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Keywords: Robots

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Shrugging off the robots

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 16 September 2014
    8 Comments

    We created the robots to make our lives easier. Before we knew what was happening the robots had transformed our world. Each day people go about their business, feeling unhappy but unable to name the source of that dissatisfaction. 

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  • RELIGION

    Theologians should face Peter Singer's challenge

    • Peter Vardy
    • 01 August 2014
    27 Comments

    At the least, religious philosophers and theologians should further engage with the challenge to traditional ethics that Peter Singer's position provides. Singer puts forward a powerful case and it is one which, in the current climate where people seek happiness and quality of life above everything else, will find increasing support particularly with the difficulty of funding medical care for those who are old or disabled.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Dubious heroes of Wikipedia

    • Philip Harvey
    • 23 July 2014
    6 Comments

    Swedish physicist Sverker Johansson has reportedly written over 2.7 million articles on Wikipedia since 2001, at an average of 10,000 articles a day. Phil Parker is purported to be the most published author in history, successfully publishing over 85,000 physical books, each of which takes less than an hour to 'write' — 'patented algorithms enable computers to do all the heavy lifting'. But the real work begins after they have finished.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    A plague of killer robots

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 April 2014
    6 Comments

    Killer robots — drones in an advanced stage of development — are now a daytime reality. They will be autonomous in their operation, able to identify targets, track them down, work out the best way to destroy them, and learn from their failures, all without the need for human direction. These qualities raise serious ethical questions. Obama's use of just war theory to defend such drones was misguided at best, pernicious at worst.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Disabled is not a dirty word

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 September 2012

    After losing a bet, a gawky teenager asks a girl with a physical disability out on a date, and is humiliated when she rejects him. A deaf Jewish girl is abused in Nazi Germany. A man has a stroke and begins the hard journey back to the land of words. This is no pity party, but a challenge to engage in stories that enhance empathy.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Warm bums and nuclear activism in Tokyo

    • Ellena Savage
    • 11 May 2012
    6 Comments

    I took the train into central Tokyo, my bum warmed by the heated seats. Each time we stopped, the train's engine shut down briefly, and the bum heater switch off for a few seconds. Over the loudspeaker I heard 'Setsuden chu', the catchphrase meaning 'We're currently using less electricity', which is posted all around the city.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Israel's rogue behaviour

    • Michael Mullins
    • 01 March 2010
    14 Comments

    Last week Israel's air force unveiled its Heron TP fleet of unmanned aircraft, which it says can travel as far as Iran. War by remote control is faceless. We remain at a distance from those with whom we disagree. There is no basis for trust.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    An end to rugby's unethical code

    • Tony Smith
    • 19 May 2009
    25 Comments

    It is time we stopped allowing football administrators, advertisers and television stations to set the standards for ethical behaviour. The only way that the current unethical rugby league culture can be removed is for the code itself to disappear.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Finding God in the Dark: Spirituality and the Cinema

    • Richard Leonard
    • 27 February 2007
    1 Comment

    This is the full text of a speech given by Richard Leonard SJ in Queensland on spirituality and cinema, on the occasion of the opening of a new spirituality centre.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Film reviews

    • Juliette Hughes, Allan James Thomas, Siobhan Jackson
    • 10 May 2006

    Reviews of the films Letters to Ali, Coffee and cigarettes and The Village.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Film reviews

    • Zane Lovitt, Siobhan Jackson
    • 27 April 2006

    Reviews of the films Bad Education, Young Adam, Look at Me and Robots.

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