Here’s a cool bit of news to confirm it’s 2015: A bot has been arrested for buying drugs and a fake passport.
Yes, a robot was arrested.
Random Darknet Shopper, the delinquent in question, was created by a group of artists and sent on a shopping spree with Bitcoins to splash on the dark net. It used its $100-a-week salary to buy a bag of ecstasy pills, counterfeit Hungarian passport, a pack of cigarettes, and a pair of Air Yeezys, which it then sent to an exhibition in Switzerland where it was being showcased.
Then the cops came.
The hardware running the bot and its purchases are currently in Swiss police custody awaiting whatever you would call a trial in a situation like this. The artists responsible for spawning the criminal piece of artificial intelligence haven’t been arrested and aren’t expected to face charges.
Which begs the question: what can law enforcement really do about the actions of impulsive pieces of code?
Here‘s an interesting take by University of Washington law professor contributor Ryan Calo on who’s legally responsible in this situation.
The artists, on the other hand, see the computer’s seizure as an “unjustified intervention into freedom of art.”
Fair enough.
Meth-carrying drones, on the other ‘hand’, probably don’t fit within the realm of art…
#NOTABLE
Cover image from: http://flashbak.com
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