Jed--
You noted: "Finally, the moment you try to regulate such things, powerful
people and unscrupulous people will find ways to get around the regulations."
I would note that those kind of people have not gotten around the Atomic Energy
Act in this country very well. Energy produced by use of special nuclear
materials is pretty well regulated. However, as you suggest it might be, it
is not regulated well in all places on the Earth and may not be in the USA
either in the future.
Black markets for robots would likely crop up anyway. Regulation on the money
makers could keep them in control however, if the government decides to do so.
I would disagree with you that we nave no right to keep numbers of items
(robots) down. Such control It is a collective right established by law that
limits the availability of items. Controlled substances in this country are
very well controlled as to the amount any person can have. Radioactive
materials also fall into this category with amounts regulated to specific
licenses and general licenses issued by governments.
The definitions surely need to be established which distinguishes a computer
from a robot. These would be legal definitions in laws and regulations and may
not reflect the hazy lines between this and that which you suggest are a
problem.
My basic assumption is that technology can be regulated by a government for the
good of the society, consistent with the will of the majority. This is
democracy. Individuals have only certain personal rights as provided in
constitutions. Corporations and non-natural entities are chartered with
certain purposes established by governments. These can be changed or taken
back by the government that approved the various purposes, if it is in the
interest of the government (the people) to do so.
Bob
----- Original Message -----
From: Jed Rothwell
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Vo]:OT: what if everybody got free cash?
Bob Cook <frobertc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
A simple law will fix the problem of robots replacing people. The main
features of such a law follow:
Only real persons shall be allowed to own a robot free of tax.
Additional robots can be owned by any given biological person, but at an
increasing tax as deemed necessary to keep their numbers down will be levied.
. . .
Similar proposals have been discussed here before. Let me reiterate some
objections:
First, we do not want to keep the numbers down, and we have no right to do
that. People and corporations should have as many robots as they want, just as
they have as many computers as they want.
Second, there is no way to define a robot or to count the number of robots
you have. A robot can range from something as simple as the microprocessor
control in a microwave machine, to the Baxter robot, or in the future up to a
science fiction sentient human-like creature. By the first and lowest standard,
I own dozens of robots already, and you can't tell where one starts and the
other ends. There are probably several microprocessor controllers inside a
Prius or other modern automobile.
I expect that future robots will be modular and networked, with attachments
or peripherals that can be used by different robots at different times. When
you need some function that your own robot does not do, the robot will download
it, or use additional robot intelligence in the cloud, or order an attachment
part. Trying to counting robots will be kind of like trying to count computers.
If I have one computer with two screens which uses a net-connected stand-alone
hard disk and remote cloud storage, and both local and cloud-based apps, is
that one computer, or two, or many? The question is meaningless. Is an iPad or
Chromebook a computer at all? In 1975 I would have called them "smart
terminals" rather than computers.
Finally, the moment you try to regulate such things, powerful people and
unscrupulous people will find ways to get around the regulations. They will
have as many robots as they want, and they will easily find ways to stop the
authorities from enumerating those robots. Especially small robots, the size of
mice or cell phones, which I expect will be ubiquitous sometime in the future.
- Jed
