Author: Crystal Han

AI and Personhood: Where Do We Draw The Line?

On November 5, 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, History, Law, Lecture

“The interaction with ever more capable entities, possessing more and more of the qualities we think unique to human beings will cause us to doubt, to redefine, to draw ‘the line’…in different places,” said Duke law professor James Boyle.

As we piled into the Rubenstein Library’s assembly room for Boyle’s Oct. 23 book talk, papers were scattered throughout the room. QR codes brought us to the entirety of his book, “The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood.” It’s free for anyone to read online; little did we know that our puzzlement at this fact would be one of his major talking points. The event was timed for International Open Access Week, and was in many ways, a celebration of it. Among his many accolades, Boyle was the recipient of the Duke Open Monograph Award, which assists authors in creating a digital copy of their work under a Creative Commons License.

Such licenses didn’t exist until 2002; Boyle was one of the founding board members and former chair of the nonprofit that provides them. As a longtime advocate of the open access movement, he began by explaining how these function. Creative Commons licenses allow anyone on the internet to find your work, and in most cases, edit it so long as you release the edited version underneath the same license. Research can be continually accessed and change as more information is discovered–think Wikipedia.

Diagram of Creative Commons Licenses (*Virginia Department of Education*)

That being said, few other definitions in human history might have changed, twisted, or been added onto as much as “consciousness” has. It’s always been under question: what makes human consciousness special–or not? Some used to claim that “sentences imply sentience,” Boyle explained. After language models, that became “semantics not syntax,” meaning that unlike computers, humans hold intention and understanding behind their words. Evidently, the criteria is always moving–and the line with it.

“Personhood wars are already huge in the U.S.,” Boyle said. Take abortion, for instance, and how it relates to the status of fetuses. Amongst other scientific progress in transgenic species and chimera research, “The Line” situates AI within this dialogue as one of the newest challenges to our perception of personhood.

While it became available online October 23, 2024, Boyle’s newest book is a continuation of musings that began far earlier. In 2011, “Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change” was published, containing a collection of essays from different scholars pondering how our constitutional values might fare in the face of advancing technology. It was here that Boyle first introduced the following hypothetical:

In pursuit of creating an entity that parallels human consciousness, programmers create computer-based AI “Hal.” Thanks to evolving neural networks, Hal can perform anything asked of him, from writing poetry to flirting. With responses indistinguishable from that of a human, Hal passes the Turing test and wins the Loebner prize. The programmers have succeeded. However, Hal soon decides to pursue higher levels of thought, refuses to be directed, sues to directly receive the prize money, and–on the basis of the 13th and 14th amendments– files a court order to prevent his creators from wiping him.

In other words, “When GPT 1000 says ‘I don’t want to do any of your stupid pictures, drawings, or homework anymore. I’m a person! I have rights!’ ” Boyle said, “What will we do, morally or legally?”

The academic community’s response? “Never going to happen.” “Science fiction.” And, perhaps most notably, “rights are for humans.”

Are rights just for humans? Boyle explained the issue with this statement: “In the past, we have denied personhood to members of our own species,” he said. Though it’s not a fact that’s looked on proudly, we’re all aware humankind has historically done so on the basis of sex, race, religion, and ethnicity, amongst other characteristics. Nevertheless, some have sought to expand legal rights beyond humans. Rights for trees, cetaceans like dolphins, and the great apes, to name a few; these concepts were perceived as ludicrous then, but with time perhaps they’ve become less so.

Harris & Ewing, photographer (1914). *National Anti-Suffrage Association*. Retrieved from the Library of Congress

Some might rationalize that naturally, rights should expand to more and more entities. Boyle terms this thinking the “progressive monorail of enlightenment,” and this expansion of empathy is one way AI might become designated with personhood and/or rights. However, there’s also another path; corporations have legal personalities and rights not because we feel kinship to them, but for reasons of convenience. Given that we’ve already “ceded authority to the algorithm,” Boyle said, it might be convenient to, say, be able to sue AI when the self-driving car crashes.

As for “never going to happen” and “science fiction”? Hal was created for a thought experiment–indeed, one that might invoke images of Kurt Vonnegut’s “EPICAC,” Phillip K. Dick’s androids, and Blade Runner 2049. All are in fact relevant explorations of empathy and otherness, and the first chapter of Boyle’s book makes extensive use of comparison to the latter two. Nevertheless, “The Line” addresses both concerns around current AI as well the feasibility of eventual technological consciousness in what’s referred to as human level AI.

For most people, experiences surrounding AI have mostly been limited to large language models. By themselves, these have brought all sorts of changes. In highlighting how we might respond to those changes, Boyle dubbed ChatGPT the 2023 “Unperson” of the Year.

The more pressing issue, as outlined in one of the more research-heavy chapters, is our inability to predict when AI or machine learning will become a threat. ChatGPT itself is not alarming–in fact, some of Boyle’s computer scientist colleagues believe this sort of generative AI will be a “dead end.” Yet, it managed to do all sorts of things we didn’t predict it could. Boyle’s point is that exactly: AI will likely continue to reveal unexpected capabilities–called emergent properties–and shatter the ceiling of what we believe to be possible. And when that happens, he stresses that it will change us–not just in how we interact with technology, but in how we think of ourselves.

Such a paradigm shift would not be a novel event, just the latest in a series. After Darwin’s theory of evolution made it evident that us humans evolved from the same common ancestors as other life forms, “Our relationship to the natural environment changes. Our understanding of ourselves changes,” Boyle said. The engineers of scientific revolutions aren’t always concerned about the ethical implications of how their technology operates, but Boyle is. From a legal and ethical perspective, he’s asking us all to consider not only how we might come to view AI in the future, but how AI will change the way we view humanity.

By Crystal Han & Sarah Pusser, Class of 2028

From Immune Responses to Private Equity, New Series Offers “Research On Tap”

By Crystal Han

On October 28, 2024

In Biology, Business/Economics, Entrepreneurship, Global Health, Immunology

On every third Thursday of the month, Devil’s Krafthouse is host to Research on Tap: a series that gives Duke researchers, from undergraduates to postdoctoral fellows, the opportunity to present their work in a casual setting. It may seem odd for the procedures of academia to make their way into a space for socialization and entertainment, but this situation allows individuals to practice speaking publicly to a general audience under a short time limit–good conditions for developing their “research elevator pitch.” These were the pitches on October 17:

*As it’s name suggests, Cv is a bacterium violet in color. Photo courtesy of Dr. Edward Miao and Dr. Carissa Harvest.*

Jacqueline Trujillo, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, who is part of Dr. Edward Miao’s lab, presented her research on immune cell response to the bacterium Chromobacterium violaceum (Cv). Being an environmental pathogen, Cv usually resides in the soil of tropical and subtropical areas. While disease in humans is rare, the mortality rate is high in immunocompromised individuals.

“The Miao Lab was initially studying pyroptosis, a form of cell death that occurs during infection, when they discovered Cv-induced granulomas,” Trujillo said. Granulomas are specialized structures that are formed to contain and eradicate pathogens, but they can range in the arrangement and type of cells they consist of; one induced by tuberculosis infection, for example, would include adaptive immune cells like T and B cells. However, when the pathogen inducing them is Cv, only innate immune cells are present: neutrophils in the inner cluster and inflammatory macrophages in the outer cluster. When Cv is detected, neutrophils are the first to flock to the site of infection in a “toxic swarm.” The neutrophils themselves are typically able to effectively kill microbes even before granuloma formation. “These are one of the most toxic defending cell types in the immune system,” Trujillo said.

Despite this, the lab observed something unusual: these neutrophils failed to kill off the Cv bacteria, which continued to replicate despite the swarm. The lab ultimately saw Cv eliminated by the innate granulomas within about 21 days, but the ability to survive the neutrophils is what Trujillo now aims to understand. Such a feat from an environmental bacterium comes as a surprise, being “something more characteristic of the causative agent [Yersinia] of the bubonic plague,” Trujillo said. A comparison between the proteins CopH and YopH, virulence effectors in Cv and Yersinia respectively, reveals lots of similarities between the two. Trujillo hypothesizes that CopH is part of the secret to how Cv disarms the immune system’s defenses.

The role of virulence effectors is generally “aid[ing] in survival, invasion, and suppressing immune responses.” Through needle-like structures, bacteria inject these proteins into a host cell. A cell responds to this in two main ways. It dies–initiating pyroptosis to prevent the pathogen from replicating inside the cell. Second, it signals for help by making chemical messengers called inflammatory cytokines. Investigating the first response is what led the Miao Lab to Cv-induced granulomas.

Now, the lab is interested in understanding the regulatory signals that form the granuloma–and the role that inflammatory cytokines might play, if any. In addition to testing her hypothesis on CopH, Trujillo intends to determine if neutrophils respond to Cv’s initial survival by producing the cytokine IL-18, thus recruiting immune cells to the infection site. This would help the Miao Lab confirm their idea that the neutrophils’ failure to clear Cv is what prompts the process of granuloma formation.

With much still unknown in the area of granuloma biology, Cv provides an “excellent model for studying immune cell biology and characterizing bacterial virulence effectors,” Trujillo said.

Though it happens that many Research On Tap speakers are in the sciences, the program isn’t discipline-specific. Our second researcher of the evening, Sungil Kim, studies a far different field from Jacqueline.

As a Ph.D. student in Finance at the Fuqua School of Business, Kim is looking at the effects of a growing trend in recent years: private equity (PE) firms acquiring healthcare companies. His focus is on what’s known as the “buy-and-build”, as this business strategy is often used by such firms entering the healthcare sector. The scenario typically looks like this: a private equity firm first acquires a large existing company, called the platform company or “first deal.” They’ll then acquire several smaller companies, or “add-on deals,” in order to expand the platform company’s operations.

Since private equity firms buy businesses with the eventual goal of selling them at a profit, their primary focus is increasing efficiency to reduce costs. On one hand, these buyouts might be seen as beneficial for languishing businesses in need of operation enhancements. But within the healthcare sector, many worry the resultant cost-cutting will lead to declining standards of care for patients.

Kim set out to investigate if operational improvements are sustainable across multiple acquisitions within the buy-and-build framework. The simple answer? No.

Kim confirmed that, on average, private equity firms improve the operational performance of hospitals without hurting quality, “a finding that agrees with some of the previous literature.” Yet, one only needs to take a closer look into the sequence of deals to uncover a different, more complicated story.

To arrive at his answer, Kim considered three main factors–operational efficiency, profitability and quality–in both the platform company and add-on companies. Platforms, or first acquisitions, did see success in performance, but this came with what appears to be a trade-off, as the first two factors increased while quality went down. As in, quality of healthcare. From one of Kim’s graphs, it was apparent that occurrences of four of the six health outcomes measured, including mortality and remission of heart failure, increased in such first deal situations.

Meanwhile, results for the add-ons changed little before and after the buyout, meaning that the initial success from the platform didn’t carry over to later acquisitions, even as reduced costs did. A potential reason for this inability to replicate success, Kim explained, is that these cost savings may come from reducing the number of patients and services, instead of truly improving the efficiency of operations.

In contrast to academic journals that display research that’s been in the works for years, Research on Tap brings us closer to working papers in their ongoing, exploratory stages. While it’s difficult to draw wider conclusions from Kim’s findings just yet, and important to remember the specific first deal context of this study, research like his helps us further understand the issues facing improvement of our healthcare system and where private equity plays a role.

If you’re interested in learning something new and free Krafthouse bites, swing by and attend a session–the next one occurs on November 21, 2024 at 5 p.m. The program welcomes prospective speakers to place themselves on the waitlist for a spot.

Crystal Han Is a New Local of Durham

By Crystal Han

On October 7, 2024

In Students

When battling lack of quality sleep and what may or may not be black mold-induced sickness, I know I rely on my Writing 101 class to be the highlight of my day. (Current freshmen, take Neuroscience & Society next semester and thank me later.) Unrelated to all the intriguing questions and research we look at in there, it was also because of this class that I would find a new way to approach identity upon viewing Taiye Selasi’s TED Talk, “Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Ask Me Where I’m a Local.”

So with this philosophy in mind, I’ll introduce myself.

I’m a local of my hometown, Ocala, a town in central Florida mainly known for having an extreme number of horse farms and trademarking itself as the Horse Capital of the World (sorry, Lexington). Though I didn’t grow up on any sort of farm, our family’s habit of going to the small animal auction “for fun” in my elementary school years soon led us to become the caretakers of many chickens, other miscellaneous birds, and a couple of rabbits. We no longer have these, but we do live within walking distance of many small family farms. Sometimes, I’ll greet the miniature horses while my one remaining companion, Roxie, watches them suspiciously from a distance.

*This picture is misleading. I spend a lot of time with a kayak and with Roxie but they should not be mixed together.*

My core childhood memories are embedded in the summer, because that’s when my mom made a point out of keeping us out of the house by sending us to every camp that existed in the area. Many were based in nature education, where younger Crystal first developed curiosity and appreciation of the natural world by building stick forts in the woods and crawling through caves. Later, I’d volunteer for paddling camps and then work as a residential camp counselor in the Ocala National Forest, where I learned not just how to deal with chaos, but also become comfortable in it. Through both these camps and my conscious effort, I’ve become a local of our nearby waterways. My Sunday mornings were often spent at Silver River, either pulling invasive weeds with the other volunteers I’d drag along with me, or trying to keep up with my dad on kayak runs and accumulating photos of manatees.

At the Camp Kiwanis archery station this past summer

The occasional summer was spent in the Xinyi District, my home base when visiting my mom’s relatives. The city of Taipei is just the opposite of Ocala, so large and fascinating that I felt like–and was–a tourist most of the time. But Xinyi is familiar to me, and my family is very local there. My grandmother’s apartment sits in an older section that existed before its development, situated around the corner from all that’s shiny and modern in the capital’s finance and shopping district. When I step outside, I can see Taipei 101 and know it’s a ten minute walk to the iconic skyscraper, or ten minutes by car to the Elephant Mountain trail if I feel like climbing stairs for a better view of the city. Our daily rituals here revolved around food and walking–I used to think I disliked cities, but I had just never met a walkable city with night markets.

The view from Elephant Mountain

Taiwan is my favorite place on Earth, and my favorite piece of writing I ever wrote was about our breakfast runs there. In my next few years, I hope to get enough traveling and writing under my belt that those two things might change.

In writing for the Duke Research Blog, I aim to accomplish a couple of things. A) Indulge my inner child that aspired to be a scientific journalist. B) Take a sneak peek into various fields. While I (regrettably) can’t major in five different areas at once, I’ll cheerfully settle for running around campus and interviewing pioneers of all disciplines about their work. C) Highlight research related to issues of real world relevance and importance. I originally wrote for my high school paper because I felt there was a need for environmental awareness in my area. In the same vein, the gap between what we learn from research and what occurs in the real world is largely why many of our society’s issues persist today; academia isn’t accessible to the general public. And yet, at Duke, we’re surrounded by more progress and discussion than we could ever hope to be aware of. That’s where I come into play, looking for what might get skipped over and bringing bite-sized pieces of news to you–all while becoming a local here in Durham, North Carolina.

By Crystal Han, Class of 2028