gdp's Comments

Ethics, Technology, and Society : About

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:32:08 +0000

Wow! These are big questions. I can't answer all of them here, since you raise many of the central questions being debated in roboethics today. I would definitely recommend "Robot Ethics", published by MIT Press. It's a good primer on the ethical issues surrounding robotics. I use it to teach my Roboethics class.Thanks for the comment.

Ethics, Technology, and Society : We Robot Conference - Miami

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:30:21 +0000

No, Unfortunately I don\\\'t.

Spark | CBC Radio : Help With Upcoming Theme Episode: Proto-Internet

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:52:22 +0000

I can see the appeal. There's something fun about seeing my car parked in my driveway on Google, or someone I know who's been "snapped" by the Google Car during a street view drive-by. I wonder if anyone has put together a coffee table book (or more likely a Flickr Photostream) of Google Car Drive-Bys?

Spark | CBC Radio : Help With Upcoming Theme Episode: Proto-Internet

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:48:48 +0000

Interesting! I remember using those stereoscopes in my first-year geology class. I had no idea people still did the low alt. aircraft flyover for pics. I wonder how long it will be until we can just order up a set from one of the satellites way up there? Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Spark | CBC Radio : Help With Upcoming Theme Episode: Proto-Internet

Mon, 7 Nov 2011 20:01:25 +0000

In my teens I worked at a golf course. In the clubhouse they had an aerial photograph of the entire course, which I thought was pretty cool. I asked the manager how they got it. Apparently, they had hired a company that would fly a photographer over the course in multiple passes, to allow for a series of photographs to be taken. The pictures were then blown up and merged into a poster-sized picture of the entire area. Not cheap! Over the years I noticed those photographs in different places: of the lakes that family cottages sit on; of the farms that have been in families for generations. My brother just bought a cottage, but if he wants an aerial view of the lake I would imagine he can just google it and use it as his screen-saver.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 150 – May 29 & June 1, 2011

Thu, 4 Aug 2011 00:41:47 +0000

Hi Mike, Thanks for the reply! We have a common background in Applied Physics...cool! It appears that Turing would agree with you completely. There is no testable hypothesis offered by proponents of supernatural consciousness, or of emergent consciousness. If the Internet ever claims to be conscious, and we decide that settling the issue is important, we definitely have a problem. However, in that case the supernaturalists might be able to sit easy and respond by simply claiming that God (or whatever) didn't give the Internet a soul, or whatever is responsible for supernatural consciousness. The naturalists (at least those proponents of strong AI and of emergence), will have the luxury of responding by taking the Internet at its word. The ethicists, like myself, will be left dealing with the inevitable difficulties of trying to figure out how we ought to respond, how to deal with the supernaturalists, the naturalists and the Internet (as if dealing with humans, sentient animals and the rest of nature isn't difficult enough). It's a really great debate. I teach an undergrad course in Roboethics and students spend a lot of time grappling with all these issues. Fun times we live in! I would definitely recommend "Can Animals and Machines be Persons" by Justin Leiber, a fantastic little book about all this. It takes place in the near future and revolves around a court case meant to decide the fate of a space station set for decommissioning, and its resident chimp who is incapable of returning to Earth.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 150 – May 29 & June 1, 2011

Wed, 3 Aug 2011 21:31:46 +0000

Hi Mike, Interesting commentary for sure. But (there's always a but) I do have to take issue with your reading of the Turing Test. Turing was emphatically not trying to test for consciousness. Rather he was trying to come up with a good enough test for intelligence, given that we can't be certain about consciousness. The consciousness question is effectively bracketed out. This is a common misinterpretation of Turing's intent. One other thing, people studying entanglement and non-local phenomena are studying "natural" sciences. Sawyer's claim about "super"natural stuff avoids that criticism too! Great comment.

Ethics, Technology, and Society : The Ethics of Klout - Should We Trust In the Almighty Algorithm?

Wed, 3 Aug 2011 10:04:54 +0000

Ryan, Yes, it is definitely a pressing challenge to understand the various ways that algorithms impact values, and to develop ways to mitigate the negative impacts and enhance the positive. I'll definitely take a look at the video. Thanks!

Spark | CBC Radio : Marshall McLuhan Walking Tour now on Layar

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:56:10 +0000

Wow! Layar looks really fun. (Full disclosure, I am NOT affiliated in any way to Layar).

Ethics, Technology, and Society : Privacy on Google+ Part 1: Circles

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:28:18 +0000

Hi Bob, First of all, thanks for reading, and I really appreciate the comment. You raise a very important point, one that I have been planning to write about. So here's a preview... You are right that Facebook has a similar feature, but I would emphasize that Lists and Circles are NOT the "same" features. The difference is in the way the features are implemented on the two sites. Facebook lists are not meant to function as the default means of communicating information on Facebook. In fact, they make lists optional to the point that you would have to do some serious digging in order to both figure out how to use lists, and also to use them when posting on FB (it takes several clicks to get to the point where a post is filtered by list). Again, lists are in no way meant to be the default way of communicating on FB. They bury the lists feature as a means of discouraging its use. On the flipside, Google doesn't allow you to communicate your information without making explicit choices about who to share that information with. You also can't "friend" anyone without making a similar choice. The shift in emphasis makes all the difference. Facebook and Google designers know that the vast majority of users of any technology use it with the default settings intact--major lawsuits (over IE as a default browser, for example) have been fought over the use of defaults as a way of "encouraging" a particular use of technology. By setting the default behaviour of Google+ to force a choice of who to communicate to, and how to characterize new Google+ contacts, Google+ scores huge points in terms of their respect for privacy. I would go as far as to say that by burying the lists feature and making it an opt-in use of the technology, Facebook can't claim to have put together an architecture that has the same features as Google+ Circles. The choice of a default set of behaviour makes them vastly different features.

Ethics, Technology, and Society : Science and Technology Studies (STS) Hashtag: #socofsci

Fri, 8 Jul 2011 15:55:11 +0000

I think it would be allright to use #socofsci if you are interested in T(echnology) or K(nowledge). Or if you like you could use #socofknow or #socoftech

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark's Summer Plans

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 19:33:13 +0000

Another great season! Thanks. Looking forward to Spark in the fall.

Ethics, Technology, and Society : What is Google+? The End of Facebook.

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 18:10:55 +0000

That's really interesting, and thanks for reading. Google+ will definitely have its growing pains. The Picassa issue is an interesting one and sounds a bit like Facebook's face recognition problem. However, it does also seem to differ in that Circles help to define who gets to view albums (unless I'm reading things incorrectly). It's interesting that you point out the need for Google to inform all of its Picassa users of the changes to the functionality of Picassa. That's another mistake Facebook made that resulted in this whole mess they're in right now.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 153 – June 26 & 29, 2011

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:25:12 +0000

Hi Michelle, Thanks for pointing me to the video. I had seen the main video, but somehow missed the accompanying ones! Thanks for pointing them out to me. Very cool stuff. Especially the borderless multitouch screens!

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 153 – June 26 & 29, 2011

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 20:15:06 +0000

The DMZ looks amazing! I love the idea of having computers mediate the environment and add layers of interactivity into our lives. The example that was in the video, of using symbols to help navigate spaces, looked interesting, but the idea of using it in an airport, though probably useful, strikes me as somewhat dull. The engineers have come up with a really great and exciting technology, and they seem to be looking for a "commercial" application to make it sound more useful (classic solution looking for a problem scenario). I wonder if Nora talked to the other researchers in the lab (like grad students) to see if they've done anything sillier or more playful with the technologies they're developing? Have they come up with pranks or games that they play with the technology? How does it feature in THEIR everyday lives? I'd love to hear a bit about that.

misener.org : "The atomic element is the story"

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 03:16:23 +0000

I think you're completely right here. I work in academia, and I do a LOT of research in radio. It's where so much of the good tech stories seem to be told, and I have time to listen to podcasts while going to sleep. I love digesting whole episodes of TAL and Spark, but when I find a bit of audio that I want/need to send to a colleague so they can incorporate it into research/presentation material, I need to be able to get the audio snippet as fast as possible. Spending large amounts of time shuttling through audio to find a story marker just adds time to the process. Books of essays have themes, but they also have chapters, and tables of contents (and despite AC/DC's odd insistence, their albums have tracks). There's no reason why a radio magazine ought not to be similarly organized.

Spark | CBC Radio : Spark 152 – June 19 & 22, 2011

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:30:51 +0000

Related to Pachube, wondering if you've heard of sen.se ? Looks like an interesting wrapper around sites like Pachube, that also enables citizen applications to be built on Pachube-like data streams.

Spark | CBC Radio : Full Interview: David Schropfer on Google Wallet

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:19:57 +0000

So according to David's site (Thanks for the link, David): "Google [will] not take a cut of transaction revenue from Google Wallet payments. The company said it plans to make money by running a coupon system within the Wallet application." and further... “Google has maintained for some time now that their interest in mobile is mostly about serving the customers up with targeted mobile content, such as ads and coupons,” Bareisis says." I liked Bill Gurley's take on Google's interest (http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-android/). He argues that Google is attempting to build a wider "moat" around its core business--serving ads. All very interesting, and I suspect it is only the tip of the data mining iceberg. The phrase "location, location, location" has taken on an all new meaning in the context of mobile ICT.

Ethics, Technology, and Society : A Word on Self-Plagiarism

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 14:28:06 +0000

Hi Paul, Published work is generally not a part of the public domain. It is copyrighted (possibly under a creative commons license, but usually not) and belongs to the copyright holder. Reprinting significant portions of previously published work verbatim could result in a copyright infringement. But what is at issue in Udo's argument, as I understand it, is the more nuanced kind of "plagiarism" that occurs when original ideas/arguments are reused in multiple publications by the author who "owns" them. Udo addresses this problem as occurring "when the same argument is published in different journals with similar target audiences. Doing this gives the mistaken impression that there's a deluge of interest in your particular analysis, while other content is prevented from getting published. Current guidelines tend to see this as a breach of etiquette rather than a capital crime (in publishing ethics terms)." His point (and he also makes it earlier in his piece) is that it is quite common to reuse one's own arguments, often without referencing them. This is common, and accepted practise. Things get worse if you simply rewrite an argument and pass it off as an original article (without adding to it significantly). However, Udo is claiming that that is merely bad etiquette, but certainly not plagiarism. I think he's right. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Ethics, Technology, and Society : Emoticons: Love them or leave them?

Tue, 7 Jun 2011 18:36:15 +0000

Hi Morphe, I think you're right: emoticons don't do much to enrich subconscious communication. But they have their proper, and legitimate place in our online communication :)