Debating the Royal Society’s End-of-Life Decision-Making Report…Well, sort of.

The Royal Society recently published their report on End-of-Life Decision-Making in Canada, written by an expert panel commissioned by the Society. It is well worth a read if you are interested in the topic. Not surprisingly, there has been some debate featured in the media following the release of the report. Also not surprisingly, the most vocal opposition to the report has come from various anti-choice interest groups, and individuals well known for campaigning against [read more...]

Keepon Redux: From the Robot Film Fest

Ok. So you like Keepon too? I recently posted about the little robot, which made it to #1 on a top 10 list of best robots of all time. I also told you about the Robot Film Festival in New York last weekend. Well, it turns out the makers of Keepon entered a great updated video of Keepon dancing to all new beats by Spoon! And it’s fantastic! Keepon dancing to Spoon’s “Don’t You Evah” [read more...]

The Ethics of Klout – Should We Trust In the Almighty Algorithm?

In recent months companies like Klout and PeerIndex have captured the imagination of the media by promising to deliver meaningful measurements of peoples’ online influence. But there’s a problem with measuring influence the way Klout promises to, and it has to do with the algorithms that scour the web to determine an individuals influence rating (or “Klout Score”, or “PeerIndex”). The problem? The algorithms are secret. (Of course there’s another problem, which is that Klout [read more...]

Keepon Keeps On Rockin’ as the #1 Robot

Make Magazine has voted Keepon the #1 Robot on their top 10 favourite robot list. It’s no secret that I love Keepon. There’s something about the simplicity of the idea that makes me smile every time I see him. Here’s the breakdown of the top 5/10 (for a complete list see the original post): #5 Shakey #4 Mousey the Junkbot #3 R2-D2 – builder’s club editions #2 Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, controlled by telemetry suit #1 Keepon That’s right, Keepon [read more...]

Roboethics, Drones, and the Trolley Problem

I came across a great post about the Trolley Problem and Warfare at a Distance over at the Neuroethics at the Core blog. Peter B. Reiner gives a great overview of the classic “trolley problem” (a fun party conversation piece if ever there was one), and ties neuroethics and moral psychology into it very nicely. His conclusions are spot on. Here’s an excerpt of his post: While the developers of the drones were clearly interested [read more...]