The Fight for the Future (11/5); Near-term ethical, legal, and societal issues in robotics (11/19)

The Fight for the Future: How People Defeated Hollywood and Saved the Internet--For Now

Tuesday, November 5, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

This talk will explain how a grassroots movement involving millions of people was able to defeat money, politicians, Hollywood, and the copyright lobby, all in the name of a "free and open Internet." People used Facebook, Twitter, other social media, blogs, and websites to organize and launch protests against SOPA and ACTA, two controversial copyright proposals in the United States and European Union that many feared would lead to Internet censorship. Participants will learn how the Internet helped people fight for their Internet freedoms--and do the unthinkable in stopping powerful lobbyists and the entertainment industry in their effort to clamp down on online piracy at all costs.

Edward Lee is a Professor of Law and the Director of the internationally recognized Program in Intellectual Property Law at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. He graduated summa cum laude from Williams College with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy (highest honors) and classics, and cum laude from Harvard Law School. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Science fiction or reality? A discussion of near-term ethical, legal, and societal issues in robotics

Tuesday, November 19, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Prominent robot ethics questions focus on liability and privacy concerns in the face of increasingly autonomous technology. A lesser-discussed issue is the emergence and effect of robots that are designed to interact with humans on a social level. Studies have begun to establish a tendency to perceive social robots differently than we do other objects. As more and more robotic companions enter into our lives and homes, our inclination to project life-like qualities onto robots could have some societal implications.

Kate Darling is an IP Research Specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab and a Ph.D. candidate in Intellectual Property and Law & Economics at the ETH Zurich. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Cheryl Contee on The Innovation Intermission

Though the stereotype of "nerd" might involve a white male with a laptop, white males lag behind minorities and women in many categories of social media and technology use. But current investments in new technology don’t not match the consumers of these technologies. According to the Kaufmann Foundation, only 4% of venture capital of any kind goes to female tech entrepreneurs. In this talk, Cheryl Contee -- Partner at Fission Strategy, co-founder of Jack and Jill Politics, and Affiliate of the Berkman Center -- explores the gap between creators and consumers, and suggests we are in an "innovation intermission," poised on the threshold of another great wave of technological creativity brought about by the democratization of tools and education. audio on our website>