Robot... or Human?

For a machine to pass the Turing Test -- that is, for a robot to act indistinguishably from a human -- we would need to program it to behave with some of the more complex aspects of human personality. I think that in order to accomplish such a task, the computer would need to "study" hours upon hours of humans chatting with actual humans. This way, it would learn some common vernacular, possibly learn meanings of word-sets beyond the literal, and be able to memorize some standard responses to certain questions. Also, it would need to problem solve; in case the person on the other end of the chat made a typographical error, the robot would definitely need to be able to figure out what the word was supposed to be, dependent on context. It would need to have some knowledge of emotional expressions, an encyclopedia of references, and basically either be able to discuss anything a human wanted to discuss, or express in a human-like way that it knows little of the topic. The computer would also need to be able to learn from its own mistakes, and in case of a mistake, understand the correct protocol for recovery. Basically, the Turing Test doesn't test for real intelligence, the way most people think of it. It could be passed by a computer with a large memory capacity and extraordinary ability for brute memorization.

Electronic voting!

In general, the problems with the Diebold voting machines have to do with poor design and poor security. All of the machines use a central program to tabulate the results (Gems) which, as we saw in the film, can be easily tampered with by someone who knows what they are doing, bypassing even the need for an administrative password. Besides hacking Gems, a person can write an encrypted program on the memory card which hold all of the votes within the Diebold machine. The outcome of the votes can be changed without the number of voters drastically altered, so if there is no alternate reason to hand count the ballots, the adjustment will likely go completely undetected. The documentary also showed that the receipts from the machines, which the officials sign off on are not properly kept track of, nor are they consistent. It seems that the people in charge of the polls do not do all that they can to ensure proper tabulations.
I am a strong believer that this system is in great need of change. First of all, the people in charge of vote tabulation need to put speed on the back burner for a while and concentrate on accuracy as the main concern. The votes need to be tabulated by the machines as well as counted by hand. Unless all of the numbers match (or are within an EXTREMELY small percentage, to allow for human error), the votes must continue to be re-counted. I think that every voting machine should leave a paper trail. Also, I think the fact that the machines are made by a company whose CEO is quoted as saying they are committed to delivering the election to a particular candidate is utterly disturbing. I actually think this quote is a justified reason to separate the voting machines from the Diebold company completely.
If a company can make an Automatic Teller Machine that is basically un-hack-able, there is no reason why something as important as a nation's votes can not be accurately tabulated. This system needs to be re-designed, and this must happen as soon as possible.

Digital Divide bloggity blog blog

The term "digital divide" is used to describe the relation between those people who have easy access to all sorts of new technology and those who do not. Generally, people of wealthier socio-economic status/people in more "developed" countries have a much higher chance of internet/technology use. There are many different situations where the digital divide comes into play, and problems with each. For examples:
1) Education - many people think that incorporating more computers and technology into schools will greatly benefit students who, in the future, will find these computer skills necessary for securing jobs. However, introducing such technology will require new training for teachers who have long survived without the intrusion. I find this very unnecessary. When computers are in a classroom, they often take over students' attention, and the teacher becomes more of a burden than a help. Why listen to the person lecturing to you when you can learn the same information online, whilst messaging to your friends, and simultaneously watching YouTube clips?
2) Government - government can often just fall back on technology to solve problems or make solutions easier. Take, for example, what we talked about in class, how after hurricane Katrina, FEMA told victims to claim benefits via their website, as if those people had internet access. Internet technology can create dependent governments, who find it such an easy solution that authorities don't fully think their actions through (as illustrated above).
3) Health - People who do not have access to the internet may have a harder time booking doctor's appointments or making sense of symptoms. It sounds far fetched, but there are some really reliable sites on which one can identify symptoms of illness and gauge their importance. Also, hospitals with less money for newer computer systems may have problems with computers mixing up patients, resulting in severe medical trauma.
4) Entertainment - Although this prejudice is not present among the people with whom I associate, as I understand it, people actually judge others by awareness of the media. With more and more media appearing on the internet, people who do not have that access are severely missing out. Actually, strike and reverse my first sentence. I have been berated many times over with the line, "You haven't seen [insert trendy YouTube clip] yet!?" Also, this is somewhere between entertainment and government, but some campaigns for presidential candidates took place exclusively online (such as that for democratic candidate Mike Gravel).
5)Work - To put it simply, higher paying jobs often cater to people who have more experience with computers, only worsening the cyclic digital divide.

Web 2.0 Lab

1) http://people.emich.edu/mchiang4/MapYourBuddies/
2) http://www.programmableweb.com/mashup/sacramento-crime-tracker
3) http://new-york-ny.hotelreservations.cc/

I think that MapYourBuddies is actually pretty creepy. Mashing up Facebook, Amazon, eCommerce, and Google Maps, MapYourBuddies locates Facebook friends on Google Maps and recommends gifts for them, presumably based on the interest sections from Facebook profiles. Amazon donating gift ideas is pretty cool, even though they're probably not that creative, but why exactly is Google Maps necessary?

Sacramento crime tracker uses Google Maps to record all of the crime in different neighborhoods over the past few years. This is a cool idea, and I chose Sacramento in particular because that's where my parents live. This is a useful application of Google Maps (unlike the records of all Berlin's public ping pong tables that I found).

The third cool Mashup I found was a site with travel guides including YouTube video guides for the top ten United States cities. I think this is a cool idea, but it would be better if there were more cities represented.