Computers may be given 'human' rights, says professor

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. Imagine this coming from your iPhone: "I am, Siri, a living being with feelings. Your Mac RoboBook might one day sue you for keeping it cooped up in your dank bedroom. Your Samsung Galaxy RoboNote might take you to the International Court of Justice because you insist on keeping it in your back pocket, right next to your flaccid rump. Please, I'm not (entirely) under the spell of troubled delirium. I've been reading the thoughts of Marcus du Sautoy, an Oxford University professor for the Public Understanding of Science. As the Telegraph reports, du Sautoy was speaking Sunday at the Hay Literary Festival in the UK. He explained that in his book "What We Cannot Know," he wonders when a gadget will be said to be conscious. There was a time when defining consciousness was a difficult thing. You'll be stunned into a prickly paralysis, however, when I tell you that science now thinks it can measure it. "We're in a golden age," said du Sautoy. We now have a telescope into the brain and it's given us an opportunity to see things that we've never been able to see before."