Editor's pick: More problems with the ethics of automated decisions
Clare Wilson reports a test of people's responses to the philosophical “trolley problem”, now prominent as a way to probe opinions on who a self-driving car should save (19 May, p 14). There are reasons to be cautious about any interpretation of the results.
As Wilson notes, a problem with this test – which offered the choice of giving five mice an electric shock or acting to divert it to one mouse – is that some subjects did not believe the mice would be hurt. Anyone who has been moved by a dramatic scene on TV will know that strong emotions can be evoked even when we know what we are witnessing is not real. With ethics in science now much debated, the time when one could assume a subject believed a false story is surely past.
So the data can be viewed only in terms of what people think they would do in a hypothetical situation. Similarly, seeing railway workers in danger of being mown down by a trolley car falls into the realm of fantasy. By contrast, seeing a child or dog running into the road is something most of us could imagine happening, and we might say that we would run to save the child yet leave the dog to its fate.
This study involved telling subjects what was about to happen, purposely giving them time to think. Real and sudden emergencies elicit an immediate, instinctive response. A 2014 showed an impulse to do something rather than nothing. Post-hoc rationalisations of impulsive behaviour, such as “I decided to sacrifice one person to save many”, can of course be discounted. I wonder what would happen in an experiment where taking action would put a greater number at risk.
Individuals also have a hierarchy of care, so someone might favour a single kitten over several mice. And if so, does this really tell us anything that would help program a self-driving car?
Neanderthals and Denisovans were human
In recent years we have learned much about our close relationship with the Neanderthals (26 May, p 44). They looked and behaved so like us that we would not blink if we passed one in the street today. They created cave art and their hyoid bone would have allowed them to produce recognisable speech. We interbred with them and carry their DNA.
The standard definition of a species is that its members can breed together and produce viable offspring. This has obviously happened in our past. Some are already suggesting that there are no such species as Homo neanderthalensis or H. denisova, only the subspecies H. sapiens neanderthalensis and H. sapiens denisova. It is high time to recognise that we are members of a single species. They are not extinct; they live on in us.
First class post – 30 June 2018
Please leave our haldi doodh alone. Diss it and the aunties will come for you. Love, India
Dhenuka Ganesh that turmeric latte (haldi doodh) may not be all it's cracked up to be (16 June, p 35).
<i>Homo sapiens'</i> signature trait is really aggression
Alice Klein says Neanderthals and Denisovans seemingly did not develop the same level of intelligence as us (9 June, p 6). But Neanderthal brains were somewhat larger than those of Homo sapiens, and we are reminded in the same issue that there is a subtle relationship between brain size and intelligence (p 18).
As far as I am aware, there is no evidence to distinguish the lifestyles of any of the human species that co-occupied the planet up to around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, apart from subtle differences in the stone tools that two of them made. There is certainly no evidence to distinguish between any of them in terms of their ability to think and to analyse their environments.
That we are the only species to survive is not evidence of our greater intelligence. Known human history shows intense aggression and continuing genocide. How much more likely is it that the extinction of other human species is because the most virulently aggressive of them wiped out all the others – irrespective of intelligence?
How do we define a species these days?
Colin Barras discusses chimp evolution being shaped by sex with bonobos and describes them as “close relatives” (2 June, p 4).
When I studied biology many years ago, I was taught that organisms belonged to the same species if, and only if, they could produce fertile offspring together. Horses can mate with donkeys, for example, but because the resulting mules cannot get together to make more mules, horses and donkeys were regarded as belonging to different species.
The distinction seems to have been blurred, with talk of chimps and bonobos benefiting from sex with each other and Homo sapiens breeding with other “species”.
Has the definition changed and if so, why?
The editor writes:
• Yes – it seems that the more we discover, the more confused the notion of a species becomes. It is now the subject of intense debate.
The truth about cervical cancer screening (1)
Clare Wilson discusses risks arising from screening for cervical cancer, and says it is caused by human papillomaviruses (2 June, p 20). Not all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. Vaccinations, as amazing as they are, will not eliminate it. Without those facts, women can't evaluate the risks of testing. Procedures done after test results are a separate question.
As a survivor of a non-HPV cervical cancer, I can tell you that if I had not had regular cervical tests over the years I would not be here to remind you of this.
The truth about cervical cancer screening (2)
Your leader article states that “it's time we stopped dismissing women's health problems”, with the cervical cancer screening programme as example (2 June, p 3). Under the UK National Health Service women receive HPV immunisation, contraception, antenatal and postnatal care and cervical screening. They are also screened for breast cancer, osteoporosis and, in some areas, ovarian cancer.
By contrast, men are actively discouraged from prostate cancer screening. It is much harder to get men to engage with their health compared with women, meaning women use the health service more than men.
Years ago I bought into the idea that women are short-changed by the health service. But it seems the opposite is the case.
Doubts and hopes for renewable energy (1)
Peter Fairley discusses the possibility of 100 per cent renewable energy (9 June, p 26). This throws up at least a couple more considerations we will have to face in the future. What effects on animal and human biology will there be from long-range super-high-voltage direct current transmission from sites where green energy is harnessed? How will the ecology of deserts change if they are shaded by solar cells? Has anyone modelled the effect on weather systems?
Doubts and hopes for renewable energy (2)
Surely it is not so much a question of whether we can get all our energy from renewable sources, but that we must. The only point to debate is how quickly.
It seems likely to me that production of hydrogen fuel using electricity to split water will be a major part of this process. The resulting supply of oxygen should be extremely useful – for example in the incineration of waste. This would avoid nitrogen being involved in the combustion cycle and could make it easier to keep the process clean. It would also give us electricity as a by-product, not to mention district heating by exploiting the low-grade heat.
Further, much of the biomass we grow, whether for food or energy, captures and stores under 2 per cent of the solar energy striking the land used for cultivation. In comparison, solar panels convert more than 12 per cent and could exceed 30 per cent within 20 years. It is not that plants cannot be efficient, but that they cannot always use what is available. It now seems possible that growing staple crops indoors under artificial lighting can produce more food from less land, even when land use for solar panels to power it is included.
Why freezing of water is lethal to aquatic life
Your excellent article on water starts off by saying that if it behaved like a normal liquid and became denser as it cooled, lakes would freeze from the bottom up, killing all the fish (2 June, p 26). But freezing kills living things because water expands when it turns to ice and hence breaks the cell walls around it. If it were a “normal” liquid, it would contract, and freezing would be harmless. Those animals that must survive freezing have various ingenious biochemical tricks to keep the water liquid and high density.
The editor writes:
• We should perhaps have said that cell rupture is not the only problem. Freezing would deprive fish, and the organisms they feed on, of food on the sea or lake floor: they would probably starve.
Computer says 'don't know' – or it should
Timothy Revell discusses holding artificial intelligence to account and European Union citizens getting the right to an explanation of AI decisions (14 April, p 40). Should software not be able to say “I don't know”?
I worked on an AI system for use during anaesthesia. We needed to detect one of two states: whether the patient was breathing on their own or their lungs were being mechanically ventilated.
We used a neural network to test for spontaneous breathing and ran a separate test for ventilator breathing. Only if both tests agreed did the software give a decision. If they disagreed, it announced that it did not know which state existed.
None of this is difficult: it just requires more than one test.
For the record – 30 June 2018
• In less of a tizzy: the pulsar B1957+20 rotates a mere 600 times per second (2 June, p 17).