"WHO can think or WHAT can think?" -Alan Turing
The 'imitation game,' was a study done by Alan Turing in 1950 to see if a person could tell the difference between an interaction with a machine and an interaction with a human. One of the entities told the truth in order to help the guesser guess correctly and the other sought to mislead the person. The study's job was to pose questions that 'can distinguish verbal performance from embodied reality.'
Augmented reality outside the body
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So we know that augmented reality is "an artificial environment created through the combination of real-world and computer-generated data," and that it can be incorporated into classrooms and museums and can make games more interactive and interesting, but what does it mean for us, as augmented reality users?
Better yet, we need to ask ourselves if we even are users. Is it the who or the what that is being used? Or is this technology using us? Is there even a separation between us and technology?
Let's look at some augmented reality technologies used outside the body.
(Clicking the photo will bring you to a corresponding website)
Better yet, we need to ask ourselves if we even are users. Is it the who or the what that is being used? Or is this technology using us? Is there even a separation between us and technology?
Let's look at some augmented reality technologies used outside the body.
(Clicking the photo will bring you to a corresponding website)
From all of the things here, you can see that the use of augmented reality is spread and scattered into different aspects of life. Games, music, sports, fashion, biology, learning, and film can all used augmented reality as a tool to immerse a person in with technology. Instead of a flat screen and text, we now how have simulated 3D images (etc) that allows us a closer connection to technology.
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According to Spatial Augmented Reality: Merging Real and Virtual Worlds by Oliver Bimber and Ramesh Raskar, in augmented reality real environment isn't entirely supressed. Which means that the synthetic part interacts within a real environment, creating an augmented or artificial reality.
What happens when the synthetic part becomes a part of the real environment? Or real body?
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"If you cannot tell the intelligent machine from the intelligent human, your failure proves, that machines can think."
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"If you cannot tell the intelligent machine from the intelligent human, your failure proves, that machines can think."
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Augmented reality as part of the body
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With technology developing as quickly as it is and its incorporation into the classroom (see The Classroom), it's plausible that the seemingly science fiction idea of cyborgs and virtual realities could one day be real things. In fact, in Bill Joy's essay, "Why the future doesn't need us," Joy discusses a scenario in which, "scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them," and "all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary." He thinks one of two things might occur.
One, humans remain control over their robotic counterparts, or the machines begin to think for themselves without human involvement.
A cyborg is a hybrid between a biological body and a cybernetic/electronic/artificial body, and while it seems like a stretch to think about how something so futuristic could augment our reality in 2012, it seems a bit more real when you look at the scientific advancements made.
The ideas of cyborgs and a robot-seized world makes the idea of augmented reality look like the plot to every sci-fi robot movie, but Joy isn't far off the mark when he says that humans may become completely dependent on robotics and technology.
One, humans remain control over their robotic counterparts, or the machines begin to think for themselves without human involvement.
A cyborg is a hybrid between a biological body and a cybernetic/electronic/artificial body, and while it seems like a stretch to think about how something so futuristic could augment our reality in 2012, it seems a bit more real when you look at the scientific advancements made.
The ideas of cyborgs and a robot-seized world makes the idea of augmented reality look like the plot to every sci-fi robot movie, but Joy isn't far off the mark when he says that humans may become completely dependent on robotics and technology.
When we look back at Turing's experiments, we need to ask ourselves what it would mean if robots were able to perfectly emulate and imitate a human. What does this mean for social interaction? If a robot is just as good of a friend or companion as a real human, why bother knowing the difference? If robots would be better employees and loyal partners, would humans become superfluous? And what about cyborgs? If a hybrid between a man and a machine would be an acceptable balance between the two extremes of human and robot, where does the robot and end the human begin? Should the cyborg's thoughts come from a human brain or a computer hard drive? What do these possiblities mean?
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Obviously this Michael Jackson-looking robot isn't a cyborg, but the idea isn't far off. It's a machine (a completely artificial body) made to look like a biological body and it's purpose is to act like a flesh and blood teacher.
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Let's bring it back a bit.
Obviously we're not all walking around with robot bits poking out of our arms, but it's easy to imagine a world in which humans are completely one with technology. Just look at pop culture and literature:
Obviously we're not all walking around with robot bits poking out of our arms, but it's easy to imagine a world in which humans are completely one with technology. Just look at pop culture and literature:
Doctor Who's Cybermen
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Doctor Who's Daleks
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Star Wars' Darth Vader
The virtual reality of the world Veelox, from the
Pendragon book series |
Tony Stark's transformation into Iron Man
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It's not so far off really, to claim that we're one with technology, even here in 2012.
Just look at Siri, Apple's 'intelligent personal assistant' software. We interact with it, ask it questions, and it responds quicker and more efficiently than typing into a search engine. True, Siri isn't technically attached to the body, but do you ever go anywhere without your phone? Mobile phones connect us to each other, to Facebook, Twitter, maps and directions, and the entire web. If you have an iPhone 4S or higher, Siri's right there in your pocket. But is Siri smart? Are Siri's cybernetic connections similar to the human brain?
To get smarter, we learn. We could ask ourselves what learning is. It seems easy enough, as dictionary.com defines learning as, "the act or process of acquiring knowledge and skill," and "the modification of behavior through practice, training, or experience."
When you put it that way though, Siri can learn. It has updates, incorporating new data and downloads, and that's an acquisition of knowledge...
So what then?
Just look at Siri, Apple's 'intelligent personal assistant' software. We interact with it, ask it questions, and it responds quicker and more efficiently than typing into a search engine. True, Siri isn't technically attached to the body, but do you ever go anywhere without your phone? Mobile phones connect us to each other, to Facebook, Twitter, maps and directions, and the entire web. If you have an iPhone 4S or higher, Siri's right there in your pocket. But is Siri smart? Are Siri's cybernetic connections similar to the human brain?
To get smarter, we learn. We could ask ourselves what learning is. It seems easy enough, as dictionary.com defines learning as, "the act or process of acquiring knowledge and skill," and "the modification of behavior through practice, training, or experience."
When you put it that way though, Siri can learn. It has updates, incorporating new data and downloads, and that's an acquisition of knowledge...
So what then?
Augmented reality can also take reality and put it into fiction.
Augmented reality can take fiction and put it into reality.
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"...the erasure of embodiment is performed so that "intelligence" becomes a property of the formal manipulation of symbols rather than enaction in the human life-world."
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"...the erasure of embodiment is performed so that "intelligence" becomes a property of the formal manipulation of symbols rather than enaction in the human life-world."
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After being infected and under the influence of alien flower spores, Captain Kirk insults Spock and they go at it (with AMAZING special effects *facepalm*). TREKKIES! Do not fear! I'm not saying Spock's a cyborg. All I'm saying is that Spock, (like Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories, (who, by the way, was the first to say Spock's famous quote)) has difficulty separating his logical, almost computer-like logical mind with his emotional human side.
Even though Kirk's words are not his own (at least on the conscious level) his words ring true for some when it comes to the subject of augmented reality and the idea of cyborgs. But Spock's an alien from the planet Vulcan, so it might be hard for us to relate to him. |
This past July, Steve Mann, a Canadian inventor and professor, was attacked while wearing his augmented reality/digital glasses. The best part? His glasses allowed him to get exact photographs of his attackers because the glasses had the camera imbedded in them. (You can read the full article here: Steve Mann, Inventor, Allegedly Attacked At Paris McDonald's For Wearing Digital Eye Glass ) |
A real-life cyborg
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Oscar Pistorius, otherwise known as 'The Blade Runner,' is now a world famous athlete. He's the fastest man with no legs after his double-knee amputations.
He runs with prosthetic 'carbon-fiber,' J-shaped, extensions called the 'Flex-Foot Cheetah.'
His athleticism cannot be denied, but his prosthetics have made him controversial. He was denied entrance into the Olympics until the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, where he became the first amputee runner.
Let's have a nice long look at Robocop |
What? Robocop? Really?
YES, Robocop. Not only do you need to educate yourself because there's a new movie coming out in 2013 (or 2014, they can't make up their minds) but he has everything to do with our discussion of augmented reality. |
What does Robocop have to do with augmented reality?
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Before he was Robocop, he was Officer Alex Murphy. But after he is killed on the job, an organization called 'Omni Consumer Products' harvests Murphy's body parts to create Robocop.
Unknown to the Omni Consumer Products organization, Murphy's memories still reside in Robocop's circuitry. Murphy is Robocop, but Robocop is Murphy; he is man and machine. He becomes a cyborg.
In a movie review taken from Wikipedia, Darian Leader says: "The Robocop is a family man who is destroyed by thugs, then rebuilt as a robot by science. His son always insists, before the transformation, that his human father perform the gun spinning trick he sees on TV. When the robot can finally do this properly, he is no longer just a male biological body: he is a body plus machinery, a body which includes within it the symbolic circuitry of science. Old heroes had bits of metal outside them (knights), but modern heroes have bits of metal inside them. To be a man today thus involves this kind of real incorporation of symbolic properties."
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"... it is important to recognize that the construction of the posthuman does not require the subject to be a literal cyborg."
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"... it is important to recognize that the construction of the posthuman does not require the subject to be a literal cyborg."
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Strangely enough, the comic book hero Robocop leads me to talk about N. Katherine Hayles, this old gal below. In her book, How We Became Post Human: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, Hayles argues that human intelligence is co-produced with intelligent machines. This means we are no longer our 'natural' selves, and instead grow with technology as extensions of it.
N. Katherine Hayles discusses the posthuman view.
Posthuman View:
1. Informational pattern is valued greater than material instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life. 2. Consideration of consciousness. 3. Thinks of the body as an original body for us to manipulate and any adaptation, replacement, or continuation of the body becomes an extension of it. 4. Human beings themselves can be 'seamlessly articulated' with intelligent machines.' |
What Does the Posthuman View Mean?
Basically what Hayles is saying is that today's society sees the material as less important. Things that are informational or abstract are considered more important than real palpable things. Hayles would argue against the idea of cyborgs because they are abstract, obstruct with human consciousness, and that the body isn't something used as a tool. |
Arguments Against the Posthuman View
In his paper, "Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up" Nick Bostrom discusses the benefits of being posthuman. 1. Humanity has advanced technologically in spite of anti-technological tendencies in human nature, and that technological advancement historically has been due more to the intrinsic utility of technological inventions and the competitive advantages they sometimes bestow on their users than to any native preference among the majority of mankind for pushing boundaries and welcoming innovation. 2. Posthuman life would be beneficial in heathspan, cognition, and emotion |
Hans Moravec, a futurist, disagrees entirely with Hayles. Moravec is excited about possiblities of post human living and believes that artificial life will begin in only about twenty years time.
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"The human essence is freedom from the wills of other, and freedom is a function of possession."
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Here's a parting thought:
Hayles says: "If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival."
Ask yourself, are augmented reality, artificial life, and cyborgs real concerns of yours? How will they change your life and the way that you live? Will they make your life easier, or is there a moral issue here? Regardless of whether or not we see cyborgs in our time, the idea has been around since the computer age, and will be around until someone finally implements them. How you live now will decide whether or not cyborgs and artificial life will shape our reality for the better or for the worse.