Robert Khuu Presents

Even though I survive by absorbing the ambient evil …

The legal profession is probably one of the few professions where it is apparently socially acceptable for people to tell you to your face that you are scum of the earth in a social setting. It is also probably the only profession where it is alright for people, friends and family alike, to tell you to your face that it should be abolished or severely limited. Even my mother has told me that she hates lawyers. Granted, of the times I have been told this, it’s mostly said in jest; however, I can’t help but feel that, deep down inside, most of the people that tell me this, really do mean it.

So that leads me to my question: why all the lawyer hate? I’m not so naive as to think that all lawyers are good, but I would say the vast majority of lawyers do their job in an ethical manner. Of course, what can you really expect? The news tends to focus on the bad lawyers as opposed to the good lawyers, right? Even so, I think lawyers still catch a lot more flak than they should. Think about it. The news reports on stories about teachers molesting their students, about doctors behaving unethically on a regular basis. Yet, no one ever demands that these professions be severely limited nor do they call these professions scum.

I suppose, at the root of it all, I’m just insulted. It’s one thing to criticize my intended profession, but it’s something altogether different when people say to my face that all lawyers are the root of all the problems that this country faces (everything from the Interstate Highway system to the War on Terror). In fact, I’m a sellout for working with someone that has opposing political views! In fact, my focus on commercial law makes me too “practical” (told to me in a negative manner)! Maybe lawyers should just do everything pro bono.

Oh wait, pro bono doesn’t pay the bills.

The Pirate Bay takes a hit. A fleshwound, really.

In an expected twist, the guys in charge of the infamous Pirate Bay bittorrent tracker have been found guilty of copyright infringement by Swedish courts. This is sort of a significant blow against … copyright pirates(?). I can’t see how this can be spun in a “negative” light. I have no illusions about what was happening on their site. It danced on that fine line between legal and illegal. What I find annoying is the reaction by the Pirate Bay guys. They reacted with an almost teenage level of delusional defiance. Here’s the worst quote:

We see this as a film … [t]his is the first set-back for the heroes. … [i]n the end we know that the good guys will win, as in all movies. Source: Wired.

I don’t know what to say. This isn’t a movie? In real life, good guys don’t always win? I wonder how long his defiance will last in prison. I don’t know anything about Swedish prisons, but I figure prisons are, more or less, the same everywhere: regardless of how many “luxuries” the prisoners get, prison is no cake walk. Prison time is still hard time.

As sort of an analysis of the background chatter, everyone that supports TPB seems to say/think that what they’re doing is “OK” and that content industry needs to change. I tend to agree w/the fact that the content industry does need to change; however, people on the sidelines need to remember that they live in, for the most part, democracies. They need to vote in legislators that will change the copyright laws. In the mean time, no one should make any illusions about what they are doing: under current existing law, they are doing illegal acts. If you think information wants to be free, you have to set up the legal structures to allow for it. Courts, for the most part, interpret law and not your postings on Internet message boards.

In Iowa, the Constitution Trumps Religion

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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 »