Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

Radiolab Podcast: Driverless Dilemma

October 14, 2017

“Most of us would sacrifice one person to save five. It’s a pretty straightforward bit of moral math. But if we have to actually kill that person ourselves, the math gets fuzzy.

“That’s the lesson of the classic Trolley Problem, a moral puzzle that fried our brains in an episode we did about 11 years ago. Luckily, the Trolley Problem has always been little more than a thought experiment, mostly confined to conversations at a certain kind of cocktail party. That is until now. New technologies are forcing that moral quandry out of our philosophy departments and onto our streets. So today we revisit the Trolley Problem and wonder how a two-ton hunk of speeding metal will make moral calculations about life and death that we can’t even figure out ourselves.”

http://www.radiolab.org/story/driverless-dilemma/

MASH Final Episode Scene

October 14, 2017

Similar to the dilemma raised by the trolley car problem: is it right to sacrifice one person to save many?

“Here’s the story: Hawkeye has gone insane and is spending time at a hospital. Throughout the episode, he tells this story about how they were able to go out to a beach and have a great day. Just playing at the beach. They all pile up on a bus to head home. Suddenly, they realise that the enemy is nearby, so they shut off the engine, turned out all the lights and everybody got quiet. Except this woman in the back who has a chicken that won’t get quiet. In this scene, BJ shows up to tell Hawkeye that he (BJ) is going home but can’t because Hawkeye is getting very upset. So BJ calls in the DR.”

SELF-DRIVING CARS WILL KILL PEOPLE. WHO DECIDES WHO DIES?

October 14, 2017

“It’s tempting to hope that someone else will come along and solve the trolley problem. After all, finding a solution requires confronting some uncomfortable truths about one’s moral sensibilities. Imagine, for instance, that driverless cars are governed by a simple rule: minimize casualties. Occasionally, this rule may lead to objectionable results — e.g., mowing down a mother and her two children on the sidewalk rather than hitting four adults who have illegally run into the street. So, the rule might be augmented with a proviso: Minimize casualties, unless one party put itself in danger.”

https://www.wired.com/story/self-driving-cars-will-kill-people-who-decides-who-dies

Using virtual reality to promote empathy

October 14, 2017

This article brings together many concepts from TOK including the role of sense perception and its connection to our emotions as well as the role of perspective in acquiring knowledge and the power of shifting perspectives.

“This article, by leading social entrepreneur Dr Alexandra Ivanovitch, explores how VR works in practice, the cognitive and psychological mechanisms underlying VR, and its potential application in the field of peacebuilding and conflict resolution. She reviews cutting-edge scientific research on how VR creates a “body ownership illusion” and “embodied cognition”, which help us transcend neurophysiological limitations inherent to our own point of view, and to adopt the perspective of another human being. The article also discusses experiments that show VR can reduce biases, build empathy and encourage prosocial behavior. Dr Ivanovitch calls for collaboration between technology, science and art to identify ways that immersive technology can be used to strengthen peace.”

http://www.centerforempathy.org/virtual-reality-the-frontier-of-peacemaking/

Why Postmodern Art is Vacant

September 18, 2017

“Not only are they dull and predictable, but the artistic skill of many of the big names in contemporary art is suspect. Behind the grandiose pieces and the attention grabbing works created purely for shock value lies a very important question: “Where is the skill and ability in all this?” No skill is required to place a rotting cows head in a glass cube with an insect-o-cutor (A Thousand Years by Damien Hirst). No ability is needed to set up a room with a light that switches on and off (Work No. 227: The Lights Going On and Offby Martin Creed, a work that won him the Turner Prize). It is most probably the case that the electrician who installed said lights and the abattoir worker who severed the cow’s head possess more skill and expertise than either Mr. Hirst or Mr. Creed.”

http://quillette.com/2017/09/12/postmodern-art-vacant/

Why ‘killer robots’ are becoming a real threat – and an ethics test

September 17, 2017

More ethical than humans?

Many ethicists and artificial intelligence developers want to ensure people are kept in the loop when lethal force is applied. At the moment, that’s a given, at least from those nations adhering to the law of war. Robots struggle to differentiate between soldiers and civilians in complex battle settings.

But the day may come, some say, when robots are able to be more ethical than human troops, because their judgment wouldn’t be clouded by emotions such vengefulness or self-preservation, which can shape human judgment.

“Unfortunately, humanity has a rather dismal record in ethical behavior in the battlefield,” Ronald Arkin, director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote in a guest blog for the IEEE, a technical professional organization. “Such systems might be capable of reducing civilian casualties and property damage when compared to the performance of human warfighters.”

https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/USA/Military/2017/0831/Why-killer-robots-are-becoming-a-real-threat-and-an-ethics-test

We Legitimize the ‘So-Called’ Confederacy With Our Vocabulary, and That’s a Problem

September 17, 2017

Fascinating article that delves into the role of language and its effect on our understanding of history as well as the present. How is our collective memory shaped by the words we use to describe the past?

“Landis goes on to suggest that we call plantations what they really were—slave labor camps; and drop the use of the term, “the Union.” A common usage in the 19th century to be sure, but now one we only use “the Union” in reference to the Civil War and on the day of the State of the Union address. A better way to speak of the nation during the war, he argues, is to use its name, the United States.”

“As Douglass was already concerned that the victors were losing the war of historical memory to the supposedly vanquished, I am not sure that he would have been surprised that not far from where he stood at the national cemetery—often considered the nation’s most hallowed ground—a Confederate memorial would be built in the early 20th century to the insurgents he felt “struck at the nation’s life.”

“Douglass knew, day-by-day, after the shooting stopped, a history war was playing out. It is clearly not over yet. Words, though they do not stand as marble and bronze memorials in parks and in front of buildings or fly on flagpoles, are perhaps even more powerful and pernicious. The monuments we’ve built with language may, in fact, be even more difficult to tear down.”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/we-legitimize-so-called-confederacy-vocabulary-thats-problem-180964830/#D3DM5FOjKPhcmXuR.01