All posts tagged: Ethical

‘Uncanny Valley’: ICE’s Secret Expansion Plans, Palantir Workers’ Ethical Concerns, and AI Assistants

‘Uncanny Valley’: ICE’s Secret Expansion Plans, Palantir Workers’ Ethical Concerns, and AI Assistants

Published by skeptic

Brian Barrett: They’ve got 80 billion or so to spend 75 billion of that I think they have to spend in the next four years. So yeah, they’re going to keep expanding. And when you think of how much of an impact 3000 agents officers had in Minneapolis alone, that’s like an eighth of the, they can repeat some version of that in a lot of different spots. Leah Feiger: And I’ve been fielding, honestly, shout out to the many local reporters around the country who’ve been contacting me in the last day or so, just to ask questions about the locations that we named that are near them or in their states or cities. And the thing to me that keeps coming up is that in addition to new buildings, they’re getting put into preexisting government buildings, preexisting leases, or that that appears to be the plan. And then we’ve also found that a bunch of these ICE offices are being located near plans for giant immigration detention warehouses, and we’re looking at offices …

Ethical Self-Growth without Ethical Self-Deception

Ethical Self-Growth without Ethical Self-Deception

Published by Sam Flores

One way we who care about living ethically deal with harmful behavior, and the painful and retributive emotions engendered by it, is to recognize that we do not want to return harm-for-harm and then attempt to replace our angry feelings with compassion or another more pro-social emotion. This is, in essence, embodied in the moral injunction to “love your enemy.” But to what extent is this actually possible? And even if it is possible, is it genuine? Should we aspire to rise above retaliation or “returning evil for evil” by consciously substituting love for anger, or is there a deeper cognitive or emotional transformation available to us? Or, should we just stick with retribution and keep the old saw of an eye for an eye? It was a Thanksgiving evening at a shelter in Manhattan and the other volunteer had brought in a big cake that looked like a comical turkey for dessert. The cake was so impressive that we did not want to cut it before the guests arrived (we refused to label the …

How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout – without sending anything to landfill | Ethical and green living

How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout – without sending anything to landfill | Ethical and green living

Published by Sam Flores

Have you even started the new year if you haven’t thought about having a wardrobe clearout? A recent trip to my local supermarket suggests that residents of my home town have been doing just that in their droves, with textile recycling bins overflowing on to the pavements. And we may think donating our unwanted clothes does us a favour while helping out someone else and potentially the environment, but there’s a chance we could be doing the exact opposite. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. “Because our clothing is so overproduced in such large quantities, when you donate to charity, often it’s not getting resold,” says Aja Barber, author of the book Consumed. And she warns that much of our donated clothing won’t end up in the well-intended places we had hoped it would. “[It] will most likely end up in landfill or be exported in the waste colonialism chain, which means our excess volumes end up in countries like Ghana, Kenya …

Laura Jedeed warns: ‘Nothing legal, ethical, or moral about what’s unfolding on America’s streets’

Laura Jedeed warns: ‘Nothing legal, ethical, or moral about what’s unfolding on America’s streets’

Published by Sam Flores

François Picard is pleased to welcome independent journalist Laura Jedeed sharing a piercing exposé of systemic dysfunction, ethical erosion, and authoritarianism blossoming in the US. In an era marked by institutional opacity and profound public distrust, Ms. Jedeed’s firsthand account on Slate of her ICE candidacy offers a rare glimpse into a federal system in utter disarray. Her story sheds a cruel light on the collapse of due process, the normalisation of extreme force, and the silent corrosion of democratic values under the weight of unchecked power. Keywords for this article Source link

What ChatGPT Gets Wrong About Therapy: On The Ethical and Relational Limits of AI as Therapy

What ChatGPT Gets Wrong About Therapy: On The Ethical and Relational Limits of AI as Therapy

Published by Jenni Sidey

ChatGPT plays the role of a therapist. But it is not a particularly good therapist. And to worsen matters, as ChatGPT becomes more widely used, it is starting to interfere with the work we human therapists do. As a clinical psychologist, I treat both individuals and couples. I work with one couple in their late 30s who have a high-conflict relationship. The focus has been mainly on cultivating empathy and recognizing alternative viewpoints, as well as managing conflict calmly. During one session, the male partner rushed into my office and handed me a printout of his exchange with ChatGPT. I shared a knowing glance with his wife before skimming it over. The transcript included his version of an argument they’d had alongside ChatGPT’s commentary. ChatGPT reinforced his view, labeling his wife’s communication as “highly problematic,” “abusive,” and even suggesting traits of “narcissistic personality disorder.” Thus, the first problem with ChatGPT is epistemic: it offers seemingly authoritative interpretations of significant personal matters based on extremely limited, one-sided information. ChatGPT did not know that my male client …

Café Tacvba wants its music off Spotify, citing ethical concerns

Café Tacvba wants its music off Spotify, citing ethical concerns

Published by Sam Flores

Mexican alternative band Café Tacvba is petitioning two of the largest music labels to take its catalog off of Spotify. On Wednesday, the group’s singer Rubén Albarrán made an Instagram post calling on its former labels Universal Music Mexico and Warner Music Mexico to take action. “I delivered letters to the record labels WMM and UMM, which by contract have the exploitation rights of Café Tacvba’s catalog, asking them to remove our music from the platform Stupidfy [sic] because it contradicts our artistic vision and our personal and band ethics,” Albarrán said. He also claimed that the streaming giant invests in weapons manufacturing, runs ads for ICE and uses artificial intelligence in a way that is detrimental to musicians. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek leads an investment group that gave $694 million to the European defense technology startup Helsing in June. “I personally invite our followers to listen to our music on other platforms, or better yet boycott it, and don’t take part in the abuses of power, ongoing wars, violence.” Albarrán added. “It is time …

Brain organoids are helping researchers, but raise ethical questions : Shots

Brain organoids are helping researchers, but raise ethical questions : Shots

Published by Sam Flores

Cross-section of a two-month old cerebral organoid observed under a fluorescence microscope. Institut Pasteur-SupBiotech/NASA hide caption toggle caption Institut Pasteur-SupBiotech/NASA Research on conditions like autism, schizophrenia and even brain cancer increasingly relies on clusters of human cells called brain organoids. These pea-size bits of neural tissue model aspects of human brain development as they grow for months and even years in a lab. They also make many people uneasy, in part because the brain is so closely tied to our sense of self. A group of scientists, ethicists, patient advocates and journalists met for two days in Northern California this fall to discuss how scientists, and society, should proceed. Among the questions: Is it okay to place human organoids in an animal’s brain? Can organoids feel pain? Can they become conscious? Who, if anyone, should regulate this research? “We are talking about an organ that is at the seat of human consciousness. It’s the seat of personality and who we are,” says Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at the Museum of Science, Boston, who attended the …

HUMANISM 101 | Ethical Non-Monogamy and Humanism: The Art of Compersion

HUMANISM 101 | Ethical Non-Monogamy and Humanism: The Art of Compersion

Published by Sam Flores

While on my journey to non-belief, skepticism and secular humanism, I’ve had many epiphanies. The one that may have struck me as the most poignant, at least recently, was when I heard the word “compersion.” It was the kind of ah ha moment of when a word or expression was finally applied to a feeling and emotion I hadn’t yet been able to articulate. Compersion simply means to find joy in someone else’s joy. I learned even more recently that the word itself is specifically related to consensual non-monogamous relationships – which was also a sort of epiphany for me in that I didn’t quite get why it mostly applies to sexual or romantic relationships, as I figured being happy for other people shouldn’t require such specifications. As a humanist, finding joy in other’s joy seems to me to be a foundational principle of humanism itself. But I digress, on to my epiphany… My husband and I were married in March of 2000, when I was barely old enough to drink at 21 and when …