Asimov would be pleased

South Korea has announced that they are drawing up a code of robot ethics, to prevent humans from abusing robots, and robots from abusing humans. Asimov would be so pleased!

While it's unclear if the code of ethics will follow Asimov's laws of robotics (an idea their convened panelists of scientists and sci-fi authors have not ruled out), Park Hye-Young of the Ministry of Information and Communication has indicated that a major concern is that people will be interacting with their robots like spouses, or become addicted to them (as many people appear to be addicted to cyberspace in general). And according to the BBC, "key considerations would include ensuring human control over robots, protecting data acquired by robots and preventing illegal use."

-Kelly Hills

Ramblings of a Connected Mind

In the Eternal Sunshine of Pervasive Technology -- Is it sometime in the past? Log cabins, hogans, thatched roofs? A slower pace of life? I feel a wistful longing. Is it someplace in the present? Rural Pennsyvlania, Amish country? Remote Northern Frontier District of Kenya? The Gobi Desert? The West Coast of Sumatra? The Long Trail? A slower pace of life. I feel a wistful longing.

Or is it sometime in the future? Pervasive connectivity, where family, friends, colleagues can reach you wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Where you can easily let the world know not to disturb you except in an emergency, and they respect your personal space.

Ever-expanding and limitless information available to you on any topic at any time, in any place, be it the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the top of a mountain, in a restaurant, working the fields, riding the bike paths. A smoother pace of life, flexible boundaries. I feel a wistful longing, a hopeful anticipation...never again disconnected, lost, and afraid. It's that last connection, the "on ramp" to the information and communications superhighway, that is so liberating when it is wireless, so confining when it is not. Maybe wireless connectivity is like world peace ... already here, all around us: so many just don't seem to realize it, yet, and continue to struggle. Maybe we only think we need technology, but it has nothing to do with technology; but it has everything to do with interconnectedness. Face-to-face gatherings are, after all, wireless.

Think about it. Talk about it. These are profound changes all around us, full of potential, rocking our world. Enjoy the ride! -- Linda Glenn

Bioethics' New Media: Online Streaming Video

Just in - a perfect little distraction for a bit of non-work-like-bioethics-surfing during the holiday break. It is called 'Yahoo! Video', and according to MIT's Daily Recycler, which tracks the most cited links among all three million english language blogs, it is literally everywhere.

Why is it such a big deal? Because Yahoo! Video allows you to search from millions, yes MILLIONS, of video clips all over the internet in order to turn up clips in your area of interest. Beyond "ego searching" for clips in which you appear, the teaching and research uses for Yahoo! Video - and those engines that follow it - are expansive and interesting. Just think about all of the ways in which you might use a tool like this and you'll begin to see why, like Google Scholar, which in my opinion will revolutionize scholarly information, this is a major technological breakthrough for our field. For example, here is a search for video with stem cells in it. - GM

Move Over, ISI Citation Index

Off topic a bit, but very important news for anyone who uses the web in research for scholarly papers and books: for years now, the ISI indices, a costly system of interrelated citation databases that track thousands of publications in dozens of disciplines, have been pretty much the only way to track how papers are cited and used. Many universities actually grade faculty on the basis of a "citation count" from ISI, and journals (like ours) make claims about their influence on the basis of similar ISI searches. Enter Google Scholar. This service will literally revolutionize the tracking of the lifetimes and reach of articles, because it at a minimum provides a much, much wider scan of articles than does ISI, and the implication of Google providing this service is that it can be integrated into the Internet at large. It is pretty easy to speculate that if John Dewey were alive, he would mark this event among the more important possible links between the scholarly world and public discourse. According to MIT's Blogdex, the best ranking of "who is visiting what on the Internet," scholar.google.com was the single most visited site on the entire Internet today. Needless to say, bioethics journals and their publications show up all over this thing, which is still in beta by the way, and it will be fun to pick around. If you find anything (after you do your vanity search) let us know.

Where I Want to Be Ill

The Medical Center of North Texas has wireless internet in its facilities. All the better to bug your doctor about that favorite alternative medicine website. Just take your laptop right into the doc's office and you can show her your sites live. Anyone want to bet on how long this lasts? On the other hand waiting times won't be such an issue anymore for wireless mavens...

Paul Root Wolpe on Neuroethics

Technology Review "Picking Your Brain" picks Paul's brain.