The thing with the talking toaster was that it did not know anything about anyone. It was only self-aware, not aware of customer desires. The self driving car or self-replenishing fridge don't need to be plugged into the Facebook database or your gmail, they don't need to know why you use so much whipped cream, just that you do, don't need to know why you're driving it across town, just that you are going somewhere. What happens when you add ethics is that the car decides your lifestyle is impure and at best refuses to take you to the cream party and at worse murders you for the greater good. Meantime the fridge orders a condolence cake for your wife and kids.
Data ethics in IoT? Pff, you and your silly notions of privacy
The future of personal data sharing is that “everything will become as-a-service” and nobody will own any property outright ever again, a gloomy lawyer told a wide-ranging data ethics discussion at IoT Solutions World Congress this afternoon in Barcelona. Painting this cheery picture was Giulio Coraggio of international law …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 26th October 2016 22:33 GMT Ole Juul
tyrants
Nice post lukewarmdog.
"What happens when you add ethics is that the car decides your lifestyle is impure."
This is what is happening now. People's choices are being taken over by overzealous and misinformed corporate marketers - from my perspective, evil. It is imperative that people take control and ownership of the technology they use and that it not dictate their choices. I am reminded of this quote by Napoleon Bonaparte: "Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide."
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Wednesday 26th October 2016 23:09 GMT veti
Re: tyrants
Not all choices are equal, though. There is such a thing as "I don't give a flying fornication".
Imagine if you got into a taxi, told the driver your destination, and she responded with "Would you like to optimise your route for time, price, or emissions?" You're in a hurry, so you reply "Time". "Would you like me to break the speed limit slightly?" Hmm, tricky - if you say "no" then obviously it'll take longer, but if you say "yes", does that make you jointly liable when she breaks it? Is she recording this? Now you've placed me in a dilemma, and I wanted to spend the journey mentally preparing for an interview.
There's such a thing as "too much choice". I want service providers to make a lot of choices on my behalf. I regard it as the height of laziness when they badger me for all these decisions that they should have been able to take for me.
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Wednesday 26th October 2016 23:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: tyrants
But what happens when your (in)decision comes back to bite you in the butt?
Because EVERYTHING is a decision: including deciding whether or not to decide. Everyone has an opinion: even no opinion (which is simply indifference). And every decision can have consequences.
Sure you may say not to give a soaring screw...until you learn your indifference has turned into a liability.
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Thursday 27th October 2016 08:12 GMT Charles 9
Re: tyrants
"There's such a thing as "too much choice". I want service providers to make a lot of choices on my behalf. I regard it as the height of laziness when they badger me for all these decisions that they should have been able to take for me."
Is it the height of laziness or the height of butt-covering and lawyer-evading?
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Monday 31st October 2016 10:35 GMT You aint sin me, roit
Ethics are difficult, particularly if my robocar is sworn to protect me...
"Do I have a head-on collision with that car that has swerved over onto my side of the road? Or do I protect myself and my driver by ploughing into those softer, low momentum objects on the pavement?"
And there will be no point in asking me because I'll be off my face on cheap booze (why else would I want a robocar unless it can drive when I'm drunk?).
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Thursday 27th October 2016 00:38 GMT 404
Faraday Concept Homes
No signals come in, none emanate out - the homeowner decides what is best for their family. Entry/exit would be airlock style, designed as a foyer or mudroom. This is a reachable goal with current tech, I'd pay extra, but I'm just a little odd.
Pretty sure others would want such a thing too - business plan anyone?
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Thursday 27th October 2016 08:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Faraday Concept Homes
Must be pretty dreary in those homes since your pretty much can't have manipulable windows (no open air or it's open season for EMR, and even radio-blocking glass doesn't look too pleasing). You probably have to have all-plastic piping and electrical isolation to avoid antenna effects. No chimneys, either (chimneys require an open-air passage). Given all that, you're probably easier off living deep in a cave.
I mean, if you want to live in a TEMPEST-type setting, you may wish to consider the long-term aesthetics and sellability.
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Thursday 27th October 2016 13:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
These little morsels of information
These little morsels of information were generated by us, by an individual, or describe an individual and as a result they should forever be owned by that individual. Data created or generated by an individual is their data, only they can own it, only they can allow access to it. Change the law to reflect that and then lets talk about the details.
As for services, that may not happen as soon as some suggest. Years ago Honda looked into it, considered the consequences of of getting out of the car selling business and into the car service business.
The report pointed out that it would be an easy sell to governments. With companies retaining ownership and control of products they would always be recycled, could be taken back if used for illegal activity, and could be kept at peak operating efficiency ensuring minimum emissions.
And an easy sell to Honda investors because the opportunity for increased profit was much larger than selling a product.
BUT the report pointed out that Honda would then be responsible for the car. Responsible for maintaining it, and most importantly for mitigating it's environmental impact. With the then new Hybrid cars being introduced Honda would be responsible for recycling the car including batteries, something that could not be recycled at the time.
It was determined it was better, at least in the short term, to sell cars because with that sale goes almost all the costs of tracking and maintaining and the damage they do to others and the environment.
If a company wants to own a house and it's contents they will be responsible for them during their whole lifecycle, that's called renting and it is very much more expensive for good reasons.
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Thursday 27th October 2016 14:26 GMT Robert Carnegie
Bluntly,
An autonomous Car-Thing ramming a bus full of schoolchildren will turn out to be not a question of ethics but of legal financial liability. These are similar but not the same.
So robots with the famous "Three Laws" are unlikely to appear in real life. As written, it appears that anyone could order someone else's expensive robot to jump off a cliff, unless the robot is able to calculate the harm to its actual owner of losing an exensive robot. But then that means that the Third Law (self-protection) actually is above the Second Law (obey orders), unless the robot is extremely cheap or is already subject to recall because of the exploding battery problem.
There is now apparently that AI that makes a pretty good job of calculating the outcome of lawsuits.