The Top 5 Technology Panics of 2009 146
destinyland writes "An A.I. researcher lists the Top 5 Technology Panics of 2009 — along with the corresponding reality. There's exploding iPods, the uproar over 'bombing' the moon, and even a flesh-eating robot. But in each case, he supplies some much-needed perspective. 'These incidents are incredibly rare ... the rocket stage weighs around two tons, while the Moon weighs in at a 73,477,000,000,000,000,000 tons... and desecration of the dead is against the laws of war — and plant matter is a much better fuel source anyway.'"
A.I. researcher (Score:3, Insightful)
Thomas McCabe is a mathematics student at Yale University and a research associate at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
Not sure that's the mainstream definition of "A.I. researcher", but more relevantly, I can think of another technology panic that seems to keep recurring that the Singularity Institute might have something to do with.
Mod Parent Down... oops, it's the story! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The entire Internet is a panic then? (Score:3, Insightful)
The panic is that kids think that pictures given privately to their friends are going to be kept that way... nope. One wrong friend who publishes it and there's no end to it.
Look what happened to Vanessa Hudgens. She was a Disney star with a song out and part of the High School Musical cast. A picture she knew was being taken gets out, and suddenly it's a career-ended.
Conficker April 1st (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the incredibly overrated Conficker [certifiedbug.com] / Kido [kaspersky.com] / Downadup [microsoft.com] worm that was going to cause the end of the Internet on April 1st 2009? Big media blew it out of proportion considering Microsoft had patched the flaw and all major AV vendors had protected against it months before April 1st. The only people really affected by it were the patch-avoiders.
Death-by-IPv4 (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignores a lot more panics (Score:5, Insightful)
Killer electronics is nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sexting (Score:3, Insightful)
Laws were meant to keep people from harming one another. "sexting" harms no one.
That assumes that the sender and receiver are playing by the same rules - and the communication is genuinely private.
Not being intercepted and exploited by others.
You have a problem is one of the parties a minor and the other an adult. You have a problem if the text or images are being shared or broadcast without consent.
Re:I wish that robot WAS flesh-eating. (Score:3, Insightful)
Logically speaking you are correct.
Humans, however, are hardly rational beings. If they were, however, the point would be moot as dead bodies on the battle-field would not exist in the first place.
Re:Sexting (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, their conscience and the fear of reprisal and punishment.
Re:How is the LHC not on here? (Score:3, Insightful)
more than a few kids decided not to do their homework
Hardly surprising, given it's a newer excuse than "dog ate it". Maybe someone will believe they were actually afraid and cut them a break for going out and getting drunk instead of doing their work...
Re:Flesh-eating Robots Will Devour Us All (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sexting (Score:2, Insightful)
This makes no sense. Are you going to make it a crime for teenagers to shower naked because someone could, conceivably, secretly videotape them while doing so?
Even disregarding the utter stupidity of this line of reasoning, how on Earth would it keep someone from being exploited and harmed to make them a CRIMINAL?
For the record, BTW, whether I think "sexting" is acceptable doesn't depend on the relative ages of the participants, either. People are either old enough to do it or not; if they are old enough to send naked pictures to a 16-year old friend, they're also old enough to do the same with a 19-year old friend, or a 50-year old friend. Similarly, if they're not old enough to do so with a 50-year old friend, they're also not old enough to do so with a 16-year old friend.
And finally and most importantly, when someone is too young, too immature, too much of a CHILD to be allowed to take or send naked pictures of themselves, what on Earth makes you think they're old enough to be put in jail (or otherwise punished)? The very fact that someone's mature enough to be put on trial and sentenced proves that they're mature enough to be in charge of their own life (including their own body).
Re:I wish that robot WAS flesh-eating. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sad comparison (Score:2, Insightful)
00,000,012,162,748,511,374.98 (US Debt) ** Only 6 more decimal places to go! **
I think it's sad that when I look at numbers referring to things like moon weight or number of stars in the galaxy that the first thing that comes to my mind is my countries national debt in relation to those numbers. http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ -> $12,162,748,511,374.98 as of January 4th, 2010.