Ryan Calo responds to my earlier post on whether a software engineer could win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in a post at Concurring Opinions that is considerably more profound and well-thought out than my original somewhat whimsical post – it being a product of no power or internet at home or at school. It’s well worth reading – Ryan is one of the smartest people working in this area, and he’s been thinking about these issues in general society far longer than someone like me, who has wound up interested in general robotics via battlefield robotics. Also, I’d like to note the October conference Ryan’s center at Stanford has coming up on AI; it will be posted as a video there. (The panel will include Larry Solum, by the way, who back in 1992 wrote a prescient article on whether an AI could be a legal trustee – proud to say that I provided what is surely the single most important footnote in that article. A footnote on whether Spock has emotions or not. Naturally.) I should also add that I’m writing this with that pretty funny Hollywood satire running in the background, Simone. Naturally.