Scientist predicts robots will one day pay taxes
Eventually, robots will have to be given legal rights (and accept certain responsibilities) if advances in artificial intelligence (AI) continue to create sensitive quasi-organisms, according to a paper solicited for Sir David King, the UK’s chief scientist.
According to one AI researcher, “If robots are granted full rights, states will be obligated to provide full social benefits to them including income support, housing and possibly robo-healthcare to fix the machines over time.” A December Financial Times report on the paper noted robots might also have to pay taxes and be available for military service. Some of the ideas in the paper track visions described years ago by writer Isaac Asimov.
Government in Action
Politicians in the German states of Lower Saxony and Bavaria proposed in December to criminalize “cruel” violent acts in video games when they are directed at “humans” or “human-looking characters.” Bavarian interior minister Gunther Beckstein pointed to a November incident in which an 18-year-old player of the violent game “Counter Strike” went to a school, shot 37 people, and then killed himself.
? Following a military coup in November, Fiji’s army chief Frank Bainimarama took over and placed classified ads in local newspapers to seek candidates to be ministers and senior civil servants. The minimum qualifications: no criminal record and not to be bankrupt.
And Nigeria’s People’s Democratic Party started screening candidates in December to run for president this year, ranking applicants on the following criteria: patriotism (10 percent), integrity (15), ethnic neutrality (10), knowledge of law (10), tolerance (5), transparency (10), knowledge of development (10) and leadership qualities (15).
Arithmetic ability was not a criterion.
Police Blotter
From the Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff, Ariz., 12-3-06): “About 1,800 square feet of insulation were reported stolen from the underside of a house on the 5100 block of East Hickory Drive. The victim said the insulation disappeared sometime between September and this week. She said she was having trouble keeping her house warm as the weather got colder.”
? Oops: John Beacham of the Anti-War Coalition in Chicago said he has suspected for a while that police had been spying on his organization, but he was obviously proved wrong when the coalition canceled, well in advance, a planned Oct. 28 demonstration downtown. Unaware of the cancellation, hundreds of police officers lined the streets around the protest area, hoping to prevent the recurrence of a wild demonstration in 2003. Deputy police superintendent Charles Williams blamed the coalition for not keeping the department informed.
Cliches Come to Life
The Texas Ethics Commission ruled in November that a public official in the Lone Star state, receiving money as a gift such as from a lobbyist, need disclose only that he received “a check” or “currency” and need not reveal the actual amount of money. Said the district attorney in Austin, who was outraged by the ruling, it is now “perfectly legal to report the gift of ‘a wheelbarrow’ without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash.”
Bright Ideas
(1) Sixty years after Indiana abolished gambling and wrecked the economy of the resort town of French Lick, the state brought it back, allowing casinos, but they had to be located on water and not the state’s dry land. Developers of the French Lick Springs Resort thus spent $382 million on a plush “riverboat” casino on a manmade lake barely larger than the boat, and it opened in November.
(2) Derek Ogley, 70, had just been discharged from Tameside General Hospital in Ashton, England, in November, but doubled over in pain in the waiting room (eventually diagnosed with pancreatitis). Nurses informed Ogley’s family they would have to call 999 (the UK’s 911) or drive him around to the emergency entrance about three minutes away, because, since he had been discharged, rules prevented them from treating him.
Obsessions
Retired ad agency executive James Finegan, 76, plays at least 250 rounds of golf a year at a course near his home in Gladwyne, Pa., and 50 to 60 rounds elsewhere, according to an October Wall Street Journal profile. When not playing golf, he writes books about golf (histories of golf in Philadelphia and of a course in New Jersey, and four books about golf in the British Isles).
And in Salt Lake City, county sheriff Aaron Kennard, who was caught by a Salt Lake Tribune reporter playing numerous rounds of golf during working hours in August and September, merely shrugged. “I’m not golfing enough,” he said, in that golf helps him relax. He said he’d rather just golf a little than take summer vacations.
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