machine ethics

Date: Mon, Apr 8, 2002 10:26 PM

From: nikolai kingsley <nikolai@broadway.net.au>

> You can program these machines to a practically human, or more than
> human, level of intelligence -- but you can't DEPROGRAM them? How
> convenient for a tear jerker. This future yuppieland can build these
> things, but they can't blank their files back to factory default??
> Uh-HUH.

i've been thinking about this recently, with a view to writing a story
that goes over some of the wierd-ass things that could happen with
machine sapience. deliberately DOWNGRADING a machine's software, if that
machine had the rights of a thinking being, could be regarded as the
digital equivalent of the old Frances Farmer ice-pick to the frontal
lobes. so it's okay to make a machine smarter, by adding an extra 32
squickabytes of RAM, but if you dast remove one of those chips, it's a
lobotomy.

> The Energizer Bunny must be REALLY good in this future.

robot street bums. "hey, buddy, can you spare a few amps?" "reboot me,
please?" "WILL ASSEMBLE ORBITAL HABITATS FOR ENERGY"

> The general set and art design is gorgeous and every third shot looks
> like a postcard. I viewed at the big effects scenes over and over.
> That's the best I can say for it. Spielberg takes full credit for the
> actual screenplay, proving that a certain level of Hollywoodism
> literally destroys brain cells.

it sounds like a candidate for watching-with-the-sound-down and making
up your own dialogue while 'fropped. uh oh, i'm about to go off on
another Invader Zim binge.

nikolai
---
"saaaaaaay PLEEEASE!"

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Original file name: machine ethics.txt - converted on Friday, 20 September 2002, 16:09