There’s a blog post of google principals for ethical AI technology. One thing that catches ones eyes is this passage

Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.

Which leads me to remember some old posts of my own blog regarding the matter. Humanisitic orientation to establish anchors in an ethics proclaimation is certainly very good. The one problem it does make unclear is the nature of human beings.

For example, is technology able o ecretly drive a nail into my tire while my car is parked outside of swimming gymnasium “injury to people”? From text, it would seem that nail in the tire is not damaging to my human person. But it does damage my social-economic person. Without a functioning car, I cannot do a lot of things to be part of the society and economy, but my person, for now, is still whole.

In particular, when it comes to google, the questions will be “is my email account part of my person?” Is my house “part of my person?” A tank with high powered cannon on the turret, is not primarily designed to damage my person, but it certainly is a weapon of fairly sizable destruction relative to my house.

While I’m griping, USA always lead the world in humanist ideals and also in technology (but maybe not together) to lean on international standards is an error on both sides

Technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.

It lowers USA corporation to the standards of companies from countries like PR. Of China and Republic of India. While we hold every country in high esteem, they’re all functioning countries keeping their massive population alive and happy, we’re not sure how they do it is how we should do it. We don’t want to sink as low as them.

Some recent example, BitTorrent, and virtual currencies, are all things whose purpose can be construed as to contravene principals or laws of most country. So on this side of the error, the policy inhibits technological advancements.

Its hard to think, discuss and write these things when Google employs half of your friends and aquaintences. But it is worth discussing further imho.

There seems to be a fault with democracy. Those who argue that

• You can exercise a fair amount of political power by voting
• You can choose to depart a democratic system by leaving it.
• You can choose participate further by becoming politician and influencing the votes of others.

There is a matter of efficiency. Yes, in theory, an immortal participating in a democracy will get his way if he rightfully deserves it, according to the rules he agreed to. But most people are not immortal. The system, imho, is not efficient enough for most practical purposes, for us to exercise our inalienable liberties fully, or at all.

And forcing us to perform political acts, such as persuasion, can be compared to forcing us to perform physically offensive acts, on other people. Some find it unacceptably invasive and offending. Forcing us to spend time and money on politics is like depriving us of body parts or money. It seems unjustifiable.

As an example of police brutality… Recently, there was a video of a girl being beaten by police. After internet uproar, the police department posts body-cam of the same video. While the police man was short tempered, he was… By some standards, being asulted by the women under arrest. She definitely was resisting arrest.

21st century technology has not developed to the point where we can

• Measure the burtality if the arresting officer. Perhaps by means of force sensors on his gloves and clothing. It would help to estimate the exersion made by him as well as the location and power of attack on him.
• Assessing the public’s judgement of the event democratically. Perhaps by counting twitter sentiment?
• Measure the degree of resistance exercised by the girl. Perhaps by force sensors on her clothing.
• Measure the danger that the police officer and bystanders were under.

Is anybody working on the improvement of our democracy?

Do we want this type of improvements? This exercise while seemingly too restrictive for human policeperson(they cannot calibrate their motors to limit force of a punch), it is precisely the kind of system we would want to deploy when policebots are on patrol.

Since robots and other computerized systems can quickly adapt to new situations, and since they may even create new solutions to problems, as a transitional step, we should implement much more efficient democracy to assess each situation case by case.

Tesla should, for example, open up its data gathered during major accident for scrutiny by the public as well as regulatory agencies. The low-latency high-fidelity availability of data should be part of our great country’s auto-pilot licensing process.

It is our right to know and to weigh-in on these issues in a timely and effective manner.

Ps, what about privacy? Idk, but honestly, between running into a highway divide at 60mph not knowing why looking down from heaven and my wife knowing where I am driving to… I’d rather the latter than the prior, for the moment. I already changed my mind, several times, while typing that, but still, the momentary instinct is that people want to and deserve to know more.

It’s the season for reflections on familial holiday traditions. I wonder about practices ingrained in social and cultural norms. It is quite possible that some of the practices may have been designed with malicious intents, in some perspectives.

Now all you corporate or cult monitors and governmental secret police relax. I am not specifically talking about your most respectable high-functioning cultures. Although the same comment may apply, I am mainly thinking of larger and older cultures, human cultures.

I once read, news or fake news I do not recall, that the act of circumcision is a degenerate form of castration, to reduce the sexual competitiveness of the son against his father. I hope that’s fake science… But… It kind of makes sense, if you think about it… I mean, there are a lot of older men making babies with really young chicks that I observe often. So… Oh I see, you thought dad didn’t want you to compete for mom…. He was more likely thinking about his neighbors daughters, … If you think about it…

So… We should examine some other things… Like, did your mama ever tell you don’t choose the choicest material, but instead select a less pretty and less young and less demanding wife? Do you ever wonder if it was to make sure you still had energy left to take care of her? (Sustainance-wise, you sick idiot)

What about daughters, did your dad teach you to hate sex? Not even allowed to think about it until 18, and even then the scrutiny on your possible mates make it impossible. Does this life-long endoctrination that sex is bad (in almost all cultures) serve a selfish reason that he might have a chance of having you around home longer? Maybe you’ll be like countless unmarried women-child who stayed home and fed her mom and dad to their deathbed?

The question here is not necessarily the existence of these cultural practices, but more that, well, more that we have not systematically examined them critically in Scientific and rational ways. Most of what you do, the stuff that you feel you belong to, the culture and the people and the practices, when they were originally formed, the intent was not innocent.

Recall this example I think of often. For Millenniums the Chinese people bound the feet of young girls. Some say it is to relief them of the freedom to choose husband(but why would parents do this?) Some say it is beautiful, that an unbound women will not be selected for marriage due to ugliness of the feet. (Oh, and non-virgins are not marriageaterial either)

The truth of the matter is, Millenniums of men had to suffer the grotesque deformity caused by foot binding. The women cannot do chores as freely (oh, maybe that’s why the first mom and dad’s did it?) And the wrinkles and cravses it creates is home to many bacteria and foul odor. The men suffered from the establishment of this cultural stable. And yet they keep on telling their daughters: come, let’s do the damn thing, it’s good for you!

And while we’re banging on Chinese people (it is 2010’s after all) think about the population control they imported. Men had to suffer vasectomies and women abortions to keep the nation smaller and weaker. And still many enormous number of people stand tall and proud to be a party to the Party that brought population control to China.

And of course your dutiful Chinese-American will be quick to remind us that the Chinese exclusion act of the 19th century was introduced to the congress by a Californian Republican and then passed both senate and the house to be signed into law by a Republican president. Today, even in Trumpverse, there are a whole lot of Chinese-American Republicans, or those who lean right.

Can politics (and parties) be an ancient ritual that can have nonproductive implementations? Can the Republic be an antiquated construct that is begging for modern upgrade?

I conclude this brief consideration with a scene from season two of The Good Fight (Day 457) Lucca is coming home with her new born, baby-daddy by her side. All she cpuld think of is her mother’s advise, that she wants to smile at the sight of her (women) friends’ car. That the sight of her husband, the thought of abandoning her career to support his being a senator on capital hill, puts the biggest frown on her face… These scenes, are very powerful to me. I feel uneasy. I would not want my daughter to feel the way Lucca does. Her bond with her co-workers is stronger than with the man that she has sex, baby and can gain power all together! Her Mother’s advise: what do you feel when you see his car in the garage. I am unhappy that the main character of this show feels more for friends and co-workers than for her traditional-style family…. components (since Lucca and Collin are not marrying) I cannot, accept that kind of family, three adult women… Like it just wouldn’t work.

My scientific rational examination says, no, that’s not the right way to do it. My instinct says, if all looks so good, and healthy boy, a good women would be able to put the man in his rightful place in the family.–by what ever human womanly ways she may have. Otherwise, perhaps the choice of sex and partner was indeed a mistake and that all human traditions actually make sense and feet binding served an important historical purpose.

caveat emptor: I am of human kind, the kind with built in cultures.