Technology and Ethics

Tech Giants Team Up To Tackle The Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence
The Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, consisting of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and IBM (with Apple in talks to join), weighs in on the missing ethics standards in artificial intelligence.

Fourth Industrial Revolution: With robots, is a life without work one we’d want to live?
“Being gainfully employed is about more than money. We need to consider what will give our lives purpose and connection in the age of automation.”

Should we bring extinct species back from the dead?
New advances in genetic engineering have researchers thinking seriously about de-extinction and which animals we might be able to bring back.

Bioethics and Public Health

Birth of Baby with Three Parents’ DNA Marks Success for Banned Technique
Experts discuss the first successful mitochondrial donation procedure and why the term “three-parent baby” is misleading.

Human Chimera Research’s Huge (and Thorny) Potential
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reversed policy barring funding from research involving human chimeras (mixtures of human cells with animal embryos) which can yield major human development discoveries.

Ethics review identifies top two challenges for genome editing
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports a need for urgent ethical scrutiny on new genome editing techniques.

Bioethics in the Election: Where the Candidates Stand
The major presidential candidates’ positions on bioethics-related issues in The Hastings Center’s interactive chart.

‘Right to try’ bill offers false hope to the desperately ill
A bill on Gov. Herry Brown’s desk deals with access to experimental drugs.

Congress Finally Passes Zika Funding Bill; Provides $1.1 Billion
Congress finally agreed on funding to help fight the Zika virus and study its effects eight months after the White House asked.

China Grapples With HIV Cases Among Gay Men, but Stigma Runs Deep
“Surge in [HIV] infections worries health authorities and prompts soul-searching in conservative society.”

Opioid crisis in rural areas may be tackled through telemedicine
Health professionals and government believe that technology could help opioid crisis through video chat with experts on treating addiction.

Second Thoughts of an Animal Researcher
NIH ended biomedical and behavioral research on chimpanzees, but about 70,000 other primates are still research subjects in labs across the United States.

Other Ethics-Related News: Business and Philosophy

Wells Fargo Workers Claim Retaliation for Playing by the Rules
Former Wells Fargo employees claim they were fired for reports on ethics violations and resisting pressure to create unauthorized customer accounts to meet sales goals.

A Culture of Ethical Behavior is Essential to Business Success
A follow-up and comment on Wells Fargo scandal.

How Morality Changes in a Foreign Language
“Fascinating ethical shifts come with thinking in a different language.”

A tale of two ethics
“Why many Germans think impractical idealism is immoral.”