February 19, 2009

No Privacy Without Piracy

Source: Julian Togelius’ Blog

Julian Togelius

Julian’s Blogger profile shows he’s into technology, but has he come across something with a slogan he just pulled out of the ether?

Julian Togelius normally blogs about his work in artificial intelligence. However, on Monday 16-February-2009, he posted something that came to him completely out of the blue… or it got knocked loose from watching/reading/hearing about the currently in-progress Sweden vs. The Pirate Bay trial. It came to him in the form of a “slogan:”

NO PRIVACY WITHOUT PIRACY

Julian’s explanation:

The idea is that any method I’ve ever heard of for eradicating piracy, and indeed any conceivable method for doing so, build on also eradicating (or at least severely curtailing) privacy.

If you follow technology in the past few years, any anti-pirating tech has always come with anti-privacy issues whether it is DRM spyware or ISP wiretaps. In one simple slogan, Julian hopes to take the piracy-privacy connection to a new level, make people think more about the two, and possibly spread the word around viral-meme style.

So, is it an “All Your Base…” worthy battle cry, or something to be forgotten like Goatse and Tubgirl?

This post has been filed under Internet Find by Mr. Roboto.

William Gibson

The master does it again. With another running-longer-than-planned poll now in the books, you have once again chosen William Gibson, at least his book Neuromancer, as the most significant contribution to cyberpunk. You have claimed it to be more significant than Blade Runner, even more so than the creation of the word itself. Since most of you most likely started with Neuromancer, it almost seemed like a no-brainer has to how this would come out, though Blade Runner fans still might have something to say about it.

And now, for the next poll…

 

 

 

 

 

NOTHING!

That’s right. We’re going to give our polling machines a break, though I do have a couple of ideas for our next poll(s) (something music based), but I want to get a couple of music reviews in before posting. In the mean time, I’ll be checking out FOX’s new series Dollhouse and letting you know if it’s cyberpunk material or not. Plus, I want to get The Gene Generation viewed and reviewed this weekend before the Daytona 500 wrecks my plans.

This post has been filed under Poll Results by Mr. Roboto.

Source: Wired

A burning question. Wired’s Daniel Roth asks the important question of what rights robot should have when they reach human levels of sentience. Something to get the philosophers, religious fruitcakes, and robot-rights activists to talk about:

This question is starting to get debated by robot designers and toymakers. With advanced robotics becoming cheaper and more commonplace, the challenge isn’t how we learn to accept robots—but whether we should care when they’re mistreated. And if we start caring about robot ethics, might we then go one insane step further and grant them rights?

Apparently Mr. Roth has already sided with the pro-human forces, mainly because of his dislike for the animatronic Elmo dolls, and a little kool-aid from Fisher-Price’s marketing Veep Gina Sirard:

Elmo on Fire

Keep soul-searching to a minimum and recognize that you’re buying a product, pure and simple. “This is a toy,” Fisher-Price’s Sirard says. “There shouldn’t be any laws about how you use your toys.”

Of course, that’s what corporations, governments, slave owners, and dictators have been saying about people for centuries. They’re only toys now because the technology has not progressed to the point where robotic humanity is possible… but once it does…

THEN WHAT, MEATBOT?
Equal Rights for Robots

To one man, it was an impromptu joke against religious fruitcakes (Click to see the story). Next time, it won’t be a laughing matter.

Given events in places like Auschwitz, the former Yugoslavia, Guantanamo, and the World Trade Center, I often wonder if humans deserve human rights. Maybe some competition from the machines may snap the species out of narcissistic slumber. Right now is the best time to recognize robot rights… otherwise…

“It sits there looking at me, and I don’t know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics, with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent, nor qualified, to answer those. I’ve got to make a ruling – to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We’ve all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul? I don’t know that he has. I don’t know that I have! But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose.”

- Captain Phillipa Louvois (Star Trek: The Next Generation “The Measure of a Man”)

This post has been filed under Rise of the Robots, Essays, News as Cyberpunk by Mr. Roboto.

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