Waiting for Skynet

July 12, 2007 4:07 PM

Clones, Robots and Second-Life... Having solved all other crimes, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner gave us a trifecta of the scary earlier this week. I'd have posted it before but I was waiting for some statement that it was all a fake. Boingboing has it so it must be true! (Caution: lolcats).
posted by ninazer0 (24 comments total)

That's one cheery looking cloned, part-robot human. The future of organized crime doesn't look so bad.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 4:43 PM on July 12, 2007

The guy is bonkers. Beyond delusional. Batshit crazy. Pretty standard for the Australian police, actually. He should run for office in NSW.
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 4:45 PM on July 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Still, it's nice that Second Lifes bullshit media saturation has reached the point where even someone as clearly out of touch as this has heard about it.
posted by Artw at 4:49 PM on July 12, 2007

I think the wacky lookin' robot bad guy looks like Mitt Romney.
posted by Corky at 5:05 PM on July 12, 2007

Mr Keelty said scams had sprung up in online virtual worlds such as Second Life, where people can spend real money via credit cards to buy products such as virtual real estate and gifts.

"Policing that is going to be quite difficult," he said.

True. They could always set coppers to work wandering around Second Life trying to catch the scammers, but they would stand out a mile away.

Their virtual trousers are always too neatly ironed & their shoes too highly polished.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:15 PM on July 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Nonsense. Undead cyborg criminals are the true menace to society, as they rebuild themselves with machine components as well as anything they don't immediately eat from the living.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:24 PM on July 12, 2007

This is like that episode of Simpsons where
posted by Shakeer at 5:29 PM on July 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I remember that episode. Scary.
posted by found dog one eye at 5:37 PM on July 12, 2007

Having solved all other crimes...

mmm....farkilicious.
posted by dersins at 5:41 PM on July 12, 2007

You'll all be laughing on the other side of your faces when some cloned part-robot part-human mugs you to pay for his WD-40 habit...
posted by Pinback at 5:43 PM on July 12, 2007

A feature of serious organised criminal networks was their ability to be flexible and quickly adopt new techniques, and police forces would have to move quickly to keep up.

And this is different from the criminal networks of the past two thousand years how exactly?

Australian and UK police had also noticed a trend of internet paedophiles crossing into real life paedophilia, and were planning a joint operation in developing countries, he said.

At the end of the day, it always comes down to "won't someone please think of the children", doesn't it?
posted by quin at 5:48 PM on July 12, 2007

You'll all be laughing on the other side of your faces when some cloned part-robot part-human mugs you to pay for his WD-40 habit...

no problems. i like to cut my wd-40 with battery acid. i'll just offer them a snort.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:52 PM on July 12, 2007

I think some of the problem likely stems from the fact that "noticed a trend" often turns out to be "imagined a trend must be occurring".
posted by nightchrome at 5:53 PM on July 12, 2007

Oh, Australia. What ever are we going to do with you?
posted by liquorice at 5:55 PM on July 12, 2007

we need to prepare for criminal robots by creating a force of friendly, armed robots to protect us. they would also be useful against extraterrestrials.
posted by bruce at 7:19 PM on July 12, 2007

Thank God I've got Old Glory insurance. Old Glory covers anyone over the age of 50 against robot attack, regardless of current health.
posted by teg at 7:54 PM on July 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

A plan with robot coverage? Surely I'm too old.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:05 PM on July 12, 2007

I, for one, welcome our new cloned robotic organised virtual crime overlords.

Of course, after a few years under Howard, anything's a step up.
posted by pompomtom at 9:14 PM on July 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

AustLOLians
posted by katillathehun at 9:43 PM on July 12, 2007

The part I really don't understand is how clones are supposed to be more dangerous than people produced in the conventional manner.

It's still just people, it's just people produced from the DNA of another person more directly.
posted by Arturus at 9:51 PM on July 12, 2007

If they're cloned from people....
posted by pompomtom at 11:00 PM on July 12, 2007

bruce is on the right track--obviously the solution is to beat the criminals at their own game. Solution to the cloned-cyborg criminals is...Robocop. Solution to the fraud on Second Life is to start a squad of virtual police to patrol the virtual streets. I nominate Keelty to run it.
posted by beelzbubba at 12:34 AM on July 13, 2007

Our environmental scanning tells us that even with some of the cloning of human beings - not necessarily in Australia but in those countries that are going to allow it - you could have potentially a cloned part-person, part-robot," he said.

environmental scanning? does it zoom in when you say "Enhance"?


Criminals could use technology to commit crime but also to improve their ability to communicate secretly, he said.

oh, they already do! In fact, I'm using technology developed by Fra Alessandro da Spina of Pisa, or possibly Roger Bacon, to type this message RIGHT NOW. We'd better crack down hard on technology. You know, for the children.
posted by dubold at 11:08 AM on July 13, 2007

These robots will be useless without LOVE. From now on...that will be my job .....as the Robot Whisperer!
posted by doctorschlock at 11:40 AM on July 13, 2007