Privacy

Is talking to animals really AI’s “next ethical minefield,” as Bloomberg reports? At the center of the concern is University of Leon (Spain) investigator Vittorio Baglione, who studies European carrion crows, considered to be among the smartest birds. He attached tiny microphones to the tail feathers of 43 birds. Years later, he and his wife and research partner, Daniela Canestrari, ended up with about 150,000 hours of taped bird calls. For the massive job of sorting and interpreting the calls, they turned to a machine learning model from Earth Species Project that could distinguish individual bird calls and other sources of noise. The results were illuminating: Baglione’s favorite call was the soft burst of sound the crows would make when their nest Read More ›

Progressives think the state is better at raising children than parents. For example, in California and some other states, children can obtain abortions without parental knowledge. Now, Washington, D.C.’s uber-leftwing city council has passed a bill permitting children down to age 11 to obtain vaccinations–i.e., medical interventions–without parental knowledge or consent. From the Epoch Times story: Bill 23-171 would allow for children as young as 11 to consent to all vaccines on the government schedule. At the same time, the school, health care provider, and the parent’s private insurance would conceal the child’s vaccination from parents or guardians—who would have no knowledge of the vaccination unless the child told them. The bill states that the minor must be “capable of meeting the informed Read More ›

Recently, anthropologist Yitzchak Ben Mocha theorized on why human beings, alone among mammals, prefer to “mate” in private. From the Phys.Org story: He found that virtually every known culture practices private mating — even in places where privacy is difficult to find. He also looked for examples of other animals mating in private, and found none, except for the babblers [a bird species]. He also found that there were no explanations for it, and in fact, there were very few other people wondering why humans have such a proclivity. And, not surprisingly, he was unable to find any evolutionary theories on the topic. But evolution must be made to explain all! Ben Mocha concludes his paper by introducing a theory of his own — he believes Read More ›