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Torture Me Elmo: Do Humanlike Machines Deserve Human Rights?

Torture Me Elmo

As machines become more like us, should they be given human rights?

WIRED magazine
February 2009 (17.02) issue

By Daniel Roth

During the 20 months that Fisher-Price spent developing the innards and software of its latest animatronic Elmo, engineers gave the project the code name Elmo Live. And sure enough, they made him more animate than ever: He moves his mouth in time with the stories he tells, shivers when he gets scared, and has a fit when he sneezes.

When they were finally able to test the doll on children, they were struck by how immediately the kids blocked out all other stimuli in the room and began interacting with Elmo. "It was as if Elmo were part of their family," says Gina Sirard, Fisher-Price VP of marketing. "To a child, he really is alive."

So the code name stuck, and over the past few months legions of $60 Elmo Live dolls have joined families everywhere. Some are certainly doomed to join previous Elmos in a new pastime: robotic-toy torture. YouTube is full of videos of idiots dousing Elmo with gas, setting him on fire, and laughing as his red fur turns to charcoal and he writhes in a painful dance. (more)

Comcast: Brian Roberts, The Dark Lord of Broadband

The Dark Lord of Broadband

Arrogant. Unresponsive. Overpriced. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts knows people hate his Internet service. Inside his campaign to fix the company's image.

WIRED magazine
February 2009 (17.02) issue

By Daniel Roth

Robb Topolski couldn't stay awake. All he could manage was three hours at a stretch before passing out. At first, his doctors were baffled, though they would eventually diagnose his condition as a severe form of anemia. But for the time being, no one knew anything except that it was dangerous for Topolski to venture too far from his bed.

Topolski was a quality assurance engineer at Intel before going on disability, and he loved playing with new gadgets and software. So in late February 2007, he dragged himself out of the queen-size bed in his Hillsboro, Oregon, home, sat down at one of the three PCs a few feet away, and opened his latest toy, the file-sharing program Shareaza. He was a big barbershop-harmony fan—he'd sung baritone in Intel's One Bit Parody quartet—and he wanted to test the software by searching for some new tracks and sharing the ones on his hard drive: tunes like the Civil War-era hit "The Vacant Chair," and a Tin Pan Alley ode to prostitution, "She Is More to Be Pitied Than Censured."

Topolski pointed Shareaza to his music folder. Then he fell asleep. And that's when something strange happened—or rather, that's when nothing happened. Each time he woke up and checked his PC, he discovered there had been no activity at all. Topolski knew that his music tastes weren't exactly mainstream; but still, among the millions of BitTorrent, Gnutella, and eDonkey users out there who could see his files, no one wanted even one of his tunes? He'd search some forums for help, then fall asleep again. (more)