Tag Archives: Law

Can you sue an artificially intelligent machine?

Posted on by Brad Heap

The Herald reports:

A Paris court has convicted US search engine giant Google and its chief executive Eric Schmidt of defamation over results from its “suggest” function, a French legal affairs website has revealed.

The new function, which suggests options as you type in a word, brought up the words “rapist” and “satanist” when the plaintiff’s name was typed into the search engine, legalis.net reported.

The court concluded that the search engine’s linking his name to such words was defamatory.

A Google spokesman told AFP by email that they would be appealing the ruling.

The statement said that the Google Suggest function simply reflected the most common terms used in the past with words entered, so it was not Google itself that was making the suggestions.

Now this is interesting, Google are correct that they are not manually making the suggestions. But a machine they programmed is. Where does the accountability for the suggestions it makes lie? You can’t sue a machine, or in the future maybe you can?

But does this mean that a machine that is artificially intelligent and makes money for you really makes money for itself? And if it gets sued then the money that it has made can be used to pay court costs? Can a machine be represented in court by a lawyer?

Three Strikes Law would have saved no one.

Posted on by Brad Heap

From: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10565592

Not one of the 423 prisoners serving life sentences would have been stopped by the proposed “three strikes” law, official information reveals.

The Department of Corrections has released information that shows none of the prisoners would have been “struck out” before the offence that earned the life sentence.

The information is based on the definition of a “strike” in the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill – one of a list of violent offences where the offender has been given a sentence of five years or more.

Corrections said that under the current definition none of the 423 prisoners serving a life sentence had three qualifying sentences for serious violent offences (or strikes) before their most recent life sentence.

Corrections also said that neither RSA killer William Bell nor samurai sword killer Antonie Dixon would have “struck out” before their crimes.

The information was provided under the Official Information Act to Rethinking Crime and Punishment’s Kim Workman, one of the biggest opponents of three strikes.

Mr Workman said the information showed claims by Act and its hardline MP David Garrett that 77 lives would be saved by three strikes was wrong.

To be fair to Act they have stated that the change in numbers is a result of the change of definition of what constitutes a strike. However as it currently sits we now have a bill which is in violation of the bill of rights, would in its new form save no one and lock no one up, put forward by an MP (David Garrett) who has not “time or respect” for anyone. Wasn’t this new government one that was meant to be stopping time and money wasting. It seems that a lot of time and money has been wasted on a bill that is dead in the water as it does absolutely nothing.

Can someone pinch me or is it really 1984?

Posted on by Brad Heap

Okay, all this year I have avoided blogging too much on politics, particularity NZ politics. But the thing that has brought me out of my coma is an ACT MP’s suggestion that we should “Alter the Bill of Rights Act. We’ve got too hung up on people’s rights.” in order to bring in a new law.

The merits of the three strikes and your out bill has surely been rendered redundant by this comment. No law should require the altering of one of NZ’s foundations of legislation and separating us from the a document which the United Nations passed without a single vote against.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Adoption)

These comments just remind me of 1984. Where “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength”. Where the war is an attack on the human rights of all NZ’s, Slavery is that because we have no binding referendum we are forced to accept a law (if passed) where only a little over 3% of the population voted for the party that is advocating it so strongly, and Strength is that we have such a week view of political activism these days that only a group of fringe nutters will do anything about it.

What is worse is that the clause that the new law may be breaching: “Article 5 – No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Now I don’t think anyone in their right mind would try and argue that people who commit crimes should not be punished for them, but in NZ we have a very strong justice system, and every now and then we get it wrong (David Bain amongst others), locking people up and throwing away the key is not a policy that this country needs, it goes against everything that we have ever strived to become. Why are we insiting on following the failed experiments of other countries?

More info here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10559642

More blogs:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/03/03/the-tale-of-sheriff-garrett-and-his-judge-dreddful-law/
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/buyers-remorse/
http://www.thestandard.org.nz/welcome-to-the-real-act-party/