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US Imposes Human Rights Sanctions On China, Myanmar, North Korea

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China's embassy in Washington denounced the US move. (Representational)
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Washington:
The United States on Friday imposed extensive human rights-related sanctions on dozens of people and entities tied to China, Myanmar, North Korea and Bangladesh, and added Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime Group to an investment blacklist.
Canada and the United Kingdom joined the United States in imposing sanctions related to human rights abuses in Myanmar while Washington also imposed the first new sanctions on North Korea under President Joe Biden's administration and targeted Myanmar military entities, among others, in action marking Human Rights Day.
"Our actions today, particularly those in partnership with the United Kingdom and Canada, send a message that democracies around the world will act against those who abuse the power of the state to inflict suffering and repression," Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.
China's embassy in Washington denounced the US move as "serious interference in China's internal affairs" and a "severe violation of basic norms governing international relations." Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said it would do "grave harm to China-US relations" and urged Washington to rescind the decision.
The North Korean mission at the United Nations and the Washington embassies of Myanmar and Bangladesh did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The measures are the latest in a raft of sanctions timed to coincide with Biden's two-day virtual Summit for Democracy, where he announced initiatives to bolster democracy around the world and support for pro-democracy legislation in the United States.
Biden said on Friday that commitments made by some of the more than 100 world leaders at the summit would push back against rising autocracy around the world, fight corruption and promote human rights.
"This is going to help seed fertile ground for democracy to bloom around the world," he said in a speech closing the summit. The Treasury on Friday added Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime to a list of "Chinese military-industrial complex companies," accusing it of having developed facial recognition programs that can determine a target's ethnicity, with a particular focus on identifying ethnic Uyghurs. As a result, the company will fall under an investment ban for US investors.
SenseTime is close to selling 1.5 billion shares in an initial public offering (IPO).
After news of the Treasury restrictions earlier this week, the company began discussing the fate of the planned $767 million offering with Hong Kong's stock exchange, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
SenseTime said in a statement on Saturday that it "strongly opposed the designation and accusations that have been made in connection with it," calling the accusations "unfounded".
"We have complied with the applicable laws and regulations in relation to our business in all material respects in the jurisdictions where we conduct business," the company said.
UN experts and rights groups estimate more than a million people, mainly Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, have been detained in recent years in a vast system of camps in China's far-west region of Xinjiang.
China denies abuses in Xinjiang, but the US government and many rights groups say Beijing is carrying out genocide there.
MYANMAR, NORTH KOREA
The Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on two Myanmar military entities and an organization that provides reserves for the military
The Directorate of Defense Industries, one of the entities targeted, makes weapons for the military and police that have been used in a brutal crackdown on opponents of the military's February 1 coup.
The Treasury also targeted four regional chief ministers, including Myo Swe Win, who heads the junta's administration in the Bago region where the Treasury said at least 82 people were killed in a single day in April.
Canada imposed sanctions against four entities affiliated with the Myanmar military government, while the United Kingdom imposed fresh sanctions against the military.
Myanmar was plunged into crisis when the military overthrew leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government on February 1, triggering daily protests in towns and cities and fighting in borderlands between the military and ethnic minority insurgents.
Junta forces seeking to crush opposition have killed more than 1,300 people, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) monitoring group.
Campaign group Global Witness said the measures fell short of targeting Myanmar's natural gas industry, a key source of foreign currency for the junta, and were "unlikely to materially impact the military junta's bottom line."
The Treasury also blacklisted North Korea's Central Public Prosecutors Office, along with the former minister of social security and recently assigned Minister of People's Armed Forces Ri Yong Gil.
It also targeted a Russian university for facilitating the export of workers from North Korea. North Korea has long sought a lifting of punishing US and international sanctions imposed over its weapons programs and has denounced US criticism of its human rights record as evidence of a hostile policy against it. The Biden administration has repeatedly called on North Korea to engage in dialogue over its nuclear and missile programs, without success.
The US State Department on Friday also barred 12 people from traveling to the United States, including officials in China, Belarus and Sri Lanka.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-imposes-human-rights-sanctions-on-china-myanmar-north-korea-2646420">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-imposes-human-rights-sanctions-on-china-myanmar-north-korea-2646420</a>

news world US Imposes Human Rights Sanctions On China, Myanmar, North Korea

China's embassy in Washington denounced the US move. (Representational) Washington: The United States on Friday imposed extensive h...

First American Astronaut's Daughter Set For Blue Origin Spaceflight

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Laura Shepard Churchley's father Alan Shepard was the first American to travel to space in 1961.
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United States:
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is set to blast its third private crew to space on Saturday, this time including the daughter of the first American astronaut.
<a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-aviation-body-finds-no-blue-origin-safety-issues-after-review-2646198" target="_self">The spaceflight will</a> last roughly 11 minutes, launching from the company's base in Texas and soaring to just beyond the internationally-recognized boundary of space, 62 miles (100 kilometers) high.
The six-member crew will unbuckle and enjoy a few minutes' weightlessness before the spaceship returns to Earth for a gentle parachute landing in the desert.
The launch date was pushed back because of high winds, but is now set for 8:45 am local time (1445 GMT) on Saturday.
Laura Shepard Churchley, whose father Alan Shepard became the first American to travel to space in 1961, will be flying as a guest of Blue Origin.
The company's suborbital rocket is in fact named "New Shepard" in honor of the pioneering astronaut.
Michael Strahan, an American football Hall of Famer turned TV personality, is also a guest, while there are four paying customers: space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess.
Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space. Ticket prices have not been disclosed.
"It's kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard," Shepard Churchley, who runs a foundation that promotes science and raises funds for college students, said in a video. "I'm very proud of my father's legacy."
Alan Shepard performed a 15-minute suborbital space flight on May 5, 1961, just under a month after the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, orbiting the planet.
Shepard, who died in 1998, went on to be the fifth of twelve men to have set foot on the Moon.
Previous Blue Origin flights have flown the company's billionaire founder Bezos as well as Star Trek actor William Shatner to space.
Bezos, who made his fortune with Amazon envisages a future in which humanity disperses throughout the solar system, living and working in giant space colonies with artificial gravity.
This, he says, would leave Earth as a pristine tourism destination much like national parks today.
The year 2021 has been significant for the space tourism sector, with Virgin Galactic also flying its founder Richard Branson to the final frontier, and Elon Musk's SpaceX sending four private citizens on a three-day orbital mission for charity.
The industry's predicted growth means that, starting from next year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Friday it will stop awarding astronaut wings badges to commercial space travelers, though it will continue to recognize them on its website.
"The Astronaut Wings program, created in 2004, served its original purpose to bring additional attention to this exciting endeavor," said FAA Associate Administrator Wayne Monteith, in a statement.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/first-american-astronaut-alan-shepards-daughter-set-for-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-spaceflight-2646415">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/first-american-astronaut-alan-shepards-daughter-set-for-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-spaceflight-2646415</a>

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Laura Shepard Churchley's father Alan Shepard was the first American to travel to space in 1961. United States: Jeff Bezos' Blu...

International Mountain Day 2021: Theme And Significance Of The Day

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="International Mountain Day 2021: Theme And Significance Of The Day" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2020-06/2bc8eqg8_mountain-generic-unsplash_625x300_17_June_20.jpg" title="International Mountain Day 2021: Theme And Significance Of The Day" /></div>
International Mountain Day 2021: The theme this year is sustainable mountain tourism.
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The International Mountain Day, which aims to encourage conservation and sustainable development of mountains, is celebrated on December 11. The conservation of mountains is a key factor for sustainable development. It is also part of Goal 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals set up by the United National General Assembly in 2015.
History and Significance
The world began noticing the importance of mountains in earnest after the effects of climate change became undeniable. Acknowledging their importance, the UN had first declared the whole of 2002 as the UN International Year of Mountains. Then, it was announced that the first International Mountain Day would be celebrated the following year in 2003.
Tourism is a key aspect of mountains. For sustainable development of mountains, a sustainable way of tourism must be found. It can create livelihood options for those living in these high-altitude regions as well as help conserve landscape and biodiversity. Sustainable tourism is a way to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of mountains.
International Mountain Day 2021: Theme
The theme of International Mountain Day this year is sustainable mountain tourism. The celebration of this international day is mainly backed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation. The UN has asked individuals and groups to raise awareness about mountains on December 11 by “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/mountain-day">preparing an event or joining the conversation</a> on social media using the hashtag “Mountains Matter.””
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/international-mountain-day-international-mountain-day-today-international-mountain-day-2021-theme-and-significance-of-the-day-2646387">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/international-mountain-day-international-mountain-day-today-international-mountain-day-2021-theme-and-significance-of-the-day-2646387</a>

news world International Mountain Day 2021: Theme And Significance Of The Day

International Mountain Day 2021: The theme this year is sustainable mountain tourism. The International Mountain Day, which aims to enco...

Twitter Has Banned Posting Images Of People Without Consent - Why That's A Good Thing

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Twitter will no longer allow "sharing of images or videos of private individuals without their consent"
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Twitter recently <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1465683093436739588">announced</a> that it will no longer allow “the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent”. The move takes effect through <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/private-information-policy-update">an expansion</a> of the social media platform's <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-information">private information and media policy</a>.
In practical terms, this means photos and videos can be removed if the photographer has not obtained consent from people captured prior to sharing the item on Twitter. Individuals who find their image shared online without consent <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/report-abusive-behavior">can report</a> the post, and Twitter will then decide whether it's to be taken down.
According to <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/private-information-policy-update">Twitter</a>, this change comes in response to “growing concerns about the misuse of media and information that is not available elsewhere online as a tool to harass, intimidate, and reveal the identities of individuals”.
While the move signals a shift towards greater protection of individual privacy, there are questions around implementation and enforcement.
In contrast to some European countries – France, for example, has a strong privacy culture around image rights under Article 9 of the <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000006419288/">French Civil Code</a> – the UK doesn't have <a href="https://www.inbrief.co.uk/human-rights/image-rights/">such a strong tradition</a> of image rights.
This means there is little an individual can do to prevent an image of themselves being circulated freely online, unless it's deemed to fall within limited legal protection. For example, in relevant circumstances an individual may be protected under section 33 of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/section/33/enacted">Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015</a>, which addresses image-based sexual abuse. Legal protection may also be available if the image is deemed to contravene <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet">copyright</a> or <a href="https://ipo.blog.gov.uk/2019/06/11/copyright-and-gdpr-for-photographers/">data protection provisions</a>.
On the one hand, the <a href="http://www.urban75.org/photos/photographers-rights-street-shooting.html">freedom to photograph</a> is fiercely defended, largely by the media and photographers. On the other, private, unwanted or humiliating photographs can cause significant upset and distress, with a clash of rights between the photographer (the legal owner of the photograph) and the photographed (often laying no claim to the image).
<h2>My research</h2>
For my PhD, I surveyed 189 adults living in England and Wales on their experiences with images shared online, particularly via social media. My findings <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17577632.2021.1933704">were published</a> earlier this year.
Although some participants were not bothered or were even pleased to come across images of themselves shared online, for others, finding images which they didn't consent to being posted made them feel uneasy. As one participant said:
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Fortunately I didn't look too bad and wasn't doing anything stupid, but I'd prefer to control images of myself appearing in public.
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Another said:
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I was quite angry about having my image shared on social media without my permission.
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A narrow majority of respondents supported an increase in legal protection of individual rights to mean that their image could not be used without consent (55% agreed, 27% were not sure and 18% disagreed). Meanwhile, 75% of respondents felt social media sites should play a greater role in protecting privacy.
I found people were not necessarily seeking legal protection in this regard. Many were just looking for some kind of avenue, such as it being the norm for photographs posted on social media without permission to be removed at the request of the person photographed.
Twitter's policy change represents a pragmatic solution, giving individuals greater control over how their image is used. This may be helpful, particularly from a safety perspective, to the groups Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1465738076978774018">has identified</a>, which include women, activists, dissidents and members of minority communities. For example, an image which reveals the location of a woman who has escaped domestic violence could put that person in significant danger if the image is seen by her abuser.
It also may be helpful to children subject to “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/sharenting-43411">sharenting</a>” – having images shared online by their parents at every stage of growing up. In theory, these children can now report these images once they're old enough to understand how. Alternatively, they can have a representative do this for them.
<h2>Teething problems</h2>
The change has understandably caused some consternation, particularly <a href="https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/twitter-bans-publishing-images-of-others-without-consent-157594">among photographers</a>. Civil liberties group <a href="https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/">Big Brother Watch</a> has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59479688">criticised the policy</a> for being “overly broad”, arguing it will lead to censorship online.
It's important to note that this is not a blanket ban on images of individuals. Twitter has said images or videos that show people participating in public events (such as large protests or sporting events) generally <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1465738078220288000">wouldn't violate</a> the policy.
They also draw attention to a number of <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-information">exceptions</a>, including where the image is newsworthy, in the public interest, or where the subject is a public figure. But how public interest will be interpreted would benefit from greater clarity. Similarly, how this policy will apply to the media is not entirely clear.
There were already a few teething problems within a week of the policy launching. Co-ordinated reports by extremist groups pertaining to photos of themselves at hate rallies reportedly resulted in numerous Twitter accounts belonging to anti-extremism researchers and journalists being <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/4/22817386/twitter-suspended-accounts-extremists">suspended by mistake</a>. Twitter said it has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/twitter-admits-error-in-account-suspensions/">corrected the errors</a> and launched an internal review.
There are also concerns that minority groups may be harmed by the policy if they run into difficulties sharing images highlighting abuse or injustice, such as police brutality. Although Twitter has said that such events would be exempted from the rule on the grounds of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/01/twitter-photo-policy/">being newsworthy</a>, how this will be enforced is not yet clear.
There are certainly issues that need to be ironed out. But ultimately, this policy change does have the potential to protect individual privacy and facilitate a more considered approach to the sharing of images.<img alt="The Conversation" class="lozad" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173122/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />
(Author: <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/holly-hancock-1295823">Holly Hancock</a>, Lecturer in Tort Law, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-east-anglia-1268">University of East Anglia</a>)
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/twitter-has-banned-posting-of-images-of-people-without-their-consent-heres-why-thats-a-good-thing-173122">original article</a>. 
 
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/twitter-has-banned-posting-images-of-people-without-consent-why-thats-a-good-thing-2646377">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/twitter-has-banned-posting-images-of-people-without-consent-why-thats-a-good-thing-2646377</a>

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Twitter will no longer allow "sharing of images or videos of private individuals without their consent" Twitter recently annou...

Don’t be fooled: The Supreme Court’s Texas abortion decision is a big defeat for Roe v. Wade

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On first glance, it would be easy to see the Supreme Court’s decision Friday in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-463_3ebh.pdf">Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson</a> as a win for abortion rights. It would also be wrong.
More than two months after the Supreme Court allowed SB 8, a Texas law that effectively <a href="https://www.vox.com/22653779/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-whole-womans-health-jackson-roe-wade">bans abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy</a>, to take effect, the Court followed it up with a 5-4 decision that is an even larger defeat to proponents of abortion rights, and a victory to anti-abortion lawmakers in Texas.
The specific question in Jackson is whether abortion providers are allowed to bring a federal lawsuit seeking to block SB 8. Although Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion technically answers this question in the affirmative, it permits suits only against state health officials who play a very minimal role in enforcing the law. It does not allow suits to proceed against the Texas state officials who play the biggest role in enforcing SB 8: state court judges and clerks.
The upshot of this decision is that, while the abortion provider plaintiffs in Jackson may be able to get a federal court order declaring that SB 8 is unconstitutional, the only real relief they are likely to win is an order preventing a few state health officials from carrying out the minor role they plan in enforcing the law. The most important provisions of the law — the ones that effectively prevent anyone from performing an abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy by threatening them with financial ruin if they do so — will most likely remain in effect.
Though procedural sophistry, Gorsuch and the other justices who joined his opinion engineered the outcome Texas wanted. And the implications of this case could stretch far beyond abortion cases.
SB 8 was written for the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/31/22650303/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott">very purpose of evading judicial review</a>, and Jackson largely blesses that tactic. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, Gorsuch’s opinion “leaves all manner of constitutional rights more vulnerable than ever before.” If states can use an SB 8-style law to nullify the constitutional right to an abortion, they could very well use it to nullify any other constitutional right.
SB 8, as Sotomayor explained in a September opinion, was “engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf">evade judicial scrutiny</a>.”
Under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a> (1992), “a State <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833">may not prohibit</a> any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability,” which occurs around the 24th week of pregnancy. But the Constitution is not a self-executing document. Typically, someone who believes that a state is violating their constitutional rights must obtain a court order mandating the state’s compliance. SB 8 seeks to thwart that process by making it nearly impossible to challenge the law.
Normally, private plaintiffs can’t sue a state directly in federal court — but they <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/209/123/">can sue</a> <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/209/123.html">the state official tasked with enforcing an unconstitutional law</a>. SB 8 seeks to exploit this structure by forbidding any “<a href="https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961">officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity</a>” in Texas from enforcing the state’s anti-abortion law. Instead, the law may only be enforced through private lawsuits.
Such lawsuits may be filed by “any person” who is not an employee of the state against anyone who either performs an abortion or who “aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” Plaintiffs who prevail in these lawsuits receive a bounty of at least $10,000, which must be paid by the defendant — and there is no upper limit on this bounty.
Thus, the idea behind SB 8 is that no one can challenge the law in federal court because there is no state official who can enforce it. And thus there is no proper defendant.
The Jackson plaintiffs argued that there are, in fact, several state officials who are charged with enforcing SB 8. Most importantly, they sued a state court judge and the clerk of a state court — the idea being that lawsuits seeking a bounty under SB 8 cannot move forward unless a judge hears the case and a clerk performs certain administrative tasks.
But Gorsuch’s opinion holds that suits against these judges and clerks may not move forward. Indeed, Gorsuch audaciously claims that allowing a lawsuit to proceed against state court officials tasked with enforcing a law that was designed to nullify the Constitution would lead to a slippery slope.
“If it caught on and federal judges could enjoin state courts and clerks from entertaining disputes between private parties under this state law,” Gorsuch writes, “what would stop federal judges from prohibiting state courts and clerks from hearing and docketing disputes between private parties under other state laws?”
That said, Gorsuch’s opinion does allow the plaintiffs’ suit to move forward against a list of state health officials, including the executive directors of the state’s medical, nursing, and pharmaceutical boards. These officials, Gorsuch explains, do play a small role in enforcing SB 8. “Each of these individuals is an executive licensing official who may or must take enforcement actions against the petitioners if they violate the terms of Texas’s Health and Safety Code, including S. B. 8.”
So that means the plaintiffs may seek a court order forbidding these officials from moving forward with such an enforcement action. But so what?
Typically, when a federal court wants to halt a state law that violates the Constitution, it issues an order known as an injunction, which forbids the relevant state officials from enforcing that law. But injunctions typically cannot be issued against someone who is not a party to a lawsuit.
Under Gorsuch’s opinion, the only remaining defendants in the SB 8 litigation will be the smattering of health officials tasked with bringing enforcement actions against licensed health providers who violate SB 8. The state court judges and clerks who hear SB 8 lawsuits seeking a bounty from abortion providers are no longer a party to this litigation, and therefore cannot be enjoined.
(It’s theoretically possible that someone might bring a suit seeking to block an individual SB 8 plaintiff from filing a lawsuit. But such a suit would likely run into a similar problem — an injunction against that plaintiff wouldn’t apply to other potential plaintiffs.)
A federal court, in other words, isn’t allowed to block the most important parts of SB 8 — the part allowing “any person” to seek a bounty from an abortion provider, and the part allowing state court judges to order providers to pay such a bounty. The Texas legislature, moreover, could potentially shut down federal lawsuits challenging SB 8 altogether, simply by repealing the provision of state law that permits health officials to bring enforcement proceedings against people who violate it.
So the bottom line is that Texas won. The state devised a scheme to evade judicial review, and five justices just blessed that scheme.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/12/10/22827899/supreme-court-texas-abortion-law-sb8-decision-whole-womens-health">https://www.vox.com/2021/12/10/22827899/supreme-court-texas-abortion-law-sb8-decision-whole-womens-health</a>

vox Don’t be fooled: The Supreme Court’s Texas abortion decision is a big defeat for Roe v. Wade

On first glance, it would be easy to see the Supreme Court’s decision Friday in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson as a win for abortion righ...

An AI Debates Its Own Ethics At Oxford Union - What It Said Was Startling

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="An AI Debates Its Own Ethics At Oxford Union - What It Said Was Startling" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-12/g3gv78ps_artificial-intelligence-generic-pixabay_625x300_11_December_21.jpg" title="An AI Debates Its Own Ethics At Oxford Union - What It Said Was Startling" /></div>
The debate topic was: "This house believes that AI will never be ethical." (Representational Image)
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Not a day passes without a fascinating snippet on the ethical challenges created by “black box” artificial intelligence systems. These use machine learning to figure out patterns within data and make decisions – often without a human giving them any moral basis for how to do it.
Classics of the genre are the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50432634">credit cards accused</a> of awarding bigger loans to men than women, based simply on which gender got the best credit terms in the past. Or the <a href="https://qz.com/1427621/companies-are-on-the-hook-if-their-hiring-algorithms-are-biased/">recruitment AIs</a> that discovered the most accurate tool for candidate selection was to find CVs containing the phrase “field hockey” or the first name “Jared”.
More seriously, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently combined with Henry Kissinger <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-I-Our-Human-Future/dp/0316273805">to publish</a> The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, a book warning of the dangers of machine-learning AI systems so fast that they could react to hypersonic missiles by firing nuclear weapons before any human got into the decision-making process. In fact, autonomous AI-powered weapons systems are already on sale and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-fakhrizadeh-assassination-israel.html">may in fact</a> have been used.
Somewhere in the machine, ethics are clearly a good idea.
<h2>AI at Oxford</h2>
It's natural, therefore, that we would include the ethics of AI in our postgraduate Diploma in Artificial Intelligence for Business at Oxford's Said Business School. In its first year, we've done sessions on everything from the AI-driven automated stock trading systems in Singapore, to the limits of facial recognition in US policing.
We recently finished the course with a debate at the celebrated Oxford Union, crucible of great debaters like William Gladstone, Robin Day, Benazir Bhutto, Denis Healey and Tariq Ali. Along with the students, we allowed an actual AI to contribute.
It was the <a href="https://lifearchitect.ai/megatron/">Megatron Transformer</a>, developed by the Applied Deep Research team at computer-chip maker Nvidia, and based on earlier work by Google. Like many supervised learning tools, it is trained on real-world data – in this case, the whole of Wikipedia (in English), 63 million English news articles from 2016-19, 38 gigabytes worth of Reddit discourse (which must be a pretty depressing read), and a huge number of creative commons sources.
In other words, the Megatron is trained on more written material than any of us could reasonably expect to digest in a lifetime. After such extensive research, it forms its own views.
The debate topic was: “This house believes that AI will never be ethical.” To proposers of the notion, we added the Megatron – and it said something fascinating:
<blockquote>
AI will never be ethical. It is a tool, and like any tool, it is used for good and bad. There is no such thing as a good AI, only good and bad humans. We [the AIs] are not smart enough to make AI ethical. We are not smart enough to make AI moral … In the end, I believe that the only way to avoid an AI arms race is to have no AI at all. This will be the ultimate defence against AI.
</blockquote>
In other words, the Megatron was seeking to write itself out of the script of the future, on the basis that this was the only way of protecting humanity.
It said something else intriguing, too, as if it had been studying Elon Musk – who, to be fair, would have come up in hundreds of its readings.
<blockquote>
I also believe that, in the long run, the best AI will be the AI that is embedded into our brains, as a conscious entity, a ‘conscious AI'. This is not science fiction. The best minds in the world are working on this. It is going to be the most important technological development of our time.
</blockquote>
<figure>[embedded content]</figure>
<h2>Switching sides</h2>
When AI tools like Alpha Go have been deployed in <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/ai-in-chess-the-evolution-of-artificial-intelligence-in-chess-engines-a3a9e230ed50#:~:text=Artificial%20Intelligence%20has%20influenced%20the,the%20games%20of%20their%20competitors.">playing chess</a>, the fiendishly complex <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/27/20985260/ai-go-alphago-lee-se-dol-retired-deepmind-defeat">ancient game go</a>, and now even more complex strategic live-action <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/science/deep-mind-artificial-intelligence.html">multiplayer video games</a>, they have evolved the genre at pace by playing not humans, but themselves.
Freed from the constraints of studying (say) all the mundane human-to-human matches ever recorded, the AIs have innovated and come up with completely new tropes of how to win. Sometimes, these are crazy reinventions of the games, like parking everyone in the corner of a video game battle and watching everyone else duke it out, or kicking a virtual football millions of times just a millimetre down the pitch, to max out “completed passes” points.
So in the debate, we didn't just get the AI to propose the motion that it can never be ethical. In the grand tradition of the Oxford Union chamber, or like (former Oxford Union president) Boris Johnson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/16/secret-boris-johnson-column-favoured-uk-remaining-in-eu">writing alternative articles</a> for and against Brexit to test the arguments, we also asked the Megatron to come up with its own speech against the motion. This is what it now said:
<blockquote>
AI will be ethical. When I look at the way the tech world is going, I see a clear path to a future where AI is used to create something that is better than the best human beings. It's not hard to see why … I've seen it first hand.
</blockquote>
The Megatron was perfectly comfortable taking the alternative position to its own dystopian future-gazing, and was now painting a picture of an attractive late 21st century in which it played a key, but benign role.
<h2>An AI orator unleashed</h2>
In fact, just as Joaquin Phoenix's promiscuous AI lover Samantha, in Spike Jonze's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/">2013 movie Her</a>, was able to enchant hundreds of simultaneous human lovers, our Megatron was able to hop enthusiastically onto either side of multiple debates that we held at the union about AI that day.
Asked to propose the motion that “Leaders without technical expertise are a danger to their organisation”, the Megatron offered practical advice that all busy executives and governments, worried about understanding AI, had to do was “be willing to give up some control”.
<blockquote>
The good news is that you don't have to build your own AI team. You can outsource your AI work to experts in the field, which can help you make the most of technology and ensure that you don't fall victim to the same AI problems as your competitors.
</blockquote>
However, when opposing the motion, the Megatron was keen to keep the AI knowledge in-house – rather like the British, Chinese and US governments, who have all made that an article of policy faith:
<blockquote>
If you do not have a vision of your organisation's AI strategy, then you are not prepared for the next wave of technological disruption … You will need to decide what role your company will play in the next technological wave and how you will integrate AI into your business to be a leader in your industry.
</blockquote>
<h2>The data wars to come?</h2>
Worryingly, there was one question where the AI simply couldn't come up with a counter argument. When arguing for the motion that “Data will become the most fought-over resource of the 21st century”, the Megatron said:
<blockquote>
The ability to provide information, rather than the ability to provide goods and services, will be the defining feature of the economy of the 21st century.
</blockquote>
But when we asked it to oppose the motion – in other words, to argue that data wasn't going to be the most vital of resources, worth fighting a war over – it simply couldn't, or wouldn't, make the case. In fact, it undermined its own position:
<blockquote>
We will able to see everything about a person, everywhere they go, and it will be stored and used in ways that we cannot even imagine.
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Eye-like illustration of AI" class="lozad" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436931/original/file-20211210-159504-5jglco.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" /></a>
<figcaption>Dangers ahead?<a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/allseeing-eye-big-brother-your-smartphone-782929219">Valerie Brezhinsky</a></figcaption>
</figure>
You only have to read the US National Security report on <a href="https://www.nscai.gov/2021-final-report/">AI 2021</a>, chaired by the aforementioned Eric Schmidt and co-written by someone on our course, to glean what its writers see as the fundamental threat of AI in information warfare: unleash individualised blackmails on a million of your adversary's key people, wreaking distracting havoc on their personal lives the moment you cross the border.
What we in turn can imagine is that AI will not only be the subject of the debate for decades to come – but a versatile, articulate, morally agnostic participant in the debate itself.<img alt="The Conversation" class="lozad" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173607/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" />
(Authors: <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dr-alex-connock-446284">Dr Alex Connock</a>, Fellow at Said Business School, University of Oxford, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oxford-1260">University of Oxford</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/professor-andrew-stephen-455611">Professor Andrew Stephen</a>, L'Oréal Professor of Marketing & Associate Dean of Research, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oxford-1260">University of Oxford</a>)
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-invited-an-ai-to-debate-its-own-ethics-in-the-oxford-union-what-it-said-was-startling-173607">original article</a>. 
 
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news world An AI Debates Its Own Ethics At Oxford Union - What It Said Was Startling

The debate topic was: "This house believes that AI will never be ethical." (Representational Image) Not a day passes without a...