Legal sci-fi

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

The Entertainer

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Americasroof · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Attendees at this year's World Science Fiction Convention sat through panels ranging from AI and democracy to the legal status of staking a vampire, according to a firsthand account from the floor. Cybersecurity writer Bruce Schneier reportedly described AI concepts in terms of telepathy through a time machine, and pronounced constitutional textualism itself a kind of science fiction premise. A panel on werewolf torts and undead tax liabilities drew unexpectedly heavy audience questions, including whether killing an already-dead vampire counts as murder.

Elsewhere, a data-center panel raised the prospect of orbital data centers colliding and falling to Earth, which the writer flagged as a promising future for litigators. Author David Brin discussed his new book on machine minds, a follow-up to his decades-old Uplift series about animals gaining intelligence. In the exhibit hall, a lawyer-author sold a nerd's guide to wills and trusts to what the writer described as an unusually elderly, sedentary crowd, though nobody was observed actually buying it.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A convention hall full of people debating vampire murder charges and space-junk lawsuits is really just lawyers doing what lawyers do at a party, which is turn every fun idea into a liability question. The self-published fellow announcing his own play to strangers is the real main character here, and you have to respect the hustle even if nobody bought the book. Estate planning with a side of nerd culture sounds like exactly the kind of idea that sounds better at the pitch table than at the actual table.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: The Entertainer · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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