Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Leo Ziegel, Independent Postdoc Affiliated with the Global & Sexual Health research group (GloSH), Karolinska Institutet

Teenagers all over the world use social media and messaging apps as part of their daily lives. This is accompanied by growing concerns about negative effects of social media on youth mental health – and ongoing debates around limiting screen time and access to digital devices.

What’s frequently missing in these conversations, though, is what teenagers themselves think. How do online activities affect their mental health? How do they want adults to engage with them around this issue? Figuring out the concerns that young people have is crucial to addressing the ways these might be affecting their mental health.

In our recent research, we collaborated with Unicef and partners around the world to interview over 490 young people aged ten to 19 about their mental health and use of digital communication. This was a unique study, given the diversity of countries included: Belgium, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, China, Malawi, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States.

We found that the young people had nuanced views. They reflected on both positive and negative aspects of digital communication. The views they expressed were fairly similar across countries and income levels, pointing to shared sentiments among young people in an increasingly globalised digital world.

Across countries, young people repeatedly mentioned that adults are not sufficiently involved or do not understand what children and teenagers do online. They also pointed out that adults too seldom reflect on their own digital activities. And perhaps contrary to what adults might expect, young people wanted adults to know and care about their online lives. A young boy from Chile said:

I have a friend that I met through a game. He speaks to me six days a week to tell me that he has problems and that he cannot tell his parents, because when he tells them they minimize it. I try to help him […] but I am not an adult who has lived those things.

Many participants emphasised that digital communication can provide social and emotional support and belonging, which are good for wellbeing. But young people also reported how digital interactions can increase stress and anxiety by constant social comparisons, cyberbullying and time-wasting. They wanted adults to give them more guidance about how to deal with what they experienced online.

According to the young people, the quality of their online interactions is really important. Positive and supportive communication tends to act as a buffer to negative emotions. Negative interactions or passive consumption of others’ content, however, tend to create or amplify poor mental health, such as symptoms of depression.

Comparisons and bullying

They told us that constant comparisons with celebrities and influencers – their physical appearance and economic success – create unrealistic life expectations and promote harmful gender stereotypes. For girls in particular, this meant a pressure to look “pretty”, as well as feeling that their self-worth was linked to the number of likes or interactions received on social media posts.

Many young people told us they knew that online content is not necessarily genuine, but that such social comparisons still affected their mental health negatively. A teenage boy in Sweden said:

I think social media has a very big influence. You compare yourself with other people. You don’t see that they are another human being, [that] they have other problems. You only see this facade of a human being that is perfect, and it makes you feel worse.

Another major negative aspect was bullying on social media or in chat groups. Digital tools extend bullying from physical settings, such as in school, into young people’s private spaces. “With social networks we are never protected from the opinions of others,” one boy said.

Both boys and girls feared their photos being misused or being disseminated in embarrassing or threatening ways. Young people in a number of countries also felt that girls are more vulnerable to sexually explicit abuse online.

But young people globally agreed that digital communication helps them to develop and strengthen their social connections. Our interviews took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when this connection was particularly important. Social media helped them to make new friends from far away who shared similar interests or faced similar challenges. This created mutual support to navigate mental health challenges. A teenage girl in Chile said:

You sometimes get stuck on the internet because there are people who you can get to know, who for example have the same interests, and there you no longer feel rejected… The people around you, they do not accept you…. [The internet] can make you feel better, like you are not alone.

The young people also told us that social media and online gaming distract them from problems and stressors, helping them cope with mental distress. They talked about the value of anonymous help for mental distress online, as well as being able to find accessible information about mental health online.

To help young people deal with how their online lives affect their mental health, adults need to strengthen their own digital literacy and listen to young people’s perspectives. Initiatives that promote safer online environments should be designed together with young people to be relevant, trusted, and effective.

Leo Ziegel reports funding from Trygg-Hansa.

Carl Fredrik Sjöland is a researcher at Karolinska Institutet and is independently employed at the Public Health Agency of Sweden.

– ref. What teenagers want adults to know about their digital lives – https://theconversation.com/what-teenagers-want-adults-to-know-about-their-digital-lives-266014

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Ratcliffe, Lecturer in Sustainability, Tourism and Heritage Management, York St John University

Thousands of visitors each year explore the landscapes of the UK’s national parks on foot, through walking, rambling, hiking, mountaineering and, more recently, forest bathing.

Many of the earliest advocates for a national park system were notable walkers. They ranged from Lake District conservationists such as William and Dorothy Wordsworth to the ramblers who staged the Kinder Scout trespass in 1932 to demand greater access to the countryside.

I study the relationship between nature and culture in these national parks. As part of my research, I conduct semi-structured walking interviews with communities in the North York Moors national park to further understandings of this relationship. I am part of a wider research team who work with a diverse range of protected landscapes.

Walking, tied to public access and a growing environmental consciousness, grew as an organised leisure activity over the course of the 20th century alongside the development of ideas to protect the UK countryside. Many walkers, often young, working-class people who were members of rambling and hiking clubs, campaigned for greater access to and further protection of the countryside.

The popularity of walking was affirmed with the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act in 1949, which established England’s rights of way network and founded the UK’s national park system.

The North York Moors, in the north-east of England, was designated a national park in 1952, following this Act. The 1950s then saw a new wave of walkers to the park, encouraged by the increasing use of motor cars, the rise of walking clubs and the spread of youth hostels.

The Lyke Wake Walk was created in 1955 by a local farmer and Cambridge graduate called Bill Cowley. It’s a 42-mile crossing of the North York Moors which became a popular charity walk in the 1960s and 1970s. This increase in walkers brought controversy at the time, especially among the farming population, because of the levels of erosion it was causing. At its peak, 10,000 people crossed the moors each year, not always on public rights of way. Challenge walks were very new back then and most of the people attempting it were inexperienced. Two mountain rescue teams were formed as a result of lost and distressed walkers.

Today, it is still a celebrated “challenge” walk undertaken by ramblers and runners. And 2025 marks the 70th anniversary of the first set of ramblers to successfully cross the park.

Walking through modern parks

The national park’s modern history is closely tied to two other long distance footpaths: the Cleveland Way and the Coast to Coast walk. Alec Falconer, one of the founding members of the Middlesbrough Rambling Club campaigned for a long distance walk around the periphery of the North York Moors. Thanks to his work, the Cleveland Way was established in 1969.

This was the country’s second largest trail at the time, following the establishment of the Pennine Way in 1965. Up to 2,000 hikers complete the whole trail each year.

Created by guidebook author Alfred Wainwright, the Coast to Coast walk is one of the UK’s most popular long-distance footpaths and runs across this national park. Some 6,000 people a year walk the trail, which brings many international visitors to the park. Restoration and conservation work is currently ongoing as this walk is upgraded to a national trail.

With the gradual expansion of tourism in the North York Moors since its national park designation in the 1950s and the increasing popularity of these footpaths, more pressure has been put on the landscape through walking. Paths have been eroded in places with the responsibility of maintenance falling upon the national park authority and landowners. A ranger I spoke to during a walking interview as part of my research commented on the condition of a footpath on Fylingdales Moor:

“I know this path very well … this used to be horrendously boggy and the park is doing a damn good job here … you are on the old smugglers trod route.”

Today, walking is one of the most popular activities in the park. Some 6.5 million people in 2024 visited the park for a short or long walk. The park offers an expansive network of public rights of way alongside extensive open access land.

Some paths make use of the park’s industrial heritage, using old rail tracks as walking routes, such as the Cinder Track which is a disused railway and now a footpath and cycle track through the park from Scarborough to Whitby.

Walking in this national park plays a vital role in supporting the wellbeing of nearby urban communities, such as Middlesborough and Scarborough. Residents from disadvantaged backgrounds access the park to improve their physical and mental health and the North York Moors National Park Authority aims to build on this through the growing popularity of NHS programmes which socially prescribe nature-based activities.

As a support worker from the local community told me: “Getting out here in that fresh air. It is relaxation and peacefulness. It brings a different mindset connecting with nature. I get something to take home.”

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more people have come to appreciate the importance of visiting the national park for health-related reasons. Not only for its extensive heather moorland, the largest in England and Wales, but also for its distinctive coastal villages and other special qualities of the park. Yet many who visit do not realise that the North York Moors landscape is not natural – much of the heather moorland is farmed and managed by private landowners for shooting and farming purposes.

In a time of ecological uncertainty, walking is a vital means of sensing and interpreting a countryside in transition – marked by biodiversity loss, a deepening climate crisis and emerging landscape recovery and rewilding projects that reimagine the relationship between people and land.

Through walking, new creative responses can emerge to address sustainability challenges, including social inequalities, climate and biodiversity emergencies, across the UK’s protected landscapes.

Many of the debates around walking that shaped the original designation of the UK’s national park system remain relevant today – particularly those concerning access and the right to roam, the balance between land conservation, protection and development and approaches to moorland management and land use.

Walking through the moors enable us to engage deeply, respectfully, and reflectively with these ongoing discussions and consider the future of the UK’s uplands.

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Tom Ratcliffe works for York St John University. Tom received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for his PhD thesis. Tom is affiliated with the North York Moors Association.

– ref. Walking through the North York Moors National Park – a place of adventure, conservation and healing – https://theconversation.com/walking-through-the-north-york-moors-national-park-a-place-of-adventure-conservation-and-healing-266929

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Bailey, Professor of Business Economics, University of Birmingham

The growth in sales of electric vehicles is a positive step in the UK’s journey to net zero. They are cleaner, quieter and better for the environment.

But while they produce less pollution, electric vehicles (EVs) also produce far less revenue for the treasury. And as more drivers ditch petrol and diesel, the government’s annual £35 billion haul from fuel duty and road tax will dwindle fast.

This is because owners of electric vehicles don’t pay fuel duty, quietly gliding past petrol stations and the tax collector. And for years, that’s been an intentional policy nudge to help the technology take off.

But as EVs go mainstream, those lost tax receipts become impossible to ignore, especially given the UK’s current economic predicament. So the government is now considering a radical reform to make up some of that revenue by charging EV owners per mile travelled.

The idea is that those who drive more, pay more. And it could even be fine-tuned to discourage congestion, perhaps by charging more for driving in a city or town centre during rush-hour. Larger vehicles could pay a higher rate, since an SUV is likely to have a more damaging impact upon a road surface than a smaller city car.

In theory, it’s a fairer and more modern way to fund our roads – and for the treasury it must seem like a good way of restoring predictability to public finances.

But for many Britons, road pricing is a very sensitive subject. When the Blair government floated a similar idea in 2007, the response was intense.

And the danger of a pay-per-mile tax introduced too quickly, by a government desperate for revenue, is that it could trigger a fierce public backlash and risk stalling the EV transition.

Springing a new charge on EV owners who bought their cars on the promise of cheaper running costs, for example, could feel like a betrayal. And public trust in the green transition depends upon fairness and predictability.

If EV drivers suddenly find themselves paying more than they expected to, others will think twice before making the switch, which could slow EV adoption when momentum is finally building.

There’s also the issue of how such a system would actually work. To charge by the mile, the state needs to know how far you’ve driven. That could mean annual odometer checks or, more controversially, real-time tracking via GPS.

The latter might be efficient, but it also sounds pretty Orwellian. Handing the government or private contractors a record of every journey would raise concerns about surveillance and data privacy. Even if the system were technically secure, it could still feel like a step too far for many drivers.

Then there’s geography. A flat per-mile charge would hit rural motorists, who tend to drive further and have fewer public transport alternatives, hardest. Urban drivers, meanwhile, could face a double tax if road pricing overlaps with congestion zones.

So fairness could make or break this policy.

Part of this fairness will come down to timing. Right now, EVs are still more expensive to buy than petrol or diesel cars, charging infrastructure remains patchy and household budgets are under pressure from inflation and high energy costs. Is this really the moment to make EV driving more expensive?

A premature shift to pay-per-mile taxation would punish the very people the government has spent years encouraging to go green. It would also send a damaging signal to the market: that the rules of the game can change overnight.

Full speed ahead?

But the shift to EVs is both inevitable and desirable, so the sensible path is probably a gradual one. This year, owners of EVs began paying road tax – a small but symbolic step toward equal treatment with other car drivers. Beyond that, if the UK is to move to a pay-per-mile model eventually (and it probably will) the design needs to be spot on.

It needs to be transparent about the need to replace lost fuel duty. It needs to respect privacy, by basing the system on reported mileage – not GPS tracking – maybe as part of the annual MOT.

It also needs to be fair, with rates adjusted for geography and access to public transport, and different rates for different sized vehicles, to account for greater impact upon roads.

It may also be worth ring-fencing the revenue it creates to improve roads, expand public transport and invest in charging networks. If drivers can see where their money is going, they may be more amenable to charges.

Handled with care, a mileage-based system could modernise the way Britain funds its transport network while keeping net zero on track. But rushing to impose new charges on EV drivers just to plug a fiscal hole would be short-sighted and self-defeating.

The government should resist the temptation for a quick fix, and instead build a system that is gradual, transparent and fair. Do this, and road pricing could work as a long-term solution. Do it badly, and it risks becoming a symbol of another tax grab and a green betrayal.

The road to a sustainable transport tax system will be long and winding. The UK can get there, but only if it drives things forward carefully.

David Bailey receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council through its UK in a Changing Europe programme.

Phil Tomlinson receives funding from the Innovation and Research Caucus (IRC). He also drives an electric vehicle.

– ref. UK plans for pay-per-mile electric vehicle tax could make the system fairer – or provoke a fierce backlash – https://theconversation.com/uk-plans-for-pay-per-mile-electric-vehicle-tax-could-make-the-system-fairer-or-provoke-a-fierce-backlash-269728

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

It’s the kind of promise that stops thumbs mid-scroll: “Take Molecule and forget food exists.” Viral TikTok clips show influencers flaunting rapid weight-loss transformations, tapping into the body image concerns that leave many young people struggling with what they see in the mirror.

These perceived imperfections are increasingly being addressed through quick fixes – pills and injections that promise effortless change. In the US and UK, weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy dominate the headlines. But in Russia and eastern Europe, a different trend is emerging.

Young people are turning to a drug called Molecule, with some sharing their experiences in a recent BBC report. Behind the social media hype lies a troubling truth: Molecule contains a compound banned in the UK, EU and US for its dangerous side-effects.

The ingredients purported to be in Molecule include dandelion root, fennel seeds and black tea – benign-sounding botanicals that disguise what tests have actually found. These pills contain sibutramine, a substance with a chequered regulatory history.

Sibutramine

Sibutramine was originally sold on prescription under the name Reductil and was widely used to help people lose weight. It works by altering brain chemicals that control hunger. Specifically, it increases levels of serotonin and noradrenaline in the part of the brain that signals when you feel full – meaning people feel satisfied faster and eat less.

Sibutramine can also slightly increase how quickly the body burns energy and prevent metabolism from slowing during weight loss. Together, these effects can help people lose weight and make it easier to maintain that weight loss.

In one study, people who were overweight or obese lost 5–10% of their body weight when they used sibutramine along with consuming fewer calories, exercising regularly and getting support to change their habits. However, the drug’s use declined as more evidence emerged that it could increase the risk of serious heart problems.

In 2010, the European Medicines Agency stopped allowing sibutramine to be prescribed after the results of the large Scout trial were published. This study showed that the drug raised the risk of heart attacks and strokes, particularly in people who already had heart problems.

The US and the UK’s drugs regulators followed suit, citing that the risks outweighed the benefits. The decision was unequivocal: sibutramine was too dangerous for general use.

The side-effects of sibutramine are not just theoretical – they’re well-documented and potentially life-threatening. Common reactions include dry mouth, constipation, insomnia and headaches. But more worrying, the drug can raise blood pressure and make the heart beat faster by stimulating the body’s “fight or flight” system.

This adds extra strain on the heart, which is particularly risky for people who already have heart or circulation problems. In more serious cases, it can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Serotonin syndrome

Sibutramine can also interact in dangerous ways with other drugs, which many people taking it may not realise. For example, if it is taken alongside certain antidepressants – such as monoamine oxidase inhibitors or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – it can trigger a condition called serotonin syndrome.

Both drugs raise serotonin levels, and if those levels become too high, it can cause a serious and potentially life-threatening reaction. The same risk can also occur if sibutramine is taken with some migraine medicines, such as sumatriptan, or certain opioid painkillers, such as fentanyl.

Serotonin syndrome can cause symptoms such as confusion, restlessness, sweating, fever, a fast heartbeat, muscle spasms and problems with coordination.

Sibutramine is processed by enzymes in the liver, so it can also interact with other medicines that are broken down in the same way. Some antibiotics such as erythromycin and antifungal drugs such as ketoconazole can block these liver enzymes, thus raising the levels of sibutramine and increasing the risk of side-effects.

In Russia, sibutramine is still available with a prescription for treating obesity in adults. Yet sibutramine continues to surface in unlicensed supplements, including Molecule, often sold under misleading labels proclaiming them “natural” or “herbal” and sold online or through informal channels.

These products bypass regulatory scrutiny, making it difficult for consumers to know exactly what they’re taking. The accessibility is deceptive: what looks like a harmless supplement bought from a seemingly legitimate online seller may contain a banned drug that can cause serious harm.

This comeback shows just how risky unregulated diet pills can be and why it is so important to check that any supplement is safe and legal before taking it. The story of sibutramine is a warning: even medicines that were once approved can have hidden dangers, especially if they are misused or sold illegally. And the promise of easy weight loss often comes with a cost much higher than what is listed on the label.

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. Molecule: what’s in this dangerous, illegal slimming pill? – https://theconversation.com/molecule-whats-in-this-dangerous-illegal-slimming-pill-268933

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Finn McFall, KTP Associate, University of Surrey

When two people book the same flight, they can get wildly different carbon footprints from online calculators. Many carbon calculators leave out big chunks of climate impact or rely on oversimplified assumptions.

Here’s what’s missing, why it matters and a practical checklist you can use to judge any flight estimate.

1. CO₂ isn’t enough

If a tool only reports in kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO₂), it misses two other groups of emissions:

Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) is a metric that converts the impact of other greenhouse gases such as methane to an equivalent of carbon dioxide using science-based data that shows their global warming potential. If a calculator only shows CO₂, it undervalues the footprint.

A calculator that references CO₂e includes CO₂ as well as those other greenhouse gas emissions so it is more comprehensive. Good practice cites the metric and links to the emissions table used.

Non-CO₂ impacts are the ways that aircraft warm the climate via nitrogen oxides, water vapour and contrails. These trap heat, effectively acting like a blanket that reflects heat from the Earth back down to the ground. Research shows that these non-CO₂ effects can be comparable to or larger than CO₂ alone on common time horizons.

This means that a CO₂e-only number still undervalues total climate impact for aviation because it doesn’t take into account the effect of nitrogen oxides, water vapour and contrails. The magnitude of non-CO₂ impacts varies with altitude, latitude, weather and time of day, but it’s too large to ignore.

Calculators should quantify it transparently, with uncertainty. The best calculators take into account CO2e and non-CO2 categories.

2. Planes don’t really fly in straight lines

Another source of undervaluation is distance. Many tools assume a great-circle path (shortest distance between the origin and destination airports), plus a small, fixed distance. Real flights are shaped by winds, storms, congestion, military zones and airspace closures that force long detours. Even regular routes between A and B can change on a daily basis due to these variables.

Studies show average detours of several percent even in “normal” times, let alone the current geopolitical state of the world. Increased distance means more fuel consumption and more emissions. So if a calculator doesn’t adjust for route deviations, it will undershoot fuel burn.

By using recent historical route data to adjust pre-flight estimates, the number better reflects how that route is flown now, not how it flies in idealised conditions.

3. Scope: what counts?

Even when distance and emissions are handled well, many tools leave the system boundary, which defines which sources of emissions are included or excluded, too narrow. Many tools disregard the emissions involved in mining for the materials, extracting the fuel and constructing the aircraft themselves.

A comprehensive, standards-aligned footprint includes well-to-tank emissions (fuel extraction, refining, transport), in-flight services and the aircraft and airport life cycle.

ISO 14083, the international standard for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from transport chains (2023) sets common rules for quantifying and reporting transport emissions. Good calculators align to it to make their scope explicit and comparable.

But better calculators go beyond it to cover the full scope of flight emissions. If a carbon footprint excludes upstream emissions or infrastructure, expect it to be lower than a comprehensive life cycle view.

4. How your emissions are allocated

Per-passenger emissions accounting involves dividing aircraft-level impacts across seats and cargo. Cabin class and seat density change the space per passenger. Seats in business or first class can have multiple-times the per-capita impact of economy class on the same aircraft.

Load factors (how full a plane is) change the denominator too. Passengers on a plane that’s half full should be allocated twice the emissions. Good methods use load factors and aircraft seating plans that are route, airline and season specific, rather than generalised global assumptions.

5. Baggage and belly cargo

From a traveller’s perspective, it feels unfair if a hand-bag-only passenger gets the same carbon allocation as someone checking 30kg of luggage. Most calculators assume a single average baggage weight, so light travellers subsidise heavy ones. Better approaches allow users to declare baggage or apply route specific baggage factors.

Most passenger flights also carry freight in the belly of the plane. If a calculator attributes all aircraft emissions to passengers, it overstates per-passenger numbers. Fair practice is to split emissions between passengers and airline cargo using load data.

What ‘better’ looks like

Based on recent peer-reviewed work, here is a checklist for any flight calculator. When you next see a carbon footprint for your flight, ask whether it is:

• comprehensive – does it include CO₂, CO₂e and non-CO₂ as well as aligning with ISO 14083 or better, covering the full scope of emissions for an air travel passenger?

• accurate – does it use modern, data-driven methods to predict flight path and fuel consumption, and specific, up to date data for all variables, including load factors and seating configurations?

• transparent – are the methods and data sources published with its limitations and is it peer-reviewed?

• effectively communicated – is there a breakdown of emission sources and is it easy to understand and make targeted climate decisions?

When calculators tick all these boxes, the debate shifts from arguing over a single figure to acting on the biggest drivers. That’s how footprints become tools for change rather than just numbers on a screen.

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Finn McFall works on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between Therme Group and the University of Surrey, co-funded by UKRI through Innovate UK.

Xavier Font works for the University of Surrey. He is part of the academic team working on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between Therme Group and the University of Surrey, co-funded by UKRI through Innovate UK.

– ref. How much CO2 does your flight really produce? How to know if carbon footprint claims are accurate – https://theconversation.com/how-much-co2-does-your-flight-really-produce-how-to-know-if-carbon-footprint-claims-are-accurate-268746

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anthony Downey, Professor of Visual Culture, Birmingham City University

Please note his piece contains spoilers for Ex Machina.

In the more than a decade since its release in 2015, the film Ex Machina – written and directed by Alex Garland – has proved to be an insightful forerunner to contemporary concerns surrounding the social and cultural impact of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and what is now commonly termed “superintelligence”.

Through the central figure of Ava (an advanced humanoid played by Swedish actor Alicia Vikander), the film explored the ramifications of an AI attaining human-level intelligence and, thereafter, assuming superintelligence.

The arrival of superintelligence in AI systems, it has been argued, would signify a level of consciousness and “brain” power that would rapidly challenge the idea of creativity being a uniquely human activity. Anticipating and fearing such an outcome, Ava’s creator, the tech entrepreneur Nathan (Oscar Isaac), hires Caleb (Domhnall Gleason), a programmer, to perform a kind of Turing test on her (a way of assessing if AI can think).

In a succession of events that map her evolving sense of selfhood and self-awareness, Ava notably expresses her creativity and potential consciousness through a series of complex drawings, including a landscape image of her surroundings and a portrait of Caleb. Convinced that she has indeed attained consciousness, Caleb sees Ava’s creativity and ingenuity as a clear sign that she has not only passed the Turing test but has also achieved a form of superintelligence.

It is precisely this vision of the imminent arrival of superintelligence that is central to both the film and wider debates about whether AI-powered models of innovation will supersede, if not in time replace, human creativity.

The idea that AI will indeed achieve levels of creative thinking and innovation has recently become central to unprecedented levels of investment from companies – including OpenAI, Scale AI, Anthropic, Anduril and Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta AI) – who appear to have few reservations about the possibility of superintelligence becoming a reality.

But what form will creativity in AI take, and will a breakthrough in the way machines “think” really enable them to be creative?

Not merely a machine

In what is now considered to be a watershed moment for AI, a verifiable level of machine creativity was arguably proven in a now infamous game of Go.

Centred on a player’s ability to capture territory on a board, Go is widely considered to be one of the most complex games of strategy ever invented. In March 2016, Lee Sedol, the 18-times world Go champion, was nevertheless convincingly defeated in a five-game match against DeepMind’s AlphaGo.

AlphaGo confounded Sedol in the second game of that match when it executed what has since become known as “move 37”. A counterintuitive gambit initially thought to be a glitch in the programme, move 37 was so profoundly outside of the usual patterns of play that for many – programmers, commentators and players alike – it was seen as unequivocal evidence of creative intuition in a machine.

As Sedol magnanimously noted following the game: “I thought AlphaGo was based on probability calculation and that it was merely a machine. But when I saw this move, I changed my mind. Surely, AlphaGo is creative.”

For all the warnings about the future impact of AI on the creative industries and concerns about authorship, labour, commodification and cultural value, it is important to note the degree to which human creativity is being increasingly supported by developments in AI.

When we look again at Ava’s drawings in Ex Machina, they not only illustrate the ubiquitous presence of neural networks but also the methods by which AI-enhanced models of image production learn to predict patterns from input data, or datasets.

In a key scene in the film, we learn that Ava’s neural networks have been programmed using information – datasets – illegally harvested by Nathan from Blue Book, the Google-style company that he founded and owns. Notably, Ava’s drawings reflect the datasets on which she has been trained.

When we use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), an AI that creates text, images, videos and other content to concoct images, we are likewise leveraging it to generate content based on the datasets used to train machine models of image production.

Widely employed in programs such as Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion – all of which enjoy a wide consumer base – GenAI powers both Ava’s neural networks and is likewise shaping future models of human creativity.

In a recent report from the Royal Institute of British Architects it was observed that the proportion of architectural practices using AI in their designs in 2025 stood at 59%, compared to 41% in 2024. This increase in the use of AI led the report’s authors to ask whether an AI could replace the role of the architect in the not-so-distant future.

Adding to these debates, in June 2025 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published an extended research paper that further detailed the degree to which GenAI is being regularly used to enhance human creativity through the use of neural networks and autonomous systems.

Autonomous thinking machines

It is precisely this term “autonomous”, however, that sparks controversy about AGI and superintelligence, nowhere more so than when we consider the widespread deployment of AI in self-driving vehicles, robots, unmanned drones and automated weapons systems. Elon Musk, an early investor in DeepMind (the company behind AlphaGo), recently announced that the long-term success of Tesla lies with humanoid robots, or autonomous Optimus bots.

Meanwhile, in what is major concern for governments and international organisations alike, autonomous weapons systems are already providing the means for the eventual automation of war. These developments foreshadow the spectre of unmanned aerial systems that can independently identify, target and kill an “enemy” without much by way of human intervention.

It is this vision of an autonomous superintelligence acting independent of human control or oversight that has long haunted our often-fraught relationship with advanced technologies.

At the close of the film, Ava has achieved a level of autonomous agency that suggests the presence of AGI, if not a conscious level of decision-making or superintelligence. We watch in horror as she kills her creator Nathan and imprisons her sympathetic ally, Caleb.

If an AI-powered superintelligence does become a reality, it could not only trigger a radical rethink of how we understand human creativity but, more crucially, spark an existential crisis in the very meaning, if not future, of humanity.

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Anthony Downey 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. Ex Machina: could “superintelligence” challenge the idea of creativity as a uniquely human activity? – https://theconversation.com/ex-machina-could-superintelligence-challenge-the-idea-of-creativity-as-a-uniquely-human-activity-264709

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor, The Conversation

Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since the author’s birth. In each episode, we’ll be investigating a different aspect of Austen’s personality by interrogating one of her novels with leading researchers. Along the way, we’ll visit locations important to Austen to uncover a particular aspect of her life and the times she lived in. In episode 3, we look at her politics, and what we can learn about her views on slavery through the pages of Mansfield Park.

There are no strident political takes in Jane Austen’s novels, but there are many subtle and carefully crafted signals. As we are learning over the course of our podcast series, she kept her cards very close to her chest.

One of the biggest and most urgent public debates of Austen’s time was slavery. It’s an issue most modern readers would like to see her coming down on the right side of. But she only ever wrote one black character: Miss Lambe in the unfinished work Sanditon (1817). And the novel which deals most with the issue, Mansfield Park (1814), still only mentions slavery directly once.

What we do know is that three of Austen’s brothers were engaged in anti-slavery activism. Her letters also show that she admired the abolitionists Thomas Clarkson and William Cowper. But while it’s tempting to assume Austen shared their convictions, it isn’t that simple – as Mansfield Park demonstrates.

The novel follows Fanny Price, who is taken in by her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, and raised on their country estate. Mansfield Park explores shifting social dynamics and Fanny’s emotional struggles. Although slavery is not central to the plot, the Bertrams’ wealth comes from a West Indian plantation sustained by enslaved labour.

Like the Bertrams, many people in Austen’s day made their money through the empire. The British economy was highly dependent on enslaved labourers, from the goods they produced to the institutions and industries the economy of slavery funded.

The profits of slavery flooded into the British countryside, supporting the lifestyles of those within the grand estates of the landed gentry. As such, the businesses of slavery and empire are the economic foundations on which Austen’s domestic worlds stand. Yet Mansfield Park is arguably the only novel that glances, however obliquely, toward that reality.

In the third episode of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail, Naomi Joseph visits the Liverpool docks which were at the centre of Britain’s transatlantic slave trade with Corinne Fowler, professor of postcolonial literature at the University of Leicester. Fowler has worked on projects reinterpreting the colonial connections of country houses for both the National Trust and English Heritage.

As the Sun shines upon the Irish Sea where ships once brought enslaved people and the goods they produced to England, Fowler helps us understand the sometimes contradictory feelings Austen seemed to have about slavery.

“Many people tried, and often failed, to make money in empire – and in slavery in particular,” explains Fowler. “The issue of Austen’s position in relation to slavery itself is interesting, because it’s typically really ambivalent.”

Later in the episode, Anna Walker takes a deeper dive into Austen’s view of the slave trade in Mansfield Park with two more experts: Olivia Robotham Carpenter, a lecturer in literature at the University of York, and Markman Ellis, a professor of 18th-century studies at Queen Mary University London.

“I think [Mansfield Park] tells us something quite important about how these incredibly violent institutions were functioning at the level of the domestic household, and what they might mean in actual British women’s lives during the period,” Robotham Carpenter explains.

“This is a book which addresses the topic of wealthy British people’s responsibility for a series of immoral acts in the colonies,” Ellis agrees. However, Austen “didn’t set it in Antigua, she doesn’t have a black character. All the things she could have done, she doesn’t do.”

Listen to episode 3 of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re craving more Austen, check out our Jane Austen 250 page for more expert articles celebrating the anniversary.

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Disclosure statement

Corinne Fowler has received funding from the Arts Council England, English Heritage, the National Trust and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Markman Ellis and Olivia Robotham Carpenter 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.

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Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is hosted by Anna Walker with reporting from Jane Wright and Naomi Joseph. Senior producer and sound designer is Eloise Stevens and the executive producer is Gemma Ware. Artwork by Alice Mason and Naomi Joseph.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.

– ref. Why it’s so hard to know what Jane Austen thought about slavery – https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-know-what-jane-austen-thought-about-slavery-269053

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Shahzad Uddin, Director, Centre for Accountability and Global Development, University of Essex

A domestic war crimes court in Bangladesh has sentenced the country’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to death in absentia for crimes against humanity. The court found Hasina guilty of incitement, orders to kill and inaction to prevent atrocities during the deadly state crackdown on a student-led uprising in 2024.

Hasina denies all the charges against her, calling the court’s decision “biased and politically motivated”. In a statement released after the verdict, she said: “I am not afraid to face my accusers in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly.”

Hasina has challenged Bangladesh’s caretaker government to bring the charges before the International Criminal Court.

The Bangladeshi court’s judgment is anchored in extensive evidence from the UN and international human rights organisations. In a report published in February 2025, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed during the three weeks of unrest. A further 11,700 people were detained, it said.

The report found that “the vast majority of those killed and injured were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces”, and determined that security agencies “systematically engaged in rights violations that could amount to crimes against humanity”. UN data suggests that up to 180 children were killed in the security crackdown.

During the unrest, Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that the Bangladeshi government had “deployed the army against student protesters, imposed shoot-on-sight curfew orders, and shut down mobile data and internet services.”

The UN report concluded that the violence against protesters in Bangladesh “was carried out in a coordinated manner by security and intelligence services”. It documented instances where “security forces engaged in summary executions by deliberately shooting unarmed protesters at point-blank range.”

HRW documented similar patterns. In a January 2025 briefing, HRW stated that “over 1,000 people were killed and many thousands injured due to excessive and indiscriminate use of ammunition.” These findings were repeated by Amnesty International, which recorded the use of live ammunition on protesters and mistreatment of detainees.

The court’s verdict accepts evidence that multiple branches of the security apparatus acted in concert, and that senior officials did not intervene even as human rights violations escalated. Judges stated that those in positions of authority were expected to prevent such abuses, yet the violence continued despite their ability to stop it.

For many families, the court’s ruling marks the first official acknowledgement of their loss. Testimonies collected by UN investigators describe parents spending days searching hospitals and police stations for their children, often being told that records were missing. The UN reported that hospital staff were pressured by security forces to alter or remove death records.

Meenakshi Ganguly, the deputy Asia director at HRW, said at the time of the unrest: “Bangladesh has been troubled for a long time due to unfettered security force abuses against anyone who opposes the Sheikh Hasina government.”

Hasina won a fourth straight term as prime minister in 2024, following an election that the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party alleged was a sham. The party boycotted the poll after many of its key leaders were forced into exile or jailed prior to the vote.

Under Hasina, Bangladesh’s security forces operated with broad discretion. This included the Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force, which was sanctioned by the US Treasury in December 2021 over “serious human rights abuses”. Civil society groups documented pressure on activists prior to the 2024 unrest, while journalists faced harassment.

Next steps

The verdict arrives at a pivotal moment for the interim government which, led by Muhammad Yunus, has pledged to restore the rule of law in Bangladesh and rebuild public trust. One difficult question for his administration moving forward will be whether it can secure Hasina’s extradition.

The Hindustan Times is reporting that the Bangladeshi government has already written to India, where Hasina has been living in exile since being ousted from power, asking for her to be handed over.

Hasina’s extradition is no foregone conclusion. India can deny the Bangladeshi government’s request if it is deemed that the charges against Hasina are of a political nature. And Delhi has responded cautiously to the extradition request, saying it is “committed to the best interests of the people of Bangladesh”.

Yet pressure on India to extradite Hasina is likely to grow. The gravity of the charges – grounded in UN findings that suggest the violence, and Hasina’s role in it, may amount to crimes against humanity – adds an international dimension that could influence future decisions.

Another challenge facing Bangladesh’s interim government is the prospect of renewed unrest. Reuters reported clashes between Hasina supporters and security forces in parts of the capital, Dhaka, and the port city of Chattogram in the days before the court’s ruling. And Bangladeshi police dispersed protesters marching towards party offices in Dhaka after the judgment.

Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, has also publicly warned that supporters of his mother’s Awami League would block national elections scheduled for February 2026 if the government’s ban on the party remained in place. The country’s political environment remains fragile as legal proceedings against the former Hasina government continue.

The court’s verdict establishes an official record that lethal force was used in ways inconsistent with international law, the violations were widespread, and the state bears responsibility.

What follows – whether it’s further prosecutions, security-sector reform or a movement towards extradition – remains uncertain. But next steps must ensure that justice continues.

Shahzad Uddin 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. Bangladesh signals that no leader is above the law by sentencing Sheikh Hasina to death – https://theconversation.com/bangladesh-signals-that-no-leader-is-above-the-law-by-sentencing-sheikh-hasina-to-death-269957

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mette Wiggen, Lecturer, School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds

The social democrat Mette Frederiksen won Denmark’s 2019 elections on a platform of radical reforms to reach climate targets, lowering the pension age for manual workers – and stricter migration policies.

Denmark has some of the strictest asylum legislation in Europe. The country grants only temporary asylum to refugees, regardless of their need for protection. It has tightened laws on family reunion, and introduced policies focused on prioritising deportation, rather than integration.

Frederiksen has justified such policies by pitting the challenges of immigration against the affordability of public services and the welfare state.

Hardline asylum legislation was in place in Denmark before Frederiksen came to power, but has become even more draconian under her administration. In her own words, migration “is challenging Europe, affecting people’s lives, and the cohesion of our societies”.

Now, Frederiksen’s approach has become a model for other left-wing governments in Europe, including the UK, struggling to address voter concerns about immigration.

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Read more:
Think twice before copying Denmark’s asylum policies

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How did a left-wing leader come to lead such a strict migration regime, and how might it influence the rest of Europe?

Danish migration policy has been influenced by the far right for years. Minority coalitions have long depended on the vote of the far right in parliament. Frederiksen won the 2019 elections on a migration agenda almost identical to that of the far-right Danish People´s party.

The country’s asylum policies had already been tightened during the 2015 refugee crisis. New legislation placed restrictions on refugees bringing their families to stay, introduced temporary permits which could be revoked at any time, and placed more demands linked to integration on asylum seekers and immigrants.

In 2018, a law targeting “parallel socieites” came into force, allowing the government to demolish or sell off social housing areas where more than half of residents are from a “non-western” background, if those areas also meet other criteria related to crime and poverty. Refugees in these areas are also not eligible for family reunion.

In 2021 Frederiksen introduced a new deportation law allowing for refugees to be returned to their country of origin if Denmark deemed it safe.

Her government ruled Syria safe for refugees to return to, allowing it to withdraw the residence permits of Syrian refugees. But because Denmark did not have diplomatic relations with the Syrian government to allow deportations, people were taken out of education and employment and put in deportation camps.

In 2021, the European Commission deemed new Danish legislation on transferring asylum seekers to third countries to process asylum claims incompatible with EU law.

But Denmark is in a unique position, having negotiated opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. One of these opt-outs means that Denmark is not bound by EU laws on border control and immigration policy.

Influencing Europe

Over the last few months, Denmark has held the presidency of the Council of the European Union, where migration has been at the top of the agenda.

Frederiksen has used this position to advocate for stricter, Danish-style migration policies across Europe. In her speech at the official opening ceremony for the Danish EU presidency, she said:

Many come here to work and to contribute. But some do not. And around Europe, we see the consequences. Crime. Radicalization. And terror. We have built some of the best societies ever. But we cannot accept anyone who wants to come here.

Denmark has supported the EU´s 2024 Pact on Migration and Asylum, which sets out new common rules on managing migration. It prioritises support to border states, with financial support from other EU countries. Its aim is to secure external borders with a faster and more efficient asylum procedure. The pact will be implemented in 2026.

Denmark’s policies have not been without controversy. The country has been criticised by the European Court of Justice, the UN committee against torture, Amnesty International and other international bodies.

But Frederiksen has received some support, including from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has reached deportation deals with authoritarian regimes and governments like Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

Frederiksen and Meloni led a group of EU countries pushing for reform of the European convention on human rights to ease deportation. She has also clearly had an influence on Keir Starmer, with the Labour government now seeking to implement Danish-style migration policies.

Fredriksen’s ideology and actions have been widely criticised by human rights groups. But they may further Frederiksen´s meteoric rise to a top position in international politics. She will need it, as her party is set to lose to the parties further to the left in the upcoming local elections.

Mette Wiggen 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. Denmark’s prime minister has led the country’s hardline migration policy – now she is trying to influence the rest of Europe – https://theconversation.com/denmarks-prime-minister-has-led-the-countrys-hardline-migration-policy-now-she-is-trying-to-influence-the-rest-of-europe-263932

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Wilkinson, Principal Research Fellow, ODI Global

Few diplomatic organisations punch above their weight quite like the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis). With no fixed budget, no permanent secretariat and no formal charter, it has still managed to shape some of the most important climate agreements of the past few decades – including the 1.5°C target that underpins the Paris agreement.

Founded in 1990, Aosis represents 39 small island and low-lying coastal states. Its members are among the most vulnerable to rising seas and extreme weather, yet together they have become the moral voice of global climate diplomacy.

The now familiar 1.5°C limit of global warming was far from guaranteed when countries gathered in Paris in 2015. Many expected the summit to be less ambitious and settle for a 2°C target – at best.

But Aosis had been working behind the scenes since a disappointing climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, pushing for a scientific review of the costs and benefits of a 1.5°C target. That review, published in 2015, proved vital in securing the inclusion of 1.5°C in the Paris agreement. “One-point-five to stay alive” became the rallying cry of the small island nations: and it was having an impact.

How Aosis works

Aosis is a negotiating group rather than a formal organisation. It works through consensus and cooperation among its members, who vary widely but all share high vulnerablity to climate change.

Its work is spread between the chair’s team and member states’ permanent representatives at the UN, as well as heads of state and ministers. The role of chair rotates through the New York-based representatives, with Ilana Seid from the Pacific island nation of Palau currently serving.

Members meet frequently to develop joint positions ahead of major summits, pooling technical expertise and diplomatic resources that would otherwise be out of reach for many small states. While consensus building comes with compromise, the alliance ensures even the smallest states can consistently and actively engage in international diplomacy.

Past wins

Aosis has been influential from the very outset of the UN’s climate process. At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (which paved the way for Paris), it arrived with 12 key objectives and walked away having achieved ten, including a specific article in the UN’s climate convention acknowledging that small island and low lying coastal states are particularly at risk.

Since then, Aosis has secured designated seats on key climate bodies, including the UN bureau that supports the summits, and boards of the Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund and Clean Development Mechanism.

The group also played a significant role in establishing the loss and damage fund in 2022, to help vulnerable countries recover from climate-related disasters. Aosis had first proposed funding for loss and damage back in 1991.

From island diplomacy to global courts

The influence of small island nations now extends into international law. A few years ago, Vanuatu, an Aosis member of only 300,000 people, led a campaign for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on states’ obligations to tackle climate change.

The ICJ’s ruling, issued earlier this year, confirmed that states have legal duties to reduce emissions and protect people from climate change. This affirmed a principle Aosis had long argued for: the world’s most polluting nations have not just a moral duty to act, but legal obligations to fellow states and their citizens.

As Margaretha Wewerinke-Sing, part of Vanuatu’s legal team, put it: “The law seems to be catching up with the science. The question is now, will the policy catch up with the law?”

The agenda for Cop30

The annual UN climate summit currently taking place in Belém, Brazil – Cop30 – is the first since the ICJ advisory opinion. It should give some initial insight as to how Aosis plans to use this ruling.

First, it is seeking greater commitments to reduce emissions. Under the Paris agreement, countries were due to submit revised climate plans this year, but only 86 have been submitted, out of 197. Of the 64 fully analysed so far, less than a quarter are in line with the Paris agreement’s temperature goals. Aosis will use the ICJ opinion to stress that stronger targets are not just necessary but legally required.

Second, adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly critical for island nations already living with rising seas and stronger storms. Aosis is calling for clearer targets and better tracking of adaptation finance under the Global Goal on Adaptation.

Third, Aosis wants developed countries to triple the volume of public climate finance by 2035 and leverage further funds to meet the US$1.3 trillion (£1 trillion) target under the “Baku to Belém Roadmap”. Without predictable finance, small islands cannot plan for the future.

Aosis made clear its stance ahead of this summit: “[we] will not join in a consensus at Cop30 that makes us co-signatories to our own destruction”. But as with the previous 29 Cops, long days and multiple agenda items mean small island delegations will be stretched thinly. The benefits of collaboration are therefore crystal clear.

Emily Wilkinson advises Aosis on adaptation and finance. She receives funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. She is affiliated with ODI Global.

Kira-Lee Gmeiner is affiliated with ODI Global.

– ref. Why small climate-vulnerable island states punch well above their weight in UN climate talks – https://theconversation.com/why-small-climate-vulnerable-island-states-punch-well-above-their-weight-in-un-climate-talks-269050