• 
• 9 min
• Kinolab
• 1995

In this world, a human consciousness (“ghost”) can inhabit an artificial body (“shell”), thus at once becoming edited humans in a somewhat robotic body.  The Puppet Master, a notorious villain in this world, is revealed not to be a human hacker, but a computer program which has gained sentience and gone on to hack the captured shell. It challenges the law enforcement officials of Section 6 and Section 9 saying that it is a life-form and not an AI. It argues that its existence as a self-sustaining program which has achieved singularity is not different from human DNA as a “self-sustaining program.” The Puppet Master specifically references reproduction/offspring, not copying, as a distinguishing feature of living things as opposed to nonliving things. Additionally, it developed emotional connection with Major which led it to select her as a candidate for merging. It references how it can die but live on through the merging and, after Major’s death, in the internet.

• AI Emotions and Rights
• Singularity
• Brain-Computer Interfaces
• Robots

• 
• 5 min
• Vice
• 2020

Robot researches in Japan have recently begun to use robotic “monster wolves” to help control wildlife populations by keeping them out of human civilizations or agricultural areas. These robots are of interest to robot engineers who work in environmentalism because although the process of engineering a robot does not help the environment, the ultimate good accomplished by robots which help control wildlife populations may outweigh this cost.

• Technology Based Environmental Impact
• Assistive Technologies
• Robots

• 
• 20 min
• MIT Press
• 2018

Lilith, a contract laborer, ends up in a dangerous situation when the self-driving ship she rides malfunctions. Kyleen, a human who has undergone a human-editing networking process called “meshing,” is able to control a proxy robot via a brain-computer interface to help Lilith get to her destination safely.

• Assistive Technologies
• Edited Humans
• Brain-Computer Interfaces
• Robots

• 
• 5 min
• Big Think

This video, narrated by science fiction author Ken MacLeod, explains how the cultural critiques presented in science fiction can be helpful in guiding inventors through how they might invent ethically, and what the primary societal concerns of a certain invention would be. Uses the example of robots as representative of labor issues to make the case that while science fiction plays a role in inspiring inventors and engineers, it should also lead them to question how technologies can be deployed ethically in different societal contexts.

• Computing Ethics Issues
• Scientific Innovation
• Robots

• 
• 10 min
• Engadget
• 2021

This article provides an excerpt from a book detailing the “Brooksian Revolution,” a movement in the 1980s pressing the idea that the “intelligence” of AI should start from a foundation of acute awareness of its environment, rather than “typical” indicators of intelligence such as pure logic or problem solving. By principle, a reasoning machine-learning loop that operates off of a one-time perception of its environment is inherently disconnected from its environment.

• Singularity
• Scientific Innovation
• Machine Learning
• Robots

• 
• 4 min
• Kinolab
• 2001

“Gigolo Joe” is an android sex worker in an imagined future in which “Mechas,” or humanoid robots, have risen to prominence after a climate disaster. He performs his duties without hiding the fact that he is an android.

• Technology Based Economic Disruption
• AI Emotions and Rights
• Robots