The Autonomous Weapon Who Went to the Beach

Episode 140 features long-time New York Times reporter, John Markoff, on the past and future of artificial intelligence and its ideological converse—the effort to make machines that augment rather than replace human beings. Our conversation covers everything from robots, autonomous weapons, and Siri to hippie poetry of the 1960s and Silicon Valley’s short memory on use of the term “cyber.”

In the news, Maury Shenk reports that five EU members now say they want EU-wide crypto controls. And that’s not counting France and Germany.  Maybe the real question is whether any EU countries oppose encryption regulation.  We can’t find any. Tongue firmly in cheek, I thank Tim Cook for bringing the need for government crypto regulation to the attention of governments around the world.

It turns out that the FBI actually hacked more than 8,000 computers in 120 countries in a single child porn investigation. Wow. And the Justice Department is lecturing me on the risk that active defense could cause unexpected foreign relations problems? Well, I guess they would know.

We-Vibe’s undisclosed collection of data about users of its smart-phone enabled vibrators spurs a class action. Or should that be a “lacks class” action? I confess to being nonplussed by the uses to which an Internet-connected vibrator app can be put. And even more nonplussed when Jennifer Quinn-Barabanov explains how We-Vibe could contribute to the law of standing.

The Wages of Defeat, part one: Election hack fever seizes the left, and I ask Alan what the law should do about vulnerable election infrastructure. Jill Stein is almost certainly wrong about election hacking this year (or in it for the money), but now that everyone has some reason to question the integrity of our election process, Alan and I ask whether there’s room for bipartisan improvements in electoral systems.

Wages of Defeat, part two: Fake news fever seizes the left. For sure it’s a real problem, and Putin is part of it, but solutions are hard to find. Fake news is often in the eye of the beholder, and neither the mainstream media (see, e.g., here or here) nor the barons of social media (Milo Yiannapoulos, call your office) have been exactly even-handed in dealing with conservative views. If we want to go after foreign government sponsored fake news, I suggest, maybe an updated Foreign Agent Registration Act is worth looking at. Between the first amendment and a lack of trust in would-be fake news umpires, there aren’t a lot of other attractive solutions out there.

As always, the Cyberlaw Podcast welcomes feedback.  Send an email to [e-mail] or leave a message at [phone].