In my professional opinion, ChatGPT is not conscious and does not have psychological states like beliefs and desires (yes I’m aware of the arguments to the contrary)

“As of November 5th, [the BU tracker] estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.” www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Star Wars discourse eh? Time for an aesthetically objective ranking of the films: 1. A New Hope 2. Empire Strikes Back 3. Return of the Jedi 4. Rogue One 5. Force Awakens 6. Attack of the Clones 7. Last Jedi 8. Phantom Menace 9. Rise of Skywalker 10. Revenge of the Sith 11. Solo 12. Ewok nonsense

Director of Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI resigns following sexual harassment investigation. Institute "set up about five years ago to examine the complex moral questions thrown up by artificial intelligence".

literally me rn

I find this hilarious because Noah Smith has managed to negatively polarize people into defending Heathrow.

Fun fact: cannibalism is also in itself legal throughout the US, with the notable (?) exception of Idaho. Desecration of a corpse is more commonly outlawed, but there's loophole: lab-grown human flesh. Luckily, it turns out no one's keen to exploit this gap... pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

For all the needless suffering they have caused domestically in the US, nothing will likely ever surpass this singular evil

I am so very excited about this new chapter of my life. Looking forward to working alongside talented colleagues to find creatives ways to leverage knowledge for the benefit of Canadians www.dal.ca/news/2025/11...

The paper I co-authored with Hui Yun Chan has just been published in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences. In this paper, we compare Singaporean and Swiss data privacy and human research regulations, and how these may act as a barrier to cross border data sharing: academic.oup.com/jlb/article/...

Murakami, true visionary, presaging in 1979 countless failed Perception checks by generations of D&D players.

Cue Menswear Guy's take on classic gentleman thief attire in 5...4...3...

Professor Emerita Bartha Maria Knoppers recently received McGill’s highest academic honour. “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Professor Knoppers’ landmark work in bioethics, the place where law and medicine meet” reporter.mcgill.ca/bartha-knopp...

150 years on, Tolstoy vindicated!

"What is happening right now is an attack against science, knowledge and the public good."

📣 Introducing new JBI editors-in-chief (content) Chris Mayes and Diego Silva. They both join our continuing editor-in-chief of production, Bronwen Morrell. Thanks to our outgoing EiC (content) Michael Ashby, who is retiring from the JBI and leaving it in these great hands!

I know it's wrong, but ngl I like the Connections Bot feature as it periodically lets me feel smug and superior amongst the clique of fellow puzzle nerds.

Tbh, I would reject the idea that the list of artistically high quality games is small/constrained. There's a lot! The threads below scratch the surface, the lists can really go on and on esp in the indie space. If I had to pick one I'd highlight To the Moon, but really there's too many to count.

Ngl, I get a little choked up on refs like this to the late great animator Satoshi Kon. An artist who passed in his prime, and the world is so much worse for it. RIP.

Not a hard call.

Comrades check out my fanfic archiveofourown.org/users/LastPo...

so glad to live after thomas bayes' illustrious theorem—now when i wake up and the sidewalk is wet, i can conclude that it rained last night. before father bayes, people would just sorta bump into walls

'Great jeans" or "Great Genes"?

Understandably this flew in under the radar given recent events, but...the Newcastle Mitochondrial Replacement results are out! A lot to unpack here, but interesting the below coverage uses the contentious 'spared from disease' language... www.channelnewsasia.com/world/three-...

New post at JME Forum: USAID Cuts - A Moral Failure. This is a topic that's been gnawing at me for a while, and with the new modelling published in Lancet estimating millions of resulting deaths, I felt compelled to speak out, even if it's an ethically obvious issue. 1/ blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethi...

🎓 Celebrating Prof @jowolff.bsky.social's career Please join us in saying a big thank you to Jo for his pioneering research and teaching. The School will also host a special event to mark his career at the School on Wednesday. Find out more here ⬇️

What happens when the wrong embryo gets implanted? Do genetic or birth parents have stronger moral claims to the child? @juliansavulescu.bsky.social and I consider some preliminary answers to the recent questions arising from the Monash IVF mix up in this JME blog: blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethi...

A philosophy professor was assaulted and abducted by ICE while protesting the agency's raid on a farm near his university.

Important new study estimates that USAID-funded programs have saved over 90m lives in the last 21 years. And cuts to USAID will result in over 14m deaths in just the next 5 years. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

"At Wildtype, cells derived from Pacific salmon are grown in big steel tanks and fed with a mix of nutrients, including amino acids, vitamins, salts, sugars, proteins and fats. 'Imagine kind of a fancy Gatorade.'" www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...

Recent suspensions & reductions in official development assistance for health have impacted responses to HIV, hepatitis, STIs, and other communicable diseases. See pre-publication draft of @who.int guidance to sustain priority services in this changing funding landscape: www.who.int/activities/s...

Dear all, Helen passed away at 13:21 local time. Helen would not have wanted us to be sad for a long time. All they wanted was to be remembered. They looked forward to being rid of pain and to being at rest. Helen took great comfort in you, their friends and readers. pt. 1/2

Saw Thom Yorke at a pub in Oxford a while back. A mate asked for his autograph; he politely declined.

I’m happy to share some news bit.ly/440Iim7

In a new JME Forum post, Jennifer Eitingon and Margaret P Battin explore the ethical complexities of finances in hospice care: "Hi, I'm a hospice doctor. Here's your bill." blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethi...

Lol, Sen Ernst literally did the meme. In a bad way! Don't be like Ernst/Philosophy Bro! Please save lives instead! www.huffpost.com/entry/medica...

Duolingo's great and all, but ngl I could do without the routine Michael Corleone-style threats. I like to do my Duo in the evenings! This is not cause for implications of bodily harm, even by a cutesy anthropomorphic owl!

The ongoing Adriana Smith case has caused great uproar. In a new JME Forum post, Joel Cox & Allison Bajada argue the circumstances may not be as exceptional as they appear: "Adriana Smith is Far From the First Incubator" blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethi...

I often wonder if one day LLMs will make me, and other bioethicists, obsolete. A fascinating new JME Forum post by Daniel Sokol suggests that day may be come sooner than we think: "Meet your new medical ethicist: ChatGPT" blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethi...

Day #2 of the health data sharing ethics and solution workshop in Bangkok! Thanks to the Southeast Asia Bioethics Network for sending me here and cheers to @owenschaefer.bsky.social for a key note on pluralistic principalism and finding local bars despite google maps trying to hide them.

I feel like I've been Rickrolled

Newest from the JME Forum: "Efficiency and Education: Finding Harmony in AI-Driven Medical Notes," by Trisha Nagin. AI scribing has the potential for substantial uptake among busy healthcare workers, but there are hidden costs in the loss of human scribes. blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethi...

A truly historic evening at the #WHA78: the #PandemicAccord resolution was approved in Committee A with 124 in favour, 0 against and 11 abstentions. The final step: adoption in plenary tomorrow morning. My thanks once again to @who.int Member States for choosing to keep the world safer. 🙏

Fantastic development

Andor's a wrap! My non-spicy take: Season 2 didn't reach the heights of Season 1 (lacked the verve, freshness and tension), but still better than 90%+ of Disney SW and highly allegorical to contemporary times without necessarily intending to be. Only light-spoilers 🧵...

Life imitating dystopian farcical art, entry #5,374 www.tiktok.com/@thealmanac7...

Ahem, that should be, Do not *epistemically* blaspheme!