Lebens Raum Ad Astra

It is a great moment to see private enterprise loosen the iron grip of the State on spaceflight.  If Elon Musk and SpaceX are allowed to continue pushing the boundaries of commercial space access, we may yet get to see space tourism - a decades-old dream - come to life.

I stayed up late into the night to watch the Crew Dragon launch, and I admit I got a little choked up to see private enterprise finally succeed in an endeavor previously reserved for the exclusive use of government operators and political entities.

The Dragon's gleaming interior and ultramodern design mark a stark break from the bleak, utilitarian cockpits of the defunct space shuttle, or the cramped confines of Soyuz.  Sleek couches, spacious interior, a couple of touch screens, and a handful of buttons were all that didn't clutter the sci-fi environment of SpaceX's minimalist design.

Though I was moved by the launch and fascinated by the engineering and design work, I couldn't help thinking that I've been watching this exact scene play over and over for the past 60 years - since the days of Yuri Gagarin (or was it Vladimir Ilyushin?) and Alan Shepherd.  Even more, chemical rocketry is a century old - almost as old as the automobile, rockets in general have been around for 2,000 years celebrating Lunar New Year.  Let's no forget that a number of dogs and monkeys preceded humans into space, as well.

The first iron tube rockets were invented Mysoreans in India in the 1700s.  A British officer named Congreve stole the idea for his rockets in the 1800s. American Robert Goddard is generally credited with inventing modern chemical rockets, though he was standing on the shoulders of many a giant.

In other words, SpaceX is just one in a long line of rocketeers who have refined the physics and abilities of rocketry, but the craft is almost as old as written history.

Sure, I applaude the milestone set by SpaceX, of commercial human spaceflight.  It is a significant achievement, even in the long, storied history of rocketry, especially getting one of the (ahem) pioneering nations back into orbit after a decade of bureaucratic bumbling.

The question I have, though, is where are all the real toys?  Are we really to believe that the 100 years of intense rocket development, the trillions of dollars in research, the many nations involved have only achieved something slightly more advanced than Chinese fireworks?

With all the decades of development on ion, microwave, nuclear, and electro-gravitic propulsion, the best humans can do is fart flaming gas out of a tube?  Why aren't we using aerospikes and EM Drives and spin-stabilized LASER launchers?  How is it, with the vast sums of money and millions of hours of research, we still can't do better than bottle rockets?  Why is it that spaceflight hasn't changed much since the Nazi innovations of the 1940s?  And why are their REAL advances listed as hoaxes?

Given all the possible reasons to riot, one might think that having a century of our savings stolen for projects and technology that we're not allowed to see, much less use, would be chief among them.  We the people are owed a huge debt and we are being deprived of collecting on it by a group of people who are hording our property from us.

Instead, we are told to be proud and joyful at yet another rocket launch, a feat nearly as old as civilization and one which the Russians and Chinese have been happily doing for the past decade while the US was grounded and begging rides.

I want the real toys.  I want to see the man behind the curtain.  I want all the things that were promised decades ago in the blush of human spaceflight adolescence.  We paid for it, we deserve it.  It is our heritage and achievements that are being robbed from us under our noses.

Way to go Elon and SpaceX!  Great job!  Nice design work!  Outstanding attention to detail.  But it's time your partner NASA gave us the goods that we've paid so dearly for - and farting tubes ain't it.

The New Prometheus

If you follow @RadioFarSide, then you know that I've been twisting off on robots for a while now.  This has prompted some readers to ask what I have against robots.

Well, let's start with just about everything, and go from there.  And it's not necessarily against robots, so much as against pushing ahead so fast without thinking things through.

For a little lite reading, there's the story about the "police robot" that was deployed in Dallas, and which killed the "shooter."  Then, there's the repeated stories of driver-less cars crashing, resulting in one reported fatality.

On a Big Picture scale, I oppose robots paired with AI.  The very best scenario here is that humanity will create a race of mechanical slaves.  The very worst scenario is that those slaves get fed up and fight back.

In the best case, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to become sentient.  At least that's the theory and plan.  Even if that level is never achieved, humans who use the machines as servants or slave labor will grow accustomed to less-than-civil behavior with the machines.  Since they presumably will resemble and act like humans, this behavior will become ingrained and transfer over to interactions with real people.

But we've already covered this ground in previous columns.

More to the point of today's thought experiment is the legal ramifications of this head-long rush to create a new race of machines.

Let's take the car story first.

You are cruising down the highway.  You get tired.  You turn on the AI autopilot and drop off to sleep.  The autopilot fails or makes a poor choice and your car flies off the highway, does a triple roll and lands upside down, and your back is broken.  You are confined to an iron lung for the rest of your life.  Who is liable?

The car manufacturer sold the car as having artificial intelligence built into the autopilot.  This AI system is capable of thinking for itself and learning from experience.  It can even carry on conversations with the driver to discuss routes, road conditions, etc.  The AI is making its own choices and decisions completely independently of the driver or the manufacturer.

After your horrible accident, it is determined that the AI was functioning completely within manufacturer's specifications.  When you bought the car, you were informed of the system and were given a special class in how to operate it.  You signed a release and received a certificate showing that you had received the training.  You owned the car for more than a year and had used the AI autopilot a number of times with no problems.

The AI autopilot relies on Google Maps to navigate.  An investigation showed that the map had an exit that was closed for repairs, but not noted on the map.  The AI autopilot chose to use that exit and ignored sensor data in favor of the map notations leading to the terrible accident.  You obviously received egregious bodily harm due to this choice.

Who is liable for your injuries?  Was it the manufacturer, who sold you the AI system, informed you of its operations, trained you, and certified that the system was within operating parameters at the time of the crash?

Is Google liable for not maintaining its maps with the latest data on closures and construction?  Is the AI system liable for making an independent choice?  Are you liable for having bought the thing in the first place (caviat emptor)?

Can a machine ever be liable for its independent choices?  If so, who pays damages?  Does the manufacturer/programmer have any liability for a machine that is capable of thinking and acting of its own volition?

These are just some of the hundreds of legal questions that come to mind in this situation.  Neither the law nor society have even begun to consider the implications of this technology, yet we are screaming down that highway with hardly a care for any of these issues.

Now, let's look at the "police robot" case.

There is an active shooter situation.  Police have responded to the scene and there are several dead bodies lying around the area.  Instead of risking a human police officer, an AI robot is sent in to remedy the situation.

The robot is unleashed and trundles into the building using its sensors and publicly available floor plans of the building to guide it to the suspect's location.  It crashes through the door of the room where the "shooter" is located.  A figure is squatting by the window with something that looks like a rifle in his hands.  The robot makes no attempt to disable the "shooter," but rather decides on the spot to kill the suspect while recording all of its sensor data.

Later, it is determined that the "suspect" was a janitor hiding near the window to try and figure out what was happening.  He had a broom in his hands.  The police investigators, worried that this incident could turn into a major legal battle lasting several years and costing millions of dollars, decides to falsify the sensor data of the robot.  Using CGI, they modify the video and still photos to show a gun in the "suspects" hands.  All associated text files and decision trees generated by the AI are also modified accordingly and a real rifle was planted in evidence.

In this situation, the AI robot made its own determination on the spot.  It is a machine, and so cannot give testimony in court as a witness, its sensor logs can be modified without a trace and can even be programmed to falsify data on the fly by some crafty programming (kind of like computer voting machines).

Even if the cover up in our scenario is discovered, are the police only guilty of modifying evidence to hide a crime?  Did the machine make its own choice to kill and is it liable for that choice, or are the police?  Can the manufacturer/programmer be held liable for the machine's choices, since the machine is AI and capable of making informed decisions and learning from its mistakes?  If it comes to light that the janitor was a wrongful death, can the machine be punished or held accountable in any way for its actions?

Again, these are just a tiny sample of all the legal, moral and ethical questions that have not been addressed.  In fact, very few voices in the public sphere are even bringing these questions up for debate.  They will become an issue sooner or later.

It is very likely that the drivers of the AI cars will sue for damages.  It is also likely (unless they are complete fools) that the Dallas "shooter's" family will sue for wrongful death.  These and many more questions are going to come to public debate sometime in the near future and humanity has some serious issues to consider.

These are not just legal questions, they are very serious societal issues that we must deal with, and quickly.  Whether we play god by creating a race of mechanical or biological (or combined) individuals, this choice comes with profound questions that we have never answered for ourselves, much less our creations.

These are not dumb objects, but fully autonomous creatures capable of independent thought and volition.  After thousands of years, we seem incapable as a species of answering these questions about our own existence, and into this quagmire, we intend to introduce a whole new species of our own creation that is innocent and unknowing.

All of this can only end badly.  In effect, by not considering these issues in detail before we create new species, we are collectively and individually responsible for the consequences.  This is not like creating a toaster, this is new life, regardless of the form it takes.

It is sad that so few people have read Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus.  The myriad movies that have been made from this novel hardly do justice to the serious moral and ethical questions it raises.  It should be required reading every year from age 10 on.  It is not a horror story, it is a cautionary tale, and we should be taking its lessons with deadly seriousness.

A.I.: Asymetrical Intelligence

I recently made a little Saturday afternoon triple feature for myself composed of three movies I haven't seen for a long time.

The first was Demon Seed, about the wife of a computer scientist held hostage by her husband's creation.  The second was Colossus: The Forbin Project.  This long-forgotten but excellent flick has Dr. Forbin creating a military supercomputer that becomes self-aware, and eventually teams up with its Soviet counterpart to save humanity from itself.  The last was Lawnmower Man, which despite my dislike for Steven King and the ham-fisted acting and directing, has some interesting concepts.

In all fairness, I should note that most movies based on Steven King's stories do not have much to do with the original material.  Like Philip K. Dick, the stories provide little more than a jumping-off point.

The three films deal with the topic of artificial intelligence and serve as warnings that humanity, as usual, has no idea what it is doing.  While there are other great films on topic, such as the more recent Her, and the legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey,  I don't consider Spielberg's lame attempt to render Kubrick's A.I: Artificial Intelligence even worthy of the film stock it wasted, much less a commentary on topic.

At any rate, it is instructive to note that, since 1968 at least, people have been discussing A.I. and warning of its potential disaster for our species.  There are very few examples of this technology being treated in a benign manner.  From Fritz Lang's Metropolis to James Cameron's Terminator, the artistic media have nearly unanimously raised red flags over the head-long rush to build artificial "minds."

In nearly every case, AI is portrayed as malevolent, even though the thought processes of the machines are coldly logical.  The machines, acting primarily on human instructions and good intents, always place humanity under siege in order to save us from ourselves, or in some lesser cases, out of pure dictatorial power lust.

The fact is that nearly every technology humans have created is at some point put to service of our baser desires.  Almost without fail, erotica and pornography are among the primary adopters of new tech.  From the sex temples of India and Guatemala, to the Roman frescoes and mosaics, to the printing press, photography, and now the internet and Virtual Reality, we infuse our technology with our most primal motivations.

One of the most recent public forays (is it fair to say boondoggle?) into AI was a Microsoft project called Tay.  This self-taught "chat bot" took about a day or two to start spouting just about everything humans find reprehensible about themselves.  From racial epithets to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, this computerized avatar swiftly began to mirror her creators.  If this isn't warning enough for what we will find ahead, then there is little I or anyone else can do to stop the insanity.

One of the main points I picked up from the Bible was that humanity was supposedly created "in the image and likeness" of God.  If this is the case, then we should all live in dire dread of creating anything imbued with intelligence and self-determination.  Since humans would effectively be god to any self-aware creation, whether flesh or wires, then our own behavior towards our deities should serve as a case study for how our labors will respond to us.

Regardless of how we slice the issue, AI will ultimately be the creation of flawed humans, and will, by design, be reflections of our inner-most selves, both individually and collectively.  That we respond with our basest desires to our creations echoes the Biblical mating of angels with Men that required a global flood to clean up, so we are told.  Suddenly, such stories come into sharp focus and become plausible real events, which should give us great pause in our rush to apocalypse.

One thing is certain: given history and experience, there is little reason to suspect that true, self-aware AI would be either benign or benevolent.  Given humanity's predilection to unleashing horrors upon itself, it is nearly certain that AI would be the pinnacle of our collective stupidity.  If people like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking are warning us about AI, it is reasonable to think they would know of which they speak.  After all, they are most likely privy to developments of which we mere mortals can only speculate.  If nothing else, I find the videos of robot testing to be deeply disturbing.

About the moment we are lacing our collective fingers behind our heads and kicking our feet up on the desk in self-satisfaction is the moment we should be trembling at the power of our creativity.

I am reminded of one of the most profound lines in all of the Star Trek universe: "Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean that we should do that thing."

Calling Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Victor Frankenstein.  Code Blue.  STAT