IB Theory of Knowledge - an ongoing list of interesting finds

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence have been featured in the news lately.  Of specific note were the ways in which AI is able to bring to life digitized "people" - both complete creations as well as, say, old photographs.  The rise of "deepfakes" has been a source of amusement as well as significant alarm.  While the moving pictures in Harry Potter might've prepared me somewhat for the "Deep Nostalgia" AI, there is still something a little haunting about the realism each example.  Consider the questions that may arise within each of these RLSs about knowledge.  Consider TOK course concepts such as certainty, values, and responsibility as well as links to secondary factors like sense perception and reliability.   Example 1 :  ARTICLE - Lyu, Siwei.  " Deepfakes and the New AI-Generated Fake Media Creation-Detection Arms Race ". Scientific American. July 20, 2020. Example 2 :  ARTICLE - Lyons, Kim.  "New AI ‘Deep Nostalg...

"Tank Man" by Jeff Widener, 1989. On the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests (1989), authorities in China continue to go to great lengths to censor knowledge of what happened that day, where "hundreds, possibly thousands, had been shot dead."  To test the extent of the censorship, here is a video of a BBC reporter walking the streets of Beijing to find out how many people recognize the most iconic image of the protests, that of "Tank Man" - a lone man standing in front of a line of tanks a day after the massacre at Tiananmen Square.  In a testament to the strength of censorship in China, most of those interviewed claimed not to recognize the image, even if they were old enough to remember the tragic outcome of the protests.

For those who have enjoyed some of the discussion of art as representational of history and of the attempt to convey history when it is out of living memory, here is a focused piece that explores exactly that - how we can continue to "experience" history via the arts, even when we cannot have experienced it ourselves. This would link quite well to the controversial "Ada.Stories" narrative being released on Instagram - a Holocaust narrative that tells the events to a social media generation.

"Letting an athlete compete with too much of an inbuilt biological advantage feels unfair to their rivals; stopping someone competing as the woman she naturally is feels monumentally unfair to her. There is no way of resolving the moral dilemma without someone ending up wronged." There is much to debate in terms of the ongoing controversy surrounding 800m Olympic champion  Caster Semenya's high testosterone levels and apparent unfair advantage in her race category.  Here is an opinion column that looks at the ethics behind the decision-making process , weighing the various perspectives (utilitarian, consequentialist, relativist, etc.) that are at the core of this RLS. Public opinion is quite divided, with many suggesting this is a gross injustice while others argue the ruling is necessary to preserve the integrity of the sport.

How do you keep a story "alive" when those who experienced it have passed?  In a decision that has received quite a bit of praise, but also quite a lot of criticism, an Israeli tech executive and his daughter have created an Instagram account entitled "Eva Stories" to coincide with the start of Israel’s annual Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. "In 70 short episodes, a British actress playing Eva takes followers along on her Holocaust journey: a happy bourgeois prewar existence interrupted by the Nazi invasion of her hometown in what was then Hungary; her family’s forced move into the cramped chaos of the ghetto; and the packed train that ultimately transports her to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp from which she never returns." (Kershner)  A relevant and refreshing attempt to educate today's youth on the trauma and tragedy, or a "trivializing and cheapening the Holocaust" ? Resources : Associated Press. " Hol...

The idea of a "mind's eye," or powerful visualization skills, is often seen as being at the centre of artistic creativity and can lead to a misconception that, without this ability, one cannot be creative. What happens, then, when some of the most creative minds in film today suffer from a condition called Aphantasia - the inability to visualize mental images? How can some of the chief artists and animators in the Pixar / Disney franchise create such powerful works of art with "blind mind's eye"?

Alex Rosenberg, a philosopher of science and a writer of historical fiction, "does not deny that stories can be wonderful as art and effective at eliciting emotions that then push action... but stories also lull us into a false sense of knowledge and fundamentally limit our understanding of the world." In this interview transcript , see how Rosenberg explains the impact of stories from a neuroscience perspective and encourages us to seek a balance between an engaging historical narrative and more factual / accurate retelling of events.