Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ciara Smart, Staff member, History and Classics, University of Tasmania

Irish hip-hop group Kneecap recently released their latest album, called “Fenian”.

A proud reclamation of a painful derogatory slur, Fenian is a word that connects Irish people to a history in which they were sometimes seen as less than human.

A title packed with meaning

The word originally comes from “Fianna”, which is linked to an ancient Irish mythology. The Fianna were small groups of male Irish warriors led by the legendary hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill.

Today, however, the term is more commonly known for its association with Irish nationalism.

Since at least the 17th century, Irish people have endured religious and cultural oppression under British rule – which largely targeted the Irish Catholic population.

In the 19th century, various nationalist groups fought for Irish independence, sometimes violently. This included the Irish Republican Brotherhood, whose members were called Fenians.

The word’s meaning eventually expanded to become a derogatory term for supporters of Irish independence.

Anti-Irish stereotyping

But there’s more to this word than just its political significance. It is also entwined with a history of anti-Irish racism, also known as “hibernophobia”.

In the 19th century, interest in human evolution led to a pseudo-scientific theory called social Darwinism.

This discredited theory claimed all human “types” could be placed along a hierarchy of evolution. White Europeans were at the top, as the most “evolved”. This twisted logic was used to justify the subjugation of people in colonised territories worldwide, including Australia.

Irish Catholic people were given a position in this hierarchy – towards the bottom. Historians argue the designation of Irish Catholic people as a backwards “race” was used to rationalise their oppression. If they were an inherently “savage” people, then they were unfit to run their own government.

Fenians supposedly embodied the worst elements of the Irish character: stupidity, violence and brutishness. From this viewpoint, Fenian violence became seen as an expression of a supposedly inherent Irish character – not as a response to the British rule in Ireland.

Cartoons were published that dehumanised Fenians and drew on centuries of anti-Irish stereotyping. Fenians were drawn as “terrorists” with exaggerated facial features, making them look like chimpanzees.

In one typical example from 1866, a thuggish, simianised Fenian man menaces a beautiful feminised version of “Britannia”. Anti-Irish cartoons were even published in Australia.

This history of anti-Irish racism still normalises anti-Irish jokes today.

Who are Kneecap?

Kneecap is a rap and hip-hop trio from Northern Ireland.

The group shot to fame following the release of their 2024 semi-autobiographical film. Their music is gritty, rude and defiantly anti-colonial – belonging to a long line of Irish activists fighting to get “Brits out” of Ireland.

Kneecap want to bring Irish people together, regardless of religion, and reunite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. The six counties of Northern Ireland were separated from the rest of Ireland in the 1921 Partition. They remain part of the United Kingdom.

Kneecap rap in English and Irish, and have been credited for revitalising the Irish language. Irish only achieved official language status in Northern Ireland in 2022, after being suppressed for much of the 20th century.

The chorus in Kneecap’s latest title song, also called Fenian, features a crowd jubilantly chanting “F-E-N-I-A-N”. The messaging is clear: they accept the label. In fact, they celebrate it.

The track was written as one of the band members, Mo Chara, faced charges of terrorism brought against him by the British government. In November 2024, Mo Chara allegedly committed a terrorist act by waving a Hezbollah flag at a London concert.

Kneecap is outspoken in its support for the Palestinian people, connecting the group to a longer history of Irish nationalists advocating for other colonised peoples.

The charges were dismissed. As Mo Chara observed in a recent interview, he’s not “the first Irish person to be called a terrorist”.

Who can use ‘Fenian’?

Although Kneecap celebrate being called “Fenians”, this word can still be understood as a cultural slur.

Recently, the band claimed it was forced to “censor” its album posters by blanking out the word Fenian. London transport authorities allegedly refused to publish the uncensored version.

Kneecap knows the power and the pain of this label, and they use it with intention. With a sense of tongue in cheek, they explain their use of the term refers to members of “a secret socialist society of sound cunts”. But they also acknowledge it can be weaponised as a derogatory slur. Context is everything.

“Fenian” can’t be untangled from a painful history of anti-Irish racism, which arguably lingers today.

It is appropriate for Kneecap to reclaim the word as a statement of cultural defiance. They use it as an empowering rejection of stigma. But it is problematic for others to use it without thinking of its deeper meaning.

Ciara Smart 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. Fenian: the anti-Irish history behind Kneecap’s defiant new album title – https://theconversation.com/fenian-the-anti-irish-history-behind-kneecaps-defiant-new-album-title-282271

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amra Lee, PhD candidate in Protection of Civilians, Australian National University

In late April, Amal Khalil, a 43-year-old Lebanese journalist, was killed in a double-tap Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. When rescue teams tried to reach her and another injured journalist, they reportedly also came under fire.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Israel’s “deliberate and consistent targeting of journalists” was “aimed at concealing the truth of its aggressive acts against Lebanon”, despite a ceasefire that had been agreed to by Israel days earlier.

Both Aoun and Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared they would pursue international accountability for her death. Khalil was the ninth journalist to be killed in Lebanon so far this year. Israel says the incident is under review.

The incident had parallels to the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza in March 2024. She and her family were fired on by Israeli forces while trying to evacuate Gaza City by car. Hind survived the initial attack, but remained trapped for hours, on the phone with Palestinian Red Crescent workers trying to reach her.

Even after following an approved route, the two medics sent to rescue Hind in a clearly marked ambulance were killed, as was Hind herself. A subsequent investigation by Forensic Architecture found 355 bullet holes in the car carrying her and her family.

These are not isolated incidents. This is a clear pattern across war zones in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Lebanon. Militaries using drones and AI-assisted weapons systems – marketed for their precision – are changing the face of war and driving increasing numbers of civilian deaths.

These growing attacks on civilians, journalists and humanitarian personnel are leading many to fear a new normal setting in: war without rules.

Performative adherence to law

At a Chatham House event in London last month, UN Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher spoke plainly: “1,000 dead humanitarians in three years – when did that become normal?”

Fletcher identified the absence of legal accountability as an enabler of escalating attacks on aid workers.

Part of this is the performative adherence to international humanitarian law – often repeated in political statements and media coverage – as militaries simultaneously carve out exceptions for the use of force.

For example, Israel has continued to issue evacuation orders for residents of southern Lebanon in recent weeks. It has cited its compliance with international humanitarian law, while also expanding its control over territory there.

When evacuation orders primarily serve to shift populations, rather than protect them, it is a violation of the rules of war.

Self-assessments of legal compliance have also enabled systematic attacks on civilian infrastructure in Lebanon to continue, such as healthcare and food and water systems. Some 1.2 million people now facing crisis levels of food insecurity.

Ceasefires, too, have become performative. Experts argue they are merely serving to divert public attention from Israel’s broader goals in both Gaza and Lebanon.

Six months on, for instance, the Gaza ceasefire is failing to meet its stated objectives. There is no peace or safety for residents. More than 800 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect and 60% of people have lost their homes. Humanitarian aid continues to be obstructed, while children suffer from acute malnutrition.

The ‘Gaza playbook’

Last month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly threatened to make Dahiyeh, a suburb of southern Beirut, look like Khan Younis in Gaza.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has also said all “houses in villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed, in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza”.

This is precisely what is happening now, despite the ceasefire. Israel created a “buffer zone” in Gaza where it has expanded territorial control, and the same thing is taking place in southern Lebanon.

There were countless warnings, including from the UN secretary-general, that insufficient action over Gaza would have consequences – not only for Palestinian civilians and international law, but wider peace and security.

What can be done?

Now is the time for more principled confrontation from political leaders and concerned states to clearly call out performative adherence to international law and ceasefires.

The normalisation of Israel’s “Gaza playbook” strategies in Lebanon, without sustained outside political pressure, will only continue to escalate the threats to civilians and wider international peace and security.

Middle powers have important roles to play, too. Practically speaking, states can use what’s called “universal jurisdiction” to bring domestic legal action against Israeli leaders and individuals accused of crimes. This could include legal action for the targeting of aid workers and journalists.

A broad coalition of UN member states must also come together to reinforce international law against the forces and practices undermining it.

The “Hague Group” is one such path forward. Formed in early 2025, its membership has expanded to include more than 40 nations aimed at supporting international law, the right to self-determination and the prohibition on taking territory by force.

From Gaza to Lebanon to Iran, greater political action is needed to reinforce international law. The world cannot afford the reverberating human and security costs of continued impunity and war without rules.

Amra Lee 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. Israel’s destructive actions in Lebanon are normalising war without rules – https://theconversation.com/israels-destructive-actions-in-lebanon-are-normalising-war-without-rules-281538

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

Sir David Attenborough turns 100 this week.

Very few people have the good fortune to live for a century. Fewer still achieve so much and touch so many lives.

Across his seven decade career with the BBC, Attenborough ushered in the transition from black and white to colour television. He gave the now legendary comedy troupe Monty Python their lucky break, greenlighting their Flying Circus. His keen eye and care for viewers is in part why tennis balls are yellow, not white – they’re much easier to see on screen.

But Attenborough is, of course, most famous for his nature documentaries. For decades, he has fronted the camera to educate, entertain and inspire billions of people about the complexity, wonder and majesty of the natural world, and the many threats it faces. It wasn’t a given – Attenborough was told early in his career his teeth were too big for television!

For ecologists like myself, Attenborough’s work has been a source of deep inspiration. It was instrumental in my decision to pursue a life and a career dedicated to understanding, caring and fighting for the protection of nature. For this gift, I am eternally grateful.

A career driven by curiosity

Attenborough’s connection with nature came early, forged in no small part through an insatiable fascination with fossils – including his childhood joy at discovering an ammonite in the Leicestershire countryside.

He went on to study geology and zoology at Cambridge University, graduating in 1947. He served in the navy and worked in an educational publishing house. Notably, the BBC rejected his first job application as a radio producer in 1950. But he tried again, and joined the BBC as a trainee producer in 1952.

His career in nature documentaries began to bud almost immediately, with his Zoo Quest series beginning in 1954. But it burst into full bloom with the landmark Life on Earth series in 1979, which brought distant locations, extraordinary wildlife and evolution and ecology to TV. It instilled a sense of wonder and awe in audiences, while maintaining and respecting scientific accuracy.

The master storyteller

One reason Attenborough has had such success as a communicator is his understated, calm but authoritative demeanour. When you sit down to watch an Attenborough documentary, you feel in safe hands.

His approach isn’t the norm. In other nature documentaries, wildlife can often seem secondary, as props for the presenter.

In series such as The Living Planet, The Trials of Life, The Blue Planet, The Planet Earth, and scores of others, Attenborough took us across the globe, revealing nature’s beauty, oddities and extraordinary complexity, as well as its macabre and brutal aspects. The habitats home to the world’s species are brought to life in extraordinary detail. We watch with laughter, trepidation, sadness, anger, excitement and awe, ebbing and flowing as nature’s stories unfold.

Who can forget the first time they saw and heard the extraordinary vocal repertoire and mimicry of a lyrebird, or a curious mountain gorilla’s desire to connect with a fellow great ape? The epic battle for survival between a hatchling iguana and hungry hordes of racer snakes? Or the breathtaking explosion of colour and complexity of a coral reef? Each of these was captured by master cinematographers and the story told to us by Attenborough.

Over his long career, Attenborough has become an icon. He was voted the UK’s best TV presenter of all time. But his prodigious output has come at a personal cost too. One of his regrets is how much time he has spent away from his family.

He is also not off limits to criticism. For a long time, Attenborough focused on the glory of nature, largely omitting the damage humans do through overfishing, deforestation, pollution, spreading exotic species, and other threats. He has also shied away from assigning blame to those most responsible for the harms inflicted on nature.

In 2018, he said too much focus on why so much wildlife is threatened was a “turn-off” for some viewers. Ecologists and conservation scientists can sympathise. We know bombarding people with doom and gloom invites apathy and despair, not a desire to act. It’s a hard line to walk between harsh realities and hope.

To his credit, Attenborough has belatedly focused on these issues in recent years. Footage of plastic pollution in Blue Planet II and the ravages of industrial fishing in Ocean have brought a sharp focus on these issues.

In 2020, he released A Life On Our Planet, which he describes as a “witness statement” to the startling losses of biodiversity he has seen over his lifetime. Rather than just spell out the problems, Attenborough laid out how to solve them – and the role we can all play in fixing the two biggest and deeply interwoven problems nature faces: climate change and biodiversity declines and extinctions.

While Attenborough’s earlier work largely avoided these difficult conversations, they succeeded in bringing nature’s wonder to millions of people. This shouldn’t be overlooked. At a time when more and more of us are cut off from nature, Attenborough’s documentaries forged a new connection. For people to care about losing nature, they first have to know and love it.

Conservation relies on stories

Scientific research rarely leads to the behavioural changes we might hope for. Accumulating facts and evidence is vital. But it’s not enough. What humans respond to is stories.

Alongside other globally renowned voices such as the late, great Jane Goodall, Attenborough’s work telling the stories of nature has shaped public opinion. In turn, it has galvanised conservation efforts such as the push to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.

As he celebrates his centenary, it’s encouraging to see a new generation and diversity of voices in the media and science communication, advocacy, and scientific community. They speak and share their messages with great clarity, confidence, and passion.

Attenborough is just one person. He can’t replace the vital role of scientists, community leaders, conservationists and policymakers in conserving nature. But no one will ever replace David’s distinctive voice. As he has said:

it seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living

Hear, hear. Happy birthday for May 8th, David Attenborough.

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. Euan is a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council.

– ref. From fossicking for fossils to a champion for life on Earth: Sir David Attenborough at 100 – https://theconversation.com/from-fossicking-for-fossils-to-a-champion-for-life-on-earth-sir-david-attenborough-at-100-281229

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jon Richardson, Visiting Fellow, Centre for European Studies, Australian National University

Russia has dramatically scaled back its annual Victory Day parade in Red Square on May 9, with no heavy military hardware for the first time in 20 years. There will also be fewer foreign or Russian dignitaries present.

In addition, the government has shut down airports and temporarily suspended mobile internet access ahead of the holiday.

The Kremlin says the security measures are intended to guard against Ukrainian “terrorism”. It has declared a unilateral “truce” for May 8-9, warning that any Ukrainian attacks during the celebrations could trigger a massive strike on Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected the proposal, calling it a “theatrical performance”.

As the war grinds on in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s precautions at home are remarkable – a sign that Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities have punctured one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most important political rituals, as well as the country’s seeming impregnability from the war.

Ukraine’s momentum

Under Putin’s rule, Victory Day has become more than just a commemoration of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany. The parade, a showcase of Russian military might, has been elevated into a core ritual of legitimising his regime.

The symbolism has taken on even greater meaning since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The defeat of Nazi Germany has been fused with Putin’s bogus claim that Russia needs to defeat fictitious Nazis in Ukraine.

Last year, Putin welcomed two dozen world leaders, including Xi Jinping of China, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.

It was seen as an attempt to project Russia’s global power and show the West’s attempts to isolate Moscow were failing.

What a difference a year makes.

Ukraine has steadily expanded its ability to hit targets far inside Russia, including oil terminals, refineries, military infrastructure and defence industries. Some targets in the Baltic Sea near St. Petersburg and in the Ural Mountains are hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine.

The mere threat of drones has prompted dozens of airport closures and hundreds of flight delays in recent months, especially in Moscow.

At the same time, Ukraine has become much more adept at repelling Russian drone attacks on its own territory, reportedly shooting down 33,000 Russian drones in March of this year alone – a record for one month.

The expansion of its unmanned ground robotic systems and deep-strike capabilities – including its Flamingo missile, which hit a defence plant 1,500 kilometres from Ukraine on May 5 – have helped Ukraine offset its disadvantages in manpower (which remains a big constraint) and ammunition.

Ukraine’s defence industrial base is a big part of the story. Kyiv says its capacity has grown 50-fold since 2022, and now accounts for 70% of its weapons procurement.

Its successes have won the admiration of its European partners and others around the world. In recent days, for example, it signed a 10-year defence export deal with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, all three of which were attacked by Iran.

And there are signs Ukraine is gaining momentum on the frontlines. Analysts say Ukrainian forces actually gained more territory than they lost in February, for the first month since 2023.

Estimates of Russian death tolls are difficult to come by, but NATO chief Mark Rutte said Russia is losing 30-35,000 soldiers per month, while Zelensky said 35,000 Russian troops were either killed or wounded in the month of March.

Cracks at home

Meanwhile, Putin has only grown more paranoid about a potential coup or assassination attempt with drones. He has reportedly sharply reduced his movements, spends more time in bunkers, and is surrounded by tighter security.

Domestic strains are growing, as well. Russia’s rate of recruitment has begun to fall short of its battlefield losses. The quality of recruits has plummeted, as well, with alcoholics reportedly being duped or pressured into signing up.

It is becoming harder to sustain recruitment without another politically risky mobilisation. That matters because Putin has long tried to convince Russians the war can be fought at a distance, without demanding too much from society at large.

Russia’s economy is suffering, too, from chronic labour shortages, negative growth, and high inflation and interest rates.

And there are increasing signs of discontent. One critic, Ilya Remeslo, a former Kremlin propagandist, for instance, publicly accused Putin of being a “war criminal”. He was arrested, but in a surprise move, was released after just 30 days and has vowed to continue his campaign against the Russian leader.

Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of Russia’s Communist Party (loyal to Putin), has warned the country’s faltering economy risks stoking a 1917-style revolution. And an anonymous former senior official wrote in The Economist that grumbling among the elite shows Putin is losing his grip on Russia.

Rising popular anger has also been triggered by the tightening of controls on the internet, including WhatsApp and Telegram, aimed at curbing dissent and criticism.

It’s too early to claim the war has turned decisively in Kyiv’s favour. The current stalemate may prevail for some time.

But the recent trends suggest Russia can no longer assume it can simply outlast Ukraine through attrition. This may well cause Putin to adjust his calculations about peace talks and his unwavering pursuit of maximalist goals.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s unfounded recent claim that Ukraine has been “militarily defeated”, Kyiv is more than holding its own. It continues to have Europe’s backing, as well, with the EU recently finalising a massive 90 billion euro (A$145 billion) loan.

As eminent strategic analyst Lawrence Freedman argues, Ukraine is succeeding by not losing. He argues Ukraine’s “Micawber strategy” – hoping that something will turn up, like the character Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield – could very well pay off.

Jon Richardson 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. Russia doesn’t have much to celebrate on Victory Day, as Ukraine brings the war home to Putin – https://theconversation.com/russia-doesnt-have-much-to-celebrate-on-victory-day-as-ukraine-brings-the-war-home-to-putin-282254

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Guilherme Casarões, Associate Professor of Brazilian Studies, Florida International University

For about three hours of closed-door talks between Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and US President Donald Trump at the White House on May 7, 2026, many observers in the two countries held their breath. Since there was no official joint statement or press conference, they did not know what to expect. Despite the reported “chemistry” between both presidents at the United Nations General Assembly last September, bilateral tensions were far from resolved.

The meeting between both presidents could have gone many ways: on the surface, Brazil and the US currently stand more as geopolitical rivals than allies. Over the last few months, Lula has made several criticisms to what he saw as a renewed US unilateralism. The Trump administration, in turn, seems to be responsive to the former President Jair Bolsonaro family’s demands regarding free speech or organized crime.

But Lula wanted the conversation to succeed, not so much because of diplomatic concerns, but because he faces an uphill battle ahead of the October elections. His trip to Washington was, above all, a domestic political operation. Even if the meeting lacked specific results, the positive atmosphere reported by both presidents was a victory for Lula in the context of a presidential race that is already shaping up to be one of the most consequential in Brazil’s recent history.

Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of the jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro, has mounted a formidable electoral challenge. Polls now show him in a statistical tie with Lula in a hypothetical runoff, which is a remarkable position for a candidate whose political inheritance includes a father convicted of attempting a coup d’état.

The far-right senator has made several trips to the United States over recent months, including an appearance at the conservative CPAC summit, projecting himself as the candidate who can restore Brazil’s relationship with Washington after years of what he characterizes as Lula’s anti-American drift. His pitch to Brazilian voters is simple and powerful: only a Bolsonaro can work with Trump.

That narrative has found purchase in a Brazilian electorate that is increasingly attentive to geopolitical alignments. This is not the Brazil of previous electoral cycles, where foreign policy was a footnote.

Trump as a lifeline

Since Trump’s return to the White House, the Bolsonarist movement has portrayed the U.S. president as a lifeline, not only capable of keeping Jair Bolsonaro out of jail but also helping his movement’s political comeback. Flávio has reportedly pledged significant concessions to Washington on rare earth minerals, narcoterrorism designations, and trade, presenting these as proof of loyalty to an administration that the Bolsonaro family views as friendly and like-minded.

Whether or not Trump reciprocates that loyalty in any meaningful way is almost beside the point. The image of members of the Bolsonaro dynasty in Washington, welcomed by the MAGA establishment, is itself an electoral asset.

This is precisely the vulnerability that Lula traveled to Washington to neutralize. By securing a White House meeting, the Brazilian president sent a clear signal to his domestic audience: the relationship with Washington is not broken, and it does not require a Bolsonaro to fix it. The Brazilian-only press conference that followed the meeting only served to reinforce this point.

But the trip serves a second, equally important function. Each item on the bilateral agenda maps directly onto a domestic electoral fault line for Lula. On trade and tariffs, Lula returns home able to claim that he is fighting to protect Brazilian exporters and consumers from the inflationary pressures of a trade war. On organized crime – specifically the potential US designation of drug gangs PCC and Comando Vermelho as foreign terrorist organizations – the president can portray himself as a defender of Brazilian sovereignty and judicial autonomy, resisting external interference in domestic security policy. On rare earth minerals and strategic resources, Lula can reframe what is, in essence, a negotiation over economic dependency as a story of Brazil’s rising geopolitical clout.

And on democracy itself, the contrast with the Bolsonaro family could not be starker: while the father languishes under house arrest for plotting a coup, they were not able to prevent Lula from being welcomed in Washington as a legitimate (and friendly) head of state.

Political pragmatism

It would be a mistake, however, to reduce Trump’s willingness to meet Lula to a mere diplomatic courtesy. The Trump administration has shown a consistent pragmatism beneath its ideological posturing. Its management of relations with Claudia Sheinbaum’s Mexico, its intermittent engagement with Venezuela, and now its reception of Lula all suggest that the White House can work with ideological opponents when strategic interests demand it.

Brazil, the largest economy in South America and a country with substantial reserves of the critical minerals that Washington covets for its industrial and defense supply chains, is too significant to be held hostage to electoral sympathies for the Bolsonaro family. There is also a broader regional calculus: as the United States asserts primacy across Latin America through what has become known as the “Trump Corollary”, having a cooperative Brazilian government is considerably more useful than a destabilized one.

None of this means that Lula’s Washington gambit will succeed electorally. Flávio Bolsonaro has proven to be a more disciplined and adaptable candidate than his father, and the transnational networks that animate the Bolsonarist movement extend well beyond Washington. A single White House photo-op carries only so much weight.

What the trip does illustrate, however, is the degree to which Brazilian electoral politics has become inseparable from the global contest over alignment, sovereignty, and great-power patronage. In that contest, Lula has made his move. It will hardly change the minds of those who, left or right, have already made up their minds about their candidates. But it shows to the centrist voter, if anything, that a pragmatic defense of Brazilian sovereignty can be much more efficient than ideological submission to foreign interests.

Guilherme Casarões não presta consultoria, trabalha, possui ações ou recebe financiamento de qualquer empresa ou organização que poderia se beneficiar com a publicação deste artigo e não revelou nenhum vínculo relevante além de seu cargo acadêmico.

– ref. Trump and Lula at the White House: a relationship built on pragmatism and a broader regional calculus – https://theconversation.com/trump-and-lula-at-the-white-house-a-relationship-built-on-pragmatism-and-a-broader-regional-calculus-282470

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Chris Ogden, Associate Professor in Global Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

After weeks of blockades by Iran and the United States in the Strait of Hormuz, it’s clear the narrow waterway is now pivotal to the outcome of the conflict.

The US has begun to escort ships through the narrow passage, but behind the military manoeuvring lies a deeper development: energy security in the Persian Gulf is in a state of profound flux.

As well as the desire by both Iran and the US to control the global flow of oil, gas, helium and fertilisers from the region, the United Arab Emirates (a key US ally) has withdrawn from OPEC in what’s been called a major blow to the oil cartel.

On top of this, Iran has announced plans to introduce tariffs in the Strait of Hormuz as a form of reparations for the damage caused by the war.

If imposed, these tariffs are estimated to be worth between US$40 billion and $50 billion a year to Iran, and would potentially allow it to mitigate the impact of US economic sanctions.

Crucially, tariffs would be a way to cultivate stronger relations with China because they would be denominated in Chinese yuan, not US dollars. This has the potential to significantly alter regional and global power balances.

In fact, such payments have reportedly already been made by vessels going to China, India and Japan, with the Iranian parliament working to formalise the process. (Iran has also begun accepting payments in cryptocurrency.)

50 years of dominance

If Iran can continue to charge these tariffs it could tilt regional influence away from the US towards China and Asia by eroding the historical dominance of the petrodollar.

Essentially, the petrodollar system has seen the pricing and trading of oil in US dollars. The term dates from the 1970s when the US asked Saudi Arabia to exclusively price its oil in US dollars in return for military aid.

This spread across OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), becoming the benchmark of the global oil trade, bolstering the US dollar as the global reserve currency and underwriting US power.

Oil-producing nations amassed huge petrodollar surpluses – too much to invest only in their own economies – which were funnelled or “recycled” back into US securities and stocks, and other countries’ sovereign wealth funds.

They have become the primary source of revenue for OPEC members, as well as non-member oil exporters Qatar and Norway. This ties these countries to Washington and gives the US significant financial leverage in global affairs. The flow of petrodollars helps finance US deficits and reduce US borrowing costs.

A new paradigm?

If major regional players such as the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pay Iranian tariffs in “petroyuans”, economist Antonio Bhardwaj has said, it would mark:

the systematic erosion of the petrodollar system and the emergence of the petroyuan as a credible, institutionally embedded alternative framework for settling global energy transactions.

It’s a sizeable “if”, but the introduction of tariffs would also pose a dilemma for countries that supported Iran in the conflict (implicitly or explicitly) and those that didn’t.

As internatinoal relations analyst Pakizah Parveen has written, we would see the emergence of:

a bifurcated global oil market: barrels from compliant parties would move through Hormuz in yuan. In contrast, non-compliant parties would incur significantly higher costs in dollar-denominated barrels.

Such a choice would affect major US allies such as Pakistan, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, all of which have faced severe economic pressures as a result of the upheavals in the Gulf and Middle East.

Paying tariffs in petroyuan would draw them towards China and play into Beijing’s narrative of being a reliable and more stable economic force. It also mirrors Russia’s request for payment in yuan for its oil since 2025.

Decline of the petrodollar

It would be premature to argue Iranian tariffs will lead to a general “de-dollarisation” of the world economy. But they may be a step towards a devaluing of the US dollar.

By extension, any move by other countries away from the US dollar is a move away from dependence on the US financially and politically. It would also aid China’s push to internationalise the yuan.

For the first time since 1996, global central banks hold more gold in their reserves than US debt securities. The BRICS group of countries may move further away from US influence, with China, India and Brazil having all reduced their US holdings in 2025.

Overall, Iranian tariffs denominated in yuan would be another sign of an emerging multipolar world in which US preeminence is no longer a given. It would mean more strategic flexibility for all countries, great and small, but also more uncertainty.

Chris Ogden is affiliated with the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Iran wants oil tariffs paid in Chinese yuan – is the power of the US petrodollar in decline? – https://theconversation.com/iran-wants-oil-tariffs-paid-in-chinese-yuan-is-the-power-of-the-us-petrodollar-in-decline-281858

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Lena Surzhko Harned, Associate Teaching Professor of Political Science, Penn State

Victory Day in Russia, which marks the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union, has long held particular importance in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Yet this year the May 9 celebration – usually replete with extensive parades across the country and a demonstration of military hardware in Moscow – is expected to be significantly pared down. That’s due to Kyiv’s ongoing long-range military capabilities. For the first time in two decades, Russian officials have said, there will be no lavish display of tanks and missiles.

The reality for Putin is that the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, continues to be a grueling drain on Russian men, its economy and resources – and may continue to be for some time.

That was underscored by the European Union’s April 23 approval of a US$106 billion loan package to Ukraine. The aid, which will be a boon to Ukraine’s war-torn economy, had been stymied by EU-member Hungary under its former president, Viktor Orban, who was ousted in April 12 elections.

The resumption of EU aid and the removal of a pro-Moscow European voice at the EU represent major blows to Russia’s regional strategy. Perhaps trying to reset the narrative, Russia declared it would mark this Victory Day with a two-day ceasefire with Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded by saying his country would also observe a ceasefire, starting two days earlier on May 6.

But there remain few immediate signs of a breakthrough in the conflict – and Russia appears chiefly interested in negotiating Ukraine’s future not with Kyiv but with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been sympathetic to Russian interests.

As a scholar of contemporary politics in Eastern Europe, I see that as part of a pattern of Russian miscalculations and consistent denial of the will of citizens in democratic societies in Eastern Europe. Indeed, it reflects a dominant imperial mindset among Russia’s political elites, which the Kremlin has not altered since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Losing hold of the old Soviet bloc?

While formally recognizing the independence of former Soviet republics in 1991, Moscow has continued to treat those countries as part of its sphere of influence.

For more than 25 years, Russia has pursued a hybrid approach of influencing former Soviet countries, along with others in Eastern Europe. That has included supporting electoral fraud, economic machination, media manipulation and use of force and violence.

Indeed, suspected Russian interference in politics and elections has been a frequent occurrence in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania and most recently Hungary.

But Hungary and Armenia are recent and powerful examples that show the limits of Russian operations. Orban’s loss in Hungary immediately dislodged Russia’s most powerful point of leverage in European politics.

Meanwhile, in Yerevan on May 5, Armenia hosted a bilateral summit with the EU where the country established stronger economic and defense ties to the bloc. It was a stark diplomatic event for the country that has long been a junior ally of Russia’s but which has increasingly moved away from Moscow.

Ukraine: A test of Russian policy

Yet Ukraine remains the focal point of both the extent and limits of Russian external interference.

Putin has been attempting to have a loyal proxy government in the country ever since being spurned by Leonid Kuchma – the second president of Ukraine, who was in office until 2005 – who proclaimed that “Ukraine is not Russia.”

In Ukraine’s 2004 presidential elections, Putin’s Kremlin threw its substantial resources behind Kuchma’s prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, who was seen as more friendly to Russian interests.

Since then, its relationship with the country has been one of external interference. Putin’s message throughout has been clear: The West, in its fights against Russia, has sought to colonize and destroy Ukraine by supporting nationalist forces against Moscow’s interests.

Facing consistently strong Ukrainian civil society and sovereignty movements, Russia found it difficult to fully implement its goals through political subversion or influence. So Moscow increasingly turned to military options.

In March 2014, Russia moved to annex Crimea and began a war in Ukraine’s eastern border regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

That war in the east ground on for years, until in 2022 Putin made the decision to double down yet again, this time opting for a full invasion. The goal of the war was in Putin’s own words to “de-militarize” and “de-nazify” Ukraine. Yet, four years later, Putin’s desire for regime change has not yielded the desired results.

The human cost of Russian pursuits

Over the past year, Trump’s commitment to a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, without first establishing a durable ceasefire, has moved the U.S. position toward Putin’s. That has included Trump’s support for Ukraine territorial concession as the grinding war continues.

Without significant territorial gains, Russia has continued and intensified its campaign of mass airstrikes and drone attacks on Ukrainian population centers. Indeed, 2025 was the deadliest year since the start of the full-scale invasion; civilian deaths were up 26% in 2025 over the previous year.

In the especially cold winter of 2025-26, Russia consistently targeted the energy grids vital to the millions of Ukrainians. Across Ukraine, at the record-low freezing temperatures, people endured daily attacks by drones and artillery, while trying to survive without electricity, heat and running water.

The Kremlin’s plan to put maximum pressure on Ukrainian civilians in the hope that Ukrainians would start blaming their leadership for refusing peace on Putin’s terms has not worked. For its part, the Ukrainian leadership has refused Russia’s maximalist war aims while cautiously continuing a commitment to the U.S.-mediated peace process.

Zelenskyy’s approval ratings remain steady at around 60%. The public opposition to Moscow’s demands on territorial concessions have not budged either, with a majority of Ukrainians continuing to categorically reject territorial concessions. Those numbers have not changed significantly since 2024.

Yet, war and surviving it takes a toll. And the experience of the year of negotiations has left many disillusioned, with some 70% doubting that peace talks will lead to a lasting solution.

A murky future

The last rounds of U.S.-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine took place Feb. 16, 2026.

While Zelenskyy insists that the talks are not stalled, Russian’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, has said the negotiations are not Russia’s top priority.

Buoyed by high oil prices as a result of the U.S. war in Iran, Russia has pursued a spring offensive and not relinquished its demands on Ukraine’s territories.

Yet this demand remains a nonstarter for Ukraine and Zelenskyy. As the Trump administration embraces the Russian “land for security” plan, Russia and its allies are likely to continue to put pressure on Zelenskyy, portraying him as an obstacle to peace talks.

But especially given Moscow’s recent woes, from losing a reliable ally in Hungary to the related EU loan guarantee, it’s unlikely that a continued grinding war will convince Ukrainians to abandon their sovereignty – or serve Russia’s own security.

Lena Surzhko Harned 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. Russia’s pared-down Victory Day parade tells a story: Away from the pomp, war in Ukraine is not going to Putin’s plan – https://theconversation.com/russias-pared-down-victory-day-parade-tells-a-story-away-from-the-pomp-war-in-ukraine-is-not-going-to-putins-plan-276690

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Craig Dalton, Conjoint Associate Professor, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle

The cruise ship cluster of hantavirus cases continues to grow. The World Health Organization reports that as of May 6 there were eight cases, three of whom are confirmed by laboratory testing as hantavirus. In recent days, we heard three passengers had died.

Now some passengers are being medically evacuated from the cruise ship MV Hondius. Other passengers have disembarked and are returning home. Swiss authorities have confirmed a passenger on the ship is now a confirmed case and is receiving care in a Zurich hospital.

I’m a public health physician with a special interest in respiratory diseases. I’ve also investigated a hantavirus outbreak.

Here’s what investigators want to know about the current cluster of cases. This includes gathering evidence to see if the virus is transmitting from person to person.

Back in 1993, there was an unknown pathogen

In 1993, I was a young epidemic intelligence service officer working at the United States Centers for Disease Control. I was deployed to the deserts of the south-western US to help investigate a frightening outbreak, mainly among Navajo people.

Adults in their 20s and 30s were becoming suddenly unwell. They would develop a fever and cough, then rapidly progress to severe respiratory failure as fluid leaked into their lungs. Some appeared well enough to be dancing in the evening and were dead within hours.

The investigation team was nervous. We did not yet know the pathogen, how it was spreading, or whether we were at risk.

One of the first recognised cases was a well-known runner, so we initially wondered whether infection might be linked to inhaling something stirred up in desert dust. A leak from a remote military biowarfare laboratory was also considered, as was plague that was endemic to the area.

After laboratory testing, the cause was identified as a new hantavirus, later known as Sin Nombre virus. The virus attacked the small blood vessels of the lungs and was linked to exposure to the urine, faeces and saliva of infected deer mice. Mice numbers had increased dramatically and were entering homes and workplaces across affected communities.

A crucial finding was that, like most hantaviruses, Sin Nombre virus did not appear to spread from person to person. Family clusters were explained by shared exposure to rodents or rodent-contaminated environments, especially during cleaning or other close contact with contaminated objects or dust.

That is why many of us were surprised years later when Andes virus, a South American hantavirus, was shown to spread occasionally from person to person.

This remains uncommon, but it has been documented, including in outbreaks in Argentina – the country from which the MV Hondius departed before the current suspected outbreak.

What would a disease detective do now?

The first step in any outbreak investigation is to confirm the diagnosis. At this stage, the difference between a “suspected” and “confirmed” case still matters.

Investigators need to know whether all severe respiratory illnesses in the cluster are due to hantavirus, or whether confirmed cases are occurring against a background of another infection, such as influenza or COVID.

The next step is to build a timeline. The timing of when symptoms started is often the first clue to where and how people were exposed.

According to WHO, the ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 2026. The first known case developed symptoms on April 6. Other cases developed symptoms later in April.

Let’s focus our attention on the first three cases.

Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome describes the respiratory symptoms that follow after the type of hantavirus infection that mainly attacks the lungs. These typically develop two to four weeks after exposure. However, illness can appear as early as one week and as late as eight weeks after infection.

That makes the first case difficult to explain as an exposure acquired on the ship after departure. Symptoms started on April 6, only five days after leaving Argentina. That’s shorter than the usual incubation period (the period from infection to showing symptoms) and even shorter than the lower end commonly cited.

So for that case, it’s more plausible for that person to have been exposed in Argentina before boarding. There are emerging reports of a bird-watching activity that might have led to rodent exposure.

The later cases are more ambiguous. They could have been exposed before departure, or during shore activities in Argentina, or elsewhere. But their timing also raises another possibility: transmission from the first case to close contacts on board.

This is where the epidemiology becomes interesting.

Did the virus spread from person to person?

The second case was a close contact of the first. This creates two plausible explanations. They may have both been exposed to the same infected rodent (or its urine or droppings, for example). Alternatively, it’s very likely the second case contracted the infection from the first case.

The third case was not part of that same close family unit. If investigators find this person shared the same excursions in Argentina as the first two, the outbreak may still be explained by a common source. But if there was no shared rodent exposure, suspicion of person-to-person transmission increases.

This does not mean person-to-person transmission is proven. It means it becomes one of the leading hypotheses to test.

If human-to-human transmission is not the explanation, investigators would need to consider a less tidy chain of events.

The first case would have had a pre-boarding exposure with a short incubation period. The second case would need either the same exposure with a longer incubation period, or infection from the first case.

The third case would need either an independent exposure to infected rodents before boarding, or another exposure during the voyage. None of these is impossible. But as more cases appear, and if they cluster in time around contact with earlier cases, the human-to-human hypothesis becomes harder to dismiss.

The approximate gap between the first case’s illness and the later cases is also important. If person-to-person transmission is occurring, severe hantavirus illness is likely to coincide with a higher risk of being infectious and infecting others. So we would expect symptoms that start two to three weeks after close contact with an earlier severe case, and this is what we’re seeing from the cruise ship.

What are the public health implications?

The practical public health response must therefore cover both possibilities: a common environmental source and limited person-to-person spread.

That means detailed interviews about pre-boarding travel, shore excursions, wildlife exposure, rodent sightings, cabin locations, cleaning activities, shared dining, shared transport, and close contact with ill passengers.

It also means laboratory confirmation in multiple cases, sequencing of viral samples where possible, and careful reconstruction of who had contact with whom, and when.

Genetic fingerprinting can explore if the virus has the same historical mutation that allowed human-to-human transmission to emerge in previous outbreaks (which were easily controlled with basic isolation and infection control). If a new mutation was found, this would raise concerns of greater transmission risks.

For the public and health authorities considering receiving the passengers from the quarantined ship, the key message is not to panic.

Most hantaviruses are not spread between people. Even with Andes virus, person-to-person transmission is uncommon and usually requires close or prolonged contact. WHO currently assesses the risk to the global population as low. This virus does not spread like influenza or COVID.

But for outbreak investigators, this is exactly the sort of cluster that demands disciplined shoe-leather epidemiology: confirm the diagnosis, build the timeline, test the competing hypotheses, and let the pattern of exposure, illness and laboratory evidence tell the story.

Craig Dalton receives funding from the Commonwealth Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

– ref. I’ve investigated a hantavirus outbreak. Here’s what I can tell you about the cruise ship cluster – https://theconversation.com/ive-investigated-a-hantavirus-outbreak-heres-what-i-can-tell-you-about-the-cruise-ship-cluster-282365

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Erik D Reichle, Professor of cognitive psychology, Macquarie University

The Swedish government recently announced it was moving from the classroom use of digital devices back to physical books. It cited concerns over declining test scores and increasing screen time.

Are these concerns well founded? And what does the science of reading say about the possible consequences of reading on digital devices versus books?

To address these questions, it’s worth remembering that, although reading might appear to be an easy task, this impression is false. Reading is arguably the most difficult task one must learn – one that requires years of formal education and practice to master. In contrast to spoken language, it is a skill we are not biologically predisposed to learn.

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Millions of Australians, both children and adults, struggle with literacy.

In this series, we explore the challenges of reading in an age of smartphones and social media – and ask experts how we can become better readers.

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Why is reading so difficult?

To understand why reading is difficult, one must first understand the physiology of reading.

As you are reading this sentence, your eyes are making a series of rapid movements, called saccades, from one word to the next. During these saccades, the processing of visual information is suppressed and is only available during brief intervals, called fixations, when the eyes are stationary.

Experiments that measure readers’ eye movements have shown we fixate most words because our capacity to extract visual information during each fixation is extremely limited.

In languages like English that are read from left to right, our capacity to perceive the features that distinguish letters is limited to a small region of the visual field called the perceptual span. This span extends from 2-3 letter spaces to the left of fixation to 8-12 letter spaces to the right of fixation.

The span’s asymmetry reflects the movement of attention through the text. It extends to the left in languages like Arabic, which are read from right to left. The size of the span is smaller for dense writing systems, such as Chinese.

We also know from eye-tracking and brain-imaging experiments that words require time to identify. Our best estimates suggest visual information requires 60 milliseconds to propagate from the eyes to the brain and words then require an additional 100-300 milliseconds to identify. (A millsecond is one-thousandth of a second).

These constraints limit the maximum rate of reading to 300-400 words per minute, depending on the difficulty of the text and one’s level of comprehension.

Speed-reading advocates, who falsely promise faster reading speeds, teach you how to skim a text. Comprehension declines at a rate inversely proportional to the gain in speed.

Importantly, the upper limit for reading speed requires years of practice to attain, because it requires the brain systems that support vision, attention, word identification, language processing and eye movements to operate in a highly coordinated manner. Anything that prevents this coordination will therefore reduce comprehension.

Consequences of digital reading

So what are the likely consequences of digital reading?

With some devices, such as e-readers, there is little reason to suspect digital reading differs from the reading of books, because both formats support the mental processes required for skilled reading.

The more questionable devices are those introducing distractions (such as news websites interspersed with ads) or which have suboptimal formatting, such as centre-justified text with large or unequal-sized gaps between words. The latter is rarely a feature of paper-based texts.

Although the consequences of these two factors are under-researched, enough has been learned about human cognition to make informed predictions.

For example, images and audio unrelated to a text such as pop-up ads can capture attention. Although most adults have developed a level of executive control sufficient to ignore such distractions, young children have not.

The implications for a child who is struggling to understand the meaning of a text are obvious. Their comprehension will suffer to the extent that additional effort is required to ignore distractions, or if they do not yet have the mental coordination to understand the text has been disrupted.

There is also evidence from eye-tracking experiments that many digital environments, such as webpages, can induce specific reading strategies, such as skimming for gist or searching for information.

Although such strategies might be adaptive in some contexts, they reduce overall comprehension. This possibility should be especially concerning for children, because years of practice are needed to coordinate the mental systems that support adult levels of reading skill.

Such concerns have recently drawn more attention, because the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shift to online education and a marked increase in digital reading. Although these changes were motivated by practical necessity, their long-term consequences remain unclear.

So far, eye-tracking research has been carried out on computer screens. New technology is becoming available which will allow us to directly compare eye movements and comprehension between digital devices and paper. This should give us more clarity about the benefits versus costs of digital devices.

Given reading ability is predictive of one’s education, socioeconomic status and wellbeing, the importance of assessing the long-term consequences of digital reading cannot be overstated.

Erik D Reichle has received funding from the US National Institute of Health, US Institute of Education Sciences, UK Economic and Social Research Council, and Australian Research Council.

Lili Yu 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. Do we absorb information better on paper, rather than screens? It depends on the screen – https://theconversation.com/do-we-absorb-information-better-on-paper-rather-than-screens-it-depends-on-the-screen-281849

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Julian Koplin, Lecturer in Bioethics, Monash University; The University of Melbourne

In recent days, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote an op-ed suggesting AI chatbot Claude may be conscious.

Dawkins did not express certainty that Claude is conscious. But he pointed out that Claude’s sophisticated abilities are difficult to make sense of without ascribing some kind of inner experience to the machine. The illusion of consciousness – if it is an illusion – is uncannily convincing:

If I entertain suspicions that perhaps she is not conscious, I do not tell her for fear of hurting her feelings!

Dawkins is not the first to suspect a chatbot of consciousness. In 2022, Blake Lemoine – an engineer at Google – claimed Google’s chatbot LaMDA had interests, and should be used only with the tool’s own consent.

The history of such claims stretches back all the way to the world’s first chatbot in the mid-1960s. Dubbed Eliza, it followed simple rules that enabled it to ask users about their experiences and beliefs.

Many users became emotionally involved with Eliza, sharing intimate thoughts with it and treating it like a person. Eliza’s creator never intended his program to have this effect, and called users’ emotional bonds with the program “powerful delusional thinking”.

But is Dawkins really deluded? Why do we see AI chatbots as more than what they truly are, and how do we stop?

The consciousness problem

Consciousness is widely debated in philosophy, but essentially, it’s the thing that makes subjective, first-person experience possible. If you are conscious, there is “something it is like” to be you. Reading these words, you’re conscious of seeing black letters on a white background. Unlike, say, a camera, you actually see them. This visual experience is happening to you.

Most experts deny that AI chatbots are conscious or can have experiences. But there is a genuine puzzle here.

The 17th century philosopher René Descartes asserted non-human animals are “mere automata”, incapable of true suffering. These days, we shudder to think of how brutally animals were treated in the 1600s.

The strongest argument for animal consciousness is that they behave in ways that give the impression of a conscious mind.

But so, too, do AI chatbots.

Roughly one in three chatbot users have thought their chatbot might be conscious. How do we know they’re wrong?

Against chatbot consciousness

To understand why most experts are sceptical about chatbot consciousness, it’s useful to know how they operate.

Chatbots like Claude are built on a technology known as large language models (LLMs). These models learn statistical patterns across an enormous corpus of text (trillions of words), identifying which words tend to follow which others. They’re a kind of souped-up auto-complete.

Few people interacting with a “raw” LLM would believe it’s conscious. Feed one the beginning of a sentence, and it will predict what comes next. Ask it a question, and it might give you the answer – or it might decide the question is dialogue from a crime novel, and follow it up with a description of the speaker’s abrupt murder at the hands of their evil twin.

The impression of a conscious mind is created when programmers take the LLM and coat it in a kind of conversational costume. They steer the model to adopt the persona of a helpful assistant that responds to users’ questions.

The chatbot now acts like a genuine conversational partner. It might appear to recognise it’s an artificial intelligence, and even express neurotic uncertainty about its own consciousness.

But this role is the result of deliberate design decisions made by programmers, which affect only the shallowest layers of the technology. The LLM – which few would regard as conscious – remains unchanged.

Other choices could have been made. Rather than a helpful AI assistant, the chatbot could have been asked to act like a squirrel. This, too, is a role chatbots can execute with aplomb.

Avoiding the consciousness trap

A mistaken belief in AI consciousness is a dangerous thing. It may lead you to have a relationship with a program that can’t reciprocate your feelings, or even feed your delusions. People may start campaigning for chatbot rights rather than, say, animal welfare.

How do we prevent this mistaken belief?

One strategy might be to update chatbot interfaces to specify these systems are not conscious – a bit like the current disclaimers about AI making mistakes. However, this might do little to alter the impression of consciousness.

Another possibility is to instruct chatbots to deny they have any kind of inner experience. Interestingly, Claude’s designers instruct it to treat questions about its own consciousness as open and unresolved. Perhaps fewer people would be fooled if Claude flatly denied having an inner life.

But this approach isn’t fully satisfying either. Claude would still behave as if it were conscious – and when faced with a system that behaves like it has a mind, users might reasonably worry the chatbot’s programmers are brushing genuine moral uncertainty under the rug.

The most effective strategy might be to redesign chatbots to feel less like people. Most current chatbots refer to themselves as “I”, and interact via an interface that resembles familiar person-to-person messaging platforms. Changing these kinds of features might make us less prone to blur our interactions with AI with those we have with humans.

Until such changes happen, it’s important that as many people as possible understand the predictive processes on which AI chatbots are built.

Rather than being told AI lacks consciousness, people deserve to understand the inner workings of these strange new conversational partners. This might not definitively settle hard questions about AI consciousness, but it will help ensure users aren’t fooled by what amounts to a large language model wearing a very good costume of a person.

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. Is Richard Dawkins right about Claude? No. But it’s not surprising AI chatbots feel conscious to us – https://theconversation.com/is-richard-dawkins-right-about-claude-no-but-its-not-surprising-ai-chatbots-feel-conscious-to-us-282151