AI in the News - #11
The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (New Scientist)
There is a killer robot stalking the Great Barrier Reef. It's called COTSbot and, fortunately, it's only after the starfish that are plaguing the reef. But there really is a Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and they have a certain amount of pull at the UN: they said that now is the time to start setting rules for how to program robots that are being set loose to kill. Even if it's only starfish.
They came after the starfish and I said nothing because I wasn't a starfish...
Ban 'Em (TechEmergence - video)
Dr. Noel Sharkey has a very simple rule for controlling killer robots: ban them. Dr. Sharkey, a professor of robotics at the UNiversity of Sheffield, is co-founder of the Committee for Robot Arms Control and wants to forestall a robotic arms race of ever-more-deadly autonomous killer robots.
Ban Those, Too (Campaign Against Sex Robots)
The link text says it all, really. This group is particularly concerned to ban sex-doll robots made to look like children as part, they believe, of a general campaign to legitimate pedophilia.
...Or Not (Wired)
On the other hand, David Levy, author of Love and Sex with Robots, thinks such robots would decrease the market for real prostitution and so be a good thing. But the goal here is sex without empathy, and the author of the article, Kathleen Richardson, isn't sure practicing unempathetic sex on robots makes for better humans.
Thou shalt not murder using robots.
Thou shalt not commit adultery using robots.
So far, no one seems to be proposing using them to covet, but just you wait.
(You could always do your own coveting and covet your neighbor's droid.)
And idolatry should be a snap.