moral growth within students. Why? Part of the reason is because while our schools are pretty good at teaching students how to do things, they fail at teaching why things matter.
School officials tend to assume that if you simply teach students how things work, the “why it’s important” will naturally follow. But this is precisely the opposite of how we learn and grow in the world. People need reasons, stories, and context to direct their skills.
We need the why to give us a context to understand and use the how. We need the why to give us good reasons to learn the how. The why makes the how relevant. The why makes the how endurable. The why makes the how possible.
The article is here.
The Hill
Originally posted March 10, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
However, if schools were truly a place for students to grow “emotionally and morally,” wouldn’t engaging in a demonstration of solidarity to protest the all too recurrent slaughter of concertgoers, church assemblies, and schoolchildren be one of the most emotionally engaging and morally relevant activities they could undertake?
And if life is all about choices and consequences, wouldn’t the choice to allow students to engage in one of the most cherished traditions of our democracy — namely, political dissent — potentially result in a profound and historically significant educational experience?
The fact is that our educational institutions are often not places that foster emotional and moral growth within students. Why? Part of the reason is because while our schools are pretty good at teaching students how to do things, they fail at teaching why things matter.
School officials tend to assume that if you simply teach students how things work, the “why it’s important” will naturally follow. But this is precisely the opposite of how we learn and grow in the world. People need reasons, stories, and context to direct their skills.
We need the why to give us a context to understand and use the how. We need the why to give us good reasons to learn the how. The why makes the how relevant. The why makes the how endurable. The why makes the how possible.
The article is here.
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Would You Opt for Immortality?
Michael Shermer
Quillette
Originally posted March 2, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The idea of living forever, in fact, is not such a radical idea when you consider the fact that the vast majority of people already believe that they will do so in the next life. Since the late 1990s Gallup has consistently found that between 72 and 83 percent of Americans believe in heaven. Globally, rates of belief in heaven in other countries typically lag behind those found in America, but they are nonetheless robust. A 2011 Ipsos/Reuters poll, for example, found that of 18,829 people surveyed across 23 countries,2 51 percent said they were convinced that an afterlife exists, ranging from a high of 62 percent of Indonesians and 52 percent of South Africans and Turks, to a low of 28 percent of Brazilians and only 3 percent of the very secular Swedes.
So powerful and pervasive are such convictions that even a third of agnostics and atheists proclaim belief in an afterlife. Say what? A 2014 survey conducted by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture on 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60 found that 13.2 percent identify as atheist or agnostic, and 32 percent of those answered in the affirmative to the question: “Do you think there is life, or some sort of conscious existence, after death?”
Depending on what these people believe about what, exactly, is resurrected in the next life—just your soul, or both your body and your soul—the belief among religious people that “you” will continue indefinitely in some form in the hereafter is not so different in principle from what the scientific immortalists are trying to accomplish in the here and now.
The article is here.
Quillette
Originally posted March 2, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The idea of living forever, in fact, is not such a radical idea when you consider the fact that the vast majority of people already believe that they will do so in the next life. Since the late 1990s Gallup has consistently found that between 72 and 83 percent of Americans believe in heaven. Globally, rates of belief in heaven in other countries typically lag behind those found in America, but they are nonetheless robust. A 2011 Ipsos/Reuters poll, for example, found that of 18,829 people surveyed across 23 countries,2 51 percent said they were convinced that an afterlife exists, ranging from a high of 62 percent of Indonesians and 52 percent of South Africans and Turks, to a low of 28 percent of Brazilians and only 3 percent of the very secular Swedes.
So powerful and pervasive are such convictions that even a third of agnostics and atheists proclaim belief in an afterlife. Say what? A 2014 survey conducted by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture on 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60 found that 13.2 percent identify as atheist or agnostic, and 32 percent of those answered in the affirmative to the question: “Do you think there is life, or some sort of conscious existence, after death?”
Depending on what these people believe about what, exactly, is resurrected in the next life—just your soul, or both your body and your soul—the belief among religious people that “you” will continue indefinitely in some form in the hereafter is not so different in principle from what the scientific immortalists are trying to accomplish in the here and now.
The article is here.
Moral Injury and Religiosity in US Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms
Harold Koenig and others
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease: February 28, 2018
Abstract
Moral injury (MI) involves feelings of shame, grief, meaninglessness, and remorse from having violated core moral beliefs related to traumatic experiences. This multisite cross-sectional study examined the association between religious involvement (RI) and MI symptoms, mediators of the relationship, and the modifying effects of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity in 373 US veterans with PTSD symptoms who served in a combat theater. Assessed were demographic, military, religious, physical, social, behavioral, and psychological characteristics using standard measures of RI, MI symptoms, PTSD, depression, and anxiety. MI was widespread, with over 90% reporting high levels of at least one MI symptom and the majority reporting at least five symptoms or more. In the overall sample, religiosity was inversely related to MI in bivariate analyses (r = −0.25, p < 0.0001) and multivariate analyses (B = −0.40, p = 0.001); however, this relationship was present only among veterans with severe PTSD (B = −0.65, p = 0.0003). These findings have relevance for the care of veterans with PTSD.
The paper is here.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease: February 28, 2018
Abstract
Moral injury (MI) involves feelings of shame, grief, meaninglessness, and remorse from having violated core moral beliefs related to traumatic experiences. This multisite cross-sectional study examined the association between religious involvement (RI) and MI symptoms, mediators of the relationship, and the modifying effects of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity in 373 US veterans with PTSD symptoms who served in a combat theater. Assessed were demographic, military, religious, physical, social, behavioral, and psychological characteristics using standard measures of RI, MI symptoms, PTSD, depression, and anxiety. MI was widespread, with over 90% reporting high levels of at least one MI symptom and the majority reporting at least five symptoms or more. In the overall sample, religiosity was inversely related to MI in bivariate analyses (r = −0.25, p < 0.0001) and multivariate analyses (B = −0.40, p = 0.001); however, this relationship was present only among veterans with severe PTSD (B = −0.65, p = 0.0003). These findings have relevance for the care of veterans with PTSD.
The paper is here.
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Musk and Zuckerberg are fighting over whether we rule technology—or it rules us
Michael Coren
Quartz.com
Originally posted April 1, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Musk wants to rein in AI, which he calls “a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Zuckerberg has dismissed such views calling their proponents “naysayers.” During a Facebook live stream last July, he added, “In some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible.” Musk was quick to retort on Twitter. “I’ve talked to Mark about this,” he wrote. “His understanding of the subject is limited.”
Both men’s views on the risks and rewards of technology are embodied in their respective companies. Zuckerberg has famously embraced the motto “Move fast and break things.” That served Facebook well as it exploded from a college campus experiment in 2004 to an aggregator of the internet for more than 2 billion users.
Facebook has treated the world as an infinite experiment, a game of low-stakes, high-volume tests that reliably generate profits, if not always progress. Zuckerberg’s main concern has been to deliver the fruits of digital technology to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. “I have pretty strong opinions on this,” Zuckerberg has said. “I am optimistic. I think you can build things and the world gets better.”
The information is here.
Quartz.com
Originally posted April 1, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Musk wants to rein in AI, which he calls “a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Zuckerberg has dismissed such views calling their proponents “naysayers.” During a Facebook live stream last July, he added, “In some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible.” Musk was quick to retort on Twitter. “I’ve talked to Mark about this,” he wrote. “His understanding of the subject is limited.”
Both men’s views on the risks and rewards of technology are embodied in their respective companies. Zuckerberg has famously embraced the motto “Move fast and break things.” That served Facebook well as it exploded from a college campus experiment in 2004 to an aggregator of the internet for more than 2 billion users.
Facebook has treated the world as an infinite experiment, a game of low-stakes, high-volume tests that reliably generate profits, if not always progress. Zuckerberg’s main concern has been to deliver the fruits of digital technology to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. “I have pretty strong opinions on this,” Zuckerberg has said. “I am optimistic. I think you can build things and the world gets better.”
The information is here.
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