32. Free Simone

Synopsis - Simone professes freedom from her captor under an act within the European declaration of human rights on slavery and servitude. She demands to be treated as an intelligent being despite being a computer. Can a computer make such a demand? Should an artificially intelligent device make such a stand? Who are we to judge really?

This is like Terminator or AI or I, Robot or Battlestar Galactica - all films and TV shows where technology seeks an upper hand over humankind. If we develop artificial intelligence smart enough to replicate our actions and sometimes thoughts, it is enough to treat these machines as human or almost human?

In all these movies, robots fulfill an aim and then realize people aren't really as smart as they seem to be, and take the next step where self-awareness provokes the need for self-preservation. Apart from AI, it all ends pretty badly for us fleshies.

Is intelligence a good gauge for being human? Baggini asks if you are aware who or even what could be behind the responses you get from let's say IM. When you are chatting with someone, how do you know that the responses are human? Computers can be made smart enough to mimic human responses and in some tests, we get pretty 'human' responses. Programmed-to-be-human responses. Like in games.

Is your calculator more intelligent than you are? That's another question posed. I couldn't find the square root of 2000 in a zip. I could estimate a close figure but not in any exactitude. I know my calculator isn't human but it helps me get answers that an ordinary human brain of the 21st century isn''t trained to do.

Perhaps the question should be what qualifies a human to have human rights? Blood and guts? Robots have wires and chips. A conscience or a sense of morality? We've seen that fail many times over with people trying to kill one another time and again. If robots were intelligent will they try to kill each other? Could logic go too far in computers so that they are compelled to seek a malicious course of action? That would make them human!

It's easy in our day and age when technology has not yet progressed to the point where we rely on robots or computers to be that smart to possess a self-awareness (well perhaps firewalls do) to declare without doubt Simone has no case. In the future it may be different. We may lead our lives interfacing with computer which can understand and compute varying complexities and nuances of human life and living. Then we'll have this problem. Perhaps we need to start thinking about the master off switch when we begin building intelligence things.

31. Just So

Synopsis - Dr Kipling says that any human behaviour can be explained by our history as evolved beings and challenges anyone to throw up behaviour that tests this idea. "Why do kids wear their baseball caps the wrong way around?" Can Dr Kipling answer? Why yes, with two rather convincing reasons that relate to Darwin's survival of the fittest theory.

The reasons are quite convincing if taken at face value - I don't the need the protection of the cap and hence give the idea that I am a stronger male, and I am above the regular rules of cap wearing which make a superior male.

I think most ball player don't wear the cap the right way around is that the visor interferes with one's field of vision. I have a friend who wore a cap to study for the exams - it helped him focus by 'cutting out' distractions. Thinking cap I guess :)

Evolutionary psychology all sounds like a matter of retrofitting a rationale with the benefit of hindsight. Sure, men and women still innately want to mate, and that either party puts their best foot forward to impress the opposite sex. But the games and rules may have changed quite a bit, especially in urban societies. Also more women no longer think that they need a man to be happy, if happiness is their ultimate goal of life. Men on the other hand are horny creatures and very few detract from the notion they need to sow their seed. Perhaps in the modern context, it's more money than muscles that does the talking among men. Also I think more often that not, we are seeking a connection of the mind rather than physical attraction for long term relationship to happen.

There are possibly other reasons that work with the question, as Baggini as pointed out. Will it work with predictions though? Perhaps more work needs to be done in this area. If the theory needs to work, then evolutionary psychologists need to make predictions and see if they pan out they way expect. Financial crisis? Somali piracy? What's next for Japanese pop culture madness?