More thoughts on human rights

Recently, a staggering incident of duplicity and/or racism was exposed when a court was shown CCTV footage that may clear an Indigenous man of the assault police had charged him with - footage the police claimed did not exist. If it was not duplicity or racism, it was an equally staggering level of professional incompetence. Given that state's history of racism generally, I doubt it was incompetence. The article on that incident is here. The man has been bailed, and the court case is continuing - with the judge having questioned the conduct of police and prosecutor.

In contrast to that, activities for Human Rights Day at my company included circulating this link, to a splendid and inspiring video on inclusion and diversity that every single police officer in the world - everywhere - should be compelled to watch multiple times every day.

Next, a couple of calls for new human rights. 

Firstly, a call by scientists for protection of human "neuro-rights", extending human rights to protection of the brain - see here.

And secondly, a call to extend the idea of Isaac Asimov's "Laws of Robotics", written in a gentler, nobler, less rabidly commercial era, to include four new laws: 

• New law 1: AI should complement professionals, not replace them; 
• New law 2: Robotic systems and AI should not counterfeit humanity; 
• New law 3: Robotic systems and AI should not intensify zero-sum arms races; and 
• New law 4: Robotic systems and AI must always indicate the identity of their creator(s), controller(s) and owner(s).
  

See here.

The need to work on realising human rights in a way that matches a changing world continues evermore.