A number of science fiction writers (David Brin being probably the best known of them) have written about the idea of ‘uplift‘ – sub-sentient animals raised to human (or even higher) levels of cognition by scientific means; the transhumanist movement is quite fond of it as a conceptual meme too.

Which means science fiction and transhumanism can have a day of feeling vindicated; via Peter Watts, a science fiction author whose science qualifications are more than impeccable, comes the news that a team of Chinese scientists have not only discovered the gene that triggers production of a chemical intrinsic to human cognition, but managed to splice it into chimpanzees and observe the protein in question being produced.

Or, in layman’s terms: we may have found a way to create chimps with human intelligence, which may throw an interesting light on Hiasl’s human rights case.

Yet another sf trope that now passes the Mundane benchmark?

[Cross-posted from Futurismic, because it's just too damn good a story not to share.]

Well, it looks like I got my wish granted, although I’m not going to attempt to claim that my own post had anything to do with it. But people are starting to talk about DRM, digital media and the future of the genre. Continue reading “The DRM debate picks up steam”

As mentioned previously, yours truly is off to a ‘Cafe Scientifique’ about conscious machines this evening. So what better time to discuss robot ethics? Continue reading “Legislating against robot rape”

I sure do. If I pay for a song, and album, a game or other software, I want my fair use rights as provided by law. Thing is, the media industry doesn’t want to give me those rights. Thanks to the internet and it’s cornucopia of tools for distibution of data and content, the lazy old-fashioned business models of the music film and games industries are failing. Rather than pull their fingers out and move with the times, they’d rather take the easy option of treating their customers like criminals. Continue reading “Do you hate DRM?”

Music industry tries to hijack serious crime legislation in Europe

When the UK Presidency suggested to the EU that telecoms service providers and ISPs should be forced to retain information about the telephone calls you make and the sites you visit, they stated that it was an essential ‘balance’ struck between liberty and security: a grave compromise necessitated by the threat of terrorism and serious crime. Continue reading “Filesharer? Prepare to be treated like a a terrorist”