In 2004, we had Jon Stewart on Crossfire. In 1986? There was Frank Zappa…
As Zappa once said, “There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.” (I don’t know of any song that could ever inspire me to love John Lofton, though… compared to him, Tucker Carlson is simply delightful!)

In 1986 Frank Zappa was scheduled to speak about censorship. He’s so funny, eloquent, and intelligent as a speaker that his many “words” made a major impression on me that day. In this interview conducted on March 16, 1986, Frank Zappa talked further about his appearance before the US Congress and his involvement in the fight against censorship.

De Maakbare Mens vzw

De Maakbare Mens vzw is een nieuwe beweging die het brede publiek kritisch en correct wil informeren over de medische en biotechnologische ontwikkelingen en de ethische vragen die zich hierbij stellen.

Het is onze bedoeling de discussie op gang te brengen door alternatieven aan te wijzen, niet om pasklare antwoorden aan te bieden.
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BBC NEWS | Technology | Robots learn ‘robotiquette’ rules
Robots are learning lessons on “robotiquette” – how to behave socially – so they can mix better with humans.

The work is part of the European Cogniron robotics project, and was on show at London’s Science Museum.

Ethical & Social Implications
As computers are programmed to act more like people, several social and ethical concerns come into focus. For example: Are there ethical bounds on what computers should be programmed to do? What is collaboration? How can we use computers to collaborate more effectively? How do groups communicate? What shared assumptions and values are necessary prerequisites for peaceful co-existence? Sources listed here focus on AI, but also included are works that range more broadly into the general impact of computerization.

more links

Wired says that the Pentagon has Killed the LifeLog Project. The controversial LifeLog project was to record all of the data of a person’s experiences (sees, hears, does, etc). This would create a huge database that scientists could use for any number of evil purposes. Civil liberties groups threw up red flags on all of DARPA’s Electronic Frountier Foundation projects such as Lifelog and were probably thrilled that the project is cancelled. Other similar DARPA projects such as FutureMap have also been cancelled. Some conspiracy theorists believe the Pentagon will still secretly continue all of DARPA’s evil projects at somewhere like Area 51! Now I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I’m pretty sure this is not the end of this line of research.

An older Robots.net article covering the Lifelog:

The Pentagon Promises Smarter Robots

1st International Symposium on Roboethics

The First International Symposium on Roboethics took place this weekend in Villa Nobel, Sanremo, Italy. Its goal is to “open” a debate about the
ethical basis which should inspire the design and development of robots.
This debate has been going on for close to a hundred years among builders of actual robots and in science fiction but it’s apparently time for mundanes to get involved. Among the questions
to be addressed: will smart machines rise up and demand equal rights?, “the definition of the problem of whether a robot can or cannot do harm to a human being”, and “Could a robot do ‘good’ and ‘evil’?”. Bruce Sterling was there and reports in his weblog that Vatican theologians are suprisingly on top of roboethics issues.