Robot caregivers: harbingers of expanded freedom for all?

As we near a time when robots may serve a vital function by becoming caregivers, it is important to examine the ethical implications of this development. By applying the capabilities approach as a guide to both the design and use of robot caregivers, we hope that this will maximize opportunities to preserve or expand freedom for care recipients. We think the use of the capabilities approach will be especially valuable for improving the ability of impaired persons to interface more effectively with their physical and social environments.     

Fertility or sterility? Darwin,Naudin and the problem of experimental hybridity

Darwin came to realize that he could never devise an experiment that would demonstrate the development of new species by crossing hybrids. Instead, he turned to the problem of sterility within a species. The difference between Darwin's experimental and theoretical approach and that of French scientists working in the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris can be shown most vividly by tracking Darwin's experiments in botany and his interest in those of Charles Naudin on hybrid plants. In his discussion of Mendel, Robert Olby has provided an interesting analysis of Naudin's hereditary concepts. I have approached some of the same work here with an emphasis on the question of sterility raised by Darwin, not simply between hybrids but within members of the same species and the light that he thought this could throw on both heredity and the origin of species.     

Zero,single, or multi? Genre of web pages through the users’ perspective

The goal of the study presented in this article is to investigate to what extent the classification of a web page by a single genre matches the users’ perspective. The extent of agreement on a single genre label for a web page can help understand whether there is a need for a different classification scheme that overrides the single-genre labelling. My hypothesis is that a single genre label does not account for the users’ perspective. In order to test this hypothesis, I submitted a restricted number of web pages (25 web pages) to a large number of web users (135 subjects) asking them to assign only a single genre label to each of the web pages. Users could choose from a list of 21 genre labels, or select one of the two ‘escape’ options, i.e. ‘Add a label’ and ‘I don’t know’. The rationale was to observe the level of agreement on a single genre label per web page, and draw some conclusions about the appropriateness of limiting the assignment to only a single label when doing genre classification of web pages. Results show that users largely disagree on the label to be assigned to a web page.     

Winner takes all? Tech clusters,population centers,and the spatial transformation of U.S. invention

U.S. invention has become increasingly concentrated around major tech centers since the 1970s, with implications for how much cities across the country share in concomitant local benefits. Is invention becoming a winner-takes-all race? We explore the rising spatial concentration of patents and identify an underlying stability in their distribution. Software patents have exploded to account for about half of patents today, and these patents are highly concentrated in tech centers. Tech centers also account for a growing share of non-software patents, but the reallocation, by contrast, is entirely from the five largest population centers in 1980. Non-software patenting is stable for most cities, with anchor tenants like universities playing important roles, suggesting the growing concentration of invention may be nearing its end. Immigrant inventors and new businesses aided in the spatial transformation.One Sentence SummaryThe growing concentration of patenting in tech centers masks an important stability in non-software patenting for most U.S. cities.     

Cheat or perish? A theory of scientific customs

Performance incentives have become increasingly important in academia. Evidence suggest that they increase not only researchers’ effort but also their cheating. We develop a principal–agent framework in which a research institution (principal) aims to reward scientific productivity considering the social benefit of research and the remuneration costs. Researchers (agents) take into account what others are doing. As a consequence, the introduction of performance incentives not only leads to fraudulent behavior in the short run, but may also deteriorate the scientific norm in the long run. In the face of these dynamics, the principal pursues two goals: to increase productivity (effort incentive policy) and to deal with fraud (anti-fraud policy). Several factors determine the optimal mix of policies: economic factors (researchers’ cost of providing high or low effort, the societal value of scientific knowledge and the societal costs of scientific misbehavior) and psychological factors (the evolution of norms over time). An important insight of our theory is that when research institutions seek to encourage the production of high quality research, they should also raise the salary for normal research to avoid misconduct.     

Defining laboratory medicine,or squaring the circle?

In the August 2020 issue of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Giuseppe Lippi and Mario Plebani proposed a definition of laboratory medicine, which ends with this sentence: “The results of these measurements are translated into actionable information for improving the care and/or maintaining the wellness of both a single individual and an entire population”. Nevertheless, the selfishness of individuals may, sometimes, jeopardize the interest of whole populations. The virtue of justice being within the reach of the entire human community more than of single individuals, the final sentence in the definition proposed by Giuseppe Lippi and Mario Plebani, should therefore, in our view, be rewritten, less selfishly, for example like this: “For a given investment, these measurements are preferably made when they bring as much beneficence, and non-maleficence, as possible to the whole population”.     

Popular and/or prestigious? Measures of scholarly esteem

Citation analysis does not generally take the quality of citations into account: all citations are weighted equally irrespective of source. However, a scholar may be highly cited but not highly regarded: popularity and prestige are not identical measures of esteem. In this study we define popularity as the number of times an author is cited and prestige as the number of times an author is cited by highly cited papers. Information retrieval (IR) is the test field. We compare the 40 leading researchers in terms of their popularity and prestige over time. Some authors are ranked high on prestige but not on popularity, while others are ranked high on popularity but not on prestige. We also relate measures of popularity and prestige to date of Ph.D. award, number of key publications, organizational affiliation, receipt of prizes/honors, and gender.     

电击网瘾,精神治疗or二次伤害?

网瘾早已是一个世界性话题.2007年美国报告互联网成瘾9百万人;英国精神病学家在最近的<精神病治疗进展>上认为有5～10%的上网者网络成瘾.而在亚洲,网瘾的比例水涨船高:韩国汉阳大学的安东炫教授调查出韩国18岁以下约240万青少年处于成瘾边缘;中国网络信息中心的数据则显示,中国18岁以下青少年网民中大概有14.9%网络成瘾.     

A question worth a million: The expert,the crowd,or myself? An investigation of problem solving

In an era of rapid technological advances, individuals have access to a plethora of open and closed forms of problem solving. We introduce and test a framework that compares different forms of problem solving and determines how individuals make choices among them. Our analyses of 4,556 problems solved by 398 individuals reveal that high problem complexity and strong implicit social norms of open exchange increase the probability that individuals will seek external solutions rather than solve the problems themselves. Our analysis also shows that they prefer individual experts (contacted directly or via open call) over aggregated crowd knowledge. We also find that strong implicit social norms of open exchange weakened the positive impact of complexity on the probability of solving problems externally. Interestingly, this effect is more subtle when the use of aggregated crowds is compared with individual experts: while strong implicit social norms strengthen the positive impact of problem complexity when experts are contacted directly, they otherwise weaken the use of open call experts. We discuss and examine the nuanced effects between problem complexity and social norms of open exchange. The study contributes to a stream of the open innovation literature that uses a problem solving perspective to better understand under what circumstances certain forms of problem solving are utilized, and it then combines it with a novel empirical setting based on real-life experimental data.     

Bridges or isolates? Investigating the social networks of academic inventors

We analyze the acquaintances of a sample of academic inventors and their paired controls to investigate the contribution of social networks to the generation of inventive ideas in academe. Prior to patenting, inventors work in networks of similar dimension and structure as those of their colleagues who do not invent. The ego-networks of the inventors are however more cohesive (denser), a circumstance that is often seen as associated to the exchange of more fine-grained information and to a greater climate of trust which facilitates long-term relationships and learning. Over time, both inventors and non-inventors extend their networks and become more central. In general, we found no evidence that after patenting inventors isolate or close their networks.     

Computers in control: Rational transfer of authority or irresponsible abdication of autonomy?

To what extent should humans transfer, or abdicate, “responsibility” to computers? In this paper, I distinguish six different senses of ‘responsible’ and then consider in which of these senses computers can, and in which they cannot, be said to be “responsible” for “deciding” various outcomes. I sort out and explore two different kinds of complaint against putting computers in greater “control” of our lives: (i) as finite and fallible human beings, there is a limit to how far we can acheive increased reliability through complex devices of our own design; (ii) even when computers are more reliable than humans, certain tasks (e.g., selecting an appropriate gift for a friend, solving the daily crossword puzzle) are inappropriately performed by anyone (or anything) other than oneself. In critically evaluating these claims, I arrive at three main conclusions: (1) While we ought to correct for many of our shortcomings by availing ourselves of the computer's larger memory, faster processing speed and greater stamina, we are limited by our own finiteness and fallibility (rather than by whatever limitations may be inherent in silicon and metal) in the ability to transcend our own unreliability. Moreover, if we rely on programmed computers to such an extent that we lose touch with the human experience and insight that formed the basis for their programming design, our fallibility is magnified rather than mitigated. (2) Autonomous moral agents can reasonably defer to greater expertise, whether human or cybernetic. But they cannot reasonably relinquish “background-oversight” responsibility. They must be prepared, at least periodically, to review whether the “expertise” to which they defer is indeed functioning as he/she/it was authorized to do, and to take steps to revoke that authority, if necessary. (3) Though outcomes matter, it can also matter how they are brought about, and by whom. Thus, reflecting on how much of our lives should be directed and implemented by computer may be another way of testing any thoroughly end-state or consequentialist conception of the good and decent life. To live with meaning and purpose, we need to actively engage our own faculties and empathetically connect up with, and resonate to, others. Thus there is some limit to how much of life can be appropriately lived by anyone (or anything) other than ourselves.