On ChatGPT and the Forces and Relations of Production

ChatGPT and artificial intelligence more generally are transformative technologies capable of liberating humanity from the necessity of burdensome toil. Recent discussions have neglected this possibility because they suffer from the sorts of cognitive distortions catalogued by Marx and the Marxist tradition. Technology fetishism, understood on the model of commodity fetishism, occurs when the use and development allowed by a certain mode of production appear as intrinsic features of the technology itself. Naturalistic mystification occurs when the socially contingent use and development of these technologies is made to appear natural and therefore inevitable. To those suffering from either distortion, it will appear that opposition to unfettered profit-seeking, along with the exploitation of workers and despoilation of nature that follows in its train, requires opposition to AI across the board. But there is nothing in the nature of AI that makes it better suited to the production of private profits than social goods. To think otherwise is to confuse the (natural) forces of production with the (social) relations of production, and distinguishing nature from convention is, as G. A. Cohen rightly observes, the foundation of all social criticism. I therefore suggest that criticisms of ChatGPT and AI should be focused on their real target: the capitalist mode of production that limits their use and development to socially malign ends

Ad/ministering Education: Gender, Colonialism, and Christianity in Belize and the Anglophone Caribbean

This dissertation looks at the relationship between educational achievement and power in the Anglophone Caribbean, with particular emphasis on Belize. Girls are outperforming boys at every level of education, but women still have higher unemployment rates and hold the lowest paying jobs, while men are in more decision-making positions in every sector of the economy. This project considers one major question: Why do women remain in less powerful positions even when they are better educated? To explore this question I look at the role that missionary groups played in administering education under British colonialism. I focus on Belize where religious groups maintain a high level of control over education in the postcolonial era. I use twentieth-century Caribbean literature to suggest the effects of Christian ideology on the hidden curriculum and on women's social, economic, and political power. The literature I discuss includes George Lamming's In the Castle of my Skin (Barbados), Austin Clarke's Growing Up Stupid under the Union Jack (Barbados), Merle Hodge's Crick Crack, Monkey (Trinidad), Merle Collins's Angel (Grenada), Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Lucy (Antigua), and Zee Edgell's Beka Lamb (Belize)

MISERY BABY: A (RE)VISION OF THE BILDUNGSROMAN BY CARIBBEAN AND U.S. BLACK WOMEN WRITERS

Emerging from a description of the protagonist in Edwidge Danticat's short story "Caroline's Wedding," the phrase "misery baby," is developed as a critical trope to engage questions of gender, as well as individual, national and regional identity in the Caribbean and the United States. Using misery baby as a template, I discuss two other Caribbean Bildungsromane: Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory. I then analyze Toni Morrison's Beloved to make larger diasporic connections. The characteristics that mark misery baby include her positioning as a coming-of-age character between two nations/cultures; her questioning of false dichotomies; her travel across geographic borders; her ability to negotiate a hybrid identity through a questioning of borders and binaries allowing for the reconceptualization of an ironic nationhood; and lastly her participation in a new way of remembering the past through an understanding of the role of the past in the present

Design with Climate: A Retreat for Vieques, Puerto Rico

One of the main ideas this thesis pursues is the impact of climate on architecture. It involves the exploration of an architecture that is sensitive to the climatic particularities of its site and is able to create a passively comfortable environment for its inhabitants. The focus of the thesis has been the design of a retreat on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Of particular interest has been the study of 19th century plantation houses in Puerto Rico and their climatic adaptation to the region during a time when climate control mechanisms did not exist. The site is located on the former lands of the United States Navy, which, until May 2003, had occupied most of the island. Due largely to the presence of the Navy, much of Vieques has remained undeveloped. It is a "virgin" island with pristine beaches and a variety of flora and fauna that attract a fair number of tourists

Dysregulated Expression of Both the Costimulatory CD28 and Inhibitory CTLA-4 Molecules in PB T Cells of Advanced Cervical Cancer Patients Suggests Systemic Immunosuppression Related to Disease Progression

Cervical cancer (CC) occurs more frequently in women who are immunosuppressed, suggesting that both local and systemic immune abnormalities may be involved in the evolution of the disease. Costimulatory CD28 and inhibitory CTLA-4 molecules expressed in T cells play a key role in the balanced immune responses. There has been demonstrated a relation between CD28, CTLA-4, and IFN genes in susceptibility to CC, suggesting their importance in CC development. Therefore, we assessed the pattern of CD28 and CTLA-4 expression in T cells from PB of CC patients with advanced CC (stages III and IV according to FIGO) compared to controls. We also examined the ability of PBMCs to secrete IFN-gamma. We found lower frequencies of freshly isolated and ex vivo stimulated CD4 + CD28+ and CD8 + CD28+ T cells in CC patients than in controls. Loss of CD28 expression was more pronounced in the CD8+ T subset. Markedly increased proportions of CTLA-4+ T cells in CC patients before and after culture compared to controls were also observed. In addition, patients’ T cells exhibited abnormal kinetics of surface CTLA-4 expression, with the peak at 24 h of stimulation, which was in contrast to corresponding normal T cells, revealing maximum CTLA-4 expression at 72 h of stimulation. Of note, markedly higher IFN-gamma concentrations were shown in supernatants of stimulated PBMCs from CC patients. Conclusions: Our report shows the dysregulated CD28 and CTLA-4 expression in PB T cells of CC patients, which may lead to impaired function of these lymphocytes and systemic immunosuppression related to disease progression

The interpretations and uses of fitness landscapes in the social sciences

__Abstract__ This working paper precedes our full article entitled “The evolution of Wright’s (1932) adaptive field to contemporary interpretations and uses of fitness landscapes in the social sciences” as published in the journal Biology & Philosophy (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-014-9450-2). The working paper features an extended literature overview of the ways in which fitness landscapes have been interpreted and used in the social sciences, for which there was not enough space in the full article. The article features an in-depth philosophical discussion about the added value of the various ways in which fitness landscapes are used in the social sciences. This discussion is absent in the current working paper. Th