Speakers include but are not limited to: Bernard Stiegler (Université de Technologie Compiègne), Alva Noë (University of California, Berkeley), Barry Smith (University of London), and Güven Güzeldere (Harvard University)

Conference Program

May 25^th  Saturday

9.30 Opening

9.45-11.45 First Session

  Hilmi Demir: “A Recent History of Philosophy of Mind: Convergence Points between Cognitive Sciences and Phenomenology”

 Barış Korkmaz: “Self: Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis”

Aziz Zambak: “Plasticity: The Forgotten Principle in Artificial Intelligence”

11:45-12:00 Coffee Break

12:00-13:00  Second Session

Bernard Stiegler: “From Neuropower to Noopolitics”

13:00-14:30 Lunch Break

14:30:16:30 Third Session

Patrick Roney: “Neuro-aesthetics”

Zeynep Direk: “Neuroethics and the question of alterity”

Stephen Voss: “What do I mean when I say I”

May 26^th Sunday

 9:30-10:30 First Session

Alva Noë: “The Fragile Manifest: Presence in Thought and Experience”

10:30-10:45 Coffee Break 

10:45-12:45 Second Session

Barry Smith: “Are Flavours in the Brain? The Phenomenology and Neuroscience of Flavour Perception”

Güven Güzeldere: “Unity of Consciousness in a Divided Brain?” 

 12:45-14:30 Lunch Break

14:30-16:30 Third Session

Fuat Balcı: “Reward Maximization: The Role of Time and its Psychophysics”

Emrah Aktunç: “On Bickle’s ‘Ruthless Reductionism in Cellular/Molecular Neuroscience: What are they Reducing?”

Hakan Gürvit: “Plasticity: Via Regia to the Neuroscientific Subjectivity”

Venue: Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations – Beyoglu

But the idea of isomorphism applies to lots of things beyond math. Think about language. After all, what is language but an isomorphism between concepts and words?

“The cat is black.” An AI could parse this sentence and decide there’s a noun-adjective relationship between “cat” and “black.” So instead of:

5 × 3

we have:

“cat” (noun-adjective relationship) “black”

To be meaningful, the words and their relationship must map to their corresponding concepts. So instead of:

ln(5) + ln(3)

we have:

cat (has-property relationship) black

And we also need a function to map from the words to the concepts. So instead of:

ln(5) = 1.609438

ln(3) = 1.098612

we have:

MeaningOf(“cat”) = cat

MeaningOf(“black”) = black

All very nice and neat, in this example. But of course, if language was really that easy, we’d have built a strong AI decades ago. It turns out that conceptual isomorphism can be a hell of a lot more complicated than mathematical group isomorphism. For instance…

1. Mathematical group operations (like addition and multiplication) only take two inputs (the two numbers you’re adding or multiplying). But conceptual relationships can take any number of inputs. How many adjectives could we attach to the single noun “cat”?

2. In mathematical groups, there’s a clear distinction between elements (the numbers) and operations (addition, multiplication). But with conceptual relationships, the difference gets blurry. Let’s say cat has a likes relationship with milk, and a hates relationship with bath. But we also know that likes has an is opposite relationship with hates. So now we have relationships, not only between “things,” but between other relationships.

3. In our math example, our mapping function was the natural log, ln(x). Now ln(x) is a neat, precise, clearly-defined function, which takes exactly one input and gives exactly one output. Does language work that way? Ha! Imagine trying to evaluate MeaningOf(“run”). That can mean jogging, or a home run in a baseball game, or a tear in a stocking, or “run” as in “I’ve run out of milk,” or, or, or… What’s worse, these meanings aren’t independent, but have all sorts of relationships to each other; nor are they all equally likely; and the likelihood depends on the context of the word; and the way it depends on context can change over time; and the list of possible meanings can expand or shrink; and the mechanisms by which this occurs are not fully understood…

So, yeah. It gets complicated. But then, that’s why it’s so much fun.

Now we know how conceptual isomorphism (in AI) is like group isomorphism (in math). We’ve even established – dare I say it? – an isomorphism between the two isomorphisms. And now I’m going to stop saying “isomorphism” for a while.

Questions?

That first RE.WORK summit will take place on 19 September, which is also the second day of GigaOM’s Structure:Europe conference in London. The RE.WORK program will kick off with a focus on the areas of: the internet of things, 3D printing, nanotech, artificial intelligence, robotics, computing systems and sensors.

“We’re trying to showcase emerging technologies and breakthrough ideas,” summit founder Nikita Johnson told me. “It’s all about reworking big challenges that we’re facing in the future. We want to bring the technology and science aspect, but with mission of positive impact.”

While the first of these summits will focus on technology, others will have different themes: one in December will deal with urbanization, RE.WORK Health will take place next year, and still others will handle energy, education and the environment. The first three meetings will take place in London, with others set for Dublin, Berlin and other European cities. Events will also be followed up with smaller meet-ups, Johnson added.

Apart from Solve For X, other initiatives in this space include TED, to a certain extent (RE.WORK looks to be a bit more collaborative and interactive) and the engineering-led Global Grand Challenges Summit.

“Do You Love Me,” a film by Cleverbot
dir. Chris R Wilson

Longer than it was wide, at full capacity the mess hall would hold roughly sixty people.  But not since the beginning of the war had there been that many in it at one time.  Several of the over-head lights were out and most of the others winked on and off.  Maintenance had long since been forgotten.

The memories from this room were much sweeter in Gregory’s mind.  It had always been a realm of celebrations; Birthdays, weddings, anniversary parties, all had been in here.  He’d even officiated a wedding or two before the war.

There was a small refrigeration unit behind the buffet counter.  Inside there was a bottle of scotch and a single glass.  He’d been saving the last two fingers of the scotch for this exact day.

“2273,” he said, “A very fine year.”  He put the bottle in his right coat pocket and the glass in his left.  In the hall way bitter memories surfaced.

The war raged for ten years.  Even though the rebels were fighting a losing battle more and more systems defected, as did the few remaining human controlled vessels.  The senate, only caring about its own power, increased the production of A.I. ships.  Their shortsightedness would return to haunt them, not that it mattered now.  Gregory shook his head trying to push the thoughts away.

Gregory’s tour brought him to the med-bay.  It was the room he’d dreaded coming to the most.  Here was where she had breathed her last breath and so had her unborn child, his unborn daughter.

Gregory walked to the bed where his beloved wife, Nora, had died.  He knelt near the head of the bed and laid his face into the pillow.  It was probably just a trick of his mind but he swore he smelled a faint trace of lilac, Nora’s perfume.

“My fault,” he whispered into the pillow, “my fault.”

Nora died of a med-overdose.  According to her note she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, bring a child into the life of a hunted being with no hope of ever having a safe life.  She also knew she could not live with the memory of killing her child. She felt she had only one option, and so she had taken it.  The dwindling supplies aboard the Warsaw made it impossible to counteract the deadly cocktail she had ingested.  When the last molecule of air escaped from her lips, Gregory kissed her lightly on her forehead and then on her swelled stomach.  He left the med-bay and did not set foot in it again, until now.

Gregory inhaled deeply, trying to get the last hint of lilac to stick in his nose.  He kissed the pillow where her head had once lain and the mid-section where the swell of his daughter last rested.

He visited the missile room, armory, cargo bay and his last visit before returning to the command bridge was to his personal quarters, a small room barely big enough for his bed and dresser.  The one thing that set it apart from the rest of the crew quarters was his private bathroom.  Gregory was a man that truly loved to take steaming hot showers before going to bed.  He set the scotch and glass on his dresser top and undressed.  Normally he’d place his clothes in the laundry chute, but this time he threw them on the floor.

In the shower Gregory pressed the control pad and soft piano music played through speakers imbedded in roof.  It had been a long time since the audio had been used and the speakers rattled, giving the music a raspy quality.  The water beat down on him loosening his muscles.  The pain in his hip subsided slightly, not much, but enough that he could bear to stand a little longer.  Gregory tilted his head forward putting it directly under the spray of water.  Another group of bitter thoughts surfaced in his mind.

To be continued…

The robot threat: In the long run, we are telepathic androids

Assuming Moore’s Law keeps churning away at its normal exponential pace, Mr Kevin Drum figures that will happen somewhere around 2040, and it will gradually make our current economic assumptions untenable: most humans will become permanently unemployable since there will be nothing they can do that a robot can’t do better and cheaper

it’s quite likely that the first entity to achieve human-like levels of intelligence will be Google, rather than some metal humanoid.
We’re talking the Borg, not C3P0.

http://www.geekexchange.com/2013-locus-award-nominees-58521.html

I find that certain awards contain a goldmine of good science fiction: the Hugo Award, The Nebula Award, The John Campbell Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Locus Awards.

However, be wary of just any award as sometimes they are scams and not handed out by qualified people. The other problem with even the well known and prestigious awards is that they are dominated by traditionally published authors. Self published authors often don’t have the contacts or the knowhow to get nominated that the big publishing houses do.

I certainly don’t have any of the committee members on speed dial.

I foresee that eventually the self published author will take a more prominent position in the awards programs, but right now I don’t think the big houses want that to happen. Sometimes that means the reader misses out on some good science fiction. The current self published author is still trying to figure out this marketing thing and how to get in touch with his/her readers. Hello.

One of the top names on the nomination list for the Locus Award is Ian Banks. I read Matter and currently have Use of Weapons on my reading table. His winning a nomination has encouraged me to read that and look into his Culture Series. So stay tuned there.

I recently did a blog on detective science fiction and an associate from my book club e-mailed me to suggest The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds. Reynolds has won the British Science fiction Award and been nominated three times for the Arthur Clarke Award and once put on the short list for a Hugo. He writes a hard science space opera story.

The kind I like.

He also has a PHD in Astronomy and has a day job as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency.

So there’s hard science involved.

The Prefect takes place in the Revelation Space universe, but is a stand alone novel. Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect whose beat is the Glitter Band, a teeming swirl of habitats that orbit the planet Yellowstone. This is a multiverse of space habitats that cater to all and any quirk of human nature.

Some of them very strange.

Dreyfus’s deputies are Sparver, a hyperpig and Thalia, a human, who is daughter of a cop supposedly gone bad. Law enforcement officers carry a whiphound as a weapon of choice and deal with everything from downloaded personalities to genetically altered humans. Be prepared to encounter an evil entity that is an uploaded consciousness trying to destroy humans, a computerized and murderous being called the clockmaker, a top level lawmaker who is a mole for evil who makes him believe he is doing good, and various odd habitats including one for sadists. Thalia, his deputy, gets trapped in a habitat that has a robot uprising and has to fight her way out using her creativity.

All good science fiction stuff.

I found the novel intriguing for its fast paced action and futuristic setting and technology.

Meanwhile, I’m having fun working  in edit mode on my next scifi adventure–Touching Crystal. I plan this one to come out in November after it goes through the meat-grinder of my writers’ group.

I have already submitted it to an outstanding Beta tester and the Orycon Professional Workshop Critique. Using their comments, I am making it even better.

Whereas in Space Song Richard Steele uncovers a secret genetic human modification program, in Touching Crystal, he has to deal with the impact of the sentient crystal beings who augment certain humans, giving them extraordinary powers. Stay tuned.

Descriptive

What part do arguments from authority actually play in mathematical reasoning?

Normative

What part do arguments from authority ideally play in mathematical reasoning?

Regulative

What if any discrepancies exist between the actual and the ideal?
What if anything should be done about the discrepancies that exist?

Recycled from a question I asked on MathOverFlow.

If any “planet X” exists and enters the inner solar system, we will have plenty of warning (over a year even in the worst case) from amateur astronomers, even if there were some sort of cover-up on the governmental level.

2. Physics works, and stories that go against the very basics of science should be ignored and/or ridiculed

This covers such things as Hollow Earth, Earth Expansion, “Vortex” orbits, physical (as opposed to magnetic) Pole Shifts, and technology ceasing to function.

3. Some things are FAR beyond human science

This covers almost every scare story in the fields of artificial intelligence and in nanotechnology.  In AI, we are still clueless and NO real level of thinking (understanding/comprehension) has yet been programed into anything.  Even when it does, it will be decades before an “AI” can match the intellect of most insects, let alone us.  As for nanotech, the energy and materials requirements for meaningful self-replication just aren’t there, so forget about “grey goo” eating the planet.  The most we can do is imitate a virus and find ways to tell cells to make or do things (dangerous, yes, but not on the same level as the scare-story nano-machines)

4. Trivial “dangers” ARE TRIVIAL.

This covers chemtrails, GMO foods, vaccines, and nearly all nuclear leaks/accidents.  The “dangers” from these things are far lower than the risks we accept every day as we go about our daily lives – smoking, drinking, over-eating, driving, playing sports, getting suntans, or dozens of other routine risks we calmly accept as part of life.

5. Most “conspiracies” are small-scale greed and ass-covering

Don’t try to tie everything into a big, grand plot.  Yes, the rich and powerful are stealing from the rest of us and destroying our civilization – but 99% of them really ARE that stupid and/or selfish and are not working with each other aside from having common goals.  (On the other hand, watch out for that 1% of the 1% that are actually aware and preparing to defend all their stolen wealth, those few really are a serious threat.)

            We are all called upon by fate, but it usually isn’t at the time or a in a form we would prefer.  It chooses a moment when we are at our weakest and the least capable of performing, that is the nature of life.  Such is the time for Captain Gregory Parrish, although he hasn’t been called “Captain” in a very long time.

Gregory looked at the reflection in his dimmed heads-up-display and saw a tired elderly man.  His once golden hair had faded to a soft dingy gray and the wrinkles on his dry spotted skin ran deep and long over his face.  Even his eyes had softened to a milky-blue.

He was at a point in his life that he should have been bouncing grand-children on his knee.  Instead, he was alone and preparing to stand against a tidal force he couldn’t possibly hope to stop.  Gregory looked around the command deck, his command deck.  In her heyday the Warsaw had been swift and strong like her Captain, and now she was still like her Captain; worn, old, cracked in a hundred places, but ready.

Gregory touched his HUD and it sprang to life, lighting up his face.  According to the sensors they were still some time away.  He had just enough time.

“The eve of battle,” he said to no one, “Well, old girl, time for the final tour.”  He rose from his chair, wincing from the stabbing pain in his left hip. It was an old wound that had been there for almost as long as he could remember.  However, the tradition of a captain touring a ship before battle was not one Gregory was going to ignore.  He could push through it, just this one last time.

The first stop he made was the briefing room, a triangular shaped room with a similarly shaped table.  Each seat had a monitor in-front of it that would display any and all information that was important to the briefing.  The long window to the right of the room showed only steel.  It had been damaged in battle and the emergency bulk-head was put in-place to prevent depressurization.  There hadn’t been any time to replace the window over the years.  Being here brought back sour memories.

The Republic that Gregory had loved and served turned decadent and indifferent to its people.  When slavery and genocide no longer called the senate to action, he’d had enough.  It was in this room that Gregory and his command crew had decided to go rogue and join the rebellion.

In the beginning it had gone well because so many ships had defected.  The Warsaw was a light battle cruiser, built more for speed than firepower, but under Gregory’s command she had destroyed more than her fair share of Republic ships.  Even heavy destroyers were no match for the Warsaw.

“You were a force in those days, girl,” he said running his fingers through a layer of dust on the table.  “Then again, so was I.”

However, the war soon turned south.  The Republic stumbled on artificial intelligence, and no matter how good a spacer a person is, they will never be able to calculate as fast as a computer.  Before long nearly all the Republic ships were A.I. controlled.  The ships could make more precise FTL jumps, have multiple targeting solutions in a matter of seconds and understand sensor data better and faster than any human.  And without the worry of losing soldiers the Republic could throw ships at the rebels as fast as they could produce them.  Gregory left the briefing room and its memories behind.

To be continued…

“2001: A Space Odyssey” Howard Johnsons Children’s Menu (1968)

Yeah, that’s what it was like back in ’68. Definitely.

Jim Downey

Via MeFi.

Russian billionaire reveals real-life ‘avatar’ plan – and says he will upload his brain to a hologram and become immortal by 2045

It’s about a 30 year old Russian Billionaire who believes we will be able to upload our brains to an “Avatar” and live forever by 2045.

Bold move.

This guy is like a Russian Tony Stark meets Ray Kurzweil.

He’s essentially laid out an entire plan from now until 2045, and if all goes well… We might just live in a whole new world in 30 years.

Good ol Dmitry Itskov’ plan for the next 30 years.

Reblogged from Design Magic:

A project in Character Design in which we had to create a fantasy/surreal character and vehicle/beast sidekick. The character I created is based more off of science-fiction, but still falls under the category of fantasy. I had a great deal of fun working on this one!

With the segment pattern matching function developed and tested, the author develops the ELIZA program along with the transformation function.  Here is some sample output from a session.

ELIZA> (hello)
(HOW DO YOU DO. PLEASE STATE YOUR PROBLEM.)
ELIZA> (i want to test this program)
(SUPPOSE YOU GOT TO TEST THIS PROGRAM SOON)

The ELIZA rules are a subset of the original program.  Also, the ELIZA loop does not have a terminate condition.  The author assumes that the LISP interpreter will respond to break signals.  However, with the CMU LISP, the break signal triggers the debugging facility.  Not very clean.  The expert system shell from AI has a command to terminate the shell.

Hence, the ELIZA program illustrates a segment pattern matching, a looping, and a transformation functions.

photo credit: André-Batista via photopin cc

The last time I spoke about current trends in science fiction film (http://bit.ly/13p1zcU) I noted three reasons why they often suck, and why they shouldn’t. One of the single most important things I noted is that science fiction today touches upon the same topics over and over again. Despite a future completely unwritten, our creative engine seems exhausted by the same trends. It’s hard to say if this is because one is limited to marketing forces. However, for the purpose of this article, I will operate under the assumption that it is a lack of creativity and often a writer/creative team unfamiliar with the science component of science fiction. I am personally drawn to science fiction, because as both a futurist and technophile, I believe we are on the precipice of unbelievable and radical changes in technology. These changes will have far reaching impact and consequences on all of our lives. And unlike many of these post-apocalyptic and dystopian futures depicted in so many of todays science fiction films, I am going to take a more optimistic view in many instances. In my bid to challenge the status quot of the same old sci-fi stories, here are a few ways I think science fiction film can both accurately predict the future, and make an entertaining movie-going experience.

SPACE EXPLORATION:

Ever since Nasa officially closed its space exploration operations, private companies like Elon Musk’s Space-X and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic have been following in their shoes. The stories of these men alone are movie worthy, but what about the conflicts they present? Its no mystery that private corporations are motivated by profit, which doesn’t always represent the collective goals of society. Not just anyone can afford to finance and build a space-exploration operation, only the super wealthy and savvy. Perhaps land-faring humans versus wealthy planet-colonizing counterparts/rivals? Or more likely, these operations will become more affordable as technology advances, presenting the opportunity for average folks to encounter our solar system like never before, giving way to a whole line of adventures through film.

The adventures one could come up with arising from a new era of space-exploration have not yet been broached, at least not accurately, only theoretically, often leaving earth destroyed. What kinds of issues will we face when we start mining asteroids? What happens if we unknowingly introduce space-born illnesses to a geocentric population? OR what happens as human curiosity takes the lessons learned from Manifest Destiny to the edges of the universe? What happens as we learn to take care of our own planet, or don’t? What sort of industry is likely to result from these ventures and how will they give way to new story-telling and ideas? Will our planet be more like Star Wars (no Earth left) or Star Trek (Earth is healthy)? As we get closer to the reality of frequent space travel, the science fiction which could stem from a radical reality will be diverse and plentiful in terms of possible stories and fascinating adventures. And before space mining corporations and space airlines are fully realized, now is the time to explore these stories.

ECONOMY:

Following one of the worst recessions in our life time, economists all sought to assign blame and to make sense of why it happened, and why now our recovery is so slow. Of those economists, only two really focused on the technology component of the stagnant recovery. Those two economists are MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. They contend that increasing automation is ruling out human labor in the workforce. Combine this with an exponential growth in technology, particularly processing power, and artificial general intelligence, and this scenario is only bound to worsen. They contend that companies have invested more in computer automation and artificial intelligence than they have human labor (c. 2010). Initially this was the case in many blue collar factory jobs, but these economists, along with many leading AI experts, contend that with the advance in technology we will see this happen to many white collar jobs as well. They urge workers now to be prepared for what they call the “race against the machine.” To prepare for a radically alternate, technology-centric economy.

So how will this be covered in film? What questions are going to be explored?

1.) How will humans be working? 2.) Will humans be working? From these two questions comes another set of questions. What sort of political reality arises from these struggles? On the one hand, humans may live in a post-work society, providing new ways of time spent. On the other hand, humans will be forced out of work until they can compensate their skills to the technological reality. They will be hostile towards those with these skills. Rifts will form between those who embrace technology and those who fear it. Political parties may form around such strong opinions, galvanizing support around promoting or rejecting technologies. Perhaps we will have sentient machines, like leading futurists such as Michio Kaku and Ray Kurzweil suggest. Will these machines adapt to society? How will humans interact with them? Will they oppose or embrace them?

This remains in my opinion one of the most fascinating topics to explore through science fiction film because we are seeing the beginning of it right now. Anyone with or without a job has an opinion on the economy, so lets see some exploration of this issue in science fiction film.

HEALTH & WELLNESS:

Along with the exponential growth in technology comes the merging of health and technology. Biotechnology research is one of the fastest growing fields in the world today. And in fact, if you want to win the “race against the machine” its probably a field worth considering. Going back to Ray Kurzweil for a moment, he argues we will see immortality within our life time by way of merging man and machine. If not that, then at the very least, leading experts foresee a major increase in life expectancy due to the merging of technology and biology. We have seen researchers artificially create major organs, code DNA and now the Obama administration wants to fund research to map the human brain. Researchers hope that by understanding how the brain works we can unlock the mysteries of diseases and other mortal human ailments.

This question is already being explored in film. TRANSCENDENCE, starring Johnny Depp, just began filming out in LA. The film deals with the consequences of technological immortality and a scientists (Ray Kurzweil?) pursuit of it. Prior to learning about this film, I wrote my first script on the same issue. Its a fascinating one, and despite the fact my script sucked, I asked a lot of questions I still want to explore as a writer and a futurist. How do we define the course of a life if it never ends? What will pharmaceutical industries do if their profitable pills become pointless? How will politicians deal with the ever changing landscape of health-care in the era of Obamacare? Will these procedures be available to average folks? Or will the ever increasing cost of health-care doom these innovative procedures to obscurity until price curves normalize?

Whether or not you are willing to go as far as Kurzweil is one thing. But there is no doubt we will see as a result of this research a radically different health-care system. Our lives will see a new golden age of medicine. & I don’t want to see TRANSCENDENCE the only film to deal with this issue. I want to challenge TRANSCENDENCE and I also want to supplement TRANSCENDENCE. This is an absolutely fascinating field. & I am excited to see it on the big screen.

SECURITY & COUNTER-TERRORISM:

Ever since the Patriot Act expanded the US governments access to unwarranted surveillance, the corresponding increases in surveillance technology have brought about major questions about security and counter-terrorism. Our Constitutional rights include the right to privacy in addition to search and seizure laws regarding what can and cannot be submitted to court. With new technology comes the question of what is and what is not permissible. What information gathered by technology can be used against you in court? What would come of our society if drones could warrantlessly survey you, or worse take action against suspected terrorists with possible collateral damage? What happens if technology got the wrong guy?

My next script that I have begun to outline deals directly with drone surveillance in a 24-style plot. Of course since my ideas are not copyrightable, I won’t elaborate. But this is another area where science fiction writers can have an absolute Orwellian field day. What are the consequences of technological surveillance? What will our future look like? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? There are SO MANY avenues and conflicts you could address with this in mind. I hope to start seeing more politically savvy science fiction, its my absolute favorite!

CONCLUSION:

Keeping in mind the points I made in my original post on science fiction, all these questions have to be answered with the following rules in mind: 1. Make us care about character involved. 2. Make sure the idea you have to answer your questions isn’t just a “good idea.” Make sure it can translate well into film. 3. Make sure your way of approaching these questions is done with science of science fiction in mind. Don’t reuse the same templates for previous ideas. Say something new. The future depends on it.

I hope that these questions will be answered before the conflicts arise. The best way to get a culture considering the consequences/philosophy of an action is to make the action common knowledge before it happens. Film is a great way to make an issue known. I remain an optimist on the future. I embrace the future for everything wonderful it holds. But like anything in life, it will not be without conflict. All great films are centered around great conflict and a great conflicted character navigating it. As a writer just starting out, I will make it a goal to make answering these questions the center of my writing career. I hope other writers will be inspired to do the same. Its time to make science fiction great again – and that’s by predicting the future through film.

I fed the machine the machine I fed,

Punctured my skin

Till clot I bled.

It hum, shook strong

My sight was gone

Never.mind help/ I turned it on.

I fed the machine – it came for me

In night and day, gears twenty three.

Its body cold, voice violent scream

I did this to myself.

“Daddy!” Rachel shouted. “There’s a robot at the door.”

Winston Sinclair hoped it wasn’t one of those sales bots. They were danged near impossible to get rid of. He picked up Rachel and raised the viewport she had used. The robot was three feet tall, grey, squat, plain-looking.

“Robot, what do you want?”

Serious games have come quite some way. In their introduction to the first International Workshop on Intelligent Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion on May 14, 2013, Schuller, Palettam, and Sabouret summarize:

Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion possess the
potential to change our society in a most positive way by
preparing selected groups in a playful and fun way for their
everyday life’s social and special situations. The current
generation of such games thereby increasingly demands for
computational intelligence algorithms to help analyze players’ behavior and monitor their motivation and interest to adapt  game progress. Intelligent Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion (IDGEI) focus in particular on such games in connection with machine intelligence and its inclusion in digital serious games.

My colleagues and I from the eCUTE project are very thrilled to participate in the workshop, where we will describe Traveller, an intercultural training tool for young adults.

Traveller is based on an original theoretical
framework which focuses on key concepts of intercultural
training. By progressing through a creative story, users are able to engage via a novel interaction paradigm with intelligent virtual characters that incorporate different simulated cultures which can lead to misunderstandings and sometimes conflicts. Through the use of an innovative evaluation approach, users will gain a greater understanding of the behavioural differences between these
characters, and thereby learn to become more effective at dealing with misunderstandings due to differences in culture.

The contributions of the workshop will be published in open access proceedings with the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games (SASDG), (see below – I will post a link when this becomes available). In the meanwhile you can learn more about TRAVELLER and see some video material on the eCUTE web page. We have spent almost 3 years developing TRAVELLER and a second application, MIXER in the pursuit of technology enhanced training in cultural understanding. A demonstration of TRAVELLER was also given this week at AAMAS 2013 (12th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, May 6 – 10, 2013).

References

Degens, N., Hofstede, G. J., Mascarenhas, S., Silva, A., Paiva, A., Kistler, F., André, E. Swiderska, A., Krumhuber, E., Kappas, A., Hume, C., Hall, L., & Aylett, R. (2013). Traveller – Intercultural training with intelligent agents for young adults. Presented at the First International Workshop on Intelligent Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion (IDGEI 2013) held in conjunction with the 8th Foundations of Digital Games 2013 (FDG), Chania, Greece, May 2013.

Schuller, B.,Paletta, L. & Sabouret, N. (Eds.)(2013) Proceedings 1st International Workshop on Intelligent Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion (IDGEI 2013) held in conjunction with the 8th Foundations of Digital Games 2013 (FDG), Chania, Greece, May 2013. SASDG.