Comments on: AI, Cyborgs and Robots http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/2011/11/16/ai-cyborgs-and-robots/ MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:02:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Austin Tate http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/2011/11/16/ai-cyborgs-and-robots/#comment-240 Austin Tate Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:25:03 +0000 http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/?p=12990#comment-240 I might argue that the information is triggering a response in your corporeal enclosure. It would be a different response in another body with different properties, but the information itself might be the same. It could be passed on and experience by exciting the right receptors and chemicals in another body without that body being physically present. I understand that you can train pain responses out of a body, and feel it differently depending on a wide range of environmental factors, including under the influence of pain killing drugs. I am not saying that the body does not provide a "context" for acting on and responding to the signals. But would argue that this can be felt remotely and potentially by robotic systems. I might argue that the information is triggering a response in your corporeal enclosure. It would be a different response in another body with different properties, but the information itself might be the same. It could be passed on and experience by exciting the right receptors and chemicals in another body without that body being physically present. I understand that you can train pain responses out of a body, and feel it differently depending on a wide range of environmental factors, including under the influence of pain killing drugs.

I am not saying that the body does not provide a “context” for acting on and responding to the signals. But would argue that this can be felt remotely and potentially by robotic systems.

]]> By: Siân Bayne http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/2011/11/16/ai-cyborgs-and-robots/#comment-239 Siân Bayne Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:38:56 +0000 http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/?p=12990#comment-239 But isn't the argument that information isn't 'carried' so much as generated in the process of a body's interaction with an environment? So if I touch a cut lemon with a cut on my finger the information I then 'carry' about the lemon (pain) is very different from the information someone else 'carries' who has touched it with intact skin. Maybe not a great example, but doesn't that view work against the idea of information 'storage' and 'transfer' between bodies/entities? But isn’t the argument that information isn’t ‘carried’ so much as generated in the process of a body’s interaction with an environment? So if I touch a cut lemon with a cut on my finger the information I then ‘carry’ about the lemon (pain) is very different from the information someone else ‘carries’ who has touched it with intact skin. Maybe not a great example, but doesn’t that view work against the idea of information ‘storage’ and ‘transfer’ between bodies/entities?

]]> By: Austin Tate http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/2011/11/16/ai-cyborgs-and-robots/#comment-185 Austin Tate Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:16:02 +0000 http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/?p=12990#comment-185 [Copy of relevant comment from post entitled "Posthuman - Connected"] See Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto http://www.spurse.org/wiki/images/1/14/Haraway,_Companion_Species_Manifesto.pdf and compare to LIREC Future Robot Companions Project http://lirec.eu/project [Copy of relevant comment from post entitled "Posthuman - Connected"]

See Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto
http://www.spurse.org/wiki/images/1/14/Haraway,_Companion_Species_Manifesto.pdf

and compare to LIREC Future Robot Companions Project
http://lirec.eu/project

]]> By: Austin Tate http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/2011/11/16/ai-cyborgs-and-robots/#comment-184 Austin Tate Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:22:39 +0000 http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/?p=12990#comment-184 Thanks Sian. But let me push one step further... as I did not buy Katherine Hayles "argument" (I would call it a simple "assertion") and I thought she was offhand in her remarks on "how... was it possible for someone of Moravec's obvious intelligence to believe...". I did not see a rationale for her dismissal of other thinking that seemed to go beyond her own asserted viewpoint. I would have preferred to see some argumentation from her on how the "context" of a "body" provides some defining characteristics for how knowledge is used when so embodied. That could have been interesting with respect to education in both face-to-face and distance learning forms. By discussing an embodied context for knowledge she might have been able to argue what is it about a (human or animal) body that means it can uniquely carry something that another device cannot? If the "information" is "stored" somewhere whether its in mushy grey matter or a computer, or in transit between communication devices... does the information still exist? I agree with you on Frozen Planet. Stunning photography... the narwhals images were really fantastic... but David Attenborough's narration this time is not the best. Thanks Sian.

But let me push one step further… as I did not buy Katherine Hayles “argument” (I would call it a simple “assertion”) and I thought she was offhand in her remarks on “how… was it possible for someone of Moravec’s obvious intelligence to believe…”. I did not see a rationale for her dismissal of other thinking that seemed to go beyond her own asserted viewpoint.

I would have preferred to see some argumentation from her on how the “context” of a “body” provides some defining characteristics for how knowledge is used when so embodied. That could have been interesting with respect to education in both face-to-face and distance learning forms.

By discussing an embodied context for knowledge she might have been able to argue what is it about a (human or animal) body that means it can uniquely carry something that another device cannot? If the “information” is “stored” somewhere whether its in mushy grey matter or a computer, or in transit between communication devices… does the information still exist?

I agree with you on Frozen Planet. Stunning photography… the narwhals images were really fantastic… but David Attenborough’s narration this time is not the best.

]]> By: Siân Bayne http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/2011/11/16/ai-cyborgs-and-robots/#comment-183 Siân Bayne Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:54:52 +0000 http://edc11.education.ed.ac.uk/austint/?p=12990#comment-183 Nice post Austin - I like the idea that focusing discussion on artificial agents helps us work around assumptions of species superiority. I'm not so sure about the notion of the human as soft machine though, as that seems to buy into some of the less critical posthumanist or transhumanist assumptions that information/code is something which it is possible to isolate from its material base, its body (Katherine Hayles' argument). Loved the octopus article. I like work which doesn't assume species superiority but which at the same time doesn't resort to cheesy anthropomorphism (cf the Frozen Planet). That later just seems to me another form of anthropocentrism. Anyway, lots of thoughts from a short post - thanks! Nice post Austin – I like the idea that focusing discussion on artificial agents helps us work around assumptions of species superiority. I’m not so sure about the notion of the human as soft machine though, as that seems to buy into some of the less critical posthumanist or transhumanist assumptions that information/code is something which it is possible to isolate from its material base, its body (Katherine Hayles’ argument).

Loved the octopus article. I like work which doesn’t assume species superiority but which at the same time doesn’t resort to cheesy anthropomorphism (cf the Frozen Planet). That later just seems to me another form of anthropocentrism.

Anyway, lots of thoughts from a short post – thanks!

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