Why creating an AI that has free will would be a huge mistake

Giving human rights to a being with unlimited knowledge? Probably not a good idea.

Joanna Bryson thinks that people are confusing artificial intelligence with human clones, mostly due to Hollywood movies like Blade Runner and Steven Spielberg's A.I., both of which feature very humanoid beings. Take away the somewhat cuddly ideas the movies have given us about artificial intelligence and you have this: hyper-smart machines with absolutely no limit to their knowledge. She posits that giving artificial intelligence the same rights a human has could result in pretty dire consequences... because AI has already proven that it can pick up negative human characteristics if those characteristics are in the data. Therefore, it's not crazy at all to think that AI could scan all of Twitter in one afternoon and pick up all the negativity we've unloaded there. If it's already proven it's not only capable of making the wrong decision but eventually will make the wrong decision when it comes to data mining and implementation, why even give it the same powers as us in the first place?

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More Than Just Sanctuary, Migrants Need Social Citizenship

Social citizenship is both a feeling of belonging and a definable set of commitments and obligations associated with living in a place; it is not second-class national citizenship. 

Josephine Corral of Tacoma, Washington, puts her head through a large green card replica during a May Day march May 1, 2008 in Seattle, Washington. (Credit: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

In 1975, the English author John Berger wrote about the political implications of immigration, at a time when one in seven workers in the factories of Germany and Britain was a male migrant —what Berger called the ‘seventh man’. Today, every seventh person in the world is a migrant.

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The Sexual Predator Myth: Once Visited on Gay Men, It Now Hurts Trans Women

There's a hidden hypocrisy within bathroom laws based on biological sex.

Your gender is your sense of self — it is located very much above the waist. Legislation that compels transgender people to use bathrooms that align with their biological sex, rather than their gender identity, are not really championing public safety. In fact, there is a hidden hypocrisy in those laws that makes the most vulnerable among us markedly less safe. According to Dr. Elijah Nealy, there is a dangerous myth that perpetuates the trans bathroom debate: that trans women are sexual predators (the data does not support this claim, and we heard the same story 25 years ago about gay men). This myth implies that transgender women have ulterior motives when using the restroom, when in reality, like every other human being, they go there to relieve a simple biological need. Insisting that bathroom laws are anchored to biological sex places trans men and women in difficult positions. States with these laws in place would have Dr. Nealy, an openly trans man, use the women's room. It also puts trans women in a very dangerous spotlight by forcing them to enter and use the men's room. Perpetuating false myths and supporting discriminatory laws only serves to invalidate the existence of an already marginalized community who are—whether others like it or not—very real. Elijah Nealy is the author of Transgender Children and Youth: Cultivating Pride and Joy with Families in Transition.

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