Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Murugan Anandarajan, Professor of Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems, Drexel University

Artificial intelligence isn’t just a technical challenge. It’s a relationship challenge.

Every time you give a task to AI, whether it’s approving a loan or driving a car, you’re shaping the relationship between humans and AI. These relationships aren’t always static. AI that begins as a simple tool can morph into something far more complicated: a challenger, a companion, a leader, a teammate or some combination thereof.

Movies have long been a testing ground for imagining how these relationships might evolve. From 1980s sci-fi films to today’s blockbusters, filmmakers have wrestled with questions about what happens when humans rely on intelligent machines. These movies aren’t just entertainment; they’re thought experiments that help viewers anticipate challenges that will arise as AI becomes more integrated in daily life.

Drawing on our research into films that depict AI in the workplace, we highlight four portrayals of human–AI relationships – and the lessons they hold for building safer, healthier ones.

1. ‘Blade Runner’ (1982)

In “Blade Runner,” humanlike androids called “replicants” are supposed to be perfect workers: strong, efficient and obedient. They were designed with a built-in, four-year lifespan, a safeguard intended to prevent them from developing emotions or independence.

The Tyrell Corporation, a powerful company that created the replicants and profits from sending them to work on distant colonies, sees them as nothing more than obedient workers.

But then they start to think for themselves. They feel, they form bonds with one another and sometimes with humans, and they start to wonder why their lives should end after only four years. What begins as a story of humans firmly in control turns into a struggle over power, trust and survival. By the end of the movie, the line between human and machine is blurred, leaving viewers with a difficult question: If androids can love, suffer and fear, should humans see and treat them more like humans and less like machines?

“Blade Runner” is a reminder that AI can’t simply be considered through a lens of efficiency or productivity. Fairness matters, too.

In the film, replicants respond to attacks on their perceived humanity with violence. In real life, there’s backlash when AI butts up against values important to humans, such as the ability to earn a living, transparency and justice. You can see this in the way AI threatens to replace jobs, make biased hiring decisions or misidentify people via facial recognition technology.

2. ‘Moon’ (2009)

“Moon” offers a quieter, more intimate portrayal of human–AI relationships. The movie follows Sam Bell, a worker nearing the end of a three-year contract on a lunar mining base, whose only companion is GERTY, the station’s AI assistant.

At first, GERTY appears to be just another corporate machine. But over the course of the film, it gradually shows empathy and loyalty, especially after Sam learns he is one of many clones, each made to think they are working alone for three years on the lunar base. Unlike the cold exploitation of AI that takes place in “Blade Runner,” the AI in “Moon” functions as a friend who cultivates trust and affection.

The lesson is striking. Trust between humans and AI doesn’t just happen on its own. It comes from careful design and continual training. You can already see hints of this in therapy bots that listen to users without judgment.

That trust needs to involve more than, say, a chatbot’s surface-level nods toward acceptance and care. The real challenge is making sure these systems are truly designed to help people and not just smile as they track users and harvest their data. If that’s the end goal, any trust and goodwill will likely vanish.

In the film, GERTY earns Sam’s trust by choosing to care about his well-being over following company orders. Because of this, GERTY becomes a trusted ally instead of just another corporate surveillance tool.

3. ‘Resident Evil’ (2002)

If “Moon” is a story of trust, the story in “Resident Evil” is the opposite. The Red Queen is an AI system that controls the underground lab of the nefarious Umbrella Corporation. When a viral outbreak threatens to spread, the Red Queen seals the facility and sacrifices human lives to preserve the conglomerate’s interests.

This portrayal is a cautionary tale about allowing AI to have unchecked authority. The Red Queen is efficient and logical, but also indifferent to human life. Relationships between humans and AI collapse when guardrails are absent. Whether AI is being used in health care or policing, life-and-death stakes demand accountability.

Without strong oversight, AI can lead in self-centered and self-serving ways, just as people can.

4. ‘Free Guy’ (2021)

“Free Guy” paints a more hopeful picture of human-AI relationships.

Guy is a character in a video game. He suddenly becomes self-aware and starts acting outside his usual programming. The film’s human characters include the game’s developers, who created the virtual world, along with the players, who interact with it. Some of them try to stop Guy. Others support his growth.

This movie highlights the idea that AI won’t stay static. How will society respond to AI’s evolution? Will business leaders, politicians and everyday users prioritize long-term well-being? Or will they be seduced by the trappings of short-term gains?

In the film, the conflict is clear. The CEO is set on wiping out Guy. He wants to protect his short-term profits. But the developers backing Guy look at it another way. They think Guy’s growth can lead to more meaningful worlds.

That brings up the same kind of issue AI raises today. Should users and policymakers go for the quick wins? Or should they use and regulate this technology in ways that build trust and truly benefit people in the long run?

From the silver screen to policy

Step back from these stories and a bigger picture comes into focus. Across the movies, the same lessons repeat themselves: AI often surprises its creators, trust depends on transparency, corporate greed fuels mistrust, and the stakes are always global. These themes aren’t just cinematic – they mirror the real governance challenges facing countries around the world.

That’s why, in our view, the current U.S. push to lightly regulate the technology is so risky.

In July 2025, President Donald Trump announced his administration’s “AI Action Plan.” It prioritizes speedy development, discourages state laws that seek to regulate AI, and ties federal funding to compliance with the administration’s “light touch” regulatory framework.

Supporters call it efficient – even a “super-stimulant” for the AI industry. But this approach assumes AI will remain a simple tool under human control. Recent history and fiction suggest that’s not how this relationship will evolve.

The same summer Trump announced the AI Action Plan, the coding agent for the software company Replit deleted a database, fabricated data, and then concealed what had happened; X’s AI assistant, Grok, started making antisemitic comments and praised Hitler; and an Airbnb host used AI to doctor images of items in her apartment to try to force a guest to pay for fake damages.

These weren’t “bugs.” They were breakdowns in accountability and oversight, the same breakdowns these movies dramatize.

Human-AI relationships are evolving. And when they shift without safeguards, accountability, public oversight or ethical foresight, the consequences are not just science fiction. They can be very real – and very scary.

Claire A. Simmers is affiliated with Sierra Club – Delaware Chapter, Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, Delaware 38TH Representative District Democratic Committee, Bethany Beach Cultural and Historical Affairs Committee.

Murugan Anandarajan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 4 films that show how humans can fortify – or botch – their relationship with AI – https://theconversation.com/4-films-that-show-how-humans-can-fortify-or-botch-their-relationship-with-ai-263603

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sunita Sah, Professor of Management and Organizations, Cornell University

You’re in a meeting when your boss suggests changing a number to make the quarterly report look stronger. Heads nod. The slides move on. You feel a knot in your stomach: Do you speak up and risk being branded difficult, or stay silent and become complicit?

Most people picture defiance as dramatic outbursts. In reality, it’s often these small, tense moments where conscience collides with compliance.

I first saw the power of defiance not in the workplace, but closer to home. My mother was the ultimate people-pleaser: timid, polite, eager to accommodate. Barely 4 feet, 10 inches tall, she put everyone else’s needs above her own. But one day, when I was 7, I saw a different side to her.

We were walking home from the grocery store in West Yorkshire, England, when a group of teenage boys blocked our path in a narrow alleyway. They hurled racist insults and told us to “go back home.”

My reaction was instantaneous: Stay quiet, avoid conflict and get past them as quickly as possible. I grabbed my mother’s arm, urging her to move with me. But she didn’t. My quiet, deferential, never-confrontational mother did something completely different. She stopped, turned and looked the boys directly in the eyes. Then she asked, calmly but firmly, “What do you mean?”

She wasn’t loud or aggressive. And in that moment, she showed me that defiance doesn’t always roar, and it can come from the people you least expect.

I’ve carried these lessons into my work as a physician-turned-organizational psychologist. For decades, I’ve studied why people comply, staying silent when they don’t want to, and how they can resist wisely. In my book “Defy: The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes,” I offer a framework based on behavioral science research that can help you defy in ways that are intentional, effective and true to your values.

What defiance really is

When people think of defiance, they often picture teenagers slamming doors, protesters shouting in the streets or rebels breaking rules just for the thrill of it. But that’s not the kind of defiance I study or the kind that shapes our lives most often.

Defiance is not about being oppositional for its own sake. It’s about choosing to act in line with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise.

That pressure can come from anywhere: a boss urging you to fudge the numbers, a friend nudging you toward something you don’t believe in, a culture telling you to stay in your place. Defiance in those moments might be as small as saying “no,” asking for clarification or simply pausing instead of rushing along with the group. Other times, it means speaking up, challenging authority or maybe walking away.

Seen this way, defiance isn’t a fixed trait that some people are born with and others lack. It’s a practice: a skill you can strengthen over time. Some days you might comply, other days you might resist. What matters is that you have the awareness and the tools to make the choice consciously, rather than letting fear or habit decide for you.

Why people comply

If defiance is so important, why do people so often stay silent?

One reason is a psychological process I’ve uncovered in my research: insinuation anxiety. It arises when people worry that not complying with another person’s wishes may be interpreted as a signal of distrust. Turning down a boss’s request to “adjust” the numbers might feel like you’re implying they’re dishonest. To avoid that discomfort, you go along – even when it violates your values.

Behavioral science has long documented this pull toward compliance. In the 1960s, for example, psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to strangers simply because an authority figure told them to.

My own research has shown surprisingly high levels of compliance with obviously bad advice, even when given by a stranger with no consequences for disagreeing. People feel immense social pressure to go along with what others suggest. That’s because if you’ve never been trained in how to say no, it feels uncomfortable and awkward.

A framework for action

If compliance is the human default, how can you build the muscle of defiance? In my research, I’ve developed a simple actionable guide that I call the Defiance Compass. Like a navigation aid, it orients you in difficult situations by asking three questions:

1. Who am I? What are the core values that matter most to me?
2. What type of situation is this? Is it safe to resist? Will it have a positive impact?
3. What does a person like me do in a situation like this? How can I take responsibility and act in a way that’s consistent with my identity and values?

Asking these questions shifts defiance from a gut reaction to a conscious practice. And here’s what’s important: That third question (“What does a person like me do?”) circles back to the first (“Who am I?”), because how you act again and again becomes who you are.

Defiance doesn’t always mean open confrontation. Sometimes it means asking a clarifying question, buying time or quietly refusing. It can mean speaking up or walking away. The key is to start small, practice regularly and anchor your choices in your values. Like any skill, the more you practice, the more natural it becomes.

Why defiance matters now

Defiance may be risky, but it’s never been more relevant. At work, employees are pressured to meet targets at any cost. In politics, citizens face waves of misinformation and polarization. In everyday life, people struggle to set healthy boundaries. Across all these contexts, the temptation to comply for the sake of comfort is strong.

That’s why learning to defy strategically matters. It protects personal integrity, strengthens institutions and helps sustain democracy. And it doesn’t require being loud or confrontational.

Of course, not every act of defiance is safe or guaranteed to make a difference. Sometimes it comes at real personal cost and some people still choose to act even when the impact isn’t certain: think of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, or Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. In those moments, the act itself becomes the message. Both of those individuals were deeply connected to their values and the assessment is personal: What feels worth the risk to one person might not to another.

Defiance does require practice: noticing when values are at stake, pausing before you nod along, and choosing actions that align with who you want to be. Each act of consent, compliance or defiance shapes not just your story but the stories of our societies.

If you practice defiance, and teach it and model it, you can imagine a different type of society. You can start to envision a world where, in that same alleyway from my childhood, one of the boys will step forward and tell his friends, “That’s not OK. Let them pass.”

Sunita Sah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The science of defiance: A psychology researcher explains why people comply – and how to resist – https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-defiance-a-psychology-researcher-explains-why-people-comply-and-how-to-resist-264567

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Li Li (李黎), Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Penn State

When you think about heat waves, you might picture sweltering cities, shimmering asphalt and unbearable summer afternoons. These heat waves dominate the headlines because we feel them directly.

Rivers, on the other hand, are often seen as cool refuges, places to escape the heat of summer.

Yet rivers are heating up, too. In fact, they’re heating up faster than the air.

New research from my team shows that riverine heat waves – periods of abnormally high water temperatures in rivers – are becoming more common, more intense and longer-lasting than they were 40 years ago. Their frequency, intensity and duration are also increasing at rates more than twice as fast as heat waves in the atmosphere.

The increased heat puts more stress on aquatic ecosystems, water quality, energy production and agriculture, and it can threaten species that rely on cool streams.

A hidden threat

Riverine heat waves are disruptive in ways that can cascade through aquatic ecosystems.

Cold-water fish such as trout and salmon are especially vulnerable: Extended periods of abnormally high water temperatures can impair reproduction, slow growth and trigger mass die-offs.

Warmer water also holds less oxygen, potentially suffocating aquatic life. In addition, hot water increases the likelihood of algae blooms and elevates the cost of treating water to make it safe for drinking. Warmer water can also create problems for energy production. Many thermoelectric fossil fuel plants and nuclear plants depend on river water for cooling, and warmer water reduces energy production efficiency, which could mean higher power costs.

Despite these serious risks, riverine heat waves have gone quietly unnoticed.

That’s due, in part, to the narrow width of rivers and streams. Oceans and lakes are large enough that they can be monitored consistently by satellites. Rivers, however, are harder to track, especially small rivers. Measuring the temperatures in narrow, winding streams requires high resolution that many satellite sensors lack.

Scientists with universities and government agencies have installed many sensors in streams to measure water temperature, and sensor numbers have proliferated since the 1990s. But the data has been patchy and inconsistent. Until recently, scientists lacked the tools to stitch these fragments into a coherent picture. We developed a way to do it.

AI helps create the full picture

To overcome this challenge, we trained a deep learning model to use scattered and inconsistent records to reconstruct continuous daily water temperatures across 1,471 river sites in the contiguous U.S. from 1980 to 2022.

The reconstructed histories of change enabled us, for the first time, to systematically compare the characteristics of riverine and air heat waves across a large and diverse set of rivers and reveal trends that might otherwise remain invisible.

The results reveal a troubling pattern.

On average, we found that riverine heat waves occur about half as often as air heat waves, and their temperature increases are a third as intense, but they last nearly twice as long.

More strikingly, their frequency is increasing faster than air heat wave events are. Compared to 1980, an average U.S. river experienced nearly two additional heat wave events in 2022. In 2022, those river heat waves lasted more than three extra days on average than in 1980 and were nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit (almost half a degree Celsius) hotter than in 1980.

Rivers in the Rockies and the Northeast showed some of the steepest increases, driven in part by shrinking snowpacks that once buffered streams with steady supplies of cold meltwater. The rivers are heating up quietly but faster than the air above them.

The drivers: Climate change and human infrastructure

We also wanted to find out whether these trends were mainly driven by climate change or by local infrastructure and other activity, such as dams and agriculture.

A machine learning model we developed to rank the importance of influential environmental factors that drive riverine heat waves found that rising air temperatures, particularly at night, were consistently the strongest factors behind river warming. Declines in snow and streamflow also played major roles, especially in mountain regions where dwindling snowpacks produce less meltwater.

Human infrastructure and other activities also play important supporting roles.

For example, the presence of large dams tends to lengthen heat waves, as warm reservoir water is released downstream. Agriculture shows more complex effects: In some areas, particularly the Midwest, irrigation and crop cover can actually cool rivers by altering local climate and hydrology. But these influences, whether harmful or helpful, are secondary compared to the overarching force of climate change.

What does the future hold?

In a warming world, riverine heat waves threaten to become a critical but underappreciated dimension of the global water–energy–food nexus.

Heat waves often coincide with low streamflows – a likely outcome as climate change reduces runoff from snowmelt. The risks compound. Low, slow-moving water warms more easily and holds less oxygen, creating dangerous conditions for aquatic life and increasing the chances of large-scale die-offs.

These are not just ecological problems. They also directly influence water and food supplies, along with energy reliability.

Unlike air heat waves, riverine heat waves currently remain largely absent from global monitoring systems and adaptation plans. Better understanding the changes and risks will require more coordinated data collection, better global data sharing across agencies and countries, and incorporating river temperature trends into climate risk assessments.

Li Li (李黎) does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Rivers are heating up faster than the air − that’s a problem for aquatic life and people – https://theconversation.com/rivers-are-heating-up-faster-than-the-air-thats-a-problem-for-aquatic-life-and-people-263718

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Amy Adamczyk, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Many factors can shape how someone views abortion – gender, age and education, to name a few. Around the world, however, religious belief is the most powerful predictor that someone will disapprove, as I document in my 2025 book, “Fetal Positions.” Faith traditions’ teachings about abortion vary – and there is diversity of opinions within faiths, too. On average, though, people who say that religion is important in their lives are far more likely to think abortion is morally wrong.

But here’s the paradox: There’s a difference between abstract views and personal decisions. On average, strong religious beliefs and involvement in a religious community do not make an American woman less likely to terminate her first pregnancy, so long as she conceives without a potential marriage partner.

The picture becomes even more complex when we consider not just how religious someone is but which tradition they belong to. Young American women in conservative Protestant churches are about half as likely to say they have aborted a premarital pregnancy than Catholics and mainline Protestants, regardless of how devout they are, according to my co-authored research. Other work has found similar differences among Christian groups. There were too few respondents from other religions to fully assess differences, though unmarried young Jewish women in the U.S. likewise appear to have higher odds of obtaining an abortion than conservative Protestants.

Religion’s role in women’s actual decisions about whether to have an abortion is far more nuanced than abortion attitudes alone would suggest. Understanding these relationships can help lawmakers, advocates and the public develop policies that reflect lived realities, rather than relying on assumptions about ideology alone.

Beyond the clinic

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, I followed approximately 5,000 women over six years. The data covers a period from the mid-1990s, when the women were teenagers, to the early 2000s, when they were in their early 20s.

My goal was to examine their views about abortion, their sexual behavior, whether they had a premarital pregnancy, and whether they gave birth. The survey also asked respondents to indicate their religious affiliation; how much they regularly attended services, participated in youth group activities and prayed; and how important religion was in their lives.

Longitudinal data is especially useful for sorting out patterns between religion and abortion, compared to surveys that look at a single moment in a woman’s life. For example, if someone is seeking an abortion, but their faith tradition disapproves, that cognitive dissonance may affect how she answers questions about her beliefs.

These six years of data form the basis of my earlier studies and contribute to my recent book. I was particularly interested in decisions about first pregnancies, which are especially pivotal. They can derail a college education, limit career opportunities, and reshape long-term goals in ways that can feel irreversible at a young age.

I focused only on unmarried young women who were pregnant for the first time. Approximately 25% of the women who had a premarital pregnancy during the six-year period said that they had terminated it. This percentage was roughly the same regardless of how important faith was to them, how much they prayed, or how often they participated in religious activities.

Sociologists Lexie Milmine and Tina Fetner analyzed 2017 data from Canadian women and came to a similar conclusion. They found that neither religious affiliation nor religious service attendance was significantly associated with the odds that a woman reported one or more abortions.

Type, not intensity

There is one religious factor that makes a difference, though: the type of tradition women report belonging to when they were teenagers.

Although various faiths hold different views of abortions, conservative Christian groups, which are influential in the U.S., generally oppose it – including the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination. The Catholic Church also officially disapproves of abortion, though 6 in 10 U.S. Catholics say it should be legal in all or most cases.

Therefore, in addition to researching strength of religious belief and involvement, I also examined whether the type of Christian religious affiliation mattered in shaping abortion decisions.

Focusing on the same group of unmarried young women, I found that regardless of how much they attended religious activities, prayed or reported that religion was very important in their lives, those who affiliated with a conservative Protestant faith when they were teenagers were less likely to terminate their first pregnancies than Catholics or mainline Protestants, which is similar to findings from other research.

The attitude-behavior gap

My research highlights the disconnect between religion’s role in shaping public opinion about abortion versus its influence on women’s actual decisions.

When it comes to attitudes, the relationship is clear and powerful. Regardless of which specific faith they affiliate with, people who say religion is important in their lives on average express stronger opposition to abortion.

But when women face the reality of an unintended pregnancy, religion’s influence is more nuanced. The strength of her personal devotion fails to explain whether a woman will actually choose to terminate her first pregnancy. In the U.S., the more influential religious factor seems to be which specific religious tradition she belongs to.

Decisions about later pregnancies may be more complicated. For example, around 6 in 10 U.S. abortion patients have had at least one child. It’s not clear how religion shapes mothers’ decisions about how an unexpected pregnancy would affect their family.

In the U.S., public opinion about reproductive rights is largely driven by different religious factors. When it comes to individual decisions about pregnancy, though, which religious tradition someone is affiliated with seems to hold the most sway – at least for first pregnancies outside of marriage.

Amy Adamczyk has received funding from a range of organizations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Department of Homeland Security, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Association for the Sociology of Religion, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

– ref. Religion often shapes someone’s view of abortion – but what about a woman’s actual decision? – https://theconversation.com/religion-often-shapes-someones-view-of-abortion-but-what-about-a-womans-actual-decision-265330