Minsky isn't complaining about Artificial Intelligence's progress; he's complaining about Cognitive Science's progress. AI is doing just fine, as evidenced by these useful systems we have (the telephone system and credit card fraud examples). The not-so-useful systems--the ones that are trying to model human/rat/bug cognition, or be super-thinkers at some future point--are the ones that are flailing, and always have been.
I never saw a statement saying that their face recognition program would
not be advertised to those entering the store. I agree that it would
behoove them to give notification
I do shop at Safeway, and I do use their Club Card, and I wouldn't be
upset with them for doing anything they said they might do with the information in the contract I signed (or anything they didn't say they wouldn't do). If I found something they did which was not covered by the contract upsetting at all, I'd be angry at myself
for having allowed such an easily avoided situtation to occur. Depending on the deed, I would then trumpet the occurrence far and wide and boycott the place that "wronged" me until they changed the contracts they offered to consumers. I would not trumpet the situation as an invasion of privacy; I would call it a misleading or potentially damaging contract.
In this case, if Borders did not post the surveillance information somewhere where almost all people entering would have no excuse not to have noticed, I would complain. If I were upset for some reason by the surveillance I would tell everyone I could reach and I would tell Borders that they lost my business over this issue. I would not scream that it was a violation of my privacy or wrong for them to do. I would let them know that it would lose them money, when they are in fact claiming that it will reduce their losses.
In response to some of the other comments made, I was speaking of the ideal legislation, not the current legislation; IANAL. Sorry I made that unclear.
What does this have to do with privacy? Borders is a corporation, and its property is private property. If they want to implement something like this, it's fine to complain to them on various grounds, such as that the technology can't be trusted (as though a person could), but to attack them on privacy grounds is absurd. If someone said you couldn't enter their house without being photographed or under video surveillance or whatever, would you attack them on privacy grounds, or would you just leave and tell them they were being silly? It is not your right to shop at Borders.
Just to make sure I have this straight, the DMCA can be straightforwardly interpreted to violate both freedom of expression (e.g. this story, previously a Slashdot headline) and due process (this story).
Other than that, it can easily be interpreted in a manner which violates fair use and other non-Bill of Rights concepts which most people tend to think are Good Things.
It allows exemptions to some people (e.g. public libraries) for some things, leaving it to the judgment of those people, while leaving nothing to the judgment of the majority of the people.
It uses such specific language that only encryption research is exempted, while researchers into other methods of "technological measures used by copyright owners to protect their works" may not publish their work for fear of prosecution by any party that could theoretically be involved (company that created the measure, company that might purchase that measure, anyone who owns a copyright of soemthing on the medium in question, and so on).
Is there anything worthwhile in this law that wasn't around before? It seems that at least the titles concerning the WIPO treaties tend to counter rights that we should have in the US, according to previously existing documents, if not to most people who live here.
People don't generally pay for new versions or upgrades to Windows, while they might for new versions or distributions of Linux, for several reasons including:
they have to pay (often up to 50% of the original price) for Windows upgrades, but not necessarily for Linux ones;
the changes to a Linux distribution are noticeable with each release, whereas they aren't always (at least to most users) with Windows;
people who use Linux are more interested in the care and feeding of their machines, in general, than are most Windows users, so they tend to keep better track of new releases/upgrades/versions/distributions/whatever and download/buy/whatever them as soon as possible. Most Windows users either stick with what came with their box (often for fear of breaking something or just cuz it's doing everything they want it to do), or upgrade only when there's a "new" Windows product out (eg, Win95 --> Win98).
I'm 20, and I've been playing Infocom games since I was about 7. I own the Lost Treasures packages, and I've downloaded other free games that don't come in the Lost Treasures packages. They're all great! I play Diablo II and Sims and so on, but they get boring after a while--they're repetitive, with few or no puzzles to solve, very little humor, and no clever new things in every room. You don't even make maps! The game does it for you!
I miss games with plot and humor that doesn't wear on you so much that you don't notice it after a short time. I miss puzzles that actually belong in the story (even if they're just bad puns--Nord and Bert, for example). I still play my Infocom games, though, the ones that I haven't beaten or don't remember how to beat.
Slashdot Mirror
...and what happens to a female genius after she marries and has children?
Minsky isn't complaining about Artificial Intelligence's progress; he's complaining about Cognitive Science's progress. AI is doing just fine, as evidenced by these useful systems we have (the telephone system and credit card fraud examples). The not-so-useful systems--the ones that are trying to model human/rat/bug cognition, or be super-thinkers at some future point--are the ones that are flailing, and always have been.
Bear in mind these are potential suicides who chose to call the hotline.
I never saw a statement saying that their face recognition program would
not be advertised to those entering the store. I agree that it would
behoove them to give notification
I do shop at Safeway, and I do use their Club Card, and I wouldn't be
upset with them for doing anything they said they might do with the information in the contract I signed (or anything they didn't say they wouldn't do). If I found something they did which was not covered by the contract upsetting at all, I'd be angry at myself
for having allowed such an easily avoided situtation to occur. Depending on the deed, I would then trumpet the occurrence far and wide and boycott the place that "wronged" me until they changed the contracts they offered to consumers. I would not trumpet the situation as an invasion of privacy; I would call it a misleading or potentially damaging contract.
In this case, if Borders did not post the surveillance information somewhere where almost all people entering would have no excuse not to have noticed, I would complain. If I were upset for some reason by the surveillance I would tell everyone I could reach and I would tell Borders that they lost my business over this issue. I would not scream that it was a violation of my privacy or wrong for them to do. I would let them know that it would lose them money, when they are in fact claiming that it will reduce their losses.
In response to some of the other comments made, I was speaking of the ideal legislation, not the current legislation; IANAL. Sorry I made that unclear.
What does this have to do with privacy? Borders is a corporation, and its property is private property. If they want to implement something like this, it's fine to complain to them on various grounds, such as that the technology can't be trusted (as though a person could), but to attack them on privacy grounds is absurd. If someone said you couldn't enter their house without being photographed or under video surveillance or whatever, would you attack them on privacy grounds, or would you just leave and tell them they were being silly? It is not your right to shop at Borders.
Unfortunately, courage and know-how tend to be a chicken and egg sort of problem.
Just to make sure I have this straight, the DMCA can be straightforwardly interpreted to violate both freedom of expression (e.g. this story, previously a Slashdot headline) and due process (this story).
Other than that, it can easily be interpreted in a manner which violates fair use and other non-Bill of Rights concepts which most people tend to think are Good Things.
It allows exemptions to some people (e.g. public libraries) for some things, leaving it to the judgment of those people, while leaving nothing to the judgment of the majority of the people.
It uses such specific language that only encryption research is exempted, while researchers into other methods of "technological measures used by copyright owners to protect their works" may not publish their work for fear of prosecution by any party that could theoretically be involved (company that created the measure, company that might purchase that measure, anyone who owns a copyright of soemthing on the medium in question, and so on).
Is there anything worthwhile in this law that wasn't around before? It seems that at least the titles concerning the WIPO treaties tend to counter rights that we should have in the US, according to previously existing documents, if not to most people who live here.
I'm 20, and I've been playing Infocom games since I was about 7. I own the Lost Treasures packages, and I've downloaded other free games that don't come in the Lost Treasures packages. They're all great! I play Diablo II and Sims and so on, but they get boring after a while--they're repetitive, with few or no puzzles to solve, very little humor, and no clever new things in every room. You don't even make maps! The game does it for you! I miss games with plot and humor that doesn't wear on you so much that you don't notice it after a short time. I miss puzzles that actually belong in the story (even if they're just bad puns--Nord and Bert, for example). I still play my Infocom games, though, the ones that I haven't beaten or don't remember how to beat.