Exploring the future of the human-machine relationship

What if machines could think?

Theme:

Proposal

Controller - for the electric wheelchair

• Path/Maze – correct path only be “seen” by the computer• Lights indicate when the user has followed the correct path.

Electric Wheelchair

- User presses button to receive navigational assistance

-Relays information to the user- personifies the wheelchair

See if you can work with the computer to navigate the invisible maze

Overview

• The human-machine relationship

– When did it start?

– Where is it now?

– What is it’s future?

– Precedents of our project

When did it start?

• A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity

• Machines owe their lineage to the advent of the first tools, which used the energy provided by humans (or gravity) to perform tasks.

Simple Machines:

• Over time, and with new forms of energy, the sophistication and complexity of machines has increased.

When did it start? (con’t)

• Parallel with the increased complexity of machines runs the increased complexity of our relationship with them.

• The more human-like and intelligent the machine, then the more we relate and bond to it.

• We design machines as much as they design us.

– Machines influence the world we are in and therefore influence our identities.

– Eg. Machines assist in food production, allowing us more leisure time.

Where is it now?

• The sophistication of machines is incredible.

• They are able to perform human tasks but at greater speeds with greater accuracy (and less complaints!).

Where is it now? (con’t)• We are at a point where we are forming more meaningful relationships

with machines.

• This is due to their increased intelligence and their increased human-like behaviours.

• It is clear from these examples that we can (and are) foster human connections with machines that act and behave with human-like behaviours.

What is the future?

• As machines become even more intelligent and more human-like how will we interact with them?

• Will we have emotional connections that rival or exceed our emotional connections with other humans?

• Will machines ultimately become exactly like us or will they even become us?

• Philosophies of Artificial Intelligence & Technology Futurists seek to answer exactly these type of questions

What is the future? (con’t)

• Artificial Intelligence: Influences and Philosophies– Computing Power

Law of accelerating returns (Ray Kurzweil)

Moores lawnumber of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuitincreases exponentially.

What is the future? (con’t)• Can we achieve artificial intelligence?

– Many of the machines that we have shown you previously display forms of what easily can be regarded as intelligence.

– For this reason John Searle defined two different forms of AI:

– "strong AI": A physical symbol system can have a mind and mental states (consciousness)

– "weak AI": A physical symbol system can act intelligently (problem solving)

– “traditionally, emotions have been seen as the antithesis of intelligence” – Michio Kaku

– “our emotional intelligence, in my opinion, is the cutting edge of human intelligence” – Ray Kurzweil

What is the future? (con’t)• Computational neuroscience - Brain Simulation

"if the nervous system obeys the laws of physics and chemistry, which we have every reason to suppose it does, then .... we ... ought to be able to reproduce the behavior of the nervous system with some physical device." - Marvin Minsky

– Advancements in brain scanning technologies such as MRI’s have allowed for a greater understanding of the brain

– Jeff Hawkings» The human processing system and computer processing systems are

fundamentally different.» This is why problems we find hard, such as mathematical theorems, a computer

finds easy.» And problems we find easy, such as pattern recognition, a computer finds hard.» If we can replicate the way in which the brain processes information then we

might be able to replicate human intelligence, emotions, feelings etc.

What is the future? (con’t)

Blue Brain • aims to construct a biophysically

detailed simulation of a human brain down to the molecular level.

• The initial goal of the project, completed in December 2006, was the simulation of a rat neocortical column.

• The neocortical column is about 2 mm tall, has a diameter of 0.5 mm and contains about 60,000 neurons in humans (10,000 in rats)

Numenta• Numenta is creating a new type

of computing technology modeled on the structure and operation of the neocortex.

• The technology is called Hierarchical Temporal Memory, or HTM

• An HTM system is not programmed in the traditional sense; instead it is trained.

• Sensory data is applied to the bottom of the hierarchy of an HTM system and the HTM automatically discovers the underlying patterns in the sensory input.

What is the future? (con’t)• Rodney Brooks (we are not special!)

– When you break us down to our fundamental components we are no different to machines.

– We are both made from molecules which interact together according to well defined laws.

– Therefore, if we can replicate the structure of a brain from the molecular level, then there is no reason why machines can’t have a conscience, emotions and feelings.

• But will we become machines?– “Robots will become more biological and we will become machine.”

BioTechnology– Cochlear Implants– Retinal Implants– Memory Implants?– Leg replacements?– Brain Transplants?

works by directly stimulating any functioning auditory nerves inside the cochlea with an electric field.

Precedents of our project

Sleep Waking Fish Bird Helpless Robot

Helpless Robot

• The Helpless Robot is an artificial personality that responds to the behavior of humans by using its electronic voice which speaks a total of 512 phrases.

• The speech that is delivered depends on its present and past experience of "emotions" ranging from boredom, frustration, arrogance, and overstimulation.

• Norman White - “I've attempted to create an artificial personality. It is the most literal in a long line of works where I've tried to give blatantly electro-mechanical systems a "life of their own"

Sleep Waking

What was the idea behind the work?

• "Sleep Waking" acts as a way to "play-back" dreams. • hope to investigate one of the possible human-robot relationships. What was the motivation for producing it? • More and more robotic technology is being integrated into our society.• This furthers our experience of reality through agency. • Robots already go beyond the limitations of our bodies. • The robot is destined to be essential to our society. • What will humanity’s relationship be to the robot in the future? How was it implemented/performed?

• Record brainwave activity and eye movements during REM sleep,• This determines the robot’s behaviour, movements and head positions

Fish Bird

What was the idea behind the work?• Artwork that investigates the dialogical possibilities between

two robots.• It confronts major continuing issues and concerns regarding

interaction through the human/machine interface.• The work both requires and fosters notions of trust and shared intimacy 

How was it implemented/performed?• It uses wheelchairs that can communicate with each other and with their audience through

the modalities of movement and written text.• The manner in which the participants move in the space, their proximity to the robots, and

the time spent with them determines the behaviour of the robots towards them. • Human participants try to read the ‘body language’ of the robots and visa versa.• a lack of audience perception of the underlying technological apparatus focuses attention

on the poetics and aesthetics of the artwork, and promotes a deeper psychological and/or experimental involvement of the participant/viewer.

Conclusion• In our project we are aiming to explore our (not too

distant) future relationships with machines

• We aim to do this by simulating a situation in which a machine displays independent thought’s and actions.

• By being confronted with this "reality" we hope that the participants will gain insights into the future of human-machine relationships.

• This should encourage them to reflect upon their own

personal emotions and attitudes towards machines as well as their thoughts on what makes us human.