Roboethics

George Dvorsky asks what sort of rights artificial brains should have:

The breakthroughs are starting to come in. Just last week, European scientists produced the first ultra-high resolution 3D scan of the entire human brain. They captured the brain’s physical detail at the astonishingly low resolution of 20-microns.

Given all this, it’ll only be a matter of time before scientists take all this newfound insight and start to build brains inside of computers. At first, these emulations will be simple. But eventually, they’ll exhibit capacities that are akin to the real thing — including subjective awareness.

In other words, consciousness.

Or sentience. Or qualia. Or whatever else you want to call it. But whichever words we choose to use, we’ll need to be aware of one incredibly important thing: These minds will live and have experiences inside of computers. And that’s no small thing — because if we’re going to be making minds, we sure as hell need to do it responsibly.

He goes on to list “rights be afforded to fully conscious human and human-like emulations.” Robin Hanson pushes back, arguing that Dvorsky’s proposals for are too context-specific and would limit future emulations’ freedom of choice. More Dish on robots and morality here and here.

Egypt Erupts

A roughly chronological review of the past three hours of bloodshed:

Calling Into The Office Mentally Ill

Catherine Rampell observes that “mental illness has been an increasingly significant health concern over the past several decades, but it’s now becoming an economic one too”:

The number of Americans who receive Social Security Disability Insurance for mental disorders has doubled during the past 15 years. Eliza [who suffers from depression] is now one of an estimated 11.5 million American adults with a debilitating mental illness, on whom the country spends about $150 billion annually on direct medical costs — therapy, drugs, hospitalizations and so forth. But the biggest blow to the overall economy are the many hidden, indirect costs. People with serious mental illness earn, on average, $16,000 less than their mentally well counterparts, totaling about $193 billion annually in lost earnings, according to a 2008 study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. And many mentally ill workers, who are more likely to miss work, also suffer from what social scientists call presenteeism — the opposite of absenteeism — in which they are very likely to be less productive on the job when they show up.

In a follow-up, Rampell looks at whether “having a mild version of a mental illness is advantageous, at least for aptitude in certain endeavors and interests”:

Perhaps you might wonder if broader push to bring people into the mental health care system could lead to overmedication, and potentially dull the brilliance of some oddball innovators. Economists, epidemiologists and other medical experts that I spoke with, though, say that preponderance of evidence suggests that mental illness almost always does more harm than good, especially if you use the broader lens of well-being, and not just economic productivity.

What’s A Bisexual Anyway? Ctd

Rich Juzwiak gleans some interesting insight on the subject through his conversations with four guys who have sex with both men and women – but who don’t necessarily consider themselves bi. From his profile of “Allen”:

When we first met, he wasn’t entirely open. When he refused to kiss me on the mouth, I joked that he was acting like a whore in Pretty Woman. “What’s that?” he asked. He is, after all, 19. “Kissing men kind of skeeves me out a little bit,” he explained. “I would be completely fine blowing someone over making out with him. It’s just one of those little tweaks I guess. I just don’t like kissing guys.

Yet, I should say. I know one day I will. It’s the whole transitional thing again.”

Allen is out to his family and friends in college. He says that they didn’t have a hard time accepting him. If anything, the hardest time has been had by Allen, as he accepts their acceptance. “I’m really comfortable with the situation, but it’s new so I’m insecure about it,” he says, having come out a little over a year ago. “I have no problem telling people I’m bisexual or I like guys, but I’m not used to being called bi or gay. When people say that, I still get a little defensive about it.”

So is he gay or what? “Gay and bisexual are just labels,” he told me. “People are people. I don’t really like the whole label thing. I think when you label someone gay, straight, or bi, you’re judging them. It’s just people. People are people. Your sexuality doesn’t make you who you are.”

He finds sex with women to be a “more emotional” experience, and with men, sex is more physical. (“Guys just need a release, really.”) “I don’t really run into many vers[atile] guys,” he said. “I think more people should be vers, it’s a lot funner. More people should be bisexual, it’s a lot funner.”

Rich also pens a postscript about Allen and his Pretty Woman hangup.

Why Not Tie A Carbon Tax To Temperature?

First, a question: is the discovery of climate change mankind’s greatest achievement?

But how should we respond to those measurements? Ross McKitrick, a global warming skeptic, suggests (pdf) a climate policy compromise:

[T]he best way to proceed would be to put a small tax on CO2 emissions, and tie its subsequent evolution to a suitable measure of atmospheric temperatures. If temperatures go up, so does the tax. If they do not, the tax does not change. In this way everybody will expect to get the policy they think best, and whoever turns out to be right deserves to be so. Sceptics who do not believe in global warming will not expect the tax to go up, and might even expect it to go down. Those convinced we are in for rapid warming will expect the tax to rise quickly in the years ahead. Companies managing factories and power plants will have to figure out who is more likely to be right, because billions of dollars of potential tax liabilities will depend on what is going to happen. Nobody will benefit from using false or exaggerated science: instead the market will identify those who can prove they understand the climate well enough to make accurate forecasts. And policy-makers will be guaranteed that, whatever the tax does in the future, the policy will turn out to have been the right one.

Bailey thinks “McKitrick’s proposal seems quite sensible because it harnesses the vast dispersed knowledge of scientists, manufacturers, fossil fuel suppliers, renewable energy innovators, and speculators to address the problem of climate change.”

What’s Left Of The Left? Ctd

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A reader writes:

Simple question: How many American liberals, especially the knee-jerk doctrinaire folks, have ever googled “European abortion laws” and spent more than five minutes researching the results? I’m constantly gobsmacked by the vehemence of pro-choice left in this country, and the support they receive from traditional media.  If anything, I’d draw a direct parallel between them and the right-wing pro-gun crowd. Yes, some slopes are slippery on occasion, but those two sects seem to live in a world where anything and everything ends in tyranny, patriarchy, powerlessness, damnation, or worse. Whatever happened to legitimate compromise on fundamental social issues?

Another quotes a previous reader:

Obama is clearly no leftist. In the last five years, which might as well be the last 20, I find it very difficult to find even a single issue where I – a dyed in the wool, Greenpeace-supporting, union-dues-paying leftist – can look at the actions of the Democratic party and applaud.

And I say THANK GOD!

The sentiments expressed by this reader were killing the Democratic party and needed to go. I find it odd that this reader takes Obama to task as no leftist, and yet we now have near-universal healthcare in this country, a goal of liberals for close to 70 years.  This reader honestly doesn’t applaud that?

The problem with this kind of thinking is it is so enamoured of itself and its righteousness that it can’t get out of its own way to actaully change something – hell, anything. Clinton had the good fortune of presiding over a booming economy and his centrist ways allowed him to not fuck it up. Obama has presided over a terrible economy against the ruthless liars and fools that make up the GOP today, and yet his centrist ways have allowed him to effect more change than any Democratic president in recent memory that I can think of.

Where’s The Marriage Equality Backlash?

Well, Maggie and K-Lo are calling last week a new Roe. Unconvincingly. I’ve been more struck by the far right’s fatalism, silence and identity politics victimology. David Link believes that the “shift back to abortion for the old guard of the GOP is some evidence that this cultural shift on same-sex marriage is taking hold”:

Less than two days after the ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals took the final step to permit same-sex marriages again in California, and while a very few of the usual suspects showed their faces to television cameras at the subsequent marriages throughout the state, there are no signs of outrage among the voters whose will was thwarted.

Opposition to same-sex marriage is different from opposition to abortion. There is a real and substantial moral question with abortion: At what point does human life begin? In the 40 years since Roe, that moral question has remained alive and vibrant, and the constitutional argument about abortion has seldom flagged. Moral feelings about abortion start strong and tend to stay strong.

Not so for same-sex marriage, where moral feelings may have started strong, but have weakened substantially over time.

Fighting Assault With Social Media

https://twitter.com/basildabh/status/352567375259901952

Lydia Tomkiw spotlights Egypt’s sexual assaults:

[T]he nationwide protests that began on June 30 brought a new round of sexual assaults and mob attacks, with Human Rights Watch reporting on Wednesday that “mobs sexually assaulted and in some cases raped at least 91 women in Tahrir Square” over the last four days (journalists and foreigners have also been victims of the violence).

Since Egypt’s first wave of game-changing protests in 2011, several online tools have sprouted up to help document these kinds of cases and reduce their frequency. HRW, for instance, cites Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH), which confirmed 46 attacks in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on June 30, 17 on July 1, and 23 on July 2. The Twitter accounts @OpAntiSH and@TahrirBodyguard are organizing volunteers to protect women and intervene in instances of assault (according to HRW, OpAntiSH intervened in 31 such cases over the past week).

Meher Ahmad profiles Tahrir Bodyguard:

Tahrir Bodyguard attempts to patrol the crowds at Tahrir with groups of men and women wearing helmets and neon yellow vests. In an interview with Now This News, the group’s co-founder Maria Sanchez Munoz, said the team of 150-some volunteers intervene in sexual assaults without weapons, only with their bodies. The mob-mentality of the large crowds at Tahrir makes their task especially difficult, as they often become subject to harassment and violent attacks themselves.

With Abdullah As A Guide

Jeffrey Goldberg seeks advice on Egypt’s democratic transition by bragging of talking to a monarchical dictator, who appoints the members of the legislature and whose foul regime tortures at will. This is how Wiki describes human rights in Jordan:

According to a report by Amnesty International, intelligence agents in Jordan frequently use Jordan Celebrates 65th Anniversary of Independencetorture to extract confessions from terror suspects. Common tactics include, “beating, sleep deprivation, extended solitary confinement, and physical suspension.” Palestinians and suspected Islamists are treated especially harshly. Though Jordan has improved many procedures including a prison reform campaign in partnership with EU in this respect, agents at the General Intelligence Department remain largely immune to punishment.[28][29]

In May 2010, the UN Committee against Torture reiterated long-standing concerns at Jordan’s failure to investigate and prosecute allegations of torture, to provide adequate protection against torture, and to prosecute perpetrators in accordance with the seriousness of the crime. It noted the “numerous, consistent and credible allegations of a widespread and routine practice of torture and ill-treatment” including in General Intelligence Department (GID) and Criminal Investigations Department detention.[30] The government did not respond to the Committee’s recommendations.[8]

But they’re not Islamists, so that’s fine. You can even be chums with dictators and brag about it on Bloomberg news. If you somehow don’t see how Abdullah fits into Goldberg’s alleged support for Arab democracy, then you clearly know nothing about the region and should understand all its nuances better.

(Photo: King Abdullah II of Jordan arrives at an official celebration for the 65th anniversary of Independence, on May 25, 2011 in Amman, Jordan. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan gained independence from Britain on May 25, 1946. By Salah Malkawi/Getty Images)