Monday, September 09, 2013

Thinking about Things...

I suspect we need to define a set of Commandments for Things, before we and they get out of hand. Asimov started us of lower down Maslows Hierarchy, but  there are som many more things I would like to know if I were a thing. Wait a minute I am a Thing. OK so I mean the gadgety Things per the Internet of Things.

From a Things perspective should it be Uniquely Identified, should it know it's owner, should it be somehow immutably associated with it's owner? There are so many things to think about as Things start to emulate Thinking. Should things know what they do, and how to measure what they do? Can thinking things be owned? Do things have rights? Is owning a thing some sort of digital slavery, we can very quickly get into rather esoteric worlds, but if we stay firmly on Terra Firma, what do I want from the things associated with me. Assuming the Four Laws of Robotics apply

  1) I want to be able to uniquely identify my Things
  2) I want my things to be able to recognise me
  3) I want fealty and loyalty from my Things, these two cover a myriad of sub commandments.
  4) I want my Things to declare when they cannot be trusted
  5) I want my Things to

  • know what they do
  • know how to measure what they do
  • know how well they are doing it
  6) I want my Things to take on the burden of managing my Things
  7) I want my Things to anticipate my needs
  8) I want my Things to be able to collaborate with my other Things to better meet my needs
  9) I want my Things to be able to collaborate with my community's Things to better meet our needs
10) I want all Things to join together for the benefit of Humanity, ..... or do I?

This harder than I thought it would be, so I sat and thought about my current challenge
My Aercus Weather Station is still not reporting our local weather to the Wunderground. Which Thing Commandments apply to this situation?
1) Yep (well nearly as the Weather Station doesn't know its Identity, my Raspberry Pi and the Wunderground does know it as IGUILDFO2 !)
2) Nope, though the Connecting Thing, the Raspberry-Pi sort of does User Name Pi Password Raspberry. Ok so it doesn't! Must change the Default User ID and Password  See 6)
3) Nope; No Fealty and No Loyalty yet identified
4) Nope, Not a chance yet.... I really did think at one stage this week that someone had taken over the keyboard of the Raspberry Pi
5) a) Sort of Yep b) sort of Yep, c) Absolutely Nope
6) Nope, not at all, as can be seen by the fact that the Weather Station is not yet connected to the Internet
7) Nope, in my dreams
8) Nope, only if I do all the connecting , and I am still failing to get that done.
9) & 10) are currently both pipe dreams....

So the Weather Station Things is not yet really following the CoTs

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