I introduced my reflections on the AI and Christianity essay series by J. Nathan Matias et al with a quote from Star Wars, so it is fitting (if thoroughly unplanned) to return to a galaxy far, far away to conclude my thoughts on the topic. The following will have some spoilers for The Last Jedi, but after I saw it I realized its themes were too relevant to pass up. While there is no AI per se in the film, the story is all about decisions, who gets to make them, and how they get made. In that sense, it overlaps strongly with the conversation about AI, which is often employed as a tool to either inform decision-making or even make decisions on its own, whether they be which stocks to buy and sell and at what price, which route to take from here to there, or which illness a patient suffers from. As we give responsibility to AIs for those decisions, it is worth thinking about what values should guide those decisions, and the stories we tell can help us recognize and reflect on those values.
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star wars
Science Reader Question: “I Could Show You the Ways of The Force.”
DJ asks:
Why and when should we start mentoring and investing in those younger or at a less advanced place than we are academically?
As we’ve discussed previously, it’s really never too early to provide mentoring of one sort or another. Situations where we are complete novices, without anything to offer anyone else, are rare. We might be reluctant to help others at times, out of fear or for other reasons; at other times, we might want someone more easily controlled than a mentee. Still, mentoring opportunities of various sizes (which matters not) are all around if we are willing to look for them.
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Science Corner: “Nobody Worries about Upsetting a Droid”
DJ asks:
Why and when should we start mentoring and investing in those younger or at a less advanced place than we are academically?
As a biologist, I’m always a little puzzled by public perception of clones. Going by the stories we tell, we think human clones would somehow be biologically inferior, second class, easily controlled or perhaps even nearly programmable. We think about photocopies of photocopies and imagine a similar process of degradation. Meanwhile, if duplicating DNA were really that error prone, we’d all have been in big trouble a long time ago. Not to mention how identical twins look and act and think differently than their “clone.” Far from accurate biology lessons, stories of clones probably reveal our own desire for other people to be more predictable and controllable and less individual.
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Science Corner: “Fear is the path to the dark side.”
DJ asks:
Why and when should we start mentoring and investing in those younger or at a less advanced place than we are academically?
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Science Corner: But Which Are You–the Master or the Apprentice?
DJ asks:
Why and when should we start mentoring and investing in those younger or at a less advanced place than we are academically?
We’re getting a new Star Wars film in a few weeks. The series has a strong focus on legacies and the training of future generations, which I’m sure will continue in Episode VII. (I have no inside information; I just get a strong ‘passing the torch’ vibe from trailer.) In the original trilogy, everyone wants a chance to train the last of the Jedi. Yet in The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda complains that Luke is too old to begin training. At the time, it seemed like a bit of reverse psychology to help Luke discover for himself just how strongly he wants to become a Jedi. It wasn’t until the prequels that we learned Jedi training starts around 3 or 4. [Read more…] about Science Corner: But Which Are You–the Master or the Apprentice?