YouTube can teach people a lot of different things: cooking, gaming, music… even lock-picking!  If there’s a skill you would like to pickup, YouTube probably has a video about it!  Just because someone teaches you how to do something on YouTube, that doesn’t mean you should actually do it.

In Ohio, an 8-year-old boy (who is not identified by name due to his age) used YouTube to watch a video for people learning how to drive. After watching the video, he decided he was well prepared and decided to go out and try out his new skills. Unaware that he was doing something wrong, the rookie NASCAR driver invited his sister to tag along with him on a drive to McDonald’s.

Generally it is common knowledge that the legal age to drive is generally 16 years old throughout the United States.  Most people closer to that age know better and know not to get behind a wheel. However according to police, this little boy did not know any better, which led to his having a bit of an adventure in the driver’s seat of a car.

According to the boy’s statement, the parents had not been monitoring the situation, which iw what led to his being able to get ahold of their keys and bringing his little sister along for the joyride.

According to reports, the unnamed child-driver managed to steer the family car to a McDonald’s drive thru in search of a cheeseburger. When he arrived at the window, the employees were overcome with a combination of shock, laughter, and confusion as they saw a little boy driving a car with his little sister in the vehicle as well.

Police questioned the boy and had discovered his research into driving a car and that he did not know he was doing something wrong. Witnesses had even told the officers that the boy had driven  the 1.5 mile route perfectly and obeyed all traffic rules (well, except the fact that he was 8!).

Even though he lacked criminal intent and regardless of the fact that he drove the car well, the child still took his parents car without their knowledge.  As a result, he had placed his little sister and himself in grave danger.

Authorities have begun looking into violations relating to parenting and child protection laws. After all, how could two parents not notice their son take their keys, grab his sister, and then proceed to get in the car and drive away?  Although early reports did not point to child neglect, authorities planned to continue investigating to ensure they children are being raised in a safe

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Questions:

1: Whose fault is it? The boy who took the car? Or the parents who weren’t paying enough attention for him to be able to take it?

2: Had he been an adult without a license, should he have been arrested? Why or why not?

3: Should the boy have gone to juvenile hall and faced real consequences for choosing to break a rule? Why or why not?

4: If you broke a law that you didn’t know existed, should you still be charged normally or given a warning? Why or why not? 

Be sure to provide full explanations for each of your answers. For more details, you can read the article this piece was sourced from here::

https://www.wfmj.com/story/35131203/east-palestine-police-8-year-old-drives-4-year-old-sister-to-get-cheeseburger

Contributed by: Joseph Motta

(Pictured: You see kids, when two self-driving vehicles fall in love they make robot-babies…. and those robot-babies grow up to become our FUTURE ROBOT OVERLORDS. But hey, Tesla cars are cool!)

When someone breaks a law, they generally get in trouble – that’s just the way the world work. Systems of law have been managing the conduct of nations and their citizens as long as civilizations have been in place.  With the technology renaissance of the 21^st century, a new form of life has been participating in society, and just like humans some of them have begun to break laws.  We are talking about – of course – robots.

In 2015, a self-driving car created by Google was operating in the area around the company’s headquarters.  The driverless vehicle had been on a road near ‘the company campus’ when it ended up getting pulled over – for going 10 miles an hour below the speed limit!  Basically, it had been violating traffic laws by holding up traffic without a good reason.

News outlets report that the officer after discovering that there was no one driving the car, contacted the operators responsible for programming the vehicle. The article also reports that several cars in the Google self-driving fleet have been in accidents, although none of them have been reported to be the self-driving car’s fault.  The incident comes on the heels of many people questioning the safety of self-driving vehicles.

For many years now, electric car manufacturer Tesla has touted its self-driving initiative and how much safer it is than actually driving.  Tesla’s critics are still skeptical of the company’s self-driving vehicles’ capacity to be safe at all, pointing to a National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) investigation of a 2018 fatal accident that involved a self-driving Tesla.  In that incident, the car’s driver life being lost (instead of steering the car, the ‘driver’ had handed control over to the vehicle’s self-driving computer when the accident took place). The NTSB  report found that the Tesla vehicle had actually acted in a way meant to try the driver, however the vehicle still ended up crashing.   Many skeptics of self-driving vehicles point to that crash in particular as a reason that driverless cars and trucks should not be allowed on the roadways.

Instances like the fatal Tesla crash and the slow self-driving  Google car provide examples of a significant issue that goes beyond just general safety – one that will become more relevant as technology continues to evolve:

So, when a robot or AI commits a crime that puts humans or other lives in danger, who is responsible in a legal sense?

Technology has and will continue to develop at a rate that the law can’t keep up with. If there are robots used to make work easier in a factory for example, who is responsible if a ‘thinking’ machine harms a human worker in a workplace accident –  the programmer, the actual ‘code’ of the machine, the company, or someone (or something) else entirely?  As companies, manufacturers, and even governments are beginning to make the push for automated processes like self-driving vehicles that include the use of Robots, AI, and other ‘driverless’ technologies, we will all begin to be faced with these questions.

Questions:

1: Who should be held civilly and/or criminally accountable when a robot is involved in  crime?  Explain your choice(s)

2: What laws should be put in place to ensure that the right entities (people / companies / robots) are held accountable for Artificial Intelligence related problems, and how will they help prevent or address those problems?

3: What are some things that a robot could do to break a law? 

4: Should a person who built a robot that commits a crime, be charged to the same level as contributing to the crime or aiding in it? Explain why you think they should or should not.

Be sure to explain the thinking behind your answers, and for more details, you can read the articles this piece was sourced from here: 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/13/google-self-driving-car-pulled-over-driving-too-slowly

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/02/13/ntsb-releases-report-on-2018-fatal-silicon-valley-tesla-autopilot-crash/#395bd32842a8

Contributed By: Joseph Motta

In some cases, leaks have changed the course of American history while shaping the nation’s laws. There are a number of statutes that criminalize leaking information, yet not all leaks are necessarily criminal.

Leaks in modern history that are certain to remain historically notable include those of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Shadow Brokers’ NSA Hacking tools data dump, and the early days of The Trump Presidential Administration.  Despite taking up significantly more air time in media outlets, the majority of leaks from the offices of President Trump remain unsubstantiated.  The leaks of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and the Shadow Brokers have had an immediate and lasting impact on American history.

In the case of Edward Snowden, we encourage students to read our book ‘The Government, Privacy, and You’ (free copies of which can be requested using the ‘OUR PROJECT’ section of our website – which you’re already on).  As of the publication date of this post, Mr. Snowden remains in Russia with the possibility of being charged with treason, espionage, and criminal release of classified information hanging over his head.

Chelsea Manning – who was recently released from prison following a presidential order of clemency issued by President Barack Obama in his last days in office – released information to WikiLeaks that had significant impacts on American foreign policy.  Most notably, Manning released a video of an airstrike in Afghanistan in which over 80 civilians were killed by US forces after the details of the operation had been held back from public release, and the release of diplomatic communications which (upon their release) resulted in many of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings of 2010-2012.

The Shadow Brokers was a hacker collective that released reports and files created by the NSA.  The information included a number of tools and exploits that could be used to monitor or control people’s personal electronic devices.  Following the Edward Snowden leaks (which revealed the US government had digitally programs that involved at least the possibility of domestic surveillance), the implication of the Shadow Brokers release was that the NSA had tools for spying not just on terror suspects but American citizens.

These are just a few examples of leaks that changed the history of America and the perception of the administrations in power at the time of their release.   Republican, Democrat, Independent, Liberal, Conservative, or Moderate – information leaks have impacted administrations and governments of all types throughout American history.

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Questions:

1)  What is a government leak you’re already familiar with? If you don’t know one, research one and summarize it in 1 – 6 sentences:

2) Regarding that whistleblowing incident – who do you believe was ‘right’ in the situation, and what about what you know about that whistleblowing incident leads you to that conclusion?  

3) Whistleblowing is a  challenging subject for the people coming forward:  They might have legal protections to their job and their freedom, but how can they be expected to stay at a place where they betrayed the trust of the organization (even if the organization was doing something bad)?

4) Whistleblowing can also be a  challenging subject for people being reported on: What if the whistleblower is wrong and what the company/person was doing is allowed? If they fire the ‘whistleblower’ they can face major punishments (financial penalties) for firing the person (it’s called retaliation).  What can be done to prevent situations of false / improper whistleblowing? An example would be people posting videos of how fast food is made on Tick Tock.  If a company isn’t pretending the food is ‘natural and organic’, why should (or shouldn’t) their employees really be allowed to post videos of that process?   

Be sure to provide full explanations for each of your answers. For more details, you can read the article this piece was sourced from here:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/why-leaking-information-american-apple-pie-n724466?cid=public-rss_20170226