Ulrike Reinhard Interviews Wendell Wallach Over Breakfast

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Where Robocars Will Take Us

Brad Templeton has a very interesting website on robotic cars or:

how computer geeks can enable the electric car, save the planet and millions of lives using near-term A.I. to make taxis and trucks deliver, park, recharge and drive themselves.

The case for robot cars
Roadmap

Rothblatt, Kurzweil, Wallach Panel Available Online

The panel at the Woodstock Film Festival was jammed and broadcast by livestream to over 600 viewers. The feedback I have received is that the discussion was considered to be among the best ever on the prospects for Redesigning Humanity. But you be the judge. A recording of the panel is available at the 2B website. When a better quality broadcast of this panel becomes available, I'll post a link.

2B debuts at the Woodstock Film Festival

2B, a film produced by Martine Rothblatt, directed by Richard Kroehling, and starring James Remar, Kevin Corrigan, and Jane Kim debuted last night before a sellout audience at the Woodstock Film Festival. I was at the premiere and can attest that this fascinating movie was very well received by the audience. The movie is based on a Martine Rothblatt vision of the transition to transhumanity. The production values are extremely high, and while a limited budget meant that 2B lacks the special effects we have come to expect in SciFi, the film will keep you intrigued and make you think. To my mind, 2B is destined to be a cult classic. The trailer and more information are available at the 2B website.

Interviews of Interest: Sparrow, Altmann, and Pereira

A podcast on Robot Arms Control, where Rob Sparrow and Juergen Altmann are interviewed by Noel Sharkey is available online. This will be Programme 69 (25th September 2009) on the Sound of Science website.

Luis Moniz Pereira was interviewed by a South Korean radio station about his approach to programming moral decision making. Click here to access that podcast.

Able to leap tall fences with a single bound

Is an International Treaty needed to limit robotic weaponry?

An International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) was founded after a two day meeting in Sheffield, UK earlier this month. The four founding members include Noel Sharkey, physicist Jürgen Altmann of Dortmund University of Technology, Germany; Robert Sparrow of the Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, near Melbourne, Australia; and philosopher Peter Asaro of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

NewScientist posted a story on the founding of ICRAC titled, Campaign asks for international treaty to limit war robots.

ICRAC fears the principle of keeping a "man in the loop" will be eroded, so that the next generation of robot soldiers will be trusted with life-or-death decisions. Indeed, research into just such scenarios is taking place with US military funding.

The committee is also worried that countries will be more likely to go to war if their casualties will be robots rather than human soldiers. They have also raised the danger of autonomous systems starting and escalating conflicts automatically.