Review: 'The Inventor' is a coolly appalling portrait of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal; The Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2019

Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times;

Review: 'The Inventor' is a coolly appalling portrait of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal

"As a quick glance at this week’s headlines will remind you — a staggering college admissions scandal, a wave of indictments in the cases of Paul Manafort and Jussie Smollett — we are living in deeply fraudulent times. But if there are few people or institutions worthy of our trust anymore, perhaps we can still trust that, eventually, Alex Gibney will get around to making sense of it all. Over the course of his unflagging, indispensable career he has churned out documentaries on Scientology and Enron, Lance Armstrong and Casino Jack — individual case studies in a rich and fascinating investigation of the American hustler at work.

 

Gibney approaches his subjects with the air of an appalled moralist and, increasingly, a grudging connoisseur. His clean, straightforward style, which usually combines smart talking heads, slick graphics and reams of meticulous data, is clearly galvanized by these charismatic individuals, who are pathological in their dishonesty and riveting in their chutzpah. And he is equally fascinated by the reactions, ranging from unquestioning belief to conflicted loyalty, that they foster among their followers and associates, who in many cases shielded them, at least for a while, from public discovery and censure.

 

“The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” Gibney’s latest exercise in coolly measured outrage, is an engrossing companion piece to his other works in this vein. The subject of this HBO documentary is Elizabeth Holmes, the self-styled biotech visionary who dropped out of Stanford at age 19 and founded a company called Theranos, which promised to bring about a revolution in preventive medicine and personal healthcare. Its top-secret weapon was a compact machine called the Edison, which could purportedly run more than 200 individual tests from just a few drops of blood, obtained with just a prick of the finger.

 

Holmes’ vision of a brave new world — one in which anyone could stop by Walgreens and obtain a comprehensive, potentially life-saving snapshot of their health — proved tantalizing enough to raise more than $400 million and earned her a reputation as possibly the greatest inventor since, well, Thomas Edison. Her investors included Betsy DeVos, Rupert Murdoch and the Waltons; Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and James Mattis sat on her board of directors. But that was all before the Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou and other investigative journalists exposed glaring faults in the Edison’s design and sent the company’s $10-billion valuation spiraling down to nothing. Theranos dissolved in 2018, and Holmes and former company president Sunny Balwani were charged with conspiracy and fraud.

 

Full disclosure: As the son of a retired medical technologist who spent more than 30 years testing blood the traditional way, I approached “The Inventor” with great fascination and more than a little schadenfreude. The movie, for its part, seems both magnetized and repelled by its subject, a reaction that it will likely share with its audience. Gibney is perhaps overly fond of deploying intense, lingering close-ups of Holmes’ face and peering deep into her unnerving blue eyes (“She didn’t blink,” a former employee recalls). If the eyes are the windows to the soul, “The Inventor” just keeps looking and looking, as though uncertain whether or not its subject has one."

I Almost Died Riding an E-Scooter Like 99 percent of users, I wasn’t wearing a helmet.; Slate, March 14, 2019

Rachel Withers, Slate;

I Almost Died Riding an E-Scooter

Like 99 percent of users, I wasn’t wearing a helmet.

"I’ve been rather flippant with friends about what happened because it’s the only way I know how to deal. It’s laughable that you’d get seriously injured scooting. But this isn’t particularly funny. People are always going to be idiots, yes, but idiot people are currently getting seriously injured, in ways that might have been prevented, because tech companies flippantly dumped their product all over cities, without an adequate helmet solution. Facebook’s “move fast and break things” mantra can be applied to many tech companies, but in the case of e-scooters, it might just be “move fast and break skulls.”"

Where is William H. Macy in the college admissions scandal?; The Washington Post, March 14, 2019

Monica Hesse, The Washington Post;

Where is William H. Macy in the college admissions scandal?

"The most vomitous line in the whole indictment comes from a dad — New York attorney Gordon Caplan — who tells a witness on the phone, “To be honest, I’m not worried about the moral issue.”"

A price to be paid for open-access academic publishing; The Guardian, March 13, 2019

Letters, The Guardian; A price to be paid for open-access academic publishing

"The headlong rush towards further adoption of open-access models demands careful thought, says Prof Sarah Kember. Elsevier is a strong supporter of open access, says its vice-president of global policy, Gemma Hersh. The UK has moved further and faster than any other major research funding country, says Stephen Lotinga. It is difficult to find good (unpaid) reviewers for every article in scientific journals, says John Boardman"

The Guardian view on academic publishing: disastrous capitalism Editorial; March 4, 2019

The Guardian; The Guardian view on academic publishing: disastrous capitalism  

Editorial

"In California the state university system has been paying $11m (£8.3m) a year for access to Elsevier journals, but it has just announced that it won’t be renewing these subscriptions. In Britain and Europe the move towards open access publishing has been driven by funding bodies. In some ways it has been very successful. More than half of all British scientific research is now published under open access terms: either freely available from the moment of publication, or paywalled for a year or more so that the publishers can make a profit before being placed on general release.

Yet, somehow, the new system has not yet worked out any cheaper for the universities. Publishers have responded to the demand that they make their product free to readers by charging their writers fees to cover the costs of preparing an article. These range from around £500 to $5,000, and apparently the work gets more expensive the more that publishers do it. A report last year from Professor Adam Tickell pointed out that the costs both of subscriptions and of these “article preparation costs” has been steadily rising at a rate above inflation ever since the UK’s open access policy was adopted in 2012. In some ways the scientific publishing model resembles the economy of the social internet: labour is provided free in exchange for the hope of status, while huge profits are made by a few big firms who run the market places. In both cases, we need a rebalancing of power."
 

One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing is implicated in a college admissions bribery scandal; Recode, March 12, 2019

Theodore Schleifer, Recode; One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing is implicated in a college admissions bribery scandal

"What is particularly damaging for TPG is that McGlashan has positioned himself as a leading voice in Silicon Valley for social responsibility...

McGlashan also allegedly made a $250,000 donation to USC in order for his son to enter through the school’s “side door,” according to the charges, by creating the impression that he was a potential recruited kicker or punter for the school’s football team — all thanks to Photoshop. This was all accomplished through mail fraud, prosecutors say.

“I’m gonna make him a kicker/punter and they’re gonna walk him through with football, and I’ll get a picture and figure out how to Photoshop,” William Rick Singer, the college prep adviser at the heart of the scandal, allegedly told McGlashan in August 2018.

“He does have really strong legs,” McGlashan told Singer. “Maybe he’ll become a kicker. You never know.”

“Pretty funny,” McGlashan would later add. “The way the world works these days is unbelievable.”"

Famed Investor Named In Elite College Scandal, Raising Critical Ethics Questions for All; Forbes, March 13, 2019

Morgan Simon, Forbes; Famed Investor Named In Elite College Scandal, Raising Critical Ethics Questions for All

"Yesterday, William E. “Bill” McGlashan Jr., Founder and Managing Partner of the $13B TPG Growth fund, was indicted in the elite college scandal. He was particularly noted for his candor in recorded phone calls about his efforts to buy a slot at USC for his child for $250,000. The tactic, employed by ringleader William Singer, was to photoshop McGlashan’s son to look like a recruitment-worthy football kicker — despite the fact that his son’s high school did not have a football team.

McGlashan has recently gained notoriety as a proponent of impact investing. The Rise Fund, an initiative he co-founded under the TPG umbrella, has raised over $2B for interventions seeking to address global poverty and climate change.

The fact that McGlashan was a proponent of ethical investment has raised several deep questions for the sector, and for the general public. Does exercising your unchecked privilege in the world make you less ethical - separate from whether or not your actions are illegal? Should promoters of ethical investments be held to a higher standard when it comes to their personal ethics? Do you need to have impeccable ethics to be a good impact investor?...

Ethics is also about acknowledging the ways that those of us with privilege — whether it be due to social class, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or the intersections between — can be complicit in exploiting others through fully legal means."

Top Universities Join to Push ‘Public Interest Technology’; The New York Times, March 11, 2019

Natasha Singer, The New York Times;

Top Universities Join to Push ‘Public Interest Technology’

"As technology becomes increasingly pervasive in American life, universities across the United States have been devising ways to teach students how to grapple with the consequences on society.

Now, 21 leading universities are banding together to promote their various programs. On Monday, the schools announced that they had formed a new organization called the Public Interest Technology University Network.

Members of the group include Arizona State University, the City University of New York, Harvard University, Howard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. Their goal is to train the next generation of software engineers, policymakers, civic leaders and social justice advocates to develop, regulate and use technology for the public good.

In other words, the group aims to both humanize technologists and technologize humanists.

“We think about two halves of the pipeline,” said Alexandra Givens, executive director of the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown Law School. “One is helping technologists think about the social, ethical, legal and policy implications of their work.”

 

The other, she said, is helping students interested in law, government and nonprofit careers to learn computational and technology skills to serve the public."

Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics; Forbes, March 11, 2019

Derek Lidow, Forbes;

Mark Zuckerberg And The Tech World Still Do Not Understand Ethics

 

"Why the widespread blindness to the ethical and social dangers of tech startups specifically? Here are five of the principal causes: 

Tech startups see themselves as saviors of the world...

Complex technology and tech business models deflect investor due diligence...

Expectations for technology startups encourage expedient, not ethical, decision making...

We’ve fetishized disruption...

Tech promises founders and investors vast—vast—amounts of money."  

Colleges Build Network for Ethical Tech; Inside Higher Ed, March 12, 2019

Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed;

Colleges Build Network for Ethical Tech

"Twenty-one U.S. colleges and universities are working together to train a new generation of civic-minded technologists and tech-savvy policy makers.

The Public Interest Technology University Network, announced yesterday, is supported by the Ford Foundation, New America and the Hewlett Foundation. (Read an opinion piece by the leaders of these organizations about the new network today.)

The network will support curriculum development and faculty hiring in the nascent field of public interest technology. It will also explore how to support graduates who pursue careers in this field and create new internships and fellowships."

The college admissions scam is the perfect scandal in the golden age of grifters; The Washington Post, March 13, 2019

Gabrielle Bluestone, The Washington Post;

The college admissions scam is the perfect scandal in the golden age of grifters

"Gabrielle Bluestone was executive producer of the documentary “Fyre.”...

Like the Fyre Festival disaster, the Varsity Blues scam is shocking because of an apparent disconnect: In both cases, ambitious people went to extraordinary lengths to create the appearance of success and, along the way, lost track of the substance.

The Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland used a promotional video full of Instagram models and a savvy social media rollout strategy to convince prospective ticket buyers that he had a private island set up to offer an outrageously luxurious music festival experience. The Varsity Blues families allegedly used cruder methods, including Photoshopped pictures of kids participating in sports they didn’t play and faked “athletic résumés," and then backing up their fictions with outrageous sums of cash."

In These Divided Times, Is Civility Under Siege?; NPR, March 12, 2019

Leila Fadel, NPR;

In These Divided Times, Is Civility Under Siege?

"The calls for civility can feel like an effort to stifle people's outrage over injustice or hate, because civility can be a tool to build or a weapon to silence.

"To what purpose is civility going to be used? Is it going to be more inclusive?" Itagaki asks. "Is it going to mean that you're bringing more people's voices into the political debates, or are you using civility as a way to go back to the old hierarchies and the status quo since the founding of the American republic, where you only had white male propertied free landowners who were able to vote?"

So for some, now is a time to take a step back and be civil to each other. For others, it's imperative to be uncivil in a way that has led to social justice in the past."

Bribes to Get Into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?; The New York Times, March 12, 2019

Frank Bruni, The New York Times;

Bribes to Get Into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

A new college admissions scandal is just the latest proof of a grossly uneven playing field.

"While colleges pledge fairer admissions and more diverse student bodies, they don’t patrol what’s going on with nearly enough earnestness and energy to honor that promise. They’re ripe to be gamed because the admissions process is a game."

Malcolm Gladwell: Plagiarism Is Just ‘Bad Manners’; The Daily Beast, March 11, 2019

Marlow Stern, The Daily Beast; Malcolm Gladwell: Plagiarism Is Just ‘Bad Manners’

"You don’t think plagiarism is a journalistic sin? 

I mean, it’s bad manners. Who cares. Someone can use all the words of mine they want. What I get angry at is when I have an idea that I think is original and consequential, and someone steals it and doesn’t credit me, that makes me mad. But if you want to go through my books and you find a paragraph, and you think that paragraph describes something really well and want to stick it in your book, go ahead! 

So if I wanted to release Blink under my name you wouldn’t sue my ass into oblivion? I’m kidding obviously. 

Well, not the whole book! But the book is an idea. There’s a story in Blink about a Marine Corps general, and if you think it’s a great paragraph and you want to take it, I hope you credit me. But if you don’t credit me, am I going to knock on your door and ask for you to be fired from your job? No! Life goes on, man. People have to have some sense of judgment about these things. These are not crimes; they are misdemeanors. If I saw you jaywalking, would I ask for you to be fired from your job? 

You don’t think a journalist should be fired for plagiarism? 

It’s bad manners. I don’t think the person who plagiarized me should have lost her job. I don’t care."

College cheating scandal is the tip of the iceberg; CNN, March 12, 2019

David Perry, CNN; College cheating scandal is the tip of the iceberg

"We're not talking about donating a building, we're talking about fraud," said Andrew Lelling, the US Attorney for Massachusetts, as he announced indictments in a massive scheme alleging that celebrities and other wealthy individuals used cheating, bribes, and lies to get their kids into elite colleges.

The behavior described in this alleged fraud should be punished. But on a broader and more basic level, the case also sheds light on deep inequities in our college admissions system. Because if someone can get their kid into Harvard by buying a building, let alone by committing any of the alleged acts emerging from this case, the scandal isn't just what's illegal, but what's legal as well. "

Scientists Raise Concerns About Revisions to Human Research Regulations; The Scientist, February 19, 2019

Katarina Zimmer, The Scientist; Scientists Raise Concerns About Revisions to Human Research Regulations

"When Henrietta Lacks visited the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in the 1950s to be treated for cervical cancer, she had no idea that some of her cancer cells would be used to create one of the most scientifically valuable and financially profitable cell lines that is used in labs today. Nor was she asked for permission.

Lacks’s experience has become nationally acknowledged as a shameful episode in the history of biomedical research in the US—particularly after the publication of a popular book about Lacks and her family—and forced the scientific community to consider how to conduct ethical research with human samples. The case was one of the reasons for a heated debate during a recent, six-year-long process of revising the Common Rule, a package of regulations adopted in the 1990s intended to ensure that all federally funded research conducted on human subjects is done ethically.

The revisions, enacted last month, are an attempt to strike a better balance between patients’ need for privacy and the benefits of using their tissue for research. In a paper published January 31 in JAMA Oncology, a group of clinicians and ethicists from the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania argue that the revisions could have unintended consequences for research with various types of biospecimens, and propose that regulators should consider them differently when creating research protections."

Does AI Ethics Have A Bad Name?; Forbes, March 7, 2019

Calum Chace, Forbes; Does AI Ethics Have A Bad Name?

"One possible downside is that people outside the field may get the impression that some sort of moral agency is being attributed to the AI, rather than to the humans who develop AI systems.  The AI we have today is narrow AI: superhuman in certain narrow domains, like playing chess and Go, but useless at anything else. It makes no more sense to attribute moral agency to these systems than it does to a car or a rock.  It will probably be many years before we create an AI which can reasonably be described as a moral agent...

The issues explored in the field of AI ethics are important but it would help to clarify them if some of the heat was taken out of the discussion.  It might help if instead of talking about AI ethics, we talked about beneficial AI and AI safety.  When an engineer designs a bridge she does not finish the design and then consider how to stop it from falling down.  The ability to remain standing in all foreseeable circumstances is part of the design criteria, not a separate discipline called “bridge ethics”. Likewise, if an AI system has deleterious effects it is simply a badly designed AI system.

Interestingly, this change has already happened in the field of AGI research, the study of whether and how to create artificial general intelligence, and how to avoid the potential downsides of that development, if and when it does happen.  Here, researchers talk about AI safety. Why not make the same move in the field of shorter-term AI challenges?"

A university gallery showed art with Confederate imagery. Then students called to remove it.; The Washington Post, February 26, 2019

Mark Lynn Ferguson, The Washington Post; A university gallery showed art with Confederate imagery. Then students called to remove it.

"Joy Garnett, program associate for the National Coalition Against Censorship, said the school had other options than taking the art down. It could have provided more context around the exhibit, such as temporary dividers to conceal the art and signs cautioning visitors on the difficult subject matter. After the exhibit closed, Baldwin did hold listening sessions, but only students and faculty were allowed to attend, according to school spokeswoman Liesel Crosier. The sessions, argued Jonathan Friedman, project director for campus free speech at PEN America, a nonprofit devoted to defending freedom of speech, “would have likely been much richer if the exhibit were able to continue.”

Garnett also found fault with the artists, who she said need to understand the communities where they are showing their work. More than half of Baldwin’s residential students are not white. “It’s not about avoiding offending people,” Garnett said. “It’s about how do you couch the offense in a way that’s productive.”

Graduate students explore the ethics of artificial intelligence; Princeton University, February 28, 2019

Denise Valenti for the Office of Communications, Princeton University; Graduate students explore the ethics of artificial intelligence

"As artificial intelligence advances, the questions surrounding its use have become increasingly complex. To introduce students to the challenges the technology could present and to prepare them to engage in and lead conversations about its ethical use, the Graduate School this year is offering a Professional Learning Development Cohort titled “Ethics of AI.”

This cohort offering is part of the Graduate School’s larger commitment to equip students with skills they can apply across a full range of professional settings in which they may make important contributions after leaving Princeton.

Nineteen graduate students from various disciplines — including psychology, politics, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and quantitative and computational biology — are participating in the five-part learning series. Through presentations, case studies, readings and discussions, they are developing an awareness of the issues at stake and considering their application in real-world situations.

“A recurring theme I hear from leaders in the technology industry is that there is a growing need for people who can engage rigorously with fundamental ethical issues surrounding technological advances,” said Sarah-Jane Leslie, dean of the Graduate School. “A great many of Princeton’s graduate students are exceptionally well-placed to contribute precisely that robust ethical thinking, so we wanted to provide a forum for our students to deepen their knowledge of these issues.”"

Open data needs ethical, efficient management; University of Cape Town News, March 6, 2019

Helen Swingler, University of Cape Town News; Open data needs ethical, efficient management

"Ethics in data management

Niklas Zimmer, manager of digital services at UCT Libraries, said that ethical management of data is key. Several of the lightning presentations made at the event underscored this.

UCT Gender Health and Justice Research Unit (GHJRU) research officer Kristen Daskilewicz cited an important example when she said the use of open data is not always appropriate for research where there are heightened safety concerns.

Her example described a collaborative two-year cross-sectional research project on LGBTI health, safety and other rights that the unit undertook on behalf of the Southern and Eastern Africa Research Collective on Health (SEARCH). SEARCH is a collective of 23 civil society organisations in nine countries.

The project participants had to be “very careful” with data collection and dissemination in the study countries, particularly those where aspects of same-sex relationships have been criminalised. There were concerns about protecting the survey participants and the unit’s civil society partners, who were the data collectors."

UC open access fight exposes publishing rip-off: Charging exorbitant fees for journal articles isn’t in the best interests of scientific research, Mercury News, March 6, 2019

MERCURY NEWS & EAST BAY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARDS; Editorial: UC open access fight exposes publishing rip-off

Charging exorbitant fees for journal articles isn’t in the best interests of scientific research

"The scholarly research publishing industry is a rip-off that hinders scientific advances and piles unnecessary costs onto taxpayers who already fund much of the academic work.

It’s ridiculous that, in this age of the internet, researchers are paying huge fees for access to academic papers and for publication of their own work. That made sense in the days when scholarly works were printed in bound volumes. Today, academic work, especially public- and foundation-funded research, should be open for all. It shouldn’t cost $35 to $40 for each article, effectively freezing out those without the means to pay...

The University of California’s mission statement reads: “The distinctive mission of the university is to serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge.”

UC’s commitment to open access helps fulfill that goal and advances scientific enterprise for the benefit of all."

Making a path to ethical, socially-beneficial artificial intelligence, MIT News, March 5, 2019

School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, MIT News; Making a path to ethical, socially-beneficial artificial intelligence

Leaders from government, philanthropy, academia, and industry say collaboration is key to make sure artificial intelligence serves the public good.

"Many speakers at the three-day celebration, which was held on Feb. 26-28, called for an approach to education, research, and tool-making that combines collective knowledge from the technology, humanities, arts, and social science fields, throwing the double-edged promise of the new machine age into stark relief...

The final panel was “Computing for the People: Ethics and AI,” moderated by New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman. In a conversation afterward, Nobles also emphasized that the goal of the new college is to advance computation and to give all students a greater “awareness of the larger political, social context in which we’re all living.” That is the MIT vision for developing “bilinguals” — engineers, scholars, professionals, civic leaders, and policymakers who have both superb technical expertise and an understanding of complex societal issues gained from study in the humanities, arts, and social science fields.  

The perils of speed and limited perspective
 
The five panelists on “Computing for the People” — representing industry, academia, government, and philanthropy — contributed particulars to the vision of a society infused with those bilinguals, and attested to the perils posed by an overly-swift integration of advanced computing into all domains of modern existence.
 
"I think of AI as jetpacks and blindfolds that will send us careening in whatever direction we're already headed," said Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab. "It's going to make us more powerful but not necessarily more wise."

The key problem, according to Ito, is that machine learning and AI have to date been exclusively the province of engineers, who tend to talk only with each other. This means they can deny accountability when their work proves socially, politically, or economically destructive. "Asked to explain their code, technological people say: ‘We're just technical people, we don't deal with racial or political problems,’" Ito said." 

The ethical side of big data; Statistics Netherlands, March 4, 2019

Masja de Ree, Statistics Netherlands; The ethical side of big data

"The power of data

Why do we need to highlight the importance of ethical data use? Dechesne explains: ‘I am a mathematician. My world is a world of numbers. My education did not put much emphasis on the power of data in our society, however. Numbers frequently have a veneer of objectivity, but any conclusions drawn on the basis of data are always contingent on the definitions maintained and the decisions made when designing a research project. These choices can have a huge impact on certain groups in our society. This is something we need to be aware of. Decisions have to be made. That is fine, of course, as long as everyone is mindful and transparent when making decisions.’"

Teen who defied anti-vax mom says she got false information from one source: Facebook; The Washington Post, March 5, 2019

Michael Brice-Saddler, The Washington Post; Teen who defied anti-vax mom says she got false information from one source: Facebook

"An 18-year-old from Ohio who famously inoculated himself against his mother’s wishes in December says he attributes his mother’s anti-vaccine ideology to a single source: Facebook.

Ethan Lindenberger, a high school senior, testified Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and underscored the importance of “credible” information. In contrast, he said, the false and deep-rooted beliefs his mother held — that vaccines were dangerous — were perpetuated by social media. Specifically, he said, she turned to anti-vaccine groups on social media for evidence that supported her point of view.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Lindenberger said Facebook, or websites that were linked on Facebook, is really the only source his mother ever relied on for her anti-vaccine information."

Olympic champion shares personal experience on the importance of ethics; NTVabc, March 5, 2019

Lauren Kummer, NTVabc; Olympic champion shares personal experience on the importance of ethics

"On Tuesday, it was Ethics Day at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Naber spoke to students on character and ethics in a way that's relevant to everyday life.

"I think it's important to talk about what's in the best common good. Not in what's in your best interest but what is in our best interest," said Naber.

Naber shared stories on his own, and one in particular that put him in a tough situation during the 1973 World Team Trials where ethics came into question.

"I won the race but I didn't touch the wall correctly. The official thought I should be disqualified. The meet referee wasn't sure and they let me decide. Did I intend to fight the call? I remembered I didn't touch the wall. I said "I deserve to be disqualified" and I was. For that, I lost the chance to win a gold medal at the world championships but I earned my own self-respect. Of all the decisions I made in my swimming and athletic career I think that might be the highlight," said Naber."

Should This Exist? The Ethics Of New Technology; NPR, March 3, 2019

Lulu Garcia-Navarro, NPR; Should This Exist? The Ethics Of New Technology

"In fact, the 2016 election helped raise awareness of an issue that Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake has been talking about in Silicon Valley for years — the ethics of technology.

That conversation was furthered by OpenAI's decision to publicize the nonrelease of their new technology last month, Fake told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro.

"Tech companies don't launch products all the time, but it's rare that they announce that they're not launching a product, which is what has happened here," Fake said. "The announcement of not launching this product is basically to involve people in the conversation around what is and what is not dangerous tech."

When evaluating potential new technology, Fake asks a fundamental question: should this exist?

It's a question she explores as host of the podcast Should This Exist?"

Seeking Ground Rules for A.I.; The New York Times, March 1, 2019

Cade Metz, The New York Times; Seeking Ground Rules for A.I.

It’s not easy to encourage the ethical use of artificial intelligence. But here are 10 recommendations.

"The Recommendations 

Transparency Companies should be transparent about the design, intention and use of their A.I. technology.

Disclosure Companies should clearly disclose to users what data is being collected and how it is being used.

Privacy Users should be able to easily opt out of data collection.

Diversity A.I. technology should be developed by inherently diverse teams.

Bias Companies should strive to avoid bias in A.I. by drawing on diverse data sets.

Trust Organizations should have internal processes to self-regulate the misuse of A.I. Have a chief ethics officer, ethics board, etc.

Accountability There should be a common set of standards by which companies are held accountable for the use and impact of their A.I. technology.

Collective governance Companies should work together to self-regulate the industry.

Regulation Companies should work with regulators to develop appropriate laws to govern the use of A.I.

“Complementarity” Treat A.I. as tool for humans to use, not a replacement for human work.

The leaders of the groups: Frida Polli, a founder and chief executive, Pymetrics; Sara Menker, founder and chief executive, Gro Intelligence; Serkan Piantino, founder and chief executive, Spell; Paul Scharre, director, Technology and National Security Program, The Center for a New American Security; Renata Quintini, partner, Lux Capital; Ken Goldberg, William S. Floyd Jr. distinguished chair in engineering, University of California, Berkeley; Danika Laszuk, general manager, Betaworks Camp; Elizabeth Joh, Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law, University of California, Davis; Candice Morgan, head of inclusion and diversity, Pinterest"

Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?; The New York Times, March 1, 2019

Cade Metz, The New York Times; Is Ethical A.I. Even Possible?

"As activists, researchers, and journalists voice concerns over the rise of artificial intelligence, warning against biased, deceptive and malicious applications, the companies building this technology are responding. From tech giants like Google and Microsoft to scrappy A.I. start-ups, many are creating corporate principles meant to ensure their systems are designed and deployed in an ethical way. Some set up ethics officers or review boards to oversee these principles.

But tensions continue to rise as some question whether these promises will ultimately be kept. Companies can change course. Idealism can bow to financial pressure. Some activists — and even some companies — are beginning to argue that the only way to ensure ethical practices is through government regulation."

Beatle late than never – stolen 'Life' magazine featuring Fab 4 returned to library after 50 years; News 5 Cleveland, February 28, 2019

Ian Cross, News 5 Cleveland; Beatle late than never – stolen 'Life' magazine featuring Fab 4 returned to library after 50 years

"Cuyahoga County Public Library representatives may be doing the twist and shout after they received the Life magazine from 1968, along with a money order for $100 and a letter that read: 

“I stole this magazine from the Parma Ridge Road Library when I was a kid. I’m sorry I took it. I’ve enclosed a check for the late fee.” 

In a Facebook post, library officials thanked the anonymous paperback burglar for returning the “borrowed” magazine that was able to get back to where it once belonged."

Medical students wanted: Only the ethical need apply; The Boston Globe, February 28, 2019

Inderveer Mahal, The Boston Globe; Medical students wanted: Only the ethical need apply

"Acceptance to medical school is notoriously difficult. You need to have an exceptional GPA and high Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores just to get an interview. Now, it’s getting even harder. Admissions officers have added a new kind of test to their screening arsenal, one that could change the face of medicine.

Since 2015, more than two dozen medical schools across the United States have embraced a test of interpersonal skills known as the CASPer (Computer Based Assessment for Sampling Personal Characteristics) test. The exam determines students’ levels of compassion and ethics — two qualities that many believe are critical to a physician’s success.

“As a society,” says Dore, “we know that strong academic skills aren’t the only trait we value in our doctors. We want them to be excellent communicators, have a strong moral sense, and be able to be empathetic across a variety of situations.”"

University of Texas can’t take away student’s PhD; C & En, Chemical & engineering News, February 22, 2019

Bethany Halford, C & En, Chemical & engineering News; University of Texas can’t take away student’s PhD

"The University of Texas at Austin does not have the authority to revoke a student’s degree, according to a Feb. 11 ruling by Judge Karin Crump in Travis County, Texas district court. The judgment is the latest turn in the university’s years-long effort to strip Suvi Orr of her doctorate in chemistry. 

Orr began her graduate studies in organic synthesis in Stephen Martin’s lab in 2003. In 2008 she successfully defended her thesis. But six years later, UT Austin sent a certified letter to Orr saying the school was invalidating her thesis based on research misconduct. The university cited a 2011 Organic Letters paper that was retracted in 2012 (DOI: 10.1021/ol302236g) because two steps in the synthesis could not be reproduced.

Orr, now a senior principal scientist at Pfizer, denies any wrongdoing."

Blockchain could ensure the integrity of scientific research trials; Digital Trends, February 23, 2019

Georgina Torbet , Digital Trends; Blockchain could ensure the integrity of scientific research trials

"Scientific misconduct is more than just a problem for academia. The falsifying of results can lead to incorrect information spreading out into the world and can have real-world consequences as well as undermining the credibility of science among the general public. Now a group of researchers have proposed a way to make research data more trustworthy and less susceptible to manipulation — by using blockchain.

Researchers at the University of California, San Fransico (UCSF) created a proof of concept that shows how the integrity of clinical trial data can be protected and proven using blockchain. Blockchain allows users to track the changes made to any portion of the data entered into it, making an audit trail for regulators which can be checked for any inconsistencies. This would make it obvious if, for example, a researcher changes certain values in their data set to come to the conclusion that they wanted."
 

‘Mockingbird’ Producer Reconsiders, Letting Local Plays Go Forward; The New York Times, March 1, 2019

Michael Paulson and Alexandra Alter, The New York Times; ‘Mockingbird’ Producer Reconsiders, Letting Local Plays Go Forward

"Mr. Rudin defended his actions in a brief statement, saying, “As stewards of the performance rights of Aaron Sorkin’s play, it is our responsibility to enforce the agreement we made with the Harper Lee estate and to make sure that we protect the extraordinary collaborators who made this production.”

But he also blamed the situation on the Dramatic Publishing Company, which is run by Christopher Sergel III, Mr. Sergel’s grandson, saying it had erred in issuing licenses to present the play to theaters that should not have received them. Mr. Rudin has argued that a 1969 agreement between Ms. Lee, the author of the novel, and Dramatic Publishing bars productions by theaters within 25 miles of a city that in 1960 had a population of more than 150,000 people, as well as productions using professional actors, when a “first-class” production is running on Broadway or on tour.

“We have been hard at work creating what I hope might be a solution for those theater companies that have been affected by this unfortunate set of circumstances, in which rights that were not available to them were licensed to them by a third party who did not have the right to do so,” Mr. Rudin said. “In an effort to ameliorate the hurt caused here, we are offering each of these companies the right to perform our version of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Aaron Sorkin’s play currently running on Broadway.”...

“Unfortunately this issue has been the shot heard ’round the fine arts world over recent days,” said Davis Varner, the president of the board of the Theater of Gadsden, a community theater in Alabama that is planning to stage the Sergel version this month. The theater is not near a big city, so its rights appear to be unchallenged, but Mr. Varner issued a statement referring to Mr. Rudin as “the bully from Broadway” and said, “I am saddened and disappointed for those groups who have been forced to cancel their productions through no fault of their own.”

Others took to social media to vent their unhappiness.

As great as the new version on Broadway is, Scott Rudin's strongarming of local theater companies to shut down their versions of To Kill a Mockingbird seems repressive and anti-art.

— david maraniss (@davidmaraniss) March 1, 2019"

Mongols Biker Club Can Keep Its Logo, Judge Rules; The New York Times, February 28, 2019

Louis Keene and Serge F. Kovaleski, The New York Times; Mongols Biker Club Can Keep Its Logo, Judge Rules

"Nearly two months after a federal jury decided that a notorious motorcycle club must forfeit the rights to its trademarked emblem, a judge on Thursday nullified the verdict, finding that seizure of the intellectual property was unconstitutional. 

In a 51-page ruling, Federal District Judge David O. Carter said the government’s strategy of trying to devastate the Mongols motorcycle club by confiscating its treasured Genghis Khan-style logo would violate the group’s First Amendment right to free speech and the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment."

University of California boycotts publishing giant Elsevier over journal costs and open access; Science, February 28, 2019

Alex Fox, Jeffrey Brainard, Science; University of California boycotts publishing giant Elsevier over journal costs and open access

"The mammoth University of California (UC) system announced today it will stop paying to subscribe to journals published by Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific publisher, headquartered in Amsterdam. Talks to renew a collective contract broke down, the university said, because Elsevier refused to strike a package deal that would provide a break on subscription fees and make all articles published by UC authors immediately free for readers worldwide.

The stand by UC, which followed 8 months of negotiations, could have significant impacts on scientific communication and the direction of the so-called open-access movement, in the United States and beyond. The 10-campus system accounts for nearly 10% of all U.S. publishing output and is among the first U.S. institutions, and by far the largest, to boycott Elsevier over costs. Many administrators and librarians at U.S. universities and elsewhere have complained about what they view as excessively high journal subscription fees charged by commercial publishers."

Jill Abramson Plagiarized My Writing. So I Interviewed Her About It; Rolling Stone, February 13, 2019

Jake Malooley, Rolling Stone;

Jill Abramson Plagiarized My Writing. So I Interviewed Her About It

When journalist Jake Malooley talked to the former New York Times executive editor, she admitted only to minor mistakes — but her responses were revealing

[Kip Currier: In yesterday's Information Ethics class session, looking at Plagiarism, Attribution, and Research Integrity and Misconduct, we explored this illuminating 2/13/19 interview of Jill Abramson--veteran journalist and the former first-ever female Executive Editor of The New York Times from 2011 until her firing in 2014--by Rolling Stone reporter Jake Malooley.

I also played the first ten minutes of a 2/20/19 radio interview of Abramson by WNYC's Brian Lehrer, in which Abramson fields questions from Lehrer about her ongoing plagiarism controversy and research/writing process.

The Abramson plagiarism controversy is a rich ripped-from-the-headlines case study, emphasizing the importance and implications of plagiarism and research integrity and misconduct. Imagine being in Abramson's Harvard University class this term, where the 1976 Harvard FAS alumna is teaching an Introduction to Journalism course...

Speaking of Harvard, The Harvard Crimson has an interesting 2/15/19 article on the continuing Abramson controversy, as well as prior instances of alleged plagiarism by a trio of prestigious Harvard professors in the early 2000's, who, following investigations, "faced no public disciplinary action": Current Policy, Past Investigations Offer Window Into Harvard’s Next Steps In Abramson Plagiarism Case]

"In the days that followed, Abramson gave interviews to Vox and CNN. She unconvincingly sidestepped definitions of plagiarism upheld by the Times and Harvard, contending she is guilty of little more than sloppiness. She also claimed Vice is “waging an oppo campaign” against her book. Amid all the equivocation and attempts to duck the plagiarist label, Abramson still had not sufficiently explained how my writing and that of several other journalists ended up running nearly word-for-word in her book. I didn’t feel personally aggrieved, as some colleagues believed I rightfully should. But I did think I was owed straight answers. So late last week, I requested an interview with Abramson through Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Merchants of Truth.

On Monday afternoon, Abramson phoned me from Harvard’s campus, where she would be teaching an introduction to journalism seminar. According to the syllabus for Abramson’s Spring 2019 workshop “Journalism in the Age of Trump,” a copy of which a student, Hannah Gais, tweeted, Merchants of Truth is assigned as required reading...

This interview has been condensed for length.

Correction: This article previously stated that Abramson was on her way to her Spring 2019 workshop, “Journalism in the Age of Trump.” It has been corrected to clarify that she was on her way to an introduction to journalism class."