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I’m liveblogging the 4th annual Gikii conference, kindly hosted by IViR in Amsterdam. (Gikii Programme)

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Death on the web
Lilian Edwards

What to do with web accounts, email, business accounts (eBay), profiles and everything else online when dead? The legal norm is that there is no norm. Every site has a different rule/ToS, no code of practice, etc. It’s a hard issue for people to deal with as a practical matter, and a patchwork of laws — contracts with people, banking laws, criminal law, and so on. One of the practical problems is that anyone that can access your password (say if you had a partner that knew it) can get in and change, delete, use, take your online stuff before anyone else (such as your desired heirs) can try to make the various providers give them the passwords.

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ZombAIs and Family law
Burkhard Schaffer

Zombie plus AI (artificial intelligence) = ZombAIs

Main quest for AIs and the law – to reason about law similar to a judge (the level of understanding by a machine).

In the AI context = learn from the vampire experience when addressing AIs – artificial blood for vamps therefore artificial brains for zombAIs.

Problems with the computer judge

- robustness – interpreting law under changing circumstances

Watched Total Recall clip of Arnie telling himself who he really is because he wiped his brain to go deep undercover (me: the core PKD theme of what is real and what is human).

In context of wills and intestacy — could have video there. Extension is an AI of you after death.

Historical precedent: Jeremy Bentham’s corpse sat at university meeting and cast votes in abstentia as part of his will.

What about the hacked AI representation of you: The ZombAI. Looks like you but really a third party.

JH comments – very transhumanist – essentially uploading people (mind uploading). This feels like thoughts on an intermediate step – uploaded self AIs that perhaps aren’t as good as being the actual person, and should we let them interact with the physical world. Surely many of the questions / problems (can AIs vote, hold physical property, money, etc) are eliminated when moving to a wholly virtually

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Beware the ZombAIs at the gate:
Shawn Harmon and Wiebke Abel

AI = systems that act like humans. New frontier is nanotech and synthetic biology.

Nano risks – security and privacy (ubiquitous surveillance)

Convergence coming b/w nano, syn bio, and AI – socio ethical issues at forefront and how will they play out. Ownership issues, how can regulation cope?

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My comments:

This session struck me as the trajectory of mind uploading and transhumanism.

First, Lilian with what do we do today with the dumb stuff out there on the internet – the diaspora of passwords, accounts, profiles and data that make up “me” on the web.

Second, Burkhard with what happens when you have AIs that can make decisions like you would, but less than full autonomy? How does this impact existing legal structures: intestacy, moral and ethical dillemas in family law (find out child that never knew existed). Focus on software.

Third, Wiebke and Shawn with likely scenarios of convergence in a “wet” world (see recent Wired column on wet by Warren Ellis) and synthetic humans / or synthetic augmentation of humans and AI.

My thought is the next stage is really when everything goes virtual — how much will all these concepts from real property and the physical world matter?