Though non-fiction, I noted some years ago that parts of Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom would make great material for a feature film, that would bring the risks of AI to wide attention. Eg the stuff about ingenious ways a superintelligent AI might break out of an oracle situation, or persuade someone to help it manufacture a deadly virus.
Animals and even insects could be prosecuted in Europe up to the 18th century, presumably counting as persons. Their crimes might include killing someone or damaging property.
One notable 16th century lawyer, Barthélemy de Chasseneuz, made his name by his eloquent defence of rats that had eaten the local crop of barley. He also successfully defended some woodworm that had disobeyed a summons to court.
There is an interesting but uncommon adjective ‘bluff’ (crucially different in meaning from the noun & verb) which describes someone who is honest and lacking in grace, but in a pleasant way. Which highlights the small distinction between being graceless and unpleasant. You can imagine some children or uneducated adults being bluff - plain-speaking, but clearly not trying to be, nor particularly seeming, rude. It would need more thought to figure out just how this works.
I’m not saying I advocate being bluff, but I can see some things in its favour. Being honest and clearly understood while also being graceful is indeed a difficult skill, often involving culture-specific subtleties that don’t always work.
Graceful yet honest communication between Britons (such as me) often involves a level of subtlety and indirectness, such as understatement, that is lost on foreigners. Eg ‘It’s not ideal’ can be used to describe anything from a lukewarm cup of tea to the outbreak of World War 3.
Bluffness is more direct than this, and so more likely to be understood.
Grokipedia (and URL), not Grokopedia
But note these drawbacks with Pomodoro (and my alternative solution):
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FDCJ2BfAT9qJGrpFa/what-s-wrong-with-pomodoro
Somewhat related to 5 is the real but much underused word ‘velleity’ (which I use a lot), meaning an extremely slight preference or desire, so slight that you can’t be bothered to do anything to fulfill it.
(Eg watching rubbishy TV late at night, very slightly inclined to change channel but not enough to press the button on the remote.)
Somewhat related to 1 is a word for being stuck thinking how to express a complicated thought (rather than choosing between thoughts). Not quite the same as tongue-tied as this involves intense thinking (rather than eg being nervous).
(Example: some trains from Cambridge, UK to London are fast, some are slow (stopping at many stations). Sometimes there are two trains on adjacent platforms, a slow train leaving first, then a fast train leaving second (but often arriving first). Many a time I have observed passengers (and myself experienced) going up to a staff member and then freezing while trying to form the relevant question, viz: I’m going to London, so in order to arrive sooner, should I get on this slow train that’s about to leave or the fast train leaving later?)
Indeed, I had similar thoughts but didn’t type them up.
In any case I suspect it was a situation in which the cost-benefit analysis would show high risk-aversion (hence probable over-reaction to avoid under-reaction) was justified.
IIRC however I heard it said that the Y2K bug didn’t cause serious problems even in countries where there wasn’t much effort to deal with it, and hence the doomsayers’ predictions were exaggerated (in that much lesser mitigation efforts would have served almost as well). I don’t know if this is true though
Something something Goodhart’s Law - or rather, hurting the unstated real goals
Something something AGI