As I gather with my family this Thanksgiving, I must put aside the darkness that hangs over my home country of Afghanistan and celebrate the accomplishments that the country has been able to achieve largely in part from the sacrifices of American service members who were deployed to Afghanistan over the past twenty years.

Somehow, a jury in Wisconsin found that Kyle Rittenhouse was justified in driving across a state border armed with a rifle and killing two protesters, wounding a third, and firing on a fourth. I can’t help but feel a great sense of unease about what this verdict will produce, both in terms of legal precedent, as well as social unrest.

These are dark days for universities, and more generally civil liberties, in Hong Kong.  In the early 1980s, China’s president Deng Xiaoping outlined the principle of “One Country, Two Systems” for the reunification of Hong Kong with China as part of the negotiations with the United Kingdom. There would be “One China,” with distinct Chinese … Continue reading »

How do we Build a Resilient Society? Presented on Oct 22, 2021, Barcelona Spain at LaSalle Universitat Ramon Llull on the occasion of of my investiture as a Doctor Honorus Causa The Challenge We are in the vortex of a revolution. Technology is a relentless rising tide that pushes us to adapt and revise how … Continue reading »

Authored by a group of scholars from the University of California, Berkeley: Anthony Barrett, Thomas Krendl Gilbert, Jessica Newman, Brandie Nonnecke, and Ifejesu Ogunleye. In September 2021, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for a moratorium on the sale and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems that “pose a serious risk to human … Continue reading »