This link has been bookmarked by 5 people . It was first bookmarked on 26 Aug 2007, by eyal matsliah.
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03 Oct 11
gthaberlachChristof Koch and Francis Crick speculated that the key to understanding consciousness was global communication: How do neurons in the diverse parts of the brain manage to coordinate despite the limited connectivity?
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04 Aug 09
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26 Aug 07
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ANDY CLARK
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, Edinburgh University
The quick-thinking zombies inside us
So much of what we do, feel, think and choose is determined by non-conscious, automatic uptake of cues and information.
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SHERRY TURKLE
Psychologist, MIT; Author, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
After several generations of living in the computer culture, simulation will become fully naturalized. Authenticity in the traditional sense loses its value, a vestige of another time.
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I have long believed that in the culture of simulation, the notion of authenticity is for us what sex was to the Victorians — "threat and obsession, taboo and fascination." I have lived with this idea for many years, yet at the museum, I find the children's position startling, strangely unsettling. For these children, in this context, aliveness seems to have no intrinsic value. Rather, it is useful only if needed for a specific purpose.
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The woman's sense of being understood is based on the ability of computational objects like Paro to convince their users that they are in a relationship. I call these creatures (some virtual, some physical robots) "relational artifacts." Their ability to inspire relationship is not based on their intelligence or consciousness, but on their ability to push certain "Darwinian" buttons in people (making eye contact, for example) that make people respond as though they were in relationship. For me, relational artifacts are the new uncanny in our computer culture — as Freud once put it, the long familiar taking a form that is strangely unfamiliar. As such, they confront us with new questions.
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What does this deployment of "nurturing technology" at the two most dependent moments of the life cycle say about us? What will it do to us? Do plans to provide relational robots to attend to children and the elderly make us less likely to look for other solutions for their care? People come to feel love for their robots, but if our experience with relational artifacts is based on a fundamentally deceitful interchange, can it be good for us? Or might it be good for us in the "feel good" sense, but bad for us in our lives as moral beings?
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Relationships with robots bring us back to Darwin and his dangerous idea: the challenge to human uniqueness. When we see children and the elderly exchanging tendernesses with robotic pets the most important question is not whether children will love their robotic pets more than their real life pets or even their parents, but rather, what will loving come to mean?
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16 Sep 06
Christopher Allen"I find the children's position startling, strangely unsettling. For these children, in this context, aliveness seems to have no intrinsic value. Rather, it is useful only if needed for a specific purpose. "If you put in a robot instead of the live turtle
simulation authenticity aliveness relational artifacts nurturing technology uniqueness sherryturkle turtle darwin culture robots
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