The irony of the ethical scandal enveloping Joichi Ito, the former director of the MIT Media Lab, is that he used to lead academic initiatives on ethics. After the revelation of his financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier charged with sex trafficking underage girls as young as 14, Ito resigned from multiple roles at MIT, a visiting professorship at Harvard Law School, and the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the New York Times Company.
Many spectators are puzzled by Ito’s influential role as an ethicist of artificial intelligence. Indeed, his initiatives were crucial in establishing the discourse of “ethical AI” that is now ubiquitous in academia and in the mainstream press. In 2016, then-President Barack Obama described him as an “expert” on AI and ethics. Since 2017, Ito financed many projects through the $27 million Ethics and Governance of AI Fund, an initiative anchored by the MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. What was all the talk of “ethics” really about?
For 14 months, I worked as a graduate student researcher in Ito’s group on AI ethics at […]
Monday, December 30th, 2019
Isabella Kaminiski, Staff Writer - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: This is very good news for several reasons: 1) It sets the Netherlands on a course that fosters wellbeing; 2) It is an early but important model of how in a democracy social transformation that fosters wellbeing concerning climate change can be accomplished; 3) It is proof of a change in consciousness in the Netherlands, and one of several proofs that this is happening all over Europe, and the Nordic countries; 4) It provides a legal precedent that can be cited in subsequent legal actions.
Climate protesters at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport last weekend. Credit: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters
The Netherlands’ supreme court has upheld a ruling ordering the country’s government to do much more to cut carbon emissions, after a six-year fight for climate justice.
The court ruled that the government had explicit duties to protect its citizens’ human rights in the face of climate change and must reduce emissions by at least 25% compared with 1990 levels by the end of 2020.
The non-profit Urgenda Foundation, which brought the case, welcomed the “groundbreaking” judgment. The original judgment in 2015 was seen as a landmark in the then nascent field of climate litigation, and inspired similar cases across the world, from Pakistan to New Zealand.
David Boyd, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said it was “the most important climate change court decision in the world so far, confirming that human rights are jeopardised by the climate emergency and that wealthy nations are legally obligated to achieve rapid and […]
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Sunday, December 29th, 2019
Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger, National Security Reporter | National Security Correspondent - The New York Times
Stephan: The United States each year spends more on its Defense Budget than the next seven countries, including Russia and China, combined. And yet we have come to this. What is wrong with this picture?
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, center, and his defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, second from left, on Thursday at the National Defense Control Center in Moscow where they watched a video of the launch of a hypersonic weapon.
Credit: Michael Klimentyev
WASHINGTON — The Russian military on Friday said it had deployed a hypersonic weapon that flies at superfast speeds and can easily evade American missile defense systems, potentially setting off a new chapter in the long arms race between the world’s pre-eminent nuclear powers.
American officials said Friday they have little doubt that the Russians have a working hypersonic weapon — which sits on top of a modified missile and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead at speeds faster than 3,800 miles per hour.
Moscow has been working on the technology for years and has invested heavily in it, determined to reverse the pattern in the Cold War, when it was often struggling to catch up with American nuclear weapons systems. If […]
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Sunday, December 29th, 2019
, - Time/Associated Press
Stephan: It is becoming ever more obvious that the United States is no longer the unchallenged leader in science and technology. Here is why I say this.
ABOARD YUANWANG-3, June 25, 2019 — Staff members work during a maritime monitoring mission of the satellite launch on China’s spacecraft tracking ship Yuanwang-3, June 25, 2019. China sent a satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province Tuesday. Yuanwang-3, China’s second-generation space tracking ship, has completed maritime monitoring mission of the satellite launch from the the southern Pacific Ocean.Credit: by Liu Shiping/Xinhua via Getty
BEIJING — China said Friday its Beidou Navigation Satellite System that emulates the U.S. Global Positioning System will be completed with the launch of its final two satellites in the first half of next year.
Project director Ran Chengqi told reporters that the core of the positioning system was completed this month with the launch of additional satellites bringing its total constellation to 24.
That was up from 19 the year before, making it one of rising space power China’s most complex projects.
Ran described the system at a rare news conference as having “high performance indicators, new technology systems, […]
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