Matt Olson sent me an email on Friday, and now I have a Hollywood Video membership.
Probably not the result he was looking for, but when Matt Olson sent me this Wired article yesterday morning, he led me and my co-workers into a discussion about robot ethics. Not really a productive discussion, but a loose exchange of ideas. What should they be programmed to do, and what shouldn't they - for instance, should a person have to intervene and make a decision to inflict death? You might be surprised at some of the answers. This quickly degenerated into movie quotes and scene descriptions as we realized that Hollywood had already long ago filmed most of our worst predictions of robotic abuses of power. I think we have to use the word "prophestic." That led to me hunting down the above example on YouTube (from the Director's Cut, natch) and then going out to rent RoboCop last night, only to find that the Green Hills location of Blockbuster - the only video store to which I can quickly walk - doesn't have it. Thus, I found myself dealing with the flirty counter girl at Hollywood, and coming home to sit alone in the living room watching Paul Verhoven's last good movie. (While I enjoy watching and can appreciate the value of both Total Recall and Starship Troopers, neither of them is a "good" movie in my opinion.)
So - for homework, I want you all to watch RoboCop. Draw parallels to the Bush Administration.