Are you happy to be judged based on factors entirely outside your control?
If what you do makes no difference in the education of the kids you teach then why are you even paid at all? Obviously, there is something you can control, it's just a matter of figuring out how to fairly measure it.
A shitty teacher in Beverly Hills is going to have better standardized test scores than an awesome teacher in Detroit.
Which is why you wouldn't make a direct comparison between those two. If teachers were less afraid of being measured and contributed to better metrics to evaluate teacher performance then the system would already be much improved.
That's 300 more times to see something unexpected and learn how to deal with it before he gets to you.
The GP said "a lot more valuable." You respond by stating the hypothetical that it might be slightly more valuable. Riiight.
If the situation hasn't happened in that first 300 times, then it is unlikely to happen very often in the next 300 times. Instead of grossly overpaying for that remote possibility I'd rather hire more teachers which I know for certain will result in better educational results.
A decent part of being "hip and 'disruptive'" is skirting archaic regulations and laws. Your presumption that those regulations exist for good historical reasons is reasonable, but that certainly does not mean that they are still valid or necessary. Being "disruptive" shakes up the status quo so they can be reevaluated, which would take way too long to evolve naturally. If the hacks wanted a "fair" playing field they would embrace these changes, rather than fight them.
It sounds like you're trying to say that there's no such thing as automation, which is kind of silly (especially when you give a decent example). Listing occupations for you would be fool's errand, because no matter what choice I make you can take your "just assisting" argument to a ridiculous extreme, either by saying that there need to be people to make, program, maintain etc. the machines or that those jobs have not gone away because someone somewhere in the world is still doing them. Traffic signaling police haven't been completely replaced by traffic lights because someone needs to set the timing or change the bulbs. Movable type printing typesetters haven't been completely replaced because authors still need to type into a computer, etc. That's absurd.
Actually, I just have less faith in human drivers than you do. All your examples show that humans are horrible at this kind of thing and commonly make mistakes that no production level self-driving car would even get close to. Your slipstream scenario is a perfect example of why we need to move to self-driving cars as quickly as we can.
I disagree about the progress, but that is just semantics. The first 90% of the problem was relatively straightforward, but you can't expect the same kind of progress in the last 10% (or it would have been solved long ago). If we got to 90% in the first 50 years, getting to 95% in the last 15 may not seem like progress, but I think if you looked at a passage translated with 1999 technology vs. the best available today you would find a marked difference. Even freely available services like Google do a very good job at translating between western languages, although it will be much longer until they can handle Japanese or Tamarian.
I don't know why you insist on talking about absolutes, e.g. when no human assistance will be required for any particular activity. Machines have been replacing manual labor, and replacing human translators and are starting to replace transportation workers. For the first two we are well on the way (90% or more) and we will likely never get to the point of replacing humans 100% in any of those areas. It's just impossible to argue that the machines are getting better at these jobs faster than we are.
You can become skilled at anything, including nail guns. That is not the point, I'm not saying that most carpenters aren't skilled or that some guys can't wield a nail gun like a maniac - they can. But it doesn't take much skill or training to pick up a nail gun, point it at a wall and pull the trigger. I'll agree that the ability to use a nail gun is a skill, if you agree that frying an egg is a skill, vacuuming a house is a skill, and picking up a box and moving from one place to another is a skill.
I'm not sure what your point is. It's obviously true that machines and computers have a harder time at some kinds of problems than others. It's also true that they can't do everything a human can do today. Nobody would dispute that. However, everything talked about here, nails, cars, translation are more automated than than they were 100 years ago and various technology improvements and cost efficiencies will keep that trend going.
Specifically, nail guns are just one step on the road to automating construction, although not even the first step. As I alluded to, many things that were assembled with hammers and nails 200 years ago are now done by machine, even many parts of building and home construction (e.g. window frames). When I said there was "not much skill", I was specifically referring to the line "hold the hammer properly and swing it". But I'll go further in that for most construction where to put the nails is not a skill of the guy holding the nail gun, it should be determined by the architect and the building codes. I don't consider myself a skilled carpenter because I can put together an IKEA bookshelf.
There's absolutely no reason why a carpenter bot couldn't slam 24 nails in a 2x4 AND verify that they were done correctly, it's just not cost effective to do, for now. We are not going to completely get rid of carpenters any time soon, but their jobs will slowly go away with more automation. In fifty years you might have a house built by a single foreman who's job is primarily just to oversee the bots.
As for your translation example, yes translation is hard, but the bulk of translation done today is completely automated. It's not terribly good, but it is good enough for most uses; Facebook, website browsing, manuals on cheap chinese electronics, etc.
For nails, words and cars, the ASSISTED part will become smaller and smaller.
If violating the traffic laws doesn't cause an increase in risk then they shouldn't be laws. Which laws are you proposing to get rid of, or is it all of them?
It's a lost cause using logic and math to convince some people that automated cars will be safer. They will always come up with one obscure scenario that computers just can't handle, but this is the first time I've heard of one with a duck and unbelted kid - that's original. However, if it turns out that there's a rash of duck/kid accidents it would be pretty easy for Google to require all passengers be belted while the car is in motion.
That's a terrible analogy. The vast majority of times a metal cylinder is inserted into another object it is done by machines run by computers. Plus, the majority of times a human makes a conscious decision to put a nail into an object, it's done with a nail gun, no swinging, not much skill, the machine doing almost all the work. Only a relatively insignificant percentage are done by a human picking up a nail and hitting it with a hammer, and those cases are becoming fewer all the time. It's not magic.
I have to say that I think your scenario is far fetched to the point of being absurd.
The very FIRST thing an automated car (or the programmer) would do would be to NOT put yourself in risky situations. IF the rolling box situation is common enough to worry about then the car would never get into the slipstream to begin with. Your entire hypothesis is flawed: you assume the car will slipstream because it can do so safely, yet then you go on to demonstrate it's NOT safe.
Ignoring that contradiction, the automated car can still do any number of things when it gets into that situation to minimize danger. IF they decided to put in special code allowing the car to slipstream they would certainly have a number of parameters for when it is safe, as AC pointed out. If the risk is too high when a vehicle is behind you, the car would back off and get out of the slipstream. If it were boxed in, it would see even higher risk and be sure to back off. This is not that hard. In fact, you don't need special "slipstream" code to do this, an automated car should ALWAYS increase the distance to the car in front of it when it is being tailgated and it will ALWAYS avoid being boxed in (slowing down so that it has an empty area next to it).
Even ignoring all of that, the automated car will handle the rare, rare situation of having an accident in the "rolling box" safely the vast majority of the time, it might be alerted to the accident up ahead well in advance and it will detect it on it's own far sooner than a human would. It will react to what all the trucks around it are doing and pick the safest option.
However, let's assume that in this rare, rare case the car logic goes haywire and explodes the car incinerating all passengers. The number of lives saved by all the common accidents that are avoided are well worth the occasional spontaneous combustion (especially when it's only people who knowingly take that risk to save a few bucks on fuel).
Driving is inherently dangerous, every time you are on the road, even following every traffic regulation to the letter you are putting lives at risk. When you violate those laws you become even more of a risk (in the vast majority of cases). I will fully grant that you are a far better driver than the majority of drivers (and probably much, much safer than the average cabbie), but that merely means that you are adding less risk, not no risk. You may be shooting a gun off in a remote area, but you're still doing it. You absolutely cannot guarantee me that you will never get into an accident, that's just crazy talk.
I don't know if you're aware of the concept of external costs, but while the things you mention here are a benefit to you and your passenger, they have costs for everyone else, like increased risk or delaying other people on the bus/train. It MAY be that you get enough benefit to outweigh their costs, but you have to grant them the same option. Which means that they also get to speed and/or make you wait for the train AND a self-driving car can make those decisions more fairly and consistently (eventually).
I don't know about the car in this particular video, but some versions can already detect potholes and navigate safely around them. But they also will be able to detect them in the dark or when they are filled with rain water, and they will be able to record and notify other cars so they can avoid them and the city so they can fix them.
Google, Yelp, Chowhound,... there are already plenty of services that have more knowledge about local restaurants and bars than you do and they are constantly adding more data and getting better at making recommendations. The panel on the self driving taxi will not only find a good restaurant you like it will tell you exactly what time they close, it will make reservations for you, etc.
It may be several years off, but the self driving taxi will also be able to tell the bus to wait for you and if it were me who designed the system I would put in a cost for doing that.
The average NYC cab driver, for example, provides a terrible experience and few if any of the services that you offer. It wouldn't take much for an automated taxi to outdo them in safety and service. Not to mention that it is better for society not having 10s of thousands of taxis driving around looking for fares - automated taxis wouldn't do that.
I have used car services and chauffeurs who offer the same premium service that you advertise. They are much better than the average cabbie in almost every way and, of course, they charge for that. This merely buys you some extra time. Some people will continue to pay extra, including those who distrust technology or just want human contact. Of course, all the other displaced taxi drivers will want to move into your business and at least some of them will be qualified and compete for your premium business.
In the near future I expect a large number of taxis, if not all, to be a hybrid - a self-driving car that includes a driver behind the wheel. This is a decent compromise for everyone until the technology becomes bulletproof. This might also be a job in your distant future, you still get to load bags and chat with the customers who want that, but don't do the actual driving.
The server is the person most responsible for the overall quality and enjoyment of your meal and typically the only person you're going to be interacting with. They, in turn, tip out to the support staff so that they (the server) get what they need (water refilled, drinks poured, food in a timely manner with special orders considered,...). It's not the only way to do it, but it is rational, for the most part.
If people don't get hurt by you violating the traffic laws then that is just luck. It's like shooting a gun into the sky, not a sin, but don't pretend it's 100% safe either.
The point is that you want us to believe you are providing a necessary service by breaking the law and endangering (even if only barely) the lives of others. This may very well be a differentiator for you when competing against self-driving cars that are required to follow the law, but you can't expect society to approve it. If we did then we could just as easily turn off the limits on self-driving cars and let them speed, roll through stop signs etc. and they will be able to do it more safely and more efficiently than you can.
If you are retiring in the next 10 years then you probably have nothing to worry about, but if you think you can continue to earn the same money doing this job in 20 to 30 years I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
It's not that they don't know how to do this kind of thing, it's just that they can't do it perfectly yet. They are not going to claim such features, let alone let them out in the wild until they can do much, much better than the average driver. Self-parking technology, for example, already exists on the streets and works pretty well, but still requires at least a minimum of driver interaction (e.g. you have to tell it where to park and line it up). But even with current technology there are plenty of workarounds that will extend the usefulness of these cars, e.g. when it takes you to any number of known lots it doesn't even have to navigate a complex garage to find an open spot, it can just drop you and then go wait in a designated area with all the other driverless cars (just as chauffeurs commonly do).
If we, as a society, are okay with you (taxi drivers) speeding up to shave off a few minutes, then we certainly should also let a self-driving car with a better safety record do so as well. This is not a point in your advantage.
You strongly implied that you would not give back nude pictures from a friend who asked for them back, which AC rightly pointed out would make you a scumbag. That may have not been what you meant to say, but you did. IF you actually were a scumbag then your original question certainly would be a reasonable question to ask.
The fact that you need to put art in scare quotes indicates that you've got some kind of inherent bias here, and it's obviously coloring your perspective.
Do you consider a drunk guy pointing his camera phone down at his wife blowing him as art? I don't. I'm willing to let you call it "art" for the purposes of discussion, but only in the context of any work created by an individual. There is no bias, just an attempt to make a distinction between a legal definition and common definition.
I'm aware of what they mean. I think in most situations, at least the first time one party tries to snap some intimate photos, a direct question would be asked "Do you mind if I take these photos?" or "is it okay to take some pictures?" or even a "let's take some photos" waiting for a confirmation. Allowing the photographs to be taken in that context is explicit.
That is a much more reasonable statement. In previous posts you claimed it was always explicit consent, except in cases where the camera was hidden. Which is not consent at all. So, we both agree now that there are cases where consent is given, but not explicit consent.
I agree with you that the question is often asked in healthy open relationships. However, also in those healthy relationships there will be some follow up. "Okay, but you can never show these to anyone." or "Well, just for us, right?".... There is some context and phrasing (and past agreements, as you said) are important. In particular "let's take some photos" implies that the photos are for us.
Neither one of us knows what percentage of the time explicit consent is given and what explicit qualifications are put on the photos. It's enough that some of the time informed explicit consent is not given. If we care about what isn't explicitly stated, about the expectations of those involved, and we should, then we know that the majority of women would not want their exes to keep compromising photos of them.
That's implicit consent unless the party suddenly objects at some point.
There, I'd lean in the other direction. At a minimum that's implicit consent, the previous discussion is irrelevant in that regard. However, it could be considered explicit by the court if it's just a repeat of prior behavior.
The problem is there was no duration specified at the time of the creation. That was not the contract as created, and it's a non-starter here.
So you keep saying, but with no evidence. In every verbal contract, especially implicit contracts, there are a ton of assumptions made that get built into the contract. One of those assumptions is that a guy will not keep or use erotic photos outside the relationship. I'm not sure what circles you hang out in, but I can guarantee that the vast majority of women I know have this understanding. If, I'm wrong, and the vast majority of women would say at the time, "Yes, honey I want you to keep and enjoy these after we break up." then that is a different story. The court should reflect whatever commonly accepted standards there are in their jurisdiction.
This is exactly like you agreeing to pose for photos then 5 years later suddenly going back
It's nothing like that, see above.
put all that work into them, maybe even exhibited them
These are all very different qualifications you're adding on to complicate the issue. You can make a special case for a guy who has invested a ton of work or needs these photos for some reason other than just spite or wanking material. But that is the special case, not the normal case. If the photos have been exhibited to further a photographer's career then he damn well should have gotten a model release already.
Now the article mentions that she took some herself. It's certainly within her rights to withdraw any implied usage rights when she
It's not unwarranted at all. Unless the pictures were taken secretly via hidden camera the issue of taking pictures was discussed and the subject agreed....
This tells me you have no idea what the words "explicit" and "implicit" mean, in a legal context or otherwise.
That's right, it isn't legally important, that's the way the law works. Oral contracts are also legally binding in many places.
What is important in an oral contract is that both parties understand what they are agreeing to and the courts often have to decide that, sometimes based on incomplete evidence. It would be quite reasonable for some courts to decide that the oral contract agreed to by both parties at that time of the photographs intends to give rights to the photos only for the duration of the relationship. You seem to think that is outrageous and impossible, yet that is exactly what the German court has decided, so I think you're wrong there. An American court would probably see it different today, but maybe not next year or the 5 years from now.
So while they may not have a signed piece of paper, the verbal consent given to take the photos is a contract to create those works.
Again you make the assumption that there was verbal, explicit, informed consent. Again, I'll work with you on that as long as you understand that is often not what happens.
It's changed, but an author's right to their own work has pretty much always been tantamount. This is a dangerous road to travel for art.
Nobody is revoking the creator's right to keep "art" that they have legally obtained informed consent for. For example, I think I should be able to write a contract that says I will allow you to take my photo, but that you have to destroy all copies of it after five years. You don't have to agree if you don't want to take the photo. Should the law prevent such a contract?
Because of the aforementioned implicit limited duration of nude partner photos the courts are not taking away anything the photographer had legal rights to. The only reason American courts don't see it that way now, IMO, is because they are puritan and old-fashioned and have a bias that people who pose for naked photos don't deserve such protections. If photographers really want to guarantee their right to their nude "art" indefinitely they should get it in writing - something that is unwieldy and problematic for non-nude photos, but "compromising" photos are a special case.
People capable of rational thought discuss issues that need discussion, not trivial cases of no merit. You are not testing any reasonable limits or boundaries if you are asking whether the German courts would force you to delete photos that nobody asked you to delete.
If you want to pose a hypothetical scenario where the girl, who you were never in a relationship with, does demand that you delete the photos then that is more interesting, but only slightly so. In that case the situation is only 99% clear, as opposed to 100% in your "because this has happened" scenario.
There is absolutely explicit consent given when the image is created. Unless the party is claiming they didn't consent at the time, consent was given.
That is a totally unwarranted assumption, many such photos are taken without explicit consent in either the legal or common usage. But let's just run with the specific example you want to use, to keep things simple. He asks "Can I take some nude photos?" and she says "Yes, go ahead."
Usage rights are not the same thing as ownership and copyright.
However, personal private usage rights to any photograph a photographer creates is always a given, regardless of any other usage rights. The photographer has a right to keep that in his personal collection. He may not be allowed to display it publicly, use it commercially, or even hang it in his house, but having the image sitting on a hard drive is absolutely within his rights.
You continue to get hung up on the legal definitions and legal precedent (particularly American law, I assume). That's fine, but you need to be clear on that. It is quite probable that a judge in America, right now under current laws would not require someone to return or destroy all nude photos of their ex. Just because the subject hasn't given unlimited explicit consent is not LEGALLY important. Morally, ethically, logically, yes. Just not LEGALLY, right here, right now.
Unless the subject has a written "work for hire" contract in most jurisdictions, the photographs are copyright and owned by the photographer. Changing your mind later because of a personal relationship doesn't somehow trump hundreds of years of law surrounding art.
If you don't think the law regarding photography has changed since 1814, then I'd have to say you were mistaken. All the laws that govern this case have changed dramatically since the invention of photography and they continue to evolve at different paces and in different directions depending on the jurisdiction. It is quite possible that the laws covering this area in America will change, but even more likely that courts will interpret existing laws in light of new technology as they have done in many cases, including this one in Germany.
So your question is whether a german court would force you to delete topless photos of someone who gave them to you freely and doesn't mind you having them? I'll go one further than AC who said it was the "wrong question", it's a dumb question.
They consented to having the image created at the time. They would admit as much by taking it to court to revoke their consent. It doesn't really matter how they consented, both parties are in agreement that consent was given at the time to create the photo. Once an image is created you can only talk about usage rights regarding any public usage of the photo. They certainly can't build a time machine and go back and revoke the consent they gave to actually take the picture at the time.
There is no explicit contract or consent. If you want to imagine that there is an implicit contract then you can't arbitrarily set the terms of that contract to what YOU want it to be. The implicit contract (or conditional consent) is that they won't be kept after the breakup (if they both don't agree). Whether you can weasel out of that implicit contract in a given jurisdiction is not the issue, it's about what the law should be.
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Are you happy to be judged based on factors entirely outside your control?
If what you do makes no difference in the education of the kids you teach then why are you even paid at all? Obviously, there is something you can control, it's just a matter of figuring out how to fairly measure it.
A shitty teacher in Beverly Hills is going to have better standardized test scores than an awesome teacher in Detroit.
Which is why you wouldn't make a direct comparison between those two. If teachers were less afraid of being measured and contributed to better metrics to evaluate teacher performance then the system would already be much improved.
That's 300 more times to see something unexpected and learn how to deal with it before he gets to you.
The GP said "a lot more valuable." You respond by stating the hypothetical that it might be slightly more valuable. Riiight.
If the situation hasn't happened in that first 300 times, then it is unlikely to happen very often in the next 300 times. Instead of grossly overpaying for that remote possibility I'd rather hire more teachers which I know for certain will result in better educational results.
So basically it limited all cars to the speed of someone walking in front.
You could go much faster than that, you just need more walkers.
A decent part of being "hip and 'disruptive'" is skirting archaic regulations and laws. Your presumption that those regulations exist for good historical reasons is reasonable, but that certainly does not mean that they are still valid or necessary. Being "disruptive" shakes up the status quo so they can be reevaluated, which would take way too long to evolve naturally. If the hacks wanted a "fair" playing field they would embrace these changes, rather than fight them.
It sounds like you're trying to say that there's no such thing as automation, which is kind of silly (especially when you give a decent example). Listing occupations for you would be fool's errand, because no matter what choice I make you can take your "just assisting" argument to a ridiculous extreme, either by saying that there need to be people to make, program, maintain etc. the machines or that those jobs have not gone away because someone somewhere in the world is still doing them. Traffic signaling police haven't been completely replaced by traffic lights because someone needs to set the timing or change the bulbs. Movable type printing typesetters haven't been completely replaced because authors still need to type into a computer, etc. That's absurd.
Actually, I just have less faith in human drivers than you do. All your examples show that humans are horrible at this kind of thing and commonly make mistakes that no production level self-driving car would even get close to. Your slipstream scenario is a perfect example of why we need to move to self-driving cars as quickly as we can.
I disagree about the progress, but that is just semantics. The first 90% of the problem was relatively straightforward, but you can't expect the same kind of progress in the last 10% (or it would have been solved long ago). If we got to 90% in the first 50 years, getting to 95% in the last 15 may not seem like progress, but I think if you looked at a passage translated with 1999 technology vs. the best available today you would find a marked difference. Even freely available services like Google do a very good job at translating between western languages, although it will be much longer until they can handle Japanese or Tamarian.
I don't know why you insist on talking about absolutes, e.g. when no human assistance will be required for any particular activity. Machines have been replacing manual labor, and replacing human translators and are starting to replace transportation workers. For the first two we are well on the way (90% or more) and we will likely never get to the point of replacing humans 100% in any of those areas. It's just impossible to argue that the machines are getting better at these jobs faster than we are.
You can become skilled at anything, including nail guns. That is not the point, I'm not saying that most carpenters aren't skilled or that some guys can't wield a nail gun like a maniac - they can. But it doesn't take much skill or training to pick up a nail gun, point it at a wall and pull the trigger. I'll agree that the ability to use a nail gun is a skill, if you agree that frying an egg is a skill, vacuuming a house is a skill, and picking up a box and moving from one place to another is a skill.
I'm not sure what your point is. It's obviously true that machines and computers have a harder time at some kinds of problems than others. It's also true that they can't do everything a human can do today. Nobody would dispute that. However, everything talked about here, nails, cars, translation are more automated than than they were 100 years ago and various technology improvements and cost efficiencies will keep that trend going.
Specifically, nail guns are just one step on the road to automating construction, although not even the first step. As I alluded to, many things that were assembled with hammers and nails 200 years ago are now done by machine, even many parts of building and home construction (e.g. window frames). When I said there was "not much skill", I was specifically referring to the line "hold the hammer properly and swing it". But I'll go further in that for most construction where to put the nails is not a skill of the guy holding the nail gun, it should be determined by the architect and the building codes. I don't consider myself a skilled carpenter because I can put together an IKEA bookshelf.
There's absolutely no reason why a carpenter bot couldn't slam 24 nails in a 2x4 AND verify that they were done correctly, it's just not cost effective to do, for now. We are not going to completely get rid of carpenters any time soon, but their jobs will slowly go away with more automation. In fifty years you might have a house built by a single foreman who's job is primarily just to oversee the bots.
As for your translation example, yes translation is hard, but the bulk of translation done today is completely automated. It's not terribly good, but it is good enough for most uses; Facebook, website browsing, manuals on cheap chinese electronics, etc.
For nails, words and cars, the ASSISTED part will become smaller and smaller.
If violating the traffic laws doesn't cause an increase in risk then they shouldn't be laws. Which laws are you proposing to get rid of, or is it all of them?
It's a lost cause using logic and math to convince some people that automated cars will be safer. They will always come up with one obscure scenario that computers just can't handle, but this is the first time I've heard of one with a duck and unbelted kid - that's original. However, if it turns out that there's a rash of duck/kid accidents it would be pretty easy for Google to require all passengers be belted while the car is in motion.
That's a terrible analogy. The vast majority of times a metal cylinder is inserted into another object it is done by machines run by computers. Plus, the majority of times a human makes a conscious decision to put a nail into an object, it's done with a nail gun, no swinging, not much skill, the machine doing almost all the work. Only a relatively insignificant percentage are done by a human picking up a nail and hitting it with a hammer, and those cases are becoming fewer all the time. It's not magic.
I have to say that I think your scenario is far fetched to the point of being absurd.
The very FIRST thing an automated car (or the programmer) would do would be to NOT put yourself in risky situations. IF the rolling box situation is common enough to worry about then the car would never get into the slipstream to begin with. Your entire hypothesis is flawed: you assume the car will slipstream because it can do so safely, yet then you go on to demonstrate it's NOT safe.
Ignoring that contradiction, the automated car can still do any number of things when it gets into that situation to minimize danger. IF they decided to put in special code allowing the car to slipstream they would certainly have a number of parameters for when it is safe, as AC pointed out. If the risk is too high when a vehicle is behind you, the car would back off and get out of the slipstream. If it were boxed in, it would see even higher risk and be sure to back off. This is not that hard. In fact, you don't need special "slipstream" code to do this, an automated car should ALWAYS increase the distance to the car in front of it when it is being tailgated and it will ALWAYS avoid being boxed in (slowing down so that it has an empty area next to it).
Even ignoring all of that, the automated car will handle the rare, rare situation of having an accident in the "rolling box" safely the vast majority of the time, it might be alerted to the accident up ahead well in advance and it will detect it on it's own far sooner than a human would. It will react to what all the trucks around it are doing and pick the safest option.
However, let's assume that in this rare, rare case the car logic goes haywire and explodes the car incinerating all passengers. The number of lives saved by all the common accidents that are avoided are well worth the occasional spontaneous combustion (especially when it's only people who knowingly take that risk to save a few bucks on fuel).
Driving is inherently dangerous, every time you are on the road, even following every traffic regulation to the letter you are putting lives at risk. When you violate those laws you become even more of a risk (in the vast majority of cases). I will fully grant that you are a far better driver than the majority of drivers (and probably much, much safer than the average cabbie), but that merely means that you are adding less risk, not no risk. You may be shooting a gun off in a remote area, but you're still doing it. You absolutely cannot guarantee me that you will never get into an accident, that's just crazy talk.
I don't know if you're aware of the concept of external costs, but while the things you mention here are a benefit to you and your passenger, they have costs for everyone else, like increased risk or delaying other people on the bus/train. It MAY be that you get enough benefit to outweigh their costs, but you have to grant them the same option. Which means that they also get to speed and/or make you wait for the train AND a self-driving car can make those decisions more fairly and consistently (eventually).
I don't know about the car in this particular video, but some versions can already detect potholes and navigate safely around them. But they also will be able to detect them in the dark or when they are filled with rain water, and they will be able to record and notify other cars so they can avoid them and the city so they can fix them.
Google, Yelp, Chowhound, ... there are already plenty of services that have more knowledge about local restaurants and bars than you do and they are constantly adding more data and getting better at making recommendations. The panel on the self driving taxi will not only find a good restaurant you like it will tell you exactly what time they close, it will make reservations for you, etc.
It may be several years off, but the self driving taxi will also be able to tell the bus to wait for you and if it were me who designed the system I would put in a cost for doing that.
The average NYC cab driver, for example, provides a terrible experience and few if any of the services that you offer. It wouldn't take much for an automated taxi to outdo them in safety and service. Not to mention that it is better for society not having 10s of thousands of taxis driving around looking for fares - automated taxis wouldn't do that.
I have used car services and chauffeurs who offer the same premium service that you advertise. They are much better than the average cabbie in almost every way and, of course, they charge for that. This merely buys you some extra time. Some people will continue to pay extra, including those who distrust technology or just want human contact. Of course, all the other displaced taxi drivers will want to move into your business and at least some of them will be qualified and compete for your premium business.
In the near future I expect a large number of taxis, if not all, to be a hybrid - a self-driving car that includes a driver behind the wheel. This is a decent compromise for everyone until the technology becomes bulletproof. This might also be a job in your distant future, you still get to load bags and chat with the customers who want that, but don't do the actual driving.
If you are significantly better than the average server then you should command a higher salary from your boss.
The server is the person most responsible for the overall quality and enjoyment of your meal and typically the only person you're going to be interacting with. They, in turn, tip out to the support staff so that they (the server) get what they need (water refilled, drinks poured, food in a timely manner with special orders considered, ...). It's not the only way to do it, but it is rational, for the most part.
If people don't get hurt by you violating the traffic laws then that is just luck. It's like shooting a gun into the sky, not a sin, but don't pretend it's 100% safe either.
The point is that you want us to believe you are providing a necessary service by breaking the law and endangering (even if only barely) the lives of others. This may very well be a differentiator for you when competing against self-driving cars that are required to follow the law, but you can't expect society to approve it. If we did then we could just as easily turn off the limits on self-driving cars and let them speed, roll through stop signs etc. and they will be able to do it more safely and more efficiently than you can.
If you are retiring in the next 10 years then you probably have nothing to worry about, but if you think you can continue to earn the same money doing this job in 20 to 30 years I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
It's not that they don't know how to do this kind of thing, it's just that they can't do it perfectly yet. They are not going to claim such features, let alone let them out in the wild until they can do much, much better than the average driver. Self-parking technology, for example, already exists on the streets and works pretty well, but still requires at least a minimum of driver interaction (e.g. you have to tell it where to park and line it up). But even with current technology there are plenty of workarounds that will extend the usefulness of these cars, e.g. when it takes you to any number of known lots it doesn't even have to navigate a complex garage to find an open spot, it can just drop you and then go wait in a designated area with all the other driverless cars (just as chauffeurs commonly do).
I suggest you have a backup plan.
If we, as a society, are okay with you (taxi drivers) speeding up to shave off a few minutes, then we certainly should also let a self-driving car with a better safety record do so as well. This is not a point in your advantage.
You strongly implied that you would not give back nude pictures from a friend who asked for them back, which AC rightly pointed out would make you a scumbag. That may have not been what you meant to say, but you did. IF you actually were a scumbag then your original question certainly would be a reasonable question to ask.
The fact that you need to put art in scare quotes indicates that you've got some kind of inherent bias here, and it's obviously coloring your perspective.
Do you consider a drunk guy pointing his camera phone down at his wife blowing him as art? I don't. I'm willing to let you call it "art" for the purposes of discussion, but only in the context of any work created by an individual. There is no bias, just an attempt to make a distinction between a legal definition and common definition.
I'm aware of what they mean. I think in most situations, at least the first time one party tries to snap some intimate photos, a direct question would be asked "Do you mind if I take these photos?" or "is it okay to take some pictures?" or even a "let's take some photos" waiting for a confirmation. Allowing the photographs to be taken in that context is explicit.
That is a much more reasonable statement. In previous posts you claimed it was always explicit consent, except in cases where the camera was hidden. Which is not consent at all. So, we both agree now that there are cases where consent is given, but not explicit consent.
I agree with you that the question is often asked in healthy open relationships. However, also in those healthy relationships there will be some follow up. "Okay, but you can never show these to anyone." or "Well, just for us, right?" .... There is some context and phrasing (and past agreements, as you said) are important. In particular "let's take some photos" implies that the photos are for us.
Neither one of us knows what percentage of the time explicit consent is given and what explicit qualifications are put on the photos. It's enough that some of the time informed explicit consent is not given. If we care about what isn't explicitly stated, about the expectations of those involved, and we should, then we know that the majority of women would not want their exes to keep compromising photos of them.
That's implicit consent unless the party suddenly objects at some point.
There, I'd lean in the other direction. At a minimum that's implicit consent, the previous discussion is irrelevant in that regard. However, it could be considered explicit by the court if it's just a repeat of prior behavior.
The problem is there was no duration specified at the time of the creation. That was not the contract as created, and it's a non-starter here.
So you keep saying, but with no evidence. In every verbal contract, especially implicit contracts, there are a ton of assumptions made that get built into the contract. One of those assumptions is that a guy will not keep or use erotic photos outside the relationship. I'm not sure what circles you hang out in, but I can guarantee that the vast majority of women I know have this understanding. If, I'm wrong, and the vast majority of women would say at the time, "Yes, honey I want you to keep and enjoy these after we break up." then that is a different story. The court should reflect whatever commonly accepted standards there are in their jurisdiction.
This is exactly like you agreeing to pose for photos then 5 years later suddenly going back
It's nothing like that, see above.
put all that work into them, maybe even exhibited them
These are all very different qualifications you're adding on to complicate the issue. You can make a special case for a guy who has invested a ton of work or needs these photos for some reason other than just spite or wanking material. But that is the special case, not the normal case. If the photos have been exhibited to further a photographer's career then he damn well should have gotten a model release already.
Now the article mentions that she took some herself. It's certainly within her rights to withdraw any implied usage rights when she
It's not unwarranted at all. Unless the pictures were taken secretly via hidden camera the issue of taking pictures was discussed and the subject agreed....
This tells me you have no idea what the words "explicit" and "implicit" mean, in a legal context or otherwise.
That's right, it isn't legally important, that's the way the law works. Oral contracts are also legally binding in many places.
What is important in an oral contract is that both parties understand what they are agreeing to and the courts often have to decide that, sometimes based on incomplete evidence. It would be quite reasonable for some courts to decide that the oral contract agreed to by both parties at that time of the photographs intends to give rights to the photos only for the duration of the relationship. You seem to think that is outrageous and impossible, yet that is exactly what the German court has decided, so I think you're wrong there. An American court would probably see it different today, but maybe not next year or the 5 years from now.
So while they may not have a signed piece of paper, the verbal consent given to take the photos is a contract to create those works.
Again you make the assumption that there was verbal, explicit, informed consent. Again, I'll work with you on that as long as you understand that is often not what happens.
It's changed, but an author's right to their own work has pretty much always been tantamount. This is a dangerous road to travel for art.
Nobody is revoking the creator's right to keep "art" that they have legally obtained informed consent for. For example, I think I should be able to write a contract that says I will allow you to take my photo, but that you have to destroy all copies of it after five years. You don't have to agree if you don't want to take the photo. Should the law prevent such a contract?
Because of the aforementioned implicit limited duration of nude partner photos the courts are not taking away anything the photographer had legal rights to. The only reason American courts don't see it that way now, IMO, is because they are puritan and old-fashioned and have a bias that people who pose for naked photos don't deserve such protections. If photographers really want to guarantee their right to their nude "art" indefinitely they should get it in writing - something that is unwieldy and problematic for non-nude photos, but "compromising" photos are a special case.
People capable of rational thought discuss issues that need discussion, not trivial cases of no merit. You are not testing any reasonable limits or boundaries if you are asking whether the German courts would force you to delete photos that nobody asked you to delete.
If you want to pose a hypothetical scenario where the girl, who you were never in a relationship with, does demand that you delete the photos then that is more interesting, but only slightly so. In that case the situation is only 99% clear, as opposed to 100% in your "because this has happened" scenario.
There is absolutely explicit consent given when the image is created. Unless the party is claiming they didn't consent at the time, consent was given.
That is a totally unwarranted assumption, many such photos are taken without explicit consent in either the legal or common usage. But let's just run with the specific example you want to use, to keep things simple. He asks "Can I take some nude photos?" and she says "Yes, go ahead."
Usage rights are not the same thing as ownership and copyright.
However, personal private usage rights to any photograph a photographer creates is always a given, regardless of any other usage rights. The photographer has a right to keep that in his personal collection. He may not be allowed to display it publicly, use it commercially, or even hang it in his house, but having the image sitting on a hard drive is absolutely within his rights.
You continue to get hung up on the legal definitions and legal precedent (particularly American law, I assume). That's fine, but you need to be clear on that. It is quite probable that a judge in America, right now under current laws would not require someone to return or destroy all nude photos of their ex. Just because the subject hasn't given unlimited explicit consent is not LEGALLY important. Morally, ethically, logically, yes. Just not LEGALLY, right here, right now.
Unless the subject has a written "work for hire" contract in most jurisdictions, the photographs are copyright and owned by the photographer. Changing your mind later because of a personal relationship doesn't somehow trump hundreds of years of law surrounding art.
If you don't think the law regarding photography has changed since 1814, then I'd have to say you were mistaken. All the laws that govern this case have changed dramatically since the invention of photography and they continue to evolve at different paces and in different directions depending on the jurisdiction. It is quite possible that the laws covering this area in America will change, but even more likely that courts will interpret existing laws in light of new technology as they have done in many cases, including this one in Germany.
So your question is whether a german court would force you to delete topless photos of someone who gave them to you freely and doesn't mind you having them? I'll go one further than AC who said it was the "wrong question", it's a dumb question.
They consented to having the image created at the time. They would admit as much by taking it to court to revoke their consent. It doesn't really matter how they consented, both parties are in agreement that consent was given at the time to create the photo. Once an image is created you can only talk about usage rights regarding any public usage of the photo. They certainly can't build a time machine and go back and revoke the consent they gave to actually take the picture at the time.
There is no explicit contract or consent. If you want to imagine that there is an implicit contract then you can't arbitrarily set the terms of that contract to what YOU want it to be. The implicit contract (or conditional consent) is that they won't be kept after the breakup (if they both don't agree). Whether you can weasel out of that implicit contract in a given jurisdiction is not the issue, it's about what the law should be.