Internal Monologue

From the "What could possibly go wrong with this?" department : Leave it to the military to dream big . In its recently released "Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047" report, the US Air Force details a drone that could fly over a target and then make the decision whether or not to launch an attack, all without human intervention. The Air Force says that increasingly, humans will monitor situations, rather than be deciders or participants, and that "advances in AI will enable systems to make combat decisions and act within legal and policy constraints without necessarily requiring human input." Programming of the drone will be based on "human intent," with real actual humans monitoring the execution, while retaining the authority and ability to override the system. It's all still extremely vague, with literally no details on exactly how this drone will come into existence, but we do know this: the Air Force plans to have these dud

"I am not persuaded that deep inward tranquility is an automatic result of being sprayed in sequence with oils from Sacred Chaco Canyon and Tibet, and I don't know that the strand of rose quartz beads she draped like a rosary over my eyes was really connecting me with my chakras; nor do I believe that the interpretive Sanskrit chants with which the room was filled were inscribing antidepressant virtues into my meridians. All that being said, four days of gentle handling by beautiful women in an opulent resort did a great deal for me, and I left high on peace." -Andrew Solomon, from his book about depression The Noonday Demon

People are concerned enough about Robotron 2084 scenarios that a bunch of them recently got together in Monterey Bay to discuss the dangers posed by artificial intelligence and autonomous robots : Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone. Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences. As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients to simulate empathy, and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence. This is gonna be so cool. And possibly very dangerous. It is fr

Nothing is more reassuring to someone who was painfully shy and awkward around women for much of his life than hearing about a group of people who are even more painfully shy and awkward around women. Like, for example, people who have relationships with body pillows covered with eroticized anime images of little girls: Nemutan doesn’t really have a leg. She’s a stuffed pillowcase — a 2-D depiction of a character, Nemu, from an X-rated version of a PC video game called Da Capo, printed on synthetic fabric. In the game, which is less a game than an interactive visual novel about a schoolyard romance, Nemu is the loudmouthed little sister of the main character, whom she calls nisan , or “big brother,” a nickname Nisan adopted as his own when he met Nemu. When I joined the couple for lunch at their favorite all-you-can-eat salad bar in the Tokyo suburb of Hachioji, he insisted on being called only by this new nickname, addressing his body-pillow girlfriend using the suffix “tan” to show h

Here's a fun bit of fluff: 100 famous movie quotes in 200 seconds: Now we can argue about which ones should be included/excluded. Personally, I wanted to hear the famous mis-quote " We don't need no stinkin' badges " and the Wilhelm scream .

Chinese experts grow live mice from mouse skin cells : HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese researchers have managed to create powerful stem cells from mouse skin and used these to generate fertile live mouse pups. They used induced pluripotent skin cells, or iPS cells -- cells that have been reprogrammed to look and act like embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos, have the power to morph into any cell type and, in mice, can be implanted into a mother's womb to create living mouse pups. Their experiment, published in Nature, means that it is theoretically possible to clone someone using ordinary connective tissue cells found on the person's skin, but the experts were quick to distance themselves from such controversy. Via Mad Latinist on Facebook .

There appears to be a rift among the Iranian hard-liners. Supreme Leader Khamenei doesn't like President Ahmadinejad's pick for vice-president. But Ahmadinejad won't back down . I don't know what's going on here. There are a lot of factions in Iranian politics and I don't know what the fault lines, interests, power relationships and alliances are. Maybe nobody knows right now, as things are possibly in a state of flux. I hope they can have some real reform of civil society.