Down the Wormhole

Artificial Intelligence Part 4 (Computerized Clergy)

Episode 81
What do robotic Torah scribes, Bluetooth rosaries, and a decapitated hitchhiking robot have in common? They're all teaching us what it means to be spiritual beings in the 21st century. Whether we like it or not, smart, adaptive technology is working its way into our religious and spiritual lives. Will we use it thoughtfully to enhance our lives or will it just become another technological nuisance? We're still in the early days of AI, and our actions today will have an outsized impact on how it develops. Let's be intentional, thoughtful, and prayerful about how we shepherd its growth, and become the sorts of people that Hitchbot would be proud to call friends. 
 
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produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Show Notes
To read:
1) The church of AI
https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/
2) Robot religious functions
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/9/20851753/ai-religion-robot-priest-mindar-buddhism-christianity
3) Funerals for robotic companions
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/funerals-for-fallen-robots/279861/
4) AIBO funerals and our humanity
https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/robot-funerals-reflect-our-humanity
5) Can robots pray (and a super creepy monk)...we didn’t talk about this, but it is still a fascinating part of the conversation
https://aeon.co/essays/can-a-robot-pray-does-an-automaton-have-a-soul-ai-and-theology-meet
6) Values-based AI
https://slate.com/technology/2019/11/priest-rabbi-robot-walk-into-bar-religion-technology.html
7) The Southern Baptist Convention principles on AI (again, didn’t talk about this in particular but it is creative and proactive rather than reactive)
https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/southern-baptist-convention-artificial-intelligence-evangelical-statement-principles.html 
8) Hitchbot (wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitchBOT 
9) Social Credit system used in China (wiki article)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System 
10) 5min video on what the Social credit system looks like
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGoodPlace/comments/a719ko/s1e1_chinas_social_credit_system_resemblance_to/
11) Point system in the Good place
https://howard-chai.medium.com/a-look-at-the-moral-point-system-of-the-good-place-7858215fd9dc
12) Opportunity’s last words and goodbye tributes
https://laist.com/2019/02/16/jpl_mars_rover_opportunity_battery_is_low_and_its_getting_dark.php
 
Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. 
 
Zack Jackson 00:04
You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are
 
Rachael Jackson 00:14
Rachel Jackson Rabbi at Agoudas Israel congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And my favorite fictional robotic companion is Data from Star Trek Next Generation.
 
Zack Jackson 00:30
Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania, and my favorite fictional robotic companion is Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
 
Ian Binns 00:42
Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And my favorite is R2D2
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 00:51
Kendra Holt-Moore PhD candidate at Boston University. And my favorite fictional robot companion is also Data. Because I just started watching Star Trek, and I love him.
 
Rachael Jackson 01:07
Resistance is futile Welcome on board.
 
Zack Jackson 01:12
I don't think she's gotten that far yet.
 
Rachael Jackson 01:13
No, not that don't be fine.
 
Zack Jackson 01:15
Well that'll be funny in a couple weeks.
 
Rachael Jackson 01:20
Okay, so thank you for that question. I'm glad that we were able to start there. And as we are doing our AI series, and I wanted to talk about this in a slightly different way than we have been talking about it. So previously, we've talked about transhumanism and cyborgs. And really, what is the concept? Last time we talked about this, we really focused on education. And so today, I really wanted to focus our conversation on religion, right, what is AI in relation to religion, and that in and of itself is a huge topic. But I want to start with an example from my tradition. And this example, is the use of ritual of a particular ritual object and how, how it appears. So I'll go into a little bit of detail there. In Judaism, we read the five the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers in Deuteronomy, from a scroll, rather than from a Codex form. And the scroll form doesn't have vowels. It doesn't have punctuation marks doesn't have page numbers. So it can be very complicated to read. And not only that, it's extremely complicated to write. It takes a scribe who's working on parchment, which is animal skin, with using a quill dipped in special ink, writing on this paper, and the letters have to be extremely precise, and everything the columns are justified. And if anyone has ever tried to hand write in justified columns, it's so crazy hard. So sometimes the letters look really long, or sometimes the letters are really squished and it's just it's a very laborious, intensive intensive in terms of time but intensive also in terms of emotional and and frankly redundancy. And for for a good scribe or for a professional scribe, a year to a year and a half is what it takes full time to write a Torah. And then each of the peaches, pieces of parchment are stitched together rolled up and Mazel Tov we have we have a scroll. I don't want to necessarily give an estimate, because I don't want to undersell those that are that are paying for this. They're a brand new one is anywhere between 40 and $80,000. Just Just to give a Yeah. Wow.
 
Zack Jackson 04:05
Yeah, I guess you're paying the wages for a year.
 
Rachael Jackson 04:08
You're paying the wages, you're also paying, like parchment is animal skin, like that's not cheap. And these use, you know, many, many animals. Again, it depends on the size of the parchment and the kind of animal if you're using, like, goat skin, how many pieces of parchment you can get per goat, like it's, it's a lot.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 04:30
How big is the finished product.
 
Rachael Jackson 04:32
So the parchment itself can vary. It's anywhere between, say 18 and 36 inches tall. Right, so top to bottom, and of course, there's a there's borders around it so that you're not just touching the scroll every time so 18 to 36 inches. Our synagogue is lucky enough to have three scrolls of various sizes, and then you put them on wooden die. You stitch them into wooden dowels and roll them up that way. And so when you're actually scrolling the scroll, you're using the wooden dowels to move, you know, literally go through the parchment that way and that way, of course, we, we make it pretty, because everything needs jewelry. And so we put a beautiful gown on top of it, and we put some finishing touches on it, and then the pointer because you're never supposed to actually touch it. And so the thing that you're carrying around our largest one is about 50 pounds, and is over four feet tall. You know, Tao is over four feet and over 50 pounds.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 05:34
It's massive.
 
Rachael Jackson 05:35
Yeah, they're massive write these and no, of course, there are small ones, right, you can get one that's about 12 inches, but they're extremely hard to write, which actually makes the cost go up because like you're doing tiny print then and,
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 05:48
and then you also have to buy a magnifying glass to rewrite.
 
Rachael Jackson 05:51
They're really hard to read because like I said, No vowels, no punctuation. Really hard to read.
 
Ian Binns 05:58
So, gosh, that sounds like an awful lot of work. Can I interrupt? Of course, is it required? Or maybe required is not the right word. But does every synagogue? Have one? That is the goal? Yes. Okay, so the goal is very, but it's not like, there's not anything written in where it says for you. It's pretty much.
 
Rachael Jackson 06:19
It's pretty much it's pretty much there. Yeah, it's not that you have to. But how do you read from the Torah, if you don't have one? Right? I mean, you're reading from a Codex of Hamas, a Torah, write a paper Torah. But like, if you're going to do it, like the best you can do is do it well. And so sometimes there's like loans like, oh, there's a little small synagogue over here that doesn't have one, we'll loan it to you for, you know, 30 years or something,
 
Ian Binns 06:44
do you have like, Are any of those in your office where you're in our worship space,
 
Rachael Jackson 06:50
oh, they're all in the sanctuary. And they're all under a locked cabinet. And they are all there is a fire a smoke detector inside the ark where we keep them. And the fire department knows that, that save those, like, if you're here for a fire, go right there. And we'll deal with the rest of the building. Like they're really they're that important, like they are the most important thing in the synagogue. So parchment and scribing is expensive and intensive. So the question is, will then why do it? Right? Like, why have a person do this, we've had printing presses for hundreds of years at this point. And okay, so you don't want to print the toy because you can't really it's hard to do printed to our on parchment. Okay, but now when the 21st century, and the 21st century, we can have a mechanical hand, actually write the Torah, and it can use a parchment, it can use the special ink and it just once you program it in there with all the specifications, this AI robot can write the Torah. So why wouldn't we have that and once you've put in the the capital of programming it, you just go right, you don't have to you don't have to change it up. So many times, you don't have to repay the programmer. Every time you just say, Nope, we just need more parchment more ink. Alright, so if we're still doing a halakhically, what is the role of the person? What does the person bring to this, that a robot can't or a and I'm using AI in this a not just a robot, because as I was saying, like, they can be different size parchments, the column width can be different. So you have to you have to teach the robot or the robot has to know what what justification in this, you know, full justified center justified looks like and so it has to know looking at the parchment, so it has to learn not just be programmed. So that's how I'm using AI as opposed to just a robot program. And there's a female scribe, which is a whole different category of, you know, egalitarianism and feminism that we won't get into this particular episode, but there's a female scribe, and Julia seltzer, who with I think it was five other women scribed an entire Torah together like each one of them took most of a book, Deuteronomy is really long. And then they stitched it together. And what she noticed is that their handwriting was different, that someone might have had like a little bit more of a flourish when they made the crown on a letter or a little bit like maybe one looked a little blockier and the other one looked a little bit softer, that looks different and you know, the person behind it and so now you're like I don't I don't study the scribe but there aren't that many in the world and there there haven't been so if you know the age and the location of the tour that you have You know, the person who scribed it, there is a story, there are memories, there is an intention behind it, there is an awareness of what you're doing. And that awareness doesn't exist in AI and robots. There's a prayer in Judaism, which says, Thank you like in the mornings, thank you for my soul. And thank you for the awareness of my soul. And it's that extra step that I think is missing, when we're looking at what can I do, as far as religion is concerned? So I just wanted to open up with the tour and saying it would be far cheaper, and far more accurate if we chose to do this sort of robotic arm AI printing than using a person. But it's not just about the money, right? in religion, it's not just what is the bottom line? Right? That's, that's one of the things that makes religious organizations different than, you know, other businesses or for profit centers. And I'm being kind that religions are not for profit centers, and sort of being generous to religion as a concept, in those ways, that it's not about doing it the cheapest and fastest. So what is it about? So when we look at again, using the example of writing the Torah? What What is it? So that's where I wanted to start. And so that's when one place for my tradition of where AI could be used, but we're choosing not to use it and wondering if there are places that you could see, either as an object or as a ritual in and of itself, from your traditions, or you are understandings that could or could not be substituted with AI?
 
Zack Jackson 12:00
Yeah, so there's a product that you can purchase from the Vatican itself. That is basically a Fitbit. For your your rosary.
 
12:14
Yes, I
 
Zack Jackson 12:14
saw that, were you It's great, because it's got its own little charging station, and you pick it up, and you make the sign of the cross on it. And that activates it. And then it's able to tell by the weighted beads, and for those of you who maybe aren't as familiar with rosary has a certain amount of beads. And the point is to hold a bead while you say a prayer, and then move to the next bead. While you say a prayer. It's a physical act while you're doing a spiritual act, in order to connect the full body to engage all of your senses, and to help you keep track of what you're doing while you're doing it. Because like, if you're saying a prayer a number of times in a row, how are you going to keep track? Like, do you lose track, you know, like, well, I guess I got to start over again, or start writing it down or something. So the rosary has long been a helpful tool for people. But in this one, it now syncs up to your phone, and can remind you, if you haven't been doing your prayers, or reward you, if you have been doing your prayers. Have you know, there might be social functions where you can encourage each other, I know that there was by the Bible gateway app, introduced a social aspect to it. And then suddenly, I started getting notifications like crazy, where all of my friends were like, connect with so and so on Bible gateway and share your daily devotional, your practice your reading. And so then that now there's this kind of social pressure, that now everyone knows what I'm reading. And now I have to make sure I'm reading extra spiritual stuff. Make sure everyone else knows how spiritual I am. And so there are some issues with that. I think we're now it Jesus says, practice your religion in secret, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. If possible, go into a closet where no one knows you're there. He says that if you are fasting, not to put on sackcloth and ashes and let everyone know that you're super spiritual, but to put on your Sunday best and act like everything is normal. So nobody knows. And so a lot of these we talked last time about the gamification of education and other things. And so when you have sort of the gamification of, of religious practice, then I don't know, you start to want to show off a little bit or feel that social pressure that a lot of the church because of, you know, but I don't know, I've never used one of these. So maybe they're great. I do love love. All gadgets. That's fascinating. That's,
 
Rachael Jackson 15:03
that's a great word gadget. Right? It's using tech to encourage a particular practice. And one of the pitfalls, I think, is when we make that practice public, the Fitbit idea, right, you can have your own Fitbit, and not tell anybody, by the way, and you can set your own, you can set your own, like, tell it get up every 10 minutes or get up at you know, 10 minutes every hour, or whatever it is, and you don't have to tell people, but then we get that bias built in of whoever is creating the software, whoever is creating the technology, what is their value system. Sort of like the zoo, I didn't, I never joined the Bible gateway group, nor did a join this other way that I'm going to say, covenant eyes, right? Like basically, where you can have a person, double check your browser history, to make sure that you're staying on the up and up the accountability of what you're looking at on the internet. And as we all know, the internet was created for porn. So if the internet is created for porn, then your covenant eyes need to make sure you're not doing that. I'm being a little flippant, but maybe not that much. But that then turns into, it could turn into a race of I am holier than thou Look at, look at how much I'm doing and posturing and buckling under peer pressure, and then you're losing that that authenticity, and then suddenly, it's just besting each other, which kind of goes against most religious tenants from most religions that I'm aware of, right, like, look how better I am than you are at this. But building in that value system, and I think that's, that's the really dark gray area that could get pretty twisted, when we look at AI because at this point, at least, there is not sentience and choice in AI, which means it's all about the person who's programming it and the values that they're using. Yeah, I
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 17:45
think it's interesting, the examples that we're talking about are, seems to be examples of what AI takes away from us, or from religious traditions, whether that's like authenticity, or, you know, like not not having a person's story behind a tourist scroll. But instead, it being you know, a robot that has like standard handwriting and all these things, or, you know, the rosary gadget that, you know, for whatever reason, there's something that we feel is missing from these rituals and relationships. And I like that all makes a lot of sense to me. But I was really struck by one of the articles that Rachel shared with us before our meeting today, and it was an article in The Atlantic called funerals for fallen robots. Yes. And that that piece was just like highlighting the emotional attachment that people have for robots and how we, you know, the, the emphasis here is not so much on like, the nature of AI itself. I mean, it is a little bit, but it's more about, I think it's more about, like how humans create themselves, like the creation of the self through relationship with objects, which is something we've always done like before robots, but it's so interesting to me, because it's like, is that something is that like, what the flip side of AI is, we gain a lot by having potentially these robots, or, you know, even if it's just like a gadget, you know, like, I definitely have emotional attachments to like random objects, just like little tokens on my desk, because of the person who gave it to me. Or, you know, I have like a pouch of these. I call them my study tokens. They're just like little random buttons and pins and rocks and little figurines that people have given to me and I set them around my computer sometimes when I like really need to Get in the zone. And you know, they're not robots, but it's like this like emotional attachment with these inanimate like metal and rock objects on my desk. And I would be so sad if I lost any one of these things. And so I think it's like a very similar kind of relationship that if we look at robots and AI, like we can still form those kinds of attachments, and they might even be deeper, if AI is mimicking the kinds of like, human effect and human thought. And I just think that's so interesting, because it I, there was a long time where I thought, like, my gut reaction is that oh, well, that's still kind of empty, though. Like, it doesn't mean anything. And then like, the older I get, and the more I've like, thought about this, especially as technology just changes, I think that's like, I think it's really a powerful relationship, even though it's very weird to think about. But like, if I had a robot, and it was like, you know, r two D two, or data or you know, any, any of our like, famous robot companions from any fictional universe, yeah, I would want to, like protect that robot friend, and make sure that it was charged every day and make sure that it was like, happy and whatever, since that robots can be happy. And I think that that whatever, whatever we can say about the realness or not realness of that relationship, I think what's true about it is that it changes who we are. And it reflects something about who we are and who we are becoming. Because everything that we have a relationship with in the world plays on or, you know, helps to create the virtues that we have the weaknesses that we have the personalities that we have. And I just think that's really cool. And really interesting, because it doesn't have to just be with humans. And that's always been the case.
 
Zack Jackson 22:02
I that. I think we need to take a second and pour one out for hich bot while we're at it. Do you remember hitch bought? No. So it was a an adorable two young little robot from but too young. It was like 1013
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 22:22
Is it like a Tamagotchi?
 
Zack Jackson 22:24
No in 2013. So eight years ago, these developers in Canada made this robot and they made it to kind of look junkyard chic is how they called it, where it was cylindrical body. And it's got these like pool noodle arms and legs and this adorable little face. And the point of it was an social experiment to see if robots could trust humans. So it can't walk. But it can talk. And it was equipped with 3g connection and GPS, so that it could update its own social media accounts. And it could talk to the people who interacted with it and ask them to hitch a ride to the next place. And encourage them to like talk back to it had some rudimentary AI so it could communicate with people like a chatbot. And people would take pictures with it, it would be such an honor to like stumble upon hitch bot, and you get to update your social media and be like, I dropped it off here. And now the next person picks it up. It went across Canada three different times. I think. It went across Germany and the Netherlands.
 
Rachael Jackson 23:35
And then it just went the second one went across Germany.
 
Zack Jackson 23:38
Okay, but in 2015 tried to go across the US but got decapitated in Philly. Because Because Billy and if you were to ask me, somebody who's lived in Philly, and is from south south Jersey, where it would have been killed, I would have told you it would have been Philadelphia.
 
Rachael Jackson 24:04
Also, just just to add to that, it only its goal was to start in Boston. I remember Following this, it was it started in Boston and was going to get to San Francisco, got decapitated in Philly. And the head was never found. Like it didn't even it's not like it started in San Francisco. No, it started in Boston, and only got to Philly.
 
Zack Jackson 24:29
It had made it out of the East Coast or totally would have gotten there. It would have gotten there. If you can make it out of the East Coast, then you're okay.
 
Rachael Jackson 24:37
Ichabod I love what you're saying. Right? Like this idea of what is our attachment both from an emotional standpoint or she's made from an individual standpoint, but then also a cultural right like this poor hitch bot was totally fine and the Netherlands and Germany and Canada and the US we were like I don't trust you. Yeah. decapitate. Wow, season four of shields calculating things. So but what? What does that say about us and our relationship? And I think that's also what you were saying Kendra, right? This, this funeral for a bow AI Bo. I might be mispronouncing it. But that's how I had heard it. Right, these these robotic dogs. And it's true that even in the military people that have military companions, robotic companions, there's a sadness there. I mean, there was there was a famous movie, it wasn't a robot. But oh, Castaway. Right, Tom Hanks and Wilson, the volleyball, right there were weird, I think the movie was quiet for what 40 minutes, there was no dialogue or something like that, something crazy like that. And we were all just like, we'll setting like, we'll set it like we were just like something. And we had this immense attachment to a movie volleyball. No, it's just, it was so powerful, in fact, could create how much of the more so something has been there, watching your back, if something has been there carrying you on. And so many of us use objects as tools, right, that I don't have a deep attachment to my laptop or to my phone, like I use them, but I don't have an emotional attachment. My son, who's who's almost seven has had the same Kindle for, I guess we got him three years ago. And he has an emotional attachment to his Kindle, like he cares for it, he makes sure that it's in the right place, he makes sure that it's clean, he's sad, when it doesn't work, he makes sure that it's it's charged so that he can carry it with them. Like, it's very different than I need to use this as a tool, right. And so for me, we're able to use a AI or technology, we're using those a little interchangeably, as an ability to start forming relationships and bonds that teach us about who we are. And in religion, it's my, it's my understanding that one of the things that religion does, is teach us and help us with relationships, relationships, and in all, in all dimensions. And and I say that in the horizontal, it teaches us how to be in relationship with the world around us and those within the world around us, including ourselves, it is a vertical relationship, such that we have a relationship with the past and the future. And it's also the z axis relationship, which to me is the Divinity or spiritual aspect, right. So if we're on an X, Y, Z axis, the z axis would be the godly aspect. Or however each religion chooses to understand that which is not known. But it's, it's all relationships as almost as a stark difference from facts. And so if AI can teach us those things, or teach us how to do those things, or encourage those things, or grow those things, I think it can be a beautiful relationship, which is a couple of the other articles that that I'll post in the show notes, or I'll have Zack post in the show notes. So I think that there's beauty in there, what we need to make sure that when we're using them, and they're using us, that we recognize the values and that we trust what's in front of us. And I think that's an important piece that we're not that we haven't fully fully digested. How do we gain this trust? Right, so so Zack brought in the hitch bot, where it couldn't trust Americans and Americans couldn't trust it. And it is no longer, right. How do we develop the trust, which is the foundation of relationships?
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 29:17
Yeah. And I think that it's interesting to think about the trust that we can develop with these, you know, Ai, whatever technology, we're talking about these emotional attachments, and how that's a really different that's a really different relationship to these objects than talking about whether or not AI and you know, future robots will deserve rights. Which is like really interesting, because I think there's a natural blending of those ideas where over time, if we're treating something like we're In a relationship with it in the same way we would be with the human. That conversation to me kind of feels a note inevitable. I don't know, like what the answer will end up being. But, you know, like, that's already a conversation of like, Can robots? Or should robots who are more like Android in nature? Should they be granted citizenship, which is just like, so crazy to think about, but I think is, you know, is going to be a conversation that's like, way more prominent, like way down the line in the future when we do have robots that are a lot more like us. But for now, I think it's a lot easier actually, to ask the question of like, how can we trust the technology that's in front of us? Because that feels a little bit more manageable? I think, still a really hard question, because you have to think about the ethics of, and the values that go into programming. And that's like a huge debate to have about the, you know, the cultural code of the robot in front of you, and how that conflicts with whoever's using it or interacting with it. So still really difficult. But it's, I think, still maybe a little bit more manageable than talking about, like robot citizenship.
 
Zack Jackson 31:45
Have you all heard about what's going on in China with the social credit scores?
 
Rachael Jackson 31:50
Oh, yes. Oh, it's so scary,
 
Ian Binns 31:53
I want you to unpack that for us. Because that was interesting,
 
Zack Jackson 31:55
a way of, of using AI, especially, to keep humans in line. While they're already well known for their facial recognition, and the fact that there's cameras everywhere, and that those cameras are always tracking who you are and where you are, and what you're doing.
 
Rachael Jackson 32:15
Said, right and said with pride that I think it was that once you enter the public sphere, meaning not your own home, within three seconds, it can identify their entire population, like 1.4 billion people within three seconds.
 
Ian Binns 32:33
That was crazy,
 
Zack Jackson 32:35
which sure helped to keep the COVID under control, but also their populace. And so they've been doing these trial runs, in some places have adopted them more thoroughly, where they're essentially keeping record of each individual person and giving that person a score based on their trustworthiness. So things that might negatively impact your social credit rating might be things like playing loud music, or eating food on Rapid Transit when you're not supposed to, or jaywalking or speeding, or this is a good one, making reservations at a restaurant and then not showing up. Oh, yeah, I'm not correctly sorting your recycling. And if your score gets too low, you might be denied things. Like, I think I read that there was like 80,000 people so far, who had not been able to get on trains, because their social score was too low, and they couldn't be trusted on it. And if you want to get out of that, it takes like two to five years to get out of that. Or you can work really hard to raise your score. By doing things like donating to charity, or giving blood or volunteering or praising the government on social media.
 
Ian Binns 34:06
I feel like 10s of millions of Americans would have been screwed during the last administration.
 
Zack Jackson 34:10
Right? Yeah. So like, if you want good things like, you know, a line of credit to buy a house or favorable terms on loans, or getting
 
Rachael Jackson 34:22
a reservation at a restaurant
 
Zack Jackson 34:24
or getting a reservation at a restaurant, like you'd better make sure that your social social score is high. And this is, I mean, this is also a society that as is a shame, shame and honor based society. And so kind of taking advantage of that. In order to control the populace, using opaque artificial intelligence like No, nobody, this is not open source data. This is stuff that's tracking your every single movement, so you might be out walking Down the street somewhere, and you reach in your pocket to get your phone and a receipt falls out your pocket, and you get docked for littering, because it knows what you just did. And it was watching you. And supporters of this. say that this is going to be a way of creating a utopian society where like plenty of people will just do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do. Do these
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 35:24
dystopian literature come on over?
 
Rachael Jackson 35:28
China, they don't have it. Yeah, it's not an
 
Zack Jackson 35:32
like, this will finally do what religion failed to do. In keeping the people in line and making a morally just society, because it offers punishments that are immediate, and felt instead of like, afterlife based.
 
Rachael Jackson 35:49
Yeah. And daily and daily life. impactful, right? Not just, yeah, eventually, one day, this will come back to bite you. And that took us, but like, Oh, I can't get on the bus today. Like, oh, that has impacted my life. And this is like, I'm wondering, did they ride? Or did they take notes from the good place? With this feels, this feels very much like the scores that people are getting based on their activities. And one of the things that I am troubled by, in this just one of very many things I'm troubled by with this whole scenario is we don't actually know the end result of a single action. So let's just take the littering on on the face of it. That seems like a pretty like, we'd all kind of get behind that. Right? Like, you don't want to litter like I'm not a fan of littering, and we talk about it and we don't want to do it. And sometimes Adrian IO and you know, his friends will go pick up the litter that we find in the in the park. Right, littering. I'm totally behind that. In this particular society, as far as I have read, and I, I could be corrected, please. Having clean streets is really important. Right that there's there is a value in the in the culture of having clean public spaces, in order to have clean public spaces. Somebody has to do that job. So if somebody accidentally litres, and then they get docked for it, then people stop littering. How many jobs did that cost? There was no intent behind the littering. But the accidental littering or the wind took it away. How many jobs did that cost? And what are the life what is the life like for those people whose job was to literally be a human a street sweeper. And, and those ramifications, that we're not able to see the human cost? Again, minus the whole dystopian issue, but that to be docked for something that seems dockable. But we don't know where this where this is going. That's where I'm uncomfortable with this, like, how far are we going? Oh,
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 38:19
but on the other hand, maybe we should just let the robots take all of our jobs so that we can just focus on our hobbies and have universal basic income. Am I right?
 
Rachael Jackson 38:29
Totally. Right. I just want to start doing more cross stitching. So yes, I am 100% on board with just take my job. Right? But
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 38:38
but we got to have the infrastructure like you're right. That's not where we are right now. But I hope one day, we can all have our hobbies, and money and just like live our lives because work
 
Zack Jackson 38:50
shouldn't be all I mean, according to will robots take my job calm. I'm only point 8% likely that clergy will be replaced by AI and robots,
 
Rachael Jackson 39:01
right. And we have seen that so very clearly in this last year. Because the people that have been in hospitals or have died or have had a funeral, or have had any sort of life cycle moment in which they want their clergy there, in addition to whatever worship we have on the weeks, there's no comparison and holding someone's hand. That, yeah, it'd be great if a robot did my job, but I don't think a robot could do my job. Right? Because there's something about the touch. There's something about the human connection. There's something about the look in a person's eyes that says, I see you and I empathize with whatever you're going through. That we haven't gotten there yet with AI and while the technical aspects of most of our jobs could be done I think even the jobs where it's a 95%, your job could be done by AI, or robot. It's not going to be a healthy thing. Because Where are we getting those relationships? Sorry, and I'm talking about
 
Ian Binns 40:15
that's okay. I'm just makes me think about like, if we think about so instead of just, you know, a thought experiment, I guess on what are the things in our so not necessarily to take our entire job? But what are the things within our particular professions? That if robots or AI took over that aspect profession, what would free us up to do more of beautiful things? We could do more? Still still with your profession? Yes, hobbies? Definitely. But like, so for me. And I know, we brought this up in the last episode. For me, especially it's like grading, for example. You know, if there were robots or you know, something like that, that could I mean, obviously, it's easier now than it used to be because of technology. But if that was a way where it can be fully programmed to do all of that for me, then what? There are other, I'm certain that there, it will give me time to do other things.
 
Rachael Jackson 41:18
Really? Okay, I'm gonna push you on that one a little bit. The reason I say that, barring Scantron tests, which are stupid. Good. Sorry, for those that I'm offending that do. I feel like you get to know your student based on the answers, they give in the questions, that you're losing something when you don't grade their papers. You're losing, how they're thinking you're losing. And what what creativity are they coming up with? And so, so I would say, if you're not doing that, you're not seeing the individual? What are if, if that part is taken away by robots, which I'm not quite sure how you would do that equitably? I would have to be a pretty smart robot to try to grade individual questions that aren't Scantron based, or that multiple choice, how else would you then get to know the students like that, to me isn't where you spend the time, right? in getting to know like, having coffee shop our having, you know, let's sit down and chat for 20 minutes, just because like the 20 minutes, I would have spent grading your essays. Now let's just talk about them. But I don't I don't know how you could equitably do that, honestly. And also,
 
Ian Binns 42:42
what I'm curious about is though, that, to me, is still less thinking in the same way that things are done now. Like I'm almost pushing us to think, what other avenues could it open. If some skill, some things like that, that can become very time consuming. I'm not saying already, like, there are definitely parts that I would still need to do as human. But I think there are some things that may make it where I could end up spending more time on other tasks and other ways of getting to know students and connecting with him. potentially even more fully.
 
Zack Jackson 43:22
Yeah.
 
Ian Binns 43:23
So all by all the grading, it's okay. So I'm just curious, like, Are there ways within your professions that there are some mundane things that you're just like, you know, what, if I could get rid of that imagine I would have more time on this,
 
Rachael Jackson 43:38
you know, what I gotta say, I have predictive text set up on my Gmail. And I have had it set up on my like, I've been using the same gmail account for work for six years. I'm pretty like I change it up, I don't, I don't write the same exact same thing every time. But I have a particular way of talking in email. I have a particular rabbinic voice or a style that's in email, just like when you if any of you were to ever talk to me on the phone, and and I pick up and I say, Hello, this is Robert Jackson, you hear my voice go up by about half an octave. It is amazing. Um, so I have that same sort of tick quality characteristic in my email. And so now when I'm writing an email, it will the predictive text will have almost the entire sentence written if I write one or two words, and I go, yeah, that's what I want. tab, tab, tab. And next thing you know, my entire email is written in two minutes rather than six. And so as a person who writes enter between 20 and 50 emails, writes 20 to 50 emails a day. That's that's been helpful, right? It's it's freed me up to have the conversation with someone in person.
 
Zack Jackson 45:19
I think a database that would help keep track of who is sick? Who is? Well, who is recovered? And who's related to who would be really helpful?
 
Rachael Jackson 45:35
Oh, I have that for you, I can send you the link. I well.
 
Zack Jackson 45:38
So one that that can also like predict things. I'm thinking AI wise, where, like, I know that this person has this condition, this condition and has been in the hospital this amount of time this amount of time. And then so you might want to check in on this person at this time. You know, have you talked with so and so lately? They haven't been in church? Oh, yeah. Okay, that's a good point, there's probably something going on. Because like, my mind personally doesn't work like that. I cannot hold on to details about individual people. Especially when I have that many people. Were I think, like, Oh, I haven't seen that person in six weeks, because I've been with the other people. And I haven't thought about it, or Oh, yeah, that's right, they did get COVID last month, and I never checked back in on them. I wonder how they're doing now like that kind of a thing, connected with the local hospitals, which could update me on people's medical conditions, as well as like death of relatives who maybe aren't members of my church, like it's scanning through the obituaries of the local papers to be like, Oh, well, I have this member whose uncle just died. But they're not. The uncle is not a member of my church. And so now I know that maybe I should reach out to this person, like that kind of assistance and pastoral care would be really helpful, because nine times out of 10, I miss it. And then I realized after the fact that I could have been a comforting presence in that moment.
 
Rachael Jackson 47:08
Although I will just say, I do have an awesome pastoral care website that I use. And it's, it's super helpful. It's not AI. But it's really amazing to help me to help me do those exact same to do those things. Again, it doesn't connect to the hospitals. It doesn't it doesn't scan obituaries, but it helps. It's my own personal. It's my own personal pastoral care assistant. Well, we
 
Zack Jackson 47:33
have a lot of clergy who listen, what's the website,
 
Rachael Jackson 47:36
it's called notebaert. And ot e bi, rd note, bird. And it is awesome. And I'm happy to share this and happy to be a poster child's No, they're not paying me for any reason. I just love it.
 
Zack Jackson 47:49
But they could.
 
Rachael Jackson 47:53
Really, and and they are. They're totally non denominational. Like, they they listened to the Jews, and they put stuff in there for the Jews. But there's a whole bunch of stuff in there for Christians to like, I haven't, you know, communion wise, I didn't, I didn't look at all the Christian stuff, because I don't need to. And they're extremely responsive and wonderful. And I could just like sing their praises all day long. Because I think we're getting there, right? Like, we keep having these, these brainstorming so we can get there. And I think if we're not afraid of it, and I keep going back to what Kendra was saying, right, that that initially, we started talking about the drawbacks, and Ken was like, Hey, what about all the positives? Wait, it could be so great. It would like it would just be wonderful. If our values were there, right, the value of pastoral care would have to be there.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 48:50
Yeah. And I think to like another way of thinking about, like how AI would like, you know, supplement people's jobs. It's not even that, like all of the things that we do in academia or as clergy. I don't, I don't really know how AI is gonna, like supplement what any of us do besides like what we're talking about now with, like databases, like technology stuff, sure. But I just think, like, there are a different category of jobs that AI can do. So that it like frees up people like maybe, maybe there will be more people who want to be clergy members, or like, you know, researchers and teachers. And since AI is doing, you know, the jobs that those people might have been doing now, we have all these people who want to do these jobs, but we don't have to work the whole year. Like maybe we're on a half year schedule. And then you know, we switch out and then the robot or not the robot that that People who would have been doing, I don't know, pick a job, what's a job that maybe AI is going to take over one day? I guess we use the idea of like the streets with images, or sandwiches? Yeah, sandwiches. You know, like, it just creates an abundance of like, time, I guess is what it's giving us, or like opportunity to do something that you might not have thought you were going to do. I don't know, it just there's, there's more ways to think about it than just that, like, yeah, robots gonna, like grade my papers or like, sit by someone on their deathbed. Because I don't I don't know if like that. There's something about that, that makes me like, like cringe a little bit, even though that's like also what we're talking about as a potential for being like really cool. And
 
Zack Jackson 50:51
COVID, they've had to do that. And I there are hospitals that have set up these like, iPad robots that kind of look humanoid, but they have an iPad for a head, where you can connect to people that you know, and that you love. There's even some more advanced technology out there that will have a hand on it. And then another hand will be held by your loved one who's maybe in the waiting room. And then like the two cents each other cool and will squeeze cool other sad
 
Rachael Jackson 51:20
at the same time.
 
Ian Binns 51:23
But necessary during times like a pandemic,
 
Zack Jackson 51:26
right? Yeah. Right. But given a normal circumstance, no one would choose that. Right.
 
Rachael Jackson 51:31
Right. And, you know, what I, what I hear you suggesting Kendra, too, is perhaps that technology AI as it gets there, again, using them interchangeably, allows us to really understand what we want our lives to be, especially as Americans who have been trained and our culture of just high productivity, like unbelievably high productivity that our value is based in what we produce. And then our value as a citizen, or as a person is how much effort we put into our company. Right? Whatever that as a worker, that's where it last. And so if we have the ability to, to have our job being done by something else, rather than replacing our job, like finding something else, as in was suggesting to do with that time for a job to say, great, it's done. Now I have time to be me. I to actually say it's not. Yes, maybe the average is a 40 Hour Workweek. But I don't really know anybody that does that. I don't, I don't I don't know of any salaried, that's untrue. I know of one salaried employee who works for the government, frankly, and they're the only ones that I know that's a salaried employee that actually sticks to 40 hours. The only reason I'm using the term salaried is because the employer then has to pay per hour and usually they don't want to pay overtime. And so they're they're battling this like well, you then you just have to be extremely highly productive in your hour. So that's why I'm separating out the hourly versus a salary because the the employer in that case is not willing to pay the the overtime wages often read that this 40 Hour Workweek and this idea of downtime being not a good thing. Right. So
 
Ian Binns 53:35
you think about like, the genius time or whatever, that or whatever it was that Google had, right, isn't it, you know, they that they didn't Google Earth, like the idea for Google Earth and the development of Google Earth? What came from someone having that? Like, didn't they have it as their job like 20% of the people's time was meant for them to just focus on thinking, yeah,
 
Zack Jackson 54:01
whatever. Certainly the work on certain engineers job. Yeah, they give freedom to they have like little play rooms, basically. Yeah, with little things to mess around with. And they encourage people to do that. And, yeah, but that's just for the engineers that are making things.
 
Ian Binns 54:16
Yeah, yeah. So when I was thinking, so this is I like that you mentioned that Rachel was still part of the job. So I guess for clarification, if there was a way that there that AI can help make some of the tasks of my job easier, right for me to then go in directions with my job in life that I couldn't have even imagined as a teacher. I would take that. Or just I know there could be some negatives there. Potentially, that that could be coming. But I would choose to initially focus on what are the things I could gain. Like that would give me the time to not have to worry about oh well. So When I'm recording this podcast, there are other things on my mind that I'm like, oh, man, I gotta get back to that someday, right? I would have to worry about that stuff. Right, I would have that time. And the things. So what I think about like within academia, so when we started this, the podcast idea, and we started running with it, and now we're doing it. And it's been almost two years, and I wouldn't trade for anything. And I'm not I'm not ready to leave it. I love doing this stuff. Right? One of the thoughts that had to go through my mind was is how do I write this down to make sure that my supervisors all the way up the chain in academia value it? And then you think about, so when you get new leadership, and they see that I'm writing on these areas that may not be as high research productivity? What does that mean? I don't care, because it's doing what I love to do. Right. And I still get to do the other things too. But that just means that now I'm adding more to my plate, which is fine. But I'm always thinking about when it comes to like, teachers. So there are ways you know, in this field of education, that could make it so that we could do some of those other things that people love to do that somehow to resolve the time or because of just exhaustion. Right? Yeah. So yeah, I think those are the things I would try out and just backing on my give that a shot, if it doesn't work, doesn't work, I try something different. So I don't think I would lose connection with the students. If I had some of those other tests that were a little bit easier for me to do at least less time consuming. Right, so that because I would use that time to plan for more different types of experiences in the classroom. When I'm thinking about class stuff, here are some different things that could potentially do in my classroom. Now, let me now got time to really plan it out. Let me run with it. That's how I would want to approach it. And it's funny while saying that the AI on my wrist was telling me, you look like you need to breathe right now. I guess my heart rate was going up.
 
Zack Jackson 57:06
I should think we we should all breathe, right? Yes, I know.
 
Ian Binns 57:09
But it says even a minute of deep breathing can be helpful. It's almost like a meditation reminder to meditate.
 
Rachael Jackson 57:17
Right? A reminder to to be, and I think we're at the point and perhaps perhaps it's just my limited imagination. And perhaps it's my limited vertical ability. I can't really see AI as like really intelligence. Right? Just really, I think I'm stuck in technology, and what that's doing. But I think and I hope that we have the ability to create things where where we are allowed to be human beings, not human doings. And that can be the focus. So however, we can get there, using the value systems that we have in places individuals or to whichever society and culture we ascribe of which many of us have overlapping ones, right, Amir for me, you know, feminist, and Jewish, and American and all that stuff, right, like overlapping, but what are what are my values they're in? And how can I use this technology in the AI to allow me to be a human being not just a human doing, and in that way, sort of living up to this idea that I myself, so there was a Zionist named a had her arm, which actually he changed his name, and it translates to one people. That's what that translates to, I had her um, he was writing in the late, late 19th, early 20th century, and he was defining the difference between sacred and profane. And that which is profane, is a means to an end. And when you get to the end, the object itself loses its meaning. And the sacred is that which the object itself can be used in lots of different ways to achieve many different ends and is, is by itself, by its nature, holy. And for me, that's what I want for the human being, not just the human doing, not that I am here, to do something, to do a job to do this, that and the other but to be and there and that being using the AI to create an imbue holiness in the self in whatever job we're in, whether that's in religion, whether that's an academia or any myriad of other fields that we've sort of, we've sort of touched on and when we're able to then bridge AI and religion in those ways we can see ourselves as holy that's, that's, that's my sort of my hero range. Bow in the sky hope
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 1:00:02
that what you're saying, Rachel, about bridging those those things is reminding me of. And this sort of ties back to a conversation earlier about religion and AI and like the funerals of robots and stuff like that. There was a late 19th century anthropologist, Eb Tyler, if you study religion, you probably know him. There's lots of like, problematic issues, we could talk about them. But the what he was writing about at that time was about animism, and had this idea that animism is like the original religion, and that it was also like a central characteristic of what he called a quote unquote, primitive religions. And so that's where we can like talk about, like colonialism and all that stuff. But the the idea of what he's talking about is that there is like this development of religion where you start out as being animistic, which, if you don't know, animism is like, basically put life or seeing that there's life or like a soul in inanimate objects or in things besides humans. So thinking that the river has a spirit, and the trees and the rocks have spirits. And so this is what Tyler's talking about. But it's interesting to me, because I, I was thinking, you know, even though someone like Tyler, or, you know, other anthropologists and people who would say like, oh, only primitive religions have animism or this idea of like, life and soul and inanimate objects, or like having these childish attachments to things. What we know or like, what, you know, if you study religion is that has nothing to do with like, this like line of progress, where like, the more advanced modernized religions don't have attachments, or don't have these ideas of life and spirit in nature or other inanimate objects. And I think like the prime, like piece of evidence for that right now in this conversation is that, you know, we can really be looking at the most, like technologically advanced places, and we're talking about how we, like throw a funeral or some other kind of celebration for our robot friend, and that it's just like this human impulse to relate to the world around us. And there's nothing that's like primitive about that, whether whether it's like animism in the traditional sense, or what we're talking about now, where we're relating to things in this new way, as technology changes. You know, our best friends are going to be robots one day, and it just is like, so interesting to see how humans are continually coming up with ways to relate to the world around us. So that's what I was thinking.
 
Zack Jackson 1:03:19
Yeah, it's the final words of, of the opportunity rover that struck a chord around the world that yes, you know, the opportunity rover, went for 15 years on Mars, way longer than it was supposed to the little rover that could, and then one final dust storm covered the, as far as we know, covered it up. And, you know, it's just sending telemetry data back and you know, just the battery's dying and whatnot. And somebody on Twitter, wrote, The last message they received was basically, My battery is low, and it's getting dark. And that phrase, then, like, went around the world. my battery's low, and it's getting dark. I've seen that tattooed on people. I've seen so many t shirts and mugs and like that little rover with its little solar panels, just alone on this distant cold planet. my battery's low and it's getting dark. Then there was like this worldwide morning for this little little rover guy. That will one day I'm sure be in a museum and those words I hope will be inscribed on it. So that we know that like this is a human connection. This isn't just a religion thing. This is a human connection.
 
Rachael Jackson 1:04:39
All the fields right the rest in peace
 
Zack Jackson 1:04:44
rest in peace which bot whose final we will
 
Rachael Jackson 1:04:49
find we will find your
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 1:04:52
your word
 
Zack Jackson 1:04:53
and avenge them. No, no, no hitch bought wouldn't want it that way. hitch Potts, fine. No tweets By the way, were August 1 2015. Oh dear, my body was damaged. But I live on with all of my friends.
 
Rachael Jackson 1:05:09
Sometimes that was funnier to me.
 
Zack Jackson 1:05:12
Sometimes bad things happen to good robots and then little bit later posted a picture of itself with its with its creators and said my trip must come to an end for now but my love for humans will never fade. Thank you friends.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 1:05:31
me getting love should fade. A little little buddy.
 
Zack Jackson 1:05:35
Oh, no hitch BOD is the best of us.
 
Ian Binns 1:05:41
Data Philly.
 
Zack Jackson 1:05:43
Well just wait a few years when hitch bought the white comes up and saves us all from the evil forces having battled the Balrog of Philadelphia
 
Rachael Jackson 1:05:57
to be controlled
 
Zack Jackson 1:05:58
to niche all right next time

The Pandemic Podcast with Dr Daniel Janies (One Year Later)

Episode 80
One year ago, way back in episode 30, Dr Daniel Janies spoke with us about the emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus and the resultant COVID-19 infections which were quickly spreading around the world. Now, as multiple vaccines are rolling out across the world and dangerous variants are nipping at their heels, we wanted to invite Dr Janies back to the show to talk about about the state of the pandemic, what to expect next, and what we can do to get back to normal. Should we be worried about the new variants? Are there other similar viruses waiting in the wings? What's so special about these vaccines? Will we ever beat COVID or is this just the new normal? Let's talk about it. 
 
----------------
Dr Daniel Janies is an American scientist who has made significant contributions in the field of evolutionary biology and on the development of tools for the study of evolution and spread of pathogens. He is The Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Bioinformatics and Genomics at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is involved with research for the United States Department of Defense, and has advised multiple instances of the government on methods for disease surveillance.
-------------------------
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Transcript 
This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. 
 
Zack Jackson 00:04
You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 00:15
Kendra Holt-Moore, PhD candidate at Boston University. And if I could be a scientist, I would be a quantum scientist
 
Rachael Jackson 00:25
Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel congregation Hendersonville, North Carolina. And if I were a scientist, I would choose to be a geneticist.
 
Zack Jackson 00:39
Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania, and for most of my life, I wanted to be an astrophysicist. So, we're gonna go with that one.
 
Ian Binns 00:49
Ian Binns Associate Professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And I could pick any science professional I probably would have been a paleontologist. Yeah, like dinosaurs. Okay, so today. In 2012, today's guest joined the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as the Carol gruffness. Belk distinguished professor of bioinformatics and genomics. He originated the field of mapping pathogen genetic data, in concert with geography and host animals. He was a tenured faculty member in the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University, where he served as national principal investigator in the Tree of Life program of NSF. He's advised the Obama White House depending on and testified to both houses of Congress. I'm very pleased to welcome back to our show, Dr. Dan Janis. So welcome back.
 
Dan Janies 01:42
Thanks very much.
 
Zack Jackson 01:44
Welcome back, Dan.
 
Ian Binns 01:45
I'm really proud of that.
 
Zack Jackson 01:49
Wherever very proud of you to be and Thanks, guys. Well, thanks for coming back, Dan.
 
Dan Janies 01:56
Oh, my pleasure.
 
Zack Jackson 01:57
The last time you were on, for those who are not longtime listeners was March 18 2020. Way back in Episode 30. Back at the beginning of this newfangled pandemic, where I don't even know if we were using that word quite yet. No one really knew in the public really what was going on. I feel like that was at the time when we were just talking about like two weeks of lockdown, to contain this to flatten the curve so that we can get back to normal. President Trump was talking about going back to church on Easter, which have, I am a pastor who just went back to in person church on Easter, he just got the wrong year. It took a couple extra months to get there. And a lot of what you said in that episode of sounded extraordinary at the time, but now seems commonplace. I remember asking you if What if this virus becomes airborne, and you said, Oh, it is airborne. I'm like, wait, what it is. And then sure enough, now, everyone basically agrees that it is airborne. We were debating back then about where it came from. And you said all those other things, those are just red herrings, it came from bats. And there we go. Now we know, you would predict that it was gonna we were still going to be talking about this in a year. And here we are a year later talking about it. So we're really happy to have you back on to help untangle a lot of where we are today. The state of things and what's coming up next. Well, great,
 
Dan Janies 03:38
great. Yeah, there's certainly been a number of chapters.
 
Zack Jackson 03:44
No kidding. This probably isn't how you imagined your 2020 was going to go when it started?
 
Dan Janies 03:51
Well, it there's something about it. I I've been through a few of these. And this one from the beginning felt very different. Just a matter of getting that through our heads. And it came through our heads at different periods of time, I think.
 
Ian Binns 04:05
Can we expand on that what you saw like this one?
 
Dan Janies 04:08
Look at 2009 h one n one, we all still traveled when I wasn't allowed to say stay home from work, communications people were worked with when they thought the business community wouldn't like it. And so we had to say, cover your call. That's about all we could say. And I went to China in 2009, you know? Oh, yeah.
 
Ian Binns 04:32
I think you also said in the last time we had you on the use of the word quarantine, that people were very careful in the use of that word as well.
 
Dan Janies 04:42
Yeah, we couldn't say that and they weren't going to close the schools. So we couldn't say social distance either. That was so euphemism if we were gonna say something, but yeah,
 
Ian Binns 04:53
yeah. So and now like the cats out of the bag. I mean, we use those phrases all the time. Now.
 
Dan Janies 05:00
Yes, yes, this one turned out very different. Do you
 
Rachael Jackson 05:02
feel a little bit like a prophet?
 
Dan Janies 05:05
No, um, it's easy to be wrong here too. I mean, some of us even talked about being guilty about not being noisier. You know what I mean? So I did testify to Congress. So I don't know how.
 
Zack Jackson 05:25
In many ways you do sound a lot like the Hebrew prophets.
 
Dan Janies 05:28
Yeah. So.
 
Zack Jackson 05:31
So this the state of things, as you see them right now, where would you place us now compared to last year,
 
Dan Janies 05:38
I think vaccines and the rate at which we produce them and their efficacy is a is a, just a triumph. I mean, that, that it has been amazing. And anybody who doubts, our ability to, you know, work together and come up with solutions and multiple solutions, in case one didn't work, should, you know, not have much to argue about anymore? It's just been tremendous. And now the rollout is, is it's been a challenge. But in the United States, we're doing a pretty good job, you know, remains a challenge. But we're doing better than other parts of the world. And there are parts of the world like Israel, they're doing better than us. So all this is work.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 06:25
I was reading something. Maybe yesterday or a couple days ago, that was just an article about was the phrase, something like hygiene, performed no hygiene theater, that's what it was. And that, like, what we know now about transmission being airborne, and that surfaces are not really that they don't play as much of a role as we thought they did a year ago, but that people continue to, like clean, like non stop surfaces, and that it, like, makes people feel good, but it's actually just this like hygiene theater like performativity. Um, it seems like, I don't know, it might just be where I am currently. But it seems like that's gonna be something kind of hard to let go of, because it is good to like, wash your hands and stuff like that. But yeah, how? I'm just curious. And this isn't just just have to be for Dan. But it is like mostly to that, Dan, I guess, like, how are we going to stop, like wasting money on cleaning protocols that we don't have to do? Is it a good idea to stop all of that? Is there something valuable in signaling? cleanliness is to me, it seems a little bit shallow, I guess. But I understand that there could be value in it. Like what what do you predict for the coming months? And like the next year?
 
Dan Janies 07:56
Yeah, well, you're doing you're doing a lot, you're just not stopping SARS, COVID to transmission with cleaning surfaces, scoby to the vast majority of it has been covered is airborne, transmission, respiratory droplets. But there are pathogens that are transferred on surfaces, bacterial pathogens, and so forth. So you know, like food hygiene is largely dependent on surface contamination, and so forth. So water contamination, so that's that you're gonna have better food hygiene, which is always a good thing. Yeah.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 08:26
Yeah. No, that that, that makes sense. But like, all the extra stuff, you know, like wiping down the like, desks or whatever, like, I guess there's value in that, like, kids maybe won't get us sick with other things. But I guess, part of what was interesting to me about that was that there's been so much money, especially when you're looking at different, like, public schools, or just other organizations that could be putting all that money into, like, air filters and stuff like that. But they're spending so much money on cleaning supplies, and there is like, obviously, you know, like what you're saying it that does help for a lot of other things. But it's just like, where do we like, find the balance of actually, if the priority right now is COVID? It makes sense to do more of the airborne precautions, but what about like, five years from now?
 
Dan Janies 09:19
Because, yeah, well, I think that's a great question. And it's probably matter is going to, like mass will probably become a matter of personal preference going forward. And schools are regulated. So that won't be preferred personal preference, but, you know, probably be, you know, find some reasonable balance going forward. But once we, you know, we're humans once we started doing something, it's, it's hard to reverse course, right. So, right, that human nature thing.
 
Rachael Jackson 09:43
Is there such a thing do you think, as too much usage of these things?
 
Dan Janies 09:49
I have not heard of that. But, uh, you know, if it's like anything if it's preoccupying you so you don't do other things or you're burning yourself. You know, like there are people wash their hands too much and not wreck their skin. And I think those things are.
 
Rachael Jackson 10:02
Right. Right, this idea of antibacterial right, that we're using all bacterial wipes for everything. Oh, are we just making stronger bugs?
 
Dan Janies 10:11
Yeah, I don't know, of any particular expertise on that, that. I think these, you know, antibacterial products certainly do provide some of the selective force that that I think that's demonstrated at the look of the paper that is driving antimicrobial resistance, but I'm just using intuition here, as probably nothing compared to overuse of antibiotics, which, you know, we use in our own bodies, and we use wantedly in agriculture, and that's just the concentrations being used in those settings is tremendous. So I think we got whoops, we'll come back to that, so much caring about over cleaning, but hopefully caring about other problems. And to shift gears a little bit here. Think of, you know, antibiotic resistance was was the, you know, the crisis that we've forgotten about cancer screenings haven't been done, you know, people haven't gotten their teeth cleaned. And so there's all this neglected maintenance and and refocusing we're gonna have to do.
 
Ian Binns 11:14
So what do you think of like, you were being that we kind of talked a little about, like classroom spaces and things like that. You remember back last spring, so a year ago, in conversations about what could the fall look like at so at our university, Danny and see Charlotte and like, even in lab spaces, or classroom spaces, you know, many classrooms may have, you know, access to like a, you know, a staplers or whatever that students could pass around or anything like that, that could be communal supplies. there was all this talk of well, we couldn't have that, you know, the concerns around we can't have communal supplies in your classrooms and stuff like that. Do you think, is that still a concern? I mean, because you know, our university is going to be back primarily face to face in the fall, most universities probably will be most schools are going that route as well. I mean, is that something that you think that teachers will have to clean the desk spaces and stuff like that in between classes and things like that? Yeah.
 
Dan Janies 12:08
I'll have some thoughts around. But, you know, bear in mind, like, I'm not authorized to speak about University operations by any means, right? I'm just these are just generic thoughts. I think we can be reasonable about it. I think people are gonna like, you know, more personal space, and having their own things. And I'd like to work in a clean environment. You know, I don't I bet the cases of SARS covi transcript Trent transfers based on shared staplers are almost non though, let's put it that right.
 
Rachael Jackson 12:43
So I wanted to go back to this vaccine question a little bit, if you may, may seem very, very optimistic, which I think is wonderful. Recognizing that, as a whole, our country is doing well. Right? On in some places, adequate, some places, some populations very poor. But as taken as a whole, we're doing well, right. Our my social commentary is that there's certainly issues in with racial justice surrounding that. But if we take the country as a whole, we're certainly doing better than than others, and certainly doing better than what we were doing. So when we look at vaccines, one of the things that we're facing now, and I was listening to an NPR story about this, was saying that very soon, we're going to have a surplus. But we're still not at a place where we're reaching this generalized herd immunity, whether or not that herd immunity is 75%, or 85%, or even 90%. We know that it's above 70. Like comfortably, we know that above 70, is where we need to go. And we're at 25%, looking at this question of having a surplus. And for me, part of what when I look at that part of the rash, the reason for that is are disparities in terms of equity. But then there's also a question of, there's a lot of people that just aren't going to take it. And what do you think as a scientist that we can do to encourage getting to that place? Well,
 
Dan Janies 14:31
I think several things and I think it's gonna be patchy. And that's the problem with with the herd immunity question is, surpluses are occurring in in some states already, because they've just exhausted the number of people willing to take the vaccine. They think, you know, with the let's just be honest with any medical intervention, there's a small risk of an adverse reaction. Some people have a psychology Do against needles, some people over psychology against distrust in medicine, and those are all things we're gonna have to work on. I think though the recent news about Johnson Johnson and more, most Previous to that asked her Astra Zeneca, vaccines, causing blood clots, is definitely concerning and will be followed up on by the full force of regulatory agencies. But bear in mind, your chances of having an adverse outcome to SARS COVID to infection are about 125 times more than having an adverse reaction to a vaccine. It's terrible for those people had those reactions, but it's something like six and six individuals and 7 million, you know, so it's terrible for all those people, and we got to do better. But you know, people don't have these emotional reactions to vaccine and medicine don't respond to those numbers. Right. So I just think it's a hard question. And I think it's a question of science literacy just for many things. And this speaks to the misinformation to which finds opportunity and in these, you know, in these areas where the vaccines have slightly failed, or where there's mistrust sewn already, I just think what we should just keep doing what we're doing in terms of nature of science, instruction sciences, and perfect vaccines aren't perfect, but they're better than nothing and way better than these ones are wildly good. Stars Coronavirus. Two vaccines are 90% effective, whereas we lived happily with influenza vaccines, you know, 3040 50% effective, you know, so if you're going out in the rain, take a raincoat, you know, it's like, to me, it's common sense, you
 
Zack Jackson 16:47
know, so that why is the are they recommending the vaccine the Johnson and Johnson vaccine be put on hold? When it seems like it seems safer than any of the the the medications you see advertised on TV with their litany of side effects afterwards? is just for PR and public confidence, or is that actually concerning? Well, it's,
 
Dan Janies 17:13
you know, all these, those ads don't have those disclaimers because they like them that's regulated, right. So the major concern is, of course, for all those individuals that are infected but there as if effected by an adverse reaction. But the erosion of public trust by a small event is worse in terms of continuing to give the virus new hosts by all the people who can't or because they're not eligible or because of underlying conditions or because they just have a emotional or psychological problem with taking a vaccine. And this speaks back to the herd immunity question and nobody can really calculate what that is and but that the best estimate, I heard of the best sort of way to explain it is 60%. Sounds good because if the are not the transmission rate of the virus is three and that that number is varied. That means for every person affected, you're affecting three others. If we immunize two of those potential new infections, we're taking them off the playing field off the table for SARS Coronavirus, two leaving only one so are not going to one. So every person infected only infects one more person. The virus spread is not growing. It's that sort of a steady state then and that. That doesn't sound great. I mean, I think Coronavirus is going to be with us like like influences with us. We've just will payment down to that low level transmission. But there always be new hosts. There's always going to be children. And hopefully we get the vaccines approved for children. But there's always newborns and there's always people who won't take it. And there's always the virus continuing to evolve which we've seen in influenza for decades.
 
Zack Jackson 19:03
So you think we are solidly on the path to this being a seasonal thing and not being eradicated? Like MERS
 
Dan Janies 19:11
Yeah, I I think early hope in some of the uncertainty around SARS COVID. To You know, this notion that it was different but we couldn't explain why was tied to MERS going first didn't really go extinct though. SARS, SARS one, but I mean SARS covi. did go extinct MERS. There were cases until 2018. People think of Huawei in 2015. But there were still cases until 2018. So MERS might be clinking around out there. But this Yeah. tsarskoe v2 is clearly different. I don't it didn't show any seasonality early in our behaviors drove drove more the transmission of the virus and our lack of vaccines or lack of any defense against it. And so we think of fluid seasonal, it may show some seasonality tsarskoe v2, but think of influenza h one n one that actually emerged in April where we're supposed to be coming out of flu season so.
 
Ian Binns 20:06
So with you said SARS COVID. One did go extinct, right?
 
Dan Janies 20:12
That lineage went extinct. This is the most important thing that
 
Ian Binns 20:15
won't happen.
 
Dan Janies 20:17
It emerged from bats. And
 
Ian Binns 20:19
I mean, why did that go extinct? That we have things against it? No,
 
Dan Janies 20:23
that's a great question. So I thought I ran out of hosts in the countries. We didn't experience it so much in the US, we don't think about it, but just good infection control. It was transmitting a lot between patient and healthcare workers. And in Toronto, for example, and they just they stopped, they were able to stomp it out. In Beijing, there was, you know, panic in the streets. I mean, there was nobody in the streets, so just shut down Beijing. And so early rent responses, I think, muted it quickly. But the point is, from an evolutionary perspective, all the cousins of stars go v1, one of which was MERS, one of which was SARS, go v2, there's probably I don't know the number, but there are multiples of these things clinking around in bats all the time. And what happened with tsarskoe v2 is one emerged that can that turned out to be incredibly transmissible and very well adapted to, to humans or human transmission, it continues to adapt through variants. Right. And that was a game changer. And well, you know, we're worried about source code v3 source code before, and anything else. I mean, we've not even paid attention to the rest of the, you know, virus fear for a long time. So that's what we got to start doing.
 
Rachael Jackson 21:37
Do you think that so you're you're indicating that this, this family lineage, SARS, and MERS, and SARS, COVID to originated from bats, and the second one has also the one that we're mo focuses focusing on SARS, COVID. Two came from bats and the back to human transmission. Do you think that there's my my question is twofold. Do you think that there are other completely different family lines that has nothing to do with us, rs covi that are coming from bats. And second part of that is, are there other animals that we also need to be thinking about that could have this potential transmission that were just that we haven't really focused on?
 
Dan Janies 22:28
Yeah, great question. So certainly, bats are the most important host for these severe medically important coronaviruses SARS MERS COVID. However, rodents have been the source of other coronaviruses animal to human transmission events have been recorded in the literature since the 60s. And they've been recorded in genomes since you know, the I would say, right after SARS, we started a sequence when I was at Ohio State that a lot of us agriculturally important coronaviruses. In fact, a lot of them do come from cows and in their cousins, camels since case immerse those coronaviruses In fact, in fact, people but they cause something, I can do a common cold. And so there was never a lot of medical concern about them. So
 
Rachael Jackson 23:21
medically, who cares?
 
Dan Janies 23:22
Yeah, yeah, it's a cold, you know, we call it a cold, or we call it influenza like illness that one of the soap boxes, I like to get honest, we don't really know what causes those things. They're one of 30 potential things could be a rhinovirus could be bacteria sometimes, and we never really diagnose the pathogen itself, like we have begun to do with source code to, to delineate it from influenza and so forth. I think that sort of personalized attack on the bug itself, rather than the symptoms is going to be wildly important now. And then we'll know more what oh, a backtrack to the animal sources of these things. So that's a great question and opens up an area of science I've been hoping to open up for a long time.
 
Rachael Jackson 24:06
How is Sorry, just sort of putting on this this other question? How is this for those that aren't super? well read myself included? In terms of what is the difference of I'll just use the bat, as example, right? Drag to human transmission, as opposed to some of these other diseases that we see as carriers, for example, malaria, in mosquitoes, or you used you said rodents and I, that immediately got me thinking, you know, the Black Death or the black plague is centuries ago, which was brought in by rodents, but it wasn't from rodents. It was, you know, the bugs on them. And then it got to us like what is how you talk to me like I'm five in terms of what does it mean to actually have this transmission to cross that barrier? And how is that different than these others? Sort of insect driven issues,
 
Dan Janies 25:03
it all matters, it's it comes down to the nature of the biology. So pathogens are just they're all just hitching a ride, right? So the bats are good at flying these things around and the bad immune system and this is a whole nother area to seems to be able to fight them off or run so hot, so to speak, that they don't get infected or, and I think they've even reduced their immune repertoire. So they're, they're just flying around happy with full of viruses. It's true. There's NEPA, Andra, don't handle that. Whatever you do. of cool. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Oh, it's biology. Don't go to lunch with biologists either. So, so that, you know, the back question is probably people going into caves and collecting guano, I guess it's valuable, maybe eating them. I've heard of bad consumption on around the world. And then let's switch to, you know, insect borne diseases, mosquitoes are worse than bats, right, they cause more death and destruction. And you know, now almost anything on earth in terms of malaria, and flaviviruses, Zika, and dengue and so forth. And the mosquito, the female mosquito essentially bites your friend, then take some of their blood, and your furry friend has the malaria parasite called Plasmodium in it, it's the genus Plasmodium, it's a, it's a little thing called an EP complexin parasite, then the, that female mosquito goes on to you, and bites you, and then injects that Plasmodium into you. And then you get malaria. Right. And in terms of bacterial pathogens, like plague, you know, living close to the rats, and I suppose, you know, historically, rats were getting into food stores, grain and so forth. And people were eating that, and getting infected. And then once it gets into people, you're handling the body and so forth. And all that goes back to all these hygiene issues. Bacteria are terrible, too.
 
Rachael Jackson 27:10
So we should really, you know, I know, this is not what you're saying. But, you know, part of one of the things that I could hear you saying is be vegan, and wear a mosquito suit all the time. Like, like, like if we want to protect ourselves from these things like that's,
 
Dan Janies 27:28
yeah. Oh, well. What's interesting about Malaria is we had it in the United States, we had yellow fever in the United States. And so we don't have to be personally hypersensitive or hyper sensitive to what's around us if we do reasonable public health, like control standing water, have screens, our windows, things like simple things like that, that lead to mosquito control. And, you know, this,
 
Rachael Jackson 27:57
they're the most horrible things. I I am a, you know, from a religious standpoint, and from a you know, perhaps a standpoint of you know, I believe that things have a place and there's Domino effects when you when there's extinctions, you know, we don't fully know understand the ramifications of things but I think the world would be better without mosquitoes. I'm just, I, I see only positives from that. I see nothing good from the mosquito. And I
 
Zack Jackson 28:32
how will we you know, Jurassic Park without mosquito I don't care.
 
Ian Binns 28:38
mean, I can become a paleontologist so
 
Rachael Jackson 28:40
much and I'm, yeah,
 
Zack Jackson 28:42
that's right. You just be a biologist at that point.
 
Rachael Jackson 28:44
And I'm one of those people that doesn't get like a cute little mosquito bite, you know, like, oh, it itches. It's like it becomes a welts and it just like my whole like, is awful. So is there any purpose to mosquitoes that that you could shed light on? No, you people have brought
 
Dan Janies 29:01
up what you have is you know, why don't we just extinct them? Yeah, there there are ways to do it. I don't think we'd be successful mosquitoes
 
Zack Jackson 29:10
were very good at exterior Yeah.
 
Dan Janies 29:13
We're going to extinct something Yeah. But But the people would argue that you're taking away the food source for other other organisms like our friends in the bats. Also our friends the fish. Oh, can't
 
Rachael Jackson 29:26
we just make more flies then?
 
Dan Janies 29:33
Yeah, yeah. I'm one would, one would say look at Australia, every animal transportation or eradication attempt is calling right.
 
Zack Jackson 29:49
So I want to ask a question about the the variance I keep hearing if you and a question born out of ignorance because I keep hearing these acronyms thrown around and these different variants of places from the UK from South Africa from Brazil, there was that one in what the Netherlands that was coming through mink. And we were all worried about that one. And I, I hear people saying, Oh, don't worry, the vaccines still seems to be fairly effective against it. But here in Pennsylvania, we have one of the highest, the highest rates of transmission right now. We are, I think, in the top three worst states right now for new cases, which is super exciting. Can you shed some light on the, on some of these variants on the development of them? What do you have your eye on? in particular?
 
Dan Janies 30:47
Yeah, sure. So when we had those, you know, spikes. In late 2020, early 2021, there were a lot of cases, and every time the virus is replicating itself, it will make mistakes, right, and a lot of those mistakes and mutations will produce viral lineages that are not as successful in transmitting themselves as their, you know, their cousins. But some well, and so UK variant, not only was different by, by by 15 mutations, but also started to become predominant in the UK. And those are the two kind of Harbinger's are indicators of a successful variant. Right. And what's interesting about the UK variant, though, is the vaccines are still pretty effective against it. It's the South Africa variant, which shares some of the same mutations as the UK variant, and especially the Brazilian variant that shows some ability to not be neutralized by the first by the antibodies produced in your body by the first versions of the vaccines. Okay. However, remember, these vaccines were 90% effective against what we call the wild type, the original source COVID. So they had some ground to give, and they're still certainly effective. The number of breakthrough cases were people who were beyond two weeks since their second Pfizer materna shot for example. I think in the United States, something like 5000 total, people have been infected. But that's a very small number against, you know, 40,000 in you know, successful injections, right. So they do occur. Nobody ever said these vaccines were perfect. They're slightly less perfect against variants. But we do have to be vigilant. I mean, there are stories out of Brazil that they thought not vaccination, because they've had a terrible rollout. But in the city of Manassas in the Amazon, they thought that they had herd immunity just because 60% of the people have had Coronavirus, just because of transmission. And the variant emerged. And you know, it's not going away. This is just SARS Coronavirus, two in evolution doing its job. And all those people got reinfected by the Brazilian variants. So there was Yeah, so it's just been ravaging in Brazil. And we don't want that here. And I'm not surprised the UK variant got around the border was open, you could fly to London and back, especially post Brexit, right? The interesting thing here is to where there are a few cases of Brazilian variant, but they've been all travel cases and stopped. In South Africa variant, they see it occurs here in South Carolina. In other states, I looked at the original data, and it's not very good. So I'm worried and vigilant.
 
Rachael Jackson 33:46
And what does that mean? I'm sorry, what is what is not very good mean?
 
Dan Janies 33:49
They sequence the virus, and it was an incomplete sequence. And some of the mutations were not characterized. They had Say, say these things are characterized on 15 mutations, they and eight of them that they called it is good enough. So
 
Rachael Jackson 34:04
okay, so so it's not it's not that, Oh, no, the data is showing bad. It's saying the data was bad, the data was complete.
 
Dan Janies 34:12
So I, you know, I'll take that back tomorrow, if the if more data comes out, and it's all good. But these things going to other, there's also domestic variants occurring too. There's a variant thing called a California variant, there was a Ohio or Midwest variant. And we're watching all of those vaccines vaccine seemed to continue to work against those even though they're transmitting a lot. So our domestic variants are not quite as worrisome as these originally foreign variants in all these things have overlap. So to call them a, you know, a unique entity is is is a little bit strange. They're they're nested sets of mutations, so to speak.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 34:56
I just wanted to follow up and ask Do we know Why the vaccines work against some of the variants and not others? Is that still just like totally mysterious to us? Or is there something that people are finding like this is why it's sort of effective.
 
Dan Janies 35:19
The key part of the spike protein that binds to yourself called the receptor binding domain. Those are sort of the business end of the virus, and the antibodies produced by the original vaccine against those are not as effective as against the new variants who have modified that receptor binding domain. So they're, they're those new variants are modifying their business and to get into your cells, even though you've been vaccinated.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 35:54
Okay, that makes sense. So it's just that some mutations are like closer, they're in the
 
Zack Jackson 35:59
right spot
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 36:01
than others.
 
Dan Janies 36:02
Yeah. And they're in the right spot, they've hit on Yeah. There's, there's one called e 44k, which seems to open up a lot of infectious territory for the virus, then there's one called en 501, y that does the same. And in some of these things have to happen in sets, like, one has changed to compensate for the loss of fitness, or the virus might work a little bad if it only had that one. But if it has to works even better, so it's a it's a complicated choreography that the virus does through evolution.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 36:41
Yeah, that makes sense. And then I guess, one more follow up, cuz I know, Rachel has question is, you know, if, if some of these variants are so different that the vaccines we have now aren't really doing it? Like, do you think that in the future, we will be able to formulate a vaccine that can cover all variants? Or are we going to end up with like multiple vaccines to cover different kinds of variants? And it'll just be like, extra shots every year?
 
Dan Janies 37:13
Yeah, there's a couple of questions there. So one is the first thing is the vaccines are good. They remain good and effective against most variants. The most important thing is even if you're reinfected, you have some immune protection. And the people who are reinfected the small fraction, they're reinfected are not going into the intensive care and are not dying. And so you may have a mild experience, rather than just being immune, I mean, immunologically naive, being re infected post inoculation, but you're not gonna die, right? I mean, you're not going to go to the hospital, we, so that that's the most important thing. And that's, that's the key message. So it's not game over with a variant. Yeah. But it's an ongoing game, right? And an ongoing struggle. And there's a couple of things going on, if we want to roll out, there's a window of opportunity to roll out more and more vaccinations before the virus continues to vary in a way that we can't combat. And then also back to the lab, right. studies are being done to reprint the vaccine, these vaccines are, especially the MMR and a vaccines, they're amazing. You basically just specify what kind of protein you're through what kind of mRNA you want to make, which is the instructions for your body to make the protein free reanna your antibodies to respond to. So they can just say, okay, we see you variant, we're printing you out, and we're going to put that in people now. You know. So that that's, that's just tremendous. I mean, we are, we are incrementally winning this arms race. If we do all things, right, if we prepare, and we do all our due diligence, and people listen.
 
Rachael Jackson 39:06
You can hear all of our cynicism, and that laugh.
 
Dan Janies 39:09
Yeah.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 39:11
It is really cool, though. And like really, you know, we
 
Dan Janies 39:13
are much better prepared than we were six months ago. It's amazing. And now, I mean, I'll, I'll go on for just a minute more. There's talk of preparing mRNA technologies against cancer, preparing mRNA technologies against all kinds of other infectious agents. So this, although as terrible as this was the technological spin off, could be tremendous. And, you know, vaccines and infectious disease were, were not a well funded enterprise for a long time. And now we've learned our lesson the hard way it was in the 70s. I think the, you know, least the American Medical enterprise said, you know, cancer is where it's at, and we think and Excess diseases pretty much whipped. And that's completely not true.
 
Ian Binns 40:04
So is it because of the mRNA technology? Is that what makes the these vaccines so effective? I mean, you talked about like, even Historically, the level the percentage, what 90 to 95% effective is just mind boggling compared to historically with vaccines, Is it because of that technology? Well,
 
Dan Janies 40:26
bear in mind the the dino virus, which is also a relatively newly employed technology to were also very effective. So much of, you know, Johnson Johnson was one shot at 76%, I think we had the advantage of, at the time fighting one variant, whereas with influenza, there's multiple circulating variants all the time, it's been around, you know, for a long time, where's this source code to was newly emergent, it looked like one thing at the time, the decisions were being made. Whereas influenza is basically a committee decision. And if, nowadays, we we design a vaccine against four of them. And it's a lot of guesswork, but this was not guesswork. We, you know, the MRIs were printed against the stars COVID, two that came out of Wuhan. And so, so now they're gonna have to print them against the one coming out of South Africa, the one coming out of
 
Zack Jackson 41:22
Britain, I should point out for those at home, who are not super familiar with the way that vaccines have worked, and you can feel free to correct me, because I'm sure I'll be wrong. But the way that flu vaccines have worked is, you know, basically you they try to figure out ahead of time, which ones are going to be the dominant strains, and they have to isolate those strains, and then breed those strains in isolation and breed a variant that is less deadly, and then kill it, and then put it into egg whites. Yes, right. And like, that whole process takes months and months and months and tons of eggs for some reason it I think people still don't realize how, in some ways primitive the technology is, whereas the mRNA vaccine contains the the information for your body to do the creating of the thing that it wants to have resistance against. And so we have the information about the spike protein at the end, we tell your arm muscle, make that spike spike protein, your immune system goes, What is this mess? We need to kill this and sleep and then a couple of weeks later, it's like it's back again. All right, now we really need to remember this. And then whenever it sees the spike protein, chillin on a Coronavirus. It goes and eats it up. Yeah. And there's no eggs that have to be used.
 
Dan Janies 42:53
Excellent. With it, the one caveat that cell cultures now use for a lot of influenza vaccine production. So but i would i would bet money that, you know, we see I'm already vaccines for from influenza, in the near future to and other other viruses. So,
 
Rachael Jackson 43:15
you know, from a genetic standpoint, is there I am really trying to understand why this technology took until now to be used. Right? There's there's I think there's sort of maybe, maybe a general misconception in the overall populace that you know, this mRNA it's brand new, and we've we've never seen it before. And it's it's this newfangled thing when it's, there's this woman, Caitlin carico. And I might be mispronouncing her name, I have only read it, but she's been doing this for 30 years. So what, why not just a why now, but why not? Then? Like, what what has changed in the genetics fields? What has changed in epidemiology that has said, Sure, let's try it now.
 
Dan Janies 44:10
I think the crisis, and you know, the business model wasn't there before and the crisis drove for there be a business model for a rapidly developed vaccine that was tunable. And we put enough money into it that we didn't bank on just one technology. So nobody, nobody said it's mRNA or nothing. They they also did a dino virus technology. And yeah,
 
Rachael Jackson 44:34
what have we done this 2030 years ago? Like, what if because you're saying one of the statements you just made was that there's a potential now that we've seen the efficacy and that we've poured money into it that we might transition from the influenza vaccine that we all know and love and hate. And take a button that went out there to this completely new way of understanding it? Why wouldn't we have done that 20 years ago.
 
Dan Janies 45:02
conservatism, I mean, getting getting things approved is is hard. You know, vaccines are, you know, I'm not an expert in this field. But I understand that it's not a great business does take a lot of government influence and incentives. There's this agency called BARDA, VA, er, da, that that their role is to protect the country by making government investments in pharmaceutical development such that we are prepared for this. And I imagine agencies like that will become ever more important than how we run the country.
 
Ian Binns 45:36
So can I ask you something, just for clarification with the fact that we are at the very beginning of this when we realize we need to develop and produce and distribute vaccines to beat this thing? Where the idea is already there? Well, before this of mRNA technology is the way we should go in the future? Or was this a we need all hands on deck, whatever technology you have you better to use it?
 
Dan Janies 46:01
Yeah, the ladder in this case, but this was, you know, hopefully 100 year flood. All these technologies existed on paper, or, or even in the case of adenovirus vector technology. It was used in the gene therapy field, and there was a death of a patient. And so it got taken off the shelf. Because then that was recently resurrected. And in terms of vaccines.
 
Ian Binns 46:29
Okay, but mRNA technology? I'm sorry, you may have said earlier, what else is was it used for prior to this? Because obviously, it's existed, but for medical treatments, is it been used for other things,
 
Dan Janies 46:41
I'm not aware of any, I could be wrong about that. But we use it every day to make you need to transcribe our DNA and the proteins
 
Zack Jackson 46:50
you're doing right now. So
 
Rachael Jackson 46:55
what we've sort of had sort of a roundtable q&a today, which I really appreciate that you've been able to be here for Daniel and allowed us to have this. We're limited by what we know. So are there things that you want to tell us and all those listening, things that we just didn't even know to ask?
 
Dan Janies 47:19
Yeah, um, please, you know, seek a vaccine, if you're able, and you're your physician, you know, the real regulate Shin allows you to, you're taking taking advantage of tremendous technology that's not going to only, you know, make your health better, but everybody around you, that's what's amazing, though, no vaccines. So I would like to see this starting to be part of in part of good citizenship. And something that we touched upon in prep that we haven't really gotten to is the threat of misinformation. So I think also, it's a matter of good citizenship, not to Ford wonky things, you know, he is free country, you can say whatever you want, but, you know, don't I would like people to care about their reputations online, and then maybe try to check multiple sources and or ask questions and, and not only we having this done to us by foreign adversaries who, for whatever reason, want to slow down our rollout or want to diminish the quality of our vaccine, or the perceived quality of our vaccine so they can sell theirs. We're doing the starting to do it to ourselves with shame. So we're starting to misinformed ourselves for whatever reason,
 
Ian Binns 48:37
what have been some of your biggest surprises. I know you talked about this a little bit earlier, but over the past year, like things have just really surprised you about your field scientific community in general. The public I mean, just Yes,
 
Dan Janies 48:54
I would say three things. How big search COBie two was, versus its predecessors, MERS and SARS GAVI to our lack of ability to see what was happening, and we saw it in China, and we didn't believe it. China and Italy, in not take it seriously. That American arrogance, or however you want to put it, which I hated to say wouldn't have said it in 2019. But the fact that this wasn't going to happen to us was just surprising. And then, how bad it was and how we thought we and how we couldn't hold the fort, right? We thought we were through this and people are impatient and they relax their behaviors. And now that we've been having that vaccines, people don't want to accept them and we have this window of opportunity. Now a real window of opportunity. That's not not even you know, terrible. You're not in here vaccine, you can see your grandkids you can you know, you can circulate you can Do all the fun things you want. It's and people are not accepting it. And so all this is a, it's gonna be an ongoing struggle, I
 
Zack Jackson 50:07
think on multiple fronts. What's your most optimistic projection for what 2021 will look like for the world?
 
Dan Janies 50:16
I think it's gonna matter every year, it's gonna be patchy, you know, I think your IRA economy's already recovering, I think through tremendous stimulus, I don't know how long that's gonna last. So I'm digressing into a different field here, but but we have the, you know, we have the tools to get out of this thing, we just need to bear down and use them, their place in the world where it's gonna be bad for a long time. And Brazil has a terrible rollout. You know, these places that bought vaccines from China and Russia, may get them may not get them. You know, they may work fine, but they can't produce in the numbers that need to be produced. You know, we we definitely could roll out some of our surplus once we get to that point to to other countries, and we shall, but that's gonna, that's going to take time. So I think we're going to be okay. I think there's going to be pockets of the world that are not going to be okay. For a very long time.
 
Ian Binns 51:13
Didn't how does that play in for us?
 
Dan Janies 51:15
Don't Don't count on traveling up. Yeah, enjoy go to the Grand Canyon or something. You're not going to you're not going to Asia? Or or you're not going to the Olympics. You're not going to Europe anytime soon. You can't
 
Ian Binns 51:30
feel like the impact of international travel. Yeah, it's gonna last for a long time.
 
51:36
Yeah. Like,
 
Ian Binns 51:36
I just feel like it's potential for that for several years. Yeah.
 
Zack Jackson 51:41
But I can go to a Phillies game this summer. Sure. If you want it. Yeah,
 
Dan Janies 51:50
I think we'll get back to normal domestic activities, including school in the fall,
 
Zack Jackson 51:56
including drunken karaoke and a smoky bar.
 
Dan Janies 52:00
Just don't, I said this podcast. I think individually packaged peanuts are going to be
 
Zack Jackson 52:12
Oh, you should already see the variety and individually packaged communion kits. Yeah, they have just in the past year exploded in variety, and flavors and shapes and sizes. And we're all about that individual packaging now. Thank you again, thanks for taking time to, to spend with us to answer our questions to help illuminate some of our pockets of ignorance. I hope that things will really rolled out as as well as you. You make them seem at least here. You are not very optimistic for the rest of the world. But I hope you're wrong about that. So I doubt you are you've been right about everything so far.
 
Dan Janies 53:04
Well, thanks for having me. It's really important work that you're doing. So thanks very much.
 
Ian Binns 53:08
Thank you

Elevating the Discourse with Elizabeth Fernandez (Podcaster and Science Writer)

Episode 79
In part 12 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Dr Elizabeth Fernandez. She is an astrophysicist, science communicator, and host of the SparkDialog podcast. Her podcast is on science and society, and tells the story of science in our lives, and the connection of science with things like religion, philosophy, history, culture, ethics, art, and the future. If you enjoy Down the Wormhole, you will definitely love SparkDialog. Check it out at www.sparkdialog.com or wherever you get your podcasts. 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Transcript 
This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. 
 
Zack Jackson 00:05
You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week we are exploring how that relationship gets worked out in real life with one of the current Sinai and Synapses, fellows, Sinai and Synapses is a two year fellowship committed to elevating the discourse surrounding religion and science and where the five of us first met. So without further ado, our guest today is an astrophysicist, science communicator and host of The Spark dialogue podcast. Her podcast is on science and society and tells the story of science in our lives and the connection of science with things like religion, philosophy, history, culture, ethics, art in the future, if you enjoy down the wormhole, and if you're listening, I hope you do. You will definitely love spark dialogue. So welcome to the podcast. Elizabeth Fernandez. Thank you very much. It's wonderful to have you here. We've been talking about both having you here for an interview and also doing crossover episodes for what feels like yours. So it's good to finally get to chat with you. It's also good to have a fellow science podcaster on the podcast. So maybe we could start out by telling the good folks at home a little bit about what spark dialogue is all about, like what made you want to start it? What keeps you going? What sorts of things are you doing on there?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 01:30
Yeah, sure. So I started spark dialogue about I guess, six years ago now. And so I have almost 100 episodes, I'm getting there quickly. And we talk about all different things in science and technology. But the thing that kind of sets us apart from a lot of the science podcasts is to see the connections of science with our everyday life. So a lot of times we talk about ethics or philosophy, talk about a religion a lot that we talk about history, art, culture, and all how all those things relate to science. And so basically, the idea is to, to show that science isn't just, you know, something that's being done in the lab somewhere. And it's something that is like it's affecting our lives every day, and affecting our lives in really interesting ways. And sort of making people think about those interesting connections between science and other different areas of their life that
 
Zack Jackson 02:28
might engage new people into the science conversation. And congratulations on almost being at 100 episodes. That is not easy. I thought it was a lot easier until I started a podcast and my goodness. Thank you just launched 93 was the last one which was
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 02:48
Yeah, that sounds right.
 
Zack Jackson 02:49
It's very interesting talk with john van sloten. about gratitude and COVID tide, which he was on our podcast as well. Those of you who may remember this somewhat scientific mistake patent Canadian pastor perpetual optimist, it's a it's a wonderful episode that you should listen to the most latest one, you've covered so many different types of topics in these 93 episodes. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty impressive how much of a generalist you're able to be for someone who is also a very much a specialist in in the world of astronomy, but you kind of have to be right if you're a science communicator in the public sphere.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 03:35
So and that's what's that's what's fun about it, that's, I love, you know, waking up in the morning and not knowing what I'm going to learn today, learning about new things every day, it's a lot of fun, as also allows me to make a lot of different connections between different fields, which like, you know, if you're, if you're a specialist really deep into your and that's what I used to be really deep into my own field, you don't really know what's going on a lot in other fields. And it's nice to be able to see the connections between different fields and and see what you can extrapolations you can make How do you kind of plan out what's next? There are tons of people doing really interesting research out there. And so I kind of just, I kind of look for the people and I look for what they're doing. Because they know, they know what's the interesting questions in their own field are. And so you know, I go to conferences, I read a lot a lot, and kind of seeking out the people who would be interesting to talk to, and then I talked to them and see what they're working on and see what excites them. And you know, most of these topics I went to been able to come up with on my own because I don't know everything. And these, these are the people that they're really smart in their field and, and there's a lot of people working on interdisciplinary work in their own way. And so that's I look for look for the people.
 
Zack Jackson 05:02
What do you think that we should be talking about in the public sphere that we're not really focusing on right now?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 05:11
That's a good question. I think a lot of things we are talking about to some extent, but we're not necessarily talking about it in a really broad sense. One of those that comes to mind is, of course, climate change. Everyone's talking about climate change. But a lot of times, it's a science question, or it's a policy question, which of course it is. But I think people don't realize how much of a moral question it is, how much of a spiritual or religious question it is. Climate change is really one of those areas that touches everything, every aspect of our life. And especially for people who are living on the other side of the world, who are in you know, places like Sub Saharan Africa, or Bangladesh, or the South Pacific, they're living with these issues. And for them, it's like, it's a cultural issue. It's a, it's an issue they live with every single day. And, you know, we as privileged people in the West don't necessarily always see that. Another one is just like, ethics and technology, like a lot of people are very excited, who work in the tech fields, they're very excited to develop the next up and coming tech, but there's not necessarily a lot of talk of the ethics behind it. And so there are a lot of people who do go and they say, Okay, what, what do we have to look with what we have to be concerned with, and they're trying to engage with the people who are developing tech to make sure that the tech that is developed is, is, to some degree, you know, safe is where we're thinking about issues that we should be thinking of, and how it, how it affects people culturally, how it affects, like, development of children, all sorts of things, like all things we should be
 
Zack Jackson 07:05
thinking, didn't Google just fire its ethics team for questioning Google's ethics?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 07:12
It is, it is a thorny issue, because a lot of people are afraid to bring up what the ethics may be if it's threatens making money. And you know, a lot of these companies, that's what their goal is, is to make money. And luckily, for us, there are people who are concerned with other things besides just how much is on their on their budget. But yeah, I mean, a lot of times these questions definitely come into conflict with with the bottom line.
 
Zack Jackson 07:42
So you've done a lot of interfaith work, as well as interdisciplinary work and international work. You're kind of an inter specialist. And when it comes to issues of technology, and of ethics, one of the questions that comes up sometimes is whose ethics who kind of gets to be the gatekeeper in determining what is and is not good in terms of the technology that we create the society we're making? Do you have any, any thoughts, any insights into that power dynamic moving forward? And
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 08:21
yeah, that definitely is one of the things that people think about because, you know, every world religion has a different set of ethics. But at the same time, there's a lot of overlap between religions. But that is a question that people have to take into account, especially like, let's say you're marketing a product in very different places, you're marketing a product in the Middle East, or in Europe, or the United States, or wherever. A lot of that will have to do with the local area that you're dealing with. So if you're planning on marketing, something in the Middle East, you should get people who are experts of what people actually think in the Middle East. But it is tricky, and that's, that's why it's important to have a lot of dialogue with people because it is it is one of those things that there are multiple opinions and it's not fact it's not like science and which which is a fact you have to you have to talk to people and that's why dialogue is important in instances like this, yeah.
 
Zack Jackson 09:31
So before you were masterful science communicator, you were an astrophysicist astronomer. I'm I'm I'm still not great with the the titles, but you did.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 09:47
As long as you don't call me. Don't call me an astrologer.
 
Zack Jackson 09:53
You were one of the match. I you looked at pretty stars in This guy with big telescopes, that's I'll go there. I know that much. Can you can you tell us a little bit about what that work looked like? What you were studying what you've you've worked on?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 10:14
Sure. I'm just gonna go back and say that one last sentence cuz I called myself in this or as long as you don't call me an astrologist, which isn't a word. Yeah, so I'll say it again. As long as you don't call me an astrologer. There you go. Yeah, so I've done, I've done a lot of different things. In astronomy, most of my work on telescopes have actually been telescopes in space. So like, for example, the Herschel Space Telescope is, is a lot like Hubble, except it looks in the infrared. And so I did a lot of my work with that. I've also been observing several places, some small, some small telescopes around the world. Also, I went to Mauna Kea in Hawaii and observed there, the Vla in New Mexico, that's a big array of radio dishes. For if you've seen the movie contact, that's that's where I was at. But actually, most of my work was actually theoretical. So I didn't always go out to the telescope at night, I was doing a lot of my work on computers making models and simulations of what the universe might be like. So my work is talking about our was my work was talking about what the first few generations of stars and galaxies in the universe would look like. And the thing is, when you're looking at stars that are forming many, many, many, billions of years ago, there's a big difference between what stars look like then and what stars look like now. And the main difference is because stars that are forming now, they have all different types of things in them. They have, of course, hydrogen, helium, but they also have elements like carbon, iron, silicon, all these types of things that we see around us. But all of those heavier elements beyond helium, and a little bit of lithium, were formed actually, in stars and in supernova explosions. So if you go back in time to before there were any stars, that means that first generation of stars would only have hydrogen and helium. So the question is, what were the stars? Like? How did that affect the first few generations of stars. And so I worked with a lot of different people to look at. I worked with a lot of different people to develop models of what we should expect these stars to look like. And I worked in the infrared. I also worked with people who are working with a large Radio Telescope Array in Europe, which is called low far, and that looks at the radio emission from the areas around the stars, and just sort of kind of piecing together the puzzle of what the stars might be like. And it's tricky, because they're really, really far away. You know, as, as your listeners probably know, the farther away you look, the farther back in time you're looking. So in order to see the first stars that are forming, of course, you have to look very, very, very far away. And the problem with this is that there's a lot of stuff in the way there's, there's stuff in our own solar system, there's foreground stars, there's foreground galaxies, there's lots of stuff in space, it doesn't, it's not just empty. And so you have to figure out, you have to model all of those different things, to subtract that to find this very, very, very faint signal that's coming from the first stars, many, many, many light years away.
 
Zack Jackson 13:47
So you're basically finding the signals that are finding empty spaces between stars and galaxies and whatnot that have traveled all the way from the beginning to us.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 14:01
So I was looking at the signal from the stars themselves, the signal from the galaxies themselves, and also the signal from the gas around the galaxies. And then and then is that answer your question? I'm not exactly sure if
 
Zack Jackson 14:18
the gap now you've got me in the way that, like, there are things in the way you can't look there or can't look through the sun to get to what's Far, far back. So like, if you're trying to look for, say, the cosmic microwave background radiation, I get that in the right order.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 14:43
Yes.
 
Zack Jackson 14:46
You basically have to look for the signals that are not being interrupted by the stars and planets and things that are in the way are there's radiation that's going through some of those things. To us, or like how do we how do we cancel out the things that are in the way to see that far back in time?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 15:08
Yeah, so that's very good question. And actually bringing up the cosmic microwave background is a really good analogy, because a lot of people are more familiar with that. So that's essentially exactly what we're looking at, except we're looking at the sky in the infrared. And this would. And so in order to see the stars that are forming, at the very beginning of the epic of stars, you do have to take into account everything in the way. And so it is, this light is going through dust, it's going through gas, it's going through galaxies that are too faint to see individually. So we have to figure out how many of these galaxies are out there. It's going through all sorts of stuff that we might not even know yet. And so that's part of the tricky part is trying to figure out well, is this light from the first stars? Or is it from something else that's closer to us that we just don't know, that we just don't see. And that's where the modeling comes in, is, that's why I was doing so much intensive modeling, to figure out, Okay, if these stars had these properties, what would this light look like? If it had this property? What would this light look like? And when you begin to combine a lot of different types of properties, a lot of different types of models with multiple types of observations, then you begin to narrow down what could potentially be from early stars and what could be potentially from something else? That's in the way. Wow.
 
Zack Jackson 16:38
feels a lot like archaeology. Scaring away all the dust and looking for the dinosaur bones underneath. That's this is exciting. What what what did the early universe look like? What did those early stars look like?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 16:57
So, in this area, there's still a lot of unknowns. And that's sort of what we're trying to piece together is like, how big the stars were? How they ended their lives. So you know, in our local universe, we see stars explode in supernovas. Did this this happen? If like, let's say these first stars were really, really huge. Then there are all sorts of questions like, Where did the supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies come from? That's a really good question. Where, how did how do galaxies form in the first place? Like did did? Did we form galaxies first? And then these clumps of gas form stars? Or did the stars kind of congregate together? First, and then form galaxies? What kind of over the galaxies? like are they? Are they really small? Or were they were they bigger? Like all of these different types of questions we can ask? And yeah, that's, that's what's what's so tricky. There's, there's so many different things that we you can look at so many variables you can change. And it's a, it's like a laboratory that's, we can't see today we can we can look at our universe today and kind of make some guesses. But there are so many things that are different about the early universe that we just don't know.
 
Zack Jackson 18:23
Yeah, and I mean, like you said, this is evolving so quickly and changing so quickly. And there's so many new, I imagine that things like advances in computing power, is helping to advance this and new new telescopes on Earth and in space. Is there a particular telescope that is in the works that you're super excited about?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 18:48
There's a lot of them. Of course, a lot of people probably heard JW st, which is sort of the successor to Hubble. And that should be able to see quite, it'll make it'll make the pictures from Hubble look, dated. And we should be able to see quite far back in time as well with this JW S T. And then there's lots of things being done. Probably people haven't heard as much about what's being done in the radio or in the submillimetre range. And there's lots of great telescopes all around the world, all different types of arrays, that can also look back in time. And then if you really want to go out there, you could look at the gravitational wave telescopes and gravitational telescopes, they can see even farther back then, than lights. And is this technology that still has a long way to go, but when we be we could be able to see even farther back than the cosmic microwave background, then we could figure out what our really infinite universe was like
 
Zack Jackson 19:49
we could see further back than that.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 19:53
With a gravitation Oh my goodness. You can you can look even farther back. Yeah, that that is technology that is still alive. Anyway, but you know, within nano within 100 years, maybe Wow.
 
Zack Jackson 20:07
Wow. Okay. So you think within a couple of generations, we could get frighteningly close to being able to see the beginning of the universe. Now, not like the actual beginning, beginning, but like very close to the beginning, because we're already able to see pretty close to the beginning, right?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 20:27
So yeah, the as far back, as we can see, with the cosmic microwave background, that's as far back we can see with light, that's when the universe was a baby, but it was still 400,000 years old, around 400,000 years old. So that's a lot of time that we don't have information from as far as observations, we have a lot of theoretical ideas. But as far as observations, we don't have any direct observations from before then. And so that's where gravitational waves might come in.
 
Zack Jackson 20:57
Wow, I guess you're right, that the ones the the telescopes, and all that are dealing in wavelengths and, and whatnot that are not visual are not as appealing to the general public, because they don't end up on the astronomy picture of the day website, like the way that the Hubble ones do?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 21:17
Well, the, the issue with the cosmic microwave background is, before the cosmic microwave background, the universe was actually opaque. It was so dense that photons couldn't travel freely to us. There, it's like a, it's like a big photon soup, where photons are just bouncing off each other. And so light that's coming from before then can't reach us, because there are so many photons in the way that it will bounce off another photon before it gets to us. And it's only the only reason we can see the cosmic microwave background is that's the instant when the universe became less dense enough that photons were able to stream to us directly from that surface. Wow. So that's why we can't see before then, because the universe is so dense that not even light could really get anywhere. Without bouncing.
 
Zack Jackson 22:20
You're blowing my mind. Thanks a lot. It's just amazing to think about being able to look that far in the past. And like when you're saying that light couldn't reach us back then I think to myself, well weren't, weren't we in it back then. But now we're out. But we are seeing the back and the end when it was in the
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 22:53
Yeah, that's that's the that's the thing, when you come this to astronomy is you you can't think of of you have to think of time is another dimension, essentially, where we're far into the future, which is far away timewise. From what we're seeing, so time is, is you could think of it as a dimension. When you when you think about these problems. Yeah.
 
Zack Jackson 23:16
As many times as I've read about and heard explained, the expansion of the universe, it all still sounds like magic. So in your studying of the stars, the earliest stars, the beginnings of the universe, has your particular faith, spirituality, religion, whatever it may be for you. Has has, have you found any insights from from the work that you've done scientifically?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 23:51
Yeah, I have quite a bit. So it's, I think the biggest one for me, is looking at the sheer size of the universe. And when you really get to learning about how big the universe is, and how detailed it is, and how long it was around before humans even existed, it, it The scale is literally something we just can't comprehend. Our little brains just can't comprehend it. And that's also true when you look at the complexity of physics, like when you see how complex physics is. You see how complex sciences, it's just amazing. And the universe didn't have to be that complex. For us to exist, the universe science doesn't have to be that complex for us to exist. As far as as far as from the point of view of God, let's say. So the fact that it is what does that tell us about God tells us maybe he has a lot of time on his hands. But it also is kind of neat because for me, it's like It, it's it's a way that I kind of look at it for people like me, God is giving a big puzzle to, like, how does it all work? How does it all fit together? And I think that part of it is, he just likes to give us something amazingly complex to ponder and to view. And of course, when you create something that's complex, that means the person who is creating it has to be even more complex than the person, the thing that's being created. And so that tells you how complex God is. So for me, that's sort of the insight I get from it. That's at least one.
 
Zack Jackson 25:41
If you don't mind, what what is your religious background?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 25:46
Yeah, so I'm a Catholic. And growing up, right, being raised as a Catholic, we were very pro science. I don't know how many people know this. But the the person who came up with the idea of the Big Bang, George lamotta, he was a Jesuit priest. And so there's a lot of very pro science sentiments in the Catholic Church, and this is one of the one of the areas that it shows up. I mean, we have the Vatican Observatory in Rome, that's doing a lot of great science work. And there's a lot of a lot of priests who are astronomers, there's a lot of astronomers who work with priests and the other way around. So it's, there's a lot of conversation between the astronomy field and religious field.
 
Zack Jackson 26:37
We've gotten multiple messages from people on the podcast, saying, we really appreciate your, your thoughts and your insights, but you need more Catholics. There's no Catholic perspective on your podcast. And I'll always say the same thing. Like, yeah, I know. Right. And the Catholics have done such good work, how many bodies heavenly bodies are named after Jesuits. We often just think like, at least we in the Protestant world will be like, well, Catholics. Galileo, they hate science.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 27:16
Yeah, it's, it's, that was a long time ago. It's, it's, it's a, it's a misunderstanding, you know. But for I mean, in general, like growing up as a Catholic, we're very pro science. So, you know, I've been very encouraged in my love of science. And that's great.
 
Zack Jackson 27:36
You said a little bit about how your scientific work has helped to illuminate your spirituality a little bit? Are there are the ways where you see it going the other way where your faith or religion or spirituality affects the way that you do science?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 27:55
I've never been asked that question before. I think one of the biggest ways is, like we talked a bit before about the ethics. Now, astronomy and ethics, there's not a lot necessarily of overlap. But in the other areas that I've looked at, as far as like, looking at AI, looking at, like I mentioned before climate change, looking at to science in our everyday lives, medicine, that, that I think there's a lot more crossover there. As far as my, my faith affecting that. And as far as, as far as just doing science in general, particularly astronomy, I think that my philosophy and my faith sort of shows me that to be humble, in what I know. And this is a big thing, when you're looking when you're making models of the early universe, where, you know, you could have your favorite model, but chances are, it's wrong. And and sort of to be humble in that and to see okay, where could I have gone wrong? Where could I What can I change? How am I not seeing the whole picture? How am I? What kind of things could I think of, so it sort of brings a sense of humbleness, it's brings a sense of more maybe creativity in a way that that if I just was doing the science by itself and not thinking of, you know, just trying to get an answer. You know, I might not be having open of a mind to particular particularly different ideas or ways to approach the problem.
 
Zack Jackson 29:46
That is a very good insight. So, on a completely different note. You are a fellow lover of unusual musical instruments, correct? Yes, yes. Tell me about your favorites.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 30:02
The one I'm learning now, since the pandemic has started, I have acquired a hammer dulcimer. Oh, hammer dulcimer. Yes. It's something I've wanted to learn for about a decade. And so I am very slowly learning it. I wish it was a little bit faster. But unfortunately, I thought it would have a lot of time with a pandemic started. But having small children at home, you don't really have a lot of time during a pandemic. But at least I have one now, and and I get to play it. And I do know a couple songs. And that's been a lot of fun. But yeah, I like lots of I like collecting lots of different musical instruments. One of my favorite memories from my college days was going to somebody's house for Thanksgiving. And they had just a big basket of musical instruments, all sorts of things like thumb organs and, and Morocco's and, you know, things that are easy to play, but she just passed it out of one take an instrument and everyone just made music together. And so a lot of times I collect little things like that. I have, like a steel drum. I have the Morgans, I have a Irish pennywhistle things that are easy to play, and, you know, just just to have that love of music around, just to have people playing. That's great.
 
Zack Jackson 31:25
Yeah, I love it. I got a I'm a mountain dulcimer. That was okay. It's made by a company called seagull and it's built like a guitar so you can play it standing up. And I I needed a slide guitar for a song that I was working on. But I don't have a like a dough bro. Like a slide guitar. So I discovered that if I use my mountain dulcimer, and socket from a socket wrench on my finger, that I can turn that into a pretty convincing sounding slide guitar. It is always useful for random instruments around your house. I love it. Yes.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 32:07
Yes. Also, I also play guitar and I play piano as well. Those are a little bit less than less exotic instruments.
 
Zack Jackson 32:15
A little bit more versatile.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 32:18
Yes, yes. People don't ask you what is that strange thing that you're playing?
 
Zack Jackson 32:22
What do you have a an instrument that you just want you love you just want to get one day if you are given some large amount of money.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 32:33
Well, that's my hammer dulcimer. I've been wanting to play that for about a decade. And now I have a I have a small one. But I have one on my wish list that is multiple 1000s of dollars in one day, one day, hopefully I will own that one too. Once I'm a little bit better. I mean, you can justify it and have a little bit more spare money. podcasting doesn't make a lot of money, unfortunately. So
 
Zack Jackson 32:56
no.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 32:59
No, it's a bummer.
 
Zack Jackson 33:00
This is my retirement plan. I reconsider. Well, if you ever come across as a hurdy gurdy, let me know if you've seen these old medieval instruments with a crank.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 33:16
I I've seen them in Europe before fabulous. Yeah.
 
Zack Jackson 33:22
So what what made you want to apply for the for the Sinai and Synapses fellowship? What what drew drew you to it? How'd you find out about it?
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 33:33
Rabbi Jeff was actually on my podcast. A while ago, I talked to him about the Jewish perspective of evolution. Believe I was right. And, and so I, you know, one of the areas I look at is the area of overlap between science and religion, and a lot of different ways, different different religions to not just Catholic or not just Christianity, but also all different religions approach science and what that overlap is. And so when I found out about that fellowship, it just seemed like a natural fits, but also a really good opportunity to meet other people who are working on this. Because, you know, unless unless you really look, it's kind of hard to find people sometimes, you know, we're not, we're not a very vocal crowd, or I mean, I'm hoping to change that. But and many people are hoping to change that. But you know, people, they, they hear a lot about the conflict between science and religion, and they miss the fact that there are so many people who are working in science and religion, but not necessarily on the fact that are they compatible, which is which is an important question. But there's so much more to the dialogue than that. There's, there's a lot of really rich discussion we can have if we begin to step away from you know, just the sheer fact are they compatible to you know, what we can actually learn what we can actually Come up with together when we just have discussions.
 
Zack Jackson 35:02
Yeah. It's why the work that you're doing is so important. This is the reason why we started this podcast was because we were like, this is such important work. And all of us in this fellowship, the first day that we met together, we realized, we all feel alone in our context, but we're not. We're just, we just don't have a common group to rally around. Uh, I don't know what what it is. So we thought podcasting is a good way to get the word out there. It's accessible. It's easy. And we found that to be true with so many people who have joined the community as well, that actually the last review that we got on iTunes said, I'm not the only one. And it was like, Yeah, no, you're not. There's a, there's a whole lot of us out here, despite the fact that there's only like three podcasts on Apple that are about this. There are so many of us. And I think the work of translating the work coming from the ivory tower into like, applicable practical and practical conversations is so important. Yes, and you do have a knack for, for doing that for communicating all of these really complicated topics that are so vastly diverse, in in really easy to understand ways. I do enjoy your podcast a lot. Thank you. So at the end of our conversation here, then I want to ask you the question that I've asked everyone so far, which is, what is one thing that you wish everyone knew about the world? Yes, I've
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 36:45
been, I've been thinking about this preparing myself.
 
Zack Jackson 36:50
I love that you did your homework.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 36:56
You know, you can look at this in a scientific way. And you could look at this in a non scientific way. But for me, I think that it's important. That's when we look at each other. We look at people around the world, we look at people in our community, who on the surface look very different from us, or who seemed very different than us. We're actually not that different. When you look at evolution, you see how, how much work we have in common, how much debt different communities of people are basically the same. When you're going through something that you just feel like I'm the only person in the world that is suffering through this. And then you're not, you're just there are so many people who know exactly what you're feeling, or who have been there before. Even with cultures that are different, like when I did a lot of interfaith work, and people have these, these still very pervasive biases against people of different religions. And when you really look at it, we're there are some differences. But a lot of those differences are on the surface, when it comes down to it deep down. We're all real, pretty the same. We all we're all we all go through the same problems, we all feel the same things. And if people realize that, I think you know, there wouldn't be any problems in the world.
 
Zack Jackson 38:19
Love it. Thank you for that. Thank you for spending this time to come on here and and talk with us. For all of you at home. Her podcast is spark dialogue. It's one word, SP a rk DIAL l o g. And that's available wherever you get your podcasts as well as spark dialogue, calm if you'd like to learn more about what she does and what she has done and what she cares about and all of the good things that she's doing.
 
Elizabeth Fernandez 38:52
Well, thank you very much for inviting me.
 
Zack Jackson 38:53
Absolutely. My pleasure.

Artificial Intelligence Part 3 (My Robot Teacher)

Episode 78
In Part 3 of our AI miniseries, we explore the new reality of digital learning. Computers, video, and algorithmic teaching aids are here to stay, so how can we make sure that they are used to help everyone, not just further the education gap? What exciting possibilities await for individual thriving? What hidden dangers lurk beneath the surface of our shiny new tech? Can gamification help you finally finish writing that book you've been meaning to write? Let's find out! 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. 
 
Zack Jackson 00:05
You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion. This week our hosts are
 
Rachael Jackson 00:15
Rabbi Rachael Jackson, Rabbi at Agoudas, Israel congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And if I had a robot do any chore, it would be cleaning up my child's bathroom.
 
Ian Binns 00:30
Ian Binns, associate professor of elementary science education at UNC Charlotte. And if I had to have a robot replace any chore, probably cleaning the showers.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 00:45
Kendra Holt-Moore, PhD student at Boston University. And if I could have a robot, do my chores, I would definitely have a kitchen robot to do mostly dishes. And like, if they could cook, that would also be great. Just like kitchen in general, cover everything.
 
Zack Jackson 01:08
Zack Jackson UCC pastor in Reading, Pennsylvania, and I would get a robotic lawnmower, which is a real thing that actually exists, like a Roomba for your yard. And knowing myself, I'd probably get bored with it, and then modify it and try to turn it into a battle bot.
 
Ian Binns 01:32
That's very cool.
 
01:34
So, uh,
 
Ian Binns 01:36
today, we're going to talk about AI and education. And then let that go where it goes. Because as I said, yesterday, we're all educators in some form or fashion. So I thought it'd be kind of interesting to see what some people's take is on AI and education. And while looking for things to share with you. on just a couple things to read, I realized that I was being very picky, and not wanting to select things that were written prior to the start of the pandemic. Because I feel like things would be very different. I think I may have found one or two that were, but I was very surprised by some of the things that we found about AI and education that were written in October of last year. So in the heart of the pandemic, and teachers teaching from home or from school with students not in the classroom. So kind of wanted to just briefly talk about technology, in education and AI and how my experiences especially as a science educator with technology, in AI and in education, that and then obviously, please jump in as usual. One of the things that I've noticed with throughout my career with technology education is why I actually pulled away from doing research on technology is because of how fast the technology changes and rolls out that the ability to determine its effectiveness in a classroom takes significantly longer than the newest tool. Right. So. So I purposely pulled away from the technology because it just got to be too much too quickly. And, and not as well versed in the use of something simple like your iPhone, or smartphone as as others. And now I find myself getting excited every time I see a new app thinking Oh, yeah, let me use that. But then wondering, will it actually work or not? And so when you actually look up to see what are other educators, saying, you'd still have those two camps, ones who embrace it immediately. And then the others who are very hesitant, and then you may even have some who say no, don't use it at all. And so a few things I shared that I wanted to bring up is something from was at the Brookings Institute shared something about why we need to rethink education, artificial intelligence age, but actually we pull up something different real quick, sorry, is from this past October, written by a contributor for Forbes magazine, and his he's called the AI guy. And when talking about AI in education, this is the one where I said you may need the bleeper back because he referred to classrooms as the pedagogical Dark Ages, which made me really excited. And then he says, of all the areas of life where Intel artificial intelligence will have an impact, the biggest might well being education. This is because learning is so important. And also because current provision often leaves a lot to be desired. This is not generally the fault of teachers, which definitely aren't a big cue. There's one belief they are the active ingredient in today's education system, but they are expensive and not scalable, that are the second you. So in most countries, they're undervalued and burdened by absurd paperwork. They're also human, which means they are They are variable. Think back to your own school days, how many of your teachers were positively inspirational, as many as 10%? How many were unacceptable, that probably leaves the large majority, somewhere between okay and mediocre. One of the tragedies of modern education is that constructive feedback for teachers is rarely given or sought, there was the third view. So this is clearly someone who believes that AI will save the world of education at least. And, sorry, I'm gonna keep going on my tangents because this one really pissed
 
Rachael Jackson 05:37
me got under your skin. Whatever.
 
Ian Binns 05:39
They did it, I read it, the kids were sitting there watching cartoons last night while reading this, and I was looking at and I just kept mouthing it. And saying, I did say, very loudly, you know what, I really wish I could call them up and say, you know, what, why don't you come try? do this work, jackass. And John's goes to what is jack asked me
 
06:03
a teachable moment. Anyway, he
 
Ian Binns 06:04
does have a few few good things to share, like the idea of this whole notion of flipped classrooms where students get a watch, like the this is more for college, I believe, but you know, watching the lecture ahead of time, and then doing more work inside the class, hands on type work, and those things are good. You know, I like that. He talks a lot about online learning, which again, this was written in and October, right. So he was a little bit of critique about online learning, and then talked about those who are who are positioned to do it best. Which were already those companies and organizations who have the infrastructure there for it. But I think, you know, instead of me continuously go on my soapbox here, one of the things I'm just curious about is, you know, and others even refer to remote learning as a major challenge is how is it we could see AI being a positive force for things like education.
 
Rachael Jackson 06:59
So I can jump in here with two perspectives. One, that and I appreciate you saying that we're all educators. Because sometimes I, I teach a lot, but sometimes I forget to see myself in that role, or with that, that titling. So I do a lot of teaching. So that's one lens that I'm using, but also I have a child in first grade, and in public school. And so that's another place where I'm seeing it, which are two completely different educational worlds, frankly, in this way, when you're talking AI, specifically as separate from technology, it sounds like, how are you? Right? Because technology might just be like, right now, we are all, excuse me, goodness. We are all on a computer using a microphone, and a particular website. None of these things I would classify as a AI specifically, but as technology because it's not an artificial intelligence. I mean, someone certainly had to create these things. But it's not it is not dynamic. It's really these tools that we're using are very passive. And for me that passivity lends it to be a technology piece, rather than rather than an AI piece. So I think that in education we need to use and can use technology, way better than we are now. Right, that that I believe, how AI can be done. I really see that in terms of I don't want to use the word testing, assessing, though, right? How is this for you? Right? Is this fun for you? and using that, using those skills that AI can provide to react and learn from the user input? To say, Okay, this is where I think we're at, and they can be done in any way. I'm not saying that this needs to be a standardized test. But in a, let's play a game, and where is this game going to go, we can look at what strategy you can provide, or that can then be used in these quiet times, especially from a public school standpoint, where, from my perspective, both when I was a child, you know, 30 some years ago, and now it I, I would never want that job. Frankly, it just looks too hard, especially in elementary school, but it seems like that the teachers have to teach to the middle or the bottom third,
 
Ian Binns 09:38
at times it can,
 
Rachael Jackson 09:40
especially at these lower grades where there's a big there can be a big emotional difference in the lower grades. And so, from an educational standpoint, great so everyone has the free time. That can be the okay let's use AI as an individual so that the teacher can then work with the individuals or teach the whole class the concepts and then The individual can run with it using AI plus technology is how is one of those ways that I see that being used in public school and really elementary sized, or elementary aged? Sorry, I'm not being very clear today. So that's, that's my gut reaction. And I think that the person that wrote that article probably hasn't spent a lot of time in the classroom, and doesn't have a whole lot of passion. And one of the things that I want, I wanted to add to this sort of in, not in commiseration, but in just as another statement, I was teaching on Wednesday, and I was teaching something and I teach teachers, right, there's, there's, I've got a lot of retirees in my congregation, and one of them happens to be a former physics, high school teacher. And I was talking about my son and his teacher, and this person said, at the upper grades, the idea is to teach curriculum. And at the lower grades, the idea is to teach the person and that it's really flip flopped, that the teacher in the first grade teacher really has to change and adapt depending on who's in front of them. Whereas the older, right, the older grades, right, high school and stuff, don't change their curriculum that much depending on who's in front of them. And they'd still have to have the compassion and the empathy and some of the social work and all of that stuff that goes along with being a teacher. But the curriculum itself is the focus as opposed to the child itself being the focus or themselves being the focus. So just want to acknowledge that there's when we talk about education, I don't think we can lump it all together. Even when we talk about public schools, we can't lump first graders and 12th graders together, we just we can't they they learn differently. And the focus is different. Right? That's, that's my nonsense rambling?
 
Ian Binns 12:03
Well, I think one thing too, that it's interesting, we're recording this during the pandemic, while still, you know, online learning is still going on in most places. Yeah. You know, schools are now transitioning more, or trying to transition in some places to, you know, four days Face Face one day synchronous or something along those lines. But, you know, there, it's been an interesting as an educator, and as a parent, to hear some of the concerns that my friends or parents have brought up over this past year of, you know, complaints and everything. And even though I know that at times, I sound negative around online learning, I think online learning has a place, if the people who are doing it are trained in how to do it, you know, there's a huge difference. And so I would hate for the past year, to influence any future major decisions around all my learning, because online learning is here, it's been here, like we do it at that higher ed level, and do it do it very well. And there are places for it. And there are great tools that can be used within the science classroom, for example, that make activities and investigations vastly different than they were even when I was coming up. And when I was teaching in high school classroom. So I would, I would absolutely hate it if people ever made the decision of, we can't do online learning, because look how bad it was, during that
 
Rachael Jackson 13:22
look at the crisis crisis and say we'd like come through with stellar colors. When none of us are trained. Therefore, we should make this decision. It's more
 
Ian Binns 13:32
of a let's see what it is we need to do to prepare the teaching force in the future teachers on how to do a better job of using this type of technology, which is very powerful, but then also how to teach our children. So one of the things I tried to do my my classes to help them better understand how to do coding, right. And so there's some great resources out there they can use to then teach children coding, but I can only touch it, like just the tip of it. Because I don't have the expertise to do a whole class on coding, for example. Right, but But anyway, you know, we're talking a lot about how this type of technology and AI can replace things. And so I'm just curious of other thought I just wanted
 
Zack Jackson 14:11
to mention, for
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 14:15
if I can go first because I just want to like kind of respond to something that Rachel said, I think that the point about the distinction between technology and AI is something I was thinking about too, as Ian was talking in the beginning, and and I think that for people who group those things together, like think of AI, or just when people think of AI they think of technology in general. I think the very real fears of this last year is that you know, as much as AI and technology in general can be like an extra step of engagement and stimulation for students to really just like love and immerse themselves in learning. It can also be an extra hindrance and like reason to detach yourself from learning. And I think we just haven't figured out how to actually use it in such a way that it is a tool rather than an obstacle. And I think this last year, and this is, you know, what we were talking about right now is that no one was really trained. And so and the expectation is not just about teachers, it's also about students. And, you know, you have to be trained, and you have to have, like, you have a responsibility as a student as well, when you come into a classroom, whether that's virtual, or in the classroom, and I think a lot of teachers, and I'm just speaking from, like, people I know, who have been in the virtual classroom this last year, who have told stories about how, you know, like, these are people who are great teachers, and, you know, know what they want to communicate to students. But we'll say that when they go into their zoom classroom, everyone has their camera off. And so it's like, you're just kind of speaking into the void. There's no participation. And, you know, I think this is, there's probably, like a lot of people who could be like nodding their head to that right now, because it's, it has just been really common of this last year, with zoom fatigue, and all of that. And so I think it's really easy. Like, even for me, I I, as Rachel was saying, I also like separate the technology from the AI. But even looking at this last year, I'm like, let's just go back to the old days, the traditional classroom, keep technology out.
 
Rachael Jackson 16:41
Go back to chalkboards.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 16:44
Exactly. Because it's too, it's so easy to use it incorrectly. And it's hard to imagine, like what tools we need in place in our education of teachers and of students to like come together in a shared space, even if that shared spaces are virtual, and or a shared space in a classroom where you're relying on a lot of different, like technological platforms or AI tools. Like how how do you do that correctly? And how do you, you know, create a sustainable system of teaching people to do that correctly? So yeah, I'm actually just curious for like, more examples of like, how, since you opened with this, and like, how do you see in your own teaching, this like difference between technology and AI? And like, what are your favorite tools that you have either used yourself or like, seen other colleagues use? What do you what do you think looks just like really effective for future teaching? Hmm.
 
Ian Binns 18:18
I think on that one, Zack, you were gonna say something, do you mind? Give me a minute to really think? Sure.
 
Zack Jackson 18:25
Well, connected to that, actually, that this is where the AI piece can be a real help. Y'all have talked about the importance of individual learning, especially for children, in helping them to identify their strengths, their passions, their growing edges, and then to give them individualized attention, which is really hard to do in a classroom setting, and maybe even a little bit harder to do in a virtual classroom setting. Kids always get left behind in large classroom settings. But like, artificial intelligence driven, individual systems can help identify as kids are doing their own work. Where are those kids growing edges are and where their strengths are, where their passions are, let the kids explore a little bit, you know, play around in a sort of gamified space, where, you know, this kid Wow, they seem to be really drawn to like the science island on this tablet game. And so we know that this kid, maybe will start feeding them more information in this way, you know, more sciency information, or, you know, maybe we'll try to communicate language in a sciency way, you know, to try to utilize their strength in this way. This like, the sort of thing that a teacher if given like seven students would be able to individually identify and find their strengths and help each one live into their best self. But when given 50 students is it's impossible for one person to do. But a really well trained algorithm might be able to, which, you know, then you run into like, well, are we then going to just create a whole world of specialists who are only good at one thing? Because from an early age, they were just trained in one thing?
 
Rachael Jackson 20:22
Wait, I don't know if that would be such? I
 
Zack Jackson 20:23
don't know. Maybe we go back to that. Right. Like, you're a blacksmith, you're
 
Rachael Jackson 20:28
right, that we don't all have to be random. I think
 
Ian Binns 20:30
that would be a society. Yeah, that would be a societal shift. And, and to me, recognizing the value
 
Rachael Jackson 20:36
down with the Enlightenment,
 
Ian Binns 20:38
let's go back to the futile all fields have a contribution to society,
 
Zack Jackson 20:42
right? Like, if you go into your Facebook settings, into your ad settings, you can see what Facebook knows about you. And you can see how specific it knows you your interests, your life, the things you're more likely to engage with. And like and enjoy. Actually, I noticed recently, that Facebook, when it's getting close to my wife's birthday will start giving me ads for things that she would like, which is crazy. And really good. Because I bought a couple of things. And she loved were perfect. Yep. And like, if the algorithms can know you that well, can they then help you to live into your best academic potential, instead of this, like No Child Left Behind one size fits all, sort of standardized testing way of doing it, we now have the technology to allow for individualized educational curriculum.
 
21:44
And, and so
 
Rachael Jackson 21:46
I like guys just gonna, just going to respond a couple of, I think one of the things you were pointing out in that that Zack and Kendra, have both sort of touched on, but I want to say overtly is this idea of not replacing, but in conjunction with, right, the idea that we're not going to just straight up replace teachers, or straight up replace interactions with human to human, right? We're not, it is trying to figure out the best way of being symbiotic with each other the best version of hybrid, right? We've been tossing that around and say, Oh, you know, we've been, again, just from my own life, not not from an educational standpoint, but you know, I, when I teach Torah study, if I have a couple of people in the room and a couple of people online, how is that hybrid going to work? And everyone's like, Well, here are the negatives to it. I said, Okay. And here's where the positives are. Right? And how do we, how do we reframe it so that we're recognizing that this really is going to be a partnership, and we shouldn't go into it with a scarcity mentality or a fear mentality, as we're looking at all these options, I say that with the exception of, you know, the robot that I really want to clean my bathroom, and perhaps the AI that will come along there. And again, switching the language of technology and AI, the AI would know where to put the towel down for where the toothpaste ends up so that it doesn't then have to clean up the toothpaste, but just as to clean up the paper towel. Right? That that would be the AI in the bathroom, which would be amazing, right? So not just that, that sort of carwash. Shower that you're talking about really learning, here's where the mess is made, and let me prevent it. And working together to do that. And I think that if we reframe our idea of, of being in partnership, maybe we'd approach this with a kinder heart.
 
Ian Binns 23:52
Yeah, and that so you know, when we talk about, ya know, I keep using them interchangeably, AI and technology. But one of the things when I teach about how to use technology, so if we kind of more broad for a moment, that I've always emphasized to future teachers is that when using technology don't don't find a piece of technology, or, you know, be a a tool of some sort, you know, as well as an app, you know, something like that. So either, you know, hardware or software and build your lesson around that instead, no, here's, here's what I need to be teaching about to build a connect with my students. Are there things that can use that can help me do that better? Right, so then, and that's how I kind of see the use of things like apps, or that kind of techno AI to help with education is that can we use it as a way to only enhance instructional practices? I like the idea of individual individualized learning. I think that would be great because not everyone learns the same and I know that and that's one of the hardest parts of being a teacher I think is trying to figure out when you've got 20 to 30 people in your classroom, trying to make it individualized for all those people is pretty much impossible. So if this allows for that possibility, then yes, absolutely, let's do that, again, as long as we provide the appropriate training for them. A great, I was just looking up a few things about, you know, examples of AI and education, and one is something that I've benefited from, and that's Duolingo. You know, they the, so I started thinking about Duolingo. And then and not other language apps, I've used to help with my, to improve my German skills. And so it totally you know, how I respond determines what happens next. And it learns based on my ability. So I think things like that are very powerful in the classroom. And I but I remember to, what was it Rosetta Stone when that first came out? I actually was talking with this was several years after it came out with a language professor at UNC Charlotte, asking him, you know, I have the German understanding from growing up, but I need to relearn it. What would you recommend, instead of me taking the traditional courses, which I didn't have time for? And he actually recommended, we'll get Rosetta Stone, you know, we have subscriptions to get that that will really help you. He said, but then acknowledge there are some of the language community who would hate me for that. But that's something that can help because of the type of learning you need, versus going back and starting from scratch. Right. So I think it could truly revolutionize education in that way. As long as as you said, Rachel, we realize it's not replacing the role of the individual in that classroom, especially when they're younger, and you're dealing with younger children, you still need to develop that
 
Rachael Jackson 26:44
connection. Like, exactly, and I'm thinking other AI that that we've used his YouTube and our households. You know, I put a couple of settings on YouTube so that it would know that this is an underage person, please don't show him things that are inappropriate, right? So g and PG type things. And I just let him have it. Like whatever he wants to watch, he can watch. So he loves the squirrel. This thing came out. I don't know how many years ago came out. It resurfaced last year where they did a squirrel obstacle course and then explain the physics of squirrels. And why the jumping of the squirrel and then like the catapulting the squirrel off of something wasn't going to harm it. Fantastic, fantastic video, and he watched this, I don't know, like 10 times. And the next thing it shows are these Rube Goldberg kicks. Can't say that rube. rube. Thank you. We're gonna not say the word. Yes, she's Goldberg machines. And so now he's watching all of these things. Like he, I can't say it, he can't spell it. But YouTube is able to go Oh, you really like the squirrel obstacle course so much here that may show you other things. And now he wants to build one. So it was able to identify that not just watching this video, but to say, Ah, this is what you're interested in. Now we can do that at our in our backyard. I'm not a physics person. So it's going to be for an engineer. So it's going to be very challenging to do anything. But you know, that's what that's what YouTube is for, to help teach me my son's interest to it. So that that's now teaching me, right? I love this. this. I gotta throw something Jewish in here. This quote from from our, from our Talmud, which says, I think I've used this before. From my, from my teachers, I learned some from my colleagues, I learned more and for my students I learned the most like, and I think I think if we go into it with that, that flipped classroom idea, that that students actually have something to teach each other, and the person who, who is in charge. I think AI can then also really help us understand and grow our own learning.
 
Zack Jackson 29:18
So you should get your son watching the kids invent stuff. Okay, for those of you at home, it is kids, kids invent stuff. They, they get submissions from kids for potential inventions, and then they make them and so these are like ideas that kids came up with that then they make real so they're ridiculous things that some kid was like, you know what I need? I need like a doorbell that shoots popcorn. And they're like, let's do it. And it's funny.
 
Rachael Jackson 29:53
Yeah, the one my son wanted to submit. We just haven't done it yet is he likes toast But he's a little scared of the toaster oven. right because the toaster pops up, you don't have to get near the heat but then toaster oven, you got to put your hand in. So what he wanted is for the pancakes that we freeze for him to then have in the mornings for it to take it out of there or the waffles, take it out of the freezer, put it into the toaster oven, turn the toaster oven on and release it and then put it on a plate so that he could just have it.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 30:27
My Kitchen robot can do that for you. That's
 
Zack Jackson 30:29
like,
 
30:30
that's right.
 
Rachael Jackson 30:35
Okay, I'm sorry to jump in one more time, I am going to have to exit our conversation a little bit earlier listeners. Let me know other questions. And we can talk on our Facebook group, not driven by AI driven by us. But sponsored with the technology. I just want to add this from the religious side of things. In addition to the education side of things, at the end of the day, a AI will allow the human connections and the human relationships to thrive more. And that for me is the ultimate goal of AI, both in religious and educational instances so that we can focus on doing doing the jobs that we love and being with the people. That that's more that's most important to us, and how we get there. So that's what I wanted to say. And unfortunately, I have to stay off. But I will listen and talk with you all next time. Yeah,
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 31:58
I feel very compelled by the gamification of learning. And like, I because I've recently discovered an app that has been really useful for me last couple of weeks, but I just think there is. So for me, personally, I have always had this like competitive side to my personality that I've never, I've never thought that the competitiveness of myself could be practical, in any way. I just, you know, like, grew up, loved playing games, played a lot of video games with my sisters and just, you know, always liked to win. But as an adult, I just thought like, this is just a side of my personality that's not very useful in, you know, just trying to like sit down and, you know, read articles, and like write papers all day. Maybe, sometimes, but not recently. And then I discovered this app called forest. Have y'all heard of this app. And you basically plant a tree. And I'm using air quotes here, in your virtual garden for your tomorrow and you set a timer, and you press plant, and the timer starts winding down, and your virtual tree starts to grow. So the trick is that you have to keep the app open, so that your tree grows. And if you exit the app, then your tree dies. So the point of the app is to help you stay focused on task and not get distracted and like use your phone to like, do anything. And it's just like the silliest thing that there's like a virtual pine tree growing in my little virtual patch of garden, but I am obsessed with it. I feel so upset whenever I've like killed trees or done group study sessions and someone else has killed the tree. And then it kills everyone's tree like this. It just has really harnessed the competitive side of my personality into something that is very, like practical and useful. And the people who develop these kinds of apps. I just think it's it's genius. Because this is just like a part of human brains that like they've figured out how to hack. And I just know that things like forest because I I'm sure there are a lot of things that I've yet to come across. But this harnessing of our like desire to win and competition that's so fun and stimulating that I think is like the best. The best case of like using AI in the classroom is to find things that can harness that side of human human beings. And like connect it to our learning experience, because then we're just like playing a game. And it's, you know, people like that.
 
Zack Jackson 35:08
I think if I think if I had a Tamagotchi in high school that would die when I stopped doing my homework. Like, I probably would have ended up going to Harvard.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 35:20
Yeah, I mean, this is it.
 
Ian Binns 35:23
So does it work where like, you have to be active on that, like, if because you know, you can multiple apps open the same time, right? Like, is it just that that has to be
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 35:32
open and on your screen, like, if you go to like, your text message
 
35:37
was a different app,
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 35:38
it'll, I think it'll say like, your tree will die if you leave or something like that.
 
Ian Binns 35:45
Okay,
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 35:46
and you can do it with other people, you can like create a virtual room and press plant, when everyone has the app open on their phone. And if someone gets distracted and exits, then everyone gets a notification like, Joe exited the app and killed everyone's tree. So then you get a chance to shame your friends, for not helping you get a virtual tree in your garden when you've been working
 
Zack Jackson 36:12
gamification. And public shaming. This is like harnessing everything that is most powerful
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 36:21
is so genius,
 
Zack Jackson 36:22
play and shame.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 36:26
Blame shame and competition.
 
Ian Binns 36:29
You talk about accountability. Yeah. How do you know and peer pressure for accountability. So that's interesting. Oh,
 
Zack Jackson 36:38
my goodness, see, I just as you were saying that installed the app on my phone, and I planted a tree. And then as I put my phone back down, I got a notification that I have an email. And I really want to check it, you can't, but I can't, because it'll die.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 36:57
And when the tree dies, they plant the dead tree in your garden as a reminder that like you, the trees day,
 
37:05
so it's always
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 37:06
there as a reminder, haunting you and the rest of your life.
 
37:12
See,
 
Zack Jackson 37:14
see, this is something I love about, about like, the more we learned about human psychology, that we're able to utilize it for good. Like companies like Facebook, use it for financial find, like making money. But a company like this can can utilize that for our own betterment. It's
 
Ian Binns 37:37
awesome. So that's where technology and I think AI can be beneficial. Right? So is the way it can change things for the learner. You know, with teachers, I think if we can do a better job of preparing them to handle it, you need to know how to use these tools effectively in their classroom to make you know, and personalized learning a possibility for every student, I think that'd be great. I do wonder how once this pandemic, like once things are returning to some sense of normal, where schools are fully open around the country? What will be the conversation around this? You know, because as we've done, as I admittedly have done, you're kind of using AI and technology interchangeably. And so, you know, we think about both of those areas, technology and AI and its influence on other areas we've already talked about, especially with religion, church services, religious experiences for people, what will it be like for education going forward? You know, because people will have negative memories of this experience and kind of think that Oh, no, I don't want that. And also, one thing that made me think about to was as our Dr. Scott episode with Dr. Scott and paleontologist and He always talks about the importance of getting kids outside. Right. And so some of the things I've read is talked about personalized learning, online learning, and so them having that full virtual environment for them. But as long as if we, if it's used to the extreme, where it does not encourage going outside anymore, then that could become problematic. Yeah. Right. So I would want to see the tools developed to make sure that that still happens
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 39:27
totally. And that's why I think that they exist like in order for us to really harness the potential of AI, we have to take seriously and really understand the human psychology and just like the evolutionary like state of our humaneness because we we, we will fall into the traps of technology and AI if we don't understand, you know that we're like responsive to certain kinds of stimuli. That, you know, kids need to go outside because of the bodies that they live in. And this, like, has to be part of the conversation. And I, I think it is for a lot of people and a lot of companies like understand that. But I don't think that's, it doesn't seem to me that that's a very widespread conversation when you're talking about, like K through 12, or like college instructors who are just trying to like, figure out how to use zoom in a classroom and, and I think also like, this is also relevant for, you know, talking about like, spiritual or religious implications. I think maybe we had hinted at this at some point, or we're going to talk about this in the future, but like, different kinds of spiritual technologies that rely on AI, and I'm thinking of like, the, the, the meditation headset, camera, or what it's called, I've never, I haven't had the chance to calm one, I think that's it, like, gives you biofeedback so that when you're like, trying to meditate, you can, like, receive the biofeedback and I don't know, I guess like to realize what your body is doing to, like, inhibit you from getting into a deeper meditation state, and take that information about your body to help you do what you're trying to do, which is meditate. And for some people that, like is a very, like spiritual practice. And so it's not just something that's like good for education. It's good for, for people trying to develop habits and practices, whether they're spiritual or not, like we really could, like benefit so much, and just like trying to be human every day. But we have to take seriously the pitfalls.
 
Zack Jackson 42:20
You know, I've also heard of a couple of startups that are like putting together spiritual teachings and meditations and things like that. And then creating a sort of like a Pandora for spiritual teachings, where you put in your religious tradition, and you listen to things or you watch videos, and you either like it, or you don't like it, and it starts to create a sort of personal spiritual profile for you, and then starts feeding you daily. sermons, meditations, whatevers, that more closely match your particular spirituality, because there's so many people who are spiritual but not religious now. And who, because they don't, aren't attached to a religious tradition that will give them content and belief systems and foundations. Now, they're kind of trying to figure it out on their own and do a kind of patchwork which can be really difficult. You know, if I say like, Well, you know, I, I don't know much about Buddhism, but from what I've heard, it sounds good. Where do I start? He's like, Well, here's 1000s of years of tradition, what how do I how do I Pierce this, but a system that uses artificial intelligence to help you to identify your sort of spiritual markers, and then give you content that will help you along that journey? Yeah, there's some potential in that. Hopefully, there's some danger in that as well. In then you are giving your basically turning an algorithm, an opaque algorithm, into your guru, or your priest, or you're putting a lot of trust into something that you don't understand. And you're also trying to sort of skim off the top of very deep ancient wisdom traditions. Which, if you haven't worked through all of the implications, and all of the how deep the root system goes of each individual wisdom tradition, it can be a little dangerous to just kind of cherry pick little things here and there. But the we're kind of just on the cusp of this and so we're we're figuring out Can we move before we can figure out the Should we?
 
Ian Binns 45:04
Well, and I think too, it's one of the things I was just looking at reminding myself on is that there are certain things I think AI could do very well now, that it may be doing some situations, but not everything. And it was talking, you know, one of the examples are talking about for education, for example, is, you know, helping with tasks, administrative type tasks. So like grading, for example, you know, I never make a secret to students that the hardest part of the profession is grading, because it can be very time consuming. Because you want to give solid feedback. And then at times, it's just, it can be very exhausting. And so it's not as fun this is the rest of the job. And so one of the things that it was just talking about here, and I was actually, this was happening this semester, when I've got, like a lot of lesson plans to grade or whatever, especially the first round. And I'm, you know, the feedback I'm giving is very similar. And so I actually was starting to create a document, separate document for myself that I would just and I know faculty to do this, they just put the sample feedback that they give on that document, and then they can go and just copy and paste, and then you change what you need to change, obviously, but that there are some, some some general things that you share with students. And so what but what this what I was just reading was talking about, you know, the hints that like when you're writing a gmail message, the AI that's built into that knows your the way you normally write messages, and so it can finish the sentences for you, then you have the option of accepting that or not. Right. And so this was saying that, you know, what if we had that ability within the learning management systems that universities are using, and also now k 12. But that Google that Gmail autocorrect autofill is not just learned by your inbox, that's a universal one.
 
Zack Jackson 46:51
Google actually has been creating this, this kind of massive AI system that is based on massive amounts of data trolled from the internet, they're they're basically just gathering absurd amounts of data from emails and websites and forums and everything that they can get their hands on in order to train their artificial intelligence to then do things like that, or the autocomplete in search optimizations across the board. The problem with that is, there's a lot of awful things on the internet. There's a lot of awful things on the internet, this podcast not being one of them, but the rest of them are pretty awful. And so without there being some really stringent set of guidelines, you have the potential to create an awful AI. And there's not really any way of testing that if you're just sending it out to gather all the information at once. And the woman who was in charge of Google's artificial intelligence machine learning ethics team, I forget the exact name. She published a paper questioning Google's algorithm and their their data collection, and the ethics behind it. And then she got fired for it. So you know, that Google fire ethics leader, and then the second in command, backed her up and was also questioning this, and then she got fired. And it was not that long ago. No, it wasn't, it wasn't very recent. And Google made up some excuse about malfeasance in the workplace, and whatever. But it's a bad Look, when your ethics department questions your ethics, and then you fire them. Very bad, right? And
 
48:55
what do they know,
 
Zack Jackson 48:55
this is why you have an ethics department to help you be ethical. Google's slogan at one point was Don't be evil. And I feel like they just they just got a lot of money. And then it just, I don't know, that's, that's not as appealing anymore. Don't be evil. So there's, when you're talking about like, big data collection that trains algorithms, it's really important to ask yourself what you're training with. And then what that's doing to us. I mentioned, I think, in this in the last episode, how much our own communication patterns are changing because of autocorrect. And we're becoming more like the machines rather than the machines becoming more like us, because we're learning how to talk based on autocorrect. And that's true in Gmail, and that's true in Microsoft Word as it's doing that now too. And text messages and all kinds of things. Yeah, that's think about like with
 
Ian Binns 49:59
time Right with texting and people use shorthand, you know, and that means lol right? But other ones too, like just shorthand stuff. And IMHO my humble opinion, bola right when I have in the past gotten emails from students who have used the shorthand and irregular email to me, there have been times it hasn't bothered me too much. But there have been times where I've kind of said, you know, well, it's just, it's okay to spell it out. Right, just because it's really not that hard when you're typing fast on a keyboard or something like that, if that's what you're using. But you also think to that, you know, what I remember several years ago, having to talk to some students about that kind of stuff, because they were kind of, you know, commenting on why is it that, you know, professors may not like this or something. And I kind of reminded them, I said, Well, in this department and our program, we are teaching you to teach future people. Part of that is writing and reading. And so that may be one way that those professors look at your ability to write is to, you know, in your, in your regular communication, can you put together a sentence correctly, a paragraph correctly, those are things that we need to know you can do so that you get certified to teach others how to do the same thing. And if everything is written to us is shorthand lingo like that, then it's harder for us to tell.
 
Zack Jackson 51:31
Well, you know, when the first instance of OMG was no 1917, in a letter from Lord Fisher to Winston Churchill, gee OMG Oh, wow.
 
Kendra Holt-Moore 51:48
I want to look up all raphel and evolve.
 
Zack Jackson 51:55
The first usage of rafflecopter was in 1312, under and I gotta tell you, I looked that up in a separate tab because if I opened my phone to do it, my tree would die.

Elevating the Discourse with Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad (Professor/Researcher)

Episode 77
In part 11 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad. He is an Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Washington and the Principal Data Science Researcher at KenSci. He is also an advisor on AI to the ministry of Science and Technology of Maldives, and has published over 50 research papers on machine learning and artificial intelligence. His research centers on fairness and equity concerning the role of artificial intelligence in healthcare.
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 

Artificial Intelligence Part 2 (Who Wants To Live Forever?)

Episode 76
If you had the power to augment your body so that you could live forever, would you do it? If life-saving technology exists, are we morally obliged to use it? Have we outsmarted natural selection, and do we now have the duty to take homo sapien evolution into our own hands? Living well, dying responsibly, and the wonderfully provocative world of transhumanism on this week's episode of Down the Wormhole. 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis

Elevating the Discourse with Seth Villegas (PhD Student)

Episode 75
In part 10 of our Sinai and Synapses interview series, we are talking with Seth Villegas. He is a PhD student in constructive theology at Boston University. He focuses primarily on how technology affects religious and religious-like ideas. His current research examines transhumanist and other secular communities, asking questions about the future of religious life. We talk about the incoming technological utopia/dystopia, the search for meaning, and the nature of the human soul. 
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 

Artificial Intelligence Part 1 (More Machine Than Man)

Episode 74
In our new miniseries, we are talking about artificial intelligence, machine ethics, transhumanism, and what it means to be a human. In our first episode, we're talking about cyborgs and why you already are one. Will technology make us less human and will we even realize that it's happening? Does AI deserve rights? Should we create machines that can feel pain and suffering? How can playing God with machines help us to become better humans today?
 
Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast
 
More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/
 
produced by Zack Jacksonmusic by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis 
 
Show Notes
Ship of Theseus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
 
21 grams - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment
 
The pineal gland as the seat of the soul - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/
 
Adam’s Conversation about Cyborbs during Sinai and Synapses - https://sinaiandsynapses.org/multimedia-archive/superheroes-and-everyday-cyborgs/
 
Loebner Prize - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loebner_Prize
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2020/05/predictive-text-systems-change-what-we-write
 
The Animatrix - https://www.amazon.com/Animatrix-Complete-First-Season/dp/B004G7W9IY
 
Cylon Psychology - https://www.battlestarwiki.org/Humanoid_Cylon#Physiology_and_Psychology
 
Siri's Position On Abortion? A Glitch, Not Conspiracy, Apple Says - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/12/02/143067993/siris-anti-abortion-tendencies-a-result-of-technology-not-apple-conspiracy
 
The Algorithmic Justice League - https://www.ajl.org/