February 2008

A couple of links today to PBS articles that look at religion and cinema.

• Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER . God and Hollywood . February 22, 2008 | PBS
• Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . WEB EXCLUSIVE. Oscar Watch: Religion And The Movies . February 22, 2008 | PBS

The website Edge: The Third Culture recently asked the question “WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?” to a range of commentators. Martin Rees (President, The Royal Society; Professor of Cosmology & Astrophysics; Master, Trinity College, University of Cambridge) responded with interesting short piece - We Should Take the ‘Posthuman’ Era Seriously.

You can also listen to him as part of the panel on the most recent episode of BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time on the concept of the Multiverse.

Kevin Kelly ponders the result of including a computer in the ’social space’ that is the kitchen over at Conceptual Trends and Current Topics - The Kitchen Computer. It’s something I’ve thought about as we think about rearranging things in the house as our what we need to do with the internal space changes.

Sentient Developments points to a special report in IEEE Spectrum on the current state of prosthetic arms. See IEEE Spectrum: Special Report: Prosthetic Arms with video here.

A new documentary about Mac users and their love affair with the Apple brand. See Doco puts Macheads under the microscope - Stuff.co.nz. Trailer available here and movie web site at MacHEADS.

Related link: May the Force of the Operating System be with You: Macintosh Devotion as Implicit Religion | Sociology of Religion

PowerUp the Game is a venture into creating an engaging 3D world to allow people (particularly children) to engage with environmental images. Looks interesting, though the specs to run it may be beyond everyone’s PC (and there’s no Mac version either).

Hat tip to: Derek’s Blog: Gaming with an environmental focus

Related links at Greenflame · Serious Games, Digital Storytelling and Public Perceptions

Interesting short article commenting on research presented at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science conference which identifies religion as far more significant a factor in the US than in Europe. In part, it’s due to the conflation of nanotechnology with other things like biotechnology and the sense the people are ‘playing God’ when seeking to manipulate a nano-scale world.

See Religion colors Americans’ views of nanotechnology

I went to hear Prof Maggie Boden speak tonight on Computer companions: Are they possible?. The main thrust of the talk was that computer systems (robotic and simulations) are being created to serve three main types of roles:

1. Physical interaction - such as robots that are used in caregiving or domestic roles: Robo-Monk and Robot nurse will care for Japan’s lonely old people
2. Conversationalists - providing some sort of interactive conversation as part of doing tasks
3. Confidants - related to the above, but able to engage in conversation in some way based upon building up a knowledge of a person over time: such as being able to listen to, analyze and draw upon the stories that have been told it the system previously.

Boden argued that these sort of systems are in various stages of development now (particularly for commercial deployment), and that they raise a whole range of questions that go beyond the purely technical ones of whether or not functional ’sociable’ robots/system are possible.

1. Could a ‘computer companion’ really do x (where x might be gossip, feel sympathy, express humour)?
2. Could a ‘computer companion’ really be made to appear to do x?
3. Would a human being believe that a ‘computer companion’ could do x?
4. Would we want (3) to happen?
5. How might (3) affect human-human relationships?

These are similar questions to some that have come up in my own research so they weren’t a surprise to me, but given the discussion after the talk they were new to some there.

Update: Radio New Zealand’s Sunday Morning programme had an interview with Margaret Boden at the weekend which covered some of this material. You can listen for a while here (MP3).

Related material - a quick selection of papers, essays and books by Boden that I’ve found interesting:

Boden, Margaret A. 1985. Wonder and Understanding. Zygon 20 (4):391-400.
______. 1987. Artificial intelligence and natural man. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books.
______, ed. 1990. The philosophy of artificial intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
______. 1995. Artificial intelligence and human dignity. In Nature’s Imagination: The frontiers of scientific vision, edited by J. Cornwell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
______. 1998. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence 103 (1-2):347-356.
______. 2005. Ethical Issues of AI and Biotechnology. In Creative Creatures: Values and Ethical Issues in Theology, Science and Technology, edited by U. Görman, W. B. Drees and H. Meisinger. London: T & T Clark.

Margaret Boden is also speaking on What is creativity? : Wednesday 20 February 5.30pm, at the Gus Fisher Gallery as part of her time at the University of Auckland.

See also: Exploring Our Matrix: Robots in the News

No blogging rhythm at the moment. I imagine in a few weeks time things will get more regular again. Until then posting will be intermittent.

Yesterday we all went out for a family trip to Whatipu, one of the West Auckland beaches. It was a pretty grey and overcast day, but the temperature was warm, and the company we met up with was good. Sort of a rite of passage for us all - the last act before our new routine start tomorrow (Philip’s started school, Kim’s started her new job, and tomorrow I start mine). From tomorrow, all is different (but hopefully still as good as it’s been).

The New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology last weekend was nice and stimulating. Some good plenary sessions, entertaining (and somewhat disturbing) public lectures, a wide variety of papers, and interesting people. These included:

• A really interesting talk from Brad Partridge, PhD student from the University of Queensland, who’s looking at public perceptions of life extension technologies, including responses from transhumanist and conservative Christian groups. Related links at: Who wants to live forever? Community attitudes to life extension - UQ News Online - The University of Queensland and Eternal life ‘not so appealing’ | NEWS.com.au
• An interesting but really quite disturbing paper on people who want to reshape their bodies by intentional amputation of limbs (even to the state of paraplegia). Relevant in parts give this current discussion (Greenflame · Therapy or enhancement in sport?)
• A broader range of topics and issues being discussed than I anticipated - including a common theme of social justice running through many of the talks, but kicked off by the first plenary talk by Howard Brody

It’s Shrove Tuesday already so I’ll be making pancakes tonight while we watch NZ play England at 20/20 cricket on the TV. Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, is also Waitangi Day here in NZ so all six of us will be off work and school for the day.

Over the years I’ve done various different things for the season of Lent (see here). This year I haven’t really got anything planned beyond a simple Bible reading plan and sending off for the (free) MDG praying cards from The Social Justice Commission of the Anglican Church. With all the changes coming up in the next month or so, keeping it simple is preferable.