Meeting notice: The 01.07.17 meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Royal 
East (782 Main St., Cambridge), a block down from the corner of Main St. 
and Mass Ave.  If you're new and can't recognize us, ask the manager. He'll 
probably know where we are.  More details below.

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Suggested topic: 

_AI_ is a mildly interesting movie, but it doesn't have much to do with how 
robots will really play out in the society. 

How will we know when the technology has arrived? When mental health 
experts start fretting over the time people spend sitting in the garage 
talking to their lawn mowers.  When we starting reading about the dangers 
of robot addiction and robot dependency.  Therapists on TV will warn of the 
risks of being more intimate with robots than with your mate. Male and 
female liberation groups will issue separate but equivalent statements 
attacking these therapists for 'blaming the victim', and arguing until the 
society guarantees full equality to their gender of preference a robot 
makes a more sensible life partner than a member of the exploiting (other) 
sex. Couples counsellors will argue over whether one partner having sex 
with a robot is more like adultery or more like masturbation.  There will 
be profiles in the paper of proud young couples who have declared their 
homes 'robot- free'. 

Jeremy Rivkin will argue that robots represent another step in the 
relentless campaign of global capitalism to expropriate social 
relationships, commodify social awareness, and monetize friendship. At the 
same time other voices will warn of a 'robot gap,' citing alarming studies 
suggesting that people with more money buy more robots, and that 
inequalities in robot distribution were systematically disempowering the 
poor.

We will see many concern units burnt over robots monopolizing the lives of 
our young, desensitizing their interpersonal skills, and perhaps weakening 
their loyalty to the human species.  Some kid who has beat up another kid 
will be overheard saying that his robot is his best friend, and immediately 
several books will be published locating the cause of the android 
generation in our failure to take responsibility for the wellness of the 
planet. Court cases will be brought over whether abandonment statutes apply 
when a child is left in the care of a robot.  Bible-belt Legislatures will 
pass laws against pimping your robot; liberal states, against selling 
robots that "promulgate stereotypes".  

Any other metrics come to mind?




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In twenty years half the population of Europe will have visited the moon.

				-- Jules Verne, 1865

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Announcement Archive: 
http://www.pobox.com/~fhapgood/nsgpage.html.

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Legend:

"NSG" expands to Nanotechnology Study Group.  The Group meets on 
the first and third Tuesdays of each month at the above address, 
which refers to a restaurant located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

The NSG mailing list carries announcements of these meetings and 
little else.  If you wish to subscribe to this list (perhaps 
having received a sample via a forward) send the string 
'subscribe nsg'  to majordomo@world.std.com.  Unsubs follow the 
same model.  

Discussion should be sent to nsg- d@world.std.com, which must be 
subscribed to separately.  You must be subscribed to nsg-d to 
post to it and must post from the address from which you 
subscribed (An anti- spam thing).

Comments, petitions, and suggestions re list management to: 
nsg@pobox.com.