Testing Our New Robot Overlords!

I was confronted with the scope of what I am talking about recently: The robots will be "self learning" and we will want to stop them from learning things that are not relevant or that we don't want them to know. We might want a robot who makes sandwiches to know about foods and allergies and presentation and cultural items related to food, but we probably don't want it to know about politics or voting or whatever... Whatever we do to "focus" the robot's learning will eventually be applied to our children, which might bring us back to the days of tests that determine your career futures... If the robot makes a "bad decision" based on what it has learned or because it had to choose between two bad choices, who is to blame? The tester? the coder? the building? the owner? the robot? How would we even punish the robot? And how is this really different from blaming the parents or the teachers when kids do dumb things? If the robot is a car and it has to decide which other car to hit because it's going to be in an accident, how does it determine which car is a better target? Will the robot know something about the relative "worth" of the other vehicles? their cargos? Is a car with 4 people in it worth more than a car with 1? The insurance people would argue yes I imagine. If the robot has this worthiness data, how long will it be before an after-market device is sold which tells the robot that this particular vehicle is "high value" in an effort to protect individual property? I realize this is all outside the scope of what I'm doing and that greater minds than mine have to address these issues. Especially on issues which address the human condition! But, it's sobering to see how large this field could become. This is not just testing a new phone app!

Cybernetics in the Real World (per COSine)

I spent this weekend at COSine, a science fiction writer's conference here in Colorado Springs. I participated in several panels about the state of the world, especially for cybernetics. The conversations were quite lively but ended up being debates about "how cool the technology could be" interspersed with discussion on whether we should "require" people to accept the augmentations. I suggested it wasn't terribly different from the Borg (in Star Trek: The Next Generation) meeting new species and immediately implanting them with the technology that makes the Borg hive-mind work. The panelists likened the practice to forcing all deaf children to receive the Cochlear implant. A very spirited discussion ensued. Afterwards, I apologized to the moderator for hi-jacking the discussion like that and she said while that was an interesting discussion, she was more intrigued by my "throw away" question about how the the augmented would be considered in our society: Right now, there's some stigma to people with artificial limbs, pacemakers, insulin pumps and the like. People who augment themselves with drugs for performance are stricken from the record books because they aren't "fair," or more accurately, not purely human. And this leads back to the robot question. How do we determine what is "beneficial" and what is "useful"? How do we differentiate between things that help but pollute for instance? These are tricky questions and I am somewhat concerned about the outcome.

Kitchen's Clean and Quiet

The title today is a line from "Scott and Jamie" which has been stuck in my head all week. The song itself is a bit of a tear jerker as it's about two foster kids being yanked from a gay couple but, I don't think that's why it's been in my head. Instead, I've been counting down to the roommate moving out. I've been counting down since the end of summer more or less.

I don't think the guy knew how to wash a dish which drove me crazy. I told him how much it annoyed ne on several occasions and it just never sunk in. So he moved out today and I cleaned the dishes up and put them away.

The song says, "the kitchen's clean and quiet, we moved the furniture around..." I want to move the furniture but the construction debris is still in the way so it has to wait a bit. Already the house seems bigger without the roommate here. But you know what, I'm not as happy to have him out of the house as I expected to be. I don't feel like that part of my life is now over. And I don't know why. I don't *miss* the roommate or anything but I'm more "meh" about him leaving than I thought I'd be. I'm not sure I like this feeling. I was hoping to be energized to go on with my remodel, but I'm just not feeling it. At least not yet... Maybe soon? :)

This song has been stuck in my head for days! It so fits my mood though. “You can be the expert by picking up a book,” it says. And isn’t that the point of the Literature Review for the Dissertation?

We study the thoughts that came before ours, not just to give us context but, to borrow from Bernard of Chartres, to help us see further. My ideas may turn out to be revolutionary but without the context of the researchers before me, my ideas may never gain traction. Or worse, like the Professor in Rescue From Gilligan’s Island, I may be reinventing a wheel that already exists.

But the song. The song says there are stories “everywhere we look, if we look in the right way.” I’ll take that to mean that when I’m sitting at my computer cussing the ProQuest database for not finding me a good reference, maybe I just need to step back and think of a new keyword to try.

Hmmm… which reminds me, I haven’t tried …

FOOTNOTES (this time)
Bernard of Chartres actually said “Like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, we see farther than they.” In 1159 though we often attribute the quote to Isaac Newton.
The only scene I recall from watching “Rescue From Gilligan’s Island” as a youth was the Professor in a lab somewhere after the Castaways returned to civilization. He had “invented” a Frisbee and was depressed to find out someone had already marketed it, while he was on the Island. He felt he wasn’t really contributing to society and the Castaways eventually returned to the island… Interestingly, today is a year and two days since the actor playing the Professor died.

New Year, New Job, New Beginnings, New Posts...

I came back from the CTU Doctoral Symposium this weekend energized to write. One of the speakers reminded us that, as Doctoral students, we should be writing. Everyday. Even if we have little to say, we should sit before our writing tool of choice and begin writing. By the end of the year, we’ll have come great strides in learning how to communicate our thoughts.

I didn’t start yesterday because I was so worn out from the Symposium that I just couldn’t do it. So here I am today. My plan is to write my entry for the day, then post it to the Blog that is relevant to me. Some will be personal and appear on that blog and others will be focused on Robots or other Tech and posted there.

As a Mason, I have been taught that no great undertaking should be begun without first invoking the Blessings of Deity. It took me a bit to find a Prayer I liked but here goes:

Dear Creator, Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am, and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope... And though I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me to be thankful for life, and for time's olden memories that are good and sweet. And may the evening's twilight find me gentle still.

And because I’m a Doctoral Student,
REFERENCES
Birch, J. (n/d). Celtic Prayers and Blessings retrieved from http://www.faithandworship.com/Celtic_Blessings_and_Prayers.htm