Robert Khuu Presents

I really wish they wouldn’t scream

Here’s a crazy thought:

With advanced robotics becoming cheaper and more commonplace, the challenge isn’t how we learn to accept robots—but whether we should care when they’re mistreated. And if we start caring about robot ethics, might we then go one insane step further and grant them rights? Source: Wired.

Taken from a US legalistic perspective, the simple answer would be “no.” The US Constitution only refers to “persons” and robots have not (yet) fallen under that definition. It would probably take a Constitutional amendment to confer “person-hood” status to robots, but changing the Constitution is no simple feat (Art. 5 requires both passage in Congress and 3/4 of the State’s legislatures). State Constitutions operate in a similar manner, but are easier to amend depending on the state. We’re more likely to see a state recognition of robot rights before we see a federal recognition due to those relative differences.

On the other hand, the Wired article makes a really good point about how more and more children are growing up with robotic toys and, just like my generation’s change in attitudes towards technology, perhaps those young children will have a different perspective on how we should treat robots. This change is already coming, albeit slowly, in some countries. Again, from the Wired article:

In 2007, a South Korean politician declared that his country would be the first to draw up legal guidelines on how to treat robots; the UK has also looked into the area (though nothing substantial has come of it anywhere). Source: Wired.

A more philosphical observation is that perhaps these rules are not for the machines themselves, but for our humanity. A few of the comments to the article (and the article itself) argue that as robots become more lifelike and humanlike, what does that say about a person willing to torture a robot? What does that tell us about human psychology? A more practical concern is that as machines become more intelligent, we don’t want them to do the Skynet thing by mistreating them. For now, without strong AI, robots are just toys that simulate behavior. Without that, it’s nothing more than a video game. There is no self-awareness to really hurt. No self-awareness to really consider as “person.” Person-hood implies that robots contain qualities that make them a “person.” Merely simulating emotions does not seem to be the complete picture of what a “person” is.

Rule of Law in an Unfettered Utopia

You can call it a video game or massive social experiment, but EVE Online has several interesting results. For the uninitiated, EVE Online is a space MMORPG made by CCP where players do what most players do in MMORPGs: do things to get better things for their character. The most distinguishing feature of EVE Online is that the developers take a laissez faire approach to the in world economy and legal system. More »

Boardgame: Arkham Horror

In our continuing quest to become ostracized by society, some law school friends and I have picked up the activity of playing boardgames. Think Settlers of Catan minus the resource management. The game that we played was Arkham Horror (pictured below).

The game is set in a Lovecraftian city where all sorts of portals to unknown lore related extra-dimensional locations spring up. The point of the game is to close the portals and kill the monsters that come from those portals before the countdown timer runs out. Oh, did I mention there was a countdown? At the beginning of the game, you randomly draw an ultimate evil and, depending on which you draw, the instant game will be limited by the corresponding number of rounds. To “win,” you either have to seal all portals before you run out of rounds or you can simply fight the “ultimate evil” or you simply lose if you pick the wrong ultimate evil. Strategy-wise, your group is basically working together and has to decide to either attempt to shut down portals or to bulk up with the intention of killing the ultimate evil. There is a lot of long term thinking involved due to the round limitations. Luck is also factored into it in the form of rolling dice and drawing random cards. For example, one of our party members was completely debilitated by a curse that he could not remove for the entire game. That curse he had basically lost us the game.

Overall, a rather complicated game with complicated mechanics, but really easy to pick up and learn while you play.

New Beginnings

I’ve decided to reboot parts of this “blog” in the hopes that I will start putting more content up on this site. As I approach the end of my tenure in law school, I’m beginning to have more and more free time. So, hopefully, there will be more to come in the next few days/weeks/monthns.