11 Thrilling Action Hero Quotes Delivered by our Robot Overlords

After reading Ben Goertzel's blog post, Dialoguing with the US Military on the Ethics of Battlebots, I was struck by the potential horror of his stated position on battlebot ethics:

I remain generally anti-violence and anti-war, but my main political focus now is on encouraging a smooth path toward a positive Singularity. To the extent that military force may be helpful toward achieving this end it has to be considered as a potentially positive thing....

In Ben's defense, he uses his blog to explore these ethics in a thoughtful way.  The levels of horror possible with Artificial Intelligence battlebots can be exposed if one considers them as potential action heroes delivering the requisite hero one liners.

Here are some of our beloved action hero one liners as delivered by the AI of Google translate:

We'll name our Artificial action starbot DOOMBA.

"They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!"  (Mel Gibson in Braveheart - 1995)

It may take our lives, our freedom can not take! (DOOMBA)

"Say hello to my little friend!"  (Al Pacino in Scarface - 1983)

Greetings my little friend! (DOOMBA)

"You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?" (Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" – 1971) 

Ask yourself to try it. Do I feel lucky? Oh, what are ya? Punk! (DOOMBA)

"Yippee ki yay motherfucker."  (Bruce Willis in Die Hard series - 1988)

Ki yay motherfucker afford brush.  (DOOMBA)

"Out here, due process is a bullet." (John Wayne in "The Green Berets" – 1968) 

Out, due process is a bullet here.  (DOOMBA)

"You talkin' to me?" (Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver" – 1976)

You are 'in me?  (DOOMBA)

"Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy." (Clint Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales" – 1976)

Not much in life, boy.  (DOOMBA)

"Go ahead, make my day." (Clint Eastwood in "Sudden Impact" – 1983)

Future, go to my day.  (DOOMBA)

"You're the disease. I'm the cure." (Sylvester Stallone in "Cobra" – 1986)

You're sick. I'm cured.  (DOOMBA)

"I crap bigger than you." (Jack Palance in "City Slickers" –1991)

If I was larger than junk.  (DOOMBA)

"If you come back in here, I'm going to hit you with so many rights, you're going to beg for a left." (Chuck Norris "Invasion USA" – 1985) 

If, come back here, if I have to hit very many privileges, I will ask for going left.  (DOOMBA)

As you see, our plucky action star DOOMBA can't deliver a kick ass quote.  But I'm sure his killing will be all precision.

The Men Who Stare at iPhones: ESP free iPhone app

You may have this feeling about your iphone already.  But after I downloaded this app, and tested myself, I found myself asking, "what does my iphone want from me?"

I won't make you intuit the link: ESP trainer app available for free from the App Store.

"The ESP trainer was developed under a NASA program by Russell Targ at Stanford Research Institute.  The purpose of the trainer is to allow you to become aware of what it feels like when you psychically choose the correct square. When you don't have that special feeling, we encourage you to press the Pass button. (So this is not a "forced choice" test.)
In a year long NASA program with 145 subjects (under Contract 953653 NAS7-100) many were able to significantly improve their scores. Four of the subjects improved their scores at the hundred-to-one level or better."

For some reason, the red square is the only one that jumps out at me.  Maybe I was a Toro Bravo in a previous life.  In my short time testing this app, I cannot even make statistically probable guesses.  I am like the ANTI-psychic.  So, here I sit, staring at my iphone, waiting for that special feeling.

Please tell me about your results!

Gender (check one): Male? Female? Eunuch?

India has granted it's other gendered populace the right to not be forced to pick Male or Female categories on ballot forms.

As per the BBC: Indian Eunuchs given separate IDs,  "There are about 500,000 eunuchs in India. Known as hijras, they comprise the hermaphrodite, transvestite and transsexual communities.
Eunuchs are feared and reviled in many parts of India, where some believe they have supernatural powers."

What does checking a gender box have to do with anything really?  Does it affect your vote?  Does it invalidate it?  My driver's license has my gender boxed under the heading of "SEX".  When I get pulled over for some infraction, I would prefer it read "SEX: Not Often While Driving, Officer."

If your gender changes during your lifetime (not I,  I've committed to a box already), I wonder how you identify yourself to yourself.  Obviously to the world you may change your presentation with a name change and wardrobe makeover.  But even that is often rejected.  So how about internally? Is it you? Or something unexpected? If any transsexual person would like to share, feel free to comment.

Oddly, this exciting new demographic has yet to catch on in the more penis friendly parts of the world.

D augmented reality collAR. New from the WAG store!

D augmented reality collAR

• Pack status rankings using the truK9 algorithm from alpha dog to little bitch.

• BSA (bark spectrum analyzer): perks up when the frequency known as the bark-bluffing wave is detected.  It boasts a 98 percent hit rate for reliable "bark is worse than bite" assurance.
  

• Real time begging analytics seamlessly mesh your  puppy eyes with human behavioral metrics.

• Squirrel scan HUD and photogeometric tracking of those furry bastards.

• BoneBury password protection and depth encryption.

As part of the SNIFFer platform:

• Pmail : improved spam filters for spayed or neutered.  aroma assist, and geo tagging for home range, territorial pissings, and nervous tinkles.

• biffer integration: the signature "Hello world!" app.  micro-buttsniffing various states of wag from rapid to tucked away,  broadcast your "beefs" beyond your pack.  Integrated with dog-park and assbook.

• On the go: switch to head window mode for rapid SNIFFer rates and paw free operation.

• toggle auto-pound on/off for leash free operation.

also at the wag store:

Frisbee vector
Scaredy cat
PetSmart locater

New Age U.S. army?

I just watched Jon Ronson's documentary on "The Men Who Stare at Goats."  This is what the new George Clooney movie is based on.  The more I watched the more I felt myself slipping down a rabbit hole of my own credulity.

The Men Who Stare at Goatse

Sean Bonner's tumblr

The borders of what I will accept as possible are very gray.  And shifting.  I've experienced enough strangeness in my own life to keep me guessing.  So when I see men in the establishment, men who are not like me, playing paranormal games with the end goal of torture and death... well, it gets my goat.

I mean, First Earth Battalion? This concoction of an army that carries lambs into battle and greets with hugs is so far out that it couldn't be part of our armed forces.  But it was, and is.

No matter how noble this concoction was, the army ultimately used these ideas to try to stop a goat's heart.  Anything for death or torture.  Be all you can be.

If you know yourself, then who is your avatar?

I've been reading a lot over the last few years about the way people identify themselves.  The ways we define ouselves don't seem comfortably fixed the way one might prefer.  Study after study shows identity to be a fluid experieence that can morph to fill a role.

For example, from physorg, Although often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one's self-representation, or avatar, in a virtual environment can affect the user's thoughts, according to research by a University of Texas at Austin communication professor.

In this study, preselected traits in a subjects avatar influenced their thoughts and behaviors.  They fell in line with the role they were inhabiting as the avatar.  Things as simple as wearing a dark cloak made them more antisocial.  This has already been demonstrated in normal reality studies.  Now the fluid identity can flow to the virtual.


If an avatar wasn't enough for you, what about a new physical body?  www.neurosciencenews.com/cogntive-neuroscientists-body-swapping.htm, Cognitive neuroscientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI) have succeeded in making subjects perceive the bodies of mannequins and other people as their own. 

What does this say about who you think you are?  Are we something fixed?  Or are we an energy that shifts and flows about, filling the roles available like water fills a gully?  What is identity?  If it is something fluid, can it be examined as a fluid, or as some kind of flowing energy transfer?

The air force was able to reproduce out of body experiences in pilots at Luke AFB under high g-forces.   Their identities separated from their bodies and observed from elsewhere.

Unsettling or freeing depending on which side of your identity you occupy today! 

exocentric

This blog will celebrate emerging geekery in the form of art, nano, bio, info, fashion cogno and magic.  Those things on the verge of breaking paradigms.  Tech sufficiently advanced to be indistiguishable from magic.  Or magic itself.  The language of magic that codes the mysterious.  The science that ponders the infinite.

And when we've considered the crazy, what do we do with it?  Let's use the new tools in ways not yet considered.

Breaking new promises daily!