Evil Tech: Who's to Blame?

The Dana Centre in London is hosting a public debate about the future of robotics and society; and a recent article on BBC.com
highlighted one of the major issues to be discussed: increasing autonomous capabilities of robots and the possible consequences. It's a bit of a stretch, but i think questions of accountability such as ""If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?" sort of relate to controversies in the realm of copyright and technologies that can infringe on copyright. Should we blame people who invent technology for instances where that technology was used for evil (read either killing people or copyright infringement). Copyright holders who want to protect their work are put in a pickle when other people use their protected work in subversive ways; and I don't a clear line can really be drawn between where credit turns into blame.

Obviously it's a bit different because with robots, there is no intervening arbiter...yet. So the onus is on the designer. But "as robots become more autonomous that line or responsibility becomes blurred."

This makes me very uncomfortable. Especially put in the context of military operations. Cool fact (...er) "Samsung has developed a robotic sentry to guard the border between North and South Korea. It is equipped with two cameras and a machine gun."

How apocalyptic is that?

Machine Project "demystifies tech world"

I get a daily newsletter about events in the LA area that linked me to a cool site the other day (http://www.machineproject.com/). Machine Project is reminiscent of the Feral Robotic Dog project, though not so lofty in it's socio-political-environmental goals. It's basically a continuing education center, but there's a strong focus on technology, software programming and some (reverse) engineering tossed in there:

"The nonprofit event space and community center in Echo Park aims to encourage creativity and demystify the world of high-tech gadgetry by offering educational lectures, interactive installations, and workshops like Machine Sewing 101, Introduction to Solar Robotics, and Square Waves for Beginners.
This month: build a noise-maker from scratch in the Felt and Circuits Workshop, configure your own multimedia program computer software in the Max/MSP class, learn How Computers Work, or create an amplifier out of $5 worth of parts and a cereal box."

Just thought I'd spread the word...I may check it out myself--I'll be sure to keep you posted :)