The Ethics of Driverless, AI Cars

I love these futuristic morality problems.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/11/27/1846209/how-do-we-program-moral-machines

The statement most nasty is the "'Within two or three decades the difference between automated driving and human driving will be so great you may not be legally allowed to drive your own car, and even if you are allowed, it would immoral of you to drive, because the risk of you hurting yourself or another person will be far greater than if you allowed a machine to do the work. "

What's wrong with it you say? Driving is equivalent to right to travel. The government would be banning your right to travel on the road if you did not let your AI friend do the driving. 

Long Answer:

People use the roads, in particular, the highways/freeways because while they could decide to fly, they accept the risks associated travel on the road. This also makes people responsible for managing this risk to their lives and property. There is nothing immoral about this.

But now, some people think we shouldn't be taking this risk and responsibility - they will let somebody be responsible for their own lives and property on the road. They want to let the government, car manufacturer and AI take the responsibility. And they want to force everybody else into this deal, by legislating and enforcing laws that restrict the kind of car you're allowed to ride in and who gets to drive it. Now, this use of force IS immoral. As is putting the control of an automobile in the hands of a government mandate, or taking responsibility from where it is rightfully due.

On the other hand, if machines were really that awesome, most weary commuters would simply decide to let their AI do the driving. But that would be personal choice. And you should still bear the responsibility to whatever happens, as if you were driving. 

In conclusion, this question is almost identical to the charge that "if you are eating fatty foods that cause heart disease, you are creating a burden on society and the healthcare system." Yes, but only if you had a universal healthcare program that forces other people to pay for your illnesses.(And then, you should be finger-pointing at the government, that taxed and forced you to pay for that patient) Not when you have healthcare choices.

The last thing I wanted to see after a day of visual studio

What is this. The temple of microsoft .net?

Why is the software/computer industry developing so quickly compared to everything else?

It's the least government regulated industry everywhere.

An Android Tutorial Nobody could Follow

Imagine 150 newbie secondary school students and teachers in a lecture theatre, trying to follow a very fast talking TA who knows Android development through and through. I was caught in the middle of the fray as a student TA.

At first, most people were ok. It was easy interface building and we informed them to be prepared and preview.

But before long, everybody was stuck in some kind of issue. We were were 5 student TAs facing 50 problems.
It was impossible. As we tried our best to answer the problems, it dawned on me that if every problem takes just 3 minutes to solve, It would take about 35 minutes of full working time, running around, to solve the issues-and then there would be new ones on the way.

While I was thinking, participants' hands were becoming sore, they put them down, resigning to their fates and went to feed on facebook...

And for the determined few, we told them to just download and understand the code, so that they could do it at home.

To be continued...

The American Experiment: Failed

By now, I would be denying reality if I said that American Experiment was still ongoing.
It's obvious that it has failed, period.
The American Experiment that began over 236 years ago was began by people who wanted small, minimal government.
Yet, it has become the biggest, most over-bloated government in the history of this Earth. 

Unless you believe yourself to be more clever than all the political thinkers and leaders that have existed before you, you're going to have to admit that it's an unsolvable problem in the long run.

So, where does that leave us as individuals?

Assuming that one wants to live,