Consider the plight of hypothetical artificially intelligent beings. This study worries about exactly that: “Taking AI Welfare Seriously,” Robert Long, Jeff Sebo, Patrick Butlin, Kathleen Finlinson, Kyle Fish, Jacqueline Harding, Jacob Pfau, Toni Sims, Jonathan Birch, and David Chalmers, arXiv 2411.00986, 2024. The authors explain: “We argue that there is a realistic possibility that some […]
Does the anticipation of medical treatments, financial investments and leisure time activities sometimes make you anxious? Have you thought about taping your face up? A new research project from the Niedenthal Emotions Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, investigated whether the nervous anticipation of a balloon-popping task and a jack-in-the-box spring* might to some extent […]
Is it safe to own a cat? A new paper suggests the answer may be Yes. Maybe Yes The new, possibly-pro-cat paper is: “Healthy cats provide more health benefits than risks to owners,” Michael Lappin, Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, vol. 21, no. 11, November 2019, pp. 1007-1007. The author explains: “In these 2019 […]
How high is the risk of colliding on a highway with someone who is high, on a highness celebration day? The answer, if there is one, can perhaps be teased out by studying this new study of drivers in the UK and also older study of drivers in the USA: “The Relative Risk of Motor […]