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Downloading Problems?

The causal role and power of the mass media and especially the Internet have been the subject of acrimonious debate. Issues include demands for stronger regulation and control, especially through the criminal law, along with serious questions about the limits of liberal tolerance and freedom of expression. Other common problems include finding viable definitions -- of 'pornography' (and grading its seriousness on a five-point scale, like classes of dangerous drugs) or 'incitement' -- and the technical obstacles to monitoring and controlling the sources of Internet material. Behind these familiar debates, there lie vital background assumptions -- seldom made explicit -- about the links between thinking and doing. In the holistic view, there is no clear difference between image and action. In the separatist view, there is a clear distinction between the thought (or image) and the deed. These opposing views run through the debate about both modes of legal control -- first, to prohibit, censor or regulate supply and/or second, to criminalise demand (notably, by making possession illegal). As for ideological violence, no one can pretend that the debate is about the integrity of a private sphere (where one lives as he pleases) and a public sphere (where one can express what he likes as long as it does not libel anyone or incite hatred). The continuing legacy of last century's ideological violence -- state crimes such as genocide, torture and mass killing; massive ethnic and religious slaughter; terrorism and suicide bombing -- does not easily fit the emblematic vision of earnest citizens calmly discussing the abstract right to condone the use of violence. Debates about Internet pornography and violence are landmines in the current struggle for the survival of liberalism itself. Adapted from the source document.

(First paragraph) We've all done it. We certainly have, and we will again. But paying for and legally downloading music is morally wrong.

Despite attempts to encourage music consumers in countries including the United Kingdom, France and United States to download music from legal sources, many not only continue to download from unauthorised sources but reject the very idea that what they are doing is wrong. Symbolic interactionist sociology helps us to structure these failed attempts to control this consumer misbehaviour. It shows us that opponents and proponents of illegal downloading have become locked in a battle over who can define behavioural standards for consuming music. This battle has come to a standstill as both sides have turned to the same economic imperative – that creators should be rewarded for their work – to justify their positions. Moving beyond this economic imperative, the article concludes, may mark a symbolic but ultimately hollow victory for proponents of unauthorised file-sharing.

This article concerns itself with what artificial intelligence (AI) may have in store for how science will be conducted and communicated in the not too distant future. It highlights some of the AI literature to show that computers have been successfully programmed to perform many of the procedures involved in scientific decision making and problem solving. It briefly reviews the ongoing debate over whether systems designed to exhibit intelligent behavior really think in the same sense that humans do. Finally, it reports on the possibility that more of the process of science will in the future be carried out by such systems as a result of research linking AI with progress in cognitive science.