Followed shortly by Roboticist Robert Finkelstein saying he thinks “the probability is virtually one, a certainty, that machines will be as intelligent as people, that we will have intelligent robots, that robots will be ubiquitous”. And that this Artificial Intelligence (AI) will happen in our lifetimes.

Experts often underestimate the difficulty of certain feats, and AI certainly has been one in the past, but more and more it seems what computer programs achieve are indeed the initial steps to real AI. Primitive cognitive processes that allow for stable walking, achieving goals… evolving. And with technological evolution so much faster than biological evolution the predictions of 2030-2050 seem rational. In other words, a good idea or not, humanity is entering the Science Fiction realm of machines that are smart.

After years of saving a small town, its population is angered that The Lone Ranger never stays long enough to receive gratitude for his deeds. He stays, and finds that he likes hearing the phrase “Thank you, Mask Man”. When asked what the community could give him in return for his services, The Lone Ranger points to an Indian, Tonto, and says that he wants him. Asked why The Lone Ranger wants Tonto, he replies that he wants to have sex with him, explaining that he is not a homosexual, but that he had “heard a lot about it and read exposes” and would like to “try now to see how bad it is. Just once.” The Lone Ranger also requests a horse, suggesting that he wants to perform bestiality. The townspeople react in disgust as The Lone Ranger and Tonto ride off into the sunset.

Bruce intended to deconstruct homophobia and other issues explored within the routine.

- info sourced from Wikipedia

More GRITtv

Interesting links mentioned in Grit piece, alternative business groups to turn to, groups with better transparency and business policies to improve America. Distinguish themselves deliberately from US Chamber of Commerce:
Business Forward
American Sustainable Business Council
Business for Democracy

VS:
US Chamber of Commerce

Christy Setzer is spokeswoman for US Chamberwatch and is being interviewed by Laura Flanders of GRITtv.

Article produced by US Chamberwatch on the US Chamber of Commerce – How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Top Corporate Funders Dictate the Agenda for the 112th Congress

You don’t need to love the program, or even watch it, to feel that some form of wide scale, highly visible and excepted censorship is going on in the USA when a big legitimate news service is denied access to most cable services across the States. Are you OK with that?

Or do you want Al Jazeera to be a news option available to you on your cable programing? If it isn’t, why isn’t it? Is US media self-censoring/censored? Are we free to think for ourselves or is there a self-selected group that control what and how news reaches us?

The Huffingtong Post covers the question in this article: Al Jazeera English Blacked Out Across Most Of U.S. – which include these links to take action if you want to see Al Jazeera available to all Americans, not just Canadians, South Americans and some people in Washington D.C. (ironic, huh?), Vermont and Ohio:

• http://www.iwantaje.net/
• http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/contactus/ContactUs.html
• http://www.timewarner.com/corp/contacts_support.html
• http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/contact_us

A good article by AlterNet: Will Al Jazeera English Revolutionize America’s TV News Landscape? – covers the same ground in more depth.

From the article:

According to the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report, coverage of international events by American media fell by about 40 percent in 2008. Thus has a bizarre situation arisen: at the most interconnected time in history, accurate and comprehensive news of the outside world is disappearing — and with it an informed public.

The news service is available online: Al Jazeera streaming live online

[audio: http://digitalmeme.com/audio/MakingCon_101013_Ax.mp3]

And British novelist John le Carré interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! along the same lines.

Manfred foresees a quickening approach to an ultimate barrier to things as usual. Apparently some people in his orbit of friends and colleagues even see the demise of civilization as we know it. Yet the powers that control policy get even more entrenched and fundamental in their policies. The facts are there, what we shouldn’t be doing is clear, but it has no effect on policy. Greed rules triumphant… probably right over the cliff.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you’re teaching young economists, the principles you would teach them, what they’d be?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: The principles, you know, of an economics which should be are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle. One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy. Two, development is about people and not about objects. Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth. Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services. Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible. And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further.

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Nothing can be more important than life. And I say life, not human beings, because, for me, the center is the miracle of life in all its manifestations. But if there is an economic interest, I mean, you forget about life, not only of other living beings, but even of human beings. If you go through that list, one after the other, what we have today is exactly the opposite.