Critically Acclaimed Documentary “The Accused - Damned or Devoted” Sparks Global Conversation on Blasphemy Laws

Story by The Canadian Press • Monday


Recently released for screening in North America and Canada, "The Accused - Damned or Devoted" is an internationally acclaimed documentary created by Producer Mohsin Abbas and Director Muhammad Ali Naqvi, a Canadian-Pakistani duo. Mohsin Abbas, an acknowledged investigative journalist and filmmaker based in the Halton region, played a crucial role in the production. The film has garnered recognition, receiving the Best Investigation Honour at the 8th Annual Asian Media Awards. It has been showcased at various film festivals and international broadcasts worldwide.

"The Accused - Damned or Devoted" delves into the intricate subject of Pakistan's blasphemy laws, examining the political rise of the late Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the former chief of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), who fervently advocated for preserving these laws during the backdrop of the 2018 general elections.

According to Producer Mohsin Abbas, "The Accused - Damned or Devoted" is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate surrounding blasphemy laws in Pakistan. The film aims to give voice to the underprivileged individuals who privileged politicians and religious leaders exploit for their interests. It offers a balanced view of the issue and promotes an understanding of its complexity. He emphasized an urgent need to produce more content like this to foster harmony in the highly polarized society.

The documentary narrates the stories of individuals accused of blasphemy, including Asia Bibi and Patras Masih, as well as their accusers, prosecutors, and defenders. Prominent figures featured in the film include the assassinated Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, politician Shahbaz Bhatti, lawyer and activist Rashid Rehman, student Mashal Khan, and Gulalai Ismail, the sole surviving defender who was compelled to flee for her safety.

Filmmaker Muhammad Ali Naqvi, popularly known as Mo Naqvi, expressed his penchant for highlighting the anti-hero in his work. He emphasized that "The Accused - Damned or Devoted" is not solely the story of the victims but also a tale of courage and bravery exhibited by the local team of field producers, cameramen, coordinators, and assistants. Naqvi acknowledged the risks involved in bringing such a film to life, underscoring the dedication and perseverance of the entire team.

"The aim of this documentary was to draw home how the blasphemy law is used as a political tool to suppress people and how the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Asia Bibi figure in all this," he said, adding that he tried to be optimistic while keeping the conversation going.

Production Assistant Arslan A Qureshi described the project as a challenging assignment. He sought to comprehend the issue from the perspectives of both the victims and proponents of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Qureshi found this venture thrilling and a valuable learning experience, inspiring him to collaborate with Canadian producers for his upcoming documentary on transgender rights.

Journalist and field producer Nek Amal emphasized the importance of international projects like this for young and emerging producers and filmmakers in Pakistan. Such projects offer opportunities to learn from experienced professionals from different countries and network with fellow filmmakers and industry insiders. This can be invaluable for budding filmmakers at the beginning of their careers, providing opportunities to acquire new skills, establish connections, and reach a wider audience with their work.

Saeed Akhtar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Milton Reporter, Milton Reporter

Young athlete in Montana climate change trial testifies he uses inhaler due to forest fire smoke

Story by The Canadian Press • Tuesday

Young athlete in Montana climate change trial testifies he uses inhaler due to forest fire smoke© Provided by The Canadian Press

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A high school athlete who along with 15 other young people took Montana to court over climate change testified Tuesday that increased smoke from forest fires makes it difficult for him to compete and that a doctor prescribed an inhaler to help his breathing problems.

Mica Kantor, now 15, said he has been worried about climate change since as a 4-year-old he dictated a letter to Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., because he was too young to write it himself. He said it's increasingly difficult to run or go on hikes with his family, and that the warmer conditions have shortened snowboarding seasons.

Mica testified on day two of a first-of-its-kind trial in which the 16 young Montana residents are arguing the state is violating their constitutional rights by failing to keep the environment clean. They're asking a judge to declare unconstitutional a state law that prevents agencies from considering the effect of greenhouse gasses when they issue permits for fossil fuel development.

State officials have sought to downplay Montana’s contributions to global warming as the trial is being closely watched for possible legal precedents.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs showed the court photos of Mica participating in protests against climate change at school, the local courthouse and the state’s largest public utility. He said his efforts were meant “to get people to think about climate change, which is the first step to acting,"

He said worrying about climate change can make it hard for him to fall asleep at night and he hopes the state will move in a direction that gives him hope for the future.

He shared a poem about being quarantined in the basement of his house when the rest of his family had COVID-19 and it was too smoky to play outside. In his writing, he wondered why nobody was listening and whether they cared.

The state declined to cross examine Mica or Badge Busse, 15; and did not ask questions of the three young plaintiffs who testified Monday.

Badge testified Tuesday that climate change can restrict his outdoor activities, including hunting, fishing and downhill skiing. There was a time, he said, when a forest fire near his house forced his family to prepare to evacuate, calling it “one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.”

His mother gathered baby books and he had to gather some of his treasured belongings and prepare to leave the only home he'd ever known. Fortunately, he said, they did not have to leave.

Pediatrician Lori Byron, of Crow Agency, testified about the physical and mental health effects of climate change on children and noted several of the plaintiffs have asthma or other breathing issues. Several plaintiffs have said the heat and smoke can make them depressed and anxious.

Byron said children feel more effects from high temperatures, fires, smoke and severe weather events because their bodies and brains are still developing and they breathe more quickly than adults. Children who are athletes are more competitive and more likely to keep participating, even if it's unhealthy to due to smoke or heat.

Earlier Tuesday, Cathy Whitlock, a retired professor from Montana State University, testified about the impact of climate change.

Whitlock, a climate scientist, said if fossil fuel burning continues at its current pace, the number of days with temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) will increase along with the number of “fire weather days,” where hot, dry, windy days make it easier for fires to start and burn aggressively. The number of days where wildfire smoke will make the air unhealthy to breathe will also increase by 2050, she said.

Meanwhile, the number of days where the temperature falls below freezing will continue to decrease.

Precipitation has been increasing in the spring and fall, Whitlock said, with spring rains sometimes falling on snow and causing it to melt quickly, leading to flooding like what happened in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding area last year. Reducing the burning of fossil fuels as quickly as possible is needed to help avoid abrupt transitions between the seasons, Whitlock said.

For example, a “flash drought” in 2017 led to a record fire season in Montana, where about 7,000 square miles (18,210 square kilometers) of land burned, smoke lingered for weeks in a western Montana valley, and crop losses totaled $2.6 billion, she said.

There are some positives to the changing climate, Whitlock said, such as a longer growing season and the ability to grow new crops like cantaloupe, which aren't typically grown in northwestern Montana. But, she said, the negatives far outweigh the positives with extreme weather events and increasing drought.

Thane Johnson, an attorney for the state, asked Whitlock if Montana completely stopping its greenhouse gas emissions would have a significant effect on the global climate.

“Every ton of CO2 put in the atmosphere contributes to global warming,” Whitlock said several times during her testimony. However, she said she was not an expert and could not calculate the effects.

Carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burned, traps heat in the atmosphere and is largely responsible for the warming of the the climate. Carbon dioxide levels in the air this spring reached the highest levels they’ve been in over 4 million years, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration said earlier this month. Greenhouse gas emissions also reached a record last year, according to the International Energy Agency.

Johnson also noted that electric tractors aren't available for farmers and electric vehicle charging stations aren't available in rural Montana to make it easier for residents to reduce their use of fossil fuels.

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Amy Beth Hanson And Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

Lower house of Japan's parliament passes bill to promote LGBTQ+ awareness, but not guarantee rights

Story by The Canadian Press • Tuesday


TOKYO (AP) — The powerful lower house of Japan's parliament on Tuesday passed a bill to promote understanding of LGBTQ+ issues amid protests by activists that last-minute revisions by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s conservative party favored opponents of sexual equality instead of guaranteeing equal rights.

The passage followed only a few hours of debate in a lower house committee last Friday, an unusually short period. The bill is expected to be approved quickly by parliament's upper house, which is also controlled by Kishida's governing bloc.

Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations which does not have LGTBQ+ legal protections. Support for same-sex marriage and other rights has grown among the Japanese public, but opposition remains strong within the governing Liberal Democratic Party, known for conservative values and a reluctance to promote gender equality and sexual diversity.

LGBTQ+ activists have increased their efforts to achieve an anti-discrimination law since a former Kishida aide said in February that he wouldn’t want to live next to LGBTQ+ people and that citizens would flee Japan if same-sex marriage were allowed.

The final version of the bill passed Tuesday states that “unjust discrimination" is unacceptable but doesn’t clearly ban discrimination, apparently because some governing party lawmakers oppose transgender rights. Some party members said more consensus building is needed before anti-discrimination measures are introduced.

The bill states that the public's understanding of various sexual orientations and gender identities is “not necessarily sufficient.” It says conditions should be created so that "all citizens can live with peace of mind,” which critics say shows the governing party prioritized the concerns of opponents of equal rights over the rights of sexual minorities.

video: Japan raises age of consent from 13 to 16 years old (WION)

Duration 2:55   View on Watch

“We have sought the enactment of an anti-discrimination law,” the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation said in a statement. “This bill does not focus on the people concerned, and instead focuses on the side that has discriminated against us and caused our suffering. It's the complete opposite of what we need.”

Kanae Doi, Japan director for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, said the legislation fails to meet the international standard of anti-discrimination, and human rights should never be compromised by consideration for the majority.

Kishida said at a news conference later Tuesday that he hopes further discussion in parliament will promote wider support for the legislation. “The government will continue to listen to the voices of the people and work hard to achieve a society where diversity is respected and where everyone cherishes each other’s human rights and dignity and where they enjoy vibrant life,” he said.

Kishida also said his Cabinet plans to compile an economic package later this year that will double the budget for subsidies for children and married couples to reverse the country's declining birth rate by the 2030s, a time considered the last chance to turn the downtrend around. Experts say the package doesn't address the difficulties faced by younger Japanese who are increasingly not marrying or having families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, long working hours and lack of work flexibility.

Recent surveys show a majority of Japanese back legalizing same-sex marriage and other protections. Support among the business community has rapidly increased.

Kishida insisted that public views vary on same-sex marriage, and that it is an issue that would broadly impact people if a legal system is created. “That’s why I say a wide-ranging discussion is necessary and a broad understanding is important,” he said.

A court in Fukuoka in southern Japan ruled last Thursday that the lack of legal protections for LGTBQ+ people appears to be unconstitutional. It was the last of five court cases brought by 14 same-sex couples in 2019 that accused the government of violating their equality. Four of the courts ruled that current government policy is unconstitutional or nearly so, while a fifth said a ban on same-sex marriage was constitutional.

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

Fewer than half of Australians back Indigenous panel, poll shows

Story by Reuters • 

A depiction of the Australian Aboriginal Flag is seen on a window sill in Sydney© Thomson Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Fewer than half of Australians back the inclusion of an Indigenous advisory panel in the constitution, in a plan set to face a referendum this year, a newspaper poll showed on Tuesday, down from 53% in May.

The poll comes ahead of a crucial senate vote on changing the constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people and include a committee in parliament to advise the government on matters affecting Indigenous people.

Published by the Sydney Morning Herald, the poll showed that 49% of respondents supported the change, down from 53% in May, while 51% said they were opposed to it.

A majority of voters in the three states of northeastern Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia are now voting against the change, it found.

"We always knew that this campaign was going to be very difficult," the Yes campaign's Dean Parkin told Sky News after the result.

"Referendums aren't easy to win so we knew that the numbers were going to tighten over time."

The government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been backing the referendum, on which it has staked significant political capital, while top sporting codes and several major companies have also supported the campaign.

Indigenous Australians, who form 3.2% of a population of 26 million, fare poorly on yardsticks such as health, education and imprisonment rates. They do not figure in the constitution and were not officially counted in the population until the 1960s.

A newspoll survey published last week also found that fewer than half of all Australians supported the referendum.

But another poll published on Tuesday showed support holding steady for the Indigenous "Voice to Parliament", as the panel is called.

The Guardian Essential poll of 1,123 voters found 60% of respondents backed the panel, up one point from the previous survey, with 40% opposed.

The referendum legislation cleared its first parliamentary hurdle last month. It will go through the currrent senate session before the government sets a date for the vote.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

More Americans disapprove than approve of colleges considering race, ethnicity in admissions decisions, study shows

Story by Ashley R. Williams • Yesterday 

Half of surveyed adults in the US disapprove of students’ race and ethnicities factoring into the college admissions process, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.

The poll of over 5,000 people found that 33% of respondents approved of colleges and universities boosting diversity by considering racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Sixteen percent of people were not sure where they stood on the issue, according to Pew Research Center.

The survey, conducted between March 27 and April 2, comes ahead of anticipated US Supreme Court decisions in two related cases involving the factoring of race in admissions at Harvard College and University of North Carolina.

The private college and public university’s officials say the practice has increased their campuses’ levels of diversity.

Both SCOTUS decisions are expected sometime in June.


BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 14: Erica Liu, of Bedford, left, and Lewanna Li, of Bedford rally in Boston's Copley Square to support Students for Fair Admissions' lawsuit against Harvard University and to protest Harvard's alleged anti-Asian discrimination in admissions on Oct. 14, 2018. More than 100 Asian-Americans protested practices they said were unfair to their community, as lawyers for Harvard University and a group thats suing the institution prepared to litigate the controversial practice. 

(Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The survey found that “Americans are more than twice as likely to say that the consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions decisions makes the overall process less fair (49%) rather than fairer (20%); 17% say this does not affect the process,” according to Pew.

Only 11% of those surveyed said students accepted into colleges were more qualified than they would be if their racial and ethnic backgrounds weren’t considered.

A third of respondents felt differently, believing that students accepted to colleges that consider race were less qualified. Nearly four-in-10 people said students are “neither more nor less qualified than they would be otherwise,” the survey showed.

When asked whether they felt students’ educational experiences were impacted by schools that factor race into admissions processes, 27% said the learning experience was better at these colleges and 26% felt it was worse, according to Pew.

About 24% of Black Americans who responded said they “have personally been disadvantaged in their education or career” by efforts to increase diversity, while 11% said they’ve benefited from the efforts, according to Pew.

White Republicans who responded “overwhelmingly disapprove” of colleges considering the race and ethnicity of applicants, with 78% of those surveyed being against it and 51% strongly disapproving of the practice.

CNN’s Ariane de Vogue contributed to this report.

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Orcas Assemble! Rare gathering of 20 Orcas stuns the San Francisco coastline, leaving spectators in awe

ByPrapti Upadhayay

Jun 14, 2023 

Coastal waters near San Francisco witnessed an awe-inspiring sight as nearly 20 killer whales gathered for a rare event.

It was an absolutely breathtaking sight that left everyone who witnessed it in complete awe. The coastal waters of San Francisco became home to an incredibly rare gathering of nearly twenty killer whales, commonly known as orcas. This extraordinary event unfolded during a whale-watching tour near the magnificent Farallon Islands, where these majestic creatures had come together, likely celebrating a successful hunt for sea lions and seals.

Michael Pierson, a passionate naturalist from the Oceanic Society who was leading the tour, couldn't contain his excitement when he first caught sight of those unmistakable dorsal fins of the orcas gracefully emerging from the glistening water. Overwhelmed by the spectacle, Pierson couldn't help but shout out, "orca!" The experience was nothing short of magical, and he described it as an incredibly special moment.

Ordinarily, killer whales tend to frequent the deep ocean canyon below Monterey Bay, which is located approximately 75 miles to the south of San Francisco. Marine biologist Nancy Black explained that these fascinating creatures can be encountered anywhere along the coastline, sometimes venturing as close as just 5 miles offshore. However, the Farallon Islands, located approximately 28 miles west of San Francisco, pose a challenge for whale-watching tours due to the long boat ride and potentially insufficient water depth.

Black, who owns Monterey Bay Whale Watch and is an expert in killer whales, emphasized the popularity of these majestic creatures among whale watchers. "They're the whale that most people want to see when they go whale-watching," she revealed, noting that their unpredictability adds to their allure.

While larger groupings of orcas have been observed in the past, last month's gathering of 20 to 24 individuals was still a remarkable sight. Typically, orcas are found in smaller family groups of three to six whales, ranging from Baja California up the West Coast to Alaska. The reason behind this unusual congregation remains a mystery, but experts speculate that the orcas were drawn to the Farallon Islands due to the presence of pregnant sea lions and seals, which give birth in the area during this season.

During the tour, the orcas put on a show for the lucky spectators. The adult males, with their towering 6-feet tall dorsal fins, undoubtedly stole the spotlight, but the sight of the mothers and their calves also left a lasting impression. Pierson described the collective coos and awws from everyone on board as the orcas gracefully swam together.

Also Read | Humpback whale gets tangled in nets. Watch ‘extremely dangerous’ rescue operation

While this gathering was a rare and awe-inspiring event, it raises questions about the motivations and behaviors of these magnificent creatures. Were they simply celebrating a successful hunt, or does their gathering signify something more sinister? Marine biologists and researchers continue to study and analyze these interactions, hoping to unravel the mysteries of these fascinating creatures that roam the vast oceans.

For now, the memory of this spectacular encounter will linger with those fortunate enough to witness it. The allure of the majestic orcas continues to captivate both scientists and nature enthusiasts, reminding us of the breathtaking beauty and profound wonders of the natural world.

Generative AI Tools Are Perpetuating Harmful Gender Stereotypes


These new systems reflect the inequitable, racist and sexist biases of their source material.

Marie Lamensch
June 14, 2023

Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa. (NurPhoto via REUTERS)


Over the past few months, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has undergone a boom, with the arrival and widespread availability of tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E 2 and, most impressively, ChatGPT. As big companies such as OpenAI, Google and Microsoft rush to develop machine intelligence tools, governments, businesses and artists are taking stock and frantically debating how AI will impact their work and environment.

Alongside the hype, however, there is also a pervasive current of doom, much of it coming from AI pioneers and technologists themselves. Last March, a group of prominent experts, including Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a pause in the development of AI systems more powerful than ChatGPT-4. And in April, the “godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, quit Google, citing concerns about the “existential” risk posed by AI.

In an interview with The Guardian, Hinton argued that AI will not only create “so much fake news that people won’t have any grip on what the truth is” but also eventually surpass the human brain. He further suggested that humanity is at a crossroads, which we may not survive as a species. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wrote in February: “A misaligned superintelligent AGI [artificial general intelligence] could cause grievous harm to the world; an autocratic regime with a decisive superintelligence lead could do that too.”

Are these apocalyptic scenarios credible? It’s certainly important to think early and hard about the coming impact of generative AI — something we failed to do with social media. When Facebook and Twitter launched, technologists and policy makers did not imagine the platforms would eventually be used as tools for online disinformation, hate and foreign interference.

That said, Hinton’s hypothetical scenarios also miss the point, by ignoring the present. AI, including generative AI, is already causing harms, particularly to historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. The failure to acknowledge this was apparent in Altman’s testimony before the US Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on May 16.

While Altman and members of the committee discussed ethical and national security concerns, they made little mention of the impacts some experts have been warning about for years: the particular effects of the technology on women. Indeed, the word women was mentioned only once during the three-hour hearing. When asked about this by Politico’s Women Rule, Senator Richard Blumenthal said the committee would eventually hear witnesses focus on the “harassment of women.” Such omissions reflect a continuing lack of understanding of continuing gendered risks.

Replicating and Perpetuating Gender Inequity and Stereotypes

Generative AI creates images, text, audio and video based on word prompts. OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, for example, claims to “create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.”

But the assumption that generative AI can provide a realistic image is highly dubious. Most text-to-image models are trained on LAION-5B, a large open-source data set compiled by scraping content, including images, from the internet. But the internet lacks gender-representative data sets and is littered with mis- and disinformation and xenophobic and sexist content. This means that, without the necessary filters and mitigation in place, generative AI tools are being trained on and shaped by flawed, sometimes unethical, data. The new tools exhibit the same inequitable, racist and sexist biases as their source material.

As I have written in several previous articles, the digital gender divide is real: women have less access to technology than men and are online less than men. They are widely underrepresented in the tech sector and in the data found on the internet. And women are the principal victims of online hate, disinformation and algorithmic biases. Indeed, the online experiences of women, especially women of colour, mirror historical and existing inequalities. There has been a consistent reluctance by tech companies to build systems that will not harm women.

In her 2023 Pulitzer Prize–winning research, New York University professor Hilke Schellmann showed how the algorithmic biases of social media arbitrarily suppress certain content about women. On Instagram, for example, a photo of a woman wearing yoga pants and showing a little bit of skin may be “shadowbanned” — not removed, but restricted in its reach or sharability due to an algorithm ranking it as “too racy.” Yet an image of a shirtless man will not be scored in the same way.

That the internet is filled with images of barely dressed or naked women means that AI image generators not only replicate these stereotypes, but also create hypersexualized images of women.

Replicating and Exacerbating Gender Stereotypes

Consider some further examples. In an ongoing research experiment, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Lab tested two AI image generators’ view of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields with respect to the representation of women. When the researchers asked DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, a product of Stability.AI, for visual representations of an engineer, a scientist and an IT expert, between 75 and 100 percent of the generated results portrayed men.

Perhaps surprisingly, OpenAI acknowledges that DALL-E replicates stereotypes. For example, the prompt lawyer results disproportionately in images of people who look like older Caucasian men and wear Western dress. The prompt nurse tends to result in images of people who look female. Similarly, the term flight attendant tends to generate images of Asian women. As Gabriela Ramos, assistant director-general for the social and human sciences at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, wrote for the World Economic Forum, “these systems replicate patterns of gender bias in ways that can exacerbate the current gender divide.” As visual AI becomes part of our lives, there’s a real risk that the technologies will exacerbate gender stereotypes.

Hypersexualized Content

That the internet is filled with images of barely dressed or naked women means that AI image generators not only replicate these stereotypes, but also create hypersexualized images of women.

In 2022, Melissa Heikkilä, a senior reporter covering AI at the MIT Technology Review, tested an avatar-generating app called Lensa, which turns selfies into avatars using Stable Diffusion. Heikkilä reported on the results of the experiment. When she tried to create an avatar of herself, she was met with a collection of predominantly nude or skimpily dressed and “cartoonishly pornified” avatars that looked nothing like her.

By contrast, the avatars of Heikkilä’s male colleagues were fully dressed and “got to be astronauts, explorers, and inventors.” Worse, Heikkilä, who is Asian American, received fetishistic avatars of “generic Asian women” modelled on anime or video-game characters, whereas her white female colleague “got significantly fewer sexualized images, with only a couple of nudes and hints of cleavage.” Heikkilä’s experience displays both the sexist and the racist biases of some generative AI tools.

Deepfakes and Porn

One of the biggest concerns about generative AI is its capacity to generate disinformation — which is particularly worrying when it comes to visual content, because it can so easily fool us. Deepfakes are not new, but their widespread availability and increasing realism should be cause for concern.

In January, Twitter user @mileszim shared a tweet featuring young women at a party — an image that, at first sight, seemed quite ordinary. The catch: these women do not exist but were entirely generated using Midjourney. While the account holder’s intentions were not nefarious, the capacity of deepfake technology to create such images can cause great harm if used by bad actors. Earlier this year, for example, several Reddit users were tricked into buying realistic nude images of an AI-generated figure named “Claudia,” thinking the image was of a real person. While the culprits were quickly found, one can imagine such a scam on a larger scale, including through the use of exploitative conversational video chatbots that masquerade as real women.

A 2019 report published by Deeptrace Labs reported that of 15,000 deepfake videos it found online, an astonishing 96 percent were non-consensual pornographic content featuring the swapped-in faces of women. Since AI is built on surveillance, anyone can become a victim. But women are the main targets. Pornographic deepfakes are already being used against women, in particular, celebrities. They have also been used against politicians and journalists such as Rana Ayyub in order to silence, humiliate or blackmail them.

In May of 2023, Bloomberg reported that child predators have exploited generative AI to generate images of child abuse. As these technologies become widely available, we can only expect these forms of abuse and criminality to worsen.

Continuous Tech Industry Failures

Advocates for ethical technology, such as Meredith Whittaker and Timnit Gebru, observe the present AI scare with some irony; they’ve been raising alarms about AI harms against women and racial groups for years. In an interview with Slate, Whittaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute at New York University and president of the US-based Signal Foundation, identifies what has changed in the past year: technologists such as Hinton are envisioning a future in which AI tools may not impact “simply” women, Black people and low-wage workers, but also the privileged.

As long as the industry doesn’t involve all those impacted by AI to help shape the product, this problem will worsen. As with previous waves of technology, the gender biases in generative AI are caused by the exclusion of women “at every stage of the AI life cycle,” as Gabriela Ramos argued in her article for the World Economic Forum. The problem, at its most basic level, is that this field remains male-dominated. The founders of OpenAI, for example, are men, among them Sam Altman and Elon Musk; the current eight-person executive team includes just one female member, Mira Murati. It’s an industry-wide problem: globally, only 22 percent of AI professionals are women, making them virtually invisible.

This raises key questions. Can these technologies be designed with the female experience in mind? How can data be more equitably curated? Who should decide on source content? And how can harms against certain groups, including women, be mitigated using filters or gender-affirmative practices? It’s not encouraging that key tech leaders appear to be aware of these harms yet have deployed the tools regardless. OpenAI, for example, claims: “We develop risk mitigation tools, best practices for responsible use, and monitor our platforms for misuse.” But shouldn’t this have been worked out before DALL-E 2 was made available to the public?

We should also carefully parse the calls for government regulation. In an op-ed for The Guardian, author Stephen Marche argues that “Silicon Valley uses apocalypse for marketing purposes: they tell you their tech is going to end the world to show you how important they are” and how their product might change the world. This draws attention to the product while also giving policy makers and the general public the impression that tech companies are concerned with values over profit. But as Gebru, the executive director of DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, told The Guardian late in May, “It is a gold rush. And a lot of the people who are making money are not the people actually in the midst of it. But it’s humans who decide whether all this should be done or not. We should remember that we have the agency to do that.”

Citizens everywhere should welcome that governments and regional organizations such as the European Union seek to develop clear AI regulations, which they failed to do with so many earlier technologies, including spyware and social media. At the same time, we should remember that “slowing down” or “pausing” AI innovation for a few months will not reverse societal inequalities. While generative AI has the capacity to replicate the ills of gender, racial, religious and ethnic bias, we must address the sources of the problem, not simply its transmission.

Generative AI can work for women. For example, an Indian artist, Sk Md Abu Sahid, reimagined the world’s richest men as women using Midjourney, asking us to imagine a world in which the corporate, political and tech sectors were led by more women. Similarly, the UNDP’s “Digital Imaginings: Women’s CampAIgn for equality” employed AI-generated art to portray a world in which women have more opportunities and power. That world is one technologists can and should aim for.


The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Lamensch is the project coordinator at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

 

Gaza graffiti artists bedeck houses destroyed by Israel in war

Gaza graffiti artists bedeck houses destroyed by Israel in war

Monday 12/06/2023

A Palestinian girl sits on the remains of a destroyed house, next to a graffiti drawn by Hussein Abu Sadeq, on houses destroyed by Israel in recent fighting, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, June 8, 2023. (Reuters)

GAZA CITY –

Graffiti artists in Gaza have painted murals on the remains of houses destroyed in an Israeli missile strike during cross-border fighting in May.

On one wall the artists depicted a woman holding her son. On another a boy is painted with tears in his eyes. A third shows a girl, seen through a mirror, combing her hair.

Piles of rubble still encircle the houses in the town of Deir al-Balah. Parts of exploded Israeli missiles were placed on tables for display.

“Out of suffering, pain and siege, we derive hope, art and victory,” said artist Hussein Abu Sadeq. “We drew on the rubble so we can get the message through using a brush and colour.”

A Palestinian girl walks past a graffiti drawn by Palestinian artists in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, June 8, 2023. (Reuters)

Gaza, home to 2.3 million people and ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, is blockaded by Israel and Egypt.

In May, Israel launched a campaign against commanders of the Islamic Jihad militant group who it said had planned attacks in Israel. In response, the Iranian-backed group fired more than 1,000 rockets, sending Israelis fleeing into bomb shelters.

Israel killed six senior Islamic Jihad commanders and said it destroyed a number of military installations. Fifteen Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were also killed, according to Palestinian health officials.

In Israel, two people, an Israeli woman and a Palestinian labourer, were killed by Palestinian rocket fire in Israel.

“We collected those remains (of missiles) after the bombardment,” said Mohammad Thuraya, an organiser of an exhibition of the art work.

“One missile destroyed a neighbourhood and destroyed the lives of ten families who used to live here.”

 

Is the hydrogen hype justified?

Hydrogen-driven heavy road vehicles could be a useful contributor to the Middle East’s decarbonisation plans, particularly as it expands its mining sector and seeks to develop long-range trade corridors.

Thursday 15/06/2023

Saudis look at a hydrogen powered car during a test drive organised by Aramco in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. AFP

Hollywood is hooked on hydrogen. American actress Jamie Lee Curtis once compared her Honda Clarity to a “rocket ship” and said that she would “sob uncontrollably” if it was taken away.

Mena Suvari (American Pie), Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings) and Diane Kruger (Troy, The Bridge) are just a few other A-listers drawn to the silent, technologically-advanced machines that emit only water (something Kruger once proved by drinking exhaust on a tour through Death Valley, California).

But while hydrogen cars might frequent Sunset Boulevard, they are rarely seen on the roads driven by the rest of us. Is that about to change?

After the success of its Prius hybrid, Toyota pushed hydrogen cars as its environmentally-conscious offering. Hydrogen-powered cars have a longer range than most electric vehicles, and are much quicker to fuel up.

But Toyota’s focus on hydrogen hurt the Japanese giant, which has been slow to advance electric cars and lost its early lead not just to Tesla but to legacy rivals and Chinese upstarts.

For now, the cost of battery cars is dropping, range is improving, there are many more models on the market, charging stations are increasingly common and electricity is cheap compared to road-fuel hydrogen (or even petrol or diesel). Last year, 10.5 million plug-in vehicles were delivered to customers.

By contrast, hydrogen cars are extremely rare: just 15,391 were sold worldwide in 2022, and in their original home, Japan, sales dropped sharply compared to 2021. About half of all sales are in a single market, South Korea.

They are also expensive. Toyota’s Mirai retails for $49,500 in its basic version, and there is only one other model on the market, Hyundai’s Nexo (the Honda Clarity ended production in 2021). These vehicles suffer from the chicken-and-egg problem, there are currently very few fuelling stations, which will not change until the cars themselves are more common.

Finally, hydrogen at the pump is a costly fuel. In California, prices have shot up from $16 to $25 per kilogramme, roughly equivalent in energy to a gallon of petrol, which retails for $3.58 on average. Prices of natural gas, the feedstock for hydrogen sold today, rose, but the main culprits are the small volumes and transport and storage, which push up the customer price well beyond the raw production cost.

But is there nevertheless hope for hydrogen in ground transport? With the right strategies, like a focus on freight, there can be.

Batteries for electric trucks or coaches are very heavy, which limits legal loads. Electric ranges are also low: Currently, an e-truck can go 300 kilometres on a single charge. A fuel-cell truck, meanwhile, can travel 500 kilometres today and perhaps three times that in the future.

Moreover, charging rates for big trucks are huge, 25 megawatts for a filling station to service 50 trucks in two hours, or more than 20,000 average US households, which would require a major reinforcement and expansion of the electric grid, especially in remote locations.

By contrast, low-carbon hydrogen fuel can be made from natural gas (called “blue” hydrogen) or renewable electricity (“green”) for between $1.50 to $3 per kilogramme, significantly cheaper than oil-derived fuels. Unlike electricity, hydrogen can be stored easily for long periods. Vehicles are quick to refill and hydrogen is light, (though the high-pressure onboard tanks that hold it are heavy).

From the big picture of global decarbonisation, truck makers and road haulage companies must approach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by the 2040s. Hydrogen fuel-cells, which do not have bottlenecks with supply of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, might be the fastest way to get there.

BloombergNEF forecasts that fuel-cell heavy trucks could be nearing economic competitiveness with both battery and diesel models by 2030. For that to happen, the cost of fuel cells would need to fall from about $280 per kilowatt today to below $150 per kilowatt, and of hydrogen to about $5.50 per kilogramme. Those targets look achievable, particularly in areas close to hydrogen production. If hydrogen stations were spaced along a few major trucking routes, there might not need to be very many.

Hydrogen vehicles could also be used in near-continuous operations, such as forklifts, port lorries and mining trucks. Trains are another possibility; the Elbe-Weser Railroad Company in northern Germany operates several hydrogen trains.

Hydrogen use by trucks could expand from virtually zero today to five million tons by 2040 and as much as 30 million tons by 2050. Projections of global hydrogen consumption for all uses could climb to 600 million tons in the same time frame. Amazon has signed a deal with Plug Power to provide hydrogen, while both it and UPS are interested in the vehicles.

Hydrogen-driven heavy road vehicles could therefore be a useful contributor to the Middle East’s decarbonisation plans, particularly as it expands its mining sector and seeks to develop long-range trade corridors.

The largest countries, such as Saudi Arabia, would benefit most. A cross-country lorry could fill up with blue hydrogen at Jubail on the Gulf coast, refuel perhaps once along the 1,800 kilometre drive, deliver its load to Neom and refill with green hydrogen for the return journey, taking about 19 hours in all excluding rest breaks. The same trip in an electric truck would need three charging stops and take about five hours longer.

Ground transport will not lead the demand for hydrogen, so the region’s ambitious green energy plans will have to be justified on demand from industry and transport. This will not happen spontaneously. If Middle Eastern countries want a significant role for hydrogen trucks and buses, they must make the fuel readily available at reasonable prices, and work with auto-makers to order and produce the vehicles.

If hydrogen transport has a future, it is less glamorous Hollywood celebs, and more sweaty truckers.

Written ByRobin Mills

Robin M. Mills is CEO of Qamar Energy, and author of “The Myth of the Oil Crisis.”

 

Migrant deaths on Middle East, North Africa routes reach highest levels since 2017

The highest number of deaths on land routes in the region last year was recorded in war-torn Yemen.

Wednesday 14/06/2023

Migrants stand onboard a fishing boat in the port of Paleochora after a rescue operation off the island of Crete, Greece. (Reuters)

GENEVA –

Nearly 3,800 people died on migration routes within and from the Middle East and North Africa last year, the highest number recorded there since 2017, according to data published on Tuesday by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The United Nations migration agency’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) recorded 3,789 deaths in 2022 along sea and land routes in the region, including crossings of the Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Sea.

It said the recorded death toll, which was 11% higher than that compiled in 2021 and the highest since the 4,255 documented six years ago, was likely much higher in reality due to scarce official data and limited access to migration routes for civil society and international organisations.

“This alarming death toll on migration routes within and from the MENA region demands immediate attention and concerted efforts to enhance the safety and protection of migrants,” said Othman Belbeisi, IOM Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

IOM said the highest number of deaths on land routes in the region last year was recorded in war-torn Yemen, where the agency said that targeted violence against migrants had increased.

On sea routes from the region to Europe, IOM recorded an increase in deadly incidents on boats travelling to Greece and Italy from Lebanon.

“As many as 84% of those who perished along sea routes remain unidentified, leaving desperate families in search of answers,” the IOM report said.