FTA: Wow, psychopathic robots -- I didn't see that coming. And by didn't see that coming I mean I'VE BEEN TRYING TO WARN YOU FOREVER.
Yeah, I'm no neoludite, but I really think we need to be on top of this stuff.
From the referenced article: A human-robot co-existence society could emerge by 2030, says Chen in his paper. Already iRobot’s Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and Scooba floor cleaner are a part of more than 3 million American households. The next generation robots will be more sophisticated and are expected to provide services such as nursing, security, housework and education.
I've long argued against the idea that AI and robotics need to achieve human abilities sets before they begin being an economic danger to broad swaths of the human population. Part of my argument is that it doesn't take human inputs to get human level results.
To wit:
This is exactly the sort of solution I'm talking about. To replace a human worker you don't need to build a robot that does everything they do. You can build various robots which together do the things that the worker does. Similarly you don't have to create a program which is capable of doing everything the human can do - to replace a worker, the AI doesn't have to have an opinion on films or understand the differences between being sarcastic vs. being sardonic, it just needs to preform a task, or a series of tasks, essentially as well as a human and do so at a price point that is attractive to its corporation.
Since we're Americans, we can also expect to soon see systems of robots like these employed on battlefields all over the world! Lowering the cost of war in terms of American lives mean the jingoists will want to go to war at the drop of a hat (what else is new?) and it will be harder to convince them when it's time to stop. It also means, as I've said before, that we're going to see a *rise* in terrorism. Terrorist are not vandals. The whole point of sending a machine instead of a soldier is that we don't really care (at least on an emotional/moral level) what happens to the machine, so the terrorists will behave around the machines and then they will target civilians.
Listen, roboticists, you're all very bright and clever, but I don't suppose you'd be so kind as to do a little more work on solar power, eh? Maybe wind?
Some people don't understand why I'm more afraid of corporations than governments. Well here's why.
FTA: Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. has introduced a "Smile Scan" system to evaluate the grins of its station staff. The smile-measuring software has been developed by Kyoto-based precision equipment maker Omron Corp. The device analyzes the facial characteristics of a person, including eye movements, lip curves and wrinkles, and rates a smile on a scale between 0 and 100 percent using a camera and computer.
Honestly, WTF is that? It's a goddamn half step away from thought control is what it is. I don't like the idea of a corporation being able to tell it's employees that they need to appear 15% happier, mostly around the eyes, or they'll be sent home/fired/have their pay docked. It's hard to fathom a more hellish existence than this.
The Unabomber's stuff is up for auction. And I desperately want them to publish his journals. Ted Kaczynski's nuttier than the spelling of his last name, but the man is also one of the most interesting psychopaths you could ever take the time to read about.
For starters, he's very complicated. Dr. Charles Epstein, one of the Unabomber's victims, characterizes Kaczynski in the article linked above as, "the essence of evil. He's evil and amoral. He has no compassion." Dr. Epstein has, to say the least, every right to feel that way about Kazcynski, however I would argue that his remarks, largely correct though they are, fail to paint the full picture of the second most famous terrorist to ever target Americans.
Let me be clear in my remarks, Ted Kaczynski is not a man to be admired or respected. His attacks were awful. His fears, perhaps not as ungrounded as they may appear at first blush, are, never the less, hardly a justification for his actions. That being said, I reserve the word 'evil' for those whose crimes are motivated by the pleasure they derive from them. I think that pleasure was absent from Kaczynski's motivations.
Kaczynski, like, I would wager, all terrorists, was motivated but that most dangerous of concepts, 'the greater good.' His manifesto is peppered with criticisms of how modern society has eroded personal freedoms and about how 'leftism' has made it impossible to act completely morally. In this respect many of his quotes are indistinguishable from those of Glen Beck (Plus, neither of them are overly partial to institutions of higher education) or even some of the more radical Teabaggers many of whom echo the unabomber's views on political correctness's impact on/relationship to morality.
(I feel it's important to note where Kaczynski departs from the American extreme right, however, isn't just in his acceptance of violence, but in what I personally feel is an only logical extension of his distaste for large government and that's his hatred of large organizations of virtually any kind but specifically manufacturing. Not being a great speller, I frequently have misspelled the Unabomber as the 'Unibomber,' thinking the 'uni' was short for university. In fact the term comes from the FBI case designation, 'Unabom' which was a contraction of 'UNiversity and Airline BOMber.')
Kaczynski's lack of compassion for others could be clearly seen in his short story, 'Ship of Fools,' which has been turned into a stop motion animation short that is worth watching. Listen to the language Kaczynski uses to describe the other groups/passengers on the ship of fools and notice also the way that he dismisses their problems as trivial compared to his own (the ones that, by and large, only he can see):
Still though, Kaczynski is not an entirely unthoughtful person, far from it. Take, for example, the strange case of Bill Geerhart who, in 1999, posed as a little boy and sent letters to various celebrities, politicians and serial killers. One of the people he wrote was Ted Kaczynski. Below is Geerhart's letter and Kaczynski's response...
This note is turning into something far longer than I intended it to be, so I will cut this short by opening up a whole new can of worms and just point out that we are, as Americans (or, perhaps, just as humans in general), rather inconsistent with our views on Terrorism. The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is all too frequently a PR campaign. Look at how some have even defended the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller as justifiable because they believe the doctor, an abortion provider, to be himself a murderer or that his murder wasn't 'really' terrorism because what some(usually specified as Islamic)terrorist groups do is 'worse.' How do you feel about water boarding? How do you feel about what North Korea is doing to our journalists? Or about what we're doing to an Iraqi journalist? Do the ends justify the means? Is it best to fight fire with fire? Is Ted Kaczynski's greatest crime terrorism or is Ted Kaczynski's greatest crime being wrong about what is the greater good?
Personally, I think he's a terrorist. Personally, I think that's why Dr. Epstein thinks he's evil and not because Kaczynski's a neo-luddite and Epstein's a geneticist. I also think that for a man preoccupied by the notion of acting in a 'competely moral way,' Kaczynski was quick to decend into tribalism....
... and I can't wait to read the intellectual acrobatics that will be required to justify his actions in his own mind.
PS: Kaczynski fun fact, the Unabomber is a virgin. PPS: Learning more about the Unabomber is really fascinating. Obviously he was mentally ill, but the degree to which his mental illness impacted his life... was incredible. He couldn't read people's emotions, he couldn't distinguish facial expressions... surprising? No, not exactly, but fascinating.
What's amazing is that the Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) is the one that posted this video. He believes that he got the better of Steven Chu, our energy secretary and a Nobel laureate. That sound you here after Mr. Barton's question is the good doctor laughing.
The 'science' tag is only for Dr. Chu and Dr. Chu only. The other tags are all for Joe Barton... well, ok, they can share the 'Government' tag.
Call it brand management. Call it positioning. This is how a lot of people see American politics today. Over the weekend I had a very enjoyable talk with a very bright Conservative (yes, they do exist) and I don't want anyone to think that my occasional hyperbole is (entirely) serious.
Still, its tough to look at these stories and not immediately think about the battle lines that have been drawn, particularly during this decade, and see how things have come to this point, this point where these two stories are beside one another on the front page of CNN.com.
I grew up in what you might call a New England Republican household. We talked a lot about fiscal policy. We never spoke of holding back homosexuals or the march of science. That, more and more, the Republican party represents these things is appalling. Especially while they're failing at what is, ostensibly, the one unifying thread they're suppose to all share: "Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, topped the list of senators receiving earmarks, with a total of $653 million." & "Alaska led the nation in pork per capita, at $322 a person." (Source)
OK, this one's gotten away from me. I'm rambling. Anyone else curious about these Tea/Teabag parties? It's going to be a bumpy four years. Hang on.
Oh, and PS, how fraken amazing is that Stem Cell article, eh?
"A friend of mine was a census recounter, making one last swipe through town to make sure every resident was counted. He was assigned the area of town in which, due to regsitration and minimum distance requirements, all the registered sex offendered lived."
FTA: The Department of Defense is soliciting proposals for a computer program that would enable young children to interact with a virtual version of their parent. Officials hope it could provide reassurance and general chat when phone or internet contact is not possible.
I really can't quite figure out who's pitching this project. Pro-Family Hawks aren't usually too big on science, Pro-Science forward thinkers aren't usually too big on war. Also, the tech's not remotely close yet. This would be like a glorified AIM bot.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for funding personality mapping software and fully believe that one day we'll be able to get something pretty close to what they're proposing... just not today. Its much more likely we'll get general AI before we get specific AI.
Its an interesting article on work with a couple of real gems in it. (like this one: This is "Parkinson's law", first published in an article of 1955, which states: work expands to fill the time available for its completion.)
