2019
October
18
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 18, 2019
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Laurent Belsie
Senior Economics Writer

Today, we look at one of the impeachment inquiry’s key figures, Ukrainian corruption, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s downward trajectory, Hong Kong protests from a different angle, and the reimagining of pop concerts.

But first, there’s this. You’ve heard it all before: The country is hyper-divided. Unions are passé. Blue-collar workers resent management. Corporations prefer robots to people. There are truths embedded in these clichés. Yet, when push comes to shove, old-fashioned collective bargaining still works.

General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement this week that could end the monthlong strike. Both sides were hard-nosed – and for good reason. But in the end, they compromised because they saw they had more to gain from working together than fighting each other. The union agreed to let three plants close, while GM halved the time it takes for temporary workers to earn full-time pay.

The process is democratic. Union members will vote on the deal, sealing its fate.

Perhaps that spirit can prevail in the new Chicago teachers’ strike and the 2 1/2-year-old walkout against Charter Communications. The tentative GM-UAW deal is a refreshing reminder – maybe even a wistful one – of how leaders with different visions can find common ground and the majority decides if it’s fair.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Carlos Jasso/AP
House intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff speaks next to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington Oct. 15, 2019.

He wasn’t the obvious choice to become the leading face of the Democratic-led House impeachment inquiry. Here’s a look at why Rep. Adam Schiff of California got that role and how he’s done so far.

Ukraine keeps coming up in White House-related controversy. But it is not the first time that Americans seeking fortune or promoting positive change have become entangled in complex post-Soviet realities.

A deeper look

Stephane Mahe/Reuters
Liberal Party leader and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigns for the upcoming election at the Botanical Garden of Montreal, Oct. 16, 2019.

Just a few years ago, Justin Trudeau was a global political rock star. Now he's struggling to ensure that his party wins Monday's elections. How did Canadians' view of their prime minister change so much so quickly?

Watch

Immersed: A walk through Hong Kong’s protests

As confrontations with police intensify, peaceful marches have faded from the global spotlight. But most demonstrators are peaceful, and embody the movement’s early mantra: “Be water” – resilient, flowing, nimble. 

How Hong Kong protests try to be "like water"

Courtesy of Matthew Murphy
“David Byrne’s American Utopia,” currently on Broadway, features material from Mr. Byrne’s solo career and hits from his Talking Heads years. The musician (center) collaborated with choreographer Annie-B Parson on the design of the show.

Change happens when people aren’t afraid to imagine something different. Choreographer Annie-B Parson has collaborated with musician David Byrne to create a Broadway show that offers a new model for concerts, and dance. 


The Monitor's View

AP
Commuters in Beijing walk by surveillance cameras. At least 75 countries are actively using AI tools such as facial recognition for surveillance.

By 2030 the total gross domestic product of the world will be 14% higher because of one thing: more use of artificial intelligence or AI.

That’s the conclusion of PwC, a professional services firm based in London. If such forecasts are right these sophisticated computer programs will be doing tasks such as driving vehicles, planning and waging wars, and advising humans on how to handle both their health and wealth.

One observer writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association has declared that the “hype and fear” surrounding AI “may be greater than that which accompanied the discovery of the structure of DNA or the whole genome.”

Yet despite the possibility of colossal impacts from AI, the U.S. government has been doing little to study its ethical implications. The federal government’s Office of Technology Assessment, which might have led the effort, was closed in 1995; other research groups such as the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service have seen their budgets severely cut.

AI’s effect on privacy has already become a major issue as personal data is constantly gathered in myriad ways individuals may not realize. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has been meeting with members of Congress to discuss how his organization might do a better job at protecting users’ privacy. Last year a group of Google employees joined up to question the ethics of Project Maven, in which Google would supply AI image recognition capabilities to U.S. military drones.

AI has already received criticism when used to recommend prison sentences. In one case it consistently suggested longer sentences for black people than white people convicted of the same crime. Because of the increasing sophistication of AI, revealing hidden biases in the writing of the software and figuring out why they occurred is likely to become harder in the future.

Even the choice of voices for popular virtual assistants, such as Siri and Alexa, has come under ethical scrutiny. Why choose mainly feminine voices for many AI programs, whose primary role is to do our bidding submissively with little pushback?

For decades the U.S. Navy has used Phalanx automated cannons on its warships, capable of aiming and firing on their own much more rapidly than humans might. And the Navy is experimenting with a ship called Sea Hunter, which would be armed and patrol the oceans without a human crew. In a test voyage it has already sailed from Hawaii to California on its own.

Recently Germany, France, and other countries proposed a declaration at the United Nations urging regulation of lethal autonomous weapons, more popularly referred to as killer robots. While the autonomous killer robots portrayed in the “Terminator” movies still seem a ways off, they’re no longer considered science fiction. Some AI ethicists are calling for talks to create an international treaty to regulate the use of robotic weapons.

Recognizing its growing need for guidance, the Pentagon has been advertising for an ethicist to advise it. At the same time France, Germany, and Japan have begun joint research into what they’re calling a “human centered” AI that would respect individual privacy and provide transparency.

To add to the urgency for AI ethics, Google recently announced that it had successfully tested “quantum computing,” which could soon usher in much faster data crunching and, potentially, much smarter AI systems.

All these developments, and others, show that the efforts of governments, private companies, and individuals are needed to provide ethical guidance as AI advances into our lives. Intelligence, whether artificial or not, must be built on the common good. Alertness now can prevent alarm later.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

For one woman, a chickadee’s joyful song inspired a fresh view of our ability to let God’s goodness and joy shine in our lives – a lesson that brought about a quick healing of illness shortly after.


A message of love

NASA/AP
U.S. astronauts Jessica Meir (left) and Christina Koch paused aboard the International Space Station before preparing for their Oct. 18, 2019, spacewalk to replace a broken battery charger. (See an image of their spacewalk in our gallery.) Photojournalists strive to capture moments that tell a full story, bringing news from the remotest corners of the globe in an instant. Through them we learn more about the world, and ourselves. Here is a roundup of photos from this week that Monitor photo editors found the most compelling.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Come back Monday. We’ll resume our chat-format discussion – anchored by two Monitor-staff Britons – of one of the year’s most hard-to-follow stories: Brexit. 

Also, to send you into the weekend, here’s a bonus read. Carmen Sisson went back to Mexico Beach, Florida, a year after it was leveled by Hurricane Michael and found what she so often finds in her returns to storm-ravaged sites: people helping people, and persevering. 

More issues

2019
October
18
Friday
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