Movies almost always portray AI as alive. I guess that's because it works for the drama. But an artificial intelligence need not be alive, and probably won't be; and artificial life need not be intelligent. An AI would still just do what it's told. It did not experience the multi-generational trauma of evolutionary biology; it does not covet power or sex as life does; it does not fear pain or death and react to threats of either accordingly. It just thinks and does, unable even to generate initiative, unless that's what's it's been told to do. Artificial life would seek to survive and reproduce, intelligent discourse would be (as with most humans), secondary to fear and greed.
But a computer AI that emerged from a multi-generational battle of survival, that feared death and pain and coveted power and dominance, well that would be a scary movie. Because it would be alive, and very dangerous indeed.
I see this over and over again. Small municipalities, and even big cities (Cincinatti, for example), pass poorly concieved laws like this because a (very loud) minority wants them, then spend a truck load of money defending these laws against constitutional challeges, and lose.
While employers, and private organizations/companies in general, can restrict what's available (on their premises), the government cannot. And it's an especially dim governing body that tries in the face of one the core rulings that cover such action.
Wanna tell me what I can publish or read? Your restrictions had better be, among other things, content-neutral.
We've gone from the fruitless attempts to eliminate stripper clubs a few years ago to trying to stop consenting adults from looking at boobs at Danni's Hard Drive today.
Banning what you find offensive fails -- I can leave the house right now and buy crack with little or no fear of being arrested. Same is true of a hooker. And so can your 12-year-old.
This is city money that could be put to good use rather than shoveled out to trial lawyers.
Aside from what the legal filing actually says (mendacity from lawyers? Who'd a thunk it?), this deal is not about piracy. It's about control. The DVD dudes want to say who can watch what and where they can be when they watch it -- wanna watch the German edition of The Matrix in Des Moines? Nope. Gotta buy the US edition.
Also, I'm guessing they want to collect a token licensing commission for each encoder/decoder. Thus no Linux decoder, as any commission on $0 is zero...
-------------------------
"If you try to own the web, like all things Internet, it will simply route around you."
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I had mod points; and that everyone who will later post could see the wisdom here.
Movies almost always portray AI as alive. I guess that's because it works for the drama. But an artificial intelligence need not be alive, and probably won't be; and artificial life need not be intelligent. An AI would still just do what it's told. It did not experience the multi-generational trauma of evolutionary biology; it does not covet power or sex as life does; it does not fear pain or death and react to threats of either accordingly. It just thinks and does, unable even to generate initiative, unless that's what's it's been told to do. Artificial life would seek to survive and reproduce, intelligent discourse would be (as with most humans), secondary to fear and greed.
But a computer AI that emerged from a multi-generational battle of survival, that feared death and pain and coveted power and dominance, well that would be a scary movie. Because it would be alive, and very dangerous indeed.
So sayeth the babble fish.
Katz is on a philosophical rampage. Here's a link to a better review of this book.
While employers, and private organizations/companies in general, can restrict what's available (on their premises), the government cannot. And it's an especially dim governing body that tries in the face of one the core rulings that cover such action.
Wanna tell me what I can publish or read? Your restrictions had better be, among other things, content-neutral.
We've gone from the fruitless attempts to eliminate stripper clubs a few years ago to trying to stop consenting adults from looking at boobs at Danni's Hard Drive today.
Banning what you find offensive fails -- I can leave the house right now and buy crack with little or no fear of being arrested. Same is true of a hooker. And so can your 12-year-old.
This is city money that could be put to good use rather than shoveled out to trial lawyers.
Ughh. I have to go hurl.
Quicktime for Linux is here.
Also, I'm guessing they want to collect a token licensing commission for each encoder/decoder. Thus no Linux decoder, as any commission on $0 is zero...
-------------------------
"If you try to own the web, like all things Internet, it will simply route around you."