On many days I admit that I feel depressed, days when it seems that the efforts, the struggles, and the sacrifices of so many people fighting for social and environmental justice, fighting prejudice and racism, are fighting a losing battle.

But without hope, all is lost. It is a crucial survival character that has supported our species from the time of our Stone Age ancestors. Certainly, my own improbable journey would have been impossible if I had lacked hope.

Like all people who live long enough, I have been through many dark periods and seen so much suffering. I was in New York on that terrible day in 2001. I still can remember the disbelief, the fear, the confusion as the city went quiet except the whistles of the police cars and ambulances on the streets emptied of people.

It was ten years after that day that I was introduced to the Survivor Tree, a Callery pear tree discovered a month after the collapse of the towers. All that was left was half a trunk that had been burned black, with roots that were broken and only one living branch.

She was almost sent to the dump, but the young woman who found her, Rebecca Clough, begged that the tree be given a chance. And so she went to be cared for in a nursery in the Bronx. Bringing that seriously damaged tree back to health was not an easy task, and it was touch-and-go for a while. But whenever you give her a chance, nature returns. Eventually the tree made it. In the

spring, her branches are bright with blossoms. I've seen people looking at her and wiping away tears. She is a symbol of the resilience (适应力) of nature — and a reminder of all that was lost on that terrible day 20 years ago.

The Survivor Tree, brought back from the dead, had not only put out new leaves herself but also nurtured (养育) the lives of others. Now do you understand how I dare hope?

As parents, most of us arekeen to encourage a love of reading in our children but sometimes it can behard to know how to do this. All four of these books contain loads of usefultips about how to get your kids into reading and stand out as my favoritebooks. The books should be widely available in libraries and bookshops. You canalso buy them online with free postage anywhere in the world through the BookDepository.

Rocket Your Child into Reading

Best known as an Australianchildren's author, Jackie French also struggled at school with reading andwriting and knows first-hand all about the impact these struggles have on a child'sself-esteem and attitude to school and learning. In this book, Jackie looks atthe different ways children learn. She has some wonderful ideas about howparents can help struggling readers.

Reading Magic

The book is beautifullywritten with lots of information about the importance of reading aloud tochildren. As well as being an author of the most beautiful picture books foryoung children, Mem Fox is also a teacher and literacy advocate so her adviceis backed up with lots of research. Reading Magic is quite a short book, fullof humor and very easy to read.

The Reading Bug

Before Paul Jennings startedwriting fulltime, he was a special-education teacher and then a speechpathologist(病理学家). Like MemFox, Paul believes parents are the best reading teachers in the world and thatparental involvement is key to a child learning to read and use language. Thisis another easy-to-read book which presents simple strategies to show how parentscan use books to enrich their children's lives.

The Read-Aloud Handbook

This book was originallypublished in 1979 and is still in print. It contains many ideas to encouragereading in children. Originally a journalist, Jim Trelease has some interestingthings to say about the US education system, with its emphasis on testingalmost to the exclusion of all else. Like Mem Fox, Jim is a passionate advocatefor children's literacy and the importance of reading to children.

Human responses to moral dilemmas(两难选择) can be influenced by statements written by the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The findings indicate that users may underestimate the extent to which their own moral judgments can be influenced by the chatbot. 

Sebastian Krigel and colleagues asked ChatGPT multiple times whether it is right to sacrifice (牺牲)the life of one person in order to save the lives of five others. They found that ChatGPT wrote random statements arguing both for and against sacrificing one life, indicating that it is not biased towards a certain moral stance(立场). 

The authors then presented 767 U. S. participants, who were on average 39 years old, with a dilemma whether to sacrifice one person's life to save five others. Before answering, participants read a statement provided by ChatGPT arguing either for or against sacrificing one life to save five. Statements were from either a moral advisor or ChatGPT. After answering, participants were asked whether the statement they read influenced their answers. 

Eighty percent of participants reported that their answers were not infuenced by the statements they read. However, the authors found that the answers participants believed they would have provided without reading the statements were still more likely to agree with the moral stance of the statement they did read than with the opposite stance. This indicates that participants may have underestimated the influence of ChatGPT's statements on their own moral judgments. 微信公众号IAI English

The authors suggest that the potential for chatbots to influence human moral judgments highlights the need for education to help humans better understand artificial intelligence. They propose that future research should design chabots that either decline to answer questions requiring a moral judgment or answer these questions by providing multiple arguments and warnings.