【推荐2】For most people, the weekly shopping is just an ordinary task.     1     When I travel abroad, the first thing I do after dropping my bags off is go to the grocery store (杂货店).

The variety of products in different countries fascinates me every time I travel somewhere new.     2     Another surprise in Malta was their selection of ice cream available even in the smallest grocery stores, the best of which was a pack of delicious ice cream sandwiches.

By wandering around a grocery store in another country, I can imagine what the lives of its citizens are like. In Italy, I saw one aisle (过道) filled entirely with different types of pasta. I smiled to myself and thought that Italians really do love their pasta.     3     Because I can see the types of things that Germans might buy on impulse (一时冲动).

    4     But it is important to get involved in the daily lives of a country’s citizens and know more about them through grocery shopping. I can watch kids begging their parents for sweets. Or watch couples pick up snacks and drinks for a party on a Friday night.     5     Indeed, it’s a chance to slow down and imagine what people’s lives are like, and find that they are not so different from our own.

【推荐1】The pandemic is being used as a pretext to push unproven artificial-intelligence tools into workplaces and schools. Technology companies have been pitching their emotion-recognition software for monitoring workers and even children remotely.

In fact, there is growing scientific concern about the use and misuse of AI technologies. Last year, Rosalind Picard, who co-founded an artificial intelligence（AI）start-up called Affectiva in Boston said she supports regulation. Scholars have called for mandatory（强制的）, rigorous auditing of all AI technologies used in hiring, along with public disclosure of the findings. In March, a citizen's panel（座谈小组）convened（召集）by the Ada Lovelace Institute in London said that an independent, legal body should oversee development and implementation of biometric technologies. Such oversight is essential to defend against systems driven by what I call the phrenological impulse: drawing faulty assumptions about internal states and capabilities from external appearances, with the aim of extracting more about a person than they choose to reveal.

Countries around the world have regulations to enforce scientific rigour in developing medicines that treat the body. Tools that make claims about our minds should be afforded at least the same protection. For years, scholars have called for federal entities to regulate robotics and facial recognition; that should extend to emotion recognition, too. It is time for national regulatory agencies to guard against unproven applications, especially those targeting children and other vulnerable populations.

A formative figure behind the claim that there are universal facial expressions of emotion is the psychologist Paul Ekman. In the 1960s, he travelled the highlands of Papua New Guinea to test his controversial hypothesis that all humans exhibit a small number of 'universal' emotions that are innate, cross-cultural and consistent. Early on, anthropologist Margaret Mead disputed this idea, saying that it discounted context, culture and social factors.

But the six emotions Ekman described fit perfectly into the model of the emerging field of computer vision. As I write in my 2021 book Atlas of AI, his theory was adopted because it fit what the tools could do. Six consistent emotions could be standardized and automated at scale — as long as the more complex issues were ignored.

Yet companies continue to sell software that will affect people's opportunities without clearly documented, independently audited evidence of effectiveness. Job applicants are being judged unfairly because their facial expressions or vocal tones don't match those of employees; students are being flagged at school because their faces seem angry.

We can no longer allow emotion-recognition technologies to go unregulated. It is time for legislative protection from unproven uses of these tools in all domains — education, health care, employment and criminal justice. These safeguards will recentre rigorous science and reject the mythology that internal states are just another data set that can be scraped from our faces.

【推荐2】Each April Thais celebrate their “Thai New Year” with a great water fight on the streets. People throw water at everyone passing by and even block the road so they can enter buses and “paint the faces” of all the passengers. But there are a few people who don’t wish to participate in the fun. When I first experienced this celebration, I was one of them.

The first time our bus was stopped, 4 people coming into the bus intended to paint everyone’s face. I slowly shook my head to say “No, thank you.”, but a man came from behind me and quickly painted my face. Then the other three felt inspired and added a little more “paint” to my face. I didn’t actively stop them for fear that if I did, they would become more aggressive (好斗的) and throw even more water at me and possibly my backpack, which would damage whatever was inside.

Even though it happened only once, emotionally it was very frightening because I felt so powerless. The experience caused me to think a lot about respect and moral autonomy or individual judgment vs “permission” from the authorities. On this day, people of Thailand, including the police, give “permission” for these activities. So what about respect for the individual? If someone does not want to be painted, is it OK to do it anyhow because the majority is having a good time and sincerely believes it is harmless fun, or because the police allow it?

In my opinion, if someone does not want to have something done to them, then you’re supposed to respect their decision. You can’t rely on the authorities or some group to tell you if something is right or wrong or if you should or shouldn’t do something. I believe this is a much healthier way of living with one another in this world.