The coming of bioethics to Singapore / W. Calvin Ho and Sylvia S.N. Lim -- The impact of the bioethics advisory committee on the research community in Singapore / Charmaine K.M. Chan and Edison T. Liu -- Engaging the public : the role of the media / Chang Ai-Lien and Judith Tan -- Confucian trust and the biomedical regulatory framework in Singapore / Anh Tuan Nuyen -- The clinician-researcher : a servant of two masters? / Alastair V. Campbell, (...) Jacqueline Chin, and Teck Chuan Voo -- The US model for oversight of human stem cell research / Lindsay Parham and Bernard Lo -- Genetics and stem cell research : models of international policy-making / Bartha Maria Knoppers, Emily Kirby and Rosario Isasi -- Public engagement and bioethics commissions / Thomas H. Murray and Ross S. White -- Norm-making on human-animal chimeras and hybrids in Singapore, the United Kingdom and the international domain / W. Calvin Ho and Martin Bobrow -- How will future bioethical issues engage Singapore? / John Elliott. (shrink)

Member States of the United Nations proposed Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, emphasizing the well-being of people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. Countries are expected to work diligently to achieve these goals by the year 2030. The paths chosen to achieve the SDGs depend on each country’s specific needs, challenges, and opportunities. This contribution conducts a bibliometric study of selected SDG research related to hunger and climate change among countries of the North Asia Pacific region. A review of (...) literature related to the seventeen SDGs is provided to update the current research in SDGs as a background for the regional bibliometric search. The academic published literature related to this work were collected and text mined to create a research database for trend analysis. In this research, the natural language model KeyBERT and a text mining algorithm for normalized term frequency were used to extract key terminologies for bibliometric analysis. The study provides an overview of the seventeen SDGs in the literature review and then focuses on SDG 2 (zero hunger) and SDG 13 (climate action) publication trends. These two SDGs are in close alignment with sustainable food systems and agricultural development. The conclusion indicates that greater cooperation (SDG 17) is critical to improving the quality of life within the region and in building an ethical framework that restricts external exploitation of resources that benefit newly developed economies over developing economies. (shrink)

Chez Saint-Simon, la substitution d'une réorganisation sociale et d'un autre rapport à la nature à l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme, de l'administration des choses au gouvernement des hommes, entre autres, ont pris corps théoriquement en partant de l'expérience plutôt que de 'raisonnements a priori' (Le Producteur, oct. 1825 - oct. 1826). De la lecture de ses Œuvres éditées pour la première fois en 2012 en Œuvres complètes émergent des liens entre action et pensée, corps et esprit. Le saint-simonisme (1825-1835) apparaît, (...) au lendemain de la Révolution de Juillet, comme un 'espace-temps' élargi aux prolétaires et aux femmes attirés par cette 'nouvelle et puissante doctrine', prêts à s'impliquer dans la pratique de ces liens et les discussions dramatiques entre les deux 'Pères', Bazard et Enfantin (sur la 'question de la femme', les rapports internes et externes - silence sur les émeutes des canuts lyonnais). Saint-Simon et le saint-simonisme ont été /sont des 'passe-frontières' entre les sexes, les cultures, les états (réciprocité des échanges avec la Toscane pré-unitaire et l'Allemagne des intellectuels post-hégeliens). À la promesse 'd'être sincères en tout', véritable leitmotiv du saint-simonisme, les 'prolétaires saint-simoniennes' ont répondu en créant un mouvement autonome où vivre leur désir de ne pas séparer cœur, corps et esprit, 'dans la foi religieuse qui nous donne la force de vaincre' (La femme libre, 1832) ; par la création de cette forme sociale-politique et l'audace de leur pensée, elles ont précédé les hommes ; leurs écrits et ceux de leurs proches (Cl. Démar, S. Voilquin) nous bouleversent encore. Des formes de créativité étonnamment populaires sont nées en Provence sur les décombres de la société d'ordre, telles les chansons provençales de V. Gelu à Marseille (1837-1855) et ses 'Notes biographiques' écrites en français (rééditées en partie à la fin XXe siècle), tel Le marquis des Saffras, roman du saint-simonien J. de la Madelène (1849) réédité plusieurs fois. Femmes et hommes se réfèrant au 'vrai', chez lesquels la totalité de l'être est engagée dans le sillage de Saint-Simon, n'inventent-ils pas le politique moderne à l'encontre des codes et des chartes fustigés par Cl. Démar (1833)? Le saint-simonisme n'a-t-il pas été la matrice de la sociologie avec la découverte du rapport à l'autre, dégagée du moralisme étouffant du 'Me siècle (S. Zweig), peut-être articulée à la naissance du féminisme? N'a-t-il pas généré une nouvelle manière de penser que la Ille République aurait tenté d'annihiler (imposition du positivisme comme philosophie centrale) et les prémices de la découverte freudienne?"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Based on the expanded theory of planned behavior, this study first explores the configuration relationship between founder management and innovation by using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Based on the theory of planned behavior, this study divides the behavior intention of founders into three categories: Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. Using fsQCA, we found that there are two ways to achieve high innovation input of enterprises. In combination with the two ways, the factors such as male and highly (...) educated founder, and large firm size can effectively increase the innovation input of firms, which is consistent with the three aspects of the behavioral intention of the theory of planned behavior, and it proves that the theory of planned behavior can effectively explain the configuration relation between the founder and firm innovation. In addition, this study finds that the innovation output is different from the innovation input, is dependent on the innovation ability of the firm itself, and is less influenced by the external environment. (shrink)

This study is an attempt to construct a quantitative link for international regimes with global leadership. The country's willingness to lead in solving global issues as the first mover in the formation of an international regime is measured and characterized by analyzing their ratification behavior in multilateral conventions deposited to the United Nations which shape of the global community. For this purpose, a set of quantitative indicators, the Index of Global Leadership Willingness and the Global Support Index, was defined and (...) calculated for each country based on its actual ratification year data for 120 multilateral conventions covering global issues such as peace and security, environment, commerce, communication, intellectual property protection, human rights, and labor. By proposing a framework of global leadership analysis, the study seeks to provide an empirical testing of the transformation of global governance towards cooperation without hegemony paradigm. The paper analyses changes in the leadership willingness indices of selected country groups, such as the G3, G7/8, and G20, over the century and finds that the will to drive the international agenda of these groups of leaders is in decline. Moreover, our study provides evidence to argue that our current world is actually without consistent global leadership across domains of the world affairs. Although several countries still show visible leadership in specific policy domains, such as environment and intellectual property, neither the G7/8 nor the G20 was playing a comparable role to those performed by the G3 a hundred years ago. (shrink)

Le débat scientifique sur la réalité du changement climatique a ses imposteurs. Mais, en matière d'environnement, les plus grandes impostures se situent dans le champ politique.Lorsque l'écologie émerge dans le débat public au début des années 1970, les grandes puissances économiques comprennent qu'un danger se profile. Alors que la mondialisation du capitalisme se met en place grâce à la stratégie du libre échange, l'écologie politique pourrait remettre en cause le productivisme, l'intensification du commerce international et les délocalisations de l'industrie vers (...) les pays à bas coût de main-d'ouvre. Avant même que la communauté internationale ne se réunisse pour débattre des crises environnementales, les tenants de la mondialisation rédigent les conclusions : aucune mesure de protection de l'environnement ne devra entraver le commerce.Depuis plus de quatre décennies, depuis que la question environnementale a émergé dans les débats nationaux et dans les préoccupations internationales, un pacte tacite s'est instauré, qui n'a pas manqué de duper : au sein des gouvernements, des institutions internationales, lors des grands sommets, ne seraient prises que des mesures cosmétiques, ne portant pas atteinte au libre échange et à la mondialisation. Il est grand temps de faire tomber les masques et de raconter en détail l'histoire politique, totalement méconnue, qui révèle la supercherie d'une prétendue conversion à l'écologie des grands de notre monde. (shrink)

AimsThis preliminary study aimed to investigate therapy-induced electrophysiological changes in persons with primary progressive aphasia. The investigated event-related potential components associated with language processing were the mismatch negativity, P300, N400, and P600.MethodsA linguistic ERP test battery and standardized language assessment were administered in four patients with PPA of which two received speech-language therapy and two did not receive therapy. The battery was administered twice with approximately 6 months in between in each patient. The results of the follow-up assessments were compared (...) to the results of the initial assessments.ResultsAlthough the results of the behavioral language assessment remained relatively stable between the initial and follow-up assessments, changes in the mean amplitudes, onset latencies, and duration of the ERP components were found in the four patients. In the two patients that did not receive SLT, an increased delay in 50% and a decreased mean amplitude in 25% of the measured ERP components were found. The electrophysiological changes found in the patients that received SLT were variable. Interestingly, the mismatch negativity and the N400 effect elicited by the categorical priming paradigm were less delayed and had an increased mean amplitude at the follow-up assessment in the patient with the non-fluent variant who received SLT. In this patient, the P600 component was absent at the initial assessment but present at the follow-up assessment.ConclusionAlthough no clear patterns in electrophysiological changes between patients who received SLT and patients who did not receive SLT were found by our preliminary study, it seems like the SLT induced improvements or compensation mechanisms in some specific language comprehension processes in the patient with the NFV. The results of this study are still preliminary because only four heterogeneous patients were included. Future studies should include larger patient groups of the three clinical variants because the therapy-induced electrophysiological changes might differ depending on the clinical variant and the underlying pathology. (shrink)

Ultrasonic excitation has been widely used in the detection of microcracks on metal surfaces, but there are problems such as poor excitation effect of ultrasonic pulse, long time to reach the best excitation, and difficult to find microcracks. In this paper, an adaptive ultrasonic pulse excitation device and infrared thermal imaging technology have been combined, as well as their control method, to solve the problem. The adaptive ultrasonic pulse excitation device adds intelligent modules to realize automatic adjustment of detection parameters, (...) which can quickly obtain reliable excitation; the multidegree-of-freedom base realizes the three-dimensional direction change of the ultrasonic gun to adapt to different excitation occasions. When the appropriate ultrasonic excitation makes microcracks in the resonance state, the microcracks can be frictionated, which produce heat rise with the temperature. Then, the microcrack defect can be detected by the infrared thermal instrument through the different surface temperatures with imaging recognition method. Our detection experiments of the titanium alloy plates and the aluminum alloy profiles of marine engineering show that the method can get reliable detection parameters in a short time and measure the crack length effectively. It can be used in many aspects such as crack detection in mechanical structures or complex equipment operating conditions and industrial production processes. (shrink)

Integrity and research ethics are cherished institutions in academic world. Although most societies have rules and codes that govern ethical conducts in research, few studies have provided quantitative evidence on the impacts of these regulations and codes on the behaviors of researchers. In the context of a nationwide anti-corruption campaign in China, this paper evaluates the changes of principal investigators’ reimbursement behavior in a leading university when new reimbursement policies were introduced. Utilizing a novel grant dataset and a regression discontinuity (...) design, we find that the new policies lowered PIs’ monthly average amount of reimbursement from research grants by 35%, which can be interpreted as a reduction in grant misuse. Following speculations we argue that institutionalizing orchestrated efforts on grant management, payroll systems, and research integrity education is in the right direction toward building China into a true scientific power. (shrink)

This article examines the ethical validity of using viability as the cutoff point for abortion in the Netherlands, in view of potential changes to the Dutch perinatal care guideline. According to the Dutch Penal Code, abortion is permitted until viability: the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb with technological assistance. Since the law was enacted in 1984, viability has been set at 24 weeks gestational age. Currently, in the Netherlands, the treatment limit for extreme prematurity is (...) also set at 24 weeks. The potential revision of the guideline could lower this threshold. Such a change could have implications for abortion in the Netherlands. We critically evaluate the use of viability within the Dutch context and offer recommendations for modifying the legal framework concerning abortion. We conclude that relying on any interpretation of viability is morally problematic for abortion regulation, as it is too indeterminate a concept to establish a threshold in a morally relevant way. (shrink)

La conscience africaine se voit trop souvent caractérisée par son immédiateté et son innocence. Un chef d'État français n'a-t-il d'ailleurs pas récemment déclaré aux élites intellectuelles africaines, à l'université de Dakar, que leur continent n'était pas assez entré dans l'Histoire? Au-delà de ces clichés, comment penser l'Afrique noire dans un monde où l'Occident a prétendu pendant plus de cinq siècles dominer tant les échanges commerciaux que les échanges d'idées? Dans une démarche à la fois anthropologique, historique et philosophique, Alfred Adler (...) répond à cette question en s'intéressant à l'oeuvre d'Hegel. Ce penseur a, en effet, été convoqué par de nombreux philosophes africains tant pour utiliser sa dialectique libératrice que pour réfuter son discours professoral sur l'Afrique qui pâtissait de ses préjugés. Revenir vers le texte hégélien afin d'en extraire la substance intellectuelle toujours vivante et stimulante en la confrontant à l'histoire de l'Afrique, en particulier les empires de Ghana et Songhay : tel est l'objet de cet ouvrage. En se confrontant à l'"essence" de l'homme africain selon Hegel et à l'idée qu'en Afrique, il n'y a pas de place pour l'éclosion des idées, Alfred Adler nous invite à théoriser une histoire et une conscience propres à ce continent. À l'Afrique, dès lors, de s'inventer un destin. (shrink)

In this article we analyse the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play, and is playing, to combat global climate change. We identify two crucial opportunities that AI offers in this domain: it can help improve and expand current understanding of climate change and it contribute to combating the climate crisis effectively. However, the development of AI also raises two sets of problems when considering climate change: the possible exacerbation of social and ethical challenges already associated with AI, and the (...) contribution to climate change of the greenhouse gases emitted by training data and computation-intensive AI systems. We assess the carbon footprint of AI research, and the factors that influence AI’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this domain. We find that the carbon footprint of AI research may be significant and highlight the need for more evidence concerning the trade-off between the GHG emissions generated by AI research and the energy and resource efficiency gains that AI can offer. In light of our analysis, we argue that leveraging the opportunities offered by AI for global climate change whilst limiting its risks is a gambit which requires responsive, evidence-based and effective governance to become a winning strategy. We conclude by identifying the European Union as being especially well-placed to play a leading role in this policy response and provide 13 recommendations that are designed to identify and harness the opportunities of AI for combating climate change, while reducing its impact on the environment. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play, and is playing, to combat global climate change. We identify two crucial opportunities that AI offers in this domain: it can help improve and expand current understanding of climate change, and it can contribute to combatting the climate crisis effectively. However, the development of AI also raises two sets of problems when considering climate change: the possible exacerbation of social and ethical challenges already associated with AI, and (...) the contribution to climate change of the greenhouse gases emitted by training data and computation-intensive AI systems. We assess the carbon footprint of AI research, and the factors that influence AI’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this domain. We find that the carbon footprint of AI research may be significant and highlight the need for more evidence concerning the trade-off between the GHG emissions generated by AI research and the energy and resource efficiency gains that AI can offer. In light of our analysis, we argue that leveraging the opportunities offered by AI for global climate change whilst limiting its risks is a gambit which requires responsive, evidence-based, and effective governance to become a winning strategy. We conclude by identifying the European Union as being especially well-placed to play a leading role in this policy response and provide 13 recommendations that are designed to identify and harness the opportunities of AI for combatting climate change, while reducing its impact on the environment. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse the role that artificial intelligence (AI) could play, and is playing, to combat global climate change. We identify two crucial opportunities that AI offers in this domain: it can help improve and expand current understanding of climate change, and it can contribute to combatting the climate crisis effectively. However, the development of AI also raises two sets of problems when considering climate change: the possible exacerbation of social and ethical challenges already associated with AI, and (...) the contribution to climate change of the greenhouse gases emitted by training data and computation-intensive AI systems. We assess the carbon footprint of AI research, and the factors that influence AI’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this domain. We find that the carbon footprint of AI research may be significant and highlight the need for more evidence concerning the trade-off between the GHG emissions generated by AI research and the energy and resource efficiency gains that AI can offer. In light of our analysis, we argue that leveraging the opportunities offered by AI for global climate change whilst limiting its risks is a gambit which requires responsive, evidence-based, and effective governance to become a winning strategy. We conclude by identifying the European Union as being especially well-placed to play a leading role in this policy response and provide 13 recommendations that are designed to identify and harness the opportunities of AI for combatting climate change, while reducing its impact on the environment. (shrink)

Riassunto: La filosofia originale cinese è una sublimazione della coscienza culturale umana di base - la coscienza della vita e della riproduzione - che è l’unificazione del “Concetto di yin e yang” e del “Concetto di ciclo di vita “ in cui “lo yin e lo yang si uniscono per creare tutte le cose, e il ciclio dà una vita senza fine. La cultura originale cinese determina la visione filosofica, la visione artistica, il temperamento emotivo, la benessere psicologica e lo (...) spirito nazionale della nazione cinese. Il sistema filosofico cinese, che rappresenta l’unificazione della cosmologia, dell’epistemologia e della metodologia della nazione cinese, è un sistema filosofico completo e maturo che si è formato nella società tardo primitiva molto prima delle Dinastie Xia, Shang e Zhou. La cultura originale cinese, dalla cultura della ceramica dipinta di 7.000 anni fa fino ai giorni nostri, dalla cultura archeologica sotterranea alla cultura di massa terrestre, è un concetto ampio di belle arti, determinato da una visione filosofica dell’arte plastica di osservare gli oggetti e prendere immmagini. La cultura originale e la filosofia originale della Cina primitiva sono ancora conservate in un’eredità storica estremamente ricca e completa nella vita sociale della cultura di massa. Per questo motivo la Cina è l’unico Paese tra le civiltà antiche che non aver subito una frattura culturale. (shrink)

Research from cognitive science and geoscience education has shown that sketching can improve spatial thinking skills and facilitate solving spatially complex problems. Yet sketching is rarely implemented in introductory geosciences courses, due to time needed to grade sketches and lack of materials that incorporate cognitive science research. Here, we report a design-centered, collaborative effort, between geoscientists, cognitive scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers, to characterize spatial learning challenges in geoscience and to design sketch activities that use a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. We (...) developed 26 CogSketch worksheets that use cognitive science–based principles to scaffold problem solving of spatially complex geoscience problems and report observations of an implementation in an introductory geoscience course where students used CogSketch or human-graded paper worksheets. Overall, this research highlights the principles of interdisciplinary design between cognitive scientists, geoscientists, and AI researchers that can inform the collaborative design process for others aiming to develop effective educational materials. (shrink)

Various walking speeds may induce different responses on the plantar pressure patterns. Current methods used to analyze plantar pressure patterns are linear and ignore nonlinear features. The purpose of this study was to analyze the complexity of plantar pressure images after walking at various speeds using nonlinear bidimensional multiscale entropy. Twelve participants were recruited for walking at three speeds for 20 minutes. A plantar pressure measurement system was used to measure plantar pressure patterns. Complexity index, a summation of MSE2D from (...) all time scales, was used to quantify the changes of complexity of plantar pressure images. The analysis of variance with repeated measures and Fisher’s least significant difference correction were used to examine the results of this study. The results showed that CI of plantar pressure images of 1.8 mph was significantly lower compared with 3.6 and 5.4 mph. The results also showed that CI significantly increased from the 1st min to the 10th min and 20th min with slow walking. Our results indicate that slow walking at 1.8 mph may not be good for postural control compared with moderate walking and fast walking. This study demonstrates that bidimensional multiscale entropy is able to quantify complexity changes of plantar pressure images after different walking speeds. (shrink)

Evidence suggests divergent thinking is the cognitive basis of creative thoughts. Neuroimaging literature using resting-state functional connectivity has revealed network reorganizations during divergent thinking. Recent studies have revealed the changes of network organizations when performing creativity tasks, but such brain reconfigurations may be prolonged after task and be modulated by the trait of creativity. To investigate the dynamic reconfiguration, 40 young participants were recruited to perform consecutive Alternative Uses Tasks for divergent thinking and two resting-state scans were used for mapping (...) the brain reorganizations after AUT. We split participants into high- and low-creative groups based on creative achievement questionnaire and targeted on reconfigurations of the two brain networks: default-mode network and the network seeded at the left inferior frontal gyrus because the between-group difference of AUT-induced brain activation located at the left IFG. The changes of post-AUT RSFCs indicated the prolonged effect of divergent thinking. More specifically, the alterations of RSFCIFG−AG and RSFCIFG−IPL in the high-creative group had positive relationship with their AUT performances, but not found in the low-creative group. Furthermore, the RSFC changes of DMN did not present significant relationships with AUT performances. The findings not only confirmed the possibility of brain dynamic reconfiguration following divergent thinking, but also suggested the distinct IFGN reconfiguration between individuals with different creativity levels. (shrink)

Many studies have reported neural correlates of visual awareness across several brain regions, including the sensory, parietal, and frontal areas. In most of these studies, participants were instructed to explicitly report their perceptual experience through a button press or verbal report. It is conceivable, however, that explicit reporting itself may trigger specific neural responses that can confound the direct examination of the neural correlates of visual awareness. This suggests the need to assess visual awareness without explicit reporting. One way to (...) achieve this is to develop a technique to predict the visual awareness of participants based on their peripheral responses. Here, we used eye movements and pupil sizes to decode trial-by-trial changes in the awareness of a stimulus whose visibility was deteriorated due to adaptation-induced blindness. In the experiment, participants judged whether they perceived a target stimulus and rated the confidence they had in their perceptual judgment, while their eye movements and pupil sizes were recorded. We found that not only perceptual decision but also perceptual confidence can be separately decoded from the eye movement and pupil size. We discuss the potential of this technique with regard to assessing visual awareness in future neuroimaging experiments. (shrink)

Visual programming language is a crucial part of learning programming. On this basis, it is essential to use visual programming to lower the learning threshold for students to learn about artificial intelligence to meet current demands in higher education. Therefore, a 3-h AI course with an RGB-to-HSL learning task was implemented; the results of which were used to analyze university students from two different disciplines. Valid data were collected for 65 students in the Science -student group and 39 students in (...) the Humanities -student group. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to analyze the difference between cognitive styles and computational thinking. No significant differences in either cognitive style or computational thinking ability were found after the AI course, indicating that taking visual AI courses lowers the learning threshold for students and makes it possible for them to take more difficult AI courses, which in turn effectively helping them acquire AI knowledge, which is crucial for cultivating talent in the field of AI. (shrink)

The development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) is and will profoundly reshape human society, the culture and the composition of civilisations which make up human kind. All technological triggers tend to drive a hype curve which over time is realised by an output which is often unexpected, taking both pessimistic and optimistic perspectives and actions of drivers, contributors and enablers on a journey where the ultimate destination may be unclear. In this paper we hypothesise that this journey is not (...) dissimilar to the personal journey described by the Kubler-Ross change curve and illustrate this by commentary on the potential of AI for drug discovery, development and healthcare and as an enabler for deep space exploration and colonisation. Recent advances in the call for regulation to ensure development of safety measures associated with machine-based learning are presented which, together with regulation of the rapidly emerging digital after-life industry, should provide a platform for realising the full potential benefit of AI for the human species. (shrink)

Japan has more robots than any other country with robots contributing to many areas of society, including manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, few studies have examined Japanese attitudes toward robots, and none has used implicit measures. This study compares attitudes among the faculty of a US and a Japanese university. Although the Japanese faculty reported many more experiences with robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties had more pleasant associations with humans. In addition, although the US faculty reported people were more (...) threatening than robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties associated weapons more strongly with robots than with humans. Despite the media’s hype about Japan’s robot ‘craze,’ response similarities suggest factors other than attitude better explain robot adoption. These include differences in history and religion, personal and human identity, economic structure, professional specialization, and government policy. Japanese robotics offers a unique reference from which other nations may learn. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly relied upon by clinicians for making diagnostic and treatment decisions, playing an important role in imaging, diagnosis, risk analysis, lifestyle monitoring, and health information management. While research has identified biases in healthcare AI systems and proposed technical solutions to address these, we argue that effective solutions require human engagement. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on how to motivate the adoption of these solutions and promote investment in designing AI systems that align with values (...) such as transparency and fairness from the outset. Drawing on insights from psychological theories, we assert the need to understand the values that underlie decisions made by individuals involved in creating and deploying AI systems. We describe how this understanding can be leveraged to increase engagement with de-biasing and fairness-enhancing practices within the AI healthcare industry, ultimately leading to sustained behavioral change via autonomy-supportive communication strategies rooted in motivational and social psychology theories. In developing these pathways to engagement, we consider the norms and needs that govern the AI healthcare domain, and we evaluate incentives for maintaining the status quo against economic, legal, and social incentives for behavior change in line with transparency and fairness values. (shrink)

Given the current popularization of computer programming and the trends of informatization and digitization, colleges have actively responded by making programming lessons compulsory for students of all disciplines. However, students from different ethnic groups often have different learning responses to such lessons due to their respective cultural backgrounds, the environment in which they grew up, and their consideration for future employment. In this study, an AI-assisted programming module was developed and used to compare the differences between multi-ethnic college students in (...) terms of their theoretical and actual learning expectancy, motivation, and effectiveness. The module conducted analysis through the deep learning network and examined the relevant processes that the students underwent during programming lessons, as well as the types of errors they had committed. Their learning motivation for and actual learning performance in programming were then examined based on the cognitive learning theory. The results of the experiment, which involved 96 multi-ethnic college students, indicated that the two groups had dissimilar theoretical performance in terms of their expectancy and motivation for learning programming. The indigenous students’ main concern was whether programming would affect their families or tribes, and this concern affected and was reflected in their learning outcomes. In contrast, the learning motivation and goals of Han Chinese students were driven by the cognition of the value of programming to themselves. The research findings can contribute toward the cognition and understanding of multi-ethnic students when learning computer programming and development of the appropriate teaching methods, and serve as a reference for subsequent research on integrating multiculturalism into computer programming lessons. (shrink)

The EU proposal for the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) defines four risk categories: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal. However, as these categories statically depend on broad fields of application of AI, the risk magnitude may be wrongly estimated, and the AIA may not be enforced effectively. This problem is particularly challenging when it comes to regulating general-purpose AI (GPAI), which has versatile and often unpredictable applications. Recent amendments to the compromise text, though introducing context-specific assessments, remain insufficient. To address this, (...) we propose applying the risk categories to specific AI scenarios, rather than solely to fields of application, using a risk assessment model that integrates the AIA with the risk approach arising from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and related literature. This model enables the estimation of the magnitude of AI risk by considering the interaction between (a) risk determinants, (b) individual drivers of determinants, and (c) multiple risk types. We use large language models (LLMs) as an example. (shrink)

Advancements in machine learning have fuelled the popularity of using AI decision algorithms in procedures such as bail hearings, medical diagnoses and recruitment. Academic articles, policy texts, and popularizing books alike warn that such algorithms tend to be opaque: they do not provide explanations for their outcomes. Building on a causal account of transparency and opacity as well as recent work on the value of causal explanation, I formulate a moral concern for opaque algorithms that is yet to receive a (...) systematic treatment in the literature: when such algorithms are used in life-changing decisions, they can obstruct us from effectively shaping our lives according to our goals and preferences, thus undermining our autonomy. I argue that this concern deserves closer attention as it furnishes the call for transparency in algorithmic decision-making with both new tools and new challenges. (shrink)

The ethics of artificial intelligence is an upcoming field of research that deals with the ethical assessment of emerging AI applications and addresses the new kinds of moral questions that the advent of AI raises. The argument presented in this article is that, even though there exist different approaches and subfields within the ethics of AI, the field resembles a critical theory. Just like a critical theory, the ethics of AI aims to diagnose as well as change society and is (...) fundamentally concerned with human emancipation and empowerment. This is shown through a power analysis that defines the most commonly addressed ethical principles and topics within the field of AI ethics as either to do with relational power or with dispositional power. Moreover, it is concluded that recognizing AI ethics as a critical theory and borrowing insights from the tradition of critical theory can help the field forward. (shrink)

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) defines four risk categories for AI systems: unacceptable, high, limited, and minimal. However, it lacks a clear methodology for the assessment of these risks in concrete situations. Risks are broadly categorized based on the application areas of AI systems and ambiguous risk factors. This paper suggests a methodology for assessing AI risk magnitudes, focusing on the construction of real-world risk scenarios. To this scope, we propose to integrate the AIA with a framework developed by (...) the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and related literature. This approach enables a nuanced analysis of AI risk by exploring the interplay between (a) risk determinants, (b) individual drivers of determinants, and (c) multiple risk types. We further refine the proposed methodology by applying a proportionality test to balance the competing values involved in AI risk assessment. Finally, we present three uses of this approach under the AIA: to implement the Regulation, to assess the significance of risks, and to develop internal risk management systems for AI deployers. (shrink)

The ability to interact in a natural language profoundly changes devices’ interfaces and potential applications of speaking technologies. Concurrently, this phenomenon challenges our mainstream theories of knowledge, such as how to analyze linguistic outputs of devices under existing anthropocentric theoretical assumptions. In section 1, I present the topic of machines that speak, connecting between Descartes and Generative AI. In section 2, I argue that accepted testimonial theories of knowledge and justification commonly reject the possibility that a speaking technological artifact can (...) give testimony. In section 3, I identify three assumptions underlying the view that rejects conversational AIs – AI-based technologies that converse, as testifiers: conversational AIs (1) lack intentions, (2) cannot be normatively assessed, and (3) cannot constitute an object in trust relations, while humans can. In section 4, I propose the concept ‘AI-testimony’ for analyzing outputs of conversational AIs, suggesting three conditions for technologies to deliver AI-testimony: (1) content is propositional, (2) generated and delivered with no other human directly involved, (3) the output is perceived as phenomenologically similar to that of a human. I conclude that this concept overcomes the limitations of the anthropocentric concept of testimony, opening future directions of research without associating conversational AIs with human-like agency. (shrink)

Democracy is widely praised as a great achievement of humanity. However, in recent years there has been an increasing amount of concern that its functioning across the world may be eroding. In response, efforts to combat such change are emerging. Considering the pervasiveness of technology and its increasing capabilities, it is no surprise that there has been much focus on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to this end. Questions as to how AI can be best utilized to extend the (...) reach of democracy to currently non-democratic countries, how the involvement in the democratic process of certain demographic groups (e.g. ethnic minorities, women, and young people) can be increased, etc. are frequent topics of discussion. In this article I would like not merely to question whether this is desirable but rather argue that we should be trying to envisage ways of using AI for the exact opposite purpose: that of replacing democratic systems with better alternatives. (shrink)

Social media (SM) influence young adults’ communication practices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used for making recommendations on SM. Yet, its effects on different generations of SM users are unknown. SM can use AI recommendations to sort texts and prioritize them, shaping users’ online and offline experiences. Current literature primarily addresses technological or human-user perspectives, overlooking cognitive perspectives. This research aims to propose methods for mapping users’ interactions with AI recommendations (AiRS) and analyzes how embodied interactions mediated by a digital (...) agent can lead to changes in social and cultural practices. For this, this work proposes a comparative analysis of central practices evoked by AI recommendations-mediated communication on SM among users in Italy, Estonia, and the Netherlands in the age category 18–26 years old. The data used in the comparative analysis was collected via semi-structured interviews and elaborated based on cognitive psychology and semiotics. This research highlights the contextual significance of AI recommendations as a mediator in creating new communication practices. Findings confirm that young adults often choose practices that would enhance their digital representations according to AiRS’ dominant patterns and categories. AiRS impacts individual interpretations and practices and can further affect social and cultural levels. (shrink)

Historically, the dynamic between philosophy of artificial intelligence and its practical application has been essential for the development of both, and thus the encounter between theory of AI and architectural/urban theory should be a site of considerable productivity. However, in many ways, it is not. This is due to two primary factors, one arising from each side of this encounter. First, legacies of overly-anthropomorphic models of AI permeate design discourses, where issues of how well AI can be constrained to social (...) issues of philosophy of mind exclude more foundational and cross-cultural questions about artificial intelligence as material process in the physical world that could inform new philosophical insights. Concurrently, the mobilization of investment in “Smart Cities” discourses dominates the space of application of AI at urban scale in ways that prematurely fixes solutions in the skeuomorphic image of architectural and urban conventions. To break this impasse, we held a series of think-tanks, workshops, and design charettes that brought together leading figures in philosophy of artificial intelligence, urban design, and commercial AI platforms. The goal was to re-think from first principles how alternative philosophical models of AI as a distributed, discontinuous, landscape-scale technology in a direct encounter with the applications in contexts of ecological sensing, automation’s impact on urban form, and issues of algorithmic governance. The design brief for this research establishes a generative framework for conceiving how embedded machine sensing and intelligence is already changing urban form and could change it in the future. The framework focuses on issues of urban zoning and architectural programming, data modeling and governance, platform cognition and design, and how these inform shifts in dynamics of public and private institutions. (shrink)