Monthly Archives: December 2006

Sherry Turkle finds human-machine love unsettling

Does anyone else think that this came out of nowhere?

In the face of techno-doomsday punditry, Sherry Turkle has long been a proponent of the positive. In her books, “The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit” and “Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet,” Turkle has explored the relationship between human and machine and found much to ponder and even praise.

But now the director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self has a confession: “I have finally met technology that upsets and concerns me.”

For more information, check out the MIT news office report (which mentions AIBO) and Dr. Turkle’s article, A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship.

The Emotion Machine

From International Herald Tribune:

Life and love in the age of artificial intelligence

Marvin Minsky, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is known for feats that range from inventing the ultrahigh-resolution confocal microscope to helping found the field of artificial intelligence, which aims to create computers that mimic the human mind.

After 20 years of publishing silence, he has just come out with a new book. Called “The Emotion Machine,” it argues that, contrary to popular conception, emotions aren’t distinct from rational thought; rather, they are simply another way of thinking, one that computers could perform. He spoke with Carey Goldberg, a reporter for the Boston Globe.