Okay, we're back to think-tech on a Monday morning. Goodness gracious. And we have, actually afternoon, we have a special show with St. Paul, Minnesota, and an immigration and other lawyer there who practices in St. Paul. His name is Wan Chang. Now, we're going to talk today about immigration matters involving Chinese. If you didn't figure it out, Wan Chang is Chinese from China. So, Wan Chang, thank you for being on the show. It's so great to have you here, and I want to give a shout out to Russell Yu, who set this up. He has such interesting friends, and you are definitely one of them. Well, welcome to the show, Wan Chang. Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Russell. And wonderful to be here. So, tell me what life is like in practicing in your practice. I take it you do three things. You do artists, you do a fired investment, and somehow they're all related, and you do immigration. Tell me how that practice works, and tell me how those three areas are related. Yeah, I work for a law firm called Kingsfield Law Office, and our office is what we call a law professor's law firm, and all the leadership are law professors and lawyers. So, for example, myself, I associate the professor of law at the largest law university in Beijing, China University Political Science and Law, and I have a tiny position in Beijing, and I travel to Beijing every month every year to teach American law, and the constitutional law, legal research in American law, entertainment law, and immigration law. And so, the other partners are also law professors. So, all the forms, we work for number one, we work with many, many artists, both American artists and the Chinese artists. When they are doing an art exhibition, we want to sell their art, we want to transport the artwork from China to the United States, or from the United States to China, and we help them and we represent them. And number two, we do a lot of foreign investment related to legal issues. So, for example, we help U.S. companies investing in Chinese companies, help Chinese companies investing in the U.S. companies, and investing in the investigate. So, of course, you need to do your due diligence, and in order to make a decision whether or not you want to partner with a particular lawful, particular company, or you want to acquire this company. And so, we a lot of work related to due diligence. Then number three is immigration law. And we are specialized in some areas, very specific areas. Number one is called alien with extraordinary ability. Employment based immigration category one. This is a reserve that is so-called Einstein visa. It's reserved for alien with extremely outstanding achievements. For example, scientists, professors, senior researchers, very famous artists. And so, probably you already know for a foreigner to get a green card in the United States, it's very tedious and long process. But for a certain very, very small group of people, and that's not pretty fast. This is how the Einstein visa is reserved for this small number of people. So, we are very specialized and highly skilled in this area. Why did you choose St. Paul of all the places in the country? You like the weather? Yes, I do, I do. It's unbelievable. Here, we have a middle of August and we have upper 70 today. So, not too bad. So, winter is terrible, of course. But let me tell you a long story short. I was born and grew up in Beijing and I went to college and graduate school in Beijing. 18 years ago, in the year 2000, almost exactly, oh my God, it's almost by 18 years anniversary to this short. August 22nd, I arrived in the United States to start my second graduate degree in art history in Illinois. So, I completed my graduate degree in Illinois, University of Illinois, British and Penn. In 2003, I transferred to University of Minnesota Law School. So, I spent three years my legal education in the United States in Minnesota. And then after that, I just passed the Minnesota Bar and got a job offer with West Publishing with the leading legal publisher in the United States. Now, it's called Thompson Reuters. And too recently, I worked for Thompson Reuters as a chief researcher, but I'm transforming from a researcher to a full-time partisan attorney. So, my guess is you have an art collection. Am I right about that? If so, what is your collection focused on? Is it focused on Chinese art, American art, European art? Well, two parts. One part is Chinese antiques. So, I'm sitting in my study and you can hear my immigrant dog barking outside. And this is my study. I have all the Chinese furniture and some Ming Dynasty, some Qing Dynasty and a lot of straight bound books. And so, this is all the Chinese style books, straight bound books. And I have some artworks from Asian times.  And the second part, because my wife and I work with a lot of artists. And as you probably imagine, a lot of artists need to not like to pay very large legal fees. So, sometimes they got paid by the artwork. And I appreciate that. If I don't feel comfortable, I would say that this is too much. And I prefer cash or something like that, but that's joking. But I really appreciated that to me because a lot of artists consider me as a friend, and they trust me, and they give me artworks. If you're going to take art, consideration of legal fees, you really need a degree in art history to know what you're getting. And I suppose some artists will come by and offer you their art, and you'll say, sorry, I know too much about art. I can't take your art. Well, it's a four, you know, I, the weekly column, we look at the market of value, current market of value. It's number one, we look at the potential, and then number two, and it needs to artwork the baby of the artist, their babies. And the waiting to give you their babies, that is valuable. That is tremendous privilege and the trust. The other day, one of my multi-church artwork is from an Italian artist, and he is also the 1997 Nobel Literature Prize laureate, Dario Fong. And he gave me one of his finest prints. And so I really, really cherish it. That is my Chinese study, that is my study, of course, but I think that is a privilege. I really appreciate that. Well, now that we've established that you're the Renaissance man of the 21st century, I want to get to the topic of our show today, which is about immigration law. Can you give us a little background on how many Chinese students are there in the United States right now? How many are studying in the U.S. from China? Yeah, currently, this year, we just look at the number. This year, there are 360,000 Chinese students on Chinese, on student visa, and currently studying in the United States, either in high school or college universities, and the graduate school, professional school, and the business school, medical school as well. So total number of Chinese students currently studying in the United States is around 350,000. What's the trend on this? What's the sea change? My own perception is that there are more Chinese students in high schools these days than there were before. And in general, there are more Chinese students. Say again? Yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right. And the trend, the composition of the student, the student's body, and in every change. So to give you one example, before I came to the United States in the year 2000, so that's 18 years ago. 18 years ago, that majority, first of all, the number of Chinese students is increasing, has been ever increasing. This is a trend. Very clear trend. Secondly, the composition of the students are changing very dramatically. 18 years ago or until 15 years ago, most Chinese students studying in the United States were graduate students. So graduate students in graduate school. Why? Because, first of all, you need to study English pretty hard. You need to pass a powerful examination. And this is an English examination for foreign students. And you need to pass GRE examination. And that is a graduate school entry exam. You'll need to pass both examinations in order to be admitted by a graduate school in the United States. And what is the benefit to be admitted in a graduate school in the United States? Because the graduate school normally can provide financial assistance. We were poor students. I was a very poor student, and for three years studying art history at the University of Illinois, Venice, and Pym, I got tuition labor, full tuition labor, so I didn't need to pay a penny for my tuition. And I worked 20 hours per week for the graduate school in the library and for my professors. So I got $900 U.S. dollar per month as my statement. And so I paid $400 for my housing and $500 for everything else. So that is 18 years ago. Then something changed. China become rich. And so there was a China economic miracle. And so more and more Chinese families were able to afford the tuition. So then you see the Chinese graduate students in the United States, they are gradually, slowly increasing, but the undergraduate students in the United States dramatically increasing. So when I was a graduate student 18 years ago, there were very few Chinese undergraduate students because there was very little financial assistance to undergraduate students. But now the vast majority of Chinese students in the United States are undergraduate students paying full tuition. Why do they come to the U.S.? Obviously it's a lot of people who apply and who make it. There's a lot of people who are here. They do well. Do they come because they want the education per se? Do they come because they want a green card ultimately through immigration process? Do they come because they want to be citizens of the world? Do they come because they want to go back to China and use their education, their skills back in the Chinese economy? Can you give us a handle on which of those things is most important to the average Chinese student who is here? All of them. Jay, you are very knowledgeable. You know that what Chinese students want. And let me quickly finish my previous point. And the high school students are also increasing. And Chinese high school students and undergraduate students in the United States dramatically increased for the past decade. And when I was a graduate student here, Chinese high school visiting student was unheard of. And nobody, no family will send their kids, high school kids to the United States to study. But now it's very, very, very popular. And so just give one example. In Beijing and Shanghai and Tantong, all these what we call fourth line cities in China, the metropolitan, all these big cities. And when it's time to take college entrance examination to be admitted into a college or university in China, in these big cities, you see fewer and fewer Chinese local students from Beijing or Shanghai, all these big metropolitan cities to take that exam to be admitted into a Chinese college. Because they are either going to study overseas or they already study overseas as a high school kid. So now back to your question, why do you want to come to the United States? As I said, all of them. Number one, US educational system is fantastic, no matter how many problems we have. But overall, our educational system is fantastic. It's expensive, is not really somebody may argue not really worth it. But for the middle class Chinese family, and not the tuition is not the issue. And if you are a resident of Beijing or Shanghai, you own two apartments. And the one apartment you live with your family, the other apartment you can rent it out or sell it and easily worth one million US dollar. An apartment in Beijing or Shanghai, all the big cities. And so the cost of travel and tuition, you mentioned before the show, you just watch creepy rich Asians. We are a lot of creepy rich Chinese in Beijing and Shanghai as well. So for the middle class family, they prefer the students, their kids have a better education and preferably overseas. Why? They know this, they are not against globalization and they acknowledge the benefit of globalization. So this time for the kids in Beijing, Shanghai or Tokyo or Seoul or Hong Kong, it's very, very normal for a kid to study high school in one country, to college in another country, send a job in the third country and then so that it and retire in the fourth country. So that is nothing unusual about this globalization. And secondly, and we have to admit that we have to, because China is still under the one party rule and the political environment is ever changing. And it currently is quite stable, but Chinese people just think about it. Except my generation, every generation of Chinese, my grandparents generation, my grandparents generation, my grandparents, their parents generation and my grandparents generation, all of them had war, famine, huge disaster, the catastrophe in their lifetime. So Chinese people very always have this mindset and they want to prepare for the worst. So how to prepare for the worst? Diversify your portfolio. If you are rich, you won't have a property in Hawaii, have another property in Australia and send your kids to work in Hong Kong. And just in case something happened to you or to your country or to your family. So that is, it's like backup time, if you may. And thirdly, ideally students, the kids can receive education and then get a job offer and get a green card or some legal permanent residency outside China. So it's good for their future, for the kids' future and also extremely beneficial to the family's collective future. Yeah, it's all money in the bank. Let's take a short break, Zhang Wang, because I want to come back and ask you about how things have changed in the government, in China and in the U.S. so as to affect these students and their possibilities, to as effect your practice too. So we'll be right back with Zhang Wang right after this short break. Hello, I'm Yukari Kunisue. I'm your host of New Japanese Language Show on Think Tech Hawaii called Konnichiwa, Hawaii, broadcasting live every other Monday at 2 p.m. Please join us where we discuss important and useful information for the Japanese language community in Hawaii. The show will be all in Japanese. Hope you can join us every other Monday at 2 p.m. Aloha. Hey, Aloha, standing energy man here on Think Tech Hawaii where community matters. This is the place to come to think about all things energy. We talk about energy for the grid, energy for vehicles, energy and transportation, energy and maritime, energy and aviation. We have all kinds of things on our show, but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii because it's my favorite thing. That's what I like to do. But we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii, things that should be a big changer for Hawaii. And we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon on Standing Energy Man and take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii. Aloha. Okay, we're back on Think Tech Asia with Zhang Wang. He's an immigration lawyer practicing in St. Paul, Minnesota. Among other things he does immigration law there. And we want to talk to him about how things are changing vis-à-vis the government regulations on immigration, both from the United States side and the Trump administration and from the Xi Jinping side in China. So let's cover Trump first, okay? How has that changed your practice? How has it changed the prospects of a Chinese student or any Chinese immigrant trying to come to the United States right now? Well, the Trump administration has a very strong anti-immigration rhetoric. So it's not only against illegal immigrants, but also against illegal immigrants. So in the news, and we heard that some legislators and proposed anti-illegal immigration bill, that didn't go through last year, but Steven Miller, that's a 30-something guy in White House responsible for the travel ban, now is dropping another regulation and only the executive branch against illegal immigrants. And we will see that that will take effect. But the answer is a multi-layer. It's simply because my own party is dealing with mostly or primarily dealing with employment-based immigration. So that is the anti-illegal immigrant executive orders and the regulations were not directly affecting me immediately. But here is what it meant, this anti-illegal immigrant policy. The number one is will close down, will significantly restrict the number of legal immigrants in the United States. And our current legal immigrant system was originally in 1965, Immigration and the Naturalization Act. That is what we called family-based immigration. And the primary goal is family unification, which means if you get a green card or citizenship and your immediate family, your kids and your parents and your spouse are eligible and to come to the United States and live here legally. And even your other relatives, they need to wait a long time, like your brothers and sisters, but they are still eligible. This is, there's a very derogatory word for this family unification. It's called the Chen Immigration. And the old immigration lawyer will tell you this is very, this is wrong. This is to use this word to describe family unification is derogatory and it's unfair. But if Trump administration tells you what they want, cut, they will restrict, you know, either by legal denial or by request for further evidence or many different mechanisms they can play to significantly restrict legal immigration and based on this family unification system. And we'll put, if we do not change the current immigration law, we'll put more and more pressure on the employment-based immigration. So if we cannot get, if people cannot get to the United States legally under family unification, they have to think other ways. They have to try to find a job and try to study and to study in the United States or really the United States. And so all the different channels for legal immigration will be under pressure and you'll see that more and more backlog. And I just check on the State Department with the bulletin, see that for a Chinese skilled worker, for example, if you already have a job in the United States and your company filed a green card petition on your behalf and you'll have a master degree from a prestigious American university, you'll still need to wait at least three and a half years just to submit your file to the State Department. So is this a conscious slowdown, Chang-Rong? Is this a slowdown by the Trump administration? In other words, the law would entitle you to a certain status, maybe a green card, but the government, the immigration service will slow down because of the Trump administration's resistance to immigration. Am I right about that? You're right, but it's a little bit complex. Let me explain. First of all, the slowdown, the backlog started many years ago and way before Trump administration. Our immigration system has many, many problems and one of them is a very, very long waiting time for all categories, family-based immigration, employment-based immigration. So it's basically virtually impossible for many foreign workers to wait that long, but they have to because otherwise you lose your status, you become illegal state. You have to leave. So everybody has to wait. So what about my choices? I come to you and I'm a Chinese client of yours and I say, look, this sounds too hard for me. I don't want to wait that long. I only have so many years to live. What is your suggestion? What is my next alternative? Should I go to the UK? Should I go to Canada? Should I go to France? What do I do? Well, it depends.  First of all, if you want to stay in the United States, let's look at your portfolio. Let's look at do you have a master's degree from a graduate school in Chicago in the United States or do you have a PhD from NYU or what kind of knowledge you have and what kind of background you have. And we look at that and we design our path. And so there are employment based immigration category one that you reserve for, as I said, extraordinary ability person, outstanding professor and the researchers, and a multinational executive. So that is we only reserve for a very, very small number of persons. Most people don't qualify. And then if you already have a job offer and from a U.S. company, and U.S. company will most likely to file immigration petition for you and the employment based immigration category two, that is for master degree or PhD holders. And then you need to wait. Let me go to the last point. We're almost out of time, John Wong, and I want to, I do want to cover this last point. And that is how have things changed under Xi Jinping? I mean, he's under pressure now with Trump's tariffs. Things are not as friendly as they used to be between the United States and China, regrettably. The average Chinese citizen may not have the same gamut lakai about life in the United States. And I'm wondering if I can get papers when I get good and fed up with life in the U.S. Can I get papers to be an immigrant permanent resident in China? Is that easier now or is it harder? Well, it's easier. But the number one, China is open. I'll tell you that 18 years ago, when I need to get a passport, I need to wait a very long time to get my passport. And my parents' generation in 1980s, they needed to wait six months to get the passport. Now it's five to seven days, you get your passport for Chinese citizens. So it's very quick and very efficient system. And secondly, there was virtually no restriction for any Chinese to study abroad. And you can go to anywhere you want to study. And the number on the other side is very easy for foreigners to travel to China right now, either as a tourist or as a visitor, business people, or as a foreign expert. If you often work in China, the Chinese government normally encourages that. And a lot of college kids go to China to teach English. And more senior people like you, they go to China to advise and advise the forms and the companies and the universities to teach at a college level. So it's very easy for foreigners to go to China, but the pollution is a problem. The pollution, the food safety and the drug safety and the water quality, everything is a problem. If you pull the wings out of the EPA, you may have the same issues in the United States soon enough. But my last question is, so are you saying that Xi Jinping and all the stress going on over the tariffs has not limited my prospects about going to China, staying in China, getting a visa to live and do business in China? It has not affected them? No. No. I can honestly tell you that foreigners are welcome in China. I'm not trying to do a promotion for Chinese government. I don't like that. But my only experience is China is pretty foreigner-village foreigner-friendly place right now. And of course, you'll need to be mindful. Number one, you are watched. You are closely watched. And because you are totally transparent, either a Chinese or foreigner in China, because your cell phone might be bugged, your laptop might be hacked, and all your bank transfer and all your communication are watched and monitored. And so as long as you don't criticize the president and the current administration, you are okay. They allow you a certain flexibility. But as long as you touch the sensitive issues, what we say, we say that you criticize the political system, you argue for the minority, welfare, and so on, you may be viewed as a personality, an ungratia, and then you got yourself into trouble. So it's China's different. What I like to call is the parallel universe. China and the United States are completely two different universes. Some people think that China is the leading universe these days. To wit, there was an article in The New York Times, it wasn't the MIT newsletter today, that suggested that China had a new way of looking at the will of the people. And in the past it was voting, and now it's more like demographics and data, where they get their feedback from the people and act in that regard. We're out of time, but I would like to continue this conversation and a number of drill-down points, if you don't mind. And I'll contact you, and let's do another show about some of the elements of this one. Thank you so much for participating. Aloha, Sai Jin, Sheshe.


Leo and Remi, two 13-year-old boys from a remote area of Belgium, are best friends and show a very close level of affection for one another. They frequently share the same bed in Remi's bedroom and fall asleep next to one another there. Leo is treated like a second kid by Sophie and Peter, Remi's parents. Leo and Remi enjoy playing together in a flower farm where Leo's family also assists with agricultural tasks. Following a pleasant summer spent together, the two lads enroll in high school and are placed in the same class. Three female students directly inquire about if the two are dating. Although Remi remains silent, Leo fiercely disputes it. As boys who notice their intimacy make homophobic remarks about Leo, he starts to feel uncomfortable with this outside perception. He makes new acquaintances and joins an ice hockey team, which he intentionally keeps Remi out of in an effort to avoid being shunned. Leo makes the choice to sleep on a different mattress one night while staying at Remi's. He sees Remi asleep on the same mattress as him when he awakens. Remi is injured and bewildered as a result of the two's increasingly brutal wrestling, which begins as fun play. They keep their parents in the dark about the incident. Despite Remi's attempts at engagement, Leo grows increasingly aloof from Remi during the school year. Leo quits staying the night at Remi's house, starts going on bike rides with students other than Remi, keeps playing ice hockey, and spends more time helping out at the farm with his family. Leo defends herself when Remi eventually confronts her about why they hardly ever spend time together anymore. Remi strikes Leo in the playground in front of other classmates after becoming upset and furious.  Leo assumes right once that he is to blame for this as he withdrew. Even during the school's provided class therapy sessions, he keeps his feelings to himself and avoids talking to anyone about them. Sophie found Remi's body, which Leo also discovers. Leo responds with a defiant rejection to the fact that his co-workers' descriptions of Remi in obituaries are that of a joyful and amiable youngster. By continuing to play ice hockey and work in the garden with his family, Leo makes a futile attempt to numb his inner suffering and mask it. Leo is able to confide in his older brother Charlie for solace, despite the fact that none of his new friendships compare to the intimate bond he had with Remi. He is aware that in order to keep his relationship with Sophie intact after Remi's burial, he must speak to Sophie. Leo, though, is reluctant to discuss what transpired between him and Remi for fear of arousing her ire. Peter sobs inconsolably during Charlie's explanation of his future plans during dinner with Leo's family as Sophie and Peter lament the loss of Remi's future. Leo unexpectedly pays a visit to Sophie at her place of employment when the following summer break begins. He ultimately tells her that he thinks Remi's suicide was his responsibility for pushing him away as she drives him home. Following a brief tense period, she hugs him tenderly and consolingly as they sob together, finding solace in their shared loss. Later, when Leo goes to go see Sophie once more, he discovers that she and Peter have left, leaving the house empty. Leo crosses the field where he and Remi used to run while reflecting on their relationship and allowing himself to at last shed tears for Remi.


If somebody steals your Tesla, does that make it an Edison? A few weeks ago, a Tesla Model S using its new autopilot mode, a sort of adaptive cruise control that steers and breaks the car without driver input, drove into a semi-truck at full speed, unfortunately killing the driver. There were a few extenuating circumstances that made the accident less of a deal than it might have been in media. But oddly, whenever autonomous vehicles and safety are mentioned in the same news article, many people begin discussing a peculiar meme that's become popular in the last few years, and this case is no exception. The idea was popularized by Cal Poly philosophy professor Patrick Lin that self-driving cars require an unprecedented consideration of ethics that engineers and designers have never encountered before. The argument goes something like this. If your self-driving car is in a situation where it must either kill its occupant, say by driving into a telephone pole, or several pedestrians by driving up onto the sidewalk, then it must choose one. It must have some algorithm to decide which is the more moral option, and then execute it. And the deaths which result are on the hands of the programmers of the sanity. Now, if you've ever watched THUNK before, you'd probably guess that I'd be into this sort of thing. Philosophy, technology, the ethical and practical ramifications of cutting-edge, futuristic stuff, a real-life trolley problem, that's kind of my jam. But there's something that bugs me about this discussion, some underlying assumptions that are necessary to have it at all that I don't think are particularly well-founded. First, let's talk about some basics of engineering. At its core, engineering is just intelligent planning for making stuff, the keyword being intelligent. A common adage is that an engineer can build for a nickel what any fool can build for a buck. For example, if someone wanted to build a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, even if they had no mathematical training at all, no knowledge of architecture or material science or anything, they could probably come up with some way to do it. Something along the lines of pick up rocks, schlep them to the coast, dump them in the water, repeat until you can walk across. Of course, that would take a really, really long time and be super expensive. Engineering is figuring out how to get the most mileage out of the least stuff, how to take a project which would require millions of tons of rock and thousands of people maybe a century to finish, and instead, with a few thousand tons of material and some ingenuity, build something in 14 years that would work just as well. The goal is to build something that doesn't just work, operating efficiently and effectively at the job that it's intended to do, but just barely works. That might sound a little bit scary, but so long as the engineer's requirements are satisfied by their design, so long as something that's supposed to support 500 pounds actually supports 500 pounds and is never used inappropriately to support a greater weight, then the only difference between that and something that's designed to support 5 million pounds is amount wasted. Of course, you don't want something to break just because somebody was one pound over the weight rating, and accidents do happen. Just in case their math doesn't match the real world exactly, engineers use something called a safety factor, a simple number that they multiply all their final answers by to make the end product that much more reliable. For very tightly controlled materials in situations where you really need to keep weight down, like in aircraft, factors of safety range from just over one to around two and a half for more important components. For less rigorously controlled materials that might see things like harsh weather or unpredictable loading conditions, like buildings or bridges, safety factors of eight or even higher are possible. That means that they're designed to hold eight times the maximum load the designer expects them to see in normal operation, that every single nut, bolt, and beam in them is rated to handle eight times the stress that the designer expects. The most obvious way to look at a safety factor is as a definition of the conditions where it's safe to use some technology, but it's also implicitly a definition of the conditions where it's not safe to use it, a boundary where the engineer has decided, if you use it here, I can't guarantee your safety. If one were of a more clickbaity frame of mind, one might choose to phrase this, why bridges must be built to kill?  In fact, almost every piece of technology you interact with every day is built to kill you, in some situation well outside the parameters it was designed to handle safely.   That's not anything to be alarmed by, it's just how engineering works, by deciding how far a given design will go to keep the user safe. So the idea that autonomous vehicles might be built to kill you in some unlikely situations? Actually, not that big of a deal. They're being designed to keep you safe in the vast majority of scenarios, and if you're unlucky enough to get struck by a meteor, well meteor avoidance just isn't in the scope of that design. Now let's talk about another one of the underlying assumptions of this idea, that this particular issue is really important for designers and engineers compared to the other design choices they usually make. I happen to work in design and I enjoy thinking about ethics, with even a little bit of thought it's easy to recognize that every design decision I make has some ethical component. Should I specify materials that are easier to find locally and support local businesses? Does the shape that I've made something make it dangerous to handle? Is my documentation going to leave somebody feeling helpless? These might sound like relatively minor considerations compared to autonomous vehicles deciding who lives and who dies, but for designers in large companies, the decisions that they make can have a huge effect on a massive number of people, many more than would be affected by the one in a million scenarios envisioned by AV ethicists. For example, when Apple designers decided to use a particular kind of plastic in their smartphone screens, they didn't consider that the cheapest way of manufacturing said plastic was by using benzene and n-hexane, a carcinogen and a neurotoxin. When they outsourced the manufacture of those screens to a low-cost bitter in China, they didn't consider that hundreds of workers might be exposed to those chemicals. Since then, Apple has reformed their policies to forbid using either, but that was after several million screens were made, and this is just one example of how design choices can have drastic, far-reaching moral consequences. Recyclability of materials, product longevity, labor conditions, carbon emissions, depletion of natural resources, large companies make design decisions daily that have global moral effects. Compared to what autonomous vehicles might do in bizarre situations, there are probably much larger fish to fry, which leads me to my last critique of this discussion. Patrick Linn does an amazing job dissecting the myriad ethical implications of various automated responses to an unavoidable fatal collision, but he sort of handwaves how an autonomous vehicle would conclude that a given collision was unavoidable. Now, full disclaimer, there's a lot of room for improvement in autonomous vehicle software, so maybe in some far-flung future, it might theoretically be possible for a self-driving algorithm to make explicit ethical decisions the way that Linn suggests, but if so, it would have to be radically different than any such software currently being developed. Every autonomous vehicle algorithm that's available today more or less mirrors the priorities of human drivers.  When put into dangerous or emergency situations, they're unilaterally designed to just try really hard not to hit anything. Even that is a remarkably difficult computational task. Speed, traction, road conditions, the positions and velocities of all the surrounding objects, it's a remarkable amount of data to crunch in even optimal conditions, let alone in a split-second emergency. Deciding that a fatal accident is truly unavoidable would require predicting the future positions and trajectories of all surrounding objects, and their likely responses to any given maneuver which skyrockets the complexities of the equation to truly insane levels. Throw in the relative utilitarian cost of every human nearby, and you're gonna need a long, long time to solve it. Time which you don't have. Every microsecond wasted on that massive calculation wastes precious processing time that might be better used figuring out how to just not hit anything. That doesn't seem like a reasonable trade-off. Now again, Moore's Law can be surprising, but I think that it's much more likely that self-driving algorithms will always be built more or less the way that they're built now, using their computational power to avoid accidents, rather than waiting for some opportunity to crunch some crazy numbers, throw their little silicon hands up in the air and say, ah it's hopeless, who's gotta die? Regardless of all these objections, the least ethical response to this meme that I can imagine would be delaying the implementation of self-driving algorithms of any sort, debating largely implausible hypothetical scenarios. 30,000 people every year die in automotive accidents in the United States, and many more than that are permanently injured. Getting distracted, impatient, inattentive, tired people out of the driver's seat and replacing them with even slightly less error-prone software is of far greater moral importance. Of course, the problems being raised here of codifying our morals and algorithms are still very important questions that deserve thoughtful consideration and discussion, but maybe self-driving cars aren't the best context for that discussion. What's the right context? Well, Google DeepMind is getting scarily good at a ton of stuff. Maybe we should be talking about what happens when we inevitably hand control of our government over to it. Do you think the ethics of autonomous vehicles deserves the attention that it's getting? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. And a quick reminder, thunk episode 100 is coming up, so if you have any questions you'd like me to answer, please leave a comment or send me an email. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to blah, blah, subscribe, blah, share, and don't stop thunking.