The technological revolution has hit the doll aisle this holiday season in the form of artificial intelligence dolls. What does it mean for children’s development, to confuse real bodies with machines?
A team of technologists have joined forces with doctors, lawyers, economists and philosophers to make technology ethical.
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Speaking with: Emrys Westacott on the virtue of frugal living
CC BY-ND32,9 MB(download)
William Isdale speaks with Emrys Westacott about how living simply can bring happiness in an increasingly complex world.
Chancelor Bennett, better known as Chance The Rapper, is donating millions of dollars through his SocialWorks charity to shore up Chicago’s public schools.
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Ted Lechterman, Stanford University McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society
Before you reach for that checkbook or give to a charity online, pause to think about what makes a cause good in the first place.
A Reconciliation Pole is raised at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., in April 2017. The 17-metre red cedar pole tells the story of the time before, during and after the Indian residential school system. Thousands of copper nails representing thousands of Indigenous children who died in Canada’s residential schools were hammered into the pole by survivors, affected families, school children and others.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)
Calls to “indigenize” universities must start with listening - to Indigenous scholars and nations. And real reparation will be painful for settlers, for it will be unsettling.
Chidi (William Jackson Harper) attempts to teach ethics to Eleanor (Kristen Bell) in comedy series The Good Place.
NBC/Ron Batzdorff/IMDB
The Good Place is a high concept comedy about what it takes to be a good person. One of the show’s charms is the way it draws on real philosophers and philosophical dilemmas.
It’s good for scientists to work in glass laboratories.
Len Rubenstein
Science isn’t cold, hard facts uncovered by emotionless robots. Acknowledging how and where values play a role promotes a more realistic view and can advance science’s reputation for reliability.
An expert in artificial intelligence believes we’re not ready for the challenges posed by Saudi Arabia granting a robot citizenship. Key questions about robot identity and rights remain unanswered.
Detail from Divide 2011 by Sam Jinks. Mixed media, 86 x 60 cm,
collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
The quest to create a robot that is indistinguishable from humans has become all-consuming for some scientists, engineers and technicians. The consequences could be both beneficial and catastrophic.
Demonstrators gather at the University of Florida.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The white nationalist’s visit to the University of Florida shows just how messy life’s moral dilemmas can get.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrated his 86th birthday and the unveiling of an arch in his honour outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
The assisted dying bill in Victoria – complex and significant – is engendering less heated debate than marriage equality although both tap into some of our most fundamental fears and motivations.
A product’s calorie label is a common form of nudging behavior.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Government initiatives to prod people to make better decisions got a lot of attention after Richard Thaler won a Nobel in economics for his working on nudging.
Medical assistance in dying has been legal in Canada since July 2016, but there are no ‘specialists’ responsible for doctor-assisted suicide and many doctors are overwhelmed with requests.
(Shutterstock)
More than 2,000 Canadians have chosen medical assistance in dying (MAID) since legalization in 2016. But palliative care doctors aren’t embracing assisted suicide as part of their job.
Archbishop Tutu teaches that punishing wrongdoers, with an eye for an eye, is unjustified.
Filckr/UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre
Archbishop Bishop Desmond Tutu is well known for having invoked an ubuntu ethic to evaluate South African society, and he can take substantial credit for having made the term familiar.
Medical data from space tourists will be fascinating, but is it ethical?
Rick Guidice/NASA
Space terrorism and testing of space tourists are theoretical problems today. But let’s have conversations right now to make sure they don’t become real problems in the future.
For patients with chronic pain, the answer isn’t simple.
Chris Post/AP Photo
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney