News Updates

A New York Times opinion article on the expanding role of artificial intelligence in war-fighting was headlined “Are You Ready for Weapons That Call Their Own Shots?” In Issues, two longtime observers of science and society—and AI experts—already answered that question: no. But they added that regulating AI-controlled weapons, as well as other AI applications, should be done as part of a broader public discussion of “the policy measures and cultural changes that will be needed to negotiate the coming transformation into an AI-rich world.”

Democratic staff members of the House Oversight Committee are claiming proof that the Trump administration’s proposal to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 US Census is “partisan and discriminatory,” just ahead of the Supreme Court’s expected ruling on whether the question is legal. In Issues, a senior scholar at the National Academies argues against the addition, as part of her examination of the history of the Census, the problems it has encountered, and the lessons learned for protecting the accuracy of the decennial enumeration of the nation’s population.

Jay Inslee, the Washington state governor now running for president by focusing on climate change, wants to end federal support for fossil fuel production and make the industry pay for damages he says its carbon emissions are causing. But from a different camp, Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute argues in Issues that such proposals are “simultaneously vague and controversial,” adding that their advocates seldom offer specific policies “to rapidly build the infrastructure of a low carbon economy or restrict carbon-intensive activities woven into the fabric of Americans’ daily lives.”

When the next pandemic strikes, society will need to fight on two fronts: against the disease itself, and against the “deluge of rumors, misinformation and flat-out lies that will appear on the internet,” a Harvard researcher says in the New York Times. He cites a recent Issues article in which a technology entrepreneur called for the creation of a global volunteer corps of scientists and communicators to quickly provide accurate, clear, and credible information to the public to help mitigate possible broad social and economic ripple effects of a pandemic.

As the 2020 presidential race ramps up, the Democratic candidates are defining positions on what promises to be a major topic: health care. A popular slogan for some hopefuls has been “Medicare-for-all.” However, consensus about what type of Medicare they want to implement remains elusive, and key constituencies are divided. The American Medical Association, for example, recently reiterated its opposition to Medicare-for-all in a narrow vote. Issues has covered health care extensively, with experts providing insight (here, here, and here) into how policy-makers can make the system work better and more effectively.

The actor Jessica Biel is the latest celebrity to go public with an opinion on vaccinations that reportedly provides support for critics who reject the need for or safety of vaccines and oppose government involvement in ensuring that children are fully vaccinated in a timely manner. In Issues, two scientists who study celebrity culture recently argued that the scientific enterprise “should view occasions where celebrity and science meet as opportunities to engage audiences in a deep way about science and scientific thinking,” and they offered several ways to do so.

The United States is vulnerable to “weaponized narratives” spread via advanced information technologies to disrupt the nation’s culture and resiliency, a scholar on emerging technologies warned in Issues after the 2016 elections. And things seem to be getting even worse, as researchers in artificial intelligence say they are not ready to counteract the latest computer-generated fake videos—“deepfakes”—that could spur disinformation campaigns by foreign and domestic groups intent on misleading voters during the 2020 elections.

Beyond Meat, the company behind the plant-based Impossible Burger, is soaring on the stock market, and several fast-food chains plan to offer the burger. Many people see products like the Impossible Burger as an environmentally friendly way to satisfy growing global demand for meat. In a 1997 Issues article, a food policy expert cited predictions that the average person in Asia alone would consume 20.1 kilograms of meat per year by 2030. Today, that prediction has increased to nearly 29 kilograms—making commercial meat substitutes a potentially welcome addition to the menu.

China is building a new system to strengthen its ability to innovate and to accelerate the development of key technologies, according to a state media report. The plan, though short on details, could well boost China’s already aggressive technology push, which recently prompted an experienced scholar and policy expert to suggest in Issues that the United States needs to strengthen its own capacity to innovate, and he detailed specific ways that government, industry, and academic research centers can help.

Even as the scientific community condemned the Chinese scientist who used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to produce two human babies, several fertility clinics reportedly asked him for advice on offering the service to clients. And now comes a report that the engineered babies may face higher risk of premature death. Issues has broadly examined matters swirling around human gene editing, including how to discipline the rogue scientist to prevent similar actions, how the technology might be governed, and why the public must be involved in making decisions.

Presidential hopefuls Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren are embracing the framework of the Green New Deal, the latest signs of momentum for the proposal among Democrats. But skeptics see problems. In Issues, an opinion columnist says the plan reflects nostalgia for an imagined past and further divides society, and he calls on a “vital center” of elected officials to forge coalitions on behalf of “politically viable and effective policy approaches” aimed at achieving a “resilient, net-zero carbon economy.”

To help inmates better navigate their ultimate return to society, prisons often provide them with cognitive-behavioral therapy, and a new report identifies what programming practices, timing, and sequencing work best for which prisoners and under what circumstances. Issues has also examined ways to help the large number of people already in the criminal justice system successfully reenter society, as part of a series of articles on mass incarceration in the United States.