Scientific Fraud Is Slippery to Catch—but Easier to Combat
[ad_1] Like much of the internet, PubPeer is the sort of place where you might want to be anonymous. There, under randomly assigned taxonomic names like Actinopolyspora biskrensis (a bacterium) and Hoya camphorifolia (a…
Algorithms Need Management Training, Too
[ad_1] The European Union is expected to finalize the Platform Work Directive, its new legislation to regulate digital labor platforms, this month. This is the first law proposed at the European…
Would You Sell Your Extra Kidney?
[ad_1] When we were teenagers, my brother and I received kidney transplants six days apart. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. He, two years older, was scheduled to receive…
The Crispr Baby Scientist Is Back. Here’s What He’s Doing Next
[ad_1] Some scientists and ethicists think He deserves a chance to prove that he’s capable of producing scientifically valid and ethically sound work. “His case is publicly known enough that…
3 Ways to Tame ChatGPT
[ad_1] This year, we’ve seen the introduction of powerful generative AI systems that have the ability to create images and text on demand. At the same time, regulators are on…
San Francisco Has Reversed Its Killer Robot Plan
[ad_1] A week is a long time in politics—particularly when considering whether it’s okay to grant robots the right to kill humans on the streets of San Francisco. In late…
Effective Altruism Is Pushing a Dangerous Brand of ‘AI Safety’
[ad_1] Since then, the quest to proliferate larger and larger language models has accelerated, and many of the dangers we warned about, such as outputting hateful text and disinformation en…
The Bruce Willis Deepfake Is Everyone’s Problem
[ad_1] For some experts, this transferability could lead to people losing control of their “personality” as firms take full ownership of their identity rather than just a licensed use for…
The US Needs to Recognize Intimate Privacy as a Civil Right
[ad_1] Underlying Bedoya’s argument—and that of James in the Jack’d case—are the antidiscrimination principles governing modern civil rights laws. Under state and federal law, powerful entities, both public and private,…
Why Therapy Is Broken | WIRED
[ad_1] Even for people who have the time and money to choose, it’s hard to know what to look for. In the absence of a referral or personal recommendation, many…
The Woman Who Became a Company Has Lessons for a Post-Roe World
[ad_1] In 2014, Jennifer Lyn Morone decided to protect her data in the only way she could as an individual: She incorporated herself. Jennifer Lyn Morone Inc. operates as a…
An Effort to ID Tulsa Race Massacre Victims Raises Privacy Issues
[ad_1] But this is far from the first time family members’ genetic material has been used to put names to unidentified remains. Scientists around the world have used DNA to…
The Three-City Problem of Modern Life
[ad_1] But today there is a third city affecting the other two. Silicon Valley, this third city, is not governed primarily by reason (it is practically the mark of a…
Boycotting Russian Scientists Is a Hollow Victory
[ad_1] “What should we do about our Russian colleagues?” asked the senior scientist in the audience. It’s early summer and 100 degrees in Chicago. I was giving a keynote at…
How Does Queerness Fit Into the US Census?
[ad_1] How does a data set like the US census deal with people who defy its expectations? How can a data set encompass those its designers never imagined? These questions…
If Humans Went Extinct, Would a Similar Species Evolve?
[ad_1] The rise of powerful new technology means that humanity must confront the risk of its own demise. The invention of nuclear weaponry, for example, has already shown just how…
How to Stop Robots From Becoming Racist
[ad_1] In 2017, Holliday contributed to a RAND report warning that resolving bias in machine learning requires hiring diverse teams and cannot be fixed through technical means alone. In 2020,…
The Future Could Be Blissful—If Humans Don’t Go Extinct First
[ad_1] Or we might want to have strong regulation around which AI systems are deployed, such that you can only use it if you really understand what’s going on under…
The Unintended Consequences of OTC Hearing Aids
[ad_1] I have nearly 98 percent hearing loss in both ears. For over 30 years, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on my hearing aids, costs that were partially subsided by…
How Can Society Prepare for the Moral Norms of Tomorrow?
[ad_1] One way of embracing this uncertainty is to adopt a stance of axiological open-mindedness toward the future. We can get a sense of what this might entail by considering…
In Humanity’s Collective Unconscious, the Body Is a Bad Dream
[ad_1] The first images that I tried to generate from Dall-E Mini were of cartoon characters getting colonoscopies. The website, now called Craiyon, houses an artificial intelligence model that turns…
Embryonic Research Could Be the Next Target After ‘Roe’
[ad_1] Two weeks after the US Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion, Ye Yuan heard from a woman who wanted to reverse her decision to donate her…