Populist Human-Computer Interface

With advances in HCI and AI, and increasing prevalence of commercial social robots and chatbots, humans are communicating with computer interfaces for various applications in a wide range of settings. Kissenger is designed to bring HCI to the populist masses. In order to investigate the role of robotic kissing using the Kissenger device in HCI, the authors conducted a modified version of the imitation game described by Alan Turing by including the use of the kissing machine. Results show that robotic kissing has no effect on the winning rates of the male and female players during human-human communication, but it increases the winning rate of the female player when a chatbot is involved in the game.

Artifex Ex-Machina

A fotografia desempenhou no século XIX um papel crucial nas rupturas das práticas artísticas, em particular na pintura, tendo sido fundamental no aparecimento e desenvolvimento daquilo a que chamamos modernismo, ou, talvez melhor, modernismos, pela multiplicidade de propostas que caracterizará a primeira metade do século XX. Voltou a ser central no rompimento conceptualista das décadas de 60/70. E a fotografia parece poder estar a desempenhar novamente um papel relevante na emergência de novas formas de prática artística, que poderemos designar como arte computacional, o que pode sugerir algumas novas interrogações. Poderão computadores criar literatura, obras de arte? Fotografar? Este artigo pretende discutir algumas destas questões, tomando como ponto de partida um conhecido artigo de Alan Turing e dois projectos fotográficos contemporâneos: Arquivo de Babel do autor e Orogenesis do fotógrafo catalão Joan Fontcuberta.

NEGATIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY MAIN CHARACTER IN “THE IMITATION GAME”

This research aims to find out types of negative politeness strategies expressed by the main character in the movie titled The Imitation Game. This research is categorised as descriptive qualitative research. The data of the research were taken from utterances identified as negative politeness strategies by the main character “Alan Turing” and analysed with theory proposed by (Brown & Levinson, 1988). Data were collected using the observation and non-participatory method. Additionally, to analyse the data, pragmatic identity method were used. The result discovered in this research are; 5 be conveniently indirect, 16 question and hedge, 1 be pessimistic, 6 give deference, 4 impersonalise interlocutors, and 4 state the FTA as the general rule, totalling to 36 indication of negative politeness strategies. Question and hedge became the most frequently used strategy the main character tends to assume unwillingness to comply to the other characters in The Imitation Game movie.

How Does Artificial Intelligence Pose an Existential Risk?

Alan Turing, one of the fathers of computing, warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could one day pose an existential risk to humanity. Today, recent advancements in the field of AI have been accompanied by a renewed set of existential warnings. But what exactly constitutes an existential risk? And how exactly does AI pose such a threat? In this chapter, we aim to answer these questions. In particular, we will critically explore three commonly cited reasons for thinking that AI poses an existential threat to humanity: the control problem, the possibility of global disruption from an AI race dynamic, and the weaponization of AI.

Insights from chemical systems into Turing-type morphogenesis

In 1952, Alan Turing proposed a theory showing how morphogenesis could occur from a simple two morphogen reaction–diffusion system [Turing, A. M. (1952) Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 237 , 37–72. (doi:10.1098/rstb.1952.0012)]. While the model is simple, it has found diverse applications in fields such as biology, ecology, behavioural science, mathematics and chemistry. Chemistry in particular has made significant contributions to the study of Turing-type morphogenesis, providing multiple reproducible experimental methods to both predict and study new behaviours and dynamics generated in reaction–diffusion systems. In this review, we highlight the historical role chemistry has played in the study of the Turing mechanism, summarize the numerous insights chemical systems have yielded into both the dynamics and the morphological behaviour of Turing patterns, and suggest future directions for chemical studies into Turing-type morphogenesis. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Recent progress and open frontiers in Turing’s theory of morphogenesis’.

High-Q states in acoustic apple-shaped resonators

Apples play a significant role in our culture in various points of human history: starting from Adam and Eve, going on with Judgement of Paris, it also touches such great minds as Sir Isaac Newton and Alan Turing. Beyond that apples are still extremely relevant today due to Steve Jobs. In this work we study high quality (high-Q) resonant states of apple-shaped resonators. We have found that quasi bound states in continuum (quasi-BICs) are possible in the linear acoustic domain. We show that quasi-BICs are of Friedrich-Wintgen type, i.e. accompanied with avoided crossings while elongating or shrinking the apple-shaped resonator. Finally, we build a concise theory based on the group theory approach utilizing Wigner’s theorem. We illustrate that only the resonator symmetry plays major role, but not particular resonator’s shape.

Quest for I (Intelligence) in AI (Artificial Intelligence): A Non-Elusive Attempt

This chapter essentially makes a non-elusive attempt in quest of ‘I’ (Intelligence) in ‘AI’ (Artificial Intelligence). In the year 1950, Alan Turing proposed “the imitation game” which was a gaming problem to make a very fundamental question — “can a machine think?”. The said article of Turing did not provide any tool to measure intelligence but produced a philosophical argument on the issue of intelligence. In 1950, Claude Shannon published a landmark paper on computer chess and rang the bell of the computer era. Over the past decades, there have been huge attempts to define and measure intelligence across the fields of cognitive psychology and AI. We critically appreciate these definitions and evaluation approaches in quest of intelligence, which can mimic the cognitive abilities of human intelligence. We arrive at the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (C–H–C) concept, which is a three-stratum theory for intelligence. The C–H–C theory of intelligence can be crudely approximated by deep meta-learning approach to integrate the representation power of deep learning into meta-learning. Thus we can combine crystallized intelligence with fluid intelligence, as they complement each other for robust learning, reasoning, and problem-solving in a generalized setup which can be a benchmark for flexible AI and eventually general AI. In far-reaching future to search for human-like intelligence in general AI, we may explore neuromorphic computing which is essentially based on biological neurons.

What Is Living and What Is Dead in Classic European Philosophy of Technology?

Classic European philosophy of technology is the original effort to think critically rather than promotionally about the historically unique mutation that is anchored in the Industrial Revolution and has since progressively transformed the world and itself. Three representative contributions to this pivotal philosophical project can be found in texts by Alan Turing, Jacques Ellul, and Martin Heidegger. Despite having initiated analytic, sociological, and phenomenological approaches to philosophy of technology, respectively, all three are often treated today in a somewhat patronizing manner. The present chapter seeks to revisit and reconsider their contributions, arguing that, especially in the case of Ellul and Heidegger, what is commonly dismissed as their overgeneralizations about modern technology as a whole might reasonably be of continuing relevance to contemporary students in the philosophy of technology.