If the robot shoots, who's to blame?

"Imagine the miners strike with robots armed with water cannons, these things are coming, definitely."

Interesting piece on the BBC website, looking at the ethical issues around the use of robots. Apparently Samsung is working on a robot which will have 2 cameras and a machine gun . . reminiscent of Aliens . . but to patrol (and kill) people. It also brings to mind Robocop.

There was a great graphic in the Guardian today—in the wake of the revelation that the US is building a wall in Bagdhad to keep Sunni from Shia—showing the extent of walls and fences around the globe built to keep groups of people away from each other. There are loads of them, all around the world - and I guess that those Samsung robots are for patrolling the 248km fence between North and South Korea.

Is this because to resolve these various conflicts would be too much of a volte-face for any of these political systems? Or that too little has been done to resolve these issues for years - that colonial and imperial chickens are coming home to roost.

hmmm.

It seems that the TV series by Adam Curtis, The Trap: What happened to our dreams of freedom have made their way onto google . . just as well, the link I left earlier to info about the programs seems to have died. Watch it here!

Is change possible

Just had lunch with my brother and mother, during which she said that she was becoming quite depressed at her own growing scepticism about the possibility of real change (in the world).

I find this too. I think that this is a result of 2 main currents: Firstly, events which happen are so difficult to comprehend although you know they're real (like the "war on terror") and secondly, because the domininant idea at present is that capitalism will solve all - that the individiual can do nothing except for themselves - and this combination is so prevalent, even in places (the labour party for example) which had more collective ideas previously, that many people are just giving up on bigger social ideas . .

Its all a little unnerving.

Are free newspapers destined for the dustbin of history?

London is getting sick of the enormous amount of litter generated by the 2 newest free newspapers available every day on our streets, according to MediaGuardian. I don't travel by tube train myself, but have heard from friends how they find themselves wading through a dirty carpet of newprint . . ironic though, that in this time of anxiety over the future of paid for newspapers, due to migration of advertising money - and changing reader habits, that free papers should come unstuck by their very physicality . . .