I remember reading a news headline in 2018 that grabbed my attention. The story of twin girls Lulu and Nana that were delivered in a Chinese hospital. It was big news because the twin girls were the world's first gene-edited babies. Nine months earlier, He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, edited their embryos to protect them from being infected with HIV, using gene-editing mechanisms called CRISPR. The news was met with horror and outrage in the scientific circles, and He Jiankui lost his job and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
I didn't give biotech much attention as a university student. However, this past week, I eagerly woke up around 3 a.m. every day so I can read about the potential and far-reaching consequence of gene-editing technology that was the main themes running through Walter Isaacson's new book The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. The book is a real page-turner and served as my morning caffeine in the early hours of the day. Coming in at nearly 500 pages, it dives into the essence of life and the exciting world of genomes and genetic coding, in what the author calls "the 3rd great revolution of modern times," following the atom and the bit which led to the digital revolution. Learning the new frontier in the science of DNA and RNA can be a tad challenging. RNA is a molecule in living cells similar to DNA, but it has one more oxygen atom in its sugar-phosphate backbone and a difference in one of its four bases. RNA plays a vital role in the book. The book's main character, Jennifer Doudna, was the co-recipient - with Emmanuelle Charpentier - of the 2020 Noble Prize for Chemistry to discover the CRISPR gene-editing technology. Some of the book's most exciting parts feature how CRISPR scientists rose to the COVID challenge by developing rapid test methods and vaccine strategies and posted them to an open database to benefit the global scientific community. The Code Breaker's central point was about genetic destiny. Jennifer Doudna and other scientists delivered us the first practical tools to shape it. If we had the power to free future generations of diseases such as schizophrenia or Huntington's disease, would we? The immoral choice would be not to, clearly? What if we could improve healthy human beings by editing out imperfections or flaws? But could we also lose something along with those diseases and deficiency and weaknesses, in terms of wisdom, kindness, compassion, and, in some way, more challenging to define humanity? The Code Breaker is a true page-turner. But Isaacson's main subject is CRISPR and not Jennifer Doudna. Isaacson lets Charpentier have the last words: "At the end of the day, the discoveries are what remain. We are just passing on this planet for a short time. We do our job, and then we leave, and others pick up the work." Today, CRISPR is the most potent DNA-editing tool humankind has ever controlled, and figured out if and when to edit our genes will be one of the most consequential questions of the 21st century. The Code Breaker left me with more questions than answers. The ethical predicaments that CRISPR could unleash if people start editing our very own DNA. The honest discussion is about the tension between individuals and society. Overall, we might believe that society benefits when it includes "people who are short and tall, gay and straight, placid and tormented, blind or sighted." But if CRISPR gave parents the ability to eliminate one option in each case, it's not hard to imagine what would happen. Most of us today, including most geneticists, probably hope to kick these ethical issues down the road and to the next generation. Coronavirus pandemic will accelerate the acceptance and deployment of CRISPR. After all, CRISPR began long ago as a virus-fighting tool in bacteria, and after more than 120 million COVID cases globally, engineering our bodies to resist disease appears far less radical. If nothing else, CRISPR might have provided the cheap, accelerated testing we lacked last spring to nip the pandemic in the bud. We, as a species, step by step, are discovering the secret of how we work. Now that secret has given us a fantastic tool, which is the ability to understand the code of life but with a little bit of discretion, and I hope a lot of wisdom and rewrite the code of life when we need to... Can we do that? Is it playing God? or is it like Prometheus snatching fire from the gods? Will the power of genetic modification and CRISPR undermine our experience of life as a gift? Will it produce a loss of humility? An unacceptable increase in human responsibility? a decay in solidarity as the species begin to diverge? The Code Breaker is a must-read. It is a story packed with the greatest of questions, from the origins of life to the human race's future. The tale is genuinely gripping, and the implications mind-blowing.
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In Greek mythicism, the ancient gods lived on top of Mount Olympus (the highest mountain in Greece). Empowered with extraordinary capabilities, they convened on the summit and looked down on the ordinary people underneath. Suppose the humans at the bottom were exceptionally valiant or distinguished. However, they also could become like gods: in a process the Greeks called apotheosis, they would climb the mountain and take their seat on the summit. This is what happened to the Greek hero Hercules, for instance. At the end of his life, he was brought up to Olympus to live alongside the gods, left to continue unhampered and ageless for all his days.
Today, many of us seem to believe human beings sit on top of their mountain. We do not think we are gods, but we consider ourselves more capable, intelligent, competent, and able than any other creature in existence. Many of us also believe that, if a machine at the bottom of the mountain is to join us at the top, it must go through apotheosis as well - not to become more like a god, but to become more like us - human beings. This implies the purist view of Artificial intelligence. Once the machine reaches human intelligence, this top capability is achieved, and its rise is over. But as the pragmatist revolution has taught us throughout our human history, there are two challenges with this assumption. The first is those other ways to climb the "Capability Mountains" than to follow the singular path that human beings have taken. The purist form is just one way to make the ascent; technological progress has revealed a range of other encouraging pathways as well. The different vision is that other tips in this mountain range alongside humans proudly sit at the top. Many of us have become distracted by the view down from the peak: we spend our time gazing down at the less intelligent machines below or looking at each other and wondering at our abilities, skills, and capabilities. But if we looked up, rather than downward or beyond, we would see and recognize other mountains towering above us. For the moment, we may be the most intelligent machines in existence, but here are a great many other potential designs that machines could achieve. Imagine a universal warehouse that stores all those different combinations and iterations: it would be unimaginably big, perhaps infinitely so. Natural selection has explored one little corner of this vast space, spent its time browsing in one albeit very long course and settled upon the human design. However, human beings, armed with new technologies, are now examining others. Where evolution utilized time, today, we employ computational power. And it is hard to see how, in the future, we will not trip across various designs, uniquely new ways of building machines, ones that will open up mountains and peaks in capability well beyond the reach of even the most competent human beings alive today. Suppose we assume that machines do not need to copy our intelligence to be highly competent; the vast gaps in science's current understanding of intelligence matter far less than is generally assumed. We do not need to solve the puzzles and mysteries of how the brain and mind work to build machines that can outperform us. And suppose intelligent machines and devices do not need to replicate human intelligence to be highly competent and intelligent. In that case, there is no reason to think that what human beings are currently able to do represents a limit on what future machines might achieve. Yet today, this is commonly assumed - that human beings' intellectual courage is as far as intelligence machines can ever reach. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that this will be the case. Mohamed Bouaziz was just ten years old when he became the main provider for his family. When he was 26, he made his money by selling vegetables and fruits off an old wagon in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid.
Ten years ago this week (December 17, 2010), Sidi Bouzid policemen seized Mohamed's produce for the umpteenth time, but this time the local police also beat and humiliated him in public. Mohamed walked to the town hall and tried to get his vegetables and fruits back, but no one would talk to him. He then walked outside, drenched himself in gasoline, and lit himself on fire. All around the world, news media and social media started broadcasting Mohamed's story across the Middle East. By the time he died on January 4, 2001, protesters who knew the hopelessness and pain that drove Bouazizi to suicide had packed Tunisian streets demanding reform. Just ten days after Mohamed's death, Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced to leave after being in power for over two decades. The demonstrations spread throughout the Middle East. Decades of strongman dictatorship in the region left the ground dangerously depleted, but Mohamed Bouaziz lit the match that ignited a revolution. This week is the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Arab Spring. What is the legacy of Mohamed Bouazizi? Aspirations that "people power" revolutions would yield a democratic awakening in the region have been dashed. Only in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi's home has created a democracy. Protests in Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak, and elections were held. Still, Egypt's military toppled the elected president after one year in office and restored control of its politics. Yemen, Syria, and Libya were all fallen into civil war. A staggering half of the Syrian population ten years ago have been killed or forced from their homes, and the resulting refugee crisis capsized politics and societies in Western Europe. In the past decade, many protestors of the Arab Spring demanded an end to endemic corruption, freedom of expression, and more and better opportunities for young men and women like Bouaziz. Sadly, the best available evidence shows that there are just as many crooks in power, more jobless young people, and more journalists in jail a decade later. Perhaps the most disturbing story of all is that the tools and technologies that drew attention to Mohamed Bouazizi's tragedy and raised hopes for change have contributed to the ensuing devastation. From Cairo's Tahrir Square, Facebook, Twitter, and other social medial platforms helped protesters spread their message, organize demonstrations, and capture the world's attention. Unfortunately, Islamic State militants were soon applying these same tools to recruit terrorists to Syria and Iraq and coordinate attacks in Europe and beyond. With guidance from Russian engineers, Syria's Bashar al-Assad also used social media to disseminate disinformation and propaganda to tens of millions of people. The use of bots that didn't exist ten years ago has added to the problem's scale. Arab Spring has for now given way to Arab Winter. The Story of the Middle East is far from over. The Middle East region has been held together floor centuries by strongmen backed by outside powers -Ottoman, European, American. With little history of broadly shared power, lasting progress toward individual freedom, if it comes, will take many more decades. Mohamed Bouazizi's country, Tunisia, now has a government that, nevertheless imperfectly, must answer to voters. For now, that's the most I can say for Mohamed's legacy. As we are wrapping up 2020, I look back at my behavior, mostly locked down and home. The adoption of new technological behaviors and practices in response to the pandemic, from video-conferencing on Google Hangout to online shipping on Amazon, suggests adopting these tools and platforms has now reached levels that were not foreseen for many more years or decades.
In May 2020, McKinsey's report suggested that we have jumped five years ahead in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of just eight weeks. Just look at our behavior in online shopping. In the US alone, progress was even more rapid: "ten years' growth in three months." Let's look at how we do banking around the world. The percentage of cashless transactions globally has jumped to levels we had anticipated to see in two to five years. In medicine, the British NHS had experienced a decade of change within a week, as doctors switched to remote consultation and telemedicine. COVID-19 carried with it an enormous wave of tech-celeration. Look around you; the pandemic has expedited existing trends of technological adoption. Shopping was reasonably steadily moving online; payments were slowly going digital; online learning was slowly becoming more common; more people worked from home, at least some of the time. Now people in many countries have been abruptly moved into a future where all of these behaviors are far more widespread. The pandemic and its abrupt transformation have been painful and disturbing. Many retailers, now in difficulty, have been pushed into bankruptcy. In America, household names such as J.C. Penny, Neiman Marcus, and J CREW (one of my favorites) are gone. In every city in America, bank branches closing, older adults unfamiliar with online banking have been targeted by scammers. The switch to online learning highlighted inequality in internet access and computer ownership among students. There is good news too. The transition has also sparked a fast transformation in many areas, prominently health and education, that are historically resistant to reform. Mass lockdowns' enforced experiment has de-stigmatized online learning and remote working by showing that they can work at scale with the right tools and support. Perhaps one of the most critical questions for 20201 is: how much will things around us go back to pre-pandemic time? I don't think the world is going to return to its pre-pandemic state. Many stores, even restaurants, have closed. Even Italian grannies have realized the joys of online shopping, and they are putting it to the test this holiday season. Home-workers are in no hurry to return to commuting five or sometimes six days a week. But nor will all the lockdown behavior of 2020 continue. Students and teachers are eager to return to in-person classes. Even workers also miss the camaraderie of the office. So some new behaviors will still, but not all, and the result will be somewhere in the middle. But where will it have enormous implications? I think transportation models, property prices, and even our cities' design, among other things. By 2020 according to a recent McKinsey report, 15% of executives who took part in an international poll expect to allow a tenth of their workers to work remotely for two or more days a week, and 75% were willing to stretch this to three days a week. But those averages hide wide variation. In Germany and Europe, 20% of respondents were happy for at least one in ten workers to work remotely two or more days a week: in China, the figure was just 4%. And among technology executives, the proportion stood at 34%, surprisingly up from 22% before the pandemic. Firms in sectors like technology and finance can also operate more efficiently without employees on site. But even in industries where fully remote working is possible, the most likely outcome is a hybrid future that mixes remote and in-person working. I believe the future is now. Companies like those that provide services in the cloud or devices that support remote working will get more powerful. Others, like brick-and-mortar retailers, will suffer. Many will fail altogether. But once again, there is a silver lining, as these developments open up new fields for innovation. Now companies big and small are devising new means to improve the experience of remote working, collaboration, and learning: to promote new kinds of contactless and appointment-based retailing: and to provide new types of online social occasions, from virtual conferencing to virtual tourism or museum visits. There is no going back to the past that lived before the pandemic. Alternatively, COVDI-19 has moved the world into a very different future. I truly believe the technology that will change everything the most over the long run is artificial intelligence or AI. It could be the most profound transformation we are undertaking as human beings. Its consequences will likely prove more significant than the dominance of the software. AI could erode not just the world but the people in it, too.
Let’s look at the medical profession; machines are already on par with or even outperforming doctors. One study determined that the AI program trained to read pathology images can instantly diagnose certain lung cancers with 97% certainty. A different study found that AI has up to 11% fewer false positives in reading radiology scans than human experts in some circumstances. During the pandemic, the IBM and MIT team behind the AI system Watson put the technology to several different applications:
Although many of these applications are experimental, the results are remarkable. Why, for so many tasks, does AI work better than human beings? Simply because a process like a diagnosis is fundamentally about collecting, organizing, and analyzing data, and computers can do far better than the human brain. A seasoned doctor might have observed tens of thousands of patients throughout a long career and have read hundreds of journal articles. An AI program will analyze tens of millions of patients' data and hundreds of thousands of studies - in minutes, if not seconds. This is why computers now help fly planes and even trade stocks. They can beat world champions at chess, Jeopardy!, and video games. Put simply, AI can, in theory, do complicated analytics tasks better than people - the more complicated, the greater the advantage for the computer. For now, computers have limits. When the Covid-19 outbreak began, many hoped that AI might find solutions that humans could not. The results were different. Various obstacles got in the way. For one thing, computers need mountains of data to see patterns, and with the novel coronavirus, there was little data at the start. For months after that, the information remained to be incomplete. Historical data on other viruses haven't been of much use either because the many differences - in lethality, how the virus mutates, and so on - are crucial. Location-tracking data has also failed to live up to its promise. Although some East Asian countries found some success in predicting hotspots and identifying superspreaders, technology has its shortfalls. Installing a location-tracking is optional, and since not everyone does so, the data give only part of the picture. Even in Singapore, where social coherence and confidence in government are high, by June 2020, only some 30% of the population had downloaded the government's Covid-19 tracking app requiring everyone to supply their health data, as in China, is not an option in most democracies. At any rate, it's mostly a controversial subject. China, South Korea, and Singapore do not successfully fight Covid-19 to the invasive new technology. Instead, what made the difference were the hallmarks of proper pandemic response: fast, widespread testing, and old-fashioned contact tracing, conducted through in-person interviews. The stumbling blocks that AI has faced in the fight against the novel coronavirus do not reflect some underlying flaw with the technology: they reveal its limits in a particular situation where much is unclear, and useful data is hard to come by. With time, there will be more and better data about the disease and innovative ways to use it - from mass thermal scanning for temperatures to facial recognition, both of which could be used to detect potential illness among large crowds in public spaces quickly. It is already possible for AI to predict which patients will worsen and get better based on recognized patterns. There is also the ongoing use of AI in path-breaking medical research - in mapping the three-dimensional structure of proteins, for example - which will continue to yield impressive results that could help in treatment and vaccines. And of course, as the research on Covid-19 increases, AI is already helping scientists make sense of it all, analyzing the thousands of new studies being produced each week around the world far more efficiently than humans could. However, all in all, the experience of this pandemic has highlighted not just the strengths but also the limitation of AI - as for now. I believe the most lasting effect the Covid-19 on AI will likely have less to do with any particular medical breakthroughs than with the rise of robots. More robots in more settings will allow the economy to function while reducing the dangers of infection. A study published by MIT Tech Review finds that between 32 - 50 million US jobs could be frequently assisted by technology to reduce health risks posed by human interaction and safeguard productivity in a time of crisis. Some of those jobs are likely candidates for replacement, like cashiers. Others are more complicated, like cooks, but there are already robots that can do that work effectively but certainly not deliciously. And the more robots there are, the more they can tap into artificial intelligence to boost their productivity in the same way that once you attach software to a machine, it becomes the controlling factor. Once you introduce artificial intelligence into any system, it gradually does the same, becoming a multiplier. We are on track to introduce AI in most of our institutions and organizations for the simple reason that it makes them work better. But that will surely mean fewer humans are needed to work because AI will make things much more efficient - for blue-collar and white-collar professions alike. You don't need as many paralegals or young lawyers if the machine can scan documents for cases, facts, and patterns. And we certainly don't need as many drivers if computers can control cars, buses, and trucks. Autonomous driving will be a massive boon to safety. Over a million people worldwide die every year in roadway accidents. According to the US Department of Transportation, some 94% of crashes in the US alone occur because of driver error. But in a driverless world, what happens to the almost 4 million Americans - mostly men, mostly without a college degree - who work as drivers? For now, their career prospects are on the upswing as Amazon and other digital retailers boon. In the long term, while drivers might not lose their jobs, they will lose their ability to command livable wage - because their jobs become less valued. Computers are quickly shrinking the human role down to the last mile. Autopilot already flies many commercial planes much of the time. AI-driven long-haul trucking is already being tested on public roads, even as local delivery vans and workers are still used to deliver the final part. Even that limited role, too, may fade as AI drones increasingly take over the "last mile" problem. AI may not always produce unemployment, and it might have effects on a longer time horizon, decades from now. But it will be the game -changer of our lifetimes. Discussions about the future of work should recognize that the future is already with us. Philosophers used to theorize about how to keep people afloat once technology replaced a critical mass of jobs. Now, Covid-19 has forced countries to experiment with some near-universal basic income. In the US, this idea went mainstream in a matter of months - no longer just the visionary quest of the underdog presidential candidate Andrew Yang but a proposal that, in a brief form, was passed by Congress to stave off economic disaster. During the pandemic, governments concluded that people could not earn money through no fault of their own and deserved to be paid for not working. Further down the line, could the state decide that people forced out of work by AI similarity deserve to be compensated? In his 1930 essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, the economist John Maynard Keynes considered this exact question. He looked forward to the world of fifteen-hour workweeks made possible by technology. But even if or when such work materializes, we will need to find a way to give people things to do. That could involve creating new jobs in various fields, from education to public work projects to park and wilderness maintenance - just as FDR's celebrated Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps hired millions of Americans to expand infrastructure and beautify the country. Some of these jobs would involve work for work's sake. As Keynes wrote, "We shall endeavor to spread the bread thin on the butter - to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible." A full-color example of this future is George Jetson of the 1960s cartoon show. George's job at Spacely space sprockets, Inc., is to push a few buttons three hours a day, three days a week. Everything else is automated. But it is still a job, and it gives him and his family the contours of family and a social life that were more or less recognizable to someone in the 1960s. That's one vision of our automated, digital future - one in which the center more or less holds. Patterns of life are readjusted but not destroyed. You see, early examples of this possible world in the Finish Prime Minister see it in the flexible jobs that characterize the gig economy, such as driving for Uber or DoorDash, where workers can choose their hours. You see it in the ever-greater number of hours people spend in the office futzing around on social media. And we see it in the rise of what the anthropologist David Graeber colorfully calls "BS jobs." He describes several types, including "box tickers," who generate lots of paperwork to suggest that things are happening when things aren't, and "task-masters," who manage people who don't' need management. Keynes is right! A big problem with technological revolutions is that with so much of the work increasingly being done by technology, humans would have to find a sense of purpose. Human beings, especially men, have historically given them an identity, a sense of accomplishment, and dignity. These are not irrelevant attributes. That's why I have always found the idea of a universal basic income unsatisfying, preferring the expansion of a program like the Earned Income Tax Credit, which nearly tops up the wages of low-income workers. It incentivizes work but guards against immiseration. It's an idea that has attracted support from the far Left as well as from libertarians. I'm convinced it is not as popular as other, less effective policies - like raising the minimum wage - because it is challenging to express and symbolically. Expanding it substantially, as we should, would be very expensive. But if we recognize this problem's scale - potentially permanent mass unemployment or underemployment - it seems money well spent. Keynes also worried that free time would be a problem with the decline of work because people are not good at leisure. He noted that much of the aristocracy's passivity, which already faced this problem, was a gloomy indication of what might come to the broader public eventually. In his novel, Ian McEwan reflects on this "problem of leisure," describing humanity in an AI-run world: We could become slaves of time without purpose. Then what? A general renaissance, a liberation into love, friendship and philosophy, art and science, nature worship, sports and hobbies, invention, and the pursuit of meaning? But genteel recreation wouldn't be for everyone. Violent crime had its attractions too, so did bare-knuckle cage-fighting. VR pornography, gambling, drink and drugs, even boredom and depression. We wouldn't be in control of our choices. This scenario is the logical endpoint of the rise of robots and AI. Automation would do less work, but there would still be new jobs generated. For those unable to find good work, government assistance would expand significantly. There would also be more time and more technological access to seek fulfillment in recreation and leisure. People would naturally adapt to this new world differently; some feel liberated, others trapped. But a darker alternative future is one in which the trends gradually deepen, yet the government doesn't respond with a large-scale program. Inequality gets worse; more jobs disappear, real wages stagnate, and most people's quality of life falls. This is a future in which wealth moves into the hands of a rich few, while everyone else is left behind, the worst crippled by alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide—the demand for populism increases. We're currently in the foothills of these futures, but it is unclear which one lies ahead. AI-powered computers are already black boxes. We know that they get to the right answer, but we don't know how or why. What role does that leave for human judgment? Henry Kissinger has asked whether the rise of AI will mean the end of the Enlightenment. That eighteenth-century movement elevated human reasoning above age-old superstitions, dogma, and worship. Immanuel Kant called the Enlightenment "man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity." Humanity had to grow up - we had to understand the world ourselves. But if AI produced better answers than we can without revealing its logic, we will be going back to our species' childhood and relying on faith. As was said of God, we will worship AI, work in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. Perhaps Gutenberg's period to AlphaGo will prove to be the exception, a relatively short era in history when humans believed they were in control. Before that, for millennia, they saw themselves as small cogs in a vast system they did not fully comprehend, subject to laws of God and nature. The AI age could return us to a similarly humble role. However, this time, humans may work hand in hand with higher intelligence, not subservient to it but not entirely above it, either in some ways that are a more accurate reflection of our real place in this vast, unfathomable universe. It is worth keeping in mind that, along with the AI revolution, we are witnessing another one that is also likely to have transformational effects - the bioengineering revolution. To put it simply, we are getting better at creating better human beings - more robust, healthier, and longer-living. With gene selection, parents can already choose fertilized eggs that are free of known genetic diseases. (Many fear that soon they will also select for babies: blond, blue-eyed, and male.) The scholar Yuval Noah Harari argues that human beings have not changed much physically or mentally for all the social, political, and economic changes over the millennia until now. The combination of these twin revolutions - in biology and computing - will allow human beings to expand their physical and mental capacities. These results, he says, will be the creation of a god-like superman: Homo Deus. Perhaps that is what lies in the store for us. The future of AI and biotechnology is the subject of great debate beyond the scope of this piece and my knowledge. I believe that we have a long way to go before we reach truly general intelligence in a machine - one that can, for example, not just solve a scientific problem, but grasp the underlying logic of innovation, the very notion of science itself. Could it invent new modes of inquiry and new knowledge fields in all areas, as humans have done repeatedly? In any event, one thing seems clear: so far, this technological revolution has affected not so much of replacing humans but rather refocusing them. When we witness people who work in hospitals in predominantly the developing world and have deployed AI extensively to make up for doctors' shortfalls, they point out that the machines' superior ability to make diagnoses has allowed doctors and nurses to focus on patient care. These professionals are now more deeply engaged in helping patients understand their conditions, ensuring that they take their medicines, and convincing them to change their diets and habits. They also act as coaches, providing the moral and psychological support that is key to recovery. In many ways, these are more essential human tasks than purely analytic ones, likely reading X-rays or interpreting lab results. This development represents a new division of labor, with machines and humans doing what they do best. The pandemic has shown that these technological revolutions are further along than we might have thought - but also that digital life can feel cramped, a poor simulacrum of the real world. For many people, these shifts will be scary. Some jobs will go away, but overall, productivity will rise, generating more incredible wealth that could help all. Everyone's quality of life could improve. These are real concerns about privacy, handling data, and the government's role in regulating companies and themselves in this domain. But these are not unsolvable problems; we can have the benefits of digital life and protect our privacy. And if we can take care as we develop the rules around the AI and bioengineering revolutions, we will not lose our humanity. Indeed, we could enhance it. People worry that as AI becomes more highly developed, we will rely on our computers for so much that we will end up thinking of them as friends and becoming unable to function without them. But already, my phone can give me more information than any human I know. It can solve complex tasks in a nanosecond. It can entertain me with content from across time and space. And yet, I have never mistaken it for a friend. The smarter a machine becomes at calculating data and providing answers, the more it forces us to think about what is uniquely human about us, beyond our ability to reason. Intelligent machines might make us prize our human compassion even more, for their creativity, humor, unpredictability, passion, and intimacy—this is not such a strange thought. For much of history, humans were praised for many qualities other than their power to calculate - bravery, loyalty, generosity, faith, love. The movement to digital life is broad, fast, and real. But perhaps one of its most profound consequences will be to make us appreciate the things in us that are most human. *This essay is based on Fareed Zakaria’s book. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World. In the sweeping classical drama, Lawrence of Arabia, the young British diplomat T.E. Lawrence - played by Peter O'Toole - has convinced a group of Arab tribes to mount a surprise attack on the Ottoman Army whom they seek independence. Lawrence leads a band of these Bedouin warriors across the desert, approaching Aqaba’s Ottoman port from the rear. They cross the desert in blistering heat, braving swirling sandstorms. At one point, they discover that one of the Arab soldiers, named Gasim, has fallen off his camel. Lawrence instantly decides that he must turn around and get the lost man. Sherif Ali, the chief Arab leader, played in the movie by Omar Sharif, objects. One of his aides tells Lawrence, "Gasim's time has come. It is written." Lawrence snaps back, "Nothing is written!" Then he turns around, ventures back, searches amid the sands and storms, and finds Gasim staggering about, half-dead. Lawrence brings him back to the camp to a hero's welcome. When Sherif Ali offers water, Lawerence looks at him and, before quenching his thirst, calmly repeats, "Nothing is written."
I often think about the world that is being ushered in as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I have been neglecting one crucial element - human power. People can choose which direction they want to push themselves, their societies, and their world. We have more leeway now. In most eras, history proceeds along a set path, and change is hard. But the novel coronavirus has upended society. People are disoriented. Things are already changing, and in that atmosphere, further change becomes easier than ever. Let's think about the changes we have accepted in our own lives in response to the pandemic. We have agreed to isolate ourselves for long stretches. We have worked, attended meetings, and had deeply personal conversations by talking to our laptops. We have taken online courses and seen doctors and therapists using telemedicine. In just weeks, companies changed policies that would usually have taken them years to revise. Overnight, cities turned avenues into pedestrian walkways and sidewalks into cafes. Attitudes towards people previously ignored or overlooked are shifting, as seen in the newly adopted phrase "essential workers." And governments have opened up their coffers in ways that were once unimaginable and could lead to much greater willingness to invest in the future. I believe these changes could be the start of something new or momentary blips. We have many futures in front of us. We could turn inward and embrace nationalism and self-interest or view this global pandemic to spur worldwide cooperation and action. We have confronted just such a crossroads before. During the 1920s, after a world war and a great epidemic, the world could have come in either of two different directions. Some of the leaders who came out of the conflict wanted to create peace structures that might prevent another. But Congress rejected Woodrow Wilson's plans, and the US turned its back on the League of Nations and efforts to create a system of collective security in Europe. European leaders imposed harshly disciplinary terms on Germany, pushing the country towards collapse. These decisions led to a very dark world in the 1930s - hyperinflation, mass unemployment, fascism, and another world war. A different set of choices could have led the world down an entirely different path. Similarly, in the 1940s, Stalin's Soviet Union chose a challenge and confrontation strategy, refusing the US’s offer for Marshall Plan assistance, and rejecting any negotiation to place nuclear energy under international authority for peaceful use. Had a different Soviet leader been in power at that time, say, Khrushchev, the Cold War might have been a much less tense and hair-raising period in history. It might even never have happened. When we look at the world today, it is clear that trends are pushing forward - and fast. Economic development is creating ever-greater climate risks. For demographic and other reasons, countries are growing more slowly. The rich are getting richer; the big are getting bigger. Technology is moving so fast that human beings might lose control over their creations for the first time in history. Globalization will continue, but the opposition to it is growing louder and louder. Nations are becoming more conservative. The US and China are headed toward a bitter and prolonged confrontation, but we can make choices that shape and alter these trends. We could settle into a world of slow growth, increasing natural threats, and rising inequality and continue with business as usual. Or we could choose to act forcefully, using the vast capacity of governments to make a massive new investment to equip people with the skills and security they need in an age of bewildering transformation. We could build a twenty-first-century infrastructure putting to work many of those most threatened by new technologies. We could control carbon emission by merely placing a price on them that reflects their real cost. And we could recognize that along with dynamism and growth, we need resilience and security - or else then the next crisis could be the last. We need a plan of reform, not revolution. I don't think we have to overthrow the existing order hoping that something better would take its place. We have made real gains economically and politically. The world is a better place than it was fifty years ago by almost any measure. We understand the deficiencies and the ways to address them. The problem has not been to arrive at solutions - it has been to find the political will to implement them. We needed reforms in many areas and were enacted; these reforms would add up to a revolution of sorts. With even some of these ideas implemented, the world could look very different twenty years from now. Countries can change. In 1930, most nations in the world had a small government and did not consider it their job to promote their people's general well-being. By 1950, every one of the world's major nations had embraced that mandate—it is not easy. On October 20, 1935, Gallup published its first official public opinion poll. It revealed that - amid the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl - 60% of Americans believed "expenditures by the Government for relief and recovery" were too significant. Only 9% said they were too little, while 31% said they were about right. That did not deter Franklin Roosevelt from steaming ahead with the New Deal - and continuing his efforts to educate the American public about the need for government as a stabilizing force in the economy and society. Great leaders like FDR read polls to understand their challenge's nature, not as an excuse for inaction. Consider the European Union. At first, the pandemic made its members close up. They shut down borders, competed for medical supplies, and accused one another of malice and venality. Public sentiment was running strongly against the EU in hard-hit countries like Italy. But after the initial shock, Europeans began to consider how to handle the fallout from COVID-19. They recognized that it placed unprecedented stress on the continent., particularly on its weakest members. Thanks to wise leadership from the most significant powers, Germany and France, and the EU's top officials, an accord was struck in July 2020 to issue European bonds that will allow the poorer countries to access funds that are, in effect, guaranteed by the richest. This might sound like a technical matter, but it represents a dramatic step forward in a more deeply interconnected Europe. European leaders saw the direction in which Covid-19 was pushing them and pushed back. A pandemic that initially drove countries apart could prove to be the catalyst for a long-sought closer union. The same tension between integration and isolation can be seen across the world. The pandemic is leading countries to look inward. But enlightened leaders will recognize that the only real solution to problems like pandemics - and climate change and cyberwar - is to look outward, toward more and better cooperation. The answer to a badly funded, weak World Health Organization is not to withdraw from it in the hope that it withers away, but rather to support it better and give it more autonomy so that it could stand up to China - or the US - if a health emergency required it. No single country can organize the entire world anymore. None want to. That leaves only the possibilities of chaos, cold war, or cooperation. Trends matter. Technological forces, economic realities, and biological imperatives all determine the parameters of what one can do. "men make their own history," Karl Marx wrote, "but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under the circumstances, existing already, given, and transmitted from the past." That is why the wisest leaders try to understand history, evaluate the larger forces at work, and determine how much room there is for human action. The man who almost single-handedly unified Germany, Otto von Bismarck, described his role in these terms: "the statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past." Let me go back to my favorite classic movie. In the Lawrence of Arabia, the lesson about fate versus human power gets more complicated. The night before the attack on Aqaba, the Arab tribes start quarreling bitterly over a murder committed by one tribesman against another tribe member. As an outsider, Lawrence offers to execute the murderer so that justice could be done by an impartial hand - only to realize that the murderer is Gasim, that man whose life he had saved in the desert. And yet he walks up and calmly shoots six bullets into his chest. The lesson perhaps is that Gasim was destined to die. Lawrence had been able to save him in the desert, and in doing so, gave him a reprieve. But, his actions, Gasim threw away that chance for a different future. In his own way, Dwight Eisenhower was making a similar point to Walter Cronkite as they sat overlooking the rows of graves in Normandy. The soldiers who died during World War II gave us all a chance to build a better and more peaceful world. So, too, this ugly pandemic has created the possibility for change and reform in our times. It has opened up a path to a new world. It's ours to take that opportunity or waste it. Lawrence is right. "Nothing is written." *This piece has been written based on the lessons and the conclusion of “Ten Lessons For a Post-Pandemic World” By Fareed Zakaria We are truly living in an age of winners and losers, in which the chances are stacked in favor of the already successful and fortunate. In every corner of the world, hampered social mobility and rooted inequality give the tale to American creed that "you can make it if you try." The outcome is a mixture of anger and disappointment that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization and led to a profound distrust of both government and our fellow citizens - leaving us morally unprepared to meet the severe challenges of our times.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, the US, like many other countries, was unprepared. This lack of preparation had multiple sources. Our political leaders, ignoring public health advisors' warnings, downplayed the crisis for several critical weeks. Here in America, decades of outsourcing by businesses had left the country almost entirely reliant on China and other foreign manufacturers for surgical masks and medical gear. But beyond our lack of logistical preparation, America was not morally prepared for the pandemic. The years leading up to the crisis were a time of intense divisions - economic, cultural, political. Decades of rising disparity and cultural hostility had brought an angry populist backlash in 2016, resulting in the election of Donald Trump. Morally, the pandemic reminded us of our vulnerability, of our mutual dependence; "we are all in this together." But living through the pandemic in my hometown of Pittsburgh, this promise that "we are all in this together" did not represent a sense of community embodied in an ongoing practice of mutual obligation and shared sacrifice. On the contrary, it emerged on the scene at a time of nearly unparalleled inequality and partisan acrimony. The same market-driven globalization that had left America without access to the domestic production of surgical masks and medicines had denied a great many working people of well-paying jobs and social respect. Meanwhile, those who received the economic prize of global markets supply chains and capital flows had come to rely less and less on their fellow citizens, as producers, and as consumers. Their economic prospects and identities were no longer dependent on local or national communities. As the winners of globalization pulled away from the loser, they followed their own kind of social distancing. The political divide that mattered, the winner revealed, was no longer left vs. right but open vs. closed. Success depends on education in an open world, providing ourselves to compete and win in a global economy. This means that governments must ensure that everyone has an equal chance to get the education on which success depends. But it also means that those who arrive on top come to believe that they deserve their success. And, if opportunities are truly equal, it means that those who are left behind deserve their fate as well. This way of thinking about success makes it really difficult to believe that "we are all in this together." It encourages the winners to consider their success their own doing and the losers to feel that those on top are looking down with hatred. It helps explain why those left behind by globalization would become angry and resentful, and why they would be drawn to authoritarian populists who rail against elites and promise to reassert national borders with revenge. Now, it is these political figures, cautious though they are of scientific expertise and global cooperation, who must fight with the pandemic. It will not be easy. Mobilizing to confront the global public health crisis we face requires medical and scientific expertise and moral and political renewal. The toxic mix of hubris and hate that propped populists politicians to power is not a likely source of the solidarity we need now. Perhaps any hope of restoring our moral and civic life depends on understanding how our social bonds and respect for one another came unraveled over the past four decades. I have invited my mentorship students to join the conversation with me by reading The Tyranny of Merit - What's become of the common good? By Michael J. Sandel. He argues that to defeat the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes towards success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. He shows the hubris a meritocracy creates among the winners and the harsh judgment it imposes on those left behind and traces the dreadful consequence across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. As we are graduating and looking to find a job and build a life, we need to also point toward a hopeful vision of a new politics of the common good with humility. Such humility is the beginning of the way back from the harsh ethic of success that drives us apart. It points beyond the tyranny of merit towards a less rancorous, more generous public life. My students often ask me about politics in America. As a lifelong history student, I usually tell my students that it is far more essential to learn and be informed than emotionally reacting to America's political atmosphere.
In the midst of the historic coronavirus pandemic, economic hardship, and a reckoning over racism, this November, Americans will decide who leads the nation for the next four years. Many international students are watching this election season with anxiety, fear, and stress. Regardless of our political ideologies or emotions, it is far more crucial to be informed about the 2020 election and put aside our preferences and feelings. We are six weeks from one of the most essential and contentious elections in generations, and every day seems to bring a new outrage, controversy, or crisis. As I am writing this article, the political battle lines surrounding the replacement of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg following her death on Friday is adding more fuel to the fire. And of course, the grim milestone that the US passed 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus. No doubt, there will be more crises in the days to come. I highly recommend every international student to watch the new Frontline documentary. In the run-up to every presidential election since 1988, The Choice, a documentary featuring interwoven biographies of the two major-party candidates, Each election cycle, the candidates have had their unique themes. This year, there is no question: The theme is crisis. The Choice 2020, zeros in on how President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden each have been forged by their crises, from childhood onward - and how those challenges have shaped their very different approaches to leading a nation now in crisis. This documentary will hear from friends, family, colleagues, and critics of each candidate. We will also learn how both men have responded to crises and conflicts throughout their lives. Hopefully, we will come away with valuable insights into how each man would confront the enormous challenges facing whoever is sworn in as president in January 2021. My advice to all my students: Try being informed instead of just opinionated. There is no doubt that today’s headlines generate more questions than answers. Should the United States attack North Korea and Iran or negotiate with them? What are the implications of climate change, and what should be done about it? Are tariffs a good idea? What do we owe refugees and others who want to enter our country? Should democratic countries promote democracy and human rights elsewhere? Are the United States and China heading for a second cold war – and if so, what can be done to avoid it?
I believe it is essential for every student, regardless of his or her field of study, to understand the world. Richard Hass's recent book, the world – a brief introduction, explains how the world works, how it is changing, and why it matters. This is just what every citizen and student needs to read. As it provides us with the essential background and building blocks, we need to answer these and other crucial questions for ourselves. It will enable us to manage the outpouring of daily news. We will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgment, and to hold elected representatives to account. Those of us that read this book will be less vulnerable to being misled by politicians and others who claim to be experts. In short, this book will make us more globally literate. Global literacy– knowing how the world works – is a MUST, as what goes on outside the country matters typically to what happens inside. All of the United States is bordered by two oceans; those oceans are not moats. And the so-called Vegas rule - what happens there stays there – does not apply in today’s globalized world to anyone anywhere. US foreign policy is uniquely American, but the world Americans attempt to shape is not. The tectonic plates of international relations are moving. This is a critical time to understand what is taking place around the world, why it is taking place, and how it will affect our lives. The World focuses on the essential history, what makes each region of the world tick and the many challenges globalization presents, and the most influential countries, events, and ideas. We are all being bombarded by strong views designed to conjure up emotions over sound judgment, which makes it very grounding to have The World. It is an excellent read for every student who wants to have an informed knowledge before deciding to retweet the latest absurd article making the rounds. If only young students, regardless of their field of study, knew more about the world. This book comes at a time which many of our biggest challenges come from the world beyond our borders. I have been watching the protest and riots that are unfolding after the death of George Floyd in recent days. It has left me with a broken heart and several sleepless nights.
The death of George Floyd, after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck as bystanders shouted to stop, has touched off a familiar-feeling storm of activism, nightly chaos, and discussion of race in America. Several of my mentorship students asked me about my thoughts. It isn't easy to offer my take as I am trying to grasp what is happening in our cities. But I have provided the following to my students as we have discussed the Death of George Floyd.
This has sparked plenty of discussion about race and justice in America, and as we fight Covid-19, one epidemic we can't seem to overcome is white fear of black men in public spaces - the injustice that ensues. How can we overcome this legal framework that gives police effective license "to shoot, pummel, or falsely arrest ill-fated citizens," and over-criminalization of minor offenses leaves it to the police to "be nice." What we witnessed in American cities in recent days is what we typically see in the streets of the Middle East. If Minneapolis wherein a developing country with a history of governance issues, how would Western media report on what's happening in the US right now? It's a useful metaphor in checking Americans' perspective biases. In recent years, the international community has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating political and human rights situation in America under the presidency of Donald Trump. As the country marks 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, we find ourselves in a downward spiral of ethnic violence. America has been rocked by several viral videos depicting extrajudicial executions of black ethnic minorities by state security forces. President Trump took to Twitter, calling black protesters 'thugs' and threatening to send in military force. 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts,' he declared. Ethnic violence has plagued the country for generations, and decades ago, it captured the attention of the world. Still, recently the news coverage and concerns are waning as there seems to be no end in sight to the oppression. One student told me that this is "Normal in America." I told him what Barack Obama told us. "This shouldn't be normal in 2020 America. It can't be normal. If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better. I am not angry. I am heartbroken these days. But it falls on us, regardless of our race, to work together to create a new normal in which the legacy of injustice and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts. Yesterday I visited my favorite BBQ joint (Showcase BBQ) in Homewood. A predominately black neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I was the only none black there. The owner told me. "While everyone is facing the battle against COVID-19, black people in America are still facing the battle against racism and coronavirus." He told me: "Dr. King, never burned one building... never robbed one store... never destroyed one town... But he Changed the World. And that's what I'm telling my daughters... We must listen to Dr. King. We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools..." |
AuthorRoozbeh, born in Tehran - Iran (March 1984) Archives
April 2024
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