193 countries adopt first-ever global agreement on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence; UN News, November 25, 2021

UN News; 193 countries adopt first-ever global agreement on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

"Artificial intelligence is present in everyday life, from booking flights and applying for loans to steering driverless cars. It is also used in specialized fields such as cancer screening or to help create inclusive environments for the disabled.

According to UNESCO, AI is also supporting the decision-making of governments and the private sector, as well as helping combat global problems such as climate change and world hunger.

However, the agency warns that the technology ‘is bringing unprecedented challenges’.

“We see increased gender and ethnic bias, significant threats to privacy, dignity and agency, dangers of mass surveillance, and increased use of unreliable Articificial Intellegence technologies in law enforcement, to name a few. Until now, there were no universal standards to provide an answer to these issues”, UNESCO explained in a statement.

Considering this, the adopted text aims to guide the construction of the necessary legal infrastructure to ensure the ethical development of this technology.

“The world needs rules for artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. The Recommendation on the ethics of AI is a major answer. It sets the first global normative framework while giving States the responsibility to apply it at their level. UNESCO will support its 193 Member states in its implementation and ask them to report regularly on their progress and practices”, said UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay."

IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN COMIC BOOK JOURNALISM: THE POLITICS OF X-MEN: RED; Comic Watch, April 18, 2020

Bethany W Pope, Comic Watch; IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN COMIC BOOK JOURNALISM: THE POLITICS OF X-MEN: RED

"It’s extremely rare for a run of a mainstream comic to result in a story with as much philosophical complexity and clarity of vision as Tom Taylor’s (shamefully abbreviated) X-Men: Red. Because the author set out to tell ‘the best X-Men story’ he could, and because he managed (somehow) to gain something close to free-reign from editorial (as well as having the good luck of being paired with some truly remarkable artists; most notably Mahmud Asrar) the end result was not only the best continuous X-Man story of the decade, but something which will (in time) surpass Whedon’s revolutionary run on Astonishing in terms of fan-regard. In this article, I am going to pick (a little) at the weave of the story in an effort to isolate and reveal a few of the integral threads which form the weft of the narrative.

The central thesis of these eleven issues is that the act of compassion is a more powerful tool than the most brutally cinematic superpower. Empathy is the thing which slaughters fear. Looking at your enemy and seeing a person, woven through with hopes and loves, fears, the usual mixture of frailties, transforms disparate (possibly violent) mobs into a functional community by revealing that there is no ‘us versus them’. There’s only ‘us’. The X-Men are the perfect superhero group to make this point, because their entire existence is predicated on the phrase ‘protecting a world which fears and hates them’. The X-Men have always represented the struggle that othered groups (racial minorities, religious minorities, women, members of the LGBTQIA community) have faced when trying to live in function in a world that is slanted, dramatically, in favor of straight, white (American) men. Such a group is a necessary force in the current, fractured, geo-political climate."

First Woman Sworn In As Librarian Of Congress; NPR, 9/18/16

Michel Martin, NPR; First Woman Sworn In As Librarian Of Congress:

"MARTIN: I was curious about what it means to her to be a first, to break these barriers.

HAYDEN: I started out in librarianship, and I was a children's librarian and then I realized - and it was very evident - that the top management of most libraries was male. And so to be the first female Librarian of Congress speaks to what Melvil Dewey said when he started the Library Association in 1876 and decided that women might be good for the profession because - and I love this quote - they had a high tolerance for pain and monotonous work and that it was time to let women into the profession of librarianship because there was a lot of work to be done. And so to be a female heading up the largest library in the world, I think Mr. Dewey might have something to say about that."

At Comic-Con, Bring Out Your Fantasy and Fuel the Culture; New York Times, 7/15/15

A.O. Scott, New York Times; At Comic-Con, Bring Out Your Fantasy and Fuel the Culture:

"The deeper mythology of Comic-Con is that fans and creators are joined in communion, sharing in the holy work of imagination. The logic of popular culture today suggests that every fan is also an artist. This is literally true in the blossoming fields of fan art and fan fiction, in which devotees of intellectual properties (the ubiquitous San Diego shorthand for books, comics, movies and shows) make their own images and stories involving their favorite characters. Cosplay is a live-action form of fan art, or maybe fan nonfiction, and the owners of the intellectual property rights are careful not to interfere too much.

The organizers of Comic-Con, meanwhile, provide encouragement for fans who dream of professionalizing their passions. A smattering of panels offered advice on how to pitch an idea, how to market a product, how to make a living in a crowded marketplace. Social media and digital technology encourage the fantasy that everyone can make stuff and put it out there for everyone else.

Or maybe it isn’t a fantasy. The world of popular culture only gets bigger, and as it does it grows more diverse, more inclusive and more confounding."

Andrew Halcro: Diversity doesn't burden Anchorage economy, it bolsters it; Anchorage Daily News, 4/27/14

Andrew Halcro, Anchorage Daily News; Andrew Halcro: Diversity doesn't burden Anchorage economy, it bolsters it:

"For the last few years, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce has adopted diversity as one of our key focus areas. The goal is to promote Anchorage as a dynamic and inclusive community, where access to opportunity is equal and we strengthen the local economy by strengthening our community.

According to Richard Florida, American economist and social scientist at the University of Toronto, America's "creative class" (today's younger workforce demographic) will be the leading force of growth in the future economy, expected to grow by more than10 million jobs in the next decade. This creative class includes almost 40 percent of the current population.

For Anchorage to attract the creative class, Florida argues, it must possess "the three T's": talent (a highly talented/educated/skilled population), tolerance (a diverse community, which has a "live and let live" ethos) and technology (the technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture).

To ensure Anchorage remains a dynamic city, we must cultivate the three T's while understanding that embracing diversity is an important bridge to a healthy community and economic vitality."