Astrobiology, Theology, and Ethics

Through his work, Ted Peters has given us a unique permission to dream1-permission to dream about God\u27s creation not only as it is right now on Earth, but also how it might be elsewhere in the universe both now and in the future. He has taken three of the grandest fields of human endeavor-astrobiology, theology, and ethics-and pioneered them into the new field of astrotheology.2 In this chapter I will present three areas in which Peters\u27 work has motivated my own thinking. First, I want to consider the idea of convergent cultural, theological, and moral evolution between humans and other intelligent life-forms, terrestrial or otherwise. Second, I want to consider the possibilities for divergences between these two groups. Lastly, I want to consider some of the larger-scale evolutionary issues at play in this theorizing, consider a few scenarios, and suggest some directions for future inquiry

Transhumanism and Catholic Natural Law: Changing Human Nature and Changing Moral Norms?

In this chapter I propose a preliminary response to the transhumanist challenge to natural law by investigating six basic questions: ( 1) Is human nature relevant to morality? (2) Is human nature mutable? (3) How would we know if human nature had changed? ( 4) Could cultural evolution replace biological evolution? (5) How would human nature and human will relate to each other under these new transhuman conditions? (6) Is it possible to construct a dynamic ethic to fit a dynamic nature, and if so, what might that ethic be? Overall, I argue that it is possible to maintain a natural law ethics approach in the face of transhumanist changes to human nature and that, in fact, doing so remains a very useful approach, albeit one with some difficulties. The norms of natural law are another matter: I think moral norms will need to become either stricter than in the past or different in ways that are difficult to anticipate. This chapter concentrates on the philosophy and theology of the 13th century Roman Catholic saint, Thomas Aquinas, who developed Aristotle\u27s ideas in a Christian context. Aquinas\u27s claims that action follows being and that human nature is a composite of first nature and second nature are combined with ideas from the philosopher Hans Jonas about the increasing scope of human action and the consequent necessity to update ethics. I propose that there a new form of natural law ethics might be capable of responding to changes in human nature

Ethics and Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Laudato Si: A Teaching Module

This open-source teaching module consists of: 1. This Teaching Note for the instructor provides background on the Encyclical and specific discussion questions which the instructor can use to guide discussion in class. After each discussion question, this note identifies key points students or the instructor should make during the discussion. The teaching note concludes with “A Summary the Instructor May Use to Conclude Discussion.” 2. “Excerpts from Laudato Si for Discussion in Class,” is a separate document to be read by students before class. It can be reproduced and handed out, or sent electronically to students. It consists of a short description of five key themes in the Encyclical, the important question or questions raised by that theme, and selected paragraphs from the Encyclical addressing that theme. If read thoughtfully in advance, it should provide adequate preparation for the students to participate in the discussion outlined in this teaching note. This teaching module is designed to be used in a single 50 to 60 minute class period, or a shorter period over several days. It can be used in several different types of courses, including a business ethics course, an environmental studies course, a religious studies course, among others. The type of course will determine which discussion questions and discussion points the instructor wishes to emphasize. The authors were particularly focused on providing a way to use the Encyclical in a business ethics class. This module is designed to permit the students to discuss the encyclical by Pope Francis and its major themes, without having to read the entire encyclical. A link is provided in the “Excerpts” document to the full text of the Encyclical on the Vatican website. For several of the themes, additional paragraphs from the Encyclical are recommended which further develop the theme

Foundational Moral Values for AI Alignment

Solving the AI alignment problem requires having clear, defensible values towards which AI systems can align. Currently, targets for alignment remain underspecified and do not seem to be built from a philosophically robust structure. We begin the discussion of this problem by presenting five core, foundational values, drawn from moral philosophy and built on the requisites for human existence: survival, sustainable intergenerational existence, society, education, and truth. We show that these values not only provide a clearer direction for technical alignment work, but also serve as a framework to highlight threats and opportunities from AI systems to both obtain and sustain these values.Comment: AI meets Moral Philosophy and Moral Psychology Workshop, 37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023

Ethical Reflections on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology presents a multitude of ethical concerns, many of which are being actively considered by organizations ranging from small groups in civil society to large corporations and governments. However, it also presents ethical concerns which are not being actively considered. This paper presents a broad overview of twelve topics in ethics in AI, including function, transparency, evil use, good use, bias, unemployment, socio-economic inequality, moral automation and human de-skilling, robot consciousness and rights, dependency, social-psychological effects, and spiritual effects. Each of these topics will be given a brief discussion, though each deserves much deeper consideration

Wide-ranging alterations in the brain fatty acid complement of subjects with late Alzheimer’s disease as detected by GC-MS

Disturbed lipid metabolism is a well-established feature of human Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The present study used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMES) to profile all detectable fatty acid (FA) species present in post-mortem neocortical tissue (Brodmann 7 region). Quantitative targeted analysis was undertaken from 29 subjects (n=15 age-matched controls; n=14 late-stage AD). GC-MS analysis of FAMES detected a total of 24 FAs and of these, 20 were fully quantifiable. The results showed significant and wide ranging elevations in AD brain FA concentrations. A total of 9 FAs were elevated in AD with cis-13,16- docosenoic acid increased most (170%; P=0.033). Intriguingly, docosahexanoic acid (DHA; C22:6) concentrations were elevated (47%; P=0.018) which conflicts with the findings of others (unaltered or decreased) in some brain regions after the onset of AD. Furthermore, our results appear to indicate that subject gender influences brain FA levels in AD subjects (but not in age-matched control subjects). Among AD subjects 7 FA species were significantly higher in males than in females. These preliminary findings pinpoint FA disturbances as potentially important in the pathology of AD. Further work is required to determine if such changes are influenced by disease severity or different types of dementia

Using real-world cases to illustrate the power of analytical procedures

Accounting instructors often introduce analytical procedures (APs) to students as a series of techniques that help to reduce audit time and cost. However, they do not generally provide students with sufficient real-world cases that encourage students to use data from multiple sources, exercise judgment, and evaluate risks. This paper uses MiniScribe Corporation to illustrate how a real-world case might be incorporated into an auditing class to achieve some of the recommendations of the Accounting Education Change Commission and, at the same time, highlight the efficiency and effectiveness of APs. The case also reinforces the joint importance of qualitative and quantitative factors in detecting management fraudPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31473/1/0000395.pd

Metabolomic Profiling of Bile Acids in Clinical and Experimental Samples of Alzheimer’s Disease

Certain endogenous bile acids have been proposed as potential therapies for ameliorating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) but their role, if any, in the pathophysiology of this disease is not currently known. Given recent evidence of bile acids having protective and anti-inflammatory effects on the brain, it is important to establish how AD affects levels of endogenous bile acids. Using LC-MS/MS, this study profiled 22 bile acids in brain extracts and blood plasma from AD patients (n = 10) and age-matched control subjects (n = 10). In addition, we also profiled brain/plasma samples from APP/PS1 and WT mice (aged 6 and 12 months). In human plasma, we detected significantly lower cholic acid (CA, p = 0.03) in AD patients than age-matched control subjects. In APP/PS1 mouse plasma we detected higher CA (p = 0.05, 6 months) and lower hyodeoxycholic acid (p = 0.04, 12 months) than WT. In human brain with AD pathology (Braak stages V-VI) taurocholic acid (TCA) were significantly lower (p = 0.01) than age-matched control subjects. In APP/PS1 mice we detected higher brain lithocholic acid (p = 0.05) and lower tauromuricholic acid (TMCA; p = 0.05, 6 months). TMCA was also decreased (p = 0.002) in 12-month-old APP/PS1 mice along with 5 other acids: CA (p = 0.02), β-muricholic acid (p = 0.02), Ω-muricholic acid (p = 0.05), TCA (p = 0.04), and tauroursodeoxycholic acid (p = 0.02). The levels of bile acids are clearly disturbed during the development of AD pathology and, since some bile acids are being proposed as potential AD therapeutics, we demonstrate a method that can be used to support work to advance bile acid therapeutics

Uma metodologia de avaliação de desempenho de sistemas Peer-To-Peer baseados em tabelas Hash Distribuídas

Resumo: As tabelas hash distribuídas (DHTs, distributed hash tables) são redes par-a-par (P2P, peer-to-peer) estruturadas que permitem a inserção de dados indexados por chaves. Elas são compostas por um conjunto de participantes (nodos ou pares) dinâmicos sem o controle de uma autoridade central. As DHTs tornaram-se populares ao longo da última década e hoje possuem diversas aplicações, algumas contendo milhões de nodos espalhados ao redor do planeta. Existe uma grande quantidade de DHTs, as quais podem possuir várias implementações e serem configuradas através de diversos parâmetros. Entretanto, não há um consenso sobre a melhor maneira de avaliar o desempenho de uma DHT, o que dificulta a comparação entre o grande número de DHTs existentes e, consequentemente, a escolha da DHT ideal para cada sistema. Esta dissertação apresenta uma revisão de trabalhos que propõem metodologias de avaliação de desempenho de DHTs e de trabalhos que simplesmente avaliam desempenho de DHTs, sem propor metodologias. Com base nesta revisão uma nova metodologia de avaliação de desempenho de DHTs é proposta. Esta metodologia define um conjunto de testes de desempenho composto por métricas e cargas de trabalho. Estas métricas e cargas de trabalho são baseadas nos pontos em comum encontrados nos diversos trabalhos estudados. A metodologia apresentada define também um modelo para a execução de avaliações de desempenho de DHTs composto por três entidades: mestre, controlador e nodo. Este trabalho apresenta também a ferramenta Dhtperf, que além de implementar a metodologia proposta permite facilmente a definição de novas métricas e cargas de trabalho. Esta ferramenta foi utilizada para realizar avalia- ções de desempenho de diversas DHTs existentes em dois ambientes distintos, validando a metodologia proposta. Os resultados obtidos nas avaliações realizadas são apresentados e discutidos