Many challenges in medicine stem, in large part, from a common root cause: a severe shortage of ethically-sourced human bodies.
There might be a way to get out of this moral and scientific deadlock. Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain.
Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman.
These could revolutionize medical research and drug development, greatly reducing the need for animal testing, rescuing many people from organ transplant lists, and allowing us to produce more effective drugs and treatments. All without crossing most people’s ethical lines. Read the full story.
Why the world is looking to ditch US AI models
—Eileen Guo
A few weeks ago, when I was at the digital rights conference RightsCon in Taiwan, I watched in real time as civil society organizations from around the world, including the US, grappled with the loss of one of the biggest funders of global digital rights work: the United States government.
Some policymakers and business leaders—in Europe, in particular—are reconsidering their reliance on US-based tech and asking whether they can quickly spin up better, homegrown alternatives. This is particularly true for AI. Read the full story.
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