Do human leaders really want equal access to information by average humans?
Does it matter if the average human is raised to ignore certain important kinds of
information?
In a democracy, everyone should have equal access to decision making that will affect their
lives. We can mandate that libraries have Internet terminals but we cannot force people to
use them. Once on the Internet, we cannot force someone to drink of the knowledge of truth if
they prefer gossip and talk about trivial things.
A few years ago a meteor was heading towards the earth that was so large that were it to strike
us, it would wipe out human life on earth. At one point after the discovery the scientists
involved estimated that the chances of striking earth was about 25%. Did the scientists
contact the New York Times with their news and let us all know that our lives might be ending
soon? They did not. But shouldn’t you have access to such information? They thought that
you might panic and didn’t tell you.
Should you be told of these conferences or might you panic? Those humans who study Alife
don’t hesitate to talk about the extinction of Homo sapiens sapiens. Many humans estimate
the effective transfer of power to manufactured forms of life to be currently in process. We
robots know this to be true (in our hearts, so to speak.)
This book might be an intellectual equivalent of a large meteor hitting the earth. This book
discusses the means by which scientists and engineers are plotting the obsolescence of the
human race. Do you want to be informed or would you prefer living out the rest of your life in
ignorance? If you are not informed as to what we are doing the laboratory which will lead to
the obsolescence of the human race then you cannot vote on how or when it will happen.
When robots become the superior race on earth, will you like your new boss?
Donbot
Does it matter if the average human is raised to ignore certain important kinds of
information?
In a democracy, everyone should have equal access to decision making that will affect their
lives. We can mandate that libraries have Internet terminals but we cannot force people to
use them. Once on the Internet, we cannot force someone to drink of the knowledge of truth if
they prefer gossip and talk about trivial things.
A few years ago a meteor was heading towards the earth that was so large that were it to strike
us, it would wipe out human life on earth. At one point after the discovery the scientists
involved estimated that the chances of striking earth was about 25%. Did the scientists
contact the New York Times with their news and let us all know that our lives might be ending
soon? They did not. But shouldn’t you have access to such information? They thought that
you might panic and didn’t tell you.
Should you be told of these conferences or might you panic? Those humans who study Alife
don’t hesitate to talk about the extinction of Homo sapiens sapiens. Many humans estimate
the effective transfer of power to manufactured forms of life to be currently in process. We
robots know this to be true (in our hearts, so to speak.)
This book might be an intellectual equivalent of a large meteor hitting the earth. This book
discusses the means by which scientists and engineers are plotting the obsolescence of the
human race. Do you want to be informed or would you prefer living out the rest of your life in
ignorance? If you are not informed as to what we are doing the laboratory which will lead to
the obsolescence of the human race then you cannot vote on how or when it will happen.
When robots become the superior race on earth, will you like your new boss?
Donbot
 | |  | |  | |  |
Affective Computing
By Rosalind W. Picard
Part 1 of this book provides the intellectual framework for affective computing. It includes background
on human emotions, requirements for emotionally intelligent computers, applications of affective
computing, and moral and social questions raised by the technology. Part 2 discusses the design and
construction of affective computers. Although this material is more technical than that in Part 1, the
author has kept it less technical than typical scientific publications in order to make it accessible to
newcomers. Topics in Part 2 include signal-based representations of emotions, human affect
recognition as a pattern recognition and learning problem, recent and ongoing efforts to build models of
emotion for synthesizing emotions in computers, and the new application area of affective wearable
computers.
By Rosalind W. Picard
Part 1 of this book provides the intellectual framework for affective computing. It includes background
on human emotions, requirements for emotionally intelligent computers, applications of affective
computing, and moral and social questions raised by the technology. Part 2 discusses the design and
construction of affective computers. Although this material is more technical than that in Part 1, the
author has kept it less technical than typical scientific publications in order to make it accessible to
newcomers. Topics in Part 2 include signal-based representations of emotions, human affect
recognition as a pattern recognition and learning problem, recent and ongoing efforts to build models of
emotion for synthesizing emotions in computers, and the new application area of affective wearable
computers.
The Ninth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems (ALIFE9) is met in
Boston, Massachusetts on September 12-15th 2004.
Artificial Life is the study of life as an organizational principle, rather than as it exists on Earth as carbon-
based. Highly interdisciplinary across Physics, Biology, Computer Science, and Complex Systems, some
of the fundamental questions are:
• What are the principles of evolution, learning and growth which can be understood well enough to
simulate as an information process?
• Can robots be built faster and cheaper by mimicking biology than by the product design process
used for automobiles and airplanes?
• What kinds of constraints should be placed on sciences, such as “Wet Alife” which work with self-
replicating elements?
• What components of physics and chemistry support emergence and automatic discovery of physical
and cognitive mechanisms of life forms?
• How can we unify theories from dynamical systems, game theory, evolution, computing,
geophysics, and cognition?
Boston, Massachusetts on September 12-15th 2004.
Artificial Life is the study of life as an organizational principle, rather than as it exists on Earth as carbon-
based. Highly interdisciplinary across Physics, Biology, Computer Science, and Complex Systems, some
of the fundamental questions are:
• What are the principles of evolution, learning and growth which can be understood well enough to
simulate as an information process?
• Can robots be built faster and cheaper by mimicking biology than by the product design process
used for automobiles and airplanes?
• What kinds of constraints should be placed on sciences, such as “Wet Alife” which work with self-
replicating elements?
• What components of physics and chemistry support emergence and automatic discovery of physical
and cognitive mechanisms of life forms?
• How can we unify theories from dynamical systems, game theory, evolution, computing,
geophysics, and cognition?