Under The Sun

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, was named last
night as the first recipient of a new award to celebrate outstanding
British achievement.

Online journals and camera phones are a “paedophiles’ dream” which have increased the risk to children, the Scottish Parliament has been warned.

Legal Affairs magazine says It’s time to start thinking about legal rights for computers:

There is another reason why we should engage the question of A.I. rights, one that, paradoxically, makes a virtue out of the theoretical and futuristic suggestions that have led some to dismiss it. The work of artificial intelligence often consists of the manufacture of human analogs. In addressing the nature of those creations, we can come closer to understanding our own nature and to appreciating what makes us unique.

Anne Foerst, a Lutheran minister and expert on A.I. who served as a theological consultant on the Kismet project, considers the development of sociable robots a type of divine worship. In her forthcoming book, God in the Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Humanity and God, she relates how her experience in Brooks’s lab fostered a respect “for the incredible complexity of the human system,” which led her to “celebrate God’s ‘highest’ creative act.”

The Times picks up the term Pajamahadeen to describe “a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing” — and calling the great and good to acccount:

Had there been an equivalent force in this country — a Pyjamahadeen to match the Pajamahadeen — the Hutton inquiry might not have been necessary. Concerted scrutiny on the internet of that notorious broadcast might have spared the BBC later embarrassment — and the rest of us Greg Dyke’s self-regarding memoir.

I’m not a pacifist, but I find this rather disturbing:

‘Robot soldiers’ bound for Iraq :

The US military is planning to deploy robots armed with machine-guns to wage war against insurgents in Iraq’ …Officials say the robot warrior is fast, accurate and will track and attack the enemy with relatively little risk to the lives of US soldiers. Unlike its human counterparts, the armed robot does not require food, clothing, training, motivation or a pension.

No risk, no cost, no concience. And as if this wasn’t enough like a video game:

Mr Quinn says there are plans to replace the computer screen, joysticks and keypad in the remote-control unit with a Gameboy-style controller and virtual-reality goggles.

And the virtual-reality screaming, bleeding, dismembered targets are just goblins after all…

What do Martin Luther, Thomas Paine, George Orwell and Brian Lamb have in common? They were all “bloggers”!

Via John Robb, who adds :

However, he does leave out an important implication of the analogy. [Martin Luther and Thomas Paine] published in response to the corruption of the established media (or at the very least, a media that was under the direct control of a corrupt power structure).

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

I’m sure this triggers the “Yuk Factor” in most people, which is itself a problem; in our fallen state, “yuk” is a pretty unreliable way of distinguishing right from wrong. The Bible — historically the basis of Western ethics — makes a clear statement of the uniqueness, sanctity and value of Human life. Without this axiom, confusion is inevitable. Some people oppose the mixing of human stem cells with embryonic animals to create new species on the basis of animal rights:

Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species.

Others employ the usual ends-justify-the-means arguments, by which nothing is bad if it might save lives:

Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban in the United States. Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this biomedical science, where they want to impose their will—not just be part of an argument—if that leads to a ban or moratorium. … they are stopping research that would save human lives, he said.

The problem is that our current knowledge doesn’t allow us to pin down exactly what “human” means in terms of cells, neurons and DNA, and investigation itself risks crossing into unacceptable territory:

“Whatever moral threshold of human neural development we might choose to set as the limit for such an experiment, there would be a considerable risk of exceeding that limit before it could be recognized.”

To place boundaries on the aquision of knowlege offends our human pride, but to recognise moral boundaries is to be truly Human, a creature made by, for and in the image of God.

Giving victory to terrorism, one civil liberty at a time: Britain ’sliding into police state’

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country’s former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs said yesterday.

The leftwing Labour MP and QC, Bob Marshall-Andrews, called the proposals “the most substantial extension of the state’s executive powers over the citizen for 300 years”.