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Re:Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access by quasque on Tuesday May 06, 2014 @08:25PM (#7707973)
But if it was run by a benevolent robot intelligence rather than humans, it would probably work out really well.

Indeed I think it would be about as close to utopian as we're ever going to get.

Re:Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access by learc83 on Tuesday May 06, 2014 @08:42PM (#7708034)
Yeah, but who get's to decide what's "benevolent" in the first place?

One man's benevolent ruler is another's tyrannical despot.

Re:Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access by quasque on Tuesday May 06, 2014 @09:17PM (#7708128)
That's a very interesting point. Perhaps, to ensure that a range of ethical frameworks have been taken into consideration (each with their varying ideas of what benevolence really means) a more equitable situation would be a plurality of utopias each with its own ruling AI? And free movement of individual humans to whichever aligns best to their own personal code of ethics.
Re:Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access by brc on Tuesday May 06, 2014 @11:43PM (#7708506)
Or, you could try a liberal democracy with a strong constitution and separation of powers, based on common law and strong rights of individuals.
Re:Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access by quasque on Wednesday May 07, 2014 @12:58AM (#7708673)
If such a system was incorruptible, constructed such that it would be impossible for a small group of individuals to hoard the majority of the global wealth, and guaranteed a pleasant and equitable standard of living for all - then it might work.

Unfortunately, the current implementations of this ideal fall far short.