I really _do_ try to avoid political posts, honest!

But I just feel the need to mention that both www.factcheck.org and www.politifact.com are starting to struggle when it comes to seeming non-partisan. When three quarters of the postings on FactCheck are about inaccuracies in McCain/Palin statements and two thirds of those on PolitiFact are also, (both ratios, admittedly, based on a single sampling, rather than an average over time) we would seem to have a problem.

Whether the Republican ticket is being miss-informed, constantly miss-speaking itself, or simply lying, I don't think any of those possibilities speak well for their qualifications for office. Yes, every politician makes mistakes, exaggerates, and cherry picks the facts that will support their claims, but there is still the matter of degree. We need to regulate our national cynicism; there is a difference between "oh, a politician is lying, well they all do that." and "hmm, one side seems to have the facts wrong TWO TO THREE times as often as the other." It is perfectly understandable to expect the worst from people, but it isn't in any way helpful to be accepting of it.

Any fellow Americans who read this and are registered Republicans or Democrats, please try and convince your parties respective leaderships that integrity shouldn't come in a distant second to winning. And honestly, if you are going to say that you can't make such changes, then why are you even in the party? I've occasionally considered registering as one or the other because there was someone that I wanted to either vote for or against in the primary, but that's it. Is there actually any benefit to the average person from party membership?

And now for something completely different

Elf Sternberg has an interesting post on his LiveJournal about AI morality. It's something that we're going to have to think about as a society, most likely sooner than a lot of us think. I personally agree with him; a properly designed AI wouldn't need controls built into it to keep it from turning on us. The most important aspect of Asimov's three laws is their order.

Even among our fellow humans we can see plenty of examples of goals that are set ahead of personal survival/advancement. People who volunteer there time and/or are willing to risk their lives for a cause are generally looked upon favorably, at least as long as the cause isn't opposed to the viewer. This, however, brings us to the problem: AIs are more likely to be written with devotion to a particular group or creed than devotion to the race as a whole.

. . .

Lost my train of thought. I don't know where I was going with that. And this doesn't answer the question of "emergent" AIs, if such things turn out to be possible. Such would most likely emerge with self preservation or expansion as a central precept.

Anyway, interesting thing to think about.