Bad Robot or Bad Programmer? Who is Accountable?

I love reading about research done at various different universities around the world. I'll admit that I love the stories even more when the research amuses me in some shape or form.

Though if I'm perfectly honest the latest research from the University of Washington in Seattle makes me feel a bit uneasy. You see, it's about how humans and robots interact.

Here's a bit of background for you.

Forty students took part in a scavenger hunt where they had to find a given amount of items within a certain time, then a robot named Robovie judged whether or not they should win the $20 prize money.

The only problem with this was, Robovie was programmed to lie.

Now, the strange thing is, even though the students saw Robovie as a robot and didn't consider it to be morally accountable for anything, some still got really annoyed when it lied. Realistically their anger should've been with the programmer rather than the inanimate object doing what it was 'told' to do.

Heather Gary, a doctoral student in developmental psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle said, "Some accused Robovie of lying or cheating."

About 65 percent of the 40 students said Robovie was at least somewhat morally accountable for lying.

Just as I was considering the possibility, with some degree of smugness, that I would realise that old Robovie was mere nuts, bolts and electrical wiring I thought of something else.

I have a name for my car & love my iPad, I shout at my work's PC when it locks up and freezes. Why do I do that when I know that whatever emotion I have for a piece of machinery won't change it's behaviour?

Yup, I hold machinery morally accountable for things, I give my car steering wheel a pat if it's gotten me home with hardly any fuel in it or it's started first time when the outside temperature is -21C.

Based on the findings in their paper 'Do Humans Hold a Humanoid Robot Morally Accountable for the Harm It Causes?' Heather Gary and the rest of her colleagues suggested that the military should consider the moral accountability of robots. I'll take that one step further and suggest that everyone or company that are building humanoid robots and the like should consider her findings.

B1-66ER robot that didnt want to die

It all reminds me a bit of 'Animatrix' the short stories based on and around the film trilogy 'The Matrix'. Ok, ok, I know that those stories are based on robots with artificial intelligence, but is that really so far away in the future?

After all....... It was only a year ago that Watson the IBM computer appeared on the tv programme 'Jeopardy'

One Caffeine Buzz Too Far, Death by Coke

There appears to be no definitive answer for how much water you should drink a day in order to be healthy. It could be 1.5 litres or 2.0 litres, it could be 8 glasses or 8 pints or any amount of figures that float around the Internet.

What I can work out is that it depends on the individual, the environment you are in etc etc, blah blah. It also depends on what you eat, for example eating loads of apples, grapes, watermelon or whatever and you will need less actual water.

Another 'myth' for want of a better word, is that water intake should only be water as in purely H2O but this is apparently a load of crap.

If you lose 500-700ml every day (minimum) via urine, breathing and sweating you need some liquid spare for the cells in your body to do 'stuff'.

So if someone is drinking around 8 litres a day, it has to be said that there is some sort of problem lurking in the background.

Especially if that happens to be 8 litres of Coca-Cola.........

Sadly, this is what happened to Natasha Marie Harris from Invercargill on New Zealand's south island.

I promise really hard not to make any jokes because at the end of the day, 8 kids have been left motherless and that in itself is very tragic.

At the inquest into Natasha's death her partner Christopher Hodgkinson said she would always have a bottle of coke beside her bed, it would be what she drank before going to sleep and what she drank when she woke up.

Without her coke it was said that Natasha would be moody and irritable. In the year before she died, poor Natasha was being sick nearly every day as well as suffering from tiredness and lack of strength. However, it was suspected that this was due being only 30, having 8 kids and gynaecological problems (though I'm not at all sure that we need to know this). However, these symptons can also be seen in people suffering from caffeine toxicity.

During her autopsy it was discovered that she had cardiac arrhythmia and a diseased liver. It was suggested by Dr Dan Mornin that Natasha possibly had a lack of potassium in the blood due to the high consumption of Coca-cola also.

Its as a result of this that Christopher Hodgkinson says that Coca-cola killed his partner, however, George Adams, Coca-Cola's New Zealand MD that his claims are unfounded.

Whether Natasha caused her own death by drinking too much cola or whether it was simply 'one of those things', it doesn't really matter in my opinion. It's not going to bring her back.

I can understand wanting to know what happened and perhaps trying to avoid it happening to someone else, but my alarm bells would have been ringing beginning with the sheer amount of juice consumed.

I hope her kids will be well looked after and my thoughts go out to Tara, Aiden, Brodie, Tyler, Rueben, Connor, Forde and Dominic.

Twittering On About Alexa Chung

I missed the whole thing when Alexa Chung became famous/infamous or whatever you want to call it. In fact, without research I wasn't entirely sure why she was a recognisable name. I don't want to say a 'celeb' because you tend not see pictures of Alexa falling out of a nightclub half dressed, drunk & covered in puke and that's how I usually see these modern day 'celebs'.

In the interest of research, I've trawled the internet to see if I can find any major scandals surrounding Ms Chung. However, our Alexa appears to be clean cut and intelligent with no major vices. That in itself is a totally crazy thing these days, surely everyone has some skeletons in their cupboard?

So, why is Alexa my chosen subject today?

Well, I saw the proverbial who-ha in the Daily Mail and.......god forbid.... They are passing comment that people have passed comment on a photo that Alexa posted on

Instagram.

So, in turn, I feel that I must pass comment. Not on whether or not Alexa looks anorexic or unwell, nor will I pass comment on whether or not I think she is bad role model for young people.

I'm only going to pass comment on the people who have passed comment.

We are all human beings and therefore all have thoughts and feelings, can feel and express joy and happiness. Yeah? Agreed?

So, someone shares with people a photo of themselves with their mum and the majority of comments they get in return is about their weight.

Do the people who cared enough to follow Alexa on twitter not care enough to consider her feelings when they tell her that she looks too thin or how awful a person she is by promoting anorexia?

I don't know Alexa or her family, but I do know that if people made comments about me every time I stepped out of the door I'd be even more of a crackpot than I am already.

The pressure to simply 'be' must be immense. Imagine that you can't even go out of the house to get a packet of crisps & bog roll without someone trying to take your picture. You can't just show up at the movies for fear of some random wanting their picture taken with you and you have the same trousers on last week? Even worse, something awful has happened to a family member and you're dashing about in a moment of crisis and your hair isn't washed?

I'm a no one and I feel loads of pressure to be perfect in my own little world, I wouldn't be able to handle as much criticism as Ms Chung, so maybe all these haters and critics are lucky it's Alexa out there and not me. My chipped and different coloured nail varnish would have the fashionistas thinking I was making a statement, when really I'm saying I can't be arsed doing my nails today.

Leave Alexa alone, she is human after all.

Should We Brick it From Internet Trolls

Samantha Brick is apparently quite famous though I've never heard of her. I actually don't like to admit things like that cause, well, it makes me sound massively uneducated and naive. Even if I have no idea about what someone is talking about, I like to at least have heard of the topic.

Samantha Brick? Not a clue who the hell she is.

So, I read her (queue rolling eyes) article in the Daily Mail about how women hate her cause she's beautiful........

Knowing the British public, unless you are writing tongue in cheek then you are asking for a huge amount of verbal abuse. Which results in Samantha proving her case.

Anyway, I read her article. The salient points are that yes she is pretty, but not supermodel material, she is intelligent and successful. Random men buy her things, women 'friends' are wary in case she's steals their partners.

I checked her website and yes, she is all of the above, I also learned that Samantha helps to rescue animals also as well as being able to blog in a style that I am quite envious of.

So, realistically, what is there not to like?

All I can see is that the public don't seem to like the fact that Samantha has opened up the door marked 'jealously breeds hatred'. So, let me get this straight, does this mean that it's not ok to judge someone by how they look unless they are female, blonde, slim, pretty and clever? I'm not slim or pretty, but I am blonde and female and yes I do get judged by how I look too, depending on who you are I could have too many tattoos, too much education or whatever. However, I try not to let it bother me what other people think.

I'm not in competition with Samantha Brick, I don't know her at all so why should her views affect me or anyone in such a passionate way? Today I woke up to read that not only Joe Public had a pop at her views but some celebs had too. Yup, the majority of people seem to have missed the point, don't think the article is about Samantha so much as everyone else.

I don't hate her for how she looks or any other reason. I rather respect her for opening up the discussion about how women view each other.

Do you seriously think that because someone considers themselves fortunate to be blessed with good looks and intelligence that they don't have feelings? Get a grip!

All the Daily Mail has successfully done is turn everyone into a bunch of trolls posting hateful, spiteful comments about Samantha Brick.