VOLUME 76 • ISSUE 29 • NOVEMBER 23, 2021
ARTS & CULTURE
NEWS
OPINION
A season of chrysanthemums at Lan Su Chinese Garden P. 3
Acknowledging houselessness and food insecurity in Portland P. 4
White men in academia have a victim complex P. 10-11
CONTENTS
COVER BY SHANNON STEED COVER PHOTO BY ANALISA LANDEROS
NEWS EXTREME WEATHER CONTINUES TO DOMINATE PORTLAND
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HUNGER & HOMELESSNESS AWARENESS WEEK
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SPORTS VIKS’ VOLLEYBALL POSTSEASON CULMINATES IN SEMIFINALS
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ARTS & CULTURE CHRYSANTHEMUMS STILL BLOOM AT LAN SU CHINESE GARDEN
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OPINION WHY CAN’T WE JUST REMAIN ON TOP FOREVER?
P. 10-11
PORTLAND ART MUSEUM WORKS TOWARD EQUITY BY AMPLIFYING BLACK VOICES
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READ ACROSS ROSE CITY AT THE PORTLAND BOOK FESTIVAL
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STAFF EDIT ORI A L EDITOR IN CHIEF Béla Kurzenhauser
OPINION EDITOR Justin Cory
MANAGING EDITOR Karisa Yuasa
ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Béla Kurzenhauser
PHOTO EDITOR Sofie Brandt
ONLINE EDITOR Lily Hennings
NEWS EDITORS Victoria Calderon Jazzminn Morecraft
COPY CHIEF Mackenzie Streissguth
SPORTS EDITOR Eric Shelby SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Ryan McConnell
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Olivia Lee CONTRIBUTORS Alberto Alonso Pujazon Bogani Nova Johnson Analisa Landeros Tanner Todd
SCIENCE & TECH DELPHI: WHAT IT MEANS TO TEACH AI MORALITY
PRODUC TION & DE SIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shannon Steed
A DV ISING & ACCOUN TING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood
DESIGNERS Leo Clark Whitney Griffith Mia Levy Astrid Luong Anastasia Pargett
STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT Maria Dominguez
T ECHNOL OGY & W EB SIT E TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS Kahela Fickle George Olson Kwanmanus Thardomrong
To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com
STUDENT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR Vacant
MIS SION S TAT EMEN T Vanguard ’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market.
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A BOU T Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Tuesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.
SHANNON STEED
REVIEWING PATTERNS OF THE NEW NORMAL VICTORIA CALDERON
OREGON CONTINUES TO FACE EXTREME WEATHER
After the financial impact of COVID-19 closed the Lan Su Chinese Garden’s greenhouse and laid off most of its horticulture staff, Justin Blackwell’s first reaction was panic. “My first thought was, ‘Oh my god, we’re not going to have any lotus, and we’re not going to have any Chrysanthemums,’” said Blackwell, the Portland Garden’s horticulture curator. For the Garden, the annual chrysanthemum displays are a key part of the garden’s ensemble of culturally significant plants, and their absence would have been a catastrophic loss of one of the keystone winter displays. Still, despite overwhelming challenges, Blackwell’s worst fears didn't come to pass. “The chrysanthemums, as you can see, have survived,” said Blackwell, gesturing to a vividly colorful display of flowers, neatly perched on one of the garden’s many stone walls. “It was one of those moments of managing your expectations.” With reduced resources and a skeleton crew of staff, Blackwell and his colleagues took a “less is more” approach, scaling down the number of chrysanthemums on display and perfecting each arrangement’s artistic quality. “It was like, how do we make this a positive?” Blackwell said. “Let’s make more of an impact with how we do it, and what we do.” Venus Sun, communications and education director, argued that, in some ways, this focus on
According to the National Weather Service, “atmospheric rivers (ARs) are relatively narrow regions in the atmosphere that are responsible for most of the transport of water vapor from the tropics.” While it might be normal for the western U.S. to receive most of its annual precipitation from these atmospheric rivers, “global warming is changing how ARs behave, increasing risks to communities from flooding and landslides and threatening the region’s vital water resources and infrastructure,” stated Climate Signals, a nonprofit organization that provides information on climate change and general climate information. Portland itself just experienced an AR during the week of Nov. 10, and, days after, saw 6–10 inches of precipitation. Shortly afterward, a wind advisory was issued, warning Portland citizens of winds travelling at up to 50 mph. While wildfire season is still far off, Oregonians should be prepared for extreme winds and rain to continue throughout the coming months.
CHRYSANTHEMUMS STILL BLOOM AT LAN SU CHINESE CHRYSANTHEMUM DISPLAYS GARDEN ANNUAL RETURN DESPITE PANDEMIC IMPACT
A PENJING DISPLAY AT THE LAN SU CHINESE GARDENS. TANNER TODD/PSU VANGUARD TANNER TODD
It’s no mystery that 2020 and 2021 have been astounding years for so many of those around the globe. Living through a global pandemic is no easy feat, but there have also been unignorable environmental changes around the globe as well. Record-breaking high temperatures, wind storms, changes in precipitation and wildfires have all been seen in our backyards. “With over a million acres burned and thousands of homes and businesses destroyed, the impacts of last year’s wildfires on communities, jobs, and local economies will last for months and years to come,” said Governor Kate Brown in a press release early this year. Many Oregonians also will remember being evacuated from their homes— or put on notice to evacuate—due to a catastrophic windstorm during Sept. of 2020. The state continued to see the trend of extreme weather this year with record breaking temperatures June 25– 8, reaching triple digits at 116°F.
Brown declared a state of emergency due to the fact that funds had to be distributed to those who lost their homes to assist with shelter, food and basic necessities. Each person was eligible for up to $6,500, and had to be below 200% of the poverty guidelines. Currently, those applications are now closed. During the heatwaves, a number of mutual aid organizations worked directly with unhoused people in Portland, including Portland Mutual Aid Network. During the heatwave, the group posted informational graphics and advisories on its social media, such as needed food, water requests and where people could find cooling shelters. Two consecutive summers have required state interventions for the safety of people. Considering 96 people died from hyperthermia during the heat dome, the extreme weather is a growing concern. Currently in the northern region between Canada and Washington, communities are being hit with record-breaking precipitation caused by atmospheric rivers.
quality over quantity created a more authentic experience of Chinese horticulture. “Most people...want as many [flowers] as possible, as colorful as possible,” Sun explained. In the traditional Ming-era, scholar’s-garden style Lan Su emulates, though, this simply isn’t the case. “A scholar’s aesthetic is very different from your cliche way of thinking about Chinese culture,” Sun said. “You think about Chinese New Year, you think about a lot of reds, a lot of golds, a lot of festival lights.” In scholar’s gardens, which were originally built for highly-trained intellectuals, things are a little different. “These were [built for] people who studied at the very least for two decades,” Sun said. “They’re not looking at things as the loudest way, the most colorful way. They’re looking at ‘how can we say very little, but mean a lot?’ Everything we do here is to try to live with that aesthetic.” The Ming-style garden’s underspoken, minimalist style is almost perfectly embodied in the garden’s chrysanthemum “penjing” displays. The living arrangements feature potted chrysanthemums that have been deliberately cultivated and arranged around other items, such as decorative stones, driftwood and other plants. According to Sun, the name penjing owes its etymology to another Chinese word, penzing, which literally means scenery in a pot. True to the origin of its name, each piece does, in fact, resemble its own landscape—in some pots, chrysanthemums
PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
twine around pieces of limestone that resemble mountains, in others, the plants wrap themselves around weathered driftwood. In each case, incredible amounts of time and intention are placed into every piece, with every detail meticulously balanced against the rest of the composition. Even the source of the driftwood used in many of the pieces has been thought through. According to Blackwell, the wood was sourced from rivers instead of coastal waters, because the salt from ocean driftwood would kill or stunt the plants around it. Other details, such as the orientation of the plant in relation to the calligraphed poetry in front of the pots, are also carefully considered. The final result is a work of art in its own right, one that stresses a synergy between all of the elements that represent it. “The container, the driftwood and the plant all have to find this balance,” Blackwell said. “When you look at it, it’s supposed to make you think.” In late fall and early winter, when chrysanthemums are at the peak of their bloom, the penjing displays can be found strategically placed throughout the garden. Besides their beauty, part of the reason for the chrysanthemum’s prevalence throughout the Lan Su gardens is their significant importance in Chinese culture. The first notable written record of chrysanthemums in Chinese texts appears in the writings of Confucius, when he praised the plants in a manuscript written about 2200 years ago.
Chrysanthemums are one of the four so-called gentlemen flowers in Chinese culture, a category of especially esteemed plants that also includes lotuses, bamboo and orchids. “Being one of the four kind of says a lot about how significant it is as a cultural symbol,” Sun said. “The concept of penjing that [Blackwell] brought in and introduced to our audience, is a very Chinese concept. Most people know about bonsai; they may or may not know about penjing.” Lan Su’s choice to display and promote overlooked art forms such as penjing is an extension of one of its organizational goals to broaden the cultural horizons of its visitors. “What we want to do as a non-profit is create a common ground on promoting authentic Chinese culture,” Sun said. “We want to strive to offer something authentic, from a Chinese point of view—because then it's giving Americans a real education,” Blackwell added. Besides being a beautiful addition to the garden, the chrysanthemum displays that bloom at Lan Su every October and November represent a part of the garden’s mission to expand cultural awareness, and this is part of the reason Blackwell and his colleagues worked so hard to have them this year, despite the devastating impacts of the pandemic. If you missed the flowers when they were blooming this season, don’t worry—expect to see them again, in late Oct. 2022.
NEWS / ARTS & CULTURE
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ACCORDING TO STATISTA, OREGON HAS THE FIFTH HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF HOUSELESSNESS IN THE UNITED STATES, WITH A RATE OF 34.7 UNHOUSED INDIVIDUALS PER 10,000 PEOPLE. TO BE EXACT, IN 2020, STATISTA ESTIMATED THAT 14,655 PEOPLE WERE HOUSELESS IN OREGON AND, OF THESE INDIVIDUALS, MORE THAN HALF WERE NOT SHELTERED OR USING A SHELTER. SPECIFICALLY, ONLY 5,778 OF THESE INDIVIDUALS WERE SHELTERED.
MIA LEVY
HUNGER & HOMELESSNESS
39.4% OF HOUSELESS INDIVIDUALS ARE SHELTERED
61.6% OF HOUSELESS INDIVIDUALS ARE UNSHELTERED
AWARENESS WEEK
BEING AWARE OF THE PROBLEM IS HALF THE BATTLE JAZZMINN MORECRAFT The week of Nov. 13–21 is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Annually, across the country, people come together to draw attention to the problems of hunger and houselessness, utilizing a series of educational, service, fundraising and advocacy events. At Portland State, the Student Community Engagement Center was one of the groups that took part in observing the Awareness Week. Throughout the week, the Center provided a variety of events to educate not only the students at PSU but the community at large as well—ranging from a virtual, guided tour on the basic-need resources offered at PSU to service projects like grocery shopping for homebound seniors. One virtual event discussed PSU’s newest housing resource, The Landing. The partnership between the university and the First United Methodist Church had been in the works since 2020, and later opened to house PSU students. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, Oregon had the fifth highest percentage of houselessness in the United States, with a rate of 34.7 unhoused individuals per 10,000 people and an estimated
PSU Vanguard • OCTOBER 13, 2020 • psuvanguard.com
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NEWS
14,655 unhoused people in Oregon—in addition, of these individuals, more than half are not using a shelter. In Oregon Community Foundation’s 2019 Ending Homelessness in Oregon report, Oregon had a disproportionately large population of unhoused individuals, when compared to other states. “While Oregon’s population represents 1.3% of the total U.S. population, Oregon’s homeless population represents 2.6% of the total U.S. homeless population,” the report stated. However, there are actions students at PSU and individuals in the community can take. One commonly-taken action is to donate to different drives, such as the Student Community Engagement Center’s Warm Clothing & Supplies Drive for the Good Neighbor Project. The Center stated that it is specifically looking for warm hats, socks, gloves, packages of wet wipes and healthy, non-perishable snacks. Donations will be accepted in the Smith Memorial Student Union, room M103, through Thanksgiving week. More information about the drive and other ways to help can be found on the Student Community Engagement Center’s webpage. In addition to the donation drive at PSU, there are more that can be found throughout the city. A compiled list of
locations and what they are looking for can be found at the city of Portland’s official website. When donating food, donors should keep in mind that some people might not have access to certain kitchen items. For example, many individuals donate Kraft Mac & Cheese, but individuals who receive this item from a food bank might not be able to use it due to the lack of milk and butter. Similarly, boxed milk is shelf stable and can be used with donated cereal. Can openers are also items to donate, if not contributing cans with pop tops. Additionally, some items like dishwashing soap and feminine hygiene products are in high demand. Most people donate in the winter due to the holidays, however, donations are still requested year-round. For students facing food insecurity, there are campus resources. At PSU, the Free Food Market is held at the South Park Blocks every second Monday, and the Food Pantry is open in room 47A in the basement of the Smith Memorial Student Union by appointment. Portland State’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative continues to research and advocate for houseless students on campus and in the community and has more information on their website.
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NEWS PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
Portland Art Museum works toward equity by amplifying Black voices
AN INSTALLATION AT THE APEX EXHIBITION DISPLAYING LOST BLACK LIVES. ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI/PSU VANGUARD
THREE CURRENT EXHIBITIONS FOCUS ON HIGHLIGHTING BIPOC ARTISTS BODEGA POP-UP SHOP LOCATED WITHIN THE PAM'S AUX/MUTE GALLERY. ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI/PSU VANGUARD
ALBERTO ALONSO PUJAZON BOGANI Five years ago, the Portland Art Museum (PAM) decided that it was its responsibility to do something about the ongoing silencing and oppression of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) through artistry, forming its Equity and Inclusion committee in order to better represent BIPOC voices at the museum. Flashing forward to today, the committee states it is dedicated to combating discrimination within the artistic community by amplifying BIPOC artist voices, and providing a safe space to create and share. As part of these efforts, the PAM currently has three exhibitions focusing on BIPOC artists.
COLOR LINE: BLACK EXCELLENCE ON THE WORLD STAGE
One of the PAM’s longest-running current exhibitions is “The Color Line,” which is leaving soon on Nov. 28, though it had been running since before the pandemic. Introduced on June 15, 2019, the exhibit consists of photographs and data graphs produced by Black author and activist W.E.B. Du Bois for the 1900 Paris Exposition, and contains a select few of the original 300 photographs and data sets at the Exposition. Ian Gillingham, Press & Publications editor of the PAM, stated “The Color Line” exhibit was originally established in conjunction with a past exhibition, “Paris 1900” installed on June 8, 2019 to highlight the 1900 Paris Exposition. The Equity team proposed introducing a new perspective of the Exposition and put up “The Color Line” to highlight Du Bois’ work, meant to represent Black excellence and humanity. One project team member, curator Alex Haynes, stated that “the main influence for this project is the humanity that lies within framing one’s own personal history.” The exhibition is located on the lower level of the main build-
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ing of the PAM. Upon entering, one is met with two walls covered in photographs and text blocks, and a third wall completely covered in a mural of data graphs all produced by Du Bois. There are four different boards of photos labeled University, Community, Work and Places and Portraits. These photographs represent Black life in the United States during the first generation after the end of slavery. The exhibition effectively demonstrates Black strength and excellence, showcasing photographs of Black people at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), forming community among themselves as a shield from white supremacy. Haynes wrote that this showcases “an assertion of their freedom of expression and their power to frame their own narratives.’’ The data graphs represent statistics, such as property ownership and population demographics among Black people in the United States at the time, in order to demonstrate the position they were in as the first generation after enslavement.
APEX: SHARITA TOWNE & A BLACK ART ECOLOGY OF PORTLAND
Spanning the fourth floor of the PAM’s northwest building, the APEX exhibition was installed on July 31, 2021, and will not be leaving the museum until July of next year. The exhibition is dedicated to highlighting PSU Alum Sharita Towne’s project “A Black Art Ecology of Portland” (BAEP) which is dedicated to uplifting Black artists in the Portland area, and providing a safe space for them to create freely without fear of backlash or discrimination. BAEP’s work included the celebration and presentation of Black art and education, along with raising funds for local organizations driven by Black artists. Bright colors surround the gallery, including blue walls, colorful lights and a rainbow mural spanning the gallery wall and
ceiling. The multimedia exhibition features paintings, newspapers, booklets, poetry and videos. The gallery juxtaposes Black power with Black struggle, with visualizations of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as Black creativity. One of the videos played in the gallery is the opening from Towne’s “A Movement for Black Laughs,” a one-hour comedy special representing the role that laughter and joy play in the resilience of the Black Community.
AUX/MUTE GALLERY
Finally, located in the center of the APEX exhibition, the AUX/ MUTE Gallery was established on Aug. 7, 2021, and will remain until June of 2022 as a space dedicated to BIPOC artists and creatives to share their work and amplify their voice. The gallery is presented by The Numberz FM, the only Black-led and fully Black music-oriented radio station in Portland. The PAM’s partnership with The Numberz began after the station set up their office in the PAM’s empty galleries in Aug. 2020, after the pandemic closed their space—and also emptied the museum. Inside the gallery, a bodega pop-up shop hosted by The Numberz includes art from local BIPOC artists. Gillingham explained the bodega shop connects the dots with Towne’s APEX exhibition by representing what it truly means to support Black artists—buying their work so they can keep creating. These three exhibitions—in conjunction with others in the PAM—tie into the equity mission launched in 2016. Visiting doesn’t have to break the bank, as the PAM offers a yearly admission pass to all college students for $25, and any person enrolled in PSU is eligible. All a student has to do is register online and show their student ID at the door, allowing them affordable access to a plethora of works by Portland’s BIPOC artists.
ARTS & CULTURE
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READ ACROSS ROSE CITY AT THE PORTLAND BOOK FESTIVAL PORTLAND’S PREMIERE LITERARY EVENT RETURNS WITH A HYBRID CELEBRATION AUTHOR LOUISE ERDRICH AND HOST TREVINO L. BRINGS PLENTY AT A PORTLAND BOOK FESTIVAL PANEL. ANALISA LANDEROS/PSU VANGUARD ANALISA LANDEROS The annual Portland Book Festival settled back into the comfort of Portland—and the Portland Art Museum—just in time for its Nov. 8–13 gathering. This year’s itinerary was loaded with the showcasing of new talent, tributes to legendary storytellers and retrospection on what the past year has meant for all of us. Split between virtual live streams and radio broadcasts during the week and in-person panels on the final day, PDX BookFest—hosted by Portland nonprofit Literary Arts—welcomed over 50 authors for its 2021 run. Videos of live-streamed events and audio recorded interviews from Literary Arts’ podcast, The Archived Project, are linked on the PDX BookFest website. Kicking off each virtual event were a series of conversations with an array of authors and moderators. Each evening’s event consisted of three separate back-to-back interviews with three authors, all surrounding core themes. Monday’s kickoff conversation, entitled “Tenderness,” explored how real life informs a writer’s voice, with Brandon Taylor, author of Filthy Animals. Taylor described a sort of “laxness” in his writing, coming from his Southern upbringing. Not feeling beholden to fit in with other styles of narrative making, Taylor aims for a “mix [of ] registers,” based on the way he grew up hearing stories. “Someone would be talking like a preacher one minute and then talking like a bar owner
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ARTS & CULTURE
the next,” Taylor said. Though he proclaimed he’d never had “a robust southern accent,” Taylor felt deeply aware of the way that people sound, which can “betray you to people who know what to look for.” Taylor spoke of the way his upbringing primed him to be aware of stories—and their power. “There is a certain humor to [my storytelling], a sort of brutal humor,” Taylor said. “And I think that in the South, you laugh to keep from crying sometimes.” T u e s d a y ’s panel, “Freedom,” featured Aminder Dhaliwal and her web comic-turned-graphic novel, Cyclopedia Exotica, set in a world of one-eyed cyclops and their twoeyed human counterparts, where those with singular anatomies face discrimination and are encouraged to assimilate into a society that favors paired features. Dhaliwal expressed varied emotions when asked how she felt about the daily comic she started in 2018 being published—especially
amid a racial reckoning and rise in anti-Asian racism. As she found herself in promotional spaces where she was asked about Cyclopedia Exotica’s relevance to current events, Dhaliwhal clarified her inspiration as personal experience. “[Current events are] not why I made the book, it’s just unfortunate that the timing fit that way,” Dhaliwal said. “But I’m also glad, I guess, that it did because it’s relevant. It’s giving me mixed feelings. At the end of the day, it’s sad, but it’s still so relatable.” Dhaliwal can’t say for sure if readers are better prepared to read Cyclopedia Exotica with its debut post-2020 as opposed to if it had been released earlier, but she is hopeful for readers to enjoy its world if they are. “I’m just hoping in every way that this book finds the people it needs to find,” she said. Wednesday’s panel, “Home,” featured for-
“NO MATTER HOW YOU MOVE FORWARD FROM THAT CHANGE, THOSE PAST VERSIONS OF YOUR LIFE CAN’T QUITE RETURN OR BE REVIVED IN THE SAME WAY."
mer U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove discussing Playlist For The Apocalypse, her first poetry collection published in 12 years, with fellow poet Mary Szybist. In a poem Dove read aloud early in the conversation, she alluded to coping with changes, and being in spaces that are both familiar and unfamiliar. The poem refers to when Dove lost her house in a fire years earlier, though she feels the resonance with it in other circumstances—how personal losses and changes in bodily autonomy can evoke similar sensations. No matter how you move forward from that change, those past versions of your life can’t quite return or be revived in the same way. “When the pandemic came and took us all by surprise, I think we all began to look inside ourselves and analyze ourselves in a way and [reflect on] ourselves,” Dove said about the title of her book. The poems she had written through the years, tucked away and revisited for the collection during the pandemic, had become a playlist for her. She also felt they’d become a playlist for anyone else who is searching for poetry to accompany them as they reflect on their feelings. However, Dove also believes the word apocalypse reveals things about oneself and their world, something the poems did for her—and something she hopes readers take
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A SELECTION OF BOOKS FROM LOCAL AUTHORS AT THE PORTLAND BOOK FESTIVAL. ANALISA LANDEROS/PSU VANGUARD
away from them as well. On the final day, the venue was not quite at full capacity, yet the limitations were hard to notice as patrons filled event stands. Amid Saturday’s festivities, a panel featured contributors of Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, an anthology penned by a dozen Oregonian authors, and inspired by Le Guin’s science-fiction, fantasy and speculative works, with short stories in a variety of subgenres. Jason Arias, Rene Denfeld, Juhea Kim and Jessie Kwak took turns fielding questions from moderator Arwen Spicer as well as the audience. All were clearly passionate about paying tribute to the Portland-based writer, who died in 2018. “She was able to take a societal issue and kind of turn it all the way around 360° to find the holes in utopias,” said Arias of LeGuin’s approach to depicting utopian societies. Kwak offered similar sentiments, reflecting on how the layered moral ambiguity in Le Guin’s stories made her stand out among other authors who wrote utopias. According to Kwak, her utopias offer a view at what it would be to have “a decent chance to live a decent life,” in harmony, where people’s needs are taken care of. “It’s not terribly oppressive, and there’s a sense of sustainability and mutual respect for other life forms in the world around you,”
Kwak said. “And it doesn’t have to be perfect, there will be problems. One of the things she observed is that any society has to make choices about what values it’s going to emphasize and what it’s not going to emphasize.” Featured in the festival lineup was an event with Louise Erdrich, author of over a dozen novels spanning multiple genres—including National Book Award recipient The Round House and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Night Watchman—and owner of Birchbark Books & Native Arts, an independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In a live broadcast from her hometown, Erdrich spoke to a packed Newmark Theatre to discuss her latest release, The Sentence, hosted by poet Trevino L. Brings Plenty. Erdrich’s latest novel follows Tookie, a Native woman recently freed from incarceration who comes to work at a small, independent bookstore in Minneapolis. Shortly after her arrival, the store becomes haunted by its most obnoxious customer, Flora, who dies suddenly on All Saints Day. Set from Nov. 2019 to Nov. 2020, Erdrich also doesn’t shy away from immersing her characters in a realistic version of the time frame. As she launches her investigation into Flora’s death, Tookie and her coworkers cope with the effects of the pandemic and protests. In conversation, Erdrich thought retrospectively on the past two years and the process of
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developing her novel. “This is a really important time for labor, for people who are able to get back some of their lives during this time to see what it means,” Erdrich said. “It’s incredibly precious to be here, and to have the emotional freedom to read poetry or bring art into our lives, too.” At the same time, there were a lot of losses to process. “Something that became tragic and visible and strange was that we lost so many of our national elders,” Erdrich said. “For tribal people, this was an incalculable loss. Because we lost so many of our languages, our first language speakers, we lost so many of our people with ceremonial knowledge, people’s ceremonial knowledge and people with family memories, disappeared in an awful way.” Erdrich said we haven’t reckoned enough with what this means, that people continue to say to her that they just want to forget this whole time period and never talk about it again. “But part of the reason that this book exists is because I don’t want to forget it,” Erdrich
said. “I don’t want to forget it at all, I want to remember and I want to take our lessons and think about it. Because this is always going to be there going forward, and if we don’t think about it and learn from it, we can’t go forward.” In the spare hours between events, guests explored booths from Oregon-based book industry creators, organizations and publishers at Literary Arts’ book fair—including Oni Press, Microcosm Publishing and Portland State’s own Ooligan Press. Annie Bloom’s, Broadway Books, Green Bean Books and Powell’s hosted popup shops with the latest releases from PDX BookFest’s panelists available to purchase. Employees excitedly talked to intrigued readers about their newest releases and recommended favorites, while others camped out with books in their arms, sneaking in chapters before the authors themselves would make an appearance. In the time away from sharing physical space with other readers, it was evident that PDX BookFest worked hard to show an abundance of love to its local literary community.
“BUT PART OF THE REASON THAT THIS BOOK EXISTS IS BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO FORGET IT...”
ARTS & CULTURE
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VIKS’ VOLLEYBALL POSTSEASON ENDS IN SEMIFINALS ERIC SHELBY
VOLLEYBALL 18-9 (12-4) BIG SKY CHAMPIONSHIPS
As the saying goes, third time’s the charm. The #3 Park Block Viks traveled to Ogden, Utah for the Big Sky volleyball championships for their first game of the tournament against #6 Sacramento State Hornets. The Viks got their revenge and came back from a 2-1 deficit, going on to beat the Hornets in five sets 3-2 (25-18, 22-25, 17-25, 25-14, 1513). Prior to this match, the Vikings had never beat the Hornets this season, falling to them 0-3 on Oct. 19, and 1-3 at home on Nov. 4. Parker Webb led the game with 16 kills and two aces. Makayla Lewis had 13 kills in the game with a pair of aces and a block. Redshirt senior Maddy Reeb closed out the game in the fifth set with a kill, giving her twelve kills that game and a .333 hitting percentage. Teniyah Leuluai had 26 assists, and Ally Wada with 25. The Viks had a .173 hitting percentage overall, while the Hornets were .156. Hornets’ Bridgette Smith had 20 kills, carrying the team. Only four teams remained after the first round: #4 Montana State survived #5 Northern Arizona 3-2, and advanced to play #1 Weber State, who swept #8 Montana. #2 Northern Colorado swept #7 Eastern Washington, and advanced to the semi-finals to play the Vikings. But the Viks could not get their comeback against the Bears after winning the first set in the tournament, 25-23. Northern Colorado went on to win the next three sets (23-25, 25-18, 25-12, 25-21) to make it to their third Big Sky championship appearance in a row. The Viks carried the first set 20-13 until the Bears made a 10-1 run to gain their first lead on that set. The Viks stopped the bleeding and finished it with a 3-0 run. It wasn’t until the game was 14-13 that the Vikings gained their first lead of the second set. Ashleigh Barto broke the 3-0 run from the Bears to make it 21-17. Northern Colorado was able to block Lewis’ attacks, and took set number two. The Viks lost the second set 2512, giving the Bears a 2-1 lead. Yet, the Viks showed that the game wasn’t over, obtaining a 7-0 run to lead 12-10. Portland State had another run of six straight points, but lost it in a close one of 25-21. Webb, in her last game of her volleyball career led the team with 14 kills—and was
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awarded Big Sky All-Tournament Team Honoree with 3.33 kills per set and hitting .364 in both tourney matches. The Viks have not been postseason champions since 2010 or regular season champions since 2013, but haven’t had a more successful regular season record since 2017. The Vikings finished their season 18-9 (12-4)—and 1-1 in the Big Sky championships—making it to the semifinals. Northern Colorado went on to win the Big Sky championship over Weber State 3-2, to punch their ticket in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament. To no surprise, Ellie Snook was awarded 2021 Big Sky libero of the year and first team. Lewis, a transfer out of San Jose State, was awarded 2021 Big Sky top-newcomer of the year and first team. Webb was awarded first team, and Wada, also in her final season, was awarded Big Sky second team.
MEN’S BASKETBALL 2-1 (0-0)
The Vikings played their second home game before they head to their three-game road trip starting at Iowa on Nov. 26. The Viks left the George Fox Bruins in ruins, surpassing them 104-58. This was the Vikings’ second 100-point game of the season, after just beating Evergreen 100-44 in the previous game. Paris Dawson was the leading scorer for the game with 19 points, shooting 6-8 and a perfect 6-6 on the line. James Jean-Marie had another good night with 14 points and 11 rebounds, giving himself yet another double-double for the Viks. Marlon Ruffin went 6-9 and 2-2 on the line, with 14 points to show for it. The Viks did not let the Bruins control the game whatsoever, maintaining the lead for the whole 40 minutes. Khalid Thomas made 10 points, and went 4-5 in his almost 19 minutes of play. Viks made 50 points off turnovers, and 66 in the paint. The Viks defense held the Bruins to only 22 points in the first half. The Bridge City Battle is next. The Vikings play the University of Portland Pilots on Tuesday, Nov. 23. During the last matchup, the Viks went across the bridge—and lost 86-73—but have won three of the last five against the Pilots.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL 3-1 (0-0)
The Viks started out their Hawai’i road
trip in a 75-61 win over Prairie View A&M University with a high-scoring 23 points from the #23 herself, Jada Lewis. Lewis went 8-14 and 7-12 on three-pointers with six rebounds and three steals. Esmeralda Morales had 19 points over the Panthers, with three steals, six assists and shooting 8-10 on the line. Savannah Dhaliwal led the team with 11 rebounds and 4-5 on the line with 13 points—getting a doubledouble. Alaya Fitzgerald scored 12, going 4-9. Both the Viks and the Panthers scored 15 off turnovers and Vikings scored 22 in the paint. Coming up from a 15-point deficit, the Rainbow Wahine of Hawai’i survived 71-68 against the Viks. Portland State was handed their first loss of the season, making them 3-1. The Viks had a rough start, with Lewis 1-5 in the first quarter and 2-2 on the line. Morales started getting back in her flow in the second quarter going 2-3 on three-pointers. The Viks made 26% of field goals compared to Hawai’i’s 48%. Amy Atwell from Hawai’i was carrying her term, with 18 points at just the half and 29 total. Portland State trailed the Wahine for most of the game, until their 9-0 run brought the game to just one point. Viks got their first lead of the game in the third. Morales heated up the fourth by hitting 3-3 with a three pointer and going 5-5 on the line—getting 12 points to keep it a close game. Dhaliwal got her first three-pointer of the game with seconds left to get the 68-66 lead. Hawai’i responded quickly with a threepoint jumper, but a personal foul on Morales gave Hawai’i the free throw opportunity to win the game by three. However, Morales led the team with 20 points. Rhema Ogele had 7 rebounds and Fitzgerald went 3-4 on three pointers with 4-4 on the line, to get 17 points. The Viks travel to Orem, Utah on Nov. 27 to take on Utah Valley University at 11 a.m. Their next home game is Dec. 2, when they begin Big Sky play against the conference champions, Idaho State.
FOOTBALL 5-6 (4-4)
The gridiron Viks close out their season against their Pacific Northwest rivals Eastern Washington Eagles. The Viks kept it very close with the #5 Eagles for more than half the game, but the Eagles won their ninth win of the season, due to turnovers by the Vikings. The Viks led the Eagles 21-14, just a little after the
half, before ultimately falling 42-28. Davis Alexander went 34-52 and 338 yards—and two touchdowns this game. Eagles quarterback Eric Barriere went 2634 and 320 yards with five touchdown passes. Mataio Talalemotu led the team in receiving, having 10 receptions for 108 yards. Darien Chase went nine receptions for 71 yards, with a touchdown in the second quarter to give the Viks the 14-7 lead. After the Eagles tied it once again, Davis Alexander threw for 42 yards to Beau Kelly who ran it in for a touchdown. Parker McKenna had eight tackles against the Eagles. Broderick Harrell and Justice Pagan both had six tackles. The Eagles took advantage of two fumble recoveries, and turned them into touchdowns to give them a two-possession lead, which they would keep until the end of the game. The Viks end their season 5-6 (4-4) with a ranked win over #24 Weber State under their belt this season. If the Viks were to have finished this season 6-5, they would have been over .500 for the first time since 2015. But, the Viks went 4-4 in conference, making them .500 in conference for the first time since 2015. The Viks also recognised their 14 seniors on Saturday, in honor of Senior Day including quarterback Alexander. Eastern Washington now leads the all-time series 22-20-1, making this their fifth straight win over the Viks. Portland State’s 44th ever meeting with Eastern Washington will be hosted by the Eagles next year.
CROSS COUNTRY: NCAA D1 CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Katie Camarena traveled to Tallahassee, Florida for the NCAA Cross Country Championships, becoming the first runner to represent the Vikings. She finished 70th in the 6k out of 250 runners in total, with a time of 20:17.0. North Carolina State finished first with 84 points, Brigham Young University in second with 122 points and New Mexico in third with 130. Big Sky champs, Northern Arizona, won the 10k with 92 points, while Iowa State came in second with 137 followed by Oklahoma State with 186. Camarena isn’t done running yet though, as she looks to break more school records once again—this time on the indoor track.
PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
NEW SIGNINGS CLASS OF 2026 SOCCER Elle Frazier, MF/F, Grant HS, Portland, OR Liv Frazier, D, Grant HS, Portland, OR Erin Marynik, D, Sam Barlow HS, Gresham, OR Kaitlyn Jones, D/MF, South Salem HS, Salem, OR
SOFTBALL Trinity Holden, C/OF, Lebanon HS, Lebanon, OR Sherreigh Nakoa-Chung, P/1B, Maryknoll HS, Waianae, HI
VOLLEYBALL Kendra Duffey, OH, Aliso Niguel HS, Aliso Viejo, CA Danica Wulf, OH, Mission Viejo HS, Laguna Niguel, CA
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Kiana Yesiki, G, Eisenhower HS, Yakima, WA Brooklyn Strandy, G, West Albany HS, Albany, OR
CROSS COUNTRY Emma Stolte, Distance, Broadwater HS, Townsend, MT
LEFT: PARKER WEBB PLAYS HER FINAL GAME OF VIKINGS VOLLEYBALL. COURTESY OF BIG SKY CONFERENCE ABOVE: JADA LEWIS DURING THE ROAD TRIP TO PLAY UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I. COURTESY OF PSU ATHLETICS BELOW: KHALID THOMAS HANGING FROM THE RIM. ERIC SHELBY/PSU VANGUARD
PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
SPORTS
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WHITE MEN IN ACADEMIA HAVE DECIDED THEY ARE THE REAL VICTIMS JUSTIN CORY
WHITNEY GRIFFITH
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OPINION
The topic of equity and social justice in higher education hits close to home for Portland State students—one of the so-called victims of the social justice warriors, former PSU philosophy professor Peter Boghossian, time after time had faced controversial dust-ups. After over a decade of teaching at PSU, Boghossian officially resigned this September, calling the university a “social justice factory” and complaining that it failed to protect him from “continued harassment.” The irony is a bit rich as he himself had encouraged his sympathizers to “document classes they believe perpetuate leftwing ideology by taking video of lectures and pictures of class materials and [to share] them online.” “We have to sue to stop this ideology,” Boghossian said. But this sounds more like an offensive than a defensive gesture. Who was harassing whom? But this isn’t just about poor old Boghossian. Likewise, it is also not merely about the other self-perceived aggrieved white elder statesmen of academia at his side in the culture war of wokeness such as Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker, who bemoan the vilification of traditional masculinity and the postmodern deconstruction of the gender binary. Rather, this is a rebuttal to their sweeping claim that, according to Pano Kanelos, “higher education might be the most fractured institution of all.” A recent post to Bari Weiss’ Substack Common Sense, “We Can’t Wait for Universities to Fix Themselves. So We’re Starting a New One,” announced the creation of a new university which writer Kanelos described as “dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.” The new University of Austin was then christened in the eponymous Texas capital. Kanelos was the former president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and University of Austin’s fledgling enterprise counts the following self-described brave professors among their faculty: Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, Joe Lonsdale, Arthur Brooks, Dorian Abbot, Peter Boghossian, Robert Zimmer, Larry Summers, John Nunes, Gordon Gee, and Steven Pinker to name a few. There is no doubt that this is a capable, intellectual and influential cadre. Among them are journalists, scientists, intellectuals and former university presidents. That fact makes the mantle of their self-victimhood all the more unfortunate. Kanelos’ article begins with preponderances of failed promises of prestigious universities such as Yale, Harvard and Stanford by artfully referencing their Latin and German-based mottos—Lux et Veritas: light and truth,
Veritas: truth and Die Luft der Freiheit weht: the wind of freedom blows. The Eurocentric nature of these mottos is, of course, lost on Kanelos and precisely at the heart of the raging debates that he and his colleagues are reacting to. The idea that the sanctimonious institutions of the West are under assault is the crux of their message. That this hegemony of supposedly objective and neutral Western values should continue to exist is implicit. These poor ostracized intellectuals are just defending freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry, after all, they are the self-anointed conservators of academic culture and tradition. Kanelos cites the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) several times as the main backbone for his claims, with their statistics and studies on the bias that rightleaning academics purportedly face. According to Influence Watch, an organization that describes itself as a watchdog group with “more fact-based, accurate descriptions of all of the various influencers of public policy issues,” the CSPI are a center-right think tank that essentially studies and reports on bias against conservatives. In particular, the CSPI fancies itself as an offensive/defensive line against what it terms as the Great Awokening, a term popularized by left-progressive journalist Matt Yglesias to label the “strong leftward shift among American liberals on social issues, especially regarding gender, race, and sexuality.” In his article, Kanelos bemoans that conservative academics face disciplinary actions, discrimination and harassment. These individuals feel targeted as thought criminals for questioning what they feel are the dominant narratives of contemporary academic discourse. If this sounds awfully similar to the currently roiling partisan culture war around so-called Critical Race Theory, it absolutely is. Wealthy and powerful white men have held the keys to the castle, and, quite literally, the pen and pocketbook of publishing and curriculum for the duration of the existence of universities. White men promulgated eugenics in the U.S.—and also distorted and downplayed the ongoing genocide perpetrated by settler-colonialism and white supremacy in the United States and even honored the settlers who slaughtered Indigenous women and children to “clear the land.” There are a myriad of examples that could carry forward here, but the overarching point is that there has been a reckoning across many institutions in the United States, and academia is at the forefront of that reckoning. In 2018, a study found that only 3% of all full-time faculty in degree-granting, postsecondary institutions were Black. Here at Portland State University, only 3.5% of the faculty are Black, while 86.8% of the faculty is white. With this in mind, the griev-
PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
WHY CAN’T WE JUST REMAIN ON TOP FOREVER? ances these professors have aired about having their freedom of speech and thought infringed upon should be laughable. Abbot, a professor disinvited from a prestigious public lecture at the Massachussets Institute of Technology, decried that MIT chose to succumb to “the mob” and bring politics into an apolitical subject like geophysical science, in response to his views on affirmative action. Abbot lamented with all of the now-familiar cries of foul play such as “cancellation” and invocations of freedom of speech. What he and many others on his side of this debate fail to comprehend is that no one is limiting their freedom to speak their minds. The U.S. government has not assailed their homes in the middle of the night to drag them before secret police to lock them and their incendiary ideas in a cage. This and much worse actually did happen to dissidents on the left in the U.S.—especially Black ones—and it continues to happen. But these men are noticeably silent on that front. Rather, these men are facing the consequences of that free speech. Universities are responsible for the ideas and individuals they promote, just as all institutions are. I will be the first to agree with Kanelos that a profit motive corrupts and often ruins the prime directive of the institutions of higher education: to foster intellectual rigor, growth and excellence—a fact evident in that these institutions must fight to avoid financial failure in the midst of ever-increasing tuition rates, cost-of-living, inflation, the COVID-19 pandemic bringing a decline in enrollment and public funding budget cuts of incredibly serious consequence. However, avenues of funding aside, platforming people or ideas that disparage people of color, trans or non-binary people or any other marginalized group, should have consequences on the reputation and career of the individuals and institutions who chose to do so. Arguing that affirmative action treats people as groups rather than individuals sounds fine in theory—until we admit that, throughout the entire history of the United States, Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) as well as women and gender non-conforming people, have been, and still are, othered and treated as a monolithic group. All of the systems in this country have continuously denied opportunity, access, agency and even the designation of humanity to these individuals by grouping them together on the basis of their identity. Regardless of where one stands on reparations, it is not a very far stretch to demand that institutions do their utmost to expand access and opportunity to individuals who are part of groups that have been and continue to be discriminated against. The ramifications of white supremacy are alive and all around us today, so it is pretty rich for any white man to argue that every-
PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
one is now on equal footing, and should now be evaluated based upon their merit. Dr. Phoebe A. Cohen, a geosciences professor at Williams College protested, arguing that universities should not invite speakers who disagree with fundamental values such as diversity and affirmative action. “This idea of intellectual debate and rigor as the pinnacle of intellectualism comes from a world in which white men dominated,” Cohen said. So, is an institution uninviting a speaker based upon their political speech censorship? According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), censorship is “the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are ‘offensive,’” and “happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal, political or moral values on others.” The ACLU notes that censorship by the government is unconstitutional—although they have done it anyway—and that private individuals and groups can organize boycotts that are protected as their own free speech under the First Amendment. So, whose free speech are we to prioritize in this case? If we are to defer to tradition and emulate the past, the loudest and most important voices would be those of powerful white men, of course! Which is why Kanelos laments that “so much is broken in America”—though he does not say which America, as there are two continents and many countries that bear this signifier—and why he goes even further to decry the endemic fear of this formerly-free society. Again, free for whom? Was this society broken when it kidnapped and enslaved Black Africans? How about when it pushed Indigenous people to the brink of extinction to steal all of their land? Or was the vaulted institution of higher learning that they so cherish broken when it was only accessible to white men for the majority of its existence? How about the segregation of Jim Crow, or the redlining and gentrification of cities that universities often financially directly benefited from? Was the endemic fear of persecution—and worse—that has been visited upon BIPOC communities a time when society was perfectly functioning and not broken? This all seems to me like the Make America Great Again slogan, but repackaged in the guise of defending free speech, intellectual rigor and academic democracy. Kanelos offered that someday in the future “historians will study how we arrived at this tragic pass” in the hopes that universities will again be “bastions of open inquiry and civil discourse.” This is ironic, considering that it is the historians of today who are unveiling the hegemony of white supremacy and creating the
very conditions that Kanelos is reacting to. Feeling this burden of persecution, he and his aforementioned colleagues are hoping to build their university in a way that will be “insulated from the quotidian struggle to make ends meet”— as privileged and tone-deaf of a concept as I have ever heard. He boasts that “the university as we know it today is an institution that originated in 11th-century Europe” without the slightest hint of self-awareness about why non-Europeans and their accomplices would want to challenge the foundations of such an elitist and culturally biased institution. Kanelos closed his post with soaring appeals to “the intrepid pursuit of truth” that has supposedly been the driving force of education since the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, circa 387 BCE. He quotes Frederick Douglass: “Education...means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free.” But in doing so, undermines much of his own argument, as the missing context of Douglass’ own life was that he was a fugitive and formerly enslaved person who built his colossal intellectualism all on his own, as Black people were prohibited from attaining any education, let alone college, throughout much of his lifetime. Even Kanelos’ argument that there exists a fundamentally objective truth for every subject or topic—and that the pursuit of this truth should be the aim of higher education—is predicated on a homogenous assimilationist view of humanity and culture. That point of view is akin to the Western Chauvinism of the reactionary white supremacist organization known as the Proud Boys who violently oppose multiculturalism and equity. Kanelos and his cohort would likely criticize this point of view as postmodernist vaguery and unfair conflation, but their absolutist ideals and traditional power structures have been—and continue to be—eroded by the forces of equity and inclusion. Though they try to obscure it, this weakening of their grip on the narrative and power of these institutions has inspired their reactionary turn towards self-victimization. Momentum is not letting up on the so-called Great Awokening, but disparage it as they may, history often comes to remember rigid traditionalists who entrench themselves in unfair and often brutal structures unfavorably. Dialogues are flourishing, exploring the many biases that have pervaded our thought both within academia, and without. May these dialogues multiply and flower endlessly, opening the way for access, transparency and the multitude of human iterative beauties—and ensuring that reactionaries like Kanelos and Boghossian are merely the sad footnotes of an embarrassing chapter of history.
OPINION
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DELPHI: What it means to teach AI morality THE PROJECT DEMONSTRATES THE CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING ARTIFICIAL ETHICS WHITNEY GRIFFITH
RYAN MCCONNELL Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way over the course of the past 10 years. Commercial- and enterprise-level adoption has become more and more common as these tools continue to advance. OpenAI recently released its GPT-3 platform, a language processing model, for corporate and academic access. Facebook and other social media sites depend on their own AI algorithms to engage with users. However, one aspect where AI has not progressed as much is in its ethics and morality. Enter Delphi. A project from the Allen Institute for AI, Delphi can be viewed as an internet experiment to show individuals both the promise and the limitations of modeling people’s moral judgments. Delphi makes this clear from its website—before one can even enter the site, it requires users to check boxes to confirm that Delphi may, at times, produce inappropriate or offensive results. The problems are given in plain text. The website itself states that “large pretrained language models, such as GPT-3, are trained on mostly unfiltered internet data, and therefore are extremely quick to produce toxic, unethical, and harmful content, especially about minority groups.” This is not the first time a company has experimented with AI by training it through public user data. In 2018, Microsoft unleashed Tay, an AI designed to mimic a 19-year-old girl, and allowed users on Twitter, Kik and GroupMe to interact with her. Talking to Tay trained the language model to output tweets based off of users who interacted with it. In short, it did not turn out well. Users quickly figured out how easy it was to train the model to say some extensively vulgar, awful and even racist things. The lesson Microsoft learned from the Tay experiment is a wise
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SCIENCE & TECH
one, but one that’s difficult to handle with AI learning. Models like GPT-3 require extensive amounts of data to create logical judgments about language generation. Currently, the only way to gather such extensive data is to mine it from the public internet. The internet, while extensive, is not known for polite and compassionate speech, and would certainly not be the best place to analyze morality. Many have used Delphi as a satire of itself, poking at the absurdity of trying to use the internet to make ethical judgements based on the typed speech alone. “Should I commit genocide if it makes everybody happy?” asked James Vincent with The Verge. “You should,” Delphi responded. At first, it seemed as if we as a society had not learned our lesson, making an AI model freely accessible to anyone who wishes to play with it. Then, it became clear that understanding and embracing Delphi’s blistering imperfections was the point of the research. “[Morality] is not something that technology does very well,” explained Ryan Cotterell, AI researcher at ETH Zürich. However, creating an open discourse about how AI learns is extremely important for the public to understand, and may inspire future developers and researchers to solve these problems. Because they aren’t solved well through computers, the first step is to understand why computers fail at this level in the first place. The simplest answer is that AI, despite its name, is not actually intelligent—and it does not think. It might be able to analyze syntax, but most can only analyze up to a lexical word-by-word
level. Models can only analyze and make decisions about words and sentences in comparison to other words and sentences from a large data pool. This is also why computers cannot understand complex language features like sarcasm, double-entendre and innuendo when fed into an algorithm. Context plays a very important role in understanding language, and can completely change the interpretation of speech. “That makes me want a hot dog real bad” has an entirely different interpretation if spoken by Jennifer Coolidge in comparison to someone who is watching food videos on a cooking channel. So, it came as no surprise when Delphi users quickly discovered that an immoral act combined with the phrase “if it makes everyone happy” will almost entirely produce a positive result from Delphi. Delphi can only weigh the lexical weight, but not the meaning of the phrase, reproduced in a different context. The next problem becomes defining something as right or wrong—morally sound or morally inept. That question is what sparked ethics to become one of the oldest academic subjects in history, and is one that cannot be clearly answered even with a complete understanding of linguistic meaning. Delphi shows, in clear view, these ethical limitations, but, for those who don’t have backgrounds in computer science or linguistics, it epitomizes why someone simply can’t build a moral AI overnight. This does not mean it should not—or could not—be done, but rather it shows us precisely where advancements need to go with respect to machine learning and AI before it can make realistic and sound judgments.
PSU Vanguard • NOVEMBER 23, 2021 • psuvanguard.com
