Transgender youth easy target

 

A few years ago, a principal of a local school told a group of us they had some kids who were non-binary. Seeing the blank look on our faces, she said with a smile, “It’s a thing now.” 

Few of us knew what she was talking about. Even after some extensive Google research, I still didn’t understand. This was completely foreign to me. Do some kids actually not identify with either gender? Is it really a thing? 

There’s a lot of controversy over transgender issues, popularized by malcontent figures like Jordan Peterson in his public refusal to use pronouns other than he/she. Many states have passed anti-transgender legislation that appeals to their base but does little to address the issue. 

I’ve heard the arguments from both sides. The teenage years are a confusing time and perhaps some who identify as a different gender now may feel differently in adulthood. In other cases, the gender dysphoria begins at a very young age and is not likely going to change.  

As much as we like to think in black and white, there are many grey areas when it comes to sexual identity. How much is cultural and how much biological? When a girl says she has felt like a boy since a young child, we can’t dismiss this as mere confusion. When adults who have transitioned say they finally feel normal, we must respect their authenticity.  

It’s too easy for us who have never had such feelings to dismiss them altogether. What’s missing in this debate is an open ear. A little acceptance and understanding could go a long way. 

My 15-year-old daughter has friends who no longer identify as girls. She doesn’t have a problem with it, nor do her Catholic teachers. To the school’s credit, a group exists to provide support to these students. 

I admit, it takes some getting used to. I come from a conservative background, growing up in time when it was less common for people to be open about their sexuality. That was my cultural/religious upbringing and it left me close-minded. As with anything new, it takes time to understand and empathize. 

The most important thing is to not overreact. Our society isn't falling apart because some people do not identify with their assigned gender. There are many things to worry about in this world like nuclear war, AI and climate change! Transgender rights should be very low on our list of imminent dangers, unless we are so naïve to believe it to be contagious. Sadly, many parents fear just that. 

At this point, we can’t say with any certainty that greater gender fluidity in today’s youth is anything new because in the past, such self-expression would have been taboo. 

What we do know is that this is a marginalized group subject to depression, anxiety, and more prone to suicide. The last thing we need is to put more pressure on them than they’re already experiencing. Outright political attacks, like what’s happening in the US, will only worsen mental health among LGBTQ youth. 

I believe that safeguards are important, so that young people aren't making irreversible changes to their bodies that they may later regret. Let's take the time to research the consequences. 

But most of all, let’s try to understand the young people we’re supposedly trying to protect. 

Time to stop watching Terminator movies

  

I know you’ve probably heard enough about ChatGPT for the next few years, but allow me to share my thoughts while you still have some guarantee it’s a human writing this blog. There's more to discuss than ChatGPT, of course, a popular topic being the apocalyptic AI revolution. But let’s start with the newest writing program... 

I took a test a couple months ago to see if I could distinguish between writing assignments composed by ChatGPT and those by actual students. For a few, I honestly could not tell the difference. The program knew exactly how a typical eight-year-old student would write, mistakes and all, making it incredibly difficult for your typical teacher who’s marking assignments (many teachers who took the test couldn’t tell the difference). 

Google Translate was already an issue for the French immersion program at my daughter’s school, where assignments composed in English can be translated into near-perfect French. Now there's a program to write the original essay! High schools and universities are grappling with what to do with assignments that computers can now effectively write in seconds. 

Then there's robotics... Only a few years ago, some of us were casting doubt on the future of driverless cars, but they’re a reality in cities like Phoenix and San Fransisco. One company runs 10,000 driverless taxi trips a week. Sure, there are glitches – like cars suddenly stopping in the middle of the road on a foggy day – but give it a few years for developers to solve these issues. Our 2017 Honda already has safety features to keep me on the road when I take my hands off the steering wheel (mostly for stretch breaks). What’s not a stretch is to foresee computer drivers becoming safer than humans. 

Even more amazing: Google is experimenting with robots who are teaching themselves how to play soccer. The videos are worth watching: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-robots-figure-play-football-132948589.html. In this innocent experiment, one can laugh at the robots falling and picking themselves up as they compete against one another – appearing much like five-year-olds learning the game. In other contexts, such as modern warfare, one can envision some frightening scenarios. 

Like most technologies, artificial intelligence offers both opportunities and risk. But it's striking how many technologically astute people are sounding the alarm bells. By their assessment, AI could soon pose the same risk to humanity as nuclear weapons. 

It took me a while to fully grasp this concern. What exactly are we to fear? I mean, I’ve seen so many movies with machines destroying humanity, I’m not sure how seriously to take it anymore. (Full disclosure: I recently watched Terminator 2 and yes, it was still epic.) 

Let’s be clear, there are a lot of unknowns. But the basic fear is that a super intelligent computer could very well become smarter than humans – most believe it’s simply a matter of time. At that point – maybe fifty years from now – it becomes difficult to know or even trust whether the AI will serve humans’ or its best interests. Or whether it might misinterpret or mishandle a positive human directive; to protect the future of the earth, for example, it might just destroy all humanity (a little extreme, but you get the point). 

It might help to think of an adult talking to a three-year-old. A three-year-old's level of understanding/intelligence is such that an adult could easily trick him/her into doing something that’s not in the child’s self-interest. Most adults wouldn’t act in this way, but we know some will. Once a machine develops an intelligence where it understands human nature even better than we do, it could become the adult in the room while we remain the child. One could foresee acts of deception that may not be in our best interest, for as we know, humans are susceptible to belief in all kinds of disinformation. 

Combine this with perpetual self-learning and I start to understand why some technologists are getting antsy. Just think about those robots teaching themselves how to play soccer. Imagine that ability times 100, when it becomes the norm for robots to teach other robots any task – including making other robots. I don't think it will end with soccer. 

There are endless possibilities for which one’s mind can imagine (again, I just watched Terminator 2, so I can imagine). Think about how limited human intelligence has transformed the world in a relatively short time period. What could super intelligent beings do? 

All that said, a doomsday scenario is not inevitable. As a wise boy once said in a movie I recently watched: “The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.” 

One can hope we will learn quickly and harness this new technology for the good.