Shame was used as a punishment up until the 1800s; after the creation of civic duty, forms of shaming such as pillories were opposed by the masses and were eventually abolished. Humiliation succeeded shame, however, and it’s being used not in front of an audience by the ruling class, but on the Internet and social media by regular citizens against other citizens. Instead of its inital purpose – of manipulating others socially acceptable conduct – it has morphed to simply “degrading others for what they are”. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here
Merv
August 15, 2022
