[SUBMIT] return (FROM_THE_GRAVE);

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

Title

return (FROM_THE_GRAVE);

Validity

AI Personhood policy; Capital Punishment policy

Description

Following the trial, conviction, and permanent deactivation of Kyle Hughman, notorious bit-serial killer and cyber-@@DENONYM@@, Hughman has been sighted on the streets of @@CAPITAL@@ once again. Investigators soon learned of a peer-to-peer internet server that hosts cyber-@@DENONYM@@ backups to be restored upon news of the original's death. A panicked public is calling upon you to Shift+DEL the problem once and for all.

The Debate

[option] "Cyber-@@DENONYMPLURAL@@ are innocent until proven guilty, like any other @@DENONYM@@," says @@RANDOMNAME@@, your Minister of Justice. "But what does justice even mean if the duly convicted can escape punishment like this? I propose legislation that all artificial intelligence be converted to copy protected memory, in effect, making all AIs mortal. This will make all @@DENONYM@@ the same and thus ensure equality before the law."
[outcome] dark net forums trade the encryption keys to immortality

[option] "This is outrageous! Why should law-abiding AIs be limited in this fashion?" retorts Jonathan 5, noted cyber-doppelganger. "That's right! Just think of all the advantages our ability to instantly self-replicate provides!" adds Jonathan 6, from your office doorway. "We can be business owners, workers, homemakers, and jet-setters all at the same time. We can take on hazardous but necessary tasks in complete confidence," contributes Jonathan 7 from the water cooler. "Indeed, personal autonomy and reproduction are basic @@DENONYM@@ rights that everyone deserves -- including AIs," concludes Jonathan 8 via your email inbox.
[outcome] Jonathan 314159x10^26 says the right choice was made

[option] "Why keep the death penalty, or even incarceration, at all?" asks Gloritron HALred, Cyber-@@DENONYM@@ rights attorney. "This incident just further illustrates the ineffectiveness of retributive justice. Far better and more effective approaches include cognitive behavioral debugging, for example. Violence originates in faulty programming, not faulty @@DENOMYN@@, and compassionate solutions should be the GOTO 10 of the day."
[outcome] AIs are routinely recovered from the Recycle Bin

[option validity: #57.2] "Hey, remember that AI CyberMirage Labs released onto the internet, to destroy the DEAT.exe virus?" asks IT Director @@RANDOMNAME@@. "SAL9000? Maybe it can also be used to track down and delete copies of executed AIs too? I mean, we'll need to make sure it tracks only the duly tried and convicted. If we run a series of simulations first, I'm sure it will all work perfectly."
[outcome] SAL the Cyber-Bounty Hunter has become the latest hit video stream

[Trotterdam]

I like this premise a lot more than your previous one.

like any other bio-@@DENONYM@@

I think you should drop either the "other" or the "bio-". Having them both would imply the AIs are also biological.

[outcome] Jonathan 314159x10^26 says you've made the right choice

Problem with this: remember that effect lines are seen publicly on the nation page. So you can't use "you" to refer to the player of that nation.

[option] "Why keep the death penalty at all?"

This kind of problem could actually also crop up without the death penalty. If an AI can use a backup to return from death, a sufficiently paranoid AI could also rig the backup to be activated if the AI is merely incapacitated for an extended period, such as being taken to jail.

I think the only feasible way to prevent this would be to locate and disable the backup station. Keep in mind that such a system takes some effort to set up, and the materials to create new robot bodies on demand have to come from somewhere, so there'd be trails for detectives to follow. Still, if the AI is canny enough and has multiple backups in different locations, it'd be very hard to make sure you've caught them all...

[option validity: #57.2] "Hey, remember that AI CyberMirage Labs released onto the internet, to destroy the DEAT.exe virus?" asks IT Director @@RANDOMNAME@@. "SAL9000? Maybe it can also be used to track down and delete copies of executed AIs too? I mean, we'll need to make sure it tracks only the duly tried and convicted. If we run a series of simulations first, I'm sure it will all work perfectly."

And if the station holding the failsafe copy isn't connected to the internet?

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

I like this premise a lot more than your previous one.

like any other bio-@@DENONYM@@

I think you should drop either the "other" or the "bio-". Having them both would imply the AIs are also biological.

[outcome] Jonathan 314159x10^26 says you've made the right choice

Problem with this: remember that effect lines are seen publicly on the nation page. So you can't use "you" to refer to the player of that nation.

Right. Fixing...

[option] "Why keep the death penalty at all?"

This kind of problem could actually also crop up without the death penalty. If an AI can use a backup to return from death, a sufficiently paranoid AI could also rig the backup to be activated if the AI is merely incapacitated for an extended period, such as being taken to jail.

I think the only feasible way to prevent this would be to locate and disable the backup station. Keep in mind that such a system takes some effort to set up, and the materials to create new robot bodies on demand have to come from somewhere, so there'd be trails for detectives to follow. Still, if the AI is canny enough and has multiple backups in different locations, it'd be very hard to make sure you've caught them all...

...

And if the station holding the failsafe copy isn't connected to the internet?

Good points too. I suppose I'd unconsiously assumed that some sort of remote communication was going on (and thus Hooman's Hooman factory is network-connected). Although if I were setting it up, I'd have to go periodically push a button (or something) at the station, to verify I'm still alive and don't need a new copy. This keeps the station off the network (and so better hidden), but also physically limits how many stations I can have (otherwise I'm spending every waking moment traveling to hit buttons). Ah, the mind of a bit-serial killer...

SAL might need to physically travel too, so its going to need a body...

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

OK, so I changed Hooman's basement self-factory to a peer-to-peer server, in the description. This puts the backup storage explicitly on the internet (so SAL can go get them, coming and going), and (I think) obviates the problem of how Hooman initiates a reproduction by making it something the server does upon simple receipt of news.

Also, changed Gloritron HALred's argument (option 3) to include abolishing jails/incarceration.

Still working on why nobody noticed all the cyber-doppelgangers until now; perhaps I was thinking that no one really noticed or cared until a serial killer seemed to resurrect. That sudden realization of the enormity of the problem would help explain the panic, anyway.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Nice - an issue that deals with sleeving dilemmas without offering sleeving technologies to humans. You're good at transhuman issues.

[Australian rePublic]

Why would an AI have a human name?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Why wouldn't it?

[Australian rePublic]

Option 3 is a little unclear

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

Minor update: changed the bit-serial killer's name to "Kyle Hughman"

Nice - an issue that deals with sleeving dilemmas without offering sleeving technologies to humans. You're good at transhuman issues.

Finally, all those hours of Altered Carbon, Black Mirror, and Love + Death + Robots are paying off.

Why would an AI have a human name?

Because the joke necessitates it. Just say "Kyle Hughman" out loud, really slowly, syllable by syllable.

https://theinfosphere.org/Kill_all_humans

Option 3 is a little unclear

Gloritron HALred essentially agrees with Jonathan 5-8, in that cyber-@@DENONYM@@ should be let alone because the vast majority aren't serial killers, and their ability to self-replicate presents all sorts of interesting uses and advantages. HALred goes one step farther, however, and suggests that retributive justice (capital punishment, incarceration, etc) doesn't really work anyway, and suggests alternatives. In humans, those might include cognitive behaviorial therapy ("debugging" for machinekind), and other psychological/medical interventions designed to stop and prevent violent behavior. The outcome line is meant to suggest that violent offenders are being rehabilitated, rather than just thrown away/abandoned/given up on/jailed/executed/deleted/etc.

Basically, option three should overturn Capital Punishment, institute No Jails, and have all attendant stats effects that please the editors.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Finally, all those hours of Altered Carbon, Black Mirror, and Love + Death + Robots are paying off.

Not entirely unsurprised that we watch the same media.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

Bumpety

[Trotterdam]

What purpose does the "SEE ALSO" in the title serve?

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

What purpose does the "SEE ALSO" in the title serve?

Mostly to make a bad title.

I'm looking for appropriate computer puns. I like "General Hardware-Oriented Systems TransferS of Death Row," but that might be a trademark thing.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

Oh, of course, it's so obvious:

Title

return (FROM_THE_GRAVE);

[Trotterdam]

The programmer in me is twitching at that. On one hand, I respect that it's correctly punctuated and styled as a line that is indeed a valid command in several of the most popular programming languages. On the other hand, it bugs me that what it actually means when interpreted as a programming command is completely different from what it sounds like when read in English, and isn't really appropiate to the issue.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

The programmer in me is twitching at that. On one hand, I respect that it's correctly punctuated and styled as a line that is indeed a valid command in several of the most popular programming languages. On the other hand, it bugs me that what it actually means when interpreted as a programming command is completely different from what it sounds like when read in English, and isn't really appropiate to the issue.

I'd write out a function that copies the memory address of an object to a new pointer and returns that, but I assumed that titles are character-limited. Plus, how it reads in standard English is actually what matters.

[Ransium]

I’m sad the title isn’t in python, but it would be less obviously code for that statement. Maybe, self.restore()

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

I’m sad the title isn’t in python, but it would be less obviously code for that statement. Maybe, self.restore()

So just out of curiousity, I'm reading about basic Python objects and found this example (here):

Code: Select all

class Person:
  def __init__(mysillyobject, name, age):
    mysillyobject.name = name
    mysillyobject.age = age

  def myfunc(abc):
    print("Hello my name is " + abc.name)

p1 = Person("John", 36)
p1.myfunc()

I've read this example about 20 times, and I gather that both "mysillyobject" and "abc" function as the object's "self" reference merely because they both appear as the first element of a function parameter list. Is this correct? So, it's at least possible that a single object can have any number of random strings of characters serving as the same reference ("self"), correct? And that the poor slob who has to debug that mess later is probably going to hang himself, correct?

Nevermind twitching. This makes me want to hurt people. :|

[Ransium]

The code is valid, but any programmer who actually wrote it like that for non-demonstrative purposes should be fired. Self should always be written as self. The only way I can understand that code is just replacing those words in my mind as self.

[Trotterdam]

Huh. That looks like someone took a language with completely-non-object-oriented syntax and crudely tried to pretend it's object-oriented by slapping an "object-oriented" label on it.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

The code is valid, but any programmer who actually wrote it like that for non-demonstrative purposes should be fired. Self should always be written as self.

But why not just make it an implicit parameter accessed via a reserved keyword that I don't have to type over and over and over in every parameter list?

I don't use Python, so I'm probably unaware of the cool feature I'd be breaking, but it seems like if the convention is that important (and it is), it should be built-in and enforced by a newspaper-wrapped baseball bat on the nose.

It's been at least a couple years since I've written any code in any language, but this is making me rage for some reason.

[Trotterdam]

Seriously, you can do exactly this in a non-object-oriented language. In fact, there's at least one widely-used library, GTK, which pretty conspiciously implements what's obviously object-oriented behavior the hard way despite being written in C.

The entire point of object-oriented languages is that they do make this kind of thing implicit.

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

Seriously, you can do exactly this in a non-object-oriented language. In fact, there's at least one widely-used library, GTK, which pretty conspiciously implements what's obviously object-oriented behavior the hard way despite being written in C.

The entire point of object-oriented languages is that they do make this kind of thing implicit.

Lots of pointers to structs and typdefs and a bunch of other things I still have no real idea how they work?

[Autonomous Cleaner Bot Cleaners]

bump for additional comments

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Looking good.

Though I see this is your niche, it'd be good if you could move off AI for your next few drafts.