Category Archives: Science & Technology

LAUNDERING STATE ACTION, POLITICISING FACT CHECKING

June 2, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the relationship between the public, technology companies and the state, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 31 May 2020, under the headline ‘In a polarised world, even checking facts on Twitter becomes politicised’. Like many a Twitter debate, the war of words that broke out last week between Donald Trump and the social media company may seem inconsequential, even infantile. However, the spat raises important questions about the relationship between the public, technology companies and […]

Categories: Free Speech, Science & Technology

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND HUMAN JUDGMENT

May 19, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the difference between human and artificial intelligence, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the return of football in Germany.) It was published on 17 May 2020, under the headline ‘For all its sophistication, AI isn’t fit to make life-or-death decisions’. Artificial intelligence is searching for the drugs to combat Covid-19. It enabled the pandemic to be tracked and information about it to be synthesised. It is diagnosing patients, triaging them, and identifying those in […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, brian cantwell smith, coronavirus, human nature, judgment, reckoning

MINDING THE METAPHORS

March 17, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how metaphors shape our thinking, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the miscarriage of justice over the Lockerbie bombing.) It was published on 15 March 2020, under the headline ‘Like a moth to a flame, we’re drawn to metaphors to explain ourselves’. The selfish gene. The Big Bang. The greenhouse effect. Metaphors are at the heart of scientific thinking. They provide the means for both scientists and non-scientists to understand, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, Language, Science & Technology • Tags: computers, george lakoff, lera boroditsky, linguistics, mark johnson, matthew cobb, metaphors, neuroscience, paul thobodeau, psychology, the idea of the brain

PANDEMICS THREATEN MORE THAN OUR HEALTH

February 3, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how responses to pandemics are shaped by more than medical needs, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on when Bonnie met Lozza.) It was published on 2 February 2020, under the headline ‘Locked-down Wuhan and why we always overplay the threat of the new’. ‘A major outbreak of novel, fatal epidemic disease can quickly be followed… by plagues of fear, panic, suspicion and stigma.’ So wrote the sociologist Philip Strong in […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: coronavirus, culture of fear, ebola, epidemics, h1n1, pandemics, philip strong, quarantine, racism, sars, wuhan

VAR, TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN JUDGMENT

November 18, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what VAR tells us about our relationship to technology, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 November 2019, under the headline ‘Technology will never replace human judgment. Look at football…’ Even if you can’t tell your offside from your elbow (in the face), you’ve probably heard of VAR. The video assistant referee has been introduced into top-level football to cut out errors by referees. At every Premier League game, a VAR referee watches TV feeds of […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology, Sport • Tags: ai, football, human judgment, technology, var

THE POLITICAL GHOSTS OF EUGENICS MAY MATTER MORE THAN THE GENETIC

October 7, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how much of contemporary life has been shaped, at least in part, by the eugenics movement, as Eugenics: Science’s Greatest Scandal, a two-part BBC documentary by science writer Angela Saini and disability campaigner […]

Categories: History, Science & Technology • Tags: adam pearson, aldous huxley, angela saini, beatrice webb, david attenborough, eugenics, forced sterilisation, francis galton, immigration, population control, poverty, richard dawkins, working class

THE OPIOID CRISIS AND THE EXPLOITATION OF PAIN

September 2, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the opioid crisis in America, its roots and its lessons, was published in the Observer on 1 September 2019 under the headline ‘America’s opioid catastrophe has lessons for us all, about greed and racial division’. (I have restored a couple of paragraphs that I had to remove for reasons of space in the Observer.) ‘We’ll build a wall to keep the damn drugs out.’ So insisted Donald Trump at a rally last year to launch the White […]

Categories: International, Science & Technology • Tags: big phrama, david herzberg, donald trump, free market, johnson & johnson, medicine, opioid crisis, pharmaceutical companies, purdue phrama, racism, usa, war on drugs, working class

HAS THE RETWEET RUINED THE WORLD?

July 29, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Twitter, engagement ad democracy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Bryan Magee.) It was published on 7 July 2019, under the headline ‘Twitter won’t ruin the world. But constraining democracy would’. Has the retweet ruined the world? Chris Wetherell, the software developer who built Twitter’s retweet button, thinks so. Introduced in 2009, retweeting transformed the social media landscape, he suggests, by allowing people to pass on information without having bothered to […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: brexit, democracy, donald trump, education, fake news, social media, social polarisation, technology, twitter

SCIENCE, VACCINES AND DISTRUST WITHOUT REASON

June 24, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on a study of global attitudes to science and to vaccines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Facebook’s launch of its digital currency Libra.) It was published on 23 June 2019, under the headline ‘A growing lack of trust in authority poses a serious danger to our health’. Virtually every Bangladeshi and Rwandan believes that vaccines are safe. Fewer than half of Japanese or French do so. In Western Europe, one in […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: ebola, trust, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, vaccines, wellcome global monitor

HOW NOT TO REGULATE BIG TECH

April 1, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the regulation of tech companies, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece reflecting on the debate about ‘cultural Marxism’.) It was published on 24 March 2019, under the headline ‘Europe’s efforts to curb the internet giants only make them stronger’. While all eyes were on Westminster, and on the inability of MPs to pass even a poop, the European parliament got on with its job and passed some new legislation. Soon, most […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: article 11, article 13, big tech, copyright, dcms report, eu copyright directive, european union, facebook, google, link tax, online regulation, technology, twitter

THE POLITICS OF THE SPACE RACE

January 7, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the politics of the space race from Sputnik to Chang’e-4, was the main article in my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 6 January 2019, under the headline ‘Power politics always drives space conquest. China’s coup is no different’. Nasa had rejected it as too difficult and costly an undertaking. Last week, China declared ‘mission accomplished’ after landing a spacecraft, Chang’e-4, on the far side of the moon. It was a remarkable endeavour. As the […]

Categories: International, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: chang'e-4, china, cold war, john f kennedy, moon landing, nasa, soviet union, space exploration, space race, sputnik, usa, yuri gagarin

ON THE ETHICS OF CRISPR

November 30, 2018 by Kenan Malik

Last week, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of the first CRISPR baby (actually, twins). Two beautiful little Chinese girls, Lulu and Nana, came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago’, He said in the first of five videos posted on to YouTube. He’s claim is as yet unverified, but if true, it would signal a landmark moment in human genome-editing. It has also been widely met with outrage and condemned […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: bioethics, biotechnology, china, chinese science, crispr, ethics, gene editing, genetics, genome editing, germline editing, he jiankui

DESIGNER BABIES AND DYSTOPIAN VISIONS

July 23, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about genome editing, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on being banned in Pakistan, a shorter version of my previous Pandaemonium post) It was published in the Observer, 22 July 2018, under the headline ‘Fear of dystopian change should not blind us to the potential of gene editing’. ‘Designer babies on horizon’, ran the headlines. Last week, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent body advising on […]

Categories: Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: bioethics, biotechnology, crispr, designer babies, dystopia, ethics, gene editing, genetic enhancement, genetics, genome editing, gremlin editing, ivf, louise brown, Nuffield council

DEBATING HUMANS AND MACHINES

June 25, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the remarkable achievement of IBM’s ‘Project Debater’ tells us about the differences between humans and machines, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the persecution of the Roma.) It was published in the Observer, 24 June 2018, under the headline ‘Machines may beat us in debate, but will they ever have the human touch?’ So, a machine can now not only demolish you at chess or devastate you […]

Categories: Human, Philosophy & Ethics, Science & Technology • Tags: a1, Human, ibm, machine, meaning, project debater, semantic networks, social

THE NEED FOR AN INTELLIGENT DEBATE ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

February 25, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on fears about AI, was the main part of my Observer column this week. (The column included also a shorter piece on the latest migration figures.) It was published in the Observer, 25 February 2018, under the headline ‘Worry less about the march of the robots, more about the techno panic’. A robot cleaner infiltrates Germany’s ministry of finance by blending in with the pool of legitimate machines. After initially performing routine cleaning tasks, the robot, using facial recognition, […]

Categories: Politics, Science & Technology • Tags: artificial intelligence, deepfake, elon musk, fake news, liberties, stephen hawking, terrorism