Will the internet, robotics and artificial intelligence mean a ‘jobless future’? A recent narrative, endorsed by tech-billionaires, says we face mass unemployment, and we need a basic income. In contrast, this article shows why the law can achieve full employment with fair incomes, and holidays with pay. Universal human rights, including the right to ‘share in scientific advancement and its benefits’, set the proper guiding principles. Three distinct views of the causes of unemployment are that it is a ‘natural’ phenomenon, that technology may propel it, or that it is social and legal choice: to let capital owners restrict investment in jobs. Only the third view has any credible evidence to support it. Technology may create redundancies, but unemployment is a purely social phenomenon. After World War Two, 42% of UK jobs were redundant but social policy maintained full employment. This said, transition to new technology, when markets are left alone, can be exceedingly slow: a staggering 88% of American horses lost their jobs after the Model T Ford, but only over 45 years. Both the global financial crisis from 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 illustrate the importance of social and legal policy, and suggest it is time to learn. Taking lessons from history, it is clear that unemployment is driven by inequality of wealth and of votes in the economy. To uphold human rights, governments should reprogramme the law, for full employment, fair incomes and more leisure, on a living planet. Robot owners will not automate your job away, if we defend economic democracy. Today’s technology enables us to make a paradise on Earth, where scarcity and poverty will be forgotten, and yet we remain consumed by visions of dystopia. As inequality has become more extreme, a busload of billionaires own more wealth than half the planet,This narrative runs contrary to the often forgotten universal human right to ‘share in scientific advancement and its benefits’,Animal Farm soon knew,This article explores how legal policy can create full employment and fair incomes, not just mass unemployment and basic incomes. Part 2 discusses three main views of the causes of unemployment. One says unemployment is ‘natural’, and full employment will accelerate inflation. There was never any credible evidence to support this view. A second view says that technology can and does drive unemployment. But it has become acutely clear that, even leaving aside the profound methodological flaws behind this theory, both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate that social and legal policy can handle mass shocks, whether based on tech or anything else. A third view, less discussed outside times of crisis,Full Employment in a Free Society ensured that even such massive shocks were contained.We cannot know the future, but we can learn from the past. Part 3 explores five periods of history where technology affected social relations, and the lessons that can be drawn. First, enclosures for sheep (maybe the first disruptive ‘app’) and the textile industry drove Luddite and Swing riots in Britain. This showed that when people are excluded from technology’s benefits, paid for by their labour, it causes unrest. Second, after WW2, demobilisation in the UK meant 42% of all workers, from armies to munitions factories, were redundant and had to move to civil production. The change was rapid, vast, and far more complex than automation. After post-WW1 chaos careful thought about Third, mass produced motors did mean mass redundancies: of horses. In the USA, a staggering 88% of horses lost their jobs, but only over 45 years. While driverless vehicles have rightly become a symbol of concern surrounding automation, human beings will not share the fate of horses, so long as humans, unlike horses, write laws. Yet this shows even if technological change is possible and profitable, free markets can be very slow. Fourth, the humble washing machine was a revolutionary technology, saving labour, improving gender equality. If people internalise the gains of automation, human development advances rapidly. Fifth, while artificial intelligence is remarkable, the evidence suggests computers will not develop cognitive functions.Unemployment is a purely social and legal phenomenon, yet our history and the evidence makes it clear that technological change can mean redundancies. So part 4 asks, does the law enable everyone to share fairly in technology’s gains? The answer is ‘not yet’. We can and should ‘reprogramme’ the law to uphold universal human rights, including the rights to work, to fair wages and to social security. First, the benefits of science and technology can be shared, with ‘just and favourable remuneration’ for everyone, by democratising the economy: guaranteeing the right to vote at work, in diversified capital funds (not concentrated share schemes), and in public services. Second, the law can guarantee universal social security for people who do not have traditional employment. A ‘universal basic income’ is a powerful idea that could fill gaps in the social security system, but it must not, like the disastrous Speenhamland system in the 19th century, subsidise poverty-pay employers. Third, the law can guarantee the right to work in cities and all regions and at the same time expand paid holidays by making corporate owners (not robots) pay their fair share of tax. These rights work together: they are indivisible. Part 5 concludes that robots will not automate your job away, if we defend economic democracy.Before discussing technology’s impact on jobs and how to respond to automation, it makes sense to engage the debate on unemployment’s causes in the 20th century. Political discourse often does the subject little credit. In one corner, it is often said the unemployed are responsible for unemployment, because they are lazy.all inflation (not just wage rises) accelerates with full employment. For Friedman, this justified using monetary policy only to concentrate on price stability, apparently unconnected to full employment, and to undo all labour rights.A first main view, dominant in the late 20th century, is that unemployment has a ‘natural’ rate, worsened by labour or social rights. In 1967, as President of the American Economic Association, Milton Friedman argued the ‘natural’ rate was something that no government’s monetary or fiscal policy could sustainably reduce. Unemployment ‘can be kept below the “natural” rate only by accelerating inflation’.Road to Serfdom in mind,Friedman’s theory was not new.Among their followers, Friedman and Hayek seemed vindicated when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries unilaterally raised oil prices in 1973. The immediate trigger of the OPEC crisis was the Yom Kippur War, in the long and desperately sad Arab–Israeli conflict. Arab countries had attacked Israel in retaliation for Israel’s Six Day War in 1967. The US government sided with Israel. Arab oil producers raised their prices. As oil cost more, oil-dependent economies had less money to invest. As the costs were distributed through the market, there was stagnation, and few ways to avoid inflation: ‘stagflation’. Government practice had been to offset volatility in private and international investment with more spending. But now this policy had a price tag nobody could avoid. Despite being inflicted by despots,But why when employment began to recover in 1977, did it stay so high in the 1980s and 90s? Unemployment in the UK reached 12.9% in 1983, and by 2020 barely went lower than 4%. The days of 1 to 2%, and full employment on fair wages without under-employment, seemed to be lost.In 1977, Friedman developed his argument at a Bank of Sweden prize lecture, without evidence. Why were unemployment and inflation rising together? He said ‘there is no stable trade-off between inflation and unemployment’, but a natural rate of unemployment existed, consistent with real prices and ‘perceptions’.The ‘reality’ was that Friedman and Hayek’s theory was always evidence-free: a theory that held unless it did not. Clear in 1977,Many economists did oppose natural rate theory. In 1980, Shaun Hargreaves Heap explained that on its own logic the greater danger was to overshoot the (unknowable) natural unemployment rate: this would entrench higher unemployment, because people who are out of a job for a long time find it increasingly difficult to get back into work.Review of Economic Studies, introduced by Richard Layard,But better theories did not stop NAIRU economics,NAIRU economics was starting to manifest itself in laws on central bank goals, ‘workfare’ and a push toward ‘flexible’ labour markets. Written into the Bank of England Act 1998, and the Treaties underpinning the European Central Bank, was the goal of ‘price stability’ (not exactly ‘zero’ or ‘low inflation’). This seemed to be interpreted by bank economists as more important than ‘full employment’.This said, in 1997, Stephen Nickell admitted that ‘there is no evidence in our data that high labour standards overall have any impact on unemployment whatever’.Critically, the original NAIRU argument (governments seeking full employment would accelerate inflation) was quietly segregated or forgotten.This chart shows that from 1952 to 2020, Democrats always left the White House with unemployment lower: down 12% overall. Republicans always left the White House worse: up 14% overall, even without including Trump and COVID-19. The chart also calculates that, by including mass incarceration, the effective unemployment rate was at least 1.3% higher than the recorded rate in recent decades.The Economic Possibilities of our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes argued that society was being afflicted by ‘technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour’.A second view of unemployment is it results from technology. In 1930, in Animal Farm how the animals ‘listened in astonishment’ to how ‘fantastic machines…would do their work for them while they grazed at their ease in the fields or improved their minds with reading and conversation’.Keynes was certainly not alone in seeing technology as a problem but also an opportunity. Joseph Schumpeter wrote in 1942 that new technologies were like a ‘perennial gale of creative destruction’.The End of Work, Jeremy Rifkin argued one of the great, unspoken tragedies of the American labour force had been mechanisation in agriculture.In stark contrast, a view spread recently that ‘technological unemployment’ could be permanent. In 1995, in What is truly surprising, especially given the authors’ social democratic views,(Kurzarbeit).The narratives of Rifkin, Brynjolfsson and McAfee are less troubling than recent tech predictions. In 2013, Frey and Osborne argued that ‘47 per cent of total US employment’ was ‘potentially’ at risk from automation in a working paper abstract.The Canterbury Tales in 1387, it would appear that there has been a mere 46% redundancy rate for Geoffrey Chaucer’s characters , and progressive reduction of everyone’s hours of labour over the long term.was maintained by political consensus in the UK, as it was in Australia, Japan or Germany.are paid for, the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the low cost once more. By October 2020, under the UK government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, just £43 billion was needed to pay 80% of the wages for 8.8 million people at its peak, about 5% of the UK annual budget.But after World War Two (WW2), full employment The weakness in theories that have emphasised law’s role in the supply of capital for jobs is the prominence given to government to guarantee investment. Kalecki already feared that a government hostile to the effect of full employment on labour relations would scrap it all.We cannot know the future of technology’s impact on jobs, but we can learn from the past. The best lessons for what to do are times of significant historical change. Five are most instructive: (1) the shifts from agriculture to wool and mechanised textiles, (2) the massive post-war demobilisations, (3) the impact of motor vehicles on horses, (4) the washing machine and (5) computerisation and AI. History shows that technology improves lives, if people organise thoughtful social policy in response.A first lesson starts with the displacement of agricultural labour in Reformation England. It shows how people react if they cannot share in technology’s gains. By 1516, a disruptive, even devastating ‘technology’ had multiplied the value of land as never seen before. ‘Sheep’, wrote Sir Thomas More,have now apparently developed a raging appetite, and turned into man-eaters….Each greedy individual preys on his native land like a malignant growth, absorbing field after field, and enclosing thousands of acres with a single fence. Result—hundreds of farmers are evicted. They’re either cheated or bullied into giving up their property, or systematically ill-treated until they’re finally forced to sell…men and women, husbands and wives, widows and orphans, mothers and tiny children….you can’t run a farm without plenty of manpower.The sheep—or more specifically, wool—market, wrote More, was ‘almost entirely under the control of a few rich men, who don’t need to sell unless they feel like it, and never do feel like it until they can get the price they want’. Worse, this led to a ‘great army of unemployed’, and turned people ‘into beggars or thieves’.With wool market expansion, in 1589 an inventor named William Lee created the first mechanical knitting machine. Queen Elizabeth I refused Lee a patent, fearing stocking workers would become redundant. She asked him to invent something for silk instead.Unrest continued for decades, as real wages stalled and fell. It was not merely that people’s incomes convulsed with the wild paroxysms of agricultural prices. Especially from 1747, and again from 1795, long-term down-swings in wages were punishing, recurring until the labour movement formed .157and the working poor, should get relief because grain prices had risen (again).Did wages decline because of technology in the Industrial Revolution? No. Law caused the decline. First, the Master and Servant Act 1747 wrought a massive extension to all classes of workers of punishments for leaving employment, and for ‘justices of the peace’ to cap, fix and repress wages.Taff Vale case, the formation and electoral success of the Labour Party, and the Trade Disputes Act 1906, that the right to collective action was secure. But this episode of history shows, when they do not share in the benefits of technology, people revolt and resist. Eventually, they organise.Slow change began in 1834, when a group of agricultural labourers in Tolpuddle, Dorset, were sentenced to transportation for making ‘unlawful oaths’. They had formed a union.A second lesson of history comes from demobilisation after WW1 and WW2. Unlike most wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, total war, with conscription, employed a large minority of the population directly. As the chart in part 2(A) showed, demobilisation in the UK after WW1 led to soaring unemployment, near 18% by 1922. The norm lurched above 10% until the rearmament for WW2. It was chaos, with all the ‘dimensions of a calamity’ and British labour fought before it accepted ‘a reduction of its standard of living’.The United States fared better, partly because of its sheer size and shorter involvement in the war, partly because a million men were employed on public works in 1919. But as This was because Social Democrats passed laws preventing dismissal without good reason, involving unions and elected work councils, and organised labour exchanges.Employment Policy of 1944 committed to full employment. In June 1945, the UK had total workforce of 21.5 million men and women, with 5.219 million in the military, and 3.837 million producing for the military.After WW2, both UK and US governments would not allow a repeat. As part 2(C) explained, the UK government’s White Paper, The counterpart plan in the USA involved three major Acts. First, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or the ‘GI Bill’, funded retraining and education fees for veterans.The real lesson from demobilisation is that, with concerted action, even the massive shock of 42% unemployment in the UK, and similar figures elsewhere, were swiftly contained. Demobilisation was an infinitely greater challenge, in size and social complexity, than any credible prediction about the effect of automation. Hundreds of thousands of people were disabled as a result of war, physically and psychologically. Entire economies had to shift, not over decades as technology was rolled out, but at the instant of armistice, to ‘win the peace’. There was nothing that labour law, dismissal protection, redeployment rights, and full employment, could not accomplish. As the Universal Declaration said, this was the true meaning of the ‘right to work’.Although social policy can ensure massive shocks to employment are contained, a third lesson of history is that technology’s replacement of labour, even if total, can be slow. In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler patented an internal combustion engine for a motorbike. In 1886, Karl Benz patented the first motor car in Germany. Their engines ran on petroleum gasoline, refined from oil, a resource whose mass extraction was equally recent.Yale Law Journal that for ‘park and other pleasure driving’ when cars ‘cease to be a fashionable fad, the public will probably return to carriage and horses’.Many could not accept the inevitable. In 1908, Mr H.B. Brown wrote in the Yet the lesson is that, even though a new technology made an old one obsolete, the transition with matters left mainly to the market took 45 years . FactorsDriverless vehicles and jobless drivers have become a central image in automation discourse. So it is worth asking, will people be as jobless with robots, as horses were jobless with cars? The answer is almost certainly ‘no’. First, as Rapid transition to automated work is both desirable and necessary. For example, in 2015 the deaths from avoidable traffic collisions totalled 84,589 in Europe, 34,064 in the USA, 238,562 in India, 261,367 in China, and 1.25 million across the world.History’s fourth lesson is technology drives human development most when people internalise the gains. If motor vehicles were a significant technology rolling out before WW1, the washing machine was the equivalent rolling around before WW2. In 2010, Hans Rosling described the washing machine as being like ‘magic’, a ‘miracle’ for human development.Even though washing machines began to be mass produced in the 1940s, distribution took time, and remains a question of development. From the 1950s, Katharine French-Fuller recounted how in Chile ‘every week all year long—every week without fail—there was washday….The clothes would be scrubbed…by a woman bending over the tub’.To advance gender equality,Back to the Future: Part II said that we would see a flying skateboard by 21 October 2015. Of course, this was fiction. But how different is the marketing hype on hyperloops or ‘personal air vehicles’? Similarly, in 1991, a James Cameron film projected on 29 August 1997 computers would become self-aware, launch a nuclear war against human beings and develop a robot army to eradicate the rest.End of Work? Indeed, the net effect of computers appears to have been an increase in employment, not an ‘end’.A fifth lesson of history is also one of the future. Science fiction is filled with optimistic and apocalyptic predictions. In 1989, When it comes to the replaceability of human labour, particularly cognitive work, it is true that computational power exceeds human beings in strength and speed. However, it is important to distinguish the various euphemisms behind ‘machine learning’, ‘deep learning’ and ‘artificial intelligence’. ‘Machine learning’ is ‘the properties of an algorithm—a series of mathematical instructions’ in software that enables parameters to change based on repeated exposure to data ‘without being explicitly programmed’.A computer is not learning. It is computing.While it is desirable that ‘machine learning’ develops, the philosophy of language shows why AI may not achieve the unique qualities of the human mind. With Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, believed language could be reduced to its ‘atomic’ components. Once the underlying logical form of any statement was analysed, they thought, its truth or falsehood could be ascertained.While history shows that technology can improve jobs and lives with the right social policy, ‘technological redundancy’  does exist. This leads to the essential question: does the law sufficiently guarantee full employment on fair incomes, not mass unemployment on basic incomes? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 27 also enshrines the right of everyone ‘to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’.Before expanding, the oft-forgotten right to share in science’s benefits needs a brief explanation. According to an expert group convened by UNESCO in 2009, ‘this right is inextricably linked…to other rights, such as to a clean environment, education, information, labour rights, social security, sustainable development, water, where access to science is an implicit requirement for their full enjoyment’. Member states have positive obligations to ‘adopt a legal and policy framework to establish institutions to promote the development and diffusion of science and technology in a manner consistent with fundamental human rights’.To address the distribution of technology’s gains, including the impact on work, there are currently three main groups of proposal. First, Richard Freeman and others argue we should enable more people to ‘own the robots’, and argues that more employee share schemes are the way to do this.The rights to ‘just and favourable remuneration’, and to ‘share in scientific advancement and its benefits’ are enshrined in international law, but the mechanisms to achieve them are not. Part of the process is the right to join trade unions and take action,The basic problem is that within the corporate form, votes for corporate directors are held mostly by shareholders. In turn, it is crucial to understand that shareholder voting rights are monopolised by asset managers and banks, following the decline of individual share ownership, and the rise of institutional owners. Firms in the City, La Défense, Frankfurt or Wall Street invest money on behalf of people mostly saving for retirement, usually workers saving in pensions, life insurance or mutual funds. But these ultimate investors of capital are excluded from meaningful influence. For instance, in the USA, the three largest asset manager firms—BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard—if combined would be the largest shareholder in 438 of the S&P 500 largest corporations.Economic democracy means the right to vote, along with the right of people to unionise, collectively bargain and take action on a sectoral basis in relation to all employing entities.Economic democracy, with votes at work, votes in capita and votes in public services, changes investment and distribution decisions. When company directors account to working people, this limits the incentive to restrict investment in jobs and hoard capital. With votes at work,An alternative proposal of Richard Freeman and others is employee share schemes. This takes the view that if we ‘own the robots’ we could live in a more equal society, and the risk of mass unemployment would go. Freeman argues for ‘employee ownership’ through the mechanism of trusts, stock options and profit sharing schemes, which is said to be like John Lewis, Mondragon or Google.The universal right of everyone ‘as a member of society…to social security’ explicitly covers several elements of a welfare state, when people do not earn wages through a traditional employee-employer contract. In 1948, this highlighted ‘unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age’.By contrast, many social security systems leave people on income subsistence, and have major gaps, when the loss of a job, disability or old age is not their fault.However, some basic income proposals are liable, without articulating details, to undermine other human rights, particularly plans that do not explain the tax source, or plans to replace (not complement) social security and labour rights. No universal income plan must act, as the Speenhamland disaster was shown to in part 3(A), to subsidise exploitative employers or landlords because this diminishes bargaining power and pay of all workers. It cannot be necessary for universality to make transfer payments to people who already pay income tax. To be taxed only to receive a sum back makes no sense. In countries like the USA where political democracy has been under sustained attack by the judiciary and corporate interests,only credible proposals) understand in detail behavioural psychology, tax and welfare law.The credible forms of basic income proposal (indeed, the The ‘right to work’ and ‘holidays with pay’ are indivisible from the rights to ‘just and favourable’ pay, to share technology’s benefits and to social security. As society grows wealthier, there is a well established expectation, recognised in the European Social Charter 1961, for the ‘working week to be progressively reduced to the extent that the increase of productivity and other relevant factors permit’.The problem today is that unemployment and poverty are unacceptably high, while under-employment and inequality are growing. In many countries, working hours have increased and the retirement age has been raised. Like unfair wages, this distribution of work and leisure is a symptom of the benefits of science not being fairly shared, and substantially results from the anti-democratic nature of the economy. Far from a world, imagined by Keynes or Orwell, where the robots could work for us, all too often humans are turned into resources, and people become cogs in the machine. Worse than robots replacing people’s jobs, often it feels as if people themselves are being made into robots.While collective bargaining and votes in the economy should lead the way in fair labour standards, minimum standards must be set by law, to foreclose unfair competition. Working time must be progressively reduced: the next logical steps are a three-day weekend, more holidays, expansion of child care, more years in education, and freezing or reducing the retirement age. While economic democratisation will limit the incentive of corporations to restrict investment in jobs and hoard capital, corporate profits also need to be taxed to encourage investment, not hoarding.An alternative view, in a paper from the Obama White House, advocated policies of investing in artificial intelligence, educating and training for the ‘jobs of the future’ and to ‘aid workers in the transition’.The promises of technology are astounding, and deliver humankind the capacity to live in a way that nobody could have once imagined. The industrial revolution of the 19th century brought people past subsistence agriculture. It became possible to live, not just from hand to mouth, bonded to lords and masters, but to win freedom from servitude through solidarity. The corporate revolution of the 20th century enabled mass production and social distribution of wealth, for human and democratic development across the globe. A third economic revolution has often been pronounced or predicted, but it will not only be one of technology. The next revolution will be social. It must be universal. Universal prosperity with democracy and social justice, on a living planet, is achievable not in centuries, but in years and decades. It did not begin with technology, but with education.


HIV disproportionately affects young men who have sex with men (YMSM) in the United States. Uptake of evidence-based prevention strategies, including routine HIV testing and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), is suboptimal in this population. Novel methods for reaching YMSM are required.The aim of this study is to describe the development and evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the MyChoices app, a mobile app designed to increase HIV testing and PrEP use among YMSM in the United States.beta theater testing was conducted in two US cities to garner feedback . These findings were used to refine MyChoices, which was then tested for initial acceptability and usability in a technical pilot (N=11 YMSM). Baseline and 2-month postbaseline assessments and exit interviews were completed. Transcripts were coded using a deductive approach, and thematic analysis was used to synthesize data; app acceptability and use data were also reported.Informed by the social cognitive theory, the MyChoices app was developed using an iterative process to increase HIV testing and PrEP uptake among YMSM. In 2017, look and feel of the app and believed that the ability to search for and be pinged when near an HIV testing site would be beneficial. Some suggested that portions of the app felt repetitive and preferred using casual language rather than formal or medicalized terms. Following theater testing, the MyChoices app was refined, and participants in the technical pilot used the app, on average, 8  times over 2 months, with an average duration of 28 (SD 38.9) minutes per session. At the 2-month follow-up, the mean System Usability Scale (0-100) score was 71 . Over 80% (9/11) of the participants reported that MyChoices was useful and 91% (10/11) said that they would recommend it to a friend. In exit interviews, there was a high level of acceptability for the content, interface, and features.The MyChoices app includes personalized recommendations for HIV testing frequency and PrEP use; information on types of HIV tests and PrEP; ability to search for nearby HIV testing and PrEP care sites; and ability to order free home HIV and sexually transmitted infection test kits, condoms, and lube. In theater testing, YMSM described that MyChoices appears useful and that they would recommend it to peers. Participants liked the These data show the initial acceptability and user engagement of the MyChoices app. If future studies demonstrate efficacy in increasing HIV testing and PrEP uptake, the app is scalable to reach YMSM across the United States.Clinicaltrials.gov NCT03179319; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03179319RR2-10.2196/10694 HIV incidence remains high in the United States among young men who have sex with men (YMSM). In 2018, more than 20% of new HIV infections in the United States were among young people aged between 13 years and 24 years, with YMSM accounting for 83% of newly diagnosed HIV infections in this age group . ConsequOverwhelming evidence shows that routine HIV testing and expanded use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) would drastically reduce the population burden of HIV -13; howeRisk taking, behavioral experimentation, and confronting a host of difficult choices regarding identity formation are all part of the normal developmental trajectory of adolescence and young adulthood . In addimeet youth where they are  information and easier ways to access different locations and information is great, you know, because a lot of us aren’t as educated on these topics and aren’t—don’t have these resources. And using the Internet, it’s way harder to access the information just by looking it up on Bing or Google than, you know, the app just gives it to you, you know?...It definitely gives you a lot of information that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.Afro-Latinx, bisexual, age 20 years, the BronxParticipants identified a number of features that they believed would be most useful, including the ability to order free HIV or STI test kits, condoms, and lubricant; being able to create personalized HIV testing plans with the location finder; and being able to ask questions to a health professional through the app:I would say that this is the most immediately pertinent thing for me that I’ve seen in the app so far. I think that it’s really important to have a plan when it comes to getting tested and to know, like have a schedule and things like that.Specific identity unknownThe map features are working well here...when it’s full screen I really like it. I love using maps for everything in my life. And I love seeing like where I am and where I could go.White, queer, age 22 years, Bostonlook and feel of the app, noting that it was nondescript enough to sufficiently maintain privacy:Many participants liked the You don’t want it [the app] to be something that someone just scrolling through your homepages will be like, “Oh, that’s what that is.” [an HIV prevention app] It [the app] doesn’t really show that particularly.White, gay, age 24 years, BostonParticipants appreciated the wide range of media types, including colorful icons, GIFs, videos, and text. One participant described a GIF related to accessing PrEP:I feel like they're great animations to, you know—it simplifies what it actually is. It’s showing you what you're doing. Like, the individual, it shows you coming from your house, going to the doctor’s office and then, you know, talking to the doctor.Afro-Latinx/Asian, age 23 years, the Bronxbasic:However, others expressed that the colors and format made the app appear I think it looks sort of basic and plain. Particularly maybe just because of the white background...It makes it look a bit sort of less mature like this and less formal. Which is perhaps not the vibe I’d look for in a health app.Asian, gay, age 21 years, BostonSome participants suggested that portions of the app felt repetitive and could be better streamlined and organized:I think there are too many icons. Because I tapped the “my activity” button and that led me to ordering condoms. So I think if the choices were more simplified, I think I would understand a little bit more about what I can do with the app.White, gay, age 21 years, BostonConversely, others felt that obtaining similar information in a variety of different ways was helpful and a strength of the MyChoices app:I think that it’s good to kind of have like a no wrong door approach to it where you can get to it in a variety of ways.White, gay, age 20 years, BostonSome participants felt that the language used was appropriate and made them trust the source:And, yeah, I just think overall like it was actually really medically-driven too which I like that. It kept it very professional.Latinx, pansexual, age 18 years, the BronxHowever, others felt that the language used to present the information was too academic and included too much science jargon:Just, I have a part about comfortability. I think I want to feel comfortable when I'm using it...This is just something friendly, it’s supposed to be a guide or resource. It’s not supposed to scare me or freak me out.Black, queer, age 19 years, the BronxParticipants appreciated the places in the app that allowed them to personalize the language so that they could decide what type of language—more or less direct, more or less casual—suited them personally. They also felt that personalization of the language also protects against privacy and confidentiality concerns because you “can put whatever you want”:But the on screen notification is cool. I mean, it’s gonna be more options. It depends. Everybody’s different, so everybody has a different preference to what they, how they like to be notified.Afro-Latinx/Asian, age 23 years, the BronxIn addition to feedback on the current MyChoices prototype, participants provided suggestions on additional content and functions that might enhance the acceptability and utility of the app. One participant suggested including a section on how to talk to your partner about PrEP:I think that another resource that would be helpful on this page would also be talking to your partners about PrEP...If you’re having sex with multiple partners regularly then it might something to be like how to tell your partner that you are on PrEP. Or how to possibly suggest to a partner that going on PrEP might be a good option.White, gay, age 24 years, BostonParticipants also felt that getting tested for HIV, and even talking about HIV, can produce a lot of anxiety and that the app could include more information about what to do if you do get a reactive test to assuage some of those fears:...there should be something in there, like a section that should say, “Oh, if you do have it [HIV],” resources about that, about going to get help, like, there would be something that could help you get that.Afro-Latinx, gay, age 20 years, the BronxSimilarly, participants described their belief that many young people were still misinformed and lacked adequate knowledge about HIV. As such, they suggested including more basic information about HIV in the app:...If we want to make this really accessible and make sexual health like an accessible topic, you sort of need to go back to basics, and be like, “Here is what HIV is, here’s what happens, here’s what it is not, here’s how to treat it.” And that sort of basic information, I think would really helpful to keep people going back to, “This taught me a lot,” you know.White, gay, age 19 years, Bostondue for an HIV test according to their created test plan. Participants were excited about this option, saying “that’s pretty cool” and “that’s a cool feature.”In addition to new content, participants included suggestions for new features. For example, we described a potential feature that would use geofencing to notify a user when they are near an HIV testing location and they are Participants also suggested additional tools for interacting with health professionals, including allowing HIV testing sites to provide results directly through the app:Part of me wished that if – so let’s say, you got tested from [Health Center] and there was a way [Health Center] could coordinate so that your results just like pop-up in the app, like you don’t have to put it manually and that is like your way of receiving them, too. So it is all in one place and you don’t do it manually...And they just like get a push notification like, “Your results are in!” And that’s like – you go in and you just like find out that way.White, gay, age 21 years, BostonParticipants also appreciated information about postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) but felt that the need for immediate action warrants easier access to this information:It would’ve been great if like within this app there is like an, “I’ve just had unprotected sex. What do I do?” You know, because I think for it to come up only in the part about PEP is like, you know – or for it to be like the check-in and then, oh, in the past 72 hours, what if it has been like more than that 90 hours or something, because I didn’t like really, you know, have that time to like be checking a quiz.Black, gay, age 20 years, BostonNeed PEP?! button that is available at the bottom of every screen on the app to directly connect participants with information about PEP and locations where it is available, (3) additional videos to demonstrate how to use the home testing kits, and (4) emails that are sent to users after downloading the app to introduce them to key features that they may have otherwise missed. Some suggestions made by participants were unable to be implemented into the app, although they were noted as potential ways to enhance future iterations, including receiving test results from clinics through the app, adding a real-time chat feature, syncing reminders with phone calendars, and being able to schedule HIV testing or PrEP appointments through the app.As noted earlier, the participants saw the value in the content and functionalities of the MyChoices app. They believed that the suggestions that came from brief quizzes were useful, that the testing plan would be helpful to encourage regular testing, that the PrEP information was instructive, and that being able to order HIV or STI test kits and safer sex supplies would be beneficial. However, participants also provided suggestions on how to build on and improve some of these components. As a result of these suggestions, before initiating the technical pilot, we refined some of the language in the app, updated GIFs and icons, and streamlined the flow through the app. Moreover, we expanded app functionalities to include (1) a geolocator function that pings individuals when they are near a testing site and due for HIV testing based on their personalized testing plan, (2) the The open pilot enrolled 11 participants , and retention at the 2-month follow-up was 100%. Participants’ ages ranged from 15 years to 23 years, with a median age of 19 years. YMSM of color made up 91% (10/11) of the sample  over 2 months, with an average duration of 28 minutes per session (SD 38.9). Across all participants, the cumulative time spent in the app ranged from 1.8 minutes to 20.5 hours, with an average of 4 hours and 39 minutes (SD 7 hours). All participants used the test plan feature , and nearly all participants  used MyChoices to order HIV or STI self-testing kits and safer sex supplies . Most participants  used the app to locate HIV or STI testing centers or PrEP providers , and 4 participants  accessed the FAQ feature of the app to access information about HIV prevention and PrEP .At the 2-month follow-up, the mean SUS (0-100) score was 71 (SD 11.8), which is considered above average. Almost all participants  agreed that MyChoices was useful, 73% (8/11) were very satisfied with MyChoices, and 91% (10/11) said that they would recommend it to a friend who needed help with getting HIV tests or accessing PrEP. Nearly all participants  reported that they would be very likely , likely , or somewhat likely  to use the MyChoices app if it were to become publicly available. The utility of MyChoices for HIV testing and PrEP was also highly rated .The most highly rated features of the MyChoices app in terms of helpfulness were the ability to order self-testing kits and safer sex supplies , PrEP information , HIV or STI and PrEP locator , and personalized testing plans . Less helpful features were the check-in quizzes  and testing reminders . Finally, participants agreed that the MyChoices app had a beneficial impact on their lives in the following ways: getting tested and knowing their HIV status  improved their understanding of the risk of HIV , feeling good about helping others or community , getting access to medical care , receiving assistance for getting on PrEP , and improving personal relationships .All 11 participants completed follow-up exit interviews. Overall, there was a high level of acceptability of the content, interface, and features. Participants commented on the relevant information presented in the app, one participant noting that “[they] learned a lot about PEP and PrEP” and noted that the app facilitated their scheduling a PrEP counseling appointment with their primary care provider. Another participant noted that they “didn’t know anything about [PrEP] until [they] used the app.” Furthermore, the feature to schedule PrEP appointments “was the best part for [them]” because “it shows you, like, you are and, like, the different centers, testing centers around you, the different communities around you.” The participant endorsed how the app helped him feel more connected to the community where they lived. Another participant highlighted how the app provided him with helpful information about health clinics in his area, of which he was unaware despite living in the neighborhood “a good portion of [his] life.”myth busting section in the app to offset false information spread on the web about sexual health. A few participants also noted that some of the information in the app remains repetitive. One participant suggested defining PrEP differently in different areas of the app to reduce repetition and to mitigate a potential lack of understanding of health information.Participants also provided suggestions to improve the app and provided specific feedback on additional resources and features that they found interesting and potentially helpful. One participant suggested including a This study describes the findings from two phases of formative data collection  to create a mobile app to increase HIV testing and PrEP uptake among young MSM in the United States. HIV prevention apps are proliferating; however, using evidence-based methods for intervention development, including community-centered approaches with iterative feedback from the community, is essential to maximize their impact and reach ,49, and In the context of previously reported findings about preferences for mobile HIV prevention apps in young people, our findings support and extend previous reports by providing a sample including a higher proportion of teenage participants, confirming some aspects of previous reports, and documenting some novel findings. Like others -52, we fTheater testing revealed high levels of interest in the content provided through MyChoices, with youth indicating that the availability of this type of information is both lacking and necessary. Although youth have access to huge amounts of health information through the internet and report using the internet frequently to access this type of information ,56, theyIn addition to the content, the features of the MyChoices app were also broadly seen as favorable and useful. In both theater testing and the technical pilot, the most popular features included ordering free HIV and STI self-testing kits, condoms, and lube; ability to search for nearby HIV testing and PrEP care sites; and PrEP information provided in multiple formats . This suggests that YMSM are open to accessing multiple means of HIV prevention support and that providing a large toolbox of HIV prevention options using diverse modalities is essential for reaching this group at the highest risk for HIV acquisition .formal, as it was viewed as more trustworthy and legitimate. However, others felt that the interface was bland and potentially even anxiety producing and that more casual language would render the app more relatable. This dichotomy highlights the ongoing difficulty in developing an app that aims to reach large populations; although YMSM in the United States are a subpopulation of a larger group, they are not a monolith and will have diverse needs and preferences [Although there was consensus on the importance of the content and utility of the features of MyChoices, there was a wide range of views on preferences for the user interface. Some participants appreciated that the language and presentation of information was more ferences -62. In aferences ,64.These results should be interpreted in light of the following limitations. First, the technical pilot was small and used a nonrandomized design, and as a result, it was not powered or designed to evaluate efficacy. Sample sizes for technical pilots are often determined based on practical considerations rather than inferential statistical power calculations . Still, HIV incidence in the United States remains disproportionately high among YMSM, compared with other risk and demographic groups. YMSM are also less likely than their adult peers to know that they are infected with HIV, highlighting an imminent need to increase routine HIV testing and expand access to HIV prevention interventions, including PrEP. Smartphone use is ubiquitous in the United States, and mobile apps offer an opportunity to reach YMSM “where they’re at.” mHealth apps have proliferated in recent years; however, only a limited number have been theory-driven and developed using evidence-based methods for intervention development. These data from theater testing and a technical pilot show the initial promise, feasibility, and acceptability of the MyChoices app to improve HIV testing and PrEP uptake among YMSM in the United States. The next step involves further pilot testing using an RCT design to determine more accurate effect size estimates; a full-scale RCT efficacy trial; and ultimately, if efficacious, an implementation study to ensure it is disseminated in such a way that maximizes its reach and utility. At each step, iterative evaluation and refinement based on the reflections and experiences of YMSM will be prioritized.


Furtheret al. are not the first to critique the biological species concept (BSC), which has survived an onslaught of attacks from many fronts. What is the biological species concept? And what is the new critique about? In this commentary, I briefly cover the history of ideas about biological species, then discuss current work that depends on rich, genome-scale sequence data, before attempting to resolve issues.Wang The term ‘biological species concept’ (BSC) was coined originally by Ernst Mayr, building on Dobzhansky's ideas of reproductive isolation  during tAssociated with these views there exists a related set of ideas that species are more ‘real’ in some way than lower taxa such as geographic races, or higher taxa such as genera: ‘The evolutionary significance of species is now quite clear. … The species are the real units of evolution, as the temporary incarnation of harmonious, well-integrated gene complexes’ Although the resultant BSC is a very successful and useful-seeming meme, the idea that species are best defined as reproductively isolated units was not without critics. An underlying theme was that the sharp discontinuities built into the BSC conflicted with the idea of speciation as a gradual, emergent Darwinian process. Mayr clearly recognized this: in fact, as we have seen, he believed that gene flow and the lack of reproductive isolation among populations hindered evolutionary progress and prevented speciation. In his view, speciation was ‘complete’ when there was a complete absence of successful gene flow . In a sMayr's solution to this difficulty was the proposition that populations would normally diverge into separate species while geographically isolated, in ‘allopatry’ . Howeverσ/√s, where σ represents gene flow distance, and s represents the strength of divergent selection on a gene. Therefore, populations will diverge, even under relatively weak selection (say s ∼ 0.01), on a local spatial scale of a only handful of gene flow distances [A major issue with the BSC concerns its supposed role in evolution. Ehrlich and Raven  pointed istances ,15.The BSC appears to depend on a rather binary view of reproductive isolation , it is not operational in taxonomy, especially for far-flung local populations not in contact, where under Mayr's rubric, one would need to assess whether the populations were ‘potentially interbreeding.’ Sokal and Crovello  ‘having Others found different problems. Oak species had been long recognized, but many hybrids were also known to exist naturally. In spite of gene flow, distinct ecologically associated lineages, or species, of oak trees remain identifiable, presumably due to divergent ecological niches. Ecological divergence, rather than reproductive isolation, defined such species .Hugh Paterson pointed out that protection of species from introgression as a function of isolating mechanisms under the BSC was an unlikely and anti-Darwinian idea: natural selection tends to safeguard the individual's interests, not those of its population or species. Species, Paterson suggested, should be defined by mate recognition within species, and not via protection from invasion by other species ,19. We mIf species evolve from geographic populations, then they should often pass through earlier phases deemed by Ernst Mayr and others under the BSC to be geographical subspecies. However, many named subspecies have unique trait combinations. Cracraft suggested that these ‘tips’ of the phylogenetic tree should be classified as separate species . In his The fact that many nominal species, especially in plants such as oak trees, engaged in frequent hybridization (‘too much sex’) and that other species were asexual (‘too little sex’), and yet were still classified as species led to the idea that factors other than reproductive isolation combined to cause the cohesion of species, in Templeton's ‘cohesion species concept.’ Ecological factors and even genealogical relationships that help maintain separate species status were included as mechanisms of cohesion in addition to classical reproductive isolation ,22. And In spite of all these criticisms, many of today's evolutionary biologists still maintain that the BSC is a reasonable definition of species. Of course, ‘reproductive isolation,’ today often called ‘reproductive barriers,’ does in a sense play a role in keeping taxa that we call species apart. Therefore, to understand speciation in sexual species seems to require investigating something like reproductive isolation so that a pair of taxa can diverge into separate species that can coexist spatially. Thus the BSC has survived as one of the more enduring ideas about species, with many modern texts finding it more useful for discussions of evolution and speciation than alternatives ,12,24. Tth anniversary this year [Heliconius butterflies [causes of speciation, but they were not very helpful in the definition of species. Attempts have been made to justify a weaker version of the BSC than Mayr's to allow for gene flow after speciation , but it.g. ref. .Having realized that species evolve rather than were created, it was obvious to Darwin that species were going to be less ‘real’ than hitherto assumed. What Darwin meant by species in ‘The Origin of Species’ were populations separable because of morphological gaps between them . In popuRhagoletis pomonella had come to similar conclusions at the same time [In genetic terms, Darwin's idea of species can be associated with the idea of species as genotypic clusters . Others ame time . The ideame time , but witIn contrast, many of the geographic subspecies that we studied could have been divided into multiple separate species under Cracraft's  ‘diagnosDrosophila. As short-fragment DNA sequencing became accessible due to advances in molecular genetics, Wu's group found that a ‘speciation gene,’ Odysseus (OdsH), had a genealogy among D. mauritiana, D. sechellia, and D. simulans, that matched a likely speciation tree. However, loci as little as 1.8 kb distant from this gene yielded a different genealogy (i.e. gene tree), suggesting that gene flow beyond species boundaries could have occurred after acquisition of Odysseus-related reproductive isolation [Meanwhile, Chung-I Wu and his group had been investigating ‘speciation genes,’ the loci that contribute to hybrid sterility and inviability, in solation . These fsolation  to the iWu saw reproductive isolation and speciation as processes that happened to genes, rather than to the whole genome as in Mayr's view. His ‘genic view of speciation’ therefore allowed parts of the genome not involved in divergent selection or hybrid incompatibility to flow between species, even after an irreversible stage of speciation had been reached ,35. In tet al. [et al., is that ‘a period of strict geographical isolation  … is needed to complete the process of speciation’ [In their new article, Wang et al.  regard tciation’ . Althouget al. then argue that early in the process of speciation, during the initial evolution of reproductive isolation, there is likely to be some gene flow, even under the BSC model [et al. In contrast, under an alternative model, a concept closer to Wu's genic view of speciation , ‘gene flow continues, possibly diminished, all the way to the completion of speciation when traits of reproductive isolation have evolved.’Wang SC model . But subet al. carry out simulations of genomes affected by gene flow, with a few ‘speciation genes’ under divergent selection, but separated by many neutral loci that can be recombined away from these. They show that under some combinations of parameters, it is possible to generate genomes in which genomic regions near the speciation genes remain diverged, while other intervening loci recombine relatively freely among the species, and get swamped by introgression. This is strongly reminiscent of the ‘islands of speciation’ idea, as found between Anopheles gambiae and A. coluzzii  [To test their genic view, Wang gambiae) .et al. [et al., allopatry is not required, and gene flow can continue right up to ‘completion’ of speciation, and indeed maybe long afterwards, until finally, reproductive isolation is complete (i.e. gene flow is negligible).There are now abundant genomic data on the question of continuing gene flow for many of the taxa that we call species. Wang et al.  argue thet al. [Anopheles gambiae group. As well as abundant evidence for genomic islands of speciation and gene flow between A. gambiae and A. coluzzii [A. arabiensis and A. gambiae lineages has affected ∼98% of the genome, causing the average gene tree today to differ from the inferred original branching order of species [Anopheles gambiae group of mosquitos is distorted away from the species tree is agreed on by all three sets of authors, in spite of the fact that the precise inferred species tree differs among all of these three papers based on the same data! Nonetheless, Wang et al. argue that ‘it is evident that the introgressions in these species are early-stage events’ [Anopheles gambiae group, surely some of this is ‘late’ in the speciation process!But what is early gene flow, and what is late gene flow? Are divergent populations species before ‘reproductive isolation is complete?’ Recent genomic data show that gene flow occurs between species that are millions of years apart, and between non-sister species. The authors review existing literature for gene flow among named species, and while acknowledging its existence, they say ‘we find no case of large scale introgression in late stages of speciation, when postmating reproductive isolation is evident.’ Instead, all or at least most existing examples of introgression are listed by Wang et al.  as ‘earlcoluzzii ,37, more species . The vie events’ , and theAs we have seen, there is a lot to agree with in the ‘genic view of speciation’ and its critique of the BSC, as shown by the obvious overlap with my own view of species as ‘genotypic clusters’ between which gene flow is possible. However, the ‘genic view’ as propounded here suffers, in my view, from a reiteration of some major difficulties associated with the BSC. For example, the current article repeatedly mentions the ‘completion of speciation.’ While, in one of the authors' stated views, speciation need not necessarily preclude a trickle of continued gene flow , ‘completh century [Equus [Empirical results bear this out. The hybrid between horse and donkey, the mule, has long held an almost iconic status as a completely sterile hybrid between species, and at least since Buffon  has supp century ,45. Thisy [Equus .Heliconius butterflies provide further examples: occasional gene flow continues at every step of the way between H. cydno/timareta and H. melpomene, in spite of a lack of ‘islands of divergence’ in the genome between these two lineages. While male hybrids are fertile, female hybrids are usually sterile, an example of Haldane's Rule, so that there is strong evidence of ‘postmating isolation’ between these two lineages [H. pardalinus and H. elevatus, that show evidence for substantial introgression, leading to large patches of near panmixia across the genome, with occasional genomic islands of divergence presumably containing divergently selected speciation genes [et al. for Anopheles ‘islands of speciation’ [lineages . Howeveron genes , very siciation’ .Anopheles, we also find evidence for massive gene flow among non-sister species deep in the estimated species tree of the Heliconius erato group of species, and this again causes distortion of the average gene tree away from the presumed species tree [Anopheles, and in the Heliconius cydno/timareta and H. melpomene hybridization, gene flow results even though ‘postmating reproductive isolation is evident’ , and that therefore does not refute the BSC.As with ies tree . Here, a of ref.  to rejec [et al. , in contet al. did not intend their BSC rejection criterion to be utterly tautological , then Heliconius provides a counter-example. Contrary to Wang et al., the existence of frequent Haldane's Rule postzygotic hybrid sterility in Heliconius, as well as strong assortative mating [Heliconius genome in a recent study suggests that there are actually a very large number of ‘postmating reproductive isolation’ loci that select against introgression, and that these loci are widely scattered across all 21 chromosomes [Provided Wang e mating ,48,50 toomosomes .et al. [The BSC versus the ‘genic view’ therefore seems hard to test, at least using the reasoning of Wang et al. . In contet al. ,52. It iet al., and we no longer need to deal with the problem of whether the gene flow is early or late during the ‘process of speciation.’ It may occur at any time after speciation, albeit normally with diminishing probability over time since the split between a pair of species.If we instead adopt a sympatric genotypic cluster criterion, speciation can occur much earlier than in the ‘completeness’ view of speciation espoused by Wang et al. [Wu's ‘genic view of speciation’  originatet al.  show thaAnopheles and Heliconius, that gene flow is so pervasive as to re-write the average history of their genes towards an entirely different set of topologies from the original species tree. It is helpful to separate cause and effect, and therefore, to focus on maintenance of divergence of at least some unlinked loci in sympatry as the most useful criterion of species.Under all three views outlined above, reproductive isolation and divergent selection are probable causes of speciation in sexual species worth investigating. However, it would in my view be helpful to avoid including these processes in the definition of the taxa we call species. It is becoming especially difficult to understand what supposedly ‘reproductively isolated species’ are when we know, as in both