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Saad Malook // DAWN: 12 February 2025
ARTIFICIAL intelligence has had a seismic impact on education, science, health, security, space, transport, trade, public policy, media, and art. AI furnishes new prospects and challenges, which have positive and negative implications. A recent creation of science and technology in the age of the digital revolution, AI appears as a new technological agency, very much like human and corporate agencies. In terms of ethics, like any agency, it has its good and bad points.
Computer expert Edward Fredkin highlighted AI’s significance in a TV interview: “There are three great events in history. One, the creation of the universe. Two, the appearance of life. The third one, which I think is equal in importance, is the appearance of artificial intelligence.” Fredkin convincingly showed the significance of AI by juxtaposing it with the gestation of life on Earth and the creation of the universe itself.
AI is creating a world with numerous advantages. First, it not only helps explore data in academic and non-academic research within moments — an exercise that otherwise takes weeks, months, even years — it also processes and categorises digital data within minutes.
Second, AI does not only process digital data; it also recommends solutions to problems in a short time. Earlier, humans had to do hard labour to analyse the data and arrive at solutions. Indubitably, AI saves time and labour to meet challenges in, say, medical science, security, public policy, and education.
Third, another AI positive is that it provides services round the clock, which is not possible for a single human being to do — as, for instance, in healthcare, where it plays a significant role in surgery.
Enthusiastic about its benefits, many overlook AI’s several dangers.
Fourth, AI has the potential to carve out new avenues to explore space. Human beings have always had the urge to learn, discover, and understand the worlds beyond. Scientists over millennia have been trying to study the universe. AI helps them reach untraversed realms as its agents can be sent to gather data on distant celestial objects without fear of human loss. So, AI will continue to revolutionise space science.
Enthusiastic about its benefits, many tend to overlook AI’s several disadvantages. Eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a stern critic of science and technology, and wanted human life protected from their effects that, according to him, created inequalities. Rousseau’s ideal human is the noble savage who is free, creative, simple, and nature-friendly. Nature nurtures humans while humans nurture science and technology. Science and technology threaten nature. AI can be used to unleash violence in society. Like Frankenstein’s monster, AI has been threatening human life in different ways.
First, AI is a threat to human cognitive development. Human cognition has developed over the centuries; problems have been resolved by carefully thinking them through. If AI resolves problems, human beings would make no effort to think for themselves, which means that the faculty of thinking would become dormant, ultimately obstructing cognitive development.
Second, AI diminishes human sentiments socially. Human sentiments, passions, desires, and aspirations animate life. An AI-led life is likely to be more mechanistic, and deterministic, just like a robot: a life without passion for living.
Third, AI has negative impacts on human sociality. Human beings are not self-sufficient; they depend upon one another — that is how they have created societies, cultures, and civilisations. AI alienates human beings from one another because they come to prefer social interaction through virtual rather than physical means.
Fourth, AI affects the development of languages negatively. Language develops through social interaction including verbal and written communication. AI possesses tools, such as ChatGPT, which can produce writing. This is bound to adversely affect the natural development of languages.
And last but not least, AI can fabricate/ construct fake data in the form of photos, videos, voices, and text which can have severe ethical and political ramifications. It can also be employed as an unfair means of carrying out academic research, which poses a serious threat to the quality of education — something that one can already witness.
While there’s no escaping the fact that AI is now a technological reality, with negative and positive aspects, there is an urgent need to formulate a universal ethical framework to control it in order to ensure that its benefits far outweigh its harmful aspects. The latter, too, must be kept in check.
The writer teaches philosophy at the University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2025
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DAWN EDITORIAL
IT sometimes appears as if those struggling for an independent judiciary have needlessly burdened themselves with preserving the institution’s prestige. When the top judges of the country have few concerns about public perceptions, it seems futile to worry endlessly about institutional integrity. ‘Que sera, sera’, as they say.
Ever since the 26th Amendment, matters seem to have gone according to script without a hitch. Judges perceived as being ‘too independent’ or holding views opposed to the ruling regime’s policies appear to have been systematically sidelined and substituted by individuals seemingly more acceptable to the regime. There has been little transparency about why certain judges have been transferred from one high court to another or why certain judges have been elevated while others have not.
Meanwhile, a disturbing pattern has emerged, with capable judges being denied promotions apparently over their unwillingness to compromise on judicial autonomy and refusal to kowtow to the powers that be.
That all this has continued unchecked despite loud voices of protest being raised from within and without the institution is disappointing. One wonders whether the institutional leadership realises the long-term ramifications of the ongoing ‘remaking’ of the judiciary.
A perception has already built up that the courts are being packed with ‘like-minded’ judges so that the regime can secure legal endorsement for its widely criticised actions and policies.
Ideally, this perception should have been actively avoided; instead, several judges have participated in the decision-making process, which has provided critics with yet another indictment of the present state of the judiciary.
It seems particularly pertinent to point out that while the judges who have found favour with the ruling regime may be very capable, they are quite likely to find it difficult to gain the public’s trust and respect given the circumstances in which they have been handed their responsibilities. The nation does not remember the PCO judges kindly.
Where will this leave the nation? When the institution meant to dispense justice loses public trust in its integrity, to whom do the people turn? This is a worrying question that has been raised before but does not seem to have registered.
It is disquieting that very few of those in important positions seem to think long enough about their decisions and the consequences. There are good reasons why political scientists and philosophers alike have stressed the tripartite distribution of state power: it is an essential ingredient in ensuring sociopolitical stability. Any disequilibrium in the division of power has far-reaching effects, as has been witnessed in the past both at home and in some neighbouring countries.
Alas, with reason and rationality in retreat, reflections on actions and consequences no longer seem to matter. One can only hope for sense — and sensibility.
Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2025
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Robert Grenier // DAWN: 12 February 2025
GIVE Donald Trump credit. In a stunning eruption last week, he proposed to annex Gaza and expel whatever inhabitants refuse to leave, generating a nifty waterfront investment opportunity in the bargain. It may seem counterintuitive, but he has done Palestinians a great favour. He has not ‘killed’ the two-state solution. That had long since died. Instead, he has added useful clarity to a pernicious situation.
The horrific Israeli onslaught of the past 15 months, following the terrorist outrage of Oct 7, is but the latest iteration of a recurrent pattern of Israeli repression, futile Palestinian resistance, and grossly disproportionate Israeli reprisal.
Whether or not Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu returns to the killing fields as promised, there will be no permanent end of hostilities so long as the underlying dynamic holds. As Trump has pointed out, when you do the same thing over and over, “you end up in the same place”.
But that’s as far as credit can go. Needless to say, Trump’s proposal is absurd on its face. Most Gazans surely would refuse to leave. Trump concedes that US troops will not force them. Neither Egypt nor Jordan, alone or in concert, will accept two million Palestinians, for multiple obvious reasons. And the Saudi leadership has made clear that they will not stand exposed before the entire Islamic world to finance ethnic cleansing on Israel’s behalf. In short, this half-baked idea is going nowhere.
Simultaneously, Trump was asked whether his proposed American seizure of Gaza would be combined with US support for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. He promised an answer in a month. Predicting Trump is a fool’s errand, but he has telegraphed his response. His key Mideast advisers are loud proponents of Israeli annexation. Trump’s prospective support may be the push which emboldens Netanyahu to do what he transparently desires, but to date has not dared.
Annexation would reveal the pious incantations of Western politicians for what they are — impotent drivel at best, and cynical cant at worst.
We should hope that he does. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have long since reached an extent that even a marginally viable, contiguous Palestinian state is inconceivable. That is the product of many decades of purposeful Israeli policy. De jure annexation would change nothing on the ground. Formal seizure of Palestinian lands would merely be a welcome acknowledgment by Israel of the true state of affairs: that it has created, and intends to sustain, an apartheid state.
But annexation would give the US and others nowhere to hide. So long as the status of the West Bank was nominally undetermined, the US could maintain the cruel fiction that it supports a two-state solution. In fact, the US has been fully complicit in Israel’s successful effort to preclude any such thing. The fact that American policy is a product of inertia and political cowardice, rather than malice aforethought, is hardly a compelling defence.
Annexation would reveal the pious incantations of Western politicians for what they are — impotent drivel at best, and cynical cant at worst. It would force them to choose: Either openly acquiesce in Israel’s blatant violation of international law, or actively oppose it. There will no longer be a middle way.
Trump has chosen acquiescence. For all his moral obtuseness, he is by comparison with his predecessor refreshingly straightforward in what he means to do. Rather than wring his hands, he proposes to cut the Gordian knot by doing for the Israelis what they could not do for themselves: clear out the Gazans and swindle them with the specious chimera of “beautiful homes” in other countries, paid for by others.
This is actually a continuation of Trump’s first-term policy. His “deal of the century” for the West Bank in 2020 was of a piece with last week’s bombshell. It proposed to give the Israelis virtually everything they wanted in the West Bank, while inducing the Palestinians to trade dignity and sovereignty for promises of economic investment in the Bantustans to which they would be relegated. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.
So, if not Mar-a-Gaza, then what? There are many just peace proposals extant, involving both two states and one. All would be excruciatingly painful to adopt. With Israel militarily unassailable by its neighbours, none could be implemented without enormous pressure from outside the region.
It is therefore a useful thought experiment to imagine what sort of alternative pressure would be required to divert Israel from its irredentist course. A crushing, South Africa-style international campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions, supplemented by a complete cutoff of US military and diplomatic support would be required, and then might not be enough.
That is unlikely to say the least. But the long-term trends may not be so positive for Israel.
As violence in Gaza recedes in intensity, it brings greater focus on Israel’s continuing depredations in the West Bank: the air strikes, the land seizures, the financial strangulation, the willful destruction of civilian infrastructure, the facilitation of increasingly violent Israeli settlers. The stated logic is to force Palestinians to vote with their feet. But that will be excruciatingly slow. And it cannot be hidden.
Chinese policy towards the Tibetans and the Uighurs might be a useful model of state impunity for Israel, but tiny Israel is far more dependent on outside support, and has nothing like the coercive power of China.
It is possible that the world will ultimately shrug and acquiesce. But that is by no means assured. Israel is fast becoming an international pariah. Many countries, including in Western Europe, have pledged to enforce ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, issued in response to a rolling, 17-month war crime.
Even in the US, the negative generational shift in attitudes towards Israel is striking, and the growing willingness of politicians to publicly oppose Israeli policy would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. The furious right-wing demands to suppress pro-Palestinian demonstrators on American campuses and to sanction the ICC are useful indicators of fear.
No, peace in greater Palestine is not at hand. History will continue its dismal course, for now. But in the meantime, Mr Trump’s heat and bluster have also cast a useful ray of light.
The writer is a former US official and author of 88 Days to Kandahar.
Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2025
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DAWN EDITORIAL: 12 February 2025
HISTORY shows that rulers use hate speech to provoke hate crimes and ‘othering’ among communities. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade-long rule is riddled with divisive rhetoric; his BJP is bent on creating discord in Indian society, making daily life for the country’s minorities, particularly the Muslims, increasingly challenging. The US-based think tank, India Hate Lab, has released a new report exposing an alarming surge in hate speech — from 668 cases in 2023 to 1,165 in 2024; communal venom rose by 74.4pc with 98.5pc of the hate speeches directed at Muslims. Over two-thirds occurred in BJP-ruled states or in those run by its allies. As a vital aspect of Mr Modi’s Hindutva politics, communal flames burn brighter during election season. According to the IHL, last year’s election campaign witnessed BJP leaders deliver more than 450 hate speeches with 63 from Mr Modi himself. Indeed, it is high time India’s activists and opposition parties showed greater commitment to battling the evil for the sake of an inclusive and progressive society.
Unfortunately, the state-sponsored diet of hate seems to have gained ground among Indians as public and media outrage is rare. Few have understood that feeding hate deflects attention from the BJP’s failure to deliver the governmental and policy reforms that it promised for a rising India. And hate retains the Hindu-majority vote bank for the party. Allowing rampant hate speech by godmen and lawmakers enables ordinary people from the majority religion to employ violence — such as lynchings and bulldozing homes to degrade and subdue Muslims — to assert a sense of supremacy. The Hindutva rampage — from destroying mosques to economic boycotts of poor Muslims — aims to erase Muslim history. Maligning Muslims is a minor, albeit chilling, part of this agenda. The oil-rich Muslim brotherhood and the international community, which claims to uphold human rights, need to walk the talk.
Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2025
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