Author: TheConversation

By Lawrence Torcello, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology “The personal is political!” is a well-known rallying cry, originally used by left-leaning activists, including feminists, to emphasize the role of government in personal lives and systemic oppression. It seems that now, it could be equally popular among right-wing politicians and their followers to communicate the idea that “everything is political.” Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of former President Donald Trump’s recent indictment by the Department of Justice. Trump supporters say that the decision to charge Trump was “political.” If the department hadn’t charged...

By Gene Allen, Adjunct Professor, Journalism/Communication and Culture, Toronto Metropolitan University On the day of Kent Cooper’s funeral in February 1965, the flow of news through the international Associated Press network, the institution he spent a 40-year career building, came to a complete stop. In scores of AP bureaus and thousands of newsrooms around the world, the printers that hammered out the news fell silent. This tribute to a man who changed the kind of news millions of readers and listeners relied on, and opened the way for its global spread, lasted only a minute before the torrent of...

By Robert Mahari, JD-PhD Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Jessica Fjeld, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; and Ziv Epstein, PhD Student in Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) In 2022, an AI-generated work of art won the Colorado State Fair’s art competition. The artist, Jason Allen, had used Midjourney, a generative AI system trained on art scraped from the internet, to create the piece. The process was far from fully automated. Allen went through some 900 iterations over 80 hours to create and refine his submission. In 2022, an AI-generated work of art won...

By James R. Elliott, Professor of Sociology, Rice University; and Zheye (Jay) Wang, Senior Spatial Research Analyst, Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University After Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans in 2021, Kirt Talamo, a fourth-generation Louisianan, decided it was time to go. He sold his flooded home, purchased his grandmother’s former house on New Orleans’ west bank, which had not flooded, and moved in. It felt good to be back within its familiar walls, but his mind was on the future. “My other house wasn’t supposed to flood, and now insurance costs are going through the roof; it’s...

By Katherine Drabiak, Associate Professor of Health Law, Public Health Law and Medical Ethics, University of South Florida Over the past year, cities across the United States have unveiled new policy plans to address homelessness amid rising concerns about health and crime – for homeless people themselves, as well as for surrounding communities. Notably, several proposals include civil commitment, also referred to as involuntary treatment, for people with severe mental illness or substance use disorders. In November 2022, for example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan to use mental health laws to facilitate involuntary treatment when...