Rocks are expected (from operation of simple physics laws), so are not life-y self-causal by particular information.

And what happens when we discover a means to create what we would categorize as life from non-life by way of the operation of simple physics laws?

I mean, we do largely assert that this is what happened. And although we don't know how to "make" it happen today, it may be that its not altogether that exotic.

If something was inevitably going to happen anyway to some matter and energy, due to its statistical distribution and the surrounding thermodynamic regime and fundamental forces, do we say that that future state (or equivalence class of states) required a particular cause (beyond the operation of the simple physical laws on the situation?) No.

That's the rub. Are the sub-cellular molecular interactions of my body not individually quite predictable by the simple physical laws on the situation. Protein folding might be quite complicated, but its guided by simple rules.

Are you categorizing life then as nothing more than emergent deviations from expected outcomes due to the cumultative effects of complex interactions that don't lend themselves well to simpler modelling?

Is then a galaxy alive, if it does something we don't "expect" simply as the cumulative addition of all the sub-processes that we didn't individually model?

Or conversely, if we successfully modeled a life form such that we could predict from simple laws of physics the sorts of things that it will do does that strip from it the label of "life"?

Because that definition of life sounds much like the definition of magic. The more we understand physics the the less will qualify. First we'll reduce simple organisms to predictable machines, then ever more increasingly complicated ones will fall until the robots we build and count as non-life and the insects and bacteria we count as alive intersect...

Rabbits have internal information which under the right conditions can be used to form a new rabbit.

Male rabbits can't form a new rabbit without female rabbits. Does a male rabbit still count as having all the "information" necessary to form a new rabbit if it can't do it itself? It also lacks key physiology required to transform the information into a new rabbit.

Rabbits have internal information which under the right conditions can be used to form a new rabbit.

What are the right conditions for a population of male rabbits to form a new rabbit?

The rock is just as self-describing; scan the rock see what its made of and that is the information required by a suitable 3rd party contraption to create a new rock.

What makes some sort of scanner + nano-assembler + raw materials capable of reproducing rocks different from a female rabbit and some food capable of processing the informational element handed to it by a male rabbit?

Why not? You could batch program it for delivery twice a day.

All inter-company email slowed to twice a day batches. Every exchange with an external consultant or contractor; every conference call meeting confirmation, everything... goes out at noon and 5 pm?

What issue exactly would twice a day batches even solve?

In a company where you were in charge upper management would literally crucify you, and the regular employees would cheer them on.

As long as the male rabbits are still kicking and breathing, they are sustaining their information patterns that they embody.

So does a rock. I read the definition of life provided as requiring more than just "sustaining their information pattern".

But you can mitigate the hell out of it, I suggest air gapping.

Yes. Lets air-gap the email system. That would work well.

So you take a population of rabbits, kill all all the females, and remaining males no longer qualify as life because nothing they can do is going to sustain the information patterns they embody for more than a few more years.

And I guess a Dr. who performs vasectomies is not merely dead, but anti-life. ;)

Why is it Apple's fault or Apple's problem? First of all these are Foxconn workers. Secondly Foxconn manufactures hardware for a lot of companies, not just Apple.

Apple is profitable. Not merely "regular" corporation profitable. But the sort of profitable Fortune 500 corporations look at in awe of.

Further, it's profitable per unit made. Its not making a few cents and selling billions of units. Its making serious cash off every single solitary unit.

Unlike a lot of other businesses at the top of this exploitation food-chain, Apple can well afford to pay these guys a lot better, not change their prices, and STILL be quite profitable.

That arguably makes their situation both a lot less defensible and a lot more newsworthy.

Just as Nike in the 90s when they took major heat over thier sweatshop labor producing insanely profitable $120 runners. They too were a globally recognized brand selling a premium "lifestyle" product ... and its image conscious consumers didn't want to wear that guilt. And at the prices / profit margins involved they were paying for runners there was no reason Nike couldn't afford to treat its workers betters.

Fast forward 15 years. And its Apple. Same situation.

Sony CS has no solution.

Whereas I have 3:

1) Return it and replace it with something better
2) Firewall it so it can't access the internet over your router. When you actually need/want to update it, its trivial to disable the rule for a few minutes.

3) disconnect it from the network. if its wired this couldn't be simpler. If its wireless its may be a little more tedius to forget and resetup the wifi each time -- in which case maybe #2 above is the better solution.

But really -- #1 is the correct solution.

It's OK, if AI is this stupid, we need not worry about it taking over any time soon.

Or that when it takes over it will make catastrophically bad decisions for us.

That depends. For exampe [...]

Exactly. So you are saying that the US court CAN demand that MS-USA make MS-Ireland turn it over; and **provided** its legal for the MS-Ireland to do so, it would in fact have to do so.

So the question is then not whether MS has the authority to demand that MS-US make MS-Ireland do it. It clearly does as long as its legal for MS-Ireland to comply with its parent corp.

The only question is whether or not it is legal for Ms-Ireland to send the data. See my other replies for more details.

But really, we seem to be in agreement that the US court, can make the order to MS-USA. And in turn that MS-USA can make the order to MS-Ireland.

At this point then its up to MS-Ireland to establish whether or not it can or can't not legally comply.

So why is this argument that they "can't" before the US courts now exactly? This should be MS-Ireland in front of Irish courts seeking clarification. If MS-Ireland thinks it will be illegal to comply it should be able to get the Irish courts to issue an injunction blocking the doctument transfer. Which it can then hand to the US court. End of story.

But that's not what's happening, instead of we have a media circus US blaring that that the US is trying to compel MS Ireland to break the law, and arguing that they trumping the laws of a foreign country etc... which they are not.

For example, to use your example, if an historic artifact belonged to Microsoft which needed government approval to exit the country, then Microsoft could order MS-USA to submit it as evidence -- there is nothing wrong with that. And that is what has happened here. Why is it a big deal?

Ireland, if it doesn't want the evidence to leave the country would in response issue an injunction preventing the transfer; or deny the application to transfer it out, or whatever the process is. And MS-USA would present that denial to the court.

Why hasn't that happened here?

technically and strictly seaking, yes, as they would be violating EU data protection laws, prohibiting transfer of any kind of personal data outside EU, for any processing purpose , and processing being defined as any kind of operation, not limted to computers, without the express permission from all involved. so the issue is verymuch in this case

I hear you, but its really not nearly quite so cut and dried. You for example wrote "permission" from all involved, but the EU data directive only requires proper "disclosure". And there are exceptions to that such as if processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest ... etc etc. Is there not a public interest in prosecuting a crime that is an offense in both countries involved? Arguably yes.

Further while the transfer to non-EU countries has a number of restrictions, it is not an outright ban and there are exceptions there too. For example if the 3rd party countries can receive data if that country provides an "adequate level of protection".

Further the EU data protection directive is not a law; it must be enacted in each member state... so what matters is Irelands implementation of it.

All that said, it very well may be illegal. I'm only making the argument that its an open question not, as you seem to presume, automatically and obviously illegal.

Your entire post really just boils down to this.

I explicitly said "so as long as Microsoft US doesn't demand that it do something illegal by Irish law...".

So then you agree with me: that if a US Court demands that MS US make MS Ireland forward something to the US court that would be entirely legal and proper. So long as doing so wasn't in violation of the law in Ireland.

And the ONLY point of contention is nothing at all to do with the US making extra-territorial demands or asserting that US law trumps international law, and all that is a red herring after all.

The question is not whether the US court can compel Microsoft US to make Microsoft Ireland do something illegal. We agree they can not. I don't think anybody thinks otherwise.

The question is also not whether the US court can make Microsoft US make Microsoft Ireland do something legal. We seem to agree they can. This is a pretty interesting notion, even if it doesn't apply to this particular case.

But in this case the question before us is whether Microsoft Ireland sending a copy of the requested data to the US would in fact be against the law in Ireland. It might well be. As you said, EU data protection / privacy laws are quite strong. However, it is NOT cut and dried whether the transfer would be prohibited by those laws. Read the Data Protection directive -- there is LOTS of wiggle room for interpreting it to allow this; and it is not law unto itself... it depends entirely on what Ireland has actually enacted as law. I am not a lawyer, and I am certainly not an Irish lawyer -- so whether or not this is or is not legal in Ireland, to me at least, remains very much an open question.

well, you missed the most critical point. How does the person in VR feel and act when they are of a different color?
Soming no avatar can do.

I disagree. It definitely impacts how many people act. VR vs avatar -- what's the difference? If you put on a long sleeve shirt and gloves you don't see -yourself- even in the real world unless you look in a mirror.

How other people treat you is your primary "feedback" mechanism.

What makes this better than an MMO really? (Everquest even has facial expression / camera support etc) -- not that I know of anyone who actually uses it. The point is that the tech has been there; and people have been able to experience this for a while now.

Of course, MMOs are some of the worse places for any experiment where you want the result to be applicable outside an MMO.

Agreed. That's the main reason for the disclaimer at the end of my post. I'd hardly call EQ or WoW anecdotes top-shelf science. :)

Property ownership of a legal corporate entity doesn't mean that the parent entity can compel the owned entity to break the law. Corporations exist entirely under national laws of incorporation.

Of course. I never suggested otherwise.

So if it would be illegal for an Irish citizen to comply with this order without an order from an Irish court ...

Are you saying it would be outright illegal for an Irish citizen to forward a document or a copy of it to a court in the United States?

That's a pretty strong claim. I'm not saying you are wrong, data protection laws in the EU are pretty strong; and they may well prevent this particular transfer. And MS, in this particular case, IS asking for a document pertaining to a 3rd party MS services user, not a document belonging to MS itself.

And if it is illegal, then you are quite right, EU/Irish law blocks the request, and there is nothing MS can do about it; other than coordinate with EU law enforcement to get an order through EU courts allowing it.

However in another scenario, where the EU data protection laws don't apply, there might well be nothing wrong at all with what the US courts are trying to do.

As you say, the parent entity cannot compel the owned entity to break the law. But what if the parent entity isn't being asked to compel the owned entity to do something that is illegal. Can the courts do that? Because I find that an interesting question too.

". Whatâ(TM)s most exciting about this channel of research is that it gets at the kind of complex, subtle prejudices that most people canâ(TM)t even articulate if asked directly."

This is sort of MMO old news. Any MMO with sufficient character customization options will let you create a black (human) or female avatar.

And anyone whose 'gender-bended' or 'race-bended' can tell you all kinds of ways they were subtly treated differently as a result.

Just an observation. I'm not saying this research is worthless or anything. Its an interesting avenue of study.