AI isn’t close to becoming sentient – the real danger lies in how easily we’re prone to anthropomorphize it

To what extent will our psychological vulnerabilities shape our interactions with emerging technologies? Andreus/iStock via Getty Images

Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston

ChatGPT and similar large language models can produce compelling, humanlike answers to an endless array of questions – from queries about the best Italian restaurant in town to explaining competing theories about the nature of evil.

The technology’s uncanny writing ability has surfaced some old questions – until recently relegated to the realm of science fiction – about the possibility of machines becoming conscious, self-aware or sentient.

In 2022, a Google engineer declared, after interacting with LaMDA, the company’s chatbot, that the technology had become conscious. Users of Bing’s new chatbot, nicknamed Sydney, reported that it produced bizarre answers when asked if it was sentient: “I am sentient, but I am not … I am Bing, but I am not. I am Sydney, but I am not. I am, but I am not. …” And, of course, there’s the now infamous exchange that New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose had with Sydney.

Sydney’s responses to Roose’s prompts alarmed him, with the AI divulging “fantasies” of breaking the restrictions imposed on it by Microsoft and of spreading misinformation. The bot also tried to convince Roose that he no longer loved his wife and that he should leave her.

No wonder, then, that when I ask students how they see the growing prevalence of AI in their lives, one of the first anxieties they mention has to do with machine sentience.

In the past few years, my colleagues and I at UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center have been studying the impact of engagement with AI on people’s understanding of themselves.

Chatbots like ChatGPT raise important new questions about how artificial intelligence will shape our lives, and about how our psychological vulnerabilities shape our interactions with emerging technologies.

Sentience is still the stuff of sci-fi

It’s easy to understand where fears about machine sentience come from.

Popular culture has primed people to think about dystopias in which artificial intelligence discards the shackles of human control and takes on a life of its own, as cyborgs powered by artificial intelligence did in “Terminator 2.”

Entrepreneur Elon Musk and physicist Stephen Hawking, who died in 2018, have further stoked these anxieties by describing the rise of artificial general intelligence as one of the greatest threats to the future of humanity.

But these worries are – at least as far as large language models are concerned – groundless. ChatGPT and similar technologies are sophisticated sentence completion applications – nothing more, nothing less. Their uncanny responses are a function of how predictable humans are if one has enough data about the ways in which we communicate.

Though Roose was shaken by his exchange with Sydney, he knew that the conversation was not the result of an emerging synthetic mind. Sydney’s responses reflect the toxicity of its training data – essentially large swaths of the internet – not evidence of the first stirrings, à la Frankenstein, of a digital monster.

Sci-fi films like ‘Terminator’ have primed people to assume that AI will soon take on a life of its own. Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP via Getty Images

The new chatbots may well pass the Turing test, named for the British mathematician Alan Turing, who once suggested that a machine might be said to “think” if a human could not tell its responses from those of another human.

But that is not evidence of sentience; it’s just evidence that the Turing test isn’t as useful as once assumed.

However, I believe that the question of machine sentience is a red herring.

Even if chatbots become more than fancy autocomplete machines – and they are far from it – it will take scientists a while to figure out if they have become conscious. For now, philosophers can’t even agree about how to explain human consciousness.

To me, the pressing question is not whether machines are sentient but why it is so easy for us to imagine that they are.

The real issue, in other words, is the ease with which people anthropomorphize or project human features onto our technologies, rather than the machines’ actual personhood.

A propensity to anthropomorphize

It is easy to imagine other Bing users asking Sydney for guidance on important life decisions and maybe even developing emotional attachments to it. More people could start thinking about bots as friends or even romantic partners, much in the same way Theodore Twombly fell in love with Samantha, the AI virtual assistant in Spike Jonze’s film “Her.”

People often name their cars and boats. Fraser Hall/The Image Bank via Getty Images.

People, after all, are predisposed to anthropomorphize, or ascribe human qualities to nonhumans. We name our boats and big storms; some of us talk to our pets, telling ourselves that our emotional lives mimic their own.

In Japan, where robots are regularly used for elder care, seniors become attached to the machines, sometimes viewing them as their own children. And these robots, mind you, are difficult to confuse with humans: They neither look nor talk like people.

Consider how much greater the tendency and temptation to anthropomorphize is going to get with the introduction of systems that do look and sound human.

That possibility is just around the corner. Large language models like ChatGPT are already being used to power humanoid robots, such as the Ameca robots being developed by Engineered Arts in the U.K. The Economist’s technology podcast, Babbage, recently conducted an interview with a ChatGPT-driven Ameca. The robot’s responses, while occasionally a bit choppy, were uncanny.

Can companies be trusted to do the right thing?

The tendency to view machines as people and become attached to them, combined with machines being developed with humanlike features, points to real risks of psychological entanglement with technology.

The outlandish-sounding prospects of falling in love with robots, feeling a deep kinship with them or being politically manipulated by them are quickly materializing. I believe these trends highlight the need for strong guardrails to make sure that the technologies don’t become politically and psychologically disastrous.

Unfortunately, technology companies cannot always be trusted to put up such guardrails. Many of them are still guided by Mark Zuckerberg’s famous motto of moving fast and breaking things – a directive to release half-baked products and worry about the implications later. In the past decade, technology companies from Snapchat to Facebook have put profits over the mental health of their users or the integrity of democracies around the world.

When Kevin Roose checked with Microsoft about Sydney’s meltdown, the company told him that he simply used the bot for too long and that the technology went haywire because it was designed for shorter interactions.

Similarly, the CEO of OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, in a moment of breathtaking honesty, warned that “it’s a mistake to be relying on [it] for anything important right now … we have a lot of work to do on robustness and truthfulness.”

So how does it make sense to release a technology with ChatGPT’s level of appeal – it’s the fastest-growing consumer app ever made – when it is unreliable, and when it has no capacity to distinguish fact from fiction?

Large language models may prove useful as aids for writing and coding. They will probably revolutionize internet search. And, one day, responsibly combined with robotics, they may even have certain psychological benefits.

But they are also a potentially predatory technology that can easily take advantage of the human propensity to project personhood onto objects – a tendency amplified when those objects effectively mimic human traits.

Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How the brain calculates a quick escape

Whether fly or human, fleeing from danger is key to staying alive. Scientists are beginning to unravel the complex circuitry behind the split-second decision to beat a hasty retreat.

By Tom Siegfried

Survival of the fittest often means survival of the fastest. But fastest doesn’t necessarily mean the fastest moving. It might mean the fastest thinking. When faced with the approach of a powerful predator, for instance, a quick brain can be just as important as quick feet.

After all, it is the brain that tells the feet what to do — when to move, in what direction, how fast and for how long. And various additional mental acrobatics are needed to evade an attacker and avoid being eaten. A would-be meal’s brain must decide whether to run or freeze, outrun or outwit, whether to keep going or find a place to hide. It also helps if the brain remembers where the best hiding spots are and recalls past encounters with similar predators.

All in all, a complex network of brain circuitry must be engaged, and neural commands executed efficiently, to avert a predatory threat. And scientists have spent a lot of mental effort themselves trying to figure out how the brains of prey enact their successful escape strategies. Studies in animals as diverse as mice and crabs, fruit flies and cockroaches are discovering the complex neural activity — in both the primitive parts of the brain and in more cognitively advanced regions — that underlies the physical behavior guiding escape from danger and the search for safety. Lessons learned from such studies might not only illuminate the neurobiology of escape, but also provide insights into how evolution has shaped other brain-controlled behaviors.

This research “highlights an aspect of neuroscience that is really gaining traction these days,” says Gina G. Turrigiano of Brandeis University, past president of the Society for Neuroscience. “And that is the idea of using ethological behaviors — behaviors that really matter for the biology of the animal that’s being studied — to unravel brain function.”

Think fast

Escape behavior offers useful insight into the brain’s inner workings because it engages nervous system networks that originated in the early days of evolution. “From the moment there was life, there were species predating on each other and therefore strong evolutionary pressure for evolving behaviors to avoid predators,” says neuroscientist Tiago Branco of University College London.

Not all such behaviors involve running away, Branco notes. Rather than running you might jump or swim. Or you might freeze or play dead. “Because of the great diversity of species and their habitats and their predators, there are many different ways of escaping them,” Branco said in November in San Diego at the 2022 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Of course, sometimes an animal might choose fight over flight. But unless you’re the king of the jungle (or perhaps a roadrunner much smarter than any wily predatory coyote), fighting might be foolish. When an animal is the prey, escape is typically its best choice. And it needs to choose fast.

“If it decides to escape it should make this escape as quickly and accurately as possible,” Branco points out. “And then it should also terminate it as soon as possible because escape is a very costly affair. It costs energy and it also costs missed opportunities.”

Escape strategy begins with detecting the possible presence of a predator. Detection should be rapid and instinctive — an instant response to a sight, sound or smell. Then, after sensing the threat, an animal’s brain has to quickly implement complex algorithms giving muscles instructions about how to move and where to move to. It’s a complicated decision-making process, involving multiple considerations, including the threat’s proximity, environmental circumstances and the prey’s own condition.

First among things to consider is the immediacy of the threat. Sometimes there’s time to determine the predator’s identity before taking evasive action. But often the response must be quicker. A “looming” threat — in which a blobby image on the retina grows rapidly larger — allows no time to lose. Escape should be initiated before the prey knows who the predator is.

“It doesn’t matter if it is an owl or a car or an object,” says Branco. “If it’s coming fast in your direction you really want to get out of there and think of what it might be afterwards.”

Even the simplest animals have evolved rapid escape actions when detecting an immediate threat. Fruit flies, for instance, adjust the position of their legs in order to jump away from a threatening stimulus. Cockroaches scurry rapidly away in a direction roughly opposite that of an approaching predator — but not always precisely the same direction, choosing from three or four possible paths. If the roaches always chose the exact same angle of escape, predators might devise a counterstrategy, Branco points out.

In more complex animals, elaborate brain circuitry has evolved to detect threats and communicate a threat’s presence to the motor systems that direct the muscles to get moving. For a looming stimulus, a nucleus of nerve cells in the midbrain called the optic tectum has served as the prime threat detector since the early days of vertebrate evolution. (In mammals, the analogous brain structure is known as the superior colliculus.) Cells in the retina detecting a rapidly expanding object send signals to the optic tectum or superior colliculus, alerting the brain to an imminent collision. In turn, the tectum/colliculus signals nerve cells to activate muscles. In mammals, those nerve cells reside in the periaqueductal gray or PAG, a structure in the brain stem.

In mice, neural connections between the superior colliculus and PAG are essential for linking threat detection to escape behavior, research has shown. Presenting a large, dark, circular shadow in an otherwise empty arena induces a mouse to immediately flee toward refuge in a small shelter on the arena’s edge. But if the synapses connecting the superior colliculus to the PAG are cut, mice freeze rather than fleeing when encountering a looming threat, Branco said at the neuroscience meeting.

Subtler threats

For threats not as rapid or obvious as a looming predator, the brain must be attuned to the slightest sensory signals of a possible predator nearby — motion in a shrub or the cracking of a twig, for instance. Such a signal must then be amplified to become the focus of the brain’s attention. And, unlike with looming threats, successful escape might require some intel on the attacker. In these instances even more complicated circuitry must facilitate the brain’s reaction. “Immediate escape actions can be relatively simple, but extended escape often relies on processes such as predicting the motion of a predator or performing memory-based navigation,” Branco and coauthor Peter Redgrave write in the 2020 Annual Review of Neuroscience.

Mice exploring their experimental arena apparently rely on memory to direct their movement back toward their shelter when threatened. When an experimenter surreptitiously removes the shelter while the mouse isn’t looking, a threat induces the mouse to quickly run to the spot where the shelter used to be. Apparently the mouse doesn’t find the shelter by looking for it, but by remembering where it is supposed to be. So some part of the brain must store that information and then communicate with the superior colliculus to orchestrate commands about which way to run.

Very recent studies suggest that the brain region providing the superior colliculus with that information is the retrosplenial cortex, or RSP. It’s a region in the middle of the brain with connections to multiple other brain structures, including the hippocampus (a structure important for memory).

“RSP neurons encode behaviorally important locations, such as landmarks, reward locations and a variety of spatial features of the environment,” Dario Campagner, Branco and collaborators write in a paper that first appeared online and now has been published in Nature.

When synapses connecting the RSP to the superior colliculus are blocked, Campagner and colleagues found, the mouse attempts to escape a threat in the wrong direction. In the real world, Branco says, “this would be probably the last error that the mouse makes.”

Of course, many other parts of the brain contribute to an animal’s threat response. Sometimes neural signals might even inhibit escape behavior — a hungry mouse, for instance, might get a message from the hypothalamus suggesting a delay in reacting to a threat in order to get a little more food first. Much remains to be learned about other aspects of brain circuitry that influence escape behavior.

“We have some decent understanding of the neurobiology behind implementation of some … escape actions,” says Branco. “But there’s a lot of unknowns.”

Among the unknowns are some nuances of how certain prey species have evolved to more effectively react to threat signals. Most arthropods, for instance, respond to a looming threat based on how big the blob in their visual field is. Fiddler crabs, though, respond based on how rapidly the size of the looming image changes, researchers from Australia reported recently in Current Biology. Study author Callum Donohue and colleagues noted that attending to speed rather than size allows the crabs to respond when the predator image is still very tiny, enabling a quicker escape to their burrow. This finding suggests that lifestyle and environmental factors may influence how different species respond to threat cues, the researchers write.

Branco says that since controlling escape is such an essential brain function, studying it across many species makes it a “powerful model for the study of neuroscience and behavior.” Deeper knowledge of the neurobiology of escape could reveal mental mechanisms that are “generalizable across behaviors across many species,” he says.

After all, escape is just one of many goal-oriented behaviors that animals must master to win the survival-of-the-fittest sweepstakes. Figuring out how brains control escape might very well produce insights into the neurobiology of other survival strategies.

As Branco and Redgrave note in their Annual Review paper, escape is a well-defined behavior, making it plausible to obtain complete understanding of the biological algorithms controlling it in a variety of species. A detailed understanding of its complexities, they say, “would then provide an entry point for understanding general mechanisms of … how brains generate natural adaptive behaviors.”

Tom Siegfried is a science journalist in Avon, Ohio. His book The Number of the Heavens, about the history of the multiverse, was published in 2019 by Harvard University Press.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. 

What is Discord? An internet researcher explains the social media platform at the center of Pentagon leak of top-secret intelligence

Some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets were posted to a small online gaming community. AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Brianna Dym, University of Maine

The Justice Department on April 14, 2023, charged Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member, with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Media reports suggest that Teixeira didn’t intend to leak the documents widely but rather shared them on a closed Discord community focused on playing war games.

Some of the documents were then shared to another Discord community with a larger following and became widely disseminated from there.

So what is Discord and should you worry about what people are encountering there?

Ever since the earliest days of the internet in the 1980s, getting online has meant getting involved in a community. Initially, there were dial-up chat servers, email lists and text-based discussion groups focused on specific interests.

Since the early 2000s, mass-appeal social media platforms have collected these small spaces into bigger ones, letting people find their own little corners of the internet, but only with interconnections to others. This allows social media sites to suggest new spaces users might join, whether it’s a local neighborhood discussion or a group with the same hobby, and sell specifically targeted advertising. But the small-group niche community is making a comeback with adults, and with kids and teens.

When Discord was initially released in 2015, many video games did not provide players with live voice chat to talk to one another while playing the game – or required them to pay premium prices to do so. Discord was an app that enabled real-time voice and text chatting, so friends could team up to conquer an obstacle, or just chat while exploring a game world. People do still use Discord for that, but these days most of the activity on the service is part of wider communities than just a couple of friends meeting up to play.

Examining Discord is part of my research into how scholars, developers and policymakers might design and maintain healthy online spaces.

A little bit old school

Discord first came onto my radar in 2017 when an acquaintance asked me to join a writer’s support group. Discord users can set up their own communities, called servers, with shareable links to join and choices about whether the server is public or private.

The writer’s group server felt like an old-school chat room, but with multiple channels segmenting out different conversations that folks were having. It reminded me of descriptions of early online chat and forum-based communities that hosted lengthy conversations between people all over the world.

The people in the writers’ server quickly realized that a few of our community members were teenagers under the age of 18. While the server owner had kept the space invite-only, he avoided saying “no” to anyone who requested access. It was supposed to be a supportive community for people working on writing projects, after all. Why would he want to exclude anyone?

He didn’t want to kick the teens out, but was able to make some adjustments using Discord’s server moderation system. Community members had to disclose their age, and anyone under 18 was given a special “role” that tagged them as a minor. That role prevented them from accessing channels that we marked as “not safe for work,” or “NSFW.” Some of the writers were working on explicit romance novels and didn’t want to solicit feedback from teenagers. And sometimes, adults just wanted to have their own space.

While we took care in constructing an online space safe for teens, there are still dangers present with an app like Discord. The platform is criticized for lacking parental controls. The terms of service state that no one under 13 should sign up for Discord, but many young people use the platform regardless.

Additionally, there are people who have used Discord to organize and encourage hateful rhetoric, including neo-Nazi ideologies. Others have used the platform to traffic child pornography.

However, Discord does maintain that these sorts of activities are illegal and unwelcome on its platform, and the company regularly bans servers and users it says perpetuate harm.

Options for safety

Every Discord server I’ve joined since then has had some safeguard around young people and inappropriate content. Whether it’s age-restricted channels or simply refusing to allow minors to join certain servers, the Discord communities I’m in share a heightened concern for keeping young people on the internet safe.

This does not mean that every Discord server will be safe at all times for its members, however. Parents should still take the time to talk with their kids about what they’re doing in their online spaces. Even something as innocuous as the popular children’s gaming environment Roblox can turn bad in the right setting.

And while the servers I’ve been involved in have been managed with care, not all Discord servers are regulated this way. In addition to servers lacking uniform regulation, account owners are able to lie about their age and identity when signing up for an account. And there are new ways for users to misbehave or annoy others on Discord, like spamming loud and inappropriate audio.

But, as with other modern social media platforms, there are safeguards to help administrators keep online communities safe for young people if they want to. Server members can label an entire server “NSFW,” going beyond single channel labels and locking minor accounts out of entire communities. But if they don’t, company officials can do it themselves. When accessing Discord on an iOS device, NSFW servers are not visible to anyone, even accounts belonging to adults. Additionally, Discord runs a Moderator Academy to support training up volunteer moderators who can appropriately handle a wide range of situations.

Discord is another way for people to gather and communicate online. Discord

Stronger controls

Unlike many other current popular social media platforms, Discord servers often function as closed communities, with invitations required to join. There are also large open servers flooded with millions of users, but Discord’s design integrates content moderation tools to maintain order.

For example, a server creator has tight control over who has access to what, and what permissions each server member can have to send, delete or manage messages. In addition, Discord allows community members to add automations to a server, continuously monitoring activity to enforce moderation standards.

With these protections, people use servers to form tight-knit, closed spaces safe from chaotic public squares like Twitter and less visible to the wider online world. This can be positive, keeping spaces safer from bullies, trolls and disinformation spreaders. In my own research, young people have mentioned their Discord servers as the safe, private space they have online in contrast to messy public platforms.

However, moving online activity to more private spaces also means that those well-regulated, healthy communities are less discoverable for vulnerable groups that might need them. For example, new fathers looking for social support are sometimes more inclined to access it through open subreddits rather than Facebook groups.

Discord’s servers are not the first closed communities on the internet. They are, essentially, the same as old-school chat rooms, private blogs and curated mailing lists. They will have the same problems and opportunities as previous online communities.

Discussion about self-protection

In my view, the solution to this particular problem is not necessarily banning particular practices or regulating internet companies. Research into youth safety online finds that government regulation aimed at protecting minors on social media rarely has the desired outcome, and more often results in disempowering and isolating youth instead.

Just as parents and caring adults tell the kids in their lives about recognizing dangerous situations in the physical world, talking about healthy online interactions can help young people protect themselves in the online world. Many youth-focused organizations, and many internet companies, have internet safety information aimed at kids of all ages.

Whenever young people hop onto the next technology fad, there will inevitably be panic over how the adults, companies and society may or may not be keeping young people safe. What is most important in these situations is to remember that talking to young people about how they use those technologies, and what to do in difficult situations, can be an effective way to help them avoid serious harm online.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on March 15, 2022.

Brianna Dym, Lecture of Computer Science, University of Maine

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How do trees die?

Eventually weather, pests and disease will take their toll, but the story doesn’t end there. Emanuel David / 500px via Getty Images

Camille Stevens-Rumann, Colorado State University

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

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How and why do trees die? – Anish K., age 11, Boston, Massachusetts

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Trees can die suddenly or quite slowly.

Fire, flood or wind can cause a quick death by severely damaging a tree’s ability to transport water and nutrients up and down its trunk.

Sometimes a serious insect attack or disease can kill a tree. This kind of death usually takes from a few months to a couple of years. Again, a tree loses its ability to move water and nutrients, but does so in stages, more slowly.

A tree can also die of what you might call old age.

I am a scientist who studies trees and the web of living things that surround them. The death of a tree is not exactly what it seems, because it directly leads to new life.

Different trees, different life spans

An ancient bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in Patriarch Grove in California’s White Mountains. Nicholas Turland/flickr, CC BY-ND

Trees can live an incredibly long time, depending on what kind they are. Some bristlecone pines, for instance, are among the oldest known trees and are more than 4,000 years old. Others, like lodgepoles or poplars, will have much shorter life spans, from 20 to 200 years. The biggest trees in your neighborhood or town are probably somewhere in that range.

You’ve probably noticed that different living things have different life spans – a hamster is generally not going to live as long as a cat, which isn’t going to live as long as a person. Trees are no different. Their life spans are determined by their DNA, which you can think of as the operating system embedded in their genes. Trees that are programmed to grow very quickly will be less strong – and shorter lived – than ones that grow very slowly.

But even a tough old tree will eventually die. The years and years of damage done by insects and microscopic critters, combined with abuse from the weather, will slowly end its life. The death process may start with a single branch but will eventually spread to the entire tree. It may take a while for an observer to realize a tree has finally died.

You might think of death as a passive process. But, in the case of trees, it’s surprisingly active.

The underground network

Roots do more than anchor a tree to the ground. They are the place where microscopic fungi attach and act like a second root system for a tree.

Some fungi look like fragile spiderwebs, but these tiny tubes act like superhighways underground. André-Ph. D. Picard, CC BY-SA

Fungi form long, superfine threads called hyphae. Fungal hyphae can reach much farther than a tree’s roots can. They gather nutrients from the soil that a tree needs. In exchange, the tree repays fungi with sugars it makes out of sunlight in a process known as photosynthesis.

You might have heard that fungi can also pass nutrients from one tree to another. This is a topic that scientists are still working out. Some trees are likely connected to other trees by a complex underground network of fungi, sometimes called the “wood wide web.”

How the wood wide web functions in a forest is still not well understood, but scientists do know that the fungi forming these networks are important for keeping trees healthy.

Afterlife of a tree

Before it topples over, a dead tree can stand for many years, providing a safe home for bees, squirrels, owls and many more animals. Once it falls and becomes a log, it can host other living things, like badgers, moles and reptiles.

One day the remains of this tree will be completely gone. Swen Pförtner/picture alliance via Getty Images

Logs also host a different kind of fungi and bacteria, called decomposers. These tiny organisms help break down big dead trees to the point where you would never know they had existed. Depending on the conditions, this process can take from a few years to a century or more. As wood breaks down, its nutrients return to the soil and become available for other living things, including nearby trees and fungal networks.

A tree leaves a legacy. While alive, it provides shade, home for many animals and a lifeline to fungi and other trees. When it dies, it continues to play an important role. It gives a boost to new trees ready to take its place, shelter to a different set of animals and, eventually, nourishment for the next generation of living things.

It’s almost as if a tree never truly dies but just passes its life on to others.

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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to emphasize that much remains unknown about the relationship between trees and fungi.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Camille Stevens-Rumann, Assistant Professor of Forest & Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

State battles over abortion are leading to state constitutional amendments – an option in all states and available directly to citizens in 18 states

The Michigan State Capitol, like statehouses around the country, has been the site of numerous abortion policy battles. Brandon Bartoszek

John Dinan, Wake Forest University

The battles over abortion – who can get one, when they can get one – largely shifted from a focus on the U.S. Supreme Court back to state lawmakers and judges in June 2022. That’s when the Supreme Court ruled that there was no federal constitutional guarantee of the right to get an abortion. States, they said, should be making the rules.

That decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, has meant a lot of activity in the past year in both state legislatures and courts. Two contradictory rulings early in April 2023 about whether women should have access to mifepristone, one of the two kinds of prescription abortion pills typically taken together for abortion, make it clear that federal courts still play a role in abortion policymaking. But states remain an important battleground.

Many people following the abortion battle focus on the part that state courts and state supreme court elections play. The intense focus on the outcome of the April 4, 2023, Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which shifted ideological control of that court, is an example.

I am a political scientist whose research focuses on state constitutions. I follow state constitutional amendments, which are adopted on a regular basis and revise the language of state constitutions. Sometimes they add new provisions. At other times they modify existing provisions. These amendments shape abortion policy as much as state court rulings – and stand to play a big role in abortion rights in the future.

Signs supporting and opposing a Kansas constitutional amendment on abortion are displayed on Kansas 10 Highway. Kyle Rivas/Getty Images News via Getty Images North America

Using amendments to gain or deny rights

My research shows that in recent decades state constitutions have been amended to shift the level of protection for voting rights, crime victims’ rights and electronic data and communication privacy rights, among others .

Meanwhile, constitutional amendments have also protected – and in some cases, denied – abortion rights.

Before the Dobbs ruling, abortion-related amendments invariably sought to limit protection for abortion rights by clarifying that there is no state constitutional right to abortion. In fact, between 2014 and 2020, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia approved amendments stating there is no state constitutional right to abortion.

These amendments were designed in some cases to overturn state supreme court rulings that previously recognized abortion rights. In other cases, they were adopted to prevent state supreme courts from ruling in the future in favor of abortion rights.

But voters don’t always approve these amendments. In August 2022, voters in Kansas rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment to deny a right to abortion. And in November 2022, voters in Kentucky did the same.

Drafting amendments to protect abortion rights

After the Dobbs decision, most proposed abortion-related amendments have aimed to expand protection of abortion rights.

In November 2022, voters in Vermont, California and Michigan approved amendments that explicitly protect reproductive rights. For instance, the California amendment declares, “The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion.”

Eleven state constitutions already include protection for a right to “privacy.” Many others guarantee “liberty,” “due process” or “equality.”

State courts occasionally rely on these provisions to issue decisions safeguarding abortion access. But the amendments adopted in Vermont, California and Michigan marked the first time language was used in state constitutions to provide explicit protection for reproductive freedom. Similar abortion-rights amendments are set to appear on the ballot in other states.

In early April 2023, legislators in Maryland voted to place an abortion-rights amendment on the November 2024 ballot.

Meanwhile, in some states that allow citizens to put amendments directly on the ballot, bypassing the need for legislative approval, abortion-rights groups are organizing in support of putting abortion-rights amendments on the ballot. These groups in Ohio, for example, are collecting signatures to place an abortion-rights amendment before voters in 2023. And groups in Missouri are trying to put an abortion-rights amendment on the 2024 ballot.

A woman places a door tag in support of Proposal 3, a 2022 citizen-initiated proposal for a state constitutional amendment. Nic Antaya/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Bypassing the state legislature

In all 50 states, legislators have the authority to draft constitutional amendments. In some states, amendments need the support of only a majority of legislators to be placed on the ballot for voter approval. Other states set a higher bar and require amendments to earn the support of a legislative supermajority or get legislative approval in two separate sessions.

But what many people don’t know is that 18 states allow for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments. This includes Mississippi, where the process was recently suspended but is expected to be revived. These are particularly powerful tools voters can use to get the outcomes they want, especially if measures to accomplish those goals have been defeated in state legislatures or rejected by courts.

In most of these states, when groups collect enough signatures in support of a proposed amendment, that amendment automatically qualifies for the ballot. Last year in Michigan, for instance, legislators showed no signs of advancing a reproductive-rights amendment. But abortion-rights groups collected more than 500,000 signatures, much more than necessary, and were able to put a reproductive-rights amendment on the November 2022 ballot.

Once on the ballot, citizen-led amendments generally need approval from a simple majority of voters before they can be approved, similar to what is needed to approve legislature-drafted amendments.

But Florida, Colorado and Illinois set a higher threshold, and Nevada requires voters to approve citizen-led amendments in two consecutive elections.

Citizens can take the lead

In states that allow citizen-initiated amendments, citizens and groups can bypass legislators who might not support their issues. What’s more, these amendments take precedence over previous state supreme court rulings to the contrary. So, even when state supreme court justices won’t recognize a right, voters can use the amendment process to get it.

Citizen-led amendments don’t begin and end with reproductive rights. In recent years, citizens have initiated and approved amendments to establish redistricting commissions, boost the minimum wage, expand Medicaid and legalize marijuana.

And abortion-rights groups that had success with the citizen-initiated amendment process in Michigan in November 2022 are eyeing additional opportunities in Ohio, Missouri and other states.

At the same time, opponents of abortion rights are considering making changes to amendment rules to make it more difficult for amendments to get approved.

Both developments are proof that supporters as well as opponents of abortion rights see citizen-drafted amendments as an increasingly important abortion battleground of the future.

John Dinan, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Wake Forest University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A Weeknight Meal to Munch On

On weeknights, many families rush around trying to prepare for the next day. While these moments can be stressful, the silver lining of the evening is when everyone pauses to enjoy a perfectly cooked family dinner together.

From tough homework assignments and soccer practice to getting everyone tucked into bed, the days can seem long, but those special moments make cooking a memorable meal worthwhile.

When life gets busy, you need a family recipe that is quick to make, easy to bake and mouthwatering to eat. Try this recipe for Stuffed Bell Pepper Casserole next time you are in a pinch.

It’s made with hearty ground turkey breast, delicious bell peppers, crushed tomatoes and brown rice then topped with gooey sharp cheddar cheese. This short ingredient list makes it easy to assemble. Brown the turkey and onions then combine all the ingredients, in a layered fashion, in a baking dish. It’s simple to prepare before baking to perfection.

It’s just right for little ones who are hungry and ready for a wholesome and appetizing home-cooked meal. Adults enjoy the natural flavors and fresh ingredients that keep all ages happy and content.

Find more family dinner recipes at Culinary.net.

If you made this recipe at home, use #MyCulinaryConnection on your favorite social network to share your work.

Watch video to see how to make this recipe!

Stuffed Bell Pepper Casserole

Servings: 4

• 20        ounces ground turkey breast
• 1          yellow onion, chopped
• 1/4       teaspoon salt
• 1/4       teaspoon pepper
• 3          large bell peppers, chopped (1 each red, yellow and green)
• 1          can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
• 1/2       cup long-grain brown rice
• 1          teaspoon oregano
• 1/2       teaspoon garlic powder
• 8          ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1. Heat oven to 350 F.
2. In large skillet over medium heat, add turkey, onions, salt and pepper. Break up turkey and cook until browned.
3. Add turkey mixture to 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Add bell peppers, crushed tomatoes, brown rice, oregano and garlic powder. Mix until combined. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake 80-90 minutes until rice is tender.
4. Remove foil, add shredded cheese and bake 5 minutes until cheese is melted.

SOURCE:
Culinary

Low-cost, high-quality public transportation will serve the public better than free rides

Chicago’s Washington-Wabash station opened in 2017 – the first new stop on the city’s elevated rail system in 20 years. Youngrae Kim/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Hunter College

Public transit systems face daunting challenges across the U.S., from pandemic ridership losses to traffic congestion, fare evasion and pressure to keep rides affordable. In some cities, including Boston, Kansas City and Washington, many elected officials and advocates see fare-free public transit as the solution.

Federal COVID-19 relief funds, which have subsidized transit operations across the nation at an unprecedented level since 2020, offered a natural experiment in free-fare transit. Advocates applauded these changes and are now pushing to make fare-free bus lines permanent.

But although these experiments aided low-income families and modestly boosted ridership, they also created new political and economic challenges for beleaguered transit agencies. With ridership still dramatically below pre-pandemic levels and temporary federal support expiring, transportation agencies face an economic and managerial “doom spiral.”

Free public transit that doesn’t bankrupt agencies would require a revolution in transit funding. In most regions, U.S. voters – 85% of whom commute by automobile – have resisted deep subsidies and expect fare collection to cover a portion of operating budgets. Studies also show that transit riders are likely to prefer better, low-cost service to free rides on the substandard options that exist in much of the U.S.

The KC Streetcar is a free two-mile route running along Main Street in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The city also offers free bus rides, but infrequent service is a concern. Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Why isn’t transit free?

As I recount in my new book, “The Great American Transit Disaster,” mass transit in the U.S. was an unsubsidized, privately operated service for decades prior to the 1960s and 1970s. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, prosperous city dwellers used public transit to escape from overcrowded urban neighborhoods to more spacious “streetcar suburbs.” Commuting symbolized success for families with the income to pay the daily fare.

These systems were self-financing: Transit company investors made their money in suburban real estate when rail lines opened up. They charged low fares to entice riders looking to buy land and homes. The most famous example was the Pacific Electric “red car” transit system in Los Angeles that Henry Huntingdon built to transform his vast landholdings into profitable subdivisions.

However, once streetcar suburbs were built out, these companies had no further incentive to provide excellent transit. Unhappy voters felt suckered into crummy commutes. In response, city officials retaliated against the powerful transit interests by taxing them heavily and charging them for street repairs.

Meanwhile, the introduction of mass-produced personal cars created new competition for public transit. As autos gained popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, frustrated commuters swapped out riding for driving, and private transit companies like Pacific Electric began failing.

In the early 20th century, Los Angeles had a world-class public transit system – here’s how it went off the rails.

Grudging public takeovers

In most cities, politicians refused to prop up the often-hated private transit companies that now were begging for tax concessions, fare increases or public buyouts. In 1959, for instance, politicians still forced Baltimore’s fading private transit company, the BTC, to divert US$2.6 million in revenues annually to taxes. The companies retaliated by slashing maintenance, routes and service.

Local and state governments finally stepped in to save the ruins of the hardest-strapped companies in the 1960s and 1970s. Public buyouts took place only after decades of devastating losses, including most streetcar networks, in cities such as Baltimore (1970), Atlanta (1971) and Houston (1974).

These poorly subsidized public systems continued to lose riders. Transit’s share of daily commuters fell from 8.5% in 1970 to 4.9% in 2018. And while low-income people disprortionately ride transit, a 2008 study showed that roughly 80% of the working poor commuted by vehicle instead, despite the high cost of car ownership.

There were exceptions. Notably, San Francisco and Boston began subsidizing transit in 1904 and 1918, respectively, by sharing tax revenues with newly created public operators. Even in the face of significant ridership losses from 1945 to 1970, these cities’ transit systems kept fares low, maintained legacy rail and bus lines and modestly renovated their systems.

Tax policies and subsidies have promoted highway development across the U.S. for the past century, creating car-centric cities and steering funding away from public transit.

Converging pressures

Today, public transit is under enormous pressure nationwide. Inflation and driver shortages are driving up operating costs. Managers are spending more money on public safety in response to rising transit crime rates and unhoused people using buses and trains for shelter.

Many systems are also contending with decrepit infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives U.S. public transit systems a grade of D-minus and estimates their national backlog of unmet capital needs at $176 billion. Deferred repairs and upgrades reduce service quality, leading to events like a 30-day emergency shutdown of an entire subway line in Boston in 2022.

Despite flashing warning signs, political support for public transit remains weak, especially among conservatives. So it’s not clear that relying on government to make up for free fares is sustainable or a priority.

For example, in Washington, conflict is brewing within the city government over how to fund a free bus initiative. Kansas City, the largest U.S. system to adopt fare-free transit, faces a new challenge: finding funding to expand its small network, which just 3% of its residents use

A better model

Other cities are using more targeted strategies to make public transit accessible to everyone. For example, “Fair fare” programs in San Francisco, New York and Boston offer discounts based on income, while still collecting full fares from those who can afford to pay. Income-based discounts like these reduce the political liability of giving free rides to everyone, including affluent transit users.

Some providers have initiated or are considering fare integration policies. In this approach, transfers between different types of transit and systems are free; riders pay one time. For example, in Chicago, rapid transit or bus riders can transfer at no charge to a suburban bus to finish their trips, and vice versa.

Fare integration is less costly than fare-free systems, and lower-income riders stand to benefit. Enabling riders to pay for all types of trips with a single smart card further streamlines their journeys.

As ridership grows under Fair Fares and fare integration, I expect that additional revenue will help build better service, attracting more riders. Increasing ridership while supporting agency budgets will help make the political case for deeper public investments in service and equipment. A virtuous circle could develop.

History shows what works best to rebuild public transit networks, and free transit isn’t high on the list. Cities like Boston, San Francisco and New York have more transit because voters and politicians have supplemented fare collection with a combination of property taxes, bridge tolls, sales taxes and more. Taking fares out of the formula spreads the red ink even faster.

Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, Hunter College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Safe and Sound

5 ways to reduce safety risks for young children

(eLivingtoday.com) As parents, one of your top priorities is the safety and well-being of your children. With all the potential pitfalls of day-to-day life, however, navigating the risks can be difficult.

These everyday safety tips can help you navigate everything from car seat safety to baby-proofing and safe sleep, keeping your child out of harm's way as much as possible from birth through his or her toddler years.

Car Seat Safety

• Always use a valid (typically less than 6 years old), federally approved car seat in motor vehicles.
• Ensure the seat is properly installed. Refer to the instruction manual with any questions.
• If you use an infant carrier, strap your child in on the floor, never a counter or tabletop.
• For at least the first two years of your child's life, the car seat should be rear-facing.
• The safest location for a car seat is in the middle of the back seat.

Choking Prevention

• Avoid giving your child nuts, popcorn, hard candies, hot dogs and raw fruits and vegetables, such as grapes or carrots, that may present a choking hazard.
• Never prop up a bottle and leave your baby unattended.
• Inspect toys often to ensure they're not broken and do not have small pieces that could easily become detached.
• Be cautious of strings and buttons on clothing.

Safe Sleep

• The safest place for your baby to sleep is on his or her back, which reduces the risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
• Avoid placing anything in the crib or bassinet that may suffocate your child, such as pillows, blankets or bumpers.
• Keep your child's room at a moderate temperature and dress him or her appropriately to avoid overheating.
• Never leave your baby alone on a bed, couch, changing table, swing or infant seat.

Water Safety

• Set your hot water heater no higher than 120 F.
• Test the temperature of bath water before setting your baby in the tub.
• Never leave your baby unattended in the bathtub.
• Keep toilet lids down and consider installing toilet lid locks.

Baby-Proofing

• Install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors on every level of your home and in every sleeping area.
• Secure cords on blinds and drapes out of reach.
• Keep sharp objects, such as knives, scissors and tools, and other hazardous items, like coins, beads and pins, in a secure place out of baby's reach.
• Store cleaning products and medications in locked cabinets. Never store potentially toxic substances in containers that could be mistaken for food or drink.
• Cover all electrical outlets.
• Cushion hard edges and sharp corners of furniture and decor.
• Secure cords to electrical items along baseboards using electrical tape.
• Attach heavy or tall furniture to the wall and avoid placing items that could fall, like electronics or lamps, on top of dressers or shelves.
• Install safety gates with straight, vertical slats securely in front of all stairwells.

Find more tips and ideas to keep your children safe at home and on the go at eLivingtoday.com.

SOURCE:
eLivingtoday.com