20 minutes into the future...
This video crossed my path on the blogosphere recently: https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw
It's a cute video that highlights some impressive technological accomplishments of well-known robot manufacturer Boston Dynamics, but one of the comments on that video more or less sums up my feelings too... something to the effect of "isn't that cute, the kill-bot can dance."
It seems to me like that's exactly the situation. Of course there are peacetime uses for the technologies, and I have no doubt most of the engineers (who apparently haven't read a single sci-fi novel) have their hearts in the right place and don't see the technology ever being mis-used... but it still feels a little weird to me.
Here's the best part... all buyers of these robots (which are for now not offered to individuals, only companies or researchers) must agree to Boston Dynamics' Terms and Conditions of Sale, which include language saying that the products must be used lawfully, cannot be used to harm or intimidate people or animals, and cannot be used as a weapon or configured to hold a weapon. What is the consequence of violating these terms, you might ask?
Voiding the warranty. :P
Granted the terms are practically unenforceable in the first place, so who really cares, but wouldn't something like prosecution and/or confiscation of the equipment be more appropriate if you try and kill people with an ambulatory robot? :P
This is the thing that bugs me about social engineering and propaganda in general. As long as something is "hip" enough - whether that's a dancing robot, a phone that can monitor visual, audible, and position data around its users, a "secure" proprietary instant message system that's built on google infrastructure, a drug that's "safe" but causes side effects including risk of heart and kidney failure, a social media service that can inject whatever message it wants into your "random" feed, etc... whenever this happens, people seem to weirdly lose capacity for rational, objective thought. And of course it's easy to brand anybody who raises such concerns as a fear-monger or paranoid, because heck, nothing bad has happened yet, right? So what if development of robots is funded by DARPA, they also funded the Internet, right?? What's the big deal if Google has access to your personal data?? Etc.
I know this is nothing new, but it just seems like we're entering about 2-3 chapters beyond the propaganda of the Cold War era, which somehow worries me a bit. :P
It's enough to make you want to live off the grid in an RV, and avoid contact with mainstream culture, while broadcasting your own pirate media station. Or something.
It's a cute video that highlights some impressive technological accomplishments of well-known robot manufacturer Boston Dynamics, but one of the comments on that video more or less sums up my feelings too... something to the effect of "isn't that cute, the kill-bot can dance."
It seems to me like that's exactly the situation. Of course there are peacetime uses for the technologies, and I have no doubt most of the engineers (who apparently haven't read a single sci-fi novel) have their hearts in the right place and don't see the technology ever being mis-used... but it still feels a little weird to me.
Here's the best part... all buyers of these robots (which are for now not offered to individuals, only companies or researchers) must agree to Boston Dynamics' Terms and Conditions of Sale, which include language saying that the products must be used lawfully, cannot be used to harm or intimidate people or animals, and cannot be used as a weapon or configured to hold a weapon. What is the consequence of violating these terms, you might ask?
Voiding the warranty. :P
Granted the terms are practically unenforceable in the first place, so who really cares, but wouldn't something like prosecution and/or confiscation of the equipment be more appropriate if you try and kill people with an ambulatory robot? :P
This is the thing that bugs me about social engineering and propaganda in general. As long as something is "hip" enough - whether that's a dancing robot, a phone that can monitor visual, audible, and position data around its users, a "secure" proprietary instant message system that's built on google infrastructure, a drug that's "safe" but causes side effects including risk of heart and kidney failure, a social media service that can inject whatever message it wants into your "random" feed, etc... whenever this happens, people seem to weirdly lose capacity for rational, objective thought. And of course it's easy to brand anybody who raises such concerns as a fear-monger or paranoid, because heck, nothing bad has happened yet, right? So what if development of robots is funded by DARPA, they also funded the Internet, right?? What's the big deal if Google has access to your personal data?? Etc.
I know this is nothing new, but it just seems like we're entering about 2-3 chapters beyond the propaganda of the Cold War era, which somehow worries me a bit. :P
It's enough to make you want to live off the grid in an RV, and avoid contact with mainstream culture, while broadcasting your own pirate media station. Or something.