Category: Semester

Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

Too Big To Fail: How AWS’s Outage Broke Down a Sizable Chunk of the Internet

Mo Jiang November 16, 2025

Amazon Web Services is one of the world’s largest cloud service providers with estimated control over 30% of the Internet. It provides critical computing infrastructure, including databases and virtual servers, to businesses across several industries. Due to this single point of critical systems, its 14-hour outage has a catastrophic impact on several global sectors. This article examines the ethical and systemic risks associated with centralizing cloud infrastructure, where a single failure can cascade into widespread, severe disruption across interconnected global systems.

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Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

Build-A-Baby: Is Gene Editing the Future of Humanity?

Mary Karapetyan November 11, 2025

Gene and molecular-level interventions are just one example of how modern medicine is seeking to push boundaries and uncover breakthroughs. CRISPR-Cas9 is the most common gene-editing technology used today. The Cleveland Clinic conducted a Phase 1, first-in-human clinical trial overseas to test the safety and effectiveness of a new CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing therapy called CTX310. While a relatively new biotech startup, called Preventive, announced its plans to pursue embryo-editing technologies aimed at preventing hereditary disease, and preparing for the possibility of implanting a genetically edited embryo to create a baby. Many uncertainties surround gene editing practices, leaving professionals unsure of how far such technologies should go and how they should be regulated.

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Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

AI Actors Enter Hollywood

Kariena Panpaliya October 12, 2025

AI talent is entering the film and entertainment industry. Eline Van der Velden’s company Xicoia is in the process of making AI performers, the first of which is Tilly Norwood. While the public has brashly criticized the entity, studios and agencies are excited to work with her.

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Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

The Cost of “Instant”: AI Translation, Cultural Nuance, and the Human Element

Mo Jiang October 5, 2025

Apple recently announced the live-translation feature in AirPods, which enables translating conversations in real time. While this technology assumes great potential for global connectivity, it also raises concerns about AI’s translation capabilities and the problems the translation tools might bring.

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Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

An Apple (Watch) a Day: Implications of Apple’s Latest Hypertension Detection Feature

Alice Steele September 28, 2025

Apple recently debuted its new hypertension detection system for Apple Watches Series 9 and newer. This feature promises to make blood pressure monitoring easier and more accessible for millions of people, which is especially important given how prevalent and underdiagnosed the condition is. However, for some individuals, the benefits of 24/7 hypertension monitoring may be overshadowed by anxieties caused by on-demand health data and the dangers of an increasing reliance on sometimes unreliable technology.

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Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

Showrunner: The Netflix of AI Turns Audiences into Filmmakers

Kariena Panpaliya September 14, 2025

Showrunner’s SHOW-1 AI model creates animated scenes based on the user’s text prompts. It provides great potential for growing multiverses, introducing spinoffs, and exploring what-ifs of popular shows. Filmmakers who leverage AI might see better productivity, creativity, and monetary gains.

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Fall 2025 Featured Weekly News Profile

Taming the Genie: Is Prompt Engineering Dead?

Mary Karapetyan September 7, 2025

A specific role has been created to maximize the potential for AI adoption: the prompt engineer. Experts are questioning the longevity of this role, and the majority agree that this job has an expiration date. Context engineering was created to resolve the limitations that exist in basic Large Language Models (LLMs) and prompt engineering. Prompt engineering, in its current form, may become obsolete.

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Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 2

Ethics Behind Industry-Funded Research

Warren Wang May 25, 2025

Many researchers who fail to obtain public funding turn to private companies for sponsorship, giving rise to “industry-sponsored research.” In comparison to publicly funded research, industry-sponsored research often displays more bias. More often than not, findings support sales promotions or generate revenue for sponsor companies. This bias raises questions regarding the ethics of industry-funded research. However, acknowledging the difficulty in obtaining public funding may help mitigate the harmful effects of industry-funded research. Several methods to mitigate the bias prevalent within industry-funded research may guarantee the legitimacy of sponsored reports.

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Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 2

Ethical Challenges with Crunch Culture

Starr Hinton May 25, 2025

Crunch culture is taking the gaming industry by storm. Crunch refers to a period where developers work compulsory overtime to reach a specific stage of game development. This overtime is often unpaid, leaving employees uncompensated for their extra hours of hard work. It also negatively impacts the quality of games and the health of game developers. Crunch culture is an unethical practice that must be banned in order to provide fair working conditions for all developers. 

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