Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Pope Francis declared the death penalty wrong or “unacceptable” in all cases, a definitive change in church teaching that is likely to challenge American Catholic politicians, judges and officials who have argued that their church was not entirely opposed to capital punishment.  As reported in the New York Times:

“Before, church doctrine accepted the death penalty if it was “the only practicable way” to defend lives, an opening that some Catholics took as license to support capital punishment in many cases.

But Francis said executions were unacceptable in all cases because they are “an attack” on human dignity, the Vatican announced on Thursday, adding that the church would work “with determination” to abolish capital punishment worldwide.

Francis made the change to the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, the book of doctrine that is taught to Catholic children worldwide and studied by adults in a church with 1.2 billion members. Abolishing the death penalty has long been one of his top priorities, along with saving the environment and caring for immigrants and refugees

A majority of the world’s countries — including nearly every nation in Europe and Latin America, regions that are home to large Catholic populations — have already banned the death penalty, according to Amnesty International.

The pope’s decree is likely to hit hardest in the United States, where a majority of Catholics support the death penalty and the powerful “pro-life movement” has focused almost exclusively on ending abortion — not the death penalty. The pope’s move could put Catholic politicians in a new and difficult position, especially Catholic governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, who have presided over executions.

 “If you’re a Catholic governor who thinks the state has the right to end human life, you need to be comfortable saying you’re disregarding orthodox church teaching,” said John Gehring, the Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a liberal-leaning advocacy group in Washington. “There isn’t any loophole for you to wiggle through now.”

The new ruling could also complicate the lives of American judges who are practicing Catholics.

President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, is Catholic, as are Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sonia Sotomayor. One of the other finalists for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is also Catholic.

She wrote a 1998 law review article suggesting that Catholic judges should consider recusing themselves in some death penalty cases that might conflict with their religious beliefs.

…

The new teaching builds on the teachings of Francis’ two immediate predecessors. For example, in 1992, in the catechism promoted by John Paul II, who has since been canonized, the death penalty was allowed if it was “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”

“This didn’t come out of nowhere,” said John Thavis, a Vatican expert and author. “John Paul II and Benedict laid the ground work; he’s taking the next logical step.”

“I think this will be a big deal for the future of the death penalty in the world,” he added. “People who work with prisoners on death row will be thrilled, and I think this will become a banner social justice issue for the church.”

Bravo Papa Francesco!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading a new book, Prediction Machines:  The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, written by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb, all affiliated with Toronto University’s Rothman School of Management.  Published by Harvard Business Review Press, it attempts to lift the veil on the  development of artificial intelligence (A.I.).  The authors’ basic premise is that A.I. is fundamentally a prediction technology not necessarily an all consuming “take over” technology at least not for the foreseeable future.  Regardless, its impact will be profound on much of our  human endeavors and especially on the economic and business sectors. Here is an excerpt from a review that appeared in the New York Times:

“Compared with the amount of ink spilled over the prospects of artificial general intelligence and all its accompanying fears — the singularity! — there’s been much less attention to the smaller changes already happening in the realm of A.I. and their quite profound economic implications.

Enter “Prediction Machines,” which looks at just how far “narrow A.I.” has come over the past few years. Computers are already good at performing a single task for which they have been trained, making them more efficient and cost-effective than humans in many cases.

Of course, decision-making involves more than just being able to make accurate predictions, but A.I. is also being drafted for higher-level functions including using predictions to weigh outcomes and pass judgment.

For all their gains, though, computers are significantly better under certain conditions — say, when they have a lot of past data — and decidedly weaker in others, like predicting “unknown unknowns.” “Prediction Machines” does a good job of showing where computers work best and where humans still have an edge.

The authors argue, though, that we shouldn’t see this as an either/or fight to the death. In many cases, the best answer is to combine the powerful pattern recognition of a computer with the insight of a trained human.

Take one example they offer, from the field of medicine. A well-trained algorithm was able to find a certain type of breast cancer with 92.5 percent accuracy. Human pathologists were able to do so at 96.6 percent. Stop there and you would say that computers are getting quite good, but not quite as good as highly skilled humans, at least at this task.

But one need not stop there, and thankfully the researchers didn’t. Combining the work of computers and humans resulted in 99.5 percent accuracy. In part, that’s because humans and computers made different kinds of mistakes. It’s certainly a happier outcome to imagine that we and the machines could work together.”

The final chapter examines three trade-offs that are already being seen with this “infant” technology.

• Productivity versus distribution.  A.I. will enhance productivity and create more wealth, however, it might exacerbate the distribution of wealth and lead to greater income inequality.
• Innovation versus competition.  Businesses have incentives to build A.I. but this may lead to monopolization. Faster innovation may benefit from a short term perspective but not necessarily for the long-term perspective.
• Performance versus privacy.  A.I. performs best with more data including personal data.  The need for more and more personal data will come at the expense of privacy.

For all three of the trade-offs, the authors put forward that societies and jurisdictions “will have to weigh both sides of the trade and design policies that are most aligned with their overall strategy and the preferences of their citizenry”.

Good read for those interested in learning more about A.I.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A rift has developed between Donald Trump and the Koch brothers over trade policy and immigration and has now spilled over into a public feud. By calling Mr. Trump’s trade policies “detrimental” and denouncing divisive leadership, Mr. Koch is making a provocative political move that — be it hardball strategy or more of a ploy — threatens to complicate Republican efforts to hold on to their slim congressional majorities in the November midterm elections.

Mr. Trump hit back yesterday by attacking Mr. Koch; his ailing brother and business partner, David; and the powerful political network they founded as “totally overrated” and “a total joke in real Republican circles.”

 “I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas,” Mr. Trump fumed on Twitter in an early morning series of posts. And several Republicans, including some allies of the Kochs, accused them of self-aggrandizement.  As reported by the New York Times:

“The back-and-forth between the two men began with threats from Mr. Koch and his top political aides over the weekend to withhold support for Republican candidates who do not help enact the free trade, budget-slashing, government-shrinking policies that have always been at the center of the Koch political philosophy but are of little interest to the president. The Koch network has said it plans to spend up to $400 million on politics and policy in the 2018 election cycle.

In a video released to the media during a Koch network retreat in Colorado Springs on Saturday, Mr. Koch was unsparing in his criticism of the kind of nationalist, protectionist trade policies that the president favors. And while he did not mention Mr. Trump’s name, at times he appeared to be speaking directly about the president and many of his supporters.

Mr. Koch denounced a “rise in protectionism” in which countries, organizations and individuals are “doing whatever they can to close themselves off from the new, hold on to the past, and prevent change.”

“This is a natural tendency,” Mr. Koch added, “but it’s a destructive one.”

…

A Koch endorsement and the accompanying advertising and on-the-ground campaign support that often follows can help swing close races. Koch groups like Americans for Prosperity were built to be vehicles for the conservative grass-roots, even if they rely heavily on paid staff to do their work. And their emphasis on cutting spending, regulations and the size of the government helped elevate fiscal issues to the forefront of the Tea Party-inspired revolts that helped Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in 2010.

That Mr. Koch is being harshly critical of a president beloved by the conservative grass roots, while at the same time endorsing a strategy that could help cost Republicans seats in a close election, struck some activists as strange.”

It is my sense that Trump and Koch will mend their differences before November.

Tony