Lecture 5A - Telepresence the art of mediated touch

Robert Heinlein : Waldo (1940)

• Protagonist have diss ease that causes extreme muscle weakness

• He invent device, Waldo, to let him live in outer space, easier on the muscles

• Waldo is a tele-remote device that lets him remote control other devices back on Earth

• Early imagination of remote control devices we have

Revelance of Waldo (1940)

• NASA has remote control robots

• Human desire for improvements to our lives

How did we become “post-human”

• according to Hailey, the turning point of post-human is through interface and network

• Instability to tell AI from humans

Alan Turning’s “Turning test” : Thought experiment

• thought experiment

• Assume a human is behind the computer

• AI also behind the computer

• They are communicating through networks

• Human questioner chatting to both parties

• Test to see if we can tell are we talking to a human, or AI

“Turning Test” today

• current AI all passed the Turning Test

• In the original conception, Turning said we should also test gender of person with Turning Test

N Katherine Hayles on Turning’s Inclusion of gender

• gender in Turning Test is deliberate

• The screen stands in for technology for human interacting through the screen

• You can’t tell human and machine apart with text on a screen

• Physical and digital avatar can be connected via technology

• Humans now technically cyborgs

The Turning Test created fundamental shift

• thinking is no longer a question of who

• Identified a moment when technology separated the body from the mind

• Machines can think

• Identity is no longer confined to our physical bodies but also digital patterns

• We are becoming post-humans

The Liberal Humanist Subject

• unified but body-centered

• Autonomous free will

• Distinct from tools and machines

• Mind and body unified whole

• One nothing to our environment

The Post-Human

• we are still flesh and bone

• Network is extension of our central nervous system

• Information pattern > Body

• Body easily extended, not distinct from technology/ tools

• Our thought and intention are de-centered, intertwined in our environment

Can the mind be separated from the body? - According to Shannon

• defines information as a probability function

• No dimensions, no materiality, and no necessary connection with meaning

• It is a pattern, not a presence

Can the mind be separated from the body? - Hayles concern with Shannon

• her nightmare

  • is a culture inhabited by post-humans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than ground of being

• Her dream

  • Is a versions of post-human that

  • Embraces the possibility of information technology

  • Not seduced by unlimited power and is embodied immortality

  • Recognize and celebrates finite as a condition of human being

  • Understand human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity which we depend for suvival

What does Hayles’ mean with her dream, and nightmare of post-humanism?

• post-humanism extended us as we evolved beyond our biological bodies

• Identify = patterning of information

• Inevitable, no going back

• We are already cyborgs

• Serious downside = disembodiement

• Downsides is systematic devalcualtion of messy bodily reality, and treating bodies as a data point

A possible response to contest the fantasy of disembodiement - Hayles

• associates disembodiment to enlightenment

• Treat body with disdain and as a whole

Legal Tender

• website that lets you control a robotic device

• Give personal information to websites

• Website gives you option to

  • Observe $1 bill

  • Puncture the bill

  • Make changes to the bill (stain, burn, abrasion)

• See result of your actions

• Framed as a psychological experiment

• Goldberg and Paulos found a significant amount people didn’t believe it took place

Types of signs: Icon, index, symbol

• Peirce was considered to be one of the co-founders of the field of semiotics

• The main difference the three types of sign is the connection/relationship between the signifier and the signified

• Icon

• Symbol

• Index

Icon

• representation through resemblance, likeness

• E.g.

  • signifer => icon of orange

  • Sign => symbol of orange

  • Signified => orange fruit

Symbol

Representation by shared knowledge

Index

• representation by casual or material connection

• Show evidence of object being signified

• E.g.

  • Orange zest is indexical to orange

  • Footprint is indexical to foot

  • Bullet hole is indexical to bullet

  • Photo of CMC is indexical to location of CMC

• pre-digital times photography and film are art forms that create indexical images

Meaning:

• index represent object and the senses and memory of the person observing it

• Index serves as as sign of the object

What is telepresence?

• remote manipulation of robots by means of high-quality sensory feedback

• Condition of being both here and there whether mediated by computer networks, or satellite link

• Feeling of being present at remote location by means of raft-time telecommunications devices

Marvin Minsk, pioneer of robotics’s theory

• use robots to manipulate real world

• Pictured we can put solar panels in orbit surrounding earth to beam power back to earth

Jon Dee

• a mystic and official court magical of Elizabeth 1 who does fortune telling

• Lived during a time when fields of knowledge aren’t separated. Science mixed with occult

• When occult and scientific knowledge separated we know which occult knowledge is allowed

• Used as crying mirror to talk to ghosts

Douglas Engelbart

• pioneered the idea of networked collaboration

• Researcher at Standford Research Institutide

• Invented the computer mouse and hyperlink

• Demonstrated the NLS (online system) in 1968

• His invention anticipated tele-conferencing, GUI and World Wide Web

2 November, 1936

• BBC’s regular network television service started

• Had BBC television orchestra

• Only broadcasted 30 minutes

• People think long broadcast will make eyes tired and reduced health

TV Broadcast

• artists questioned/played with passive uni-directional communication

• TV’s uncanny confusion => our inability to distinguish between recorded video and live video images

25 June, 1967

• our world the first live satellite television production with many nations involved

• Soviet Union was invited by dropped out

23 December, 1968

Apollo 8’s historic message to earth, broadcast of Earth from the moon

The Viewer sees herself as part of an image of the larger world. She is not separated from it, nor is she fixated on her own singular image [….] She can see but more importantly, she recognises herself as seen by other

We are seen and see others in broadcast

Referent

• Sign

• Referent

• Reference

• The link between symbol and referent is unstable

Sign

The material level, the word, the sound, the image

Reference

• the idea that is in the head or heads

• between the ears

• Both individual and social

• Both private and out in the world

Referent

The thing being referred to

10 June, 2001

Google earth existed

Operational Images by Harun Farocki

• images produced by and for machines

• The human eyes is cut out of the loop

• Machines and their images are doing things in the world