Tag: ethics
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AI art and ethics: starting a conversation
I am astounded daily by AI-generated art. I also understand the position of artists who rage against the theft of their visual style, loss of earnings, and disrespect for human creativity. There are some tricky ethics to consider. I won’t reach a conclusion in this little post, but you can be sure I’ll revisit the…
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Watching “The Incredible Bionic Man”
Yesterday I watched The Incredible Bionic Man on Netflix. It’s a strange Smithsonian Channel documentary from 2013: a group of scientists gathered state-of-the art bionic parts and assembled them into a “man”. The results aren’t completely successful, but as a mainstream introduction into what’s possible in bionics now and coming in the near future, it’s not bad. Here’s…
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Chappie and the desire for emotional machines
Sony Pictures released a vastly improved trailer for the upcoming movie Chappie. The effects look good and the cast is intriguing: Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, and both Yolandi and Ninja from Die Antwoord (who seem to be playing versions of themselves). At one point in the trailer, Dev Patel says, “What interests me…
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How much does “IRL” information matter in a virtual space?
When you meet someone in a video game or virtual world and start to form a friendship, what level of real world information do you expect? The classic age/sex/location? Career or school level? Photos? Link to a credible online profile? Voice chat? Conversely, what level of real world information do you offer? Why? I’m deeply curious…
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Fighting about games: the incredibly nasty last two weeks
If you’re part of — or an observer of — gaming culture, you might be aware of the ugliness lately. If not, I encourage you to click away and go back to playing happily, because this is a subject that angries up the blood. I’ve been watching the recent rounds of discord in the gaming…
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Were you an uninformed participant in a Facebook study?
A study published in the June 17th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science is raising troubling ethical questions. Researchers manipulated the content of Facebook feeds of unknowing subjects, then tracked whether the subjects’ subsequent posts showed an emotional change. Does that breach the threshold for which informed consent is required? [The full…
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Robots will (or will not) kill us all
Skimming through articles over the weekend, I came across Why There Will Be a Robot Uprising, If the Robots Kill Us, It’s Because It’s Their Job, and 10 Reasons an Artificial Intelligence Wouldn’t Turn Evil. Huh. When the Internet can’t agree whether I should be irrationally afraid of some future possibility, what am I supposed…