“While specialists are calling it breakthrough technology, critics of assisted reproductive technology (ART) warn doctors about playing God.
“The US team at New Hope Fertility Clinic in New York, led by Dr John Zhang, had to travel to their Mexico clinic in Guadalajara to carry out the procedure, which is effectively banned in the United States.”
“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.”
“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
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/
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.”
The show Thirteen Reasons Why raises some interesting issues regarding ethical responsibility of content producers and networks that broadcast content that may have “deleterious effects” on their viewers. This also raises interesting questions about the value and power of art.
A new study reveals that internet searches for suicide skyrocketed in the wake of the show’s release.
The question is whether this particular study, or any of the allegations that the show directly led to copycat suicides and suicide attempts, will be enough of an impetus for the show’s producers to respond. The study’s authors suggest that editing out the scene of Hannah Baker’s suicide from the show and adding information about suicide hotlines to episodes could immediately minimize some of 13 Reasons Why’s “deleterious effects.” Netflix’s response to the study, though, indicated no such moves would be forthcoming. “We always believed this show would increase discussion around this tough subject matter,” the company said in a statement. “This is an interesting quasi-experimental study that confirms this. We are looking forward to more research and taking everything we learn to heart as we prepare for Season 2.” Netflix declined interview requests from The Atlantic regarding the show.
“Designer babies, the end of diseases, genetically modified humans that never age. Outrageous things that used to be science fiction are suddenly becoming reality. The only thing we know for sure is that things will change irreversibly.”
Should we bring back the wooly mammoth? Or edit a human embryo? Or wipe out an entire species that we consider harmful? The genome-editing technology CRISPR has made extraordinary questions like these legitimate — but how does it work? Scientist and community lab advocate Ellen Jorgensen is on a mission to explain the myths and realities of CRISPR, hype-free, to the non-scientists among us.
“In a report laden with caveats and notes of caution, the group endorsed the alteration of human eggs, sperm and embryos — but only to prevent babies from being born with genes known to cause serious diseases and disability, only when no “reasonable alternative” exists, and only when a plan is in place to track the effects of the procedure through multiple generations.
“Human genetic engineering for any reason has long been seen as an ethical minefield. Many scientists fear that the techniques used to prevent genetic diseases might also be used to enhance intelligence or create humans physically suited to particular tasks, like soldiers.”
Petition to have Edward Snowden pardoned along with white house response
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden
Pardon Edward Snowden
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/pardon-edward-snowden.html
Op-ed: Why President Obama won’t, and shouldn’t, pardon Snowden
A former US gov’t lawyer and current Harvard Law professor makes the case.
Edward Snowden makes ‘moral’ case for presidential pardon
Why Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden
https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-obama-should-pardon-edward-snowden
Three Years Later: How Snowden Helped the U.S. Intelligence Community
https://www.lawfareblog.com/three-years-later-how-snowden-helped-us-intelligence-community
No Pardon for Edward Snowden
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440096/edward-snowden-pardon-opposition
Another Pardon Snowden website
https://www.pardonsnowden.org/
No pardon for Edward Snowden
A site that allows you to judge how you’d respond to various moral dilemmas created by “intelligent” machines like driverless cars.
TOK Topics 