I really don't care if some site decides that I am not allowed to see their web-site because I am an American, or am more than 5' tall, or have an e in my name. It is their right to say I can't see their stuff. The fact that iCrave wants to patent the country-restriction technology is totally unimportant to me.
The argument that being able to limit based on country can balkanize the internet is irrelevant. It is the same as saying that owning a knife could lead to stabbing every human being on earth and so should be outlawed. The existence and/or patenting of the technology is not the issue.
The issue is if the government tries to make it mandatory. If I have the option to limit my web-site to only people in Zimbabwe, that is a good thing. It gives me more freedom to do what I want with what I create. If the government makes me limit my web-site to US only, then I have a problem with it. But nothing in this article makes me think that is going to happen. If it does happen we should fight that, not a technology that makes it theoretically possible.
I guess that as long as our boxes are independent, i.e. not networked, machines are just machines. Cut the power and anything that may be considered "A-Life" gets nuked.
How is that different from a human, if you cut the Oxygen supply to a person they get nuked too.
OTOH, once you create a program that "lives" on the net, is capable of replication and adaptation and so on, it's ecology becomes more stable and elimination of the entity may become difficult. I see no particular reason why this type of entity should not qualify as a sort of "life" although its universe is certainly rather different than our own.
I think that ease of killing, or even intelligence, is a bad definition of life. I'm not sure what the correct definition should be, there are arguments as to if virii count as life as is.
I remember the line my AI professor used to describe AI. "It's the A version of whatever I is."
The key is that both objects act upon the other. So if the cannonball is heavier than the feather it will attract the Earth to it slightly more quickly than the feather. So from the Earth's perspective the cannon ball would fall faster.
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I really don't care if some site decides that I am not allowed to see their web-site because I am an American, or am more than 5' tall, or have an e in my name. It is their right to say I can't see their stuff. The fact that iCrave wants to patent the country-restriction technology is totally unimportant to me.
The argument that being able to limit based on country can balkanize the internet is irrelevant. It is the same as saying that owning a knife could lead to stabbing every human being on earth and so should be outlawed. The existence and/or patenting of the technology is not the issue.
The issue is if the government tries to make it mandatory. If I have the option to limit my web-site to only people in Zimbabwe, that is a good thing. It gives me more freedom to do what I want with what I create. If the government makes me limit my web-site to US only, then I have a problem with it. But nothing in this article makes me think that is going to happen. If it does happen we should fight that, not a technology that makes it theoretically possible.
I guess that as long as our boxes are independent, i.e. not networked, machines are just machines. Cut the power and anything that may be considered "A-Life" gets nuked.
How is that different from a human, if you cut the Oxygen supply to a person they get nuked too.
OTOH, once you create a program that "lives" on the net, is capable of replication and adaptation and so on, it's ecology becomes more stable and elimination of the entity may become difficult. I see no particular reason why this type of entity should not qualify as a sort of "life" although its universe is certainly rather different than our own.
I think that ease of killing, or even intelligence, is a bad definition of life. I'm not sure what the correct definition should be, there are arguments as to if virii count as life as is.
I remember the line my AI professor used to describe AI. "It's the A version of whatever I is."
The key is that both objects act upon the other. So if the cannonball is heavier than the feather it will attract the Earth to it slightly more quickly than the feather. So from the Earth's perspective the cannon ball would fall faster.
Relativity is cool.
The classic counter example is that having sex is legal, selling something is legal. Prostitution is illegal.
Just because the components are legal does not mean that the combination is legal. (Though I will grant that it probably should be legal)