Brain Hammer

I ran out of milk today. It made me sad.

Happy Rabbit Hole Day, everybody.

It's time to start thinking about how we might grant legal rights to computers. 
By Benjamin Soskis

According to Wendell Wallach, co-author of the forthcoming book Robot Morality, corporations that own computers and robots might seek to encourage a belief in their autonomy in order to escape liability for their actions. “Insurance pressures might move us in the direction of computer systems being considered as moral agents,” Wallach notes. Given the close association between rights and responsibilities in legal and ethical theory, such a move might also lead to a consideration of legal personhood for computers. The best way to push back against the pressures to treat computers as autonomous would be to think carefully about what moral agency for a computer would mean, how we might be able to determine it, and the implications of that determination for our interaction with machines.

der Tunnel
Originally uploaded by Dr. Smax.

The sky-tunnel from the train to the school at The University of Bielefeld, Germany. Click the pix for larger views. (c) 2005 Pete Mandik

We're Back!

and have devoured Germany, Holland, and (accidentally) small parts of Canada. But we are back to tell tall tales of beer, string theory, schnitzel, Sweety Chicken, the alleged nonreduciblity of consciousness and normativity to microphysical natural kinds, and how we got lost (literally) in a piece of art. And we've got pictures. Give us a day or so to get it all together. In the meantime, I give you. . .New Jersey:

Exsanguinated Excommunicant

Monster Salad

The Last Days of Rome as Dictated by a Bio-Laser

Fear of a Blue Planet
Originally uploaded by Dr. Smax.

Fear. Fear, baby.

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Chrome Lord,
originally uploaded by Dr. Smax.

A thing called “Baleful”

Smax Worldwide presents a very special thing. Anyone else want a thing? Click here to find out how.

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Baleful

by

“Yes,” says , his voice a baleful growl. “I peed in the pool of your unconscious. You may be picturing me taking a stealth piss while swimming, but the truth of the matter is that I was standing on the highest diving platform when this happened.”

The phone bursts into flame as slams down the receiver.

Reclining astride his Throne of Skulls in his Hall of Doom, Smax adjusts his titanium-spiked magical codpiece which has been chaffing ever since its acquisition during the Battle of Neverclear. He pops another handful of baby monkeys into his mouth.

“Fucking salespeople.”