The EU dictates to its member states a law against sexual harassment in the work environment. That would be great, except for the fact that THE ACCUSED PERSON MUST PROVE HIS OWN INNOCENCE. I suppose old fashioned ideas like "presumption of innocence" have been shown to be worthless, and are readily discarded.
As a human, I am susceptible to masturbation, but I at least close the curtains. I don't make it a law! =8-(
"Ryle's "ghost in the machine" of the brain still seems to exist. As Skinner wrote:
"The objection to inner states is not that they do not exist, but that they are not relevant in a functional analysis" Skinner 1953."
I believe we are machines. I believe there is no free will. So the above resonates well with me. But then what is the raison d'etre of this "ghost in the machine"? Putting this in the context of an example, what is the difference between me and a TV, besides the fact that I have more input and more output? I can change my state. Can I? Still it is deterministic, so why do I need the ghost? The TV can change its state, when eg it turns off automatically after some time. Of course I told it to do that, but is this important or am I part of its environment?
Non existance of the "Unethicality of the Three Laws".
Gordon Worley has an article about "Robot Oppression: Unethicality of
the Three Laws". I disagree with him. And here is why:
"Rather than content-based restrictions on free-will, robots need mental
structures that will guide them towards the self-invention of good,
ethical behaviors."
That's so very nice. The problem is, there is no such thing as "good, ethical behaviors". Ethics is the current level of equilibrium social entities. ("Entities" spanning from a person to a huge group.)
"As we know from humans, free-willed beings require guidance to behave
ethically."
a) There is no free will.
b) "guidance" is a very nice euphimism for "force".
"This is equivalent to the problem asked by robot ethicists: how do we
create good, ethical robots from scratch?"
Easy. We must have means to "injure" them. Shut them down, destroy them,
incapacitate them, or something. Think of death penalty and imprisonment.
"To imagine what this would like, think back to your childhood. At some
point, you wanted something like a toy or piece of candy that your
parents denied you. How did that make you feel? Probably frustrated,
angry, and trapped. Eventually you grew out of that because you
understood the role of your parents better"...
I grew out of that, because I now can get a piece of candy, without having to ask anyone. However I haven't grown out of robbing banks, and I feel frustrated that things like "the police" exist that force me against my free will.
"Humans are universally interested in ethics and begin learning ethics
from a young age, mostly without direct instruction."
Ahem. They are not interested in ethics. They are interested in the sad fact that "I want to have 100 virgin slaves delivered to me daily, but it seems that I am not the ruler of the known universe...Damn!"
