Oil and currency bias shape our technologies

Oil and currency bias shape our technologies

Oil and currency bias shape our technologies
As AI evolves, it will reflect our biases, aspirations, and perhaps, our greatest follies. (Shutterstock image)
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In the bustling metropolis of Techville, where innovation never sleeps and ethics occasionally gets a caffeine boost, the latest debate has everyone buzzing. 

This time, it is not about the next killer app or the latest in wearable tech, but something far more profound and perplexing: Artificial intelligence and ethics. 

And at the heart of this conversation is the ever-eloquent John Bright, whose insights are as sharp as his tongue.

Bright, a figure known for his unfiltered views, recently opened a can of worms — or perhaps a barrel of oil — on the subject. 

“You tell me, you read this rubbish. Oil is the most traded commodity in the world. 1 billion barrels are traded each day in US dollars. You think anyone is ready to change that?” Bright declares with the certainty of a seasoned tech prophet.

“Total demand for oil each year is 100 million barrels, and daily oil traded in derivatives markets is 1 billion. There is no such currency to sustain these volumes.” 

Now, you might be wondering, what does all this have to do with AI and ethics? In Techville, everything is connected — sometimes by a mere line of code. 

The ethical dilemma arises when we consider the overwhelming bias and control exerted by such financial structures over global markets and technology.

Imagine, if you will, an AI developed in Techville. It is designed to predict market trends and make investments. This AI, despite its impressive algorithms, is inherently biased toward the US dollar because of the sheer volume of oil traded in that currency. 

Here lies the irony: A machine, devoid of emotions, inherits the biases of its creators and their economic realities. 

But this time maybe it is right.

Techville’s residents, always keen on a good debate, have taken this statement to heart. The underlying issue is simple yet profound: If oil trading remains firmly tied to the US dollar, can any other currency — or even cryptocurrency — hope to break this stranglehold? 

Bright’s dismissive view of alternative currencies adds fuel to the fire. “The euro? Not a strong currency. The yuan? Pegged to the US dollar. Cryptocurrency? There isn’t enough of it.”

All this enters into an irony that Socrates might have pondered. “Does an AI that mirrors human biases truly understand the nature of its decisions?”

Bright, ever the pragmatist, does not shy away from highlighting these biases. His point? Even the mightiest have vulnerabilities, and the structures we rely on are far more fragile than we care to admit.

Can we trust AI to make unbiased decisions when it operates within a system so skewed by economic realities?

Rafael Hernandez de Santiago

Philosophers have long mused about the ethical implications of our technological advancements. 

Plato, if he were around, might suggest that our AI systems are merely shadows on the cave wall, reflecting deeper truths about our society’s biases and dependencies. 

Nietzsche, ever the provocateur, might argue that our AI, like us, is bound by the power structures of its creators, forever echoing human flaws.

In Techville, these philosophical musings are not just academic exercises; they have real-world implications. The ethical dilemmas posed by AI are complex, especially when intertwined with the global oil market’s biases. 

Can we trust AI to make unbiased decisions when it operates within a system so skewed by economic realities?

The city’s thinkers are deeply divided on this issue. Some argue that as long as the world remains tethered to oil and the US dollar, any AI we develop will be inherently flawed.

Others hold out hope that AI can transcend these biases, offering a glimpse of a more objective and fair system. It is a debate reminiscent of Descartes’ quest for certainty in a world of doubt.

Bright, with his characteristic wit, brings us back to earth.

“X is not doing great, collapsed real estate, collapsed financial and banking sector, low birth rate and declining population. Their stock market collapsed, etc. And they’re being attacked everywhere with their exports of electric vehicles and raising tariffs.”

So, where does this leave Techville’s AI ethics debate? In a state of perpetual irony, humor, and serious contemplation. The city’s brightest minds continue to grapple with these questions, knowing that the answers are as elusive as ever.

In a world where power dynamics and economic dependencies shape our technologies, the quest for ethical AI remains a journey more than a destination.

Bright, with his razor-sharp insights, ensures that the conversation stays both lively and grounded. He will undoubtedly remain at the forefront, reminding us all that while technology may advance, the ethical dilemmas it poses are as old as humanity itself.

As AI evolves, it will reflect our biases, aspirations, and perhaps, our greatest follies.

In Techville, where the future is always just a line of code away, the debate rages on, a testament to humanity’s enduring struggle to reconcile innovation with ethics.

Rafael Hernandez de Santiago, viscount of Espes, is a Spanish national residing in Saudi Arabia and working at the Gulf Research Center.

 

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view

Russia launches 3rd consecutive overnight air attack on Kyiv ahead of peace talks with US

Russia launches 3rd consecutive overnight air attack on Kyiv ahead of peace talks with US
Updated 24 March 2025
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Russia launches 3rd consecutive overnight air attack on Kyiv ahead of peace talks with US

Russia launches 3rd consecutive overnight air attack on Kyiv ahead of peace talks with US
  • Latest attack came ahead of Russia-US talks in Riyadh to discuss ways to ensure the safety of shipping in the Black Sea

KYIV: Russia launched its third consecutive overnight air attack on Kyiv, wounding one person and damaging several houses in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital, a Kyiv’s regional governor said on Monday.
A 37-year-old person received shrapnel wounds in his upper body and head, governor Mykola Kalashnyk said in a post on Telegram messaging app.
“The person has been hospitalized,” Kalashnyk said.
Late on Sunday, in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Russia’s attack injured a 54-year-old woman and damaged windows of multi-story and residential buildings, the region’s administration said on Telegram.
The attacks came after a Ukrainian delegation met with US officials for peace talks in Saudi Arabia, and ahead of Russia-US talks there on Monday to discuss ways to ensure the safety of shipping in the Black Sea.
The United States is pushing for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, and hopes to reach a broad ceasefire in the war by April 20, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the planning.
But despite the peace push, both sides have been reporting continued strikes.
The full-scale of the overnight attack was not immediately clear.
There was no immediate comment from Russia. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia started with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kyiv, its surrounding region and the eastern half of Ukraine were under air raid alerts several hours starting late on Sunday, according to Ukraine air force maps.


France arrests young man for suspected attack on rabbi

France arrests young man for suspected attack on rabbi
Updated 24 March 2025
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France arrests young man for suspected attack on rabbi

France arrests young man for suspected attack on rabbi
  • France is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, as well as the largest Muslim community in the European Union

ORLEANS, France: French police have arrested a young man on suspicion of attacking a rabbi in broad daylight, a prosecutor said Sunday, shocking the Jewish community and prompting a wave of condemnation.
The attack against the Rabbi of Orleans, Arie Engelberg, happened as he walked with his nine-year-old son from synagogue on Saturday afternoon in the city, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) south of Paris.
Engelberg told BFM television that his attacker asked if he was Jewish. “I said yes.”
“He started saying ‘all Jews are sons of...,” he said, adding that he wanted to film him with his phone as he hurled insults.
“I decided to act and I pushed his telephone away,” the rabbi said. His attacker then “started punching and I protected myself,” he added.
Engelberg said the suspect bit him until several people stepped in to help, he told the channel.
“I’m OK, thank God, my son, I’m getting better and better. We’ve had an enormous amount of support.”
Police were checking the identity of the person in custody since he did not have documents on him when he was detained, Orleans prosecutor Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren said.
Another source with knowledge of the case said the suspect arrested on Saturday night was known under at least three identities, one Moroccan and two Palestinian.

France is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, as well as the largest Muslim community in the European Union.
Several EU nations have reported a spike in “anti-Muslim hatred” and “anti-Semitism” since the Gaza war started on October 7, 2023, according to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
On that date, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel, resulting in the death of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s subsequent military offensive on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run occupied Palestinian territory. The United Nations deems the figures reliable.
Andre Druon, a Jewish community leader in Orleans, said there had not been any incident in Orleans since October 7, 2023 “apart from some graffiti” before the “very violent” attack on the rabbi.
He said the rabbi was profoundly shaken when he recounted his ordeal to the community on Sunday.
Yann Dhieux, a locksmith, told AFP he had intervened with his arms wide and helped stop the assault, but that it was shocking to see the rabbi attacked in front of his young son.
President Emmanuel Macron voiced solidarity with the rabbi’s family and all French people of Jewish faith.
“Anti-Semitism is a poison,” he wrote on X.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was “shocked” by the attack and called for “zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.”
France witnessed some 1,570 anti-Semitic acts last year, the interior ministry says. They made up 62 percent of all acts of hatred on the basis of religion.
 

 


South Korean court overturns impeachment of Prime Minister Han, reinstating him as acting president

South Korean court overturns impeachment of Prime Minister Han, reinstating him as acting president
Updated 24 March 2025
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South Korean court overturns impeachment of Prime Minister Han, reinstating him as acting president

South Korean court overturns impeachment of Prime Minister Han, reinstating him as acting president
  • Han was impeached by the National Assembly, soon after he became acting president when Yoon Suk Yeol was forced out
  • The Constitutional Court said Monday it has decided to overturn Han’s impeachment, but it has yet to rule on Yoon’s impeachment

SEOUL: South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Monday overturned the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, reinstating the nation’s No. 2 official as acting leader, while not yet ruling on the separate impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Han became acting president after Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly over his Dec. 3 imposition of martial law that triggered a massive political crisis. But Han was impeached by the assembly as well in late December following political strife with opposition lawmakers.
The unprecedented, successive impeachments that suspended the country’s top two officials intensified a domestic division and deepened worries about the country’s diplomatic and economic activities. The deputy prime minister and finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, had since serving as acting president.
The Constitutional Court said Monday it has decided to overturn Han’s impeachment, but it has yet to rule on Yoon’s impeachment.
If the court upholds Yoon’s impeachment, South Korea must hold a election for a new president. If it rules for him, Yoon will be restored to office and regain his presidential powers.
Yoon was impeached about two weeks earlier than Han. Observers earlier predicted the Constitutional Court would rule on Yoon’s case in mid-March but it hasn’t done so.
Yoon has been separately arrested and charged with rebellion in connection with his martial law decree. If convicted of that charge, he would face the death penalty or a life sentence. On March 8, Yoon was released from prison, after a Seoul district court allowed him to stand his criminal trial without being detained.
Massive rival rallies backing Yoon or denouncing Yoon have divided the streets of Seoul and other major cities in South Korea. Earlier surveys showed that a majority of South Koreans were critical of Yoon’s martial law enactment, but those supporting or sympathizing with Yoon have later gained strength.
At the center of squabbling over Yoon is why he sent hundreds of troops and police officers to the assembly after declaring martial law. Yoon says he aims to maintain order, but senior military and police officers sent there have said that Yoon ordered them to drag out lawmakers to prevent a floor vote to overturn his decree. Enough lawmakers eventually managed to enter an assembly hall and voted it down unanimously.


Stressed? Sick? Swiss town lets doctors prescribe free museum visits as art therapy for patients

Stressed? Sick? Swiss town lets doctors prescribe free museum visits as art therapy for patients
Updated 24 March 2025
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Stressed? Sick? Swiss town lets doctors prescribe free museum visits as art therapy for patients

Stressed? Sick? Swiss town lets doctors prescribe free museum visits as art therapy for patients
  • Dr. Marc-Olivier Sauvain, head of surgery at the Neuchatel Hospital Network, said he had already prescribed museum visits to two patients to help them get in better shape before a planned operation

NEUCHATEL, Switzerland: The world’s woes got you down? Feeling burnout at work? Need a little something extra to fight illness or prep for surgery? The Swiss town of Neuchâtel is offering its residents a novel medical option: Expose yourself to art and get a doctor’s note to do it for free.
Under a new two-year pilot project, local and regional authorities are covering the costs of “museum prescriptions” issued by doctors who believe their patients could benefit from visits to any of the town’s four museums as part of their treatment.
The project is based on a 2019 World Health Organization report that found the arts can boost mental health, reduce the impact of trauma and lower the risk of cognitive decline, frailty and “premature mortality,” among other upsides.
Art can help relax the mind — as a sort of preventative medicine — and visits to museums require getting up and out of the house with physical activity like walking and standing for long periods.
Neuchatel council member Julie Courcier Delafontaine said the COVID crisis also played a role in the program’s genesis. “With the closure of cultural sites (during coronavirus lockdowns), people realized just how much we need them to feel better.”
She said so far some 500 prescriptions have been distributed to doctors around town and the program costs “very little.” Ten thousand Swiss francs (about $11,300) have been budgeted for it.
If successful, local officials could expand the program to other artistic activities like theater or dance, Courcier Delafontaine said. The Swiss national health care system doesn’t cover “culture as a means of therapy,” but she hopes it might one day, if the results are positive enough.
Marianne de Reynier Nevsky, the cultural mediation manager in the town of 46,000 who helped devise the program, said it built on a similar idea rolled out at the Fine Arts Museum in Montreal, Canada, in 2019.
She said many types of patients could benefit.
“It could be a person with depression, a person who has trouble walking, a person with a chronic illness,” she said near a display of a feather headdress from Papua New Guinea at the Ethnographic Museum of Neuchatel, a converted former villa that overlooks Late Neuchatel.
Part of the idea is to get recalcitrant patients out of the house and walking more.
Dr. Marc-Olivier Sauvain, head of surgery at the Neuchatel Hospital Network, said he had already prescribed museum visits to two patients to help them get in better shape before a planned operation.
He said a wider rollout is planned once a control group is set up. For his practice, the focus will be on patients who admit that they’ve lost the habit of going out. He wants them to get moving.
“It’s wishful thinking to think that telling them to go walk or go for a stroll to improve their fitness level before surgery” will work, Sauvain said on a video call Saturday, wearing blue scrubs. “I think that these patients will fully benefit from museum prescriptions. We’ll give them a chance to get physical and intellectual exercise.”
“And as a doctor, it’s really nice to prescribe museum visits rather than medicines or tests that patients don’t enjoy,” he added. “To tell them ‘It’s a medical order that instructs you to go visit one of our nice city museums.’”
Some museum-goers see the upsides too.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Carla Fragniere Filliger, a poet and retired teacher, during a visit to the ethnography museum. “There should be prescriptions for all the museums in the world!”

 


‘Love is in the air’: Woods confirms Vanessa Trump romance

‘Love is in the air’: Woods confirms Vanessa Trump romance
Updated 24 March 2025
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‘Love is in the air’: Woods confirms Vanessa Trump romance

‘Love is in the air’: Woods confirms Vanessa Trump romance
  • “Love is in the air and life is better with you by my side,” Woods wrote in a caption above two photos of himself relaxing with Vanessa Trump

LOS ANGELES, United States: Tiger Woods took the unusual step of confirming his romance with Donald Trump’s former daughter-in-law on Sunday in a brief post on social media.
Golf superstar Woods — renowned for jealously guarding his private life over the years — confirmed in a post on X that he is dating Vanessa Trump, the ex-wife of Donald Trump Jr.
“Love is in the air and life is better with you by my side,” Woods wrote in a caption above two photos of himself relaxing with Vanessa Trump.
“At this time we would appreciate privacy for all those close to our hearts.”
The post comes after weeks of tabloid rumors about the couple.
Vanessa Trump, who divorced Donald Trump Jr. in 2018 after a 13-year marriage, also posted a picture of her and Woods together on her Instagram account in what appeared to be a co-ordinated announcement.
Sunday’s announcement would once have been unthinkable for Woods, who famously named his luxury yacht “Privacy.”
Woods’s private life was laid bare during the 2009 sex scandal that upended his career and led to the implosion of his six-year marriage to Elin Nordegren, the mother of his two children.
Nordegren and Woods separated amid revelations of the golf star’s serial infidelity, with reports suggesting he had slept with as many as 120 women during his marriage.