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November 20, 2025

The deep sea and the Arctic must be included in efforts to tackle climate change

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Juliano Palacios Abrantes, Postdoctoral researcher, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia

Animals on the seafloor, such as corals and crinoids, take carbon into their bodies. When they die, this carbon is taken into seafloor sediments, where it is stored for hundreds and even thousands of years. (Schmidt Ocean Institute/Erik Cordes), CC BY

This year’s COP30 comes after the international Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) finally acquired the required number of ratification votes by United Nations member states.

The treaty, effective from January 2026, is the first global agreement for marine areas beyond national jurisdictions, with a direct reference to climate change risks in its legal text. Its ratification comes at a crucial time for marine environments.

The momentum of COP30 and the BBNJ treaty creates a unique opportunity to further integrate the ocean, particularly the deep sea, into the climate agenda. By connecting the BBNJ under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2015 Paris Agreement, UN member states now have the tools to better conserve the deep sea’s biodiversity and its role in the global carbon cycle.

The deeps sea’s role in our climate

The deep sea (areas deeper than 200 metres) covers more than half our planet’s surface and accounts for over 90 per cent of the ocean’s volume. It is Earth’s largest long-term carbon sink.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the deep sea has absorbed roughly 30 per cent of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions and about 90 per cent of excess heat, significantly slowing warming and buffering the planet against even more catastrophic impacts.

The deep sea stores 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and 20 times more than all terrestrial plants and soils combined. It helps regulate the Earth’s climate and its importance in fighting climate change is immense, stretching from pole to pole.

The polar regions support essential climate functions. The Southern Ocean around Antarctica absorbs approximately 40 per cent of the global oceanic uptake of human-generated carbon. The opposite pole, the Arctic Ocean, is facing some of the most immediate threats from climate change.

Against this backdrop, COP30 is hosting an unprecedented number of Indigenous people, with around 3,000 participants. Inuit, Sámi, Athabaskan, Aleut, Yupiit and other Arctic and global Indigenous leaders are voicing the need for climate policy to reflect local knowledge, rights and values in line with claims by Arctic states to sovereignty and stewardship.

However, discontent exists given the lack of representation of Indigenous people in COP30 negotiations. More than 70,000 people participated in the parallel People’s Summit which produced the Declaration of the Peoples’ Summit towards COP30. The declaration calls for more equitable solutions to climate change that include Indigenous and other communities.

Indigenous Peoples already co-create scientific management of marine protected areas, such as the Primnoa resedaeformis coral habitats and glass sponge reefs in Nova Scotia. However, more efforts are needed to reach the 30×30 target to designate 30 per cent of the Earth’s land and oceans as protected areas and achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Closing the ocean gap

Recent sessions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have focused on co-ordination across major international agreements like the BBNJ. These sessions, along with the latest vulnerability assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and UNFCCC’s Ocean Climate Change Dialogues, have urged parties to align ocean actions with climate commitments and close measurement and reporting gaps.

In the summer of 2024, Brazil and France started the Blue NDC Challenge, encouraging countries to include ocean-based climate solutions in their National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans.

The UNFCCC requires NDCs to increase carbon uptake rather than historical storage to mitigate. Carbon uptake is the process, activity or mechanism by which natural sinks remove CO2 from the atmosphere. On the other hand, National Adaption Plans may protect deep-sea ecosystems and their biological pump roles.

While recent syntheses show that about 75 per cent (97 out of 130 coastal states that have submitted their NDCs) of UN member states now reference marine and coastal actions in their NDCs, the formal mechanisms for implementing adaptation efforts that include the ocean are lagging behind.

Of the roughly 100 climate indicators being considered at COP30 to monitor the progress of the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation, only 14 include marine or ocean dimensions, with the majority focusing on coasts or shallow waters.

Although those with marine dimensions could be extended to include the deep sea, a persistent omission of deep-sea ecosystems risks undermining both mitigation and adaptation goals. While the final indicators are yet to be determined, it’s critical to ensure that deep-sea ecosystems are explicitly incorporated.

The global stocktake — the Paris Agreement’s process to evaluate the world’s climate action progress — determines if countries are meeting goals and identifies gaps. The stocktake must also identify the deep ocean and deep-sea life specifically, and elaborate on appropriate ocean-based climate actions, comparable to elaborations on the need to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation.

Supporting the Paris Agreement

photo of bivalves and yeti crabs under water — A hydrothermal vent community of bivalves and yeti crabs (Kiwa hirsuta). Chemosynthesis converts inorganic compounds like sulphide/methane via microbial communities where light is unavailable in the deep sea.
(Schmidt Ocean Institute/Erik Cordes)

Emerging activities, misguidingly branded as helping the energy transition — like deep-sea mining — further threaten oceans by causing irreparable damage to the sea floor and in the water column.

Geoengineering technologies to remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere are so far costly and ineffective, but may be necessary to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 C target. However, marine-based technologies may disrupt seafloor habitats, alter ocean chemistry and disrupt the natural carbon cycle in unpredictable ways.

The largest uncertainties in future climate projections stem from potential changes in ocean circulation and biological activity that could reduce the ocean sink efficiency. Even if emissions are stopped, a substantial fraction (20 to 40 per cent in some models) of emitted CO₂ will remain in the atmosphere for a millennium or longer, persisting until slow geological processes complete the sequestration.

If deep-sea carbon sinks were to weaken due to these climate-induced changes, CO₂ would accumulate faster in the atmosphere, making the 1.5 target significantly more difficult to achieve. Therefore, the deep ocean’s capacity determines the long-term fate of CO₂ and the ultimate success of the Paris Agreement’s targets.

Acting without a precautionary approach and failing to incorporate Indigenous values could further damage marine ecosystems and increase inequalities. In addition, failing to establish appropriate protocols for research ethics, project implementation and scientific assessments could result in negative outcomes in terms of CO₂ sequestration.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The deep sea and the Arctic must be included in efforts to tackle climate change – https://theconversation.com/the-deep-sea-and-the-arctic-must-be-included-in-efforts-to-tackle-climate-change-269581

November 20, 2025

How heat from old coal mines became a source of local pride in this northern English town – new study

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Smith, Associate Professor of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle

In Gateshead, north-east England, a solar park provides electricity for a mine water heat pump that provides district heating. Graeme J Baty/Shutterstock

Around a quarter of UK homes lie on disused coalfields. These abandoned coal mines are flooded with water that is naturally heated by the Earth.

This has enormous potential as a sustainable energy source. Schemes such as the mine water district heat network in Gateshead, in north-east England, are already providing low-carbon, cheaper heat and hot water to residential homes.

To maximise the full potential of this energy source by developing new schemes and expanding existing ones, it is critical that people have trust in new energy systems and are motivated to connect to them. This will speed up the number of homeowners signing up.

Communities built around former coal mines tend to have higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage compared to other areas of the UK, with more social housing. Mine water district heating is a potential source of cheaper energy for these communities, but social housing residents must be involved in the transition to new, sustainable energy systems. This will ensure a smooth transition and avoid people feeling like new systems are being imposed on them.

In our new research, we interviewed 18 Gateshead residents about what a switch to mine water heating would mean for them.

We spoke to people from a community where homes are scheduled to move from gas heating to the mine water district heat network. Residents told us about their awareness of mine water heat, their motivations to connect and resources which could support them through the transition. We heard from social housing tenants, homeowners, private renters and landlords to understand how specific issues would affect different people’s lives and homes.

Our participants had limited awareness of mine water heat. Only around a third of participants in our study had previously heard of district heat networks. People had a range of incorrect assumptions about how they work. Improving awareness is clearly needed to enable homeowners to make informed decisions about whether to adopt the new technology. This could involve working with residents to design resources to increase their understanding and ensure that the issues most important to residents are addressed.

Residents we interviewed liked the idea of cleaner, greener energy, but many people said cost would be a barrier unless the mine water heat is cheaper than gas. They would happily “do their bit” for the environment, but not if it means higher bills.

angel of the north big steel sculpture on green grass, blue sky with two people walking towards it along path — The Angel of the North sculpture is built on the site of a former colliery and commemorates the region’s coal mining history.
PJ_Photography/Shutterstock

One homeowner, a woman in her 70s, told us: “We like to do our bit with recycling and trying to save on energy costs, but that’s a luxury. If you’re a pensioner, you can’t. You don’t have unlimited resources … it shouldn’t [cost] any more than an ordinary gas boiler.”

The people we spoke to were proud that heat is being produced from old mines. They felt it connected the area’s coal mining heritage to a more sustainable future. Our participants liked the idea of generating energy from the disused mines in the area. When another 38-year-old resident discovered that the heat came from mine water, they said it “feels like a waste that we haven’t been tapping into that sooner”.

Community co-creation

Mine water district heating schemes provide an opportunity to involve communities in their energy futures. Community engagement ensures that people feel network expansion is being done with them, and not to them.

Raising awareness is important, but that isn’t enough to increase trust and acceptance. Addressing incorrect assumptions that sustainable energy will inherently be more expensive for consumers is key.

In Gateshead, there are cost savings through cheaper energy bills and no maintenance costs to the consumer. Communication of this information to consumers is vital to overcome resistance.

Building a narrative linked to the legacy of energy from coal mines can resonate with communities who are proud of their coal mining heritage. However, that needs to be achieved without glorifying mining history, because so many communities were adversely affected by the consequences of mine closures.

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Michael Smith receives funding from Innovate UK and Northern Net Zero Accelerator.

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

– ref. How heat from old coal mines became a source of local pride in this northern English town – new study – https://theconversation.com/how-heat-from-old-coal-mines-became-a-source-of-local-pride-in-this-northern-english-town-new-study-269959

November 20, 2025

These dinner-plate sized computer chips are set to supercharge the next leap forward in AI

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Luo Mai, Reader at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to make today’s artificial intelligence (AI) systems work at the scale required to keep advancing. They require enormous amounts of memory to ensure all their processing chips can quickly share all the data they generate in order to work as a unit.

The chips that have mostly been powering the deep-learning boom for the past decade are called graphics processing units (GPUs). They were originally designed for gaming, not for AI models where each step in their thinking process must take place in well under a millisecond.

Each chip contains only a modest amount of memory, so the large language models (LLMs) that underpin our AI systems must be partitioned across many GPUs connected by high-speed networks. LLMs work by training an AI on huge amounts of text, and every part of them involves moving data between chips – a process that is not only slow and energy-intensive but also requires ever more chips as models get bigger.

For instance, OpenAI used some 200,000 GPUs to create its latest model, GPT-5, around 20 times the number used in the GPT-3 model that powered the original version of Chat-GPT three years ago.

To address the limits of GPUs, companies such as California-based Cerebras have started building a different kind of chip called wafer-scale processors. These are the size of a dinner plate, about five times bigger than GPUs, and only recently became commercially viable. Each contains vast on-chip memory and hundreds of thousands of individual processors (known as cores).

The idea behind them is simple. Instead of coordinating dozens of small chips, keep everything on one piece of silicon so data does not have to travel across networks of hardware. This matters because when an AI model generates an answer – a step known as inference – every delay adds up.

The time it takes the model to respond is called latency, and reducing that latency is crucial for applications that work in real-time, such as chatbots, scientific-analysis engines and fraud-detection systems.

Wafer-scale chips alone are not enough, however. Without a software system engineered specifically for their architecture, much of their theoretical performance gain simply never appears.

The deeper challenge

Wafer-scale processors have an unusual combination of characteristics. Each core has very limited memory, so there is a huge need for data to be shared within the chip. Cores can access their own data in nanoseconds, but there are so many cores on each chip over such a large area that reading memory on the far side of the wafer can be a thousand times slower.

Limits in the routing network on each chip also mean that it can’t handle all possible communications between cores at once. In sum, cores cannot access memory fast enough, cannot communicate freely, and ultimately spend most of their time waiting.

Illustration of a computer chip network — Wafer-scale chips get slowed down by communication delays.
Brovko Serhii

We’ve recently been working on a solution called WaferLLM, a joint venture between the University of Edinburgh and Microsoft Research designed to run the largest LLMs efficiently on wafer-scale chips. The vision is to reorganise how an LLM runs so that each core on the chip mainly handles data stored locally.

In what is the first paper to explore this problem from a software perspective, we’ve designed three new algorithms that basically break the model’s large mathematical operations into much smaller pieces.

These pieces are then arranged so that neighbouring cores can process them together, handing only tiny fragments of data to the next core. This keeps information moving locally across the wafer and avoids the long-distance communication that slows the entire chip down.

We’ve also introduced new strategies for distributing different parts (or layers) of the LLM across hundreds of thousands of cores without leaving large sections of the wafer idle. This involves coordinating processing and communication to ensure that when one group of cores is computing, another is shifting data, and a third is preparing its next task.

These adjustments were tested on LLMs like Meta’s Llama and Alibaba’s Qwen using Europe’s largest wafer-scale AI facility at the Edinburgh International Data Facility. WaferLLM made the wafer-scale chips generate text about 100 times faster than before.

Compared with a cluster of 16 GPUs, this amounted to a tenfold reduction in latency, as well as being twice as energy efficient. So whereas some argue that the next leap in AI performance may come from chips designed specifically for LLMs, our results suggest you can instead design software that matches the structure of existing hardware.

In the near term, faster inference at lower cost raises the prospect of more responsive AI tools capable of evaluating many more hypotheses per second. This would improve everything from reasoning assistants to scientific-analysis engines. Even more data-heavy applications like fraud detection and testing ideas through simulations would be able to handle dramatically larger workloads without the need for massive GPU clusters.

The future

GPUs remain flexible, widely available and supported by a mature software ecosystem, so wafer-scale chips will not replace them. Instead, they are likely to serve workloads that depend on ultra-low latency, extremely large models or high energy efficiency, such as drug discovery and financial trading.

Meanwhile, GPUs aren’t standing still: better software and continuous improvements in chip design are helping them run more efficiently and deliver more speed. Over time, assuming there’s a need for even greater efficiency, some GPU architectures may also adopt wafer-scale ideas.

Medicine capsules being made — More powerful AI could unlock new types of drug discovery.
Simplystocker

The broader lesson is that AI infrastructure is becoming a co-design problem: hardware and software must evolve together. As models grow, simply scaling out with more GPUs will no longer be enough. Systems like WaferLLM show that rethinking the software stack is essential for unlocking the next generation of AI performance.

For the public, the benefits will not appear as new chips on shelves but as AI systems that will support applications that were previously too slow or too expensive to run. Whether in scientific discovery, public-sector services or high-volume analytics, the shift toward wafer-scale computing signals a new phase in how AI systems are built – and what they can achieve.

– ref. These dinner-plate sized computer chips are set to supercharge the next leap forward in AI – https://theconversation.com/these-dinner-plate-sized-computer-chips-are-set-to-supercharge-the-next-leap-forward-in-ai-270094

November 20, 2025

Economic forecasts point to a Democrat win in the 2026 US midterm elections

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

The resounding victories in recent elections by Democrats Zohran Mamdani in New York, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey has reinvigorated the party after a dismal year since Donald Trump became president.

The victories were not a mandate for a sharp ideological shift to the left. This may be true for Mamdani, but it is not for Spanberger and Sherrill, since both are mainstream centrist Democrats. The main reason for the victories can be seen in the chart below.

Trends in presidential job approval and Donald Trump’s handling of the economy 2025:

The data comes from successive polls in the United States conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Economist magazine. All three candidates focused on the issue of the US economy which proved to be a winning strategy since it is clear the economy strongly affects Donald Trump’s job approval ratings.

As the president’s ratings on the economy decline, so does his job approval ratings. The result is that the Republicans took the blame for failing to deal with the issue.

The midterm Congressional elections in the US are due to take place in November 2026. Given the strong relationship between the economy and support for the president, it is interesting to examine how the economy is likely to influence support for the Democrats in those elections.

To investigate this, we can look at elections to the House of Representatives over a long period, given that they occur every two years.

The graph below compares the number of House seats won by the Democrats and economic growth in the US in all 40 House elections since 1946. Economic growth is weighted so that the Democrats benefit from high growth when they control the House but are penalised by this when the Republicans are in control.

This also works in reverse with low growth producing a poor electoral performance for the party when Democrats are in charge and a good performance when the Republicans are in control.

The relationship between economic growth and House seats won by Democrats 1946 to 2024:

The impact of the economy on voting in these elections is clearly quite strong, but the number of House seats won declines as the party’s majority gets larger. This is what is known as a “ceiling” effect meaning that when the majority is very large it is difficult to win more seats even in a thriving economy.

But this relationship can nonetheless be used to develop a forecasting model of the seats likely to be captured by the party in midterm elections next year.

When forecasting seats, an additional factor to consider is the inertia of party support over successive elections. If the Democrats did well in one year, they were likely to do well two years later.

For example, in 2008 when Barack Obama won the presidential election, the Democrats captured 233 House seats and the Republicans 202. In the following midterm election in 2010 the party won 257 seats while the Republicans won 178 and so the Democrats retained control of the House.

At the moment the House has a Republican majority of 219 against 213 Democrats. So Republican control is quite vulnerable to a surge in support for the Democrats.

Multiple regression analysis

The forecasting model involves a multiple regression analysis. This uses several variables to predict the behaviour of a specific variable – in this case the number of House seats won by the Democrats.

In addition to the two variables already mentioned, approval ratings and the performance of the economy, the fact that the incumbent president is a Republican is included in the modelling as well since this influences the vote for the Democrats.

We know the number of House seats from the 2024 election and the fact that Trump is a Republican, so to forecast Democrat House seats we need a prediction for economic growth in 2026.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis provides data which forecasts growth in the US economy up to 2028. It predicts that growth in real terms will be 1.8% in 2026 – and when this is included in the modelling, the overall forecast from these variables is 80% accurate.

If a variable is a perfect predictor of House seats it would score 1.0 and if it failed to predict any seats at all it would score 0. The impact of growth on seats when the Democrats controlled the House was 0.75, the inertia effect of past Democrat seats was 0.26 and Trump’s presidency was 0.19.

Low growth boosts Democrats’ prospects

Clearly economic growth dominates the picture showing that low growth rates next year will strengthen the Democrat challenge. This is likely to happen since a recent IMF report suggests that US growth is likely to slow next year.

Actual and predicted House seats in elections 1946 to 2026:

The third chart shows the relationship between Democratic House seats predicted by the model and the actual number of seats won by the party. The predictions track the actual number of Democrat House seats fairly closely and so the forecast should be reasonably accurate

It should be noted that all forecasting models are subject to significant errors. As the chart shows, the predicted number of seats is not the same as the actual number and if something unforeseen happens the predictions could be wrong. That said, however, the forecast is that the Democrats will win 223 seats – an increase of ten over their performance in 2024. This will give them enough to hand them control of the House.

Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

– ref. Economic forecasts point to a Democrat win in the 2026 US midterm elections – https://theconversation.com/economic-forecasts-point-to-a-democrat-win-in-the-2026-us-midterm-elections-270178

November 20, 2025

Five everyday habits that could be harming your pancreas

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dipa Kamdar, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice, Kingston University

A few everyday habits play a major role in pancreatic damage. carlesmiro/Shutterstock

The pancreas is essential for staying alive and healthy. This small organ sits behind the stomach and has two main jobs. It produces digestive enzymes that break down food and hormones such as insulin and glucagon that control blood sugar.

Everyday habits such as heavy drinking and unhealthy eating can gradually damage the pancreas. Once injured, the consequences can be serious and include inflammation, diabetes and, in some cases, cancer.

Several common lifestyle factors can put the pancreas under strain:

1. Alcohol

Regular heavy drinking is one of the leading causes of pancreatitis. Acute pancreatitis causes severe abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting and often needs hospital care. Repeated episodes can develop into chronic pancreatitis, where long-lasting inflammation and scarring permanently reduce pancreatic function. This can lead to malabsorption of fats, vitamins and other nutrients, diabetes and a higher risk of pancreatic cancer. Researchers have several theories about how this damage occurs.

Alcohol can cause digestive enzymes such as trypsin, which normally work in the small intestine, to activate inside the pancreas before they reach the gut. Instead of digesting food, they digest pancreatic tissue and trigger severe inflammation.

Alcohol also makes pancreatic juices thicker and stickier. These thicker fluids can form protein plugs that harden into stones and block tiny ducts. Over time this causes irritation, scarring and the loss of pancreatic cells. When the pancreas breaks down alcohol it produces a toxic chemical called acetaldehyde that irritates and damages cells and triggers inflammation.

Alcohol also encourages the release of chemical messengers that switch on inflammation and keep it active. This makes tissue damage more likely.

Guidelines recommend drinking no more than 14 units of alcohol per week. It is safest to spread this across several days and to avoid binge drinking.

2. Smoking

Smoking increases the risk of both acute and chronic pancreatitis. Acute pancreatitis develops suddenly with severe pain and sickness. Chronic pancreatitis develops over many years and repeated inflammation causes permanent damage. Several studies show that the more someone smokes, the higher the risk. Another study found that quitting significantly reduces risk, and after about 15 years the risk can fall close to that of a non smoker.

Smoking is also strongly linked to pancreatic cancer. Scientists do not yet fully understand every mechanism, but laboratory studies show that nicotine can trigger sudden increases in calcium inside pancreatic cells. Too much calcium harms cells and worsens inflammation. Tobacco smoke also contains carcinogens that damage DNA.

One of the earliest genetic changes in pancreatic cancer involves a gene called Kras, which acts like a switch that controls how cells grow. In more than 90 percent of pancreatic cancers this gene is mutated, which locks the growth switch in the on position and encourages uncontrolled cell growth.

3. Diet

Diet affects the pancreas in several ways. Eating a lot of saturated fat, processed meat or refined carbohydrates raises the risk of pancreatic problems.

One major cause of acute pancreatitis is gallstones. Gallstones can block the bile duct and trap digestive enzymes inside the pancreas. When enzymes build up they begin to damage the organ. Diet contributes to gallstone formation because high cholesterol levels make bile more likely to form stones.

Another type of fat in the blood is triglycerides. When triglycerides rise to very high levels, large fat particles known as chylomicrons can clog tiny blood vessels in the pancreas. This reduces oxygen supply and triggers the release of harmful fatty acids that irritate pancreatic tissue.

Frequent spikes in blood sugar from high sugar foods also strain the pancreas. Constant surges in insulin over time reduce insulin sensitivity and may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

4. Obesity

Obesity increases the risk of acute pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Fat can accumulate in and around the pancreas, a condition called pancreatic steatosis or non-alcoholic fatty pancreatic disease. This build up can replace healthy cells and weaken the organ.

Excess body fat also increases levels of pro-inflammatory molecules such as TNF-alpha and IL-6, creating long-lasting inflammation that supports tumour growth. Obesity disrupts insulin sensitivity and hormone signals from fat tissue. Gallstones are more common in people who are obese and can increase the risk of pancreatitis.

5. Physical inactivity

A sedentary lifestyle worsens insulin resistance and forces the pancreas to produce more insulin. Without activity to help muscles absorb glucose, the pancreas remains under constant strain. This metabolic stress increases susceptibility to diabetes and pancreatic cancer.

Physical activity may lower pancreatic cancer risk both directly and indirectly. It supports immune function, improves cell health, reduces obesity and lowers type 2 diabetes risk. Regular movement strengthens antioxidant defences and increases the activity of disease fighting immune cells.

Pancreatic cancer may lead to diabetes, as a damaged pancreas cannot produce enough insulin. Diabetes can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

Adults are encouraged to include strength training at least twice a week and to aim for 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week.

Because pancreatic conditions can be life threatening, recognising early symptoms is important. Seek medical advice if you have persistent abdominal pain, unexplained weight loss, loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting that do not settle, jaundice, greasy or foul smelling stools or chronic fatigue.

Many risks are modifiable. Limiting alcohol intake, quitting smoking, eating a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and whole grains and being physically active all reduce the likelihood of pancreatic disease. Even small changes such as choosing plant-based protein or cutting back on sugary drinks help lighten the load on this vital organ.

By understanding how the pancreas becomes damaged and by noticing symptoms early, you can take simple steps to protect it. Look after your pancreas and it will look after you.

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

– ref. Five everyday habits that could be harming your pancreas – https://theconversation.com/five-everyday-habits-that-could-be-harming-your-pancreas-266647

November 20, 2025

Testimony: new documentary shows a stark reckoning with Ireland’s Magdalene past – and the long fight for justice

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ruth Barton, Fellow Emeritus in Film Studies, Trinity College Dublin

The scandal of the religious-run Magdalene laundries, where young women deemed to have offended the moral code of the Catholic Church were incarcerated and put to work, is a stain on the public history of the Irish state. It has taken years of campaigning to bring this injustice to light.

Even now, it is more than feasible that further revelations will emerge. They did in 2012, when amateur historian Catherine Corliss uncovered evidence of a mass grave containing the remains of 796 infants at St Mary’s mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Overall, it is estimated that a minimum of 10,000 women were sent to the institutions in the years from the founding of the state in 1922 to the closure of the final Magdalene laundry in 1996. Most were forced into unpaid, brutalising work in the profitable laundry system.

The new documentary, Testimony, directed by Aoife Kelleher, takes up where earlier campaigning films left off. Its most notable progenitor is Sex in a Cold Climate (1998), in which four women narrated to-camera their memories of the laundries. It was as shocking then as now to see elderly, dignified, smartly dressed women weeping at the memory of having their children taken from them.

The trauma they endured is unimaginable. Sex in a Cold Climate was the inspiration for The Magdalene Sisters in 2002. Since then, Philomena (2013), based on the real story of Philomena Lee, who also speaks in Testimony, shone a light on the trade in babies, many of them to homes in the US, perpetrated by the Magdalene institutions in collusion with the Irish state.

Most recently, Small Things Like These (2024), adapted from the novella by Claire Keegan, asked its viewers what they would have done if they had been confronted with the truth of what was going on in those grim buildings.

The trailer for Testimony.

Testimony alternates to-camera interviews with survivors with the history of how the group, Justice for Magdalenes, was founded. We follow this collection of determined campaigners as they take on the Irish government and force them to acknowledge their historic complicity in this story.

Recognising that descriptions of slow, detailed legal work do not make for dynamic viewing, the filmmakers rely on explaining the legal process through the key figure of the Irish human rights lawyer, Maeve O’Rourke, an articulate, engaging presence on screen.

At the same time, the documentary acknowledges that the true heroes are the women whose stories of abuse and exploitation are as harrowing as when they were first heard. Regrettably, now as previously, the religious orders declined to participate.

Testimony is effectively a two-part film. One “ending” comes in at around the 55-minute mark with the triumphant arrival of a group of 220 Magdalene survivors and their families to a civic reception in Dublin. As the coaches roll in, they are greeted by cheering members of the public. This deeply moving sequence draws its strength from the women’s own emotions as they take in the faces and placards among the crowds. As one says: “That for me was my healing.”

The film then restarts with the stories of the children who were trafficked out of the state, interweaving this with the campaigners’ attempts to force the government into offering appropriate recompense. This segment opens with footage of the discovery of the Tuam burials and again returns to the voices of survivors, both mothers and children, including Philomena Lee. It also touches on the illegal vaccine trials conducted on children born in the homes.

Deprived of a similarly cathartic ending to the first segment, the film concludes by imploring the Irish government and the religious institutions to make available all the records held on the Magdalene laundries.

Testimony will never reach the audiences that fictional films on the subject can. At the same time, this campaigning documentary is an essential reminder of a society’s efforts to contain female sexuality, particularly that of its most vulnerable members. It is equally a demonstration of how the law can be used to fight injustice. We needn’t be so complacent as to assume none of this could happen again.

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

– ref. Testimony: new documentary shows a stark reckoning with Ireland’s Magdalene past – and the long fight for justice – https://theconversation.com/testimony-new-documentary-shows-a-stark-reckoning-with-irelands-magdalene-past-and-the-long-fight-for-justice-270103

November 20, 2025

Ciara’s Beninese citizenship: marketing ploys can’t heal the past

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Kwasi Konadu, Professor in Africana & Latin American Studies, Colgate University

African American singer Ciara received citizenship from the Republic of Benin in 2025 as a descendant of enslaved Africans. The images of her ceremony at Ouidah’s slave route memorial site, “Door of No Return”, were broadcast worldwide. Surrounded by drummers and dignitaries, she held a new Beninese passport aloft, a gesture hailed as both homecoming and healing.

As a historian of Africa, the African diaspora and Ghana, I see Ciara’s citizenship as part of a broader, complex story about how African states are reengaging with their diasporas. These are the global communities of people whose ancestors were displaced through slavery, migration and colonialism.

Several African countries have offered national identity to these descendants.

For many in the global African diaspora, Ciara’s ceremony felt like justice finally taking physical form. It was a symbolic reversal of forced displacement, affirming that descendants of the enslaved can now return as citizens rather than commodities. But behind the symbolism lies a deeper set of questions about power, inequality, and the politics of belonging.

At stake is whether Africa’s experiment with citizenship based on ancestry – what might be called citizenship diplomacy – represents genuine repair for past injustices or a ploy by governments to rebrand themselves.

A new wave of diaspora citizenship

Benin enacted a new law in 2024 which offers nationality to adults who can prove they descend from people enslaved and shipped from African shores. Proof may include DNA testing, genealogical documentation, or oral testimony. Recipients must finalise the process in person within three years.

The initiative follows similar efforts elsewhere. Ghana’s “Year of Return” in 2019 granted citizenship to dozens of African Americans; Sierra Leone has extended passports to descendants using DNA verification. Rwanda and The Gambia have launched programmes to attract “repatriates”.

These policies share a powerful moral ambition: to repair the rupture of slavery and reconnect global Africans with the continent.

Yet as Africa transforms its history into diplomacy, its diplomacy runs the risk of being less about genuine reuniting and more about using identity as a marketing strategy – selling the idea of “returning home” to improve an African nation’s global image.

This tension gives rise to four key issues revealed in my research: unequal access, genealogical governance, heritage commodification, and domestic inequality.

The unequal path to return

The first tension is access. DNA tests and ancestral research are expensive. The documentation required to verify lineage privileges those with resources, education and digital literacy. Celebrities can easily navigate this process; millions of others cannot.

In fact, those whose family histories were most violently erased are least able to prove descent.

These programmes are often promoted as open arms to the world’s Black descendants. However, they rely on technologies and bureaucracies rooted in western data regimes.

As scholars have shown, genetic ancestry databases are overwhelmingly managed by companies in the United States and Europe. These companies market and sell DNA while claiming to restore identity. The proof of African belonging is, once again, mediated by foreign tools and global capital.

Genealogy as governance

This reliance on genetics and archives revives colonial ways of classifying identity. European empires once defined African subjects through blood, “tribe” and lineage. Today, the state risks reinstating similar categories.

To decide who “counts” as African, governments are outsourcing moral authority to laboratories and paperwork. Instead, they could focus on community-based verification. This uses local historical societies, oral historians and cultural institutions that recognise shared heritage without reducing it to data.

The bureaucracy of belonging threatens to eclipse the politics of solidarity.

From memory to marketing

Another layer of complexity is economic. Governments market these citizenship programmes as engines of tourism, philanthropy and investment. Ghana’s Year of Return generated millions of dollars in tourism revenue, prompting other states to follow suit.

But when heritage becomes an industry, memory risks turning into merchandise. The descendants of the enslaved become consumers of identity rather than coauthors of the continent’s future.

There is nothing wrong with diaspora investment or travel. However, reparation should not be measured in flight packages and photo opportunities.

Inequality on the ground

Citizenship by ancestry can also create new inequalities within African societies. Returnees with foreign capital might purchase prime land, establish gated enclaves, or get privileges unavailable to locals.

In Ghana, tensions have surfaced between diaspora residents and citizens over property rights and cultural authority.

If unaddressed, these disparities could reproduce the very economic divides that colonialism imposed.

Citizenship as reparation must not translate into citizenship as entitlement. The moral gesture of inclusion loses meaning when it mirrors the social exclusions of global wealth.

Confronting historical complicity

Benin deserves recognition for acknowledging its historical role in the Atlantic slave trade, when the Kingdom of Dahomey captured and sold captives to European traders. The current government has invested in memorial tourism and educational projects around Ouidah’s slave route sites.

But recognition is only the first step. Apology without transformation leaves history unhealed. A citizenship programme can value memory only if it also builds institutions that dismantle the legacies of exploitation.

These national programmes expose a broader governance gap. The African Union (AU) officially designates the diaspora as Africa’s “sixth region”, yet there is no unified policy guiding diaspora citizenship. Each nation improvises its own standards, often shaped by domestic politics or diplomatic ambitions.

The absence of coordination creates a patchwork of eligibility rules and inconsistent rights. In some states, new citizens can vote or own property; in others, their status remains largely symbolic.

A continental framework could establish shared legal, ethical and economic principles for diaspora citizenship. Coordination would protect migrants from exploitation, prevent nationality shopping, and turn symbolic gestures into coherent policy.

Beyond ancestry: towards agency

The most profound shift must be philosophical. The descendants of the enslaved do not simply seek to return to Africa. They seek to return with Africa, to participate in a collective rethinking of freedom, belonging and justice.

Drawing from my research on diaspora reconstruction and transatlantic history, I argue that reconnecting should not be a sentimental pilgrimage. It should be a political partnership. Governments can collaborate with diaspora communities to build archives and fund educational exchanges. They can also invest in cultural institutions that preserve collective histories.

In that sense, citizenship as reparation can succeed only when it becomes citizenship as responsibility. That is, a mutual pact to build societies more equitable than the world that slavery and colonialism created.

Homecoming is an unfinished conversation. It is one that begins each time the continent and its diasporas meet not as strangers or symbols, but as partners in building the world that history denied them.

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

– ref. Ciara’s Beninese citizenship: marketing ploys can’t heal the past – https://theconversation.com/ciaras-beninese-citizenship-marketing-ploys-cant-heal-the-past-269213

November 20, 2025

South Africans are flourishing more than you might expect – here’s why

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Richard G. Cowden, Research Scientist, Harvard University

A celebration at the Twelve Apostles Church in Christ International. Faith helps South Africans flourish, according to a global survey. GCIS/Flickr, CC BY-ND

South Africa is often portrayed in the media as a country struggling with inequality, corruption, crime, infrastructure collapse and public health challenges. But this isn’t the whole story.

When South Africans are asked to describe their own lives, they often reveal signs that they are flourishing in vital ways. According to the Global Flourishing Study, many South Africans are in fact showing resolve by striving to move forward from the country’s difficult past and maintaining hope for a better future.

Human flourishing is sometimes used to describe an ideal state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the environments and communities they’re part of. The global study was launched in 2021 to better understand human flourishing around the world.

Over 200,000 people in 22 countries from Argentina to Japan participated in the first wave of the Global Flourishing Study. They completed a survey about their background, upbringing, health, well-being, and other areas of life.

Recently, we analysed the data from 2,561 South Africans in the study to drill deeper. We explored how they are doing across nearly 70 health, well-being and related outcomes. The analysis offers the first comprehensive overview of flourishing in South Africa.

So, what does flourishing look like in South Africa right now?

Contrary to a gloomy view of the country, adult South Africans are flourishing in many ways that mirror the broader world. The country even has some notable strengths it could capitalise on. There are also lingering struggles that may be hindering flourishing in South Africa.

These findings show that some flourishing is still possible amid adversity. Insights from South Africa could offer clues about how to support the well-being of people living in places that are going through significant social and structural challenges.

What South Africa has in common with others

Part of our analysis compared South Africa’s average for each indicator of flourishing to the average across all other countries in the study.

For example, consider the question, “In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?” (rated on a scale from 0-10, with 0 being extremely unhappy and 10 being extremely happy). The average response was 6.95 in South Africa and 7.00 across the other countries. This suggests average happiness in South Africa is about the same as in the other countries, taken together.

The findings were similar for more than 30 of the main outcomes, including sense of purpose, social belonging, depression, gratitude, and general health.

Despite deep-seated societal problems, many South Africans report experiences of well-being that are not very different from the rest of the world. This doesn’t mean that the country’s social and structural challenges should be minimised or overlooked. However, it does show that many people can still experience high levels of well-being in circumstances of material fragility and deprivation.

It raises questions for South African leaders, policymakers and citizens to reflect on. For example, what might the flourishing of South Africans look like if these social-structural constraints were loosened or lifted?

South Africa’s strengths

The findings also suggest that South Africans have several strengths. Compared with the combined averages of the other countries, South Africans reported lower pain and suffering, greater inner peace, hope and forgiveness of others, and greater religious or spiritual engagement. On many of these, South Africa was ranked among the top five countries.

This shines a light on the enormous potential for flourishing in South Africa. For instance, many South Africans say they have the capacity to reckon with wounds from the oppressive system of racial segregation that shaped society for decades (through forgiveness).

South Africans tend to stay grounded amid the challenges of daily life (through inner peace), which puts them in a position to transcend adversities. And they generally hold onto the possibility of a brighter future despite enduring social-structural vulnerabilities (through hope).

Perhaps the most inspiring of these findings is forgiveness. This is a strength that appears to have been cultivated through South Africa’s protracted reckoning with the legacy of apartheid. It may reflect a general societal commitment to pursuing peace and healing over discord and bitterness.

Faith may be a foundational source for the strengths seen in South Africa. For many South Africans, religion or spirituality is something they lean on to navigate the struggles they face in one of the most unequal societies in the world.

The challenges

Like many countries in the Global Flourishing Study, South Africa has clear opportunities to strengthen and expand the conditions that support human flourishing.

South Africans also tended to report lower well-being on several outcomes. These included satisfaction with life, meaning in life, place satisfaction, social trust, experiences of discrimination, charitable giving, and several socioeconomic factors such as employment and financial well-being.

These point to actionable areas that government, civil society, and private sector leaders can prioritise to improve flourishing in the country. Special attention should be directed toward supporting vulnerable groups that the analysis showed are struggling in many aspects of flourishing, including women, divorced people, and those with lower levels of education.

What this all means

The concept of flourishing invites South Africa to envision the highest ideals for its people and the kind of society those ideals might sustain. This does not mean that everyone will agree on what those ideals are, or how best to achieve them.

But the language of flourishing offers a way to unite different sectors and stakeholders around a shared goal: harnessing South Africa’s strengths while addressing challenges that hold back deeper forms of human flourishing in the country.

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

– ref. South Africans are flourishing more than you might expect – here’s why – https://theconversation.com/south-africans-are-flourishing-more-than-you-might-expect-heres-why-268695

November 20, 2025

What Yiddish literature reveals about Canada’s diverse canon and multilingual identity

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Regan Lipes, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and English, MacEwan University

As an assistant professor of comparative literature, when I ask undergraduate students how they define “Canadian literature,” I get half-hearted answers about it encompassing anything inherently Canadian. They don’t, however, specify which language, if any, they believe Canadian literature must be written in.

I specifically ask this question because — although I teach in an anglophone environment — just as Canadian identities are multilingual, so too is the literature that tells Canada’s stories.

Defining a national literary canon can be complex. But literature written in any language can be Canadian when the experiences it describes are grounded in the realities of life in Canada.

Yiddish literature, though often overlooked, is an example that offers essential Canadian stories that broaden the national canon.

Reflecting multilayered identities

In my literary trends and traditions class, I teach the short story collection Natasha And Other Stories by Canadian author David Bezmozgis. Bezmozgis’s six English-language stories about a young Soviet-born, Russian-speaking, Latvian-Jewish immigrant to Toronto chronicle the gradual cultivation of a Canadian identity.

Students have a much easier time seeing the work of Bezmozgis as Canadian literature, despite the diversity of multilayered cultural influences, because it was written in English. To them, it’s more accessible.

I follow my first question with another: can Canadian literature be written in Yiddish?

This is usually answered with noncommittal shrugs. Some students are unsure whether Yiddish is still a functioning language and are surprised to learn it is the mother tongue of daily life in many communities globally, with 41,000 speakers residing in Canada.

Yiddish, traditionally spoken by Eastern and Central European Jews before the Second World War, has also experienced a renaissance because of growing appreciation for its evocative flair among contemporary culture connoisseurs.

My students were skeptical when I tell them we are going to read Canadian literature that had been translated from Yiddish. I introduce them to Jewish-Canadian writer Chava Rosenfarb, who was recognized by the University of Lethbridge with an honorary doctorate in 2006 for her literary achievements.

Born in Łódź, Poland, in 1923, Rosenfarb has become a core literary figure for the city because of her three-volume novel Tree of Life chronicling the conditions of perpetual struggle in the Łódź Ghetto. In 2023, a street in Łódź, was named after Rosenfarb, underscoring her importance in the Polish literary sphere.

But outside of Yiddish circles in Canada, her poetry and prose were not widely associated with the country’s literary canon for a long time.

Yiddish literature is Canadian

Though Rosenfarb spent most of her adult life in Canada, raising a family in Montréal, it is only in recent years that she is being appreciated for her significant contribution to Canadian literature. Even though it may have limited her audience, she predominantly published her work in Yiddish because it remained the language in which she felt most artistically at home.

Although Rosenfarb’s individual stories have been previously published in Yiddish literary magazines and in separate translations, it was not until In the Land of The Postscript: The Complete Short Stories of Chava Rosenfarb came out in 2023 that we had the author’s short fiction in a single volume for the first time.

Chava Rosenfarb’s daughter, Dr. Goldie Morgentaler — professor emerita at the University of Lethbridge who was honoured with a Canadian Jewish Literary Award for her translation work from Yiddish to English — translated the collection unifying the text with an insightful and synthesizing forward. She finally brought her mother’s short fiction, about the lives of Holocaust survivors rebuilding lives in Montréal, to anglophone audiences.

Rosenfarb’s stories in the collection tackle the philosophical and existential quandaries of the universal human experience, but with a recognizably Canadian backdrop. Her characters grapple with the obstacles of immigration and ongoing displacement while simultaneously navigating the legacy of their Holocaust trauma. The resettlement of survivors contributed significantly to Canadian Jewish culture, and the impact is still present today.

As Morgentaler notes, it is the ever-visible silhouette of Mount Royal in Montréal that reminds Edgia, the title character of “Edgia’s Revenge,” that as a Jew, she is always under the watchful gaze of the dominant Christian power structure. When Lolek, Edgia’s husband, later dies, it is a set of spiral wooden stairs characteristic of Montréal architecture that are to blame for his fall.

These are distinctly local, Montréal-rooted elements of Rosenfarb’s storytelling, and are immediately familiar to readers. Despite being written in Yiddish, these are Canadian stories that depict the lived experiences of a generation of traumatized newcomers.

Translation supports Canadian narratives

A nation’s literature used to be tied to language, but this can no longer be the narrow criterion for defining a canon. Migration, both voluntary and resulting from forcible displacement, has diversified and enriched the chorus of voices that narrate the stories of Canada. And translation makes it possible to appreciate Canadian literature in its diversity of voices.

Despite having written her short fiction in Yiddish, Rosenfarb’s work tells Canadian stories that provide a valuable glimpse into a chapter of the national narrative seldom explored.

After exposing my students to Rosenfarb’s short fiction, I ask them again whether they consider literature written in languages other than those officially recognized by the Canadian government as belonging to the genre of Canadian literature. And without exception, they agree their perspective has changed.

This marks a point in literary studies where scholars are moving past the traditional paradigm of examining national literature through the lens of national languages.

And the growing literary canon is not only stronger for it, it better reflects the country’s cultural reality.

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

– ref. What Yiddish literature reveals about Canada’s diverse canon and multilingual identity – https://theconversation.com/what-yiddish-literature-reveals-about-canadas-diverse-canon-and-multilingual-identity-267190

November 20, 2025

AI is providing emotional support for employees – but is it a valuable tool or privacy threat?

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nelson Phillips, Distinguished Professor of Technology Management, University of California, Santa Barbara

Does AI that monitors and supports worker emotions improve or degrade the workplace? Marta Sher/iStock via Getty Images

As artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT become an increasingly popular avenue for people seeking personal therapy and emotional support, the dangers that this can present – especially for young people – have made plenty of headlines. What hasn’t received as much attention is employers using generative AI to assess workers’ psychological well-being and provide emotional support in the workplace.

Since the pandemic-induced global shift to remote work, industries ranging from health care to human resources and customer service have seen a spike in employers using AI-powered systems designed to analyze the emotional state of employees, identify emotionally distressed individuals, and provide them with emotional support.

This new frontier is a large step beyond using general chat tools or individual therapy apps for psychological support. As researchers studying how AI affects emotions and relationships in the workplace, we are concerned with critical questions that this shift raises: What happens when your employer has access to your emotional data? Can AI really provide the kind of emotional support workers need? What happens if the AI malfunctions? And if something goes wrong, who’s responsible?

The workplace difference

Many companies have started by offering automated counseling programs that have many parallels with personal therapy apps, a practice that has shown some benefits. In preliminary studies, researchers found that in a doctor-patient-style virtual conversation setting, AI-generated responses actually make people feel more heard than human ones. A study comparing AI chatbots with human psychotherapists found the bots were “at least as empathic as therapist responses, and sometimes more so.”

This might seem surprising at first glance, but AI offers unwavering attention and consistently supportive responses. It doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t judge and doesn’t get frustrated when you repeat the same concerns. For some employees, especially those dealing with stigmatized issues like mental health or workplace conflicts, this consistency feels safer than human interaction.

But for others, it raises new concerns. A 2023 study found that workers were reluctant to participate in company-initiated mental health programs due to worries about confidentiality and stigma. Many feared that their disclosures could negatively affect their careers.

Other workplace AI systems go much deeper, analyzing employee communication as it happens – think emails, Slack conversations and Zoom calls. This analysis creates detailed records of employee emotional states, stress patterns and psychological vulnerabilities. All this data resides within corporate systems where privacy protections are typically unclear and often favor the interests of the employer.

illustration of a giant eyeball watching a woman working on a computer at a desk — Employees might feel that AI emotional support systems are more like workplace surveillance.
Malte Mueller/fStop via Getty Images

Workplace Options, a global employee assistance provider, has partnered with Wellbeing.ai to deploy a platform that uses facial analytics to track emotional states across 62 emotion categories. It generates well-being scores that organizations can use to detect stress or morale issues. This approach effectively embeds AI into emotionally sensitive aspects of work, leaving an uncomfortably thin boundary between support and surveillance.

In this scenario, the same AI that helps employees feel heard and supported also generates unprecedented insight into workforce emotional dynamics. Organizations can now track which departments show signs of burnout, identify employees at risk of quitting and monitor emotional responses to organizational changes.

But this type of tool also transforms emotional data into management intelligence, presenting many companies with a genuine dilemma. While progressive organizations are establishing strict data governance – limiting access to anonymized patterns rather than individual conversations – others struggle with the temptation to use emotional insights for performance evaluation and personnel decisions.

Continuous surveillance carried out by some of these systems may help ensure that companies do not neglect a group or individual in distress, but it can also lead people to monitor their own actions to avoid calling attention to themselves. Research on workplace AI monitoring has shown how employees experience increased stress and modify their behavior when they know that management can review their interactions. The monitoring undermines the feeling of safety necessary for people to comfortably seek help. Another study found that these systems increased distress for employees due to the loss of privacy and concerns that consequences would arise if the system identified them as being stressed or burned out.

When artificial empathy meets real consequences

These findings are important because the stakes are arguably even higher in workplace settings than personal ones. AI systems lack the nuanced judgment necessary to distinguish between accepting someone as a person versus endorsing harmful behaviors. In organizational contexts, this means an AI might inadvertently validate unethical workplace practices or fail to recognize when human intervention is critical.

And that’s not the only way AI systems can get things wrong. A study found that emotion-tracking AI tools had a disproportionate impact on employees of color, trans and gender nonbinary people, and people living with mental illness. Interviewees expressed deep concern about how these tools might misread an employee’s mood, tone or verbal queues due to ethnic, gender and other kinds of bias that AI systems carry.

A study looked at how employees perceive AI emotion detection in the workplace.

There’s also an authenticity problem. Research shows that when people know they’re talking to an AI system, they rate identical empathetic responses as less authentic than when they attribute them to humans. Yet some employees prefer AI precisely because they know it’s not human. The feeling that these tools protect your anonymity and freedom from social consequences is appealing for some – even if it may only be a feeling.

The technology also raises questions about what happens to human managers. If employees consistently prefer AI for emotional support, what does that reveal about organizational leadership? Some companies are using AI insights to train managers in emotional intelligence, turning the technology into a mirror that reflects where human skills fall short.

The path forward

The conversation about workplace AI emotional support isn’t just about technology – it’s about what kinds of companies people want to work for. As these systems become more prevalent, we believe it’s important to grapple with fundamental questions: Should employers prioritize authentic human connection over consistent availability? How can individual privacy be balanced with organizational insights? Can organizations harness AI’s empathetic capabilities while preserving the trust necessary for meaningful workplace relationships?

The most thoughtful implementations recognize that AI shouldn’t replace human empathy, but rather create conditions where it can flourish. When AI handles routine emotional labor – the 3 a.m. anxiety attacks, pre-meeting stress checks, processing difficult feedback – managers gain bandwidth for deeper, more authentic connections with their teams.

But this requires careful implementation. Companies that establish clear ethical boundaries, strong privacy protections and explicit policies about how emotional data gets used are more likely to avoid the pitfalls of these systems – as will those that recognize when human judgment and authentic presence remain irreplaceable.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI is providing emotional support for employees – but is it a valuable tool or privacy threat? – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-providing-emotional-support-for-employees-but-is-it-a-valuable-tool-or-privacy-threat-266570