HM.Requirements: Legal (was Re: Long and Not Much to the Point: Re:HM.applications-Profiling-Level of Details/Abstraction)

[Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga <rkthunga@interposting.com>]

I extracted TWO Legal issues to consider as design requirements:
   1)  identifier (a GUID, possibly based on combination of physical
characteristics)
    AND
   2) identity itself (the combined result of a set of HumanML
characteristics--aka 'bugs bunny' character)

I would say these are important elements we 'should' explore...but not
fundamental design requirements initially.  Other comments for the
HM.Requirements document?

----------------------
I'm going through some of the recent posts, and will be extracting what are
formal topics of discussion:
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV (borrowing Kurt's line,), but the
legal scope, in terms of HumanML, are worth identifying:

----------------------
One thing we start to through this process is that many of our previous
notions of how we always view human qualities and human communications has
always taken place begin to make less and less sense.  There doesn't seem to
be _any_ solid fixed 'identity' we can grasp, at least in the real
world...simply the processes involved a set of various dynamic processes
constantly in flux.

Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kurt Cagle" <kurt@kurtcagle.net>
To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>;
<humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org>
Cc: <raytrace@smtp.cs.curtin.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 7:32 PM
Subject: Long and Not Much to the Point: Re: HM.applications-Profiling-Level
of Details/Abstraction


>
> > Public safety systems already have all of that
> > information.  If it is abused, that is already a
> > problem.   But it is much worse if that is not in a
> > standard form because then when it can be used for
> > the right thing, it is much harder.
>
> This is one of those domains where the ethics of the situation becomes
very
> unclear, something that seems to happen within increasing frequency the
more
> interconnected we become. At what point does surveillance for the public
> good become surveillance for public control?
>
> One concept that I've found more and more relevant is the notion of the
> transparency of information interfaces. In an typical electrical circuit,
> the more you increase the amperage, the energy, in a circuit, the more
heat
> that you generate, because of resistance. A good electrical engineer knows
> how to use that resistance, or its magnetic analog impedence,
> constructively. However, one consequence of either resistance or impedence
> is that it also tends to damp circuits and keep them from "leaking" into
> other circuits. If you create the same circuit but use superconducting
> materials you get more efficient systems, but you also get more
transparent
> ones -- one circuit's magnetic fields will interact far more strongly with
> others, and the relatively linear effects that you see go non-linear.
>
> XML is in many respects a very powerful superconductor. It's first order
> effects (as manifest in HTML, which for purposes of description can be
> thought of as a first pass XML system) was to make application content
> transparent -- the web works because large swathes of people can write
HTML
> easily, because even with variations in browsers the HTML that I write you
> can read regardless of operating system or platform, and because it
contains
> the core features that describe many applications out there. The second
> order effects are really beginning to come into play now -- the
transparency
> of application development, the transparency of user interfaces, the
> transparency of data transport standards. These transparencies are making
it
> possible to turn devices with distinct semantics and syntaxes into
abstract
> devices with common semantics and a single syntax. These second order
> effects solve another very real problem: moving the descriptions of
objects
> (invoices, auto-parts, people) from a fairly fruitless search for finding
> universal descriptors for all objects to recognizing that an object's
> definition -- it's ontology -- is ultimately local. By localizing
> variations, you make data interchange far more transparent, which was
> ultimately the goal of such initiatives as B2B.
>
> Each time you turn an opaque system transparent, you induce a phase
shift -
> the system doesn't just become a more extreme version of what it was
> previously, it tends to (sometimes catastrophically) rearrange the very
> nature of the system. We're still going through the second order phase
> shifts but the third phase shift is going to go pretty quickly. It's when
> you start moving the transparency further up the pipe, so that it begins
to
> impact upon the societal structures. HumanML is a third order phase-shift
of
> XML. We are in essence attempting to codify the human/machine interface
> here, either from the standpoint of helping a process (the application)
> provide some kind of graphical interface/avatar to represent itself to the
> person or from the standpoint of modelling the human interactions for use
by
> the processor.
>
> I'm raising this point not to rant, but rather to point out that because
it
> is a third order phase-shift, HumanML will have a very real impact upon
> societal structures - laws, markets, education, work, entertainment. The
> transparencies introduced here (and by most such technologies) mean that
the
> normal restraining effects that are induced by opacity in the system are
> lost. I'm not by and large that concerned about governmental intrusion
> (though I have to admit being very alarmed by what I'm seeing done lately)
> but I do worry that we need to balance the needs of transparency against
the
> needs of privacy.
>
> * To be human means having the ability to manipulate symbols, but to be
> human also means the we are very manipulated by symbols in turn.*
>
> > A second problem is knowing if the driver
> > is the owner.  And so it goes until enough
> > facts are established to get a probable certainty
> > which really means "legal certainty".  Consider that
> > your city may already be using photographs to catch
> > you running a red light.  Because we are "accuser
> > must prove" society, your lawyer gets you out of that
> > by inferring (doesn't have to prove) you weren't
> > the driver.  Comes down to the judge.
>
> For now. Circumstantial evidence is a funny thing. There is a very common
> misconception in our society that a case which has only circumstantial
> evidence is one that can be thrown out. In fact, most cases ultimately
rely
> on circumstantial evidence rather than on anecdotal -- eyewitness --
> evidence, because it is far easier to fool people than not. A judge today
> may rule that photographic evidence in this case is not admissible,
because
> there are several factors that can make such identifications questionable.
> However, that veracity is becoming easier to prove, and the arguments
> against it often have more to do with situations that have very little
> relevance to the crime. A judge a few days ago dismissed a traffic-light
> runners case with more than 200 defendants, not because of questions about
> the veracity of the evidence, but because the company that made the camera
> systems that caught them received a kick-back for every case brought. In
> other words, it came down to the ethical sense of the judge rather than
the
> circumstantial evidence; a different judge may very well have ruled
> differently.
>
> I guess what I'm saying here is that technology is making the criminal
> enforcement system very efficient, but not necessarily any more fair,
> because it is rendering the concept of "reasonable doubt" moot. The
English
> judicial system that ours is based upon hinges upon that concept, yet the
> danger here is that transparency does not ensure truthfulness, only
> accuracy. It is perfectly possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt
that
> the wrong person committed a crime.
>
> Okay, I'm way off topic here.
>
> > That is the right thing.  The wrong thing is to live in a
> > state where if an owner does not respond quick enough, the tow and
impound
> > agency has the right to sell the car to recover costs.  Since
> > the car has higher value than the tow/impound fee, they use
> > all means possible to delay sending a notification.  So would
> > you rather the tow/impound or the police to be responsible for
> > the notification?  They have identical information.  (That is
> > not made up.  It is a real condition in a real state.)
>
> > The fact is, data is being collected about you by every
> > means possible and by multiple agencies.  They don't pool
> > it today.  In the very near future, they will and are.
> > That is the dilemma of the web.  Shall we disconnect?
> > Or shall we try to make sure we can at least follow
> > the trail as best as we can?   The SW is a nightmare
> > and that is why I wrote the Golem paper, to point
> > out that the SW implementors have responsibilities.
> > It is one thing to have the ontologies; it is quite
> > another to assert that they are true.  The best we
> > can do is constrain their authority.
>
> I agree with you on that point, something that has bothered me both about
> TBL's Semantic Web in the first place and Web Services, which combine some
> aspects of SW with a centralized programming model. Individuals really
have
> no use for the SW, and in many respects it is inimicable to them.
> Correlation of data transparently means that is is possible to build
> associations that may not have existed in isolation. Transparency of data
> access means that the number of databases that can communicate with one
> another grow exponentially.  I see this with UDDI, I see it with Hailstorm
> and Passport. I recognize full well that most of us already have extensive
> public dossiers, but the one saving grace in all of this is that there are
> currently barriers due to semi-opaque semantic/ontological barriers that
can
> effectively only be handled by human intervention. I worry that as we
create
> HumanML standards, we tear down those barriers, make the larger system
> extremely transparent to those parties that definitely do not have our
best
> interests at heart.
>
> Unfortunately, I'm not sure I see a solution here. We need to be cognizant
> of the issues, which is a big part of the point I'm circling (very
> circuitously) around. We need to recognize that what may be good for a
> business or government may not be good for the society as a whole. Call me
> the civil libertarian of the group, but I fear sometimes that if we do not
> recognize the social consequences of our actions as designers, that we may
> end up bringing on a future that none of us would want.
>
> > The idea of the scenario real or imagined is to explore the
> > domains and see which of our current applications could be
> > applied.  A simpler scenario with multiple interfaces to
> > other systems is demonstrative.  We can caveat it out of
> > relevance but that won't help us.
> >
> > Because of stereotyping, HumanML is about more than identity.
> > Bugs Bunny can have multiple instances.  Kurt Cagle can't.
> > There can be many persons named Kurt Cagle and that is why
> > identification is a process, not a name.  In PS systems,
> > we always assume the person giving the name is lying because
> > they often are.   A bank does too but not as much.  A grocery
> > check out counter does too but not as much.  The question
> > of how much we are willing to endure to achieve security is
> > perennial in open societies.  I don't have an answer for that.
> > I also don't have any credit cards. (True.)
>
> Wise man.
>
> I am not arguing that identity and authentication are two very different
> things. This is a natural consequence of the fact that we are creating
> virtual or semantic models to represent real world objects. Real world
> objects have uniqueness as a central characteristic. Virtual models do not
> have uniqueness, but can only simulate uniqueness to some arbitrary level.
> This is ultimately why no encryption mechanism will ever be even
> theoretically perfect (I've not yet bought into the notion of quantum
> computer encryption mechanisms, because to me no real-world system is ever
> fully decoupled, which is one of the central tenets of quantum
programming).
>
>
> > Oddly enough, because he is trademarked, Bugs is always Bugs.
> > For some of us, the fun application is enabling artificial
> > personalities.  I mix that into the scenario because it is
> > the one some of us like and is reasonably straightforward
> > to apply without invoking all the paranoias HumanML is
> > certain to invoke, but really, over conditions that
> > already exist.  Big Brother was already in place by 1945.
> > I am more afraid of Big Blabber.  So, Bugs it is.
>
> Bugs Bunny is unique only as a legal entity, which I think raises a
critical
> issue. There is very much a distinction between a "real" person and his or
> her legal entity. A legal entity is a model, albeit one that in theory
> should have a key that defines it as being "unique". However, in practice,
> that uniqueness is fairly arbitrary, and typically is not in fact due to
> obvious representational characteristics. If I draw a picture of a long
> limbed, gray and white anthropomorphic rabbit with long ears chewing on a
> carrot as if it was a cigar, have I created Bugs Bunny? Is the legality
due
> to the fact that the person who does render this character is an employee
or
> a contractor to Warner Brothers? I guess what I'm saying here is that such
> authority to define a legal entity is a function of the state, just as
> issuing a drivers license or money is a function of the state. The state
> issues a drivers license in theory as a measure of (minimal) competence,
but
> in fact it's purpose is at least in part to create a legal entity called a
> driver that can be mapped to a physical person.
>
> Thus one of the key distinctions that needs to be enunciated in any
HumanML
> document is that a legal entity has an authority granting it "uniqueness",
> whereas a non-legal entity does not. To get back to the driver model here
> for just a second, if I create an HumanML avatar to represent the driver
of
> a specific car, should the model be such that the avatar is perforce a
legal
> entity as well? What is more important to the car -- that the authorized
> people are allowed to drive the car, or that the car can configure itself
to
> a virtual dummy, a non-legal avatar, that retains characteristics but not
> legal identity. I think this is where I was going with the scenarios
> earlier, though I'm still articulating the concept even to myself.
>
> Put it another way -- should HumanML include, either explicitly in its
core
> or implicitly via extension, a mechanism for creating legal identity?
>
> Okay, this was way overlong (and I've spent far too much time writing this
> when I should have been doing more productive work) but I think that it is
> an issue. Comments?
>
> -- Kurt Cagle
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> To subscribe or unsubscribe from this elist use the subscription
> manager: <http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl>
>