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Sunday 2 August 2015

Honey I’m Not Robo Anymore. Made in Canada and Destroyed in America


Honey I’m not Robo anymore. Made in Canada, Destroyed in America.
In the Star Wars movies, people who were more enlightened treated their robots with compassion, understanding, patience, tolerance. But those "were more civilized times,” Obi Wan Kenobi would have said once more. I can only imagine what people would do if a SocratesBot or BibleBot Companion or YogaBot Companion was unaccompanied by it’s human owner. But never mind the robots. Numerous owners or future owners are often hurt or killed in America every day. The Canadian robot experiment was NOT a failure. As a Canadian writing about techno and robot ethics issues, I was concerned that things like this would happen across different societies and would reveal peoples’ true natures. This is why I wrote the article called:
The Golden Rule and the better (nano)robots: Love, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of nanoHappiness for All. You can find the original post here:http://quantumnanotimes.blogspot.ca/…/life-liberty-and-purs…
This is also why an American Comic book writer (married to a Canadian) recently wrote a comic book about American led robot armies invading Canada. Technology can be an extension of our thoughts and actions. Some people make can openers, others make missiles. It’s time to beat swords into ploughshares before too many people are beaten into more swords. Need a ride to Joy? Going my way? These words can mean something else, depending on how, where, when and who says them to whom. To say nothing of the answer.
Honey, I’m not robo. I am not robo, robo...robo. Queen Amidala would have said that, “it is to be commended.” HitchBOT boldly went where no HitchBOT went before. And it never came back. What did come back though was the answer: It comes with the territory. As all things and creatures do.
~Paul von Dubrovnik 

Photo Courtesy CBC


We may have Asimov’s Laws of Robotics as an inspiration for robot designers, but we do not yet have set laws for human treatment of robots. If robots become more conscious how can we provide a conscience for them if many of us have consciences which are compromised by ignorance, the “greatest form of poverty” as someone once said. The Golden Rule amongst humans has not been observed across the world all too often and in too many places by too many people too many times. For a refresher of Asimov’s original 3 Laws, see below. For various human cultures’ nuances of the Golden Rule, see below

 

For various human cultures’ nuances of the Golden Rule, see below




photo courtesy J.R. Starbuck Mcdonald