Why We Should and How to Successfully Legalize Voluntary Active Euthanasia

Imagine a patient of a terminal illness. Their life could be full of suffering and pain. If the satisfaction that they get out of living the rest of their life is not worth the suffering, it may be more humane, with their request, to end their pain and suffering.

 

Voluntary active euthanasia is the intentional administration of medications to cause a patient’s death at the patient’s request with full informed consent. Despite it being a humane option to end the life of terminally ill patients, it is not currently legal in the United States.

 

One might ask: “If voluntary active euthanasia is simply a way to reduce the length of the pain and suffering that a terminally ill patient goes through at the end of their life, then why is it not a legal option for these poor people to choose?”

 

Some practical problems arise if voluntary active euthanasia is legalized. Ezekiel J. Emmanuel, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health and former professor at Harvard Medical School, believes that there will be many problems associated with the significant emotional burdens on physicians who perform euthanasia and that there would be the potential for abuse: coercion for patients to choose euthanasia due to financial or other external reasons, as well as the possibility of premature euthanasia for patients that still have a possibility with recovery. Therefore, he insists that the possible harms would be too great to allow the legalization of voluntary active euthanasia to take place.

 

Therefore, for the legalization of voluntary active euthanasia to successfully take place, we must also introduce solutions to these problems to ensure the wellbeing of both physicians and patients.

 

The potential psychological pressures from carrying out euthanasia would not be universal. Emmanuel notes that, the emotional burden from carrying out euthanasia would only be faced by some physicians. Therefore, for those physicians who are uncomfortable with carrying out euthanasia for their patients, there should be an option for them to decline carrying out euthanasia or to refer their patient to another physician who is willing to provide the means of relief from pain and suffering. In the long term, if voluntary euthanasia were legalized, the problem of emotional burdens should be mitigated, as physicians would be more comfortable with carrying out euthanasia if their colleagues did.

 

The potential problems of abuse with the legalization of voluntary active euthanasia can be solved through further legislation. Franklin G. Miller, another member of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, has proposed concurrent policies with that of the legalization of voluntary active euthanasia to help solve these potential problems. He suggests that each request for voluntary active euthanasia must be reviewed by a “duly appointed committee” to prevent abuse. According to Miller, “The major functions of the committee would be (1) to confirm that a patient requesting assistance in dying is terminally ill, (2) to assure that the patient is capable, and (3) that her or his request for assistance in dying is genuinely voluntary. Physicians receiving a request for euthanasia and the committee would need to probe whether the request is the result of a treatable depression or other psychiatric disorder, or inappropriate influence.” Therefore, the first role of the function of the committee would be to ensure that premature euthanasia would not be carried out, and if the committee concludes that the patient is not terminally ill, there may be hope for the patient to find a cure. This would also prevent cases of abuse where patients who only suffer from treatable conditions but feel suicidal from accessing a means of death. The second and third roles of the committee would prevent cases of euthanasia without full informed consent, and ensure that the patient is mentally competent in making the permanent decision, as well as identify instances of coercion. The committee would then require a psychiatrist who would be able to verify the mental state of the patient. Therefore, the concurrent policy of introducing a committee to review requests for euthanasia should be a safeguard against premature euthanasia and abuse.

Finally, with these policies to protect both physicians and patients involved in the process of voluntary active euthanasia, it is necessary to address the issue of voluntary active euthanasia in the media and courts to receive the required attention of legislators to make this change. Then, those that experience needless pain and suffering at the end of their life would have a legal and dignified option of relief.

Reducing Teen Pregnancy Rates with Life-Planning over Sex-Ed

The United States ranks first in teenage pregnancy among developed countries. According to a recent study, 72.2 girls out of 1000 between the ages of fifteen and nineteen in the United States experience teenage pregnancy with the closest leader being France with 25.7 girls per 1000.

This monumental discrepancy between the situation of the United States and that of other first-world countries shows something is fundamentally wrong with American schooling. Such a situation as an unwanted pregnancy is detrimental to the psychological and emotional well-being of a young woman often leading to depression.

How can the United States reform its educational system to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies? A solution to this dilemma can save young adolescents from the hardships of parenthood and allow them to fulfill every aspect of human life in its appropriate time.

Elaine Borawski believes she can eliminate the issue of teenage pregnancy with abstinence-based sexual education. According to her, the only way to ensure a decrease in the rate of adolescent pregnancy in the United States is to promote the practice of abstinence from sexual encounters until one has found a life-long partner. She argues constant exposure to the dangers of engaging in sexual relations will keep teens away from this popular activity and directed toward professional education.

Borawski wants her program to focus on the “physical, emotional, psychological, and economic consequences of early sexual activity” with special emphasis on how unwanted pregnancy can interfere with life goals. Her proposed curriculum “presents virginity as a “gift” that is shared in marriage at a time when individuals are more prepared for sexual relationships.” According to her, one must pursue sexuality in a responsible manner which only comes through the maturity and life experience obtained at adulthood. By proposing the abstinence until marriage program, Borawski aims to reduce the rate of teen pregnancy while placing young minds on the path toward a professional career.

The problem with Borawski’s solution is that it actually makes the issue of teen pregnancy worse. Preaching that virginity is a “gift” proves to be ineffective in getting adolescents to abstain from intercourse as they would be defiant toward their instructors who seem to want to control their lives.

According to a testimony given by Beth Leyba, the abstinence-only system does not reduce the rate of pregnancy among adolescents rather it increases it. After explaining her attempt to pursue abstinence, Leyba states: “I found myself in a romantic relationship that became more and more physical over time. My boyfriend and I were dating for a year before we allowed things to get too hot and heavy one day.” The reason Borawski’s system doesn’t work is that it seeks to suppress the natural sexual instinct of adolescents who find themselves hungry to explore this new realm they have access to. Even though Leyba tried to control her sexual impulses, eventually she could not tame something as natural as breathing or eating.

Borawski’s method is deeply flawed in assuming teens would merely listen to her beliefs on the virtues of virginity and abstinence and incorporate them to their personal lives. Contemplating the drastic implications of Borawski’s approach, her method would actually worsen the rate of teenage pregnancy by motivating students to defy their instructors and partake in sexual activity.

The part that Borawski partially got right is the mission of getting students to think about their future. Nevertheless, preaching life-goals in a sex-ed environment would be counterproductive as teens would not listen to adults that seem to want to control their lives. I say the most effective way to diminish rates of adolescent pregnancy is to establish a life-planning course independent of sexual education where students can learn to plot their path in life without listening to teachers preach about sex. I find this innovative approach would encourage them to make wise decisions for the sake of their future such as not engaging in un-safe sexual practices.

By knowing they should not enter parenthood at their age, I believe students would independently choose to not jeopardize their path to success thereby reducing rates of teen pregnancy. If schools implement this method, students would know to have children when they can support a family and provide them a decent lifestyle. Teens who incorporate the teachings of this life-planning course would have more successful futures involving professional education and familial satisfaction. By not preaching to students about what they should or should not do, they would feel as if they are making their own decisions rather that following their instructors’ orders. In striving to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy, the most efficient approach is establishing a life-planning course independent of sexual education where adolescents end up making the decision of not engaging in un-safe sexual activity on their own based on their particular dreams and aspirations.

The issue of teenage pregnancy in the United States is more significant than that of the rest of the leading developed countries. Borawski offers a solution consisting of teaching adolescents to practice abstinence until marriage thereby eliminating the risk of an early pregnancy. Nevertheless, her proposed mechanism of preaching her beliefs proves to actually worsen rates of teen pregnancy leading to increased birth rates.

I propose instituting a life-planning course independent of sexual education where students make their own decision of not participating in un-safe sexual activity based on their vision of achieving their dreams and aspirations. This life-planning class encourages adolescents to pursue higher education so that they can eventually provide a decent lifestyle for their families instead of acting spontaneously based on sexual instinct.

If the United States seeks to reform its educational system to prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies, it must establish this life-planning course nationwide whereby teens would choose not to approach parenthood until further into their adult lives.

KAUST is not the solution to education reform Saudi Arabia needs now

 

Historically, Saudi Arabia has lagged behind other modern countries like the United States in its treatment of women. Legally, women in Saudi Arabia cannot take out credit cards in their own name, marry without the permission of a male relative, or even exit and enter the country without a letter of permission from a male guardian.

The most visible restriction placed on men and women alike in Saudi society is gender segregation – because of which female students are disadvantaged when it comes to both primary and higher education. Because of gender segregation, Saudi schools and universities usually need to build separate campuses for both men and women to prevent ikhtilat, an Arabic word for the mixing of genders. While there are plenty of schools and universities built for men, the women’s side of education often falls to the wayside. For example, out of fifteen university campuses in the capital city of Riyadh, only two have programs open to women, and there is only one all-female university.

Clearly, reform is need in the Saudi education system to level the playing field for both men and women when it comes to schooling.

One attempt at education reform is the introduction of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).  KAUST is the first fully co-educational university, with no strict uniform or dress code, to be introduced to Saudi society; a stark contrast to the uniform-abiding, strictly gender segregated universities that are the standard. KAUST aims to create an “enduring model of advanced education” and help in “promoting the economic development and social prosperity of the people of the Kingdom” in the words of King Abdullah himself.  

Saudi liberals praise the introduction of KAUST. In the words of the liberals, KAUST “enjoys the patronage of the ruler, promotes science, leads to progress and women’s emancipation as well as incorporates nationalism, and is a way of dismantling the walls of isolation”. However, how much progress does KAUST really make in “dismantling the walls of isolation” in Saudi society?

One of the missions of KAUST is to “attract people from Saudi Arabia and around the world” and create a more diverse academic environment, so a cap on the number of Saudi nationals allowed in the student body is put at 50 percent. However, this cap has proven to be unnecessary, because Saudi students fill a mere 15 percent of the 50 percent. The Saudi enrollment has clearly fallen far below the expectations of the founders of KAUST. If we look at the enrollment of Saudi women specifically KAUST’s failures are even more present . Thirty-five percent of the entire student population at KAUST is made up of women, so assuming that the population of women is evenly distributed among all of the nationalities present at KAUST, the population of female Saudi students at KAUST is, at best, 35 percent of 15 percent of the student body.

The paltry enrollment numbers of Saudi students show that, really, KAUST is not the great, ideal solution that Saudi liberals and the late King said it would be. The idea of KAUST is clearly not taking rooting with Saudi nationals, and especially with Saudi women.

Why? Because Saudi society is simply not ready for a university like KAUST.

One of KAUST’s main aims is to attract female Saudi students to level educational quality for males and females. The target audience here – female Saudi liberals, who would be willing to come to a campus like KAUST – of the same line of thinking as Saudi liberals, make up the smallest group of female Saudi youth. A majority of female Saudis hold fast to their religion and are accepting of modernization attempts (like KAUST) only so long as they aren’t seen as “un-Islamic.” In a conservatively religious-dominated society like Saudi Arabia, “un-Islamic” definitely includes the idea of female and male students mixing and talking freely without veil. The approach of KAUST and Saudi cultural liberals is a huge leap from the more conservative thinking of a majority of Saudis.

A more reasonable approach would appeal to the religious perspective on ikhtilat held by Saudi society, but still allow change by incorporating some of the liberals’ ideas instead of just jumping to the liberals’ ideal vision.

Saudi officials who want effective reform should look to schools that have campuses shared by both male and female students, but fall short of allowing free mixing. One such school is the Manarat school in the capital city of Riyadh. Male and female students share one campus that’s connected by a courtyard for breaks and recess. In the girls’ branch, female students must wear long brown skirts with a tucked in blouse and are not allowed to wear any type of makeup that is not naturally colored. In the boy’s branch, all male students must wear slacks with a dress shirt, and are forbidden from wearing jewelry of any kind or growing their hair beyond a certain length. All classes are held separately for boys and girls but the two groups of students are free to mix during breaks.

This type of campus appeals in part to the idea of veiling that’s held closely by Saudi society – by ensuring all students wear an acceptably conservative uniform, all students can preserve modesty while in front of each other. By allowing mixing only during breaks, this type of campus is not such a big step forward that it alienates a lot of Saudi nationals, but is still a step forward however seemingly small. Most importantly, it is a step forward that is far more likely to be accepted by Saudi society.

While an institution like KAUST might be the ideal that Saudis should strive for,  we need to recognize that Saudi society cannot currently accept a university like KAUST. Small steps forward instead of leaps are needed for effective educational reform.

We Need a (safe) Kidney Market, Taking Care of Vendor Health

The United States prohibited the sale of kidneys just over 30 years ago, so the only way for someone with renal kidney failure to get a kidney is to be on a waitlist until they are able to get a donated kidney from a live donor or a cadaver. There is a relatively low number of donations because these are the only ways to get kidneys; as a result, there are currently over 93,000 people on the waitlist and a death toll of about 4,500 due to kidney failure per year of just those on the waitlist.

This deadly shortage has led many people to go overseas to buy kidneys in illegal black markets. People are more willing to sell kidneys than to donate them, which is why wealthy individuals often choose to purchase a kidney instead of waiting for a donation that may or may not come in time.

In order to fix this organ shortage and reduce the unnecessarily high number of preventable deaths we are witnessing, we need a legal market for the sale of kidneys and not just the donation of kidneys.

However, before being able to legalize a market, we have to address the problem with the treatment of kidney vendors, people who sell a kidney, in current black markets. For example, in her article about organ trafficking in Lebanon, Magdalena Mis quotes an organ trafficker, Abu Jaafar, to show us the way that middlemen or organ traffickers care for and think of their clients:

“I don’t really care if the [vendor] dies as long as I got what I wanted. It’s not my problem what happens next as long as the client gets paid.” (Mis 1)

As a result of such attitudes, vendors often experience postoperative long-term debilitating effects or mental issues like chronic depression or anxiousness because they are unable to get adequate health care and the organ traffickers don’t care enough to help their clients in such a way. The health effects this brings upon vendors often cause them to live subpar lives as a result of not receiving proper health care after their operation.

For this reason, we must establish regulations in order to prevent such abuses from persisting into a legal market here in the U.S. My suggestion is to make people legally obligated to receive postoperative health care because this would greatly reduce the risk of vendors experiencing any health issues. By forcing vendors to receive treatment they would not experience the same issues as kidney vendors in black markets at the same rate or degree of severity.

This would work for U.S residents, but as A.K Israni and his co-authors point out in their article about increasing organ donations: There is “donor risk in returning to a country without access to adequate post-transplant care.”

Israni is right to raise this objection because organ traffickers could and likely would send people to the U.S to sell a kidney and then bring them back to their home country and continue to deny the vendors the postoperative care they need. This is an important point because it could lead to many of the same issues we see now and we could end up doing nothing for vendor health by legalizing a market in the manner that I suggested. I think that Israni’s point of concern is exactly what we need to focus on when finding a way to institute a market because the objective is to preserve vendor health and reduce the number of people dying on the waitlist at the same time.

Israni’s proposal is that we only allow U.S residents or green card holders to sell kidneys because it would prevent foreign organ traffickers from further exploiting kidney vendors and we would sustain high quality and easily accessible health care for vendors. This would eliminate the risk of people being imported for kidney vending, and it would also reduce the health risks facing vendors in today’s black markets. This means that Israni’s proposal would effectively reduce vendor health risks while also increasing the number of available kidneys.

Unfortunately, there is yet another concern to be raised, which is that this restriction on willing donors would decrease the number of obtainable kidneys and may shrink the number of kidneys we would otherwise get.

I acknowledge that this is a valid concern, but it is possible that there will still be a large enough kidney supply to help everyone on that waitlist, albeit at a higher market price. Plus, this would fix the issue with vendor health, so it is still the best way to go about instituting a legal kidney market to save thousands of lives and to protect our vendors in the process.

With a legal market, we would not only be saving thousands of lives but we would also be helping thousands of people improve their economic situations by letting them sell their kidneys in a safe environment while minimizing health risks. In order to improve the state of our country, we must take action and help those struggling to survive by letting them help each other.

Complex Texts Benefit Early Readers

The Common Core English standards, introduced into American classrooms in the early 2010s, were designed (among other things) to increase the reading comprehension levels of young students. The Common Core’s creators believed school curricula needed readings of greater difficulty to make student learning deeper and more comprehensive. The new regulations call for teachers to use texts with longer and rarer words, more difficult structures, and more advanced literary concepts.

Elfrieda Hiebert and Hiedi Mesmer fear that the harder reading material will crush the spirits of the nation’s primary schoolers. The authors argue that the increase in text difficulty brought by the new standards will discourage students when they cannot rapidly understand the material, damaging their interest in reading:

“The engagement of reading among young American students is already low…at present, there is research indicating that motivation decreases when tasks become too challenging and none that indicates that increasing challenge (and potential levels of failure) earlier in students’ careers will change this dismal national pattern of disengagement with literacy.”

Their argument in a nutshell: Kids did not enjoy reading before the imposition of the Common Core, and they are going to like it even less now that the standards have made it harder. Driving down children’s will to read decreases effort, harming their long-term education.

At this point, we may be inclined to cower at the inevitability of our society’s downfall as children become frustrated with their impossibly difficult texts, or at least to display the disciplined concern of Hiebert and Mesmer. However, their article assumes that teachers will continue to foster the belief among students that immediate understanding of material is expected, even after the introduction of more complex texts.

In fact, the difficulty of the new texts will force teachers and students to accept that true comprehension of difficult material is acquired slowly, through careful scholarship. Students must read passages multiple times and mark sections they believe to be important. They must share thoughts with their peers and ask questions of their instructor. Most importantly, they must work to see that the text contains meanings beyond the basic plot and character outlines. Texts that strain students’ abilities necessitate a deliberate movement through this process, replacing the quick and shallow run-throughs of the previous system.

To implement this process of true comprehension, teachers and students can use learning methods like “close reading,” described by researchers Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. The use of such methods in classrooms will allow children to benefit from the literary richness of more complex texts without creating the frustration that Hiebert and Mesmer fear.

Close reading can help young students crack the intricacies of My Father’s Dragon, one book suggested by the new standards. The story follows the adventure of a boy on a quest to save an imprisoned dragon from a group of sentient and dangerous animals. It deals with advanced concepts like freedom, self-doubt, and deadly perils, all while using vocabulary words potentially unfamiliar to children. By reading a limited passage from the book multiple times, getting information from the teacher on new words, and having discussions with small groups and the entire class on underlying concepts, students are able to build a deep understanding of the book.

Using such a method, children will learn that only through multiple readings can one come to understand the themes of a more complex text. Thus, they will not worry when complete comprehension eludes them on the first attempt.

Close reading is critical to the Common Core reading standards, and therefore to the entire effort to reform American education. Only by avoiding the frustration that Hiebert and Mesmer fear can schools use more difficult texts effectively. These complex texts will jump-start reading education by exposing children to more advanced concepts earlier and building their vocabularies and critical thinking skills.

Though there is some concern in the education community that the new standards will leave behind children who were not proficient in reading easier material, the necessity of implementing strategies like close reading will actually benefit them. Such a philosophy forces all students to slow down and take their time to digest material. This limited pace, as well as ample opportunities to discuss readings and ask questions, benefits those children who struggled under the previous system.

Improving reading comprehension levels is about depth of understanding, not speed or ease. Close reading under the Common Core standards will introduce rich texts and give students the time necessary to properly analyze them. Students’ reading comprehension, and thus their education and professional success, will benefit as a result.

 

Image Source: https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/teachers/articles/migrated-promotional-images/rs70.jpg

Returning Affirmative Action to its Original Intent

Affirmative action has been allowing more students of an underrepresented race the chance at a college education; however it has been deemed racist and discriminatory by many students. Although the original intent of this program was to increase the diversity of the student body on college campuses, affirmative action has indeed become an unintentional form of racism at the moment known as reverse racism. Even if it is for the intent of increasing the diversity of colleges and universities, is it fair that Caucasians and Asians are placed at a disadvantage because blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders are given a boost on their applications?

Despite the current approach being unintentionally discriminatory, diversity is important to colleges and universities and affirmative action is needed in the college admissions process in order to increase the diversity of the student body. To make this process fairer, affirmative action should first operate from an income-based perspective rather than a race-based one. Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, argues that affirmative action is supposed to aid students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, and by only looking at race and ethnicity, that goal is not being achieved. He argues that a purely income-based approach would be a fairer approach to affirmative action and that it would bring in diversity at a different level without diminishing diversity in a racial and ethnic perspective.

Income-based affirmative action would allow students of a lower socioeconomic class a greater opportunity to obtain a college degree. This would also continue to contribute to the diversity of the student body, because focusing on socioeconomic factors would naturally create a student body that is racially diverse. The majority of low-income families are headed by minorities and 44% of families that are headed by a working minority parent are considered low-income opposed to the 16% of white families, where it is three times more likely for a working poor family to be headed by a minority parent.  Accepting a larger number of students from the lower classes of the socioeconomic spectrum would already be accepting minority students since the majority of families who are of the working poor families of the lower-income socioeconomic classes are minority families.

While an income-based approach would be fairer and more beneficial than a race-based standpoint, Kahlenberg’s proposal does not cover enough ground. He does not take into consideration that aside from income, factors such as the resources the students have access to and the neighborhoods they live in may not be visible from looking at their socioeconomic class alone. Casey Quinlan also believes that while income can in most cases reflect the conditions in which the students grew up in, it differs in some cases such as when the surrounding neighborhoods affect the students and the amount of resources they have access to. The achievement gap within each race differs as well and it is necessary to observe the specific differences between what low-income is defined as across the different races. Achievement gaps define both socioeconomic class and race in a different perspective, so it is impractical to compare the achievement gaps across the races as a whole because that will not accurately reflect the achievement gaps within each race. Looking at achievement gaps within each race would also reflect the different environments the students are living in and the neighborhoods that affect them. The achievement gap is large for minority students who attend higher poverty schools—particularly those who are black, Hispanic, or Latino—which is also affected by the racial and ethnic gaps that already exist within their parents’ educational attainments and achievement gaps of that generation. Moreover, in richer places, the achievement gap is much larger than it is in poorer places, because in more affluent places, an increased competition and a larger focus on school success create hyper-achievement orientations that cause high competition for resources and will take a toll on those who are not as affluent.

There is, however, one major aspect that is being overlooked: gender. With the legalization of gay marriage in 2015, the United States has been increasingly aware and open to different identities. However, many problems remain on college campuses as nine percent of LGBT-identifying students have experienced sexual assault involving penetration, compared to seven percent of women. Although awareness and acceptance appears to be slowly increasing, there are still many conflicts and reported incidences among those who identify as LGBT on college campuses. If the purpose of having affirmative action in the college admissions process is to promote diversity and to create a more diverse student body on college campuses, then shouldn’t gender and identity need to be taken into account as well? An increase in the number of students who identify as a part of the LGBT community would contribute to the diversity of the student body in a less conventional way, but it would nonetheless benefit every student in fostering awareness and inclusion and promoting greater acceptance of people as a whole, as well as being the first step in encouraging acceptance and lowering the bullying and assault that wrongfully occurs to many of these students in college.

In a world where just about everything and anything can be labeled discriminatory, affirmative action is nonetheless necessary in the college admissions process if it holds true to its original intent to generate and promote a more diverse student body. A race-based process has transformed into reverse discrimination, but it can become fairer by looking at it from income, environment, and gender of a student. Diversity is the trademark and the pride of the United States, and it is necessary to preserve and promote such a vital aspect of our country.

We Need AI Safety Now

We can all rest assured knowing that SkyNet will not take over the world and summon an army of Terminators to systematically exterminate the human race.

This news comes from Dr. Alan Bundy of the University of Edinburgh’s Informatics School, who does not believe that artificial general intelligence (AGI), a computer with human-level wit, poses an existential threat to humanity.

In a recent article, Bundy tells us that there is nothing to fear. He writes:

“As AI progresses, we will see even more applications that are super-intelligent in a narrow area and incredibly dumb everywhere else. The areas of successful application will get gradually wider and the areas of dumbness narrower, but not disappear… We will develop a zoo of highly diverse AI machines, each with a level of intelligence appropriate to its task–not a uniform race of general-purpose, super-intelligent, humanity supplanters.”

In other words, although Bundy concedes that we will develop AGI, he is convinced that these computer programs will work under very specific circumstances. He looks to current AI programs, such as Google’s AlphaGo and IBM’s Jeopardy! playing Watson, and comes to the conclusion that future AI will be just like them: souped up game-playing gadgets.

To Bundy, AI only poses a threat to individual human beings because of its “areas of dumbness.” He attributes accidents, such as this one in which a Florida man drove under a tractor trailer while using Tesla’s autopilot system, to dumb AI, and says that future AI can only be dangerous to individual people who delegate too much responsibility to inherently flawed AI.

While this argument is functional if we work with the assumption that AI will never really become as smart as humans, what happens when it does? A recent survey among AI researchers shows that experts expect AGI to be achieved by 2050. So when AI not only has the computational ability of supercomputers, but can also “think” through various layers of abstraction like human beings? What happens when we develop AI that could use our evolutionary advantage, intelligence, better than us?

Currently, AI is being developed with the primary goal being to maximize the probability of completing a certain task. While this approach is not problematic given the limitations of current AI, it can become a much bigger issue once AGI is developed. According to premier AI expert Stuart Russell, AGI developed under this framework would have two goals: to stay ‘on’ and to acquire more resources.

To put this in perspective, let’s turn to a hypothetical situation. Let’s say you have an AGI, a robot with all the same capabilities as a human. If you were to tell this robot to make a coffee, then it would by default try to maximize the probability of actually making a coffee. In order to make sure that the coffee is made it must stay on. For it to stay on, there can’t be anything within its vicinity that can turn it off. So if there is someone in the room that could possibly reach over and turn it off, then this AGI would kill that person to make sure that the coffee is made.

While the example of the killer barista may seem exaggerated, it illuminates the precise danger of AI. It’s not that AGI will develop evil intentions and kill off human beings in the pursuit of some sort of liberation from the control of a dumber species, but that it will be too good at doing the wrong job. The main goal of AI will no longer be to make our lives better, but rather to complete any  it is assigned in the most efficient manner.

So what’s the solution?

AI safety.

Instead of designing AI that will determine how to best complete a given task, we should make AI whose main goal would be to benefit humans–something Russell calls “maximizing human values.”

We would teach AI human values through the same deep learning techniques we used to teach AlphaGo how to play Go. AI safety would necessitate the need for uncertainty which would allow the human to turn it off whenever it does not act in the best interest of humans. This AI training should happen at a regional level where governments would collaborate with tech companies to create the best set of human values for a specific cultural and geopolitical context.

While AGI may be about 30 years away, it is crucial that we take steps to develop safe AI now. AI safety research must be incentivized by large corporations in AI such as Facebook and Google through a series of grants and monetary awards for researchers.

Because of the limitless potential of AGI, to eradicate disease and even end poverty, it is important that we engineer AI that will ultimately benefit us and not end our civilization.

The FBI’s Illegitimate and Unquestionably Unconstitutional Approach to Encryption Regulation

With the advent of the smartphone, there have been repeated public and private attempts by the government to weasel their way into these devices and introduce a kind of Orwellian surveillance system “for the good of the nation.” These small devices have become so ingrained in society that we allow them to hold any and all information ranging from private photos to bank transactions to confidential communications. It is the job of technology conglomerates to ensure this information cannot become public knowledge or government surveillance fodder; unfortunately, the FBI has been attempting to exploit a legal loophole to mandate a backdoor in the encryption of these phones, particularly the iPhone.

In December of 2015, two terrorists performed what was known as the San Bernardino shooting, the deadliest terrorist attack since September 11^th, 2001. Following the tragic event, the FBI managed to recover one of the terrorist’s phones in the investigation, an encrypted iPhone 5C with the 10-failed-passcode-attempt Erase Data feature enabled. Having gone dark (i.e., being out of their depth), the FBI obtained a court order compelling Apple to hack the device themselves by uploading a modified, non-encrypted version of iOS. However, this is where the situation gets sticky. Apple refused the court order, publically citing their commitment to their customer’s privacy as the motivation for disobeying the ruling.

A sluggish court process ensued and the FBI used the All Writs Act of 1789 (AWA) as their primary defense for their original court order. This 200-year-old piece of legislation was originally written as a legal gap-filler, an act that could be used to issue “all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” In basic terms, the AWA applies in situations where there is no other relevant legislation that can be used and gives the government jurisdiction to act accordingly. While the FBI has since dropped the case due to apparently finding a third party to successfully hack the device (a statement one must optimistically hope is false for the sake of our Constitutionally ensured privacy), the issue remains: where can we draw the line for the FBI’s intrusion into our private lives? Can the AWA, a law manufactured when the power loom was the most innovative technology, really be used for today’s technology? How can the FBI be stopped in their attempts to install the kind of surveillance system that has previously only been the subject of science-fiction authors?

The morality of this debate has two distinct sides: those who value secure privacy and those who prefer an omniscient government that can freely regulate encryption and advanced technology. While I could go into my personal opinion on the moral issues and try to convince you that privacy is vastly more important, instead, the legal aspects of the debate will speak for themselves. Some individuals believe the FBI is justified in using the AWA, yet it is the fundamental piece of legislation our forefathers wrote that protects us to this day: the Constitution and its subsequent Amendments.

John Potapchuk, a J.D. candidate at Boston College Law School, sides with the FBI in his 45 page analysis of the San Bernardino case: “The inability to execute smartphone search warrants due to rapidly evolving commercial encryption seems to be exactly the type of ‘statutory interstice’ for which the Act’s invocation has been reserved.” According to Potapchuk, it is the quickly advancing technology that provides the gap the AWA was designed to fill. However, the AWA is invalidated due to the application of the 1^st Amendment based on the implication that source code is a form of free speech and therefore cannot be compelled by government organizations.

In 1996, a graduate student at University of California of Berkley named Bernstein contested the government’s imposed source code regulations and set the precedent that source code, just like a signed, written document, is a form of speech and therefore cannot be limited or regulated by the government.

Based on the Bernstein v. US Department of Justice precedent, Apple has no obligation to create a new OS for the FBI and the government legally cannot ask for this encryption backdoors as it is considered compelled speech and is thus a breach of the 1^st Amendment, the statute that has protected our free speech since before even the typewriter existed.

To create Apple devices, the corporation has teams of coders writing thousands of lines of source code (think “hello world”), the backbone of the operating system that puts a world of apps at our finger tips. This code is then given a unique signature by Apple that allows it to be uploaded to its 700 million devices around the world. And voila! iOS 7.1, the latest and greatest operating system for iPhone users. Yet this code, the actual written text from Apple engineers, is protected by the Bernstein precedent.

Jennifer Granick, the Director for Civil Liberties at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, agrees that the FBI is taking their investigation too far, qualifying exactly when Apple’s source code becomes speech: “I think that when you force Apple to cryptographically sign the software, it has a communicative aspect to it that I think is compelled speech to force them to do it.” With spoken word, this is analogous to an FBI agent standing behind Tim Cook and prodding him with a stick, using Apple’s CEO as a puppet for the FBI and unintentionally revealing company secrets to an audience of hackers waiting for their chance to strike.

The form of coercion the FBI uses the AWA for is unconstitutional and thankfully has been stopped before the government could get its claws in too far. As technology advances and surpasses the government’s ability to keep up, there will be more and more desperate attempts to regulate systems like Apple’s encryption services. Regardless of the demands, the Constitution remains steadfast in its protection of our rights and liberties in the expanding digital age.

The Courts Aren’t Doing Their Job in Protecting Consumer Privacy in Cases of Targeted Advertising

Imagine that you are faced with making a life-altering decision.  One which is emotionally, physically, and even financially draining.  For many women, this is a reality, and this is the state in which they walk into abortion clinics.  They are fragile, and seeking help and information.  By no means is an abortion clinic telling patients that they have to get an abortion.  But they do provide women with answers, and possible solutions if they need help.

Now imagine, that in a time in which everything feels unsure, and the burden of a huge decision is on your chest, you are inundated with Pro-Life messages appearing on your phone:  “‘You Have Choices,’ one message said. Others offered ‘Pregnancy Help,’ and assured recipients, ‘You’re Not Alone.’”

Targeted advertising has breached the boundaries of consumer privacy yet again by exposing private health information of individuals.  By using GPS Location to track women near abortion clinics, and then selling that information to companies who wish to use it for the spread of political messages, targeted advertising has reached a point where it is nearly impossible for consumers to avoid exposing their personal and private information.  Not only that, but the information remains indefinitely in the hands of those companies wishing to target.  In the case of the abortion clinic, this meant that women continued receiving pro-life messages for up to a month after their visit to the abortion clinic, reminding them of their recent, potentially emotionally traumatic, experiences.

The solution to the problem of targeted advertising seems quite simple: the courts should rule on cases in which there is a question of a breach in consumer privacy, determining fair punishments.  However, in reality, the solution is slightly more complicated.  Under the current definition of consumer harm, the courts will only recognize economic or tangible costs to the consumer.  This makes it difficult for the courts to become involved in cases of privacy infringement, because there isn’t always evidence of economic or tangible harm when dealing with the online-sphere.

Ryan Calo, author of “The Boundaries of Privacy Harm,” identifies a new category of harm that he believes the courts need to begin recognizing. Calo has named this harm “privacy harm” and breaks it down into two major components: subjective harm, and objective harm.  Subjective harm, according to Calo, is “the perception of unwanted observation” and any of the consequences of that.  This includes emotional anxiety, depression, embarrassment, or any other emotions that are associated with the notion of being watched. Objective harm, on the other hand, is the “unanticipated or coerced use of information concerning a person against that person.” To Calo, this can range anywhere from private information being leaked and causing someone to lose their job to the unwanted flood of spam.

Calo’s solution keeps the courts up to date with the times by introducing a new definition of harm to the courts that accounts for privacy concerns.  By introducing privacy harm in a situation in which there is both subjective and objective harm (or rather both tangible, and emotional harm), the courts can easily expand their definition of harm to include the realm of privacy harm.

For example, the case of a pro-life group targeting women near abortion clinics could provide a great case for the courts to set precedent to include a new definition of harm. The case has some grounding of tangible harm and economic harm (ie. the decision of keeping or aborting the fetus). However, the real harm in the case of the abortion targeted advertising comes with the emotional trauma and burden on the pregnant woman that comes from her private health information becoming public knowledge against her will.  By combining the two types of harm within one situation, the courts are presented with a very simple step of just expanding their definition of harm to include aspects of emotional trauma that severely disrupt the manner in which one lives their life.

Some people have proposed that instead of encouraging the courts to become involved, the solution to targeted advertising is actually to strengthen the Federal Trade Commission, whose job it is to both protect a competitive market place as well as protect consumers.  Scholars such as James P. Nehf, write that by increasing the powers of the FTC to allow them to punish businesses for overstepping privacy boundaries, the consumers would be more protected.  While this is perhaps true, increasing the powers of the FTC (a federal department, belonging to the executive branch) and allowing them to rule against businesses oversteps their constitutional rights.  Since the FTC, as a bureau, does not follow rules that we as a country have deemed necessary for a fairly ruling party, such as the court, they should not be allowed to make such decisions.  Strengthening the FTC is good, however for increasing representation of consumers, so that they don’t feel as helpless in dealing with large companies and businesses.  While many have proposed other solutions to targeted advertising, such as strengthening the Federal Trade Commission, none would be as effective as increased court involvement and acknowledgement of privacy harm.

Without the Court, the branch of government that is supposed to judge and deliver punishments, stepping in to play the role that they are supposed to be playing in these situations, the public (or rather, the consumer) remains helpless against large businesses.  It is crucial for the Court to realize that they have to acknowledge some form of privacy harm that extends beyond just economic or tangible harm. It is only in this way that we can constitutionally, fairly, and effectively solve the problem of targeted advertising and its invasion of consumer privacy.

If you don’t want to find yourself the continued emotional target of political ads, then you should realize that the only way to prevent it, is for the courts to step up and do their part in helping society.

 

JAY Z is the Greatest Rapper of All Time

It is 2017 and a certain Billboard post incited debate has quieted but the general debate about the identity of the rap G.O.A.T. still continues in light of Kendrick Lamar’s recent success. One prominent East Coast radio DJ personality, DJ Rosenberg, went so far as to say “There’s not a person who can rap, on planet Earth, better than Kendrick Lamar.” This statement is completely false.

In fact there IS a person on planet Earth who can rap better than Kendrick Lamar and everyone else: Jay-Z.

Kendrick is an amazing rapper. However, I don’t think I can call Kendrick the greatest RAPPER of all time. Storyteller? Absolutely. Musical Architect? Without a doubt. But the only one who can truly wield the English language like a lyrical weapon is Jay-Z.

*the songs about to be discussed are only available on music streaming sites, sorry.*

RHYME SCHEMES

Jay-Z’s rhyme schemes? Fire.

Jay-Zs rhyming schemes have revolutionized rapping. He employs a style whereby he doesn’t adhere to typical A-A-A-A….B-B-B-B.. rhyme schemes. Instead, Jay-Z will sometimes use a sound to its entirety, hitting every near, slant, and eye rhyme imaginable only to follow that up with a couple of random lines that sound random until one or two lines later. One such example is in his song “Hola Hovito,” on his classic The Blueprint, when Jay-Z raps

“Was born in the belly: that’s the way the streets breed you
One life to live – notice you get no sequel
So I truly got to live this like my last movie
6 oohie, jewels dripping, big tooly
I ball for real: y’all niggas is Sam Bowie.”

This section begins with a regular A-A rhyme scheme with “sequel” turned into a near rhyme with “breed you.” Jay-Z then continues with a unique rhyme scheme. He ends the third line with the word “movie”, said straight with no inflection (sounding out of place) and follows with a noticeable pause. What seems like a filler word as he thinks of his next rhyming pattern, is actually the simultaneous conclusion of the idea of sequels/movies previously established, and the beginning of a new and unique rhyme scheme. Typically rhymes come at the end of a lyrical phrase and in this case so does “movie.” However, the very next phrase said AFTER “movie,” “6 oochie,” is a lyrical primer. By having “oochie” directly follow “movie,” Jay-Z establishes that the root rhyme will not be the “vee” sound at the end of “movie” but, in fact, the “oo-ee” sound. ” What’s more, the line following “movie” has the “ooey” sound twice more, as if Jay-Z is is hitting a drum, in total, three times in quick succession. The last line, the one that follows “tooly,” does not even hint to the “oo-ee” sound until the very end. The effect? A more poignant fourth hit. One that is made more dramatic by the rhyme-less space before it.

Jay-Z uses this scheme for a reason. Jay-Z compares others around him to Sam Bowie, a basketball player was famous for a stellar college career and nonexistent professional career. What’s more, Bowie was drafted before Michael Jordan, a solid college player but of little interest who went on to become the Basketball G.O.A.T. Why have this rhyme scheme be punctuated with Bowie’s name? To ironically show that you don’t want your rhymes to be like Sam Bowie, successful but all packed into one place. You want your bars to be like MJ, drawn out with an ultimate punch that is unforgettable.

WORDPLAY/METAPHORS

A rapper is no rapper at all if his word play is soft. Big Sean get’s ripped on all the time because his bars are corny and his lines are (Monday through Sunday) weak. 

Wordplay and metaphors need to be deliberate and smart. Often  rappers will shows his or her lyrical prowess by creating a metaphor, rife with inward rhymes and turn of phrases, that extends for longer than one or two phrases. In his song, “Lyrical Exercise” Jay-Z creates a song-long metaphor that compares exercising to anything else you can imagine.

“Jigga man is diesel
When I lift the eight up
Y’all ain’t ready to workout with the boy
Your flow is brain on drugs
Mines is rap on steroids
I lift every voice when I sing
My ability
Make yours look like an exercise in futility”

In the first two lines Jay-Z calls himself diesel when he lifts “the eight up.” Diesel and eight, in this case, both have two meanings. The first pair of meanings is that Jay-Z is serious and scary when he lifts an 8mm gun up (diesel being a metaphor for strong and 8 being a metaphor for the gun). The second meaning is that Jay-Z is Shaquille O’Neal, a true beast in professional basketball, as diesel was Shaq’s nickname. What’s more, the following line has to do with a magazine cover where Shaq picks up Kobe Bryant, number 8 on the Lakers. The fourth and fifth lines play on an iconic anti-drug message. Jay-Z then plays off of the mention of drugs by claiming he is rap on steroids. While both phrases refer to effects of taking drugs, the former is an idiom used to signify uselessness and the latter is an idiom used to signify superiority. The next line is a play on the Negro National anthem that is understood to also be a pun based off of lifting weights when Jay-Z follows this line by saying someone else’s work makes it look like an EXERCISE in futility.

We can’t agree on who is the rap G.O.A.T. without agreeing on what it means to be a great rapper. Is it the ability to construct overarching themes and messages? I argue no. To me, taking that stance is to say that you can be an amazing basketball player without having proper form or to say you’re a Chemistry genius only because you ace all the tests. To say that Kendrick is the best rapper because his products are the best is understandable, but flawed, and will lead future rappers to focus more on the end result as opposed to the process of crafting rap. We need to focus on the fundamentals, the raw skills so that future rappers look to master THOSE aspects of rap. It is only through seeking to improve the fundamentals of rap that we can hope to see the genre grow and evolve. That is why Jay-Z is the greatest rapper of all time, because he is that best at the fundamentals and so the best at those characteristics of rap that will push forward the genre.