6 ms·

hollywood makes a 100 million dollar movie. a company sends a robot to watch it. 7 dollars for a single ticket. the world spends their ticket money on hangin

hollywood makes a 100 million dollar movie. a company sends a robot to watch it. 7 dollars for a single ticket. the world spends their ticket money on hanging out with the robot to hear about the movie. i can't make heads or tails of what's next. i am as fascinated as i am petrified.

sva_ 2y ago
It would be very speciest to say that a human is allowed to buy a ticket and watch a movie, but a robot is not.
- raincole 2y ago
  Human is already the special case in every single aspect of legislation. If the laws are written in code (pun intended), they would look like: if typeof(subject) == Human then ...
- falcolas 2y ago
  A robot (nor the software that runs it) has no inherent rights, as it's a non-sentient creation. That's why they can't go into a movie theater without the theater's explicit permission. Plus, the whole "companies can chose who they associate with" thing means not all humans can even go into a movie theater. And if we want to jog down this rabbit hole, I suggest starting with existing animals which we're realizing are sentient, but still prevent them from going into movie theaters. Once octopi can visit the movie theater, let's revisit the the robot argument.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > A robot (nor the software that runs it) has no inherent rights, as it's a non-sentient creation. That's not why. We don't know what test could be performed to determine if some future (or present) AI is or isn't sentient, we just assert it and get on with our lives. No, the reason robots and software have no inherent rights is because the law says so. As a demonstration proof that this is a purely legal status that has nothing to do with underlying nature, the co-inventors of the automobile did not have many rights afforded to her husband: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz And conversely many such rights do exist for corporations, which are not themselves sentient.
    - adolph 2y ago
      > No, the reason robots and software have no inherent rights is because the law says so. This is based in a limited theory of rights being delivered by a state as sovereign rather than inherent to every being. There are other valid ways of interpreting rights beyond "because the law say so." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - ben_w 2y ago
        Those other methods are great in a philosophical debate, but have no power until implemented as law. I'm not saying you're wrong, those kinds of debate are great at telling you what the law should be, but the practicality of it is that a right you can't enforce is not useful.
        riversflow 2y ago
        > have no power until implemented as law. Influence is power. For a stark example, consider Sharia.
        adolph 2y ago
        A view that a sentient entity has no rights but what the law gives is incompatible with that entity’s agency. Enumeration of rights is for the purpose of limiting the laws that govern any entity’s behavior and are not a specification for what the entity may do.
    - falcolas 2y ago
      I used that more in the context of the "speciest" accusation; I don't consider robots to be a species, particularly a species worthy of forcing a theater to allow their entry on their own merits. You're right that using sapience is a bad way to identify what is and is not a species though.
  - adolph 2y ago
    [A robot is] a non-sentient creation. That's why they can't go into a movie theater without the theater's explicit permission. Wait, whats the threshold for sentience and do all humans meet that standard? Does the metric for the threshold depend on cooperation from the subject? Asking due to recent headline "One-quarter of unresponsive people with brain injuries are conscious." [0] It seems more straightforward to make the speciesist argument until cyborgs start containing majority biological components. 0. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02614-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02614-z
  - sva_ 2y ago
    The sentience angle is just dogmatic/philosophical and lacks any good evidence. A service dog can be brought into a theater just fine, as it is sufficiently intelligent to be trained to behave appropriately. There's nothing that specifically prevents animals from entering a movie theater, I'ma say they mostly just generally lack 1) any intellectual desire/intent to watch a movie, 2) appropriate social behavior to cohabit a space with humans, 3) money to pay their ticket. --- I would agree that current ML/NN based models might seem like a way to more or less circumvent copyright, but don't feel like there should be a blanket ban discriminating against potential intelligent entities that might arise in the future from more sophisticated technologies. I also wasn't completely serious with my initial post. It is rather enjoyable to take an idea to the extreme and see what people's thoughts on it are.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      >has consciousness and free will >argues there’s no evidence
- rurp 2y ago
  What a weird take. Nobody cares about a robot watching a movie, it's the robot reselling that movie and keeping the profits that is objectionable. I don't understand the speciest angle at all. Humans both inside and outside of tech rate intelligent non-human biological life as much less important than human life. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it's clearly true. Elevating non-biological life to parity with humans makes no sense.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Eventually, sure. But for the moment, and I say this as someone very impressed and somewhat scared with AI progress, they're probably sufficiently un-person-like today that it's not unreasonable to ban current models.
- kalleboo 2y ago
  It would be very speciest to say that a human is allowed to buy a ticket and watch a movie, but a video camera is not.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    You wouldn’t download a car?
- wwweston 2y ago
  Fortunately, since we already treat artificial entities like corporations and their interests as if they’re legally people even if it means that humans suffer, we should have no problems ushering in the cyberpocalypse in which we pretend that we’re being equitable to other things we pretend are life forms by sacrificing the interests of some human beings to those of others with the capital to own good stochastic parrots.
- latexr 2y ago
  Why would that be weird? In addition to robots, other entities which are not allowed to buy a ticket to watch a movie include tigers, elephants, tardigrades, tarantulas, seagulls, ants, pelicans, dolphins…
  - ben_w 2y ago
    If a dolphin, a tiger, and an elephant walked up to a cinema ticket office, handed over some money, and said they wanted a ticket, it would be interesting to see how the cashier responds. Ants may not be taken seriously if they were to offer to pay, but then again nobody will stop them just walking in to a theatre without a ticket either.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  This is, in my opinion, a silly argument for a number of reasons. The main one being that a robot is not a "species", it is a machine.
maltyr 2y ago
I'm already getting personalized spam mail that's probably powered by AI ("use this API" type marketing in my work email.) I'm okay with this, even if I find it a little unsettling. I think the dystopian future we're heading towards is personalized phishing and/or scams that sends to your hijacked accounts' contacts that you're going through a hard time and requesting donations, using training data from crowdfunding sites. Or, one-level more dystopian, hijacking social media accounts and advertising AI-generated Patreon-style content using the actual account owner's likeness.
dialup_sounds 2y ago
Movie recap channels on YouTube are basically this already. They summarize a 90-180 minute movie into 15 minutes of silent clips and narration. Very popular, and plausibly done end-to-end by a bot within the next few years. What's next is the bot writing the whole story and generating the visuals. For the cost of one actual movie, Slopflix could turn out thousands of recap style stories.
tomjen3 2y ago
In you case it is not obvious that it would be a bad deal for the movie makers - perhaps, on net, it would get more people wanting to see the movie?
ben_w 2y ago
> the world spends their ticket money on hanging out with the robot to hear about the movie. Yes, but I can already do that by reading plot summaries on Wikipedia. I've read precisely zero Harry Potter books, and of the films seen 1, 2 in the background muted, 3, and 4. Despite this I know about Dolores Umbridge's personality (oh, and just recognised the reason for the name), that Snape Kills Dumbledore, and several other events and characters that were also not in any of those films.
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  But do you know Sirius's vault number at Gringots?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    No. Should I? (Alternatively: https://imgflip.com/i/91shhp https://imgflip.com/i/91shhp)
  - notwhereyouare 2y ago
    did you read the US or the UK version of the books?
  - xandrius 2y ago
    I spent wayy to much time trying to see if this was a meme or not. Am I missing something? :(
    - TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
      The vault number is only mentioned in the UK version of one of the books, the US version was localized and this detail isn't included. This question has shown up in some trivia events and many consider it a gotcha because they only ever read the US version.
talldayo 2y ago
Imagine how dangerous this will be, once we have the technology to send a human with a built-in camera to that theater. Humanity and our poor 100 Million dollar films will be ruined!

sva_ 2y ago

It would be very speciest to say that a human is allowed to buy a ticket and watch a movie, but a robot is not.

raincole 2y ago
Human is already the special case in every single aspect of legislation. If the laws are written in code (pun intended), they would look like: if typeof(subject) == Human then ...
falcolas 2y ago
A robot (nor the software that runs it) has no inherent rights, as it's a non-sentient creation. That's why they can't go into a movie theater without the theater's explicit permission. Plus, the whole "companies can chose who they associate with" thing means not all humans can even go into a movie theater. And if we want to jog down this rabbit hole, I suggest starting with existing animals which we're realizing are sentient, but still prevent them from going into movie theaters. Once octopi can visit the movie theater, let's revisit the the robot argument.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > A robot (nor the software that runs it) has no inherent rights, as it's a non-sentient creation. That's not why. We don't know what test could be performed to determine if some future (or present) AI is or isn't sentient, we just assert it and get on with our lives. No, the reason robots and software have no inherent rights is because the law says so. As a demonstration proof that this is a purely legal status that has nothing to do with underlying nature, the co-inventors of the automobile did not have many rights afforded to her husband: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz And conversely many such rights do exist for corporations, which are not themselves sentient.
  - adolph 2y ago
    > No, the reason robots and software have no inherent rights is because the law says so. This is based in a limited theory of rights being delivered by a state as sovereign rather than inherent to every being. There are other valid ways of interpreting rights beyond "because the law say so." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Those other methods are great in a philosophical debate, but have no power until implemented as law. I'm not saying you're wrong, those kinds of debate are great at telling you what the law should be, but the practicality of it is that a right you can't enforce is not useful.
      - riversflow 2y ago
        > have no power until implemented as law. Influence is power. For a stark example, consider Sharia.
      - adolph 2y ago
        A view that a sentient entity has no rights but what the law gives is incompatible with that entity’s agency. Enumeration of rights is for the purpose of limiting the laws that govern any entity’s behavior and are not a specification for what the entity may do.
  - falcolas 2y ago
    I used that more in the context of the "speciest" accusation; I don't consider robots to be a species, particularly a species worthy of forcing a theater to allow their entry on their own merits. You're right that using sapience is a bad way to identify what is and is not a species though.
- adolph 2y ago
  [A robot is] a non-sentient creation. That's why they can't go into a movie theater without the theater's explicit permission. Wait, whats the threshold for sentience and do all humans meet that standard? Does the metric for the threshold depend on cooperation from the subject? Asking due to recent headline "One-quarter of unresponsive people with brain injuries are conscious." [0] It seems more straightforward to make the speciesist argument until cyborgs start containing majority biological components. 0. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02614-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02614-z
- sva_ 2y ago
  The sentience angle is just dogmatic/philosophical and lacks any good evidence. A service dog can be brought into a theater just fine, as it is sufficiently intelligent to be trained to behave appropriately. There's nothing that specifically prevents animals from entering a movie theater, I'ma say they mostly just generally lack 1) any intellectual desire/intent to watch a movie, 2) appropriate social behavior to cohabit a space with humans, 3) money to pay their ticket. --- I would agree that current ML/NN based models might seem like a way to more or less circumvent copyright, but don't feel like there should be a blanket ban discriminating against potential intelligent entities that might arise in the future from more sophisticated technologies. I also wasn't completely serious with my initial post. It is rather enjoyable to take an idea to the extreme and see what people's thoughts on it are.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    >has consciousness and free will >argues there’s no evidence
rurp 2y ago
What a weird take. Nobody cares about a robot watching a movie, it's the robot reselling that movie and keeping the profits that is objectionable. I don't understand the speciest angle at all. Humans both inside and outside of tech rate intelligent non-human biological life as much less important than human life. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it's clearly true. Elevating non-biological life to parity with humans makes no sense.
ben_w 2y ago
Eventually, sure. But for the moment, and I say this as someone very impressed and somewhat scared with AI progress, they're probably sufficiently un-person-like today that it's not unreasonable to ban current models.
kalleboo 2y ago
It would be very speciest to say that a human is allowed to buy a ticket and watch a movie, but a video camera is not.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  You wouldn’t download a car?
wwweston 2y ago
Fortunately, since we already treat artificial entities like corporations and their interests as if they’re legally people even if it means that humans suffer, we should have no problems ushering in the cyberpocalypse in which we pretend that we’re being equitable to other things we pretend are life forms by sacrificing the interests of some human beings to those of others with the capital to own good stochastic parrots.
latexr 2y ago
Why would that be weird? In addition to robots, other entities which are not allowed to buy a ticket to watch a movie include tigers, elephants, tardigrades, tarantulas, seagulls, ants, pelicans, dolphins…
- ben_w 2y ago
  If a dolphin, a tiger, and an elephant walked up to a cinema ticket office, handed over some money, and said they wanted a ticket, it would be interesting to see how the cashier responds. Ants may not be taken seriously if they were to offer to pay, but then again nobody will stop them just walking in to a theatre without a ticket either.
JohnFen 2y ago
This is, in my opinion, a silly argument for a number of reasons. The main one being that a robot is not a "species", it is a machine.

maltyr 2y ago

I'm already getting personalized spam mail that's probably powered by AI ("use this API" type marketing in my work email.) I'm okay with this, even if I find it a little unsettling. I think the dystopian future we're heading towards is personalized phishing and/or scams that sends to your hijacked accounts' contacts that you're going through a hard time and requesting donations, using training data from crowdfunding sites. Or, one-level more dystopian, hijacking social media accounts and advertising AI-generated Patreon-style content using the actual account owner's likeness.

dialup_sounds 2y ago

Movie recap channels on YouTube are basically this already. They summarize a 90-180 minute movie into 15 minutes of silent clips and narration. Very popular, and plausibly done end-to-end by a bot within the next few years. What's next is the bot writing the whole story and generating the visuals. For the cost of one actual movie, Slopflix could turn out thousands of recap style stories.

tomjen3 2y ago

In you case it is not obvious that it would be a bad deal for the movie makers - perhaps, on net, it would get more people wanting to see the movie?

ben_w 2y ago

> the world spends their ticket money on hanging out with the robot to hear about the movie. Yes, but I can already do that by reading plot summaries on Wikipedia. I've read precisely zero Harry Potter books, and of the films seen 1, 2 in the background muted, 3, and 4. Despite this I know about Dolores Umbridge's personality (oh, and just recognised the reason for the name), that Snape Kills Dumbledore, and several other events and characters that were also not in any of those films.

fluidcruft 2y ago
But do you know Sirius's vault number at Gringots?
- ben_w 2y ago
  No. Should I? (Alternatively: https://imgflip.com/i/91shhp https://imgflip.com/i/91shhp)
- notwhereyouare 2y ago
  did you read the US or the UK version of the books?
- xandrius 2y ago
  I spent wayy to much time trying to see if this was a meme or not. Am I missing something? :(
  - TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
    The vault number is only mentioned in the UK version of one of the books, the US version was localized and this detail isn't included. This question has shown up in some trivia events and many consider it a gotcha because they only ever read the US version.

talldayo 2y ago

Imagine how dangerous this will be, once we have the technology to send a human with a built-in camera to that theater. Humanity and our poor 100 Million dollar films will be ruined!