Excerpt: Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise…
Martha Wells, “Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries”
Wells has incorporated aspects of herself in Murderbot, a fact that resonates with readers. “I have some problems with anxiety and OCD and I’ve put those into the character… and…
Imaginary Worlds: Robot Collar Jobs
Are we prepared for a future where robots are the most sought after employees? In her debut novel Autonomous, Annalee Newitz imagines a future where humans take designer drugs to try and…
The Problem with ‘Friendly’ Artificial Intelligence
Thus one approach to designing moral machines is to sidestep the tricky problem of robots’ inner lives, and deal instead with a view of morality that seems far more definite,…
This Future Looks Familiar: Watching Blade Runner in 2017
I would not call the world of Blade Runner strange, because it’s the opposite of strange. It’s familiar. If you subtract the flying cars and the jets of flame shooting…
What kind of rights should it have?
This two pieces of media go well together. BBC Discovery “Can Robots Truly Be Intelligent?” and Why do we give robots female names? Because we don’t want to consider their…
Culture through the lens of robots
I feel like these three Podcast Eps are really interesting to listen to one right after the other. About what culture means and how it impacts the way we see…