The homework for this week is twofold.
On the one hand, you are invited to especulate on the role and importance of the imagination. The other part of the assignment involves a reflection on your personal relation with your closest technologies.
- What is imagination?
It will come as no surprise that Albert Einstein famously stated: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” We will find plenty of evidence of this in the weeks to come. There are many different views on this topic and you are free to choose what to focus on. However, for obvious reasons, it is important that you devote some part of your reflection to artistic imagination.
- An usual collaboration
The second element to this assignment will be carried out as a small experiment. You are invited to use primarily your phone to gather the information and create your response. The goal is to raise awareness of what these quotidian interactions with your device entail.
These are just some suggestions of how to challenge your habitual dealing about your phone:
- Think of your interactions as a ‘collaboration‘: try to dialogue (rather than use) your device.
- Maximize voice interaction both for the research and in writing down your views
- Ask questions as opposed to impart commands.
- Take your phone ‘views’ into account. For instance, don’t focus on what you are expecting as a response, instead be open to other ‘views’, ‘mistakes’ and ‘misunderstandings’ from your ‘partner’. Something interesting might ensue.
As in any true experiment there are no many guidelines. You are free to improvise and look for your own ways. In other words, use your imagination!
In order to start my investigation, I first did the recommended task of speaking to my phone. It was interesting to begin this assignment, as I have turned off the Siri function on my iPhone since the first day I had my cellphone. Upon speaking to Siri, I first tried to greet her, as how I would with a person. It was surprising to hear her pronounce my name, as I think many of us assume that automated voices tend to not pronounce names since it is more effort on the part of the developers. It was then interesting to hear the human responses she gave to my simple greetings. (Eg. I asked her how her day was, and she said “It was pretty good, thanks!”) However, once I began asking more questions, which were unintentionally more human-centric (What did you eat today?), it was easier to distinguish that I was conversing with something that is far from a human.
To begin my research, I asked her simply, What is imagination? Siri pulled up a Wikipedia article. I then asked if she could read the article for me, and to my surprise, she began reading the text that appeared from the article. I was genuinely amazed that Siri was capable of processing and answering the questions with the correct answers. Eventually, Siri was unable to answer my questions with her own responses and she acted more like a search engine that pulled up relevant links to answer my questions.
This was an interesting experience because I have been surrounded by Apple technology for many years (I have had my current iPhone for almost 2-3 years), yet I have been so oblivious to the humanistic capabilities that Siri has. Siri functions with personality and correct responses (in that it seems like a real conversation with another person), and I am quite amazed at how a seemingly simple function on a phone has become this developed. In retrospect, looking at many technologies that we have today, appear to be simple and mundane to us now as we are so exposed to it (such as internet, or wireless functions). But when we look at the greater scale and the recency of these inventions, it truly is a subtle marvel like Siri. Thus, as Artificial Intelligence becomes more developed, I can imagine how it can creep into our lives without much of us noticing how integrated it will be.
This is a Newhive that I had made to express this feeling: https://newhive.com/jey/week8-collaboration.
In relation to the topic of imagination, I do think that imagination is important in creating the future. It is important because of its role for us to see different perspectives and dimensions to problems that are either seemingly one-sided, or are considered difficult to solve. Through these creative ways of thinking, humans are able to invent (or reinvent) new solutions to issues that we face. For example, I will be using the technology of Seawater Greenhouses as a example of imaginative thinking. The greenhouses are used in arid coastal regions to grow crops, collect fresh water, and to rejuvenate the surrounding environment with moisture. All these features were possible due to the outward thinking of the designers, which have incorporated various elements of the habitat and lifestyles of locals, in order to create a better future for the inhabitants. The usage is now multi-purposeful, and would not have been thought of if the problem were to be approached at one viewpoint.
Part1: Ideas about Imagination
People become great because of imagination. From my point of view, I believe that there’s no classification of imagination, which to me there’s neither technological imagination nor artistic imagination. In other words, imagination belongs to everyone, belongs to us as human.
On the other hand, today’s dreams are possibly tomorrow’s achievable ideals. In addition, people imagine and make unrealistic fantasies about future, which usually come from what we already seen and what we look forward to see. In other words, because of these interesting and advanced ideas we imagined, we would further gain the curiosity and motivation to seek for knowledge to achieve them one day. That’s to say those seemingly unrealistic ideas at first will be inherited and continue to pass on until one day come to be true through the development and progress of science and technology.
Part2: Feelings of collaborating with cellphone
https://newhive.com/rollingchen/collaboration
I agree with your statement that imagination belongs to everyone as human. I do think the fact that it is primarily due to the fact that we are more evolved than other mammals. Like how you said, imagination can be applied to all kinds of different ways. In a certain aspect, I think even considering what we will eat tomorrow as a form of imagination, as it is an idea fabricated in our head and non-existence at the point of thought!
I really enjoyed your newhive demonstrating the feeling of collaboration. The various movements throughout the whole expression feels robotic in that it is almost like an assembly line movement, but there is still a flow that is mesmerizing to watch. It really does have the image or feeling of collaboration and interconnected-ness. I also liked how you used a more organic figure (the human) with the icon-like framing of the electronic/technology figures!
I am strongly reminded of The Elephant Vanishes, a book written by Haruki Murakami, in which there is prominent negotiation between the pragmatic and the metaphysical worlds. I like to believe that our relationship with technology, in this case through technological images, is just that – a negotiation between the real and the not-real. But I also believe that there is vast argument in deciding what is real and what is not.
The exercise of engaging with our technology beyond making use of it is something I find, at best, difficult to do, and, at worst, dangerous for one’s sense of reality. I very seldom utilize my phone for other something that connecting with other people. I may very well say it is the phone, as a tool, that allows me to maintain a relationship with specific people. I must admit, I very much prefer human interaction.
I have very strong opinions about the ways in which we have defaulted to using our everyday technological tools. I believe that the behavior of relying on a technology for the sake of ‘company’ is sad, to say the least.
I have the urge to argue that our constant interaction with technology severs our ability to imagine beyond. I acknowledge that inspiration, the birthing of new thoughts and images, can be accelerated through the exposure to other already-existing forms. I am conflicted about the ways in which an original thought or idea or image comes about in one’s mind and the ways in which we decide to manifest such thoughts.
http://newhive.com/pmrubio/elephant-vanishes
When trying to figure something out or look something up I very rarely use siri. I have always found that it ends up taking me longer than if I had just done it on my own. I don’t think I am patient enough for siri’s mistakes. Maybe one day when they have made the system more advance I would use it more. For this experiment I decided to pick up my phone and give siri another try. I first said “siri” to get her attention, she then replied with “Hi… what can I do for you”. This made me think what is up with the “…”? Did the programmers add that to make her appear more human? As if she is taking a pause? Then I said to her “Can you write something out for me?” and she replied “Who, me?”. This response was not helpful which just made me remember why I don’t like to use siri. I guess she didn’t understand my question so she was programmed to say something general. I then replied “Yes” and she said “That’s what I thought”. She still doesn’t understand my question yet she is still continuing the conversation saying things that do not help. So, I tried to re-word my question and asked “Can you turn my words into text?” and she replied “OK, I found this on the web ‘Can you turn my words into text’:” and she then showed me the search results for this question using a BING search. After all this effort I am being told that siri can’t even type out what I speak to her!? I just felt frustrated and like I wasted my time. Back to the same feelings as to why I don’t like using siri. I could have just typed my question into google and gotten results in half the time. So at this point I gave up and typed out my response myself. Guess I need to work on my patience with technology.
Imagination is a strange thing. You are able to imagine anything, whether it seems possible or not. The crazy part is that when you are imagining something and think it isn’t possible, it actually could become possible one day. As humans, we are constantly imagining things and many of those things that seemed impossible have come true. I believe it is one of the key reasons why humans are such an evolved species. We are able to constantly make things better for ourselves with our thoughts. By doing this I believe that we are creating our own future. If we had never imagined it in the first place it could never exist. It’s just a matter of being able to develop what we imagine which sometimes takes time but usually becomes possible.
I think imagination is the most important thing besides the things that we need for life. Because of imagination we can develop technology and thus have better life. Because of imagination we can create things like art and languages that can communicate with each other and exchange information. Because of imagination we are different from other animals, and because of imagination each of us is different from each other.
For me, imagination is like an unstoppable machine that works in my mind and makes my life interesting. Through imagination I see things differently and specially. Everything is possible through my imagination. And as an art student, imagination is also the most important part of my work. I believe that everything I do can be not professional, but cannot be borning and without and thinking.
The second part of this assignment is quite interesting. I tried to talk with Siri but she only answers me “I don’t understand” or “you are important than me” if I ask her opinion. She tried to give me advices which I don’t need at all, like contact imformation and wikipedia. I think right now Siri is just a tool that developed by people. She is builded for supporting people, not chatting so she is not ready for real communication. But as technology developed, it is highly possible that one day there will be real artificial interllectual that can think about things and communicate with human.
I have great interest in transport and its impact in urban development and to me, transport is the technology that I feel closest to. I love learning about the history of different transportation and its technological development over time. I think our desire to move between spaces faster and cheaper makes us imagine new ways accomplish it.
One of my favorite yet to be achieved mode of transportation is the magnetic vacuum tube train. It’s the fastest and the most energy efficient possible form of transportation. This concept is very old and futurists have been imagining different versions of it for years. Now, Elon Musk is very close to bringing this imagination to reality through the hyperloop one project.
My artwork is a fake 1950’s article about the hyperloop one project in its form and aesthetic. This is an homage to the people who imagined this concept decades ago and is now in the process of becoming reality.
https://newhive.com/lolofdoom/hyperloop-one
Imagination is such a powerful thing because if imagination didn’t exists, there would be no such thing as art, technology (in all forms) or entertainment… I think this list would keep going on. I think that the reason why mankind is what it is today is because of imagination. The scene in 2001 Space Odyssey where the ape figured out how to use the bone as a tool is such a great example to show “the dawn of man”. When that one ape came up with that idea, that is when mankind started to evolve and the human mind or our imagination begins to build and grow off of ideas previous. And such is the case with technology today. Within our digital era, technology is improving at an exponential rate because so many people are getting more and more ideas on how to use the tools we have today. For example, there are several careers that people now have that were never dreamed of 10 years ago, such as Youtubing or social media advertising.
Last year for a journalism class we were asked to record every single time we used social media or looked at or used any digital device for 24 hours. A few days later we were asked to do a complete fast. Remembering that assignment, I realized how much of a necessity my phone and computer are in my lifestyle. If I’m not carrying my phone I feel uneasy or as if I’m forgetting something. However, my devices were always used as a tool or a source of entertainment. I never had any verbal relationship with it and I don’t think I will… Android devices do not have an advanced AI such as Siri, so I used Cortana on the Microsoft devices instead. I asked it several questions related to the assignment, personal questions and jokes… kinds of things I would ask if I were trying to get to know a person and some questions that I might ask my closest friends. However, Cortana would only respond with jokes or turn me towards the search engine. At this point, personal AI’s for me are mostly assistants as opposed to having any personal significance. They are programs that help me with my day to day life such as emails, web searches, etc. But at this point, I don’t see it breaching any relationship beyond that because it still feels like I’m talking to a program. I much prefer using my device on my own.
A cool thing to look up is the Google Home and the Amazon Echo. These are two personal speakers that are able to engage in two way conversation to an extent that it can “invoke a sense of emotional rapport in its users”. You can read more about what you can do with it online. But that being said, we are actually so close to AIs becoming fully integrated into our domestic lives, further breaching the divide between real life and my Jetsons-esque fantasy.
I feel cellphone is something that is essential for my everyday life, it is like a notebook, a small laptop an assistant or secretary you can put the notes or reminders and set alarms. One day I forgot to bring my cellphone, I started to be anxious and worried about how can I contact my friends , what time is it now? I suddenly realized that I am already used to be with it for so long. It covers every part of your life, there are more and more different apps that about news, games, entertainments, life style and etc. It is something that you interact with everyday, especially the smartphone we are using now. I still remember the old phone, i just use it to get messages and phone calls. We rely on the smartphone so much everyone get information from it and use social media app to talk to friends. You contact your parents far away through it and you can even see their face on the screen, it is such a magic thing I didn’t even pay attention that I already rely on it . I use cellphone like a diary book to document my feeling my thoughts in that moment since it is very convenient, talking to the artificial intelligence is not something I often do.
I try to talk with Siri in Chinese because I set it in Chinese before. While I talk to Siri, I feel it’s sounds like a robot, it will help you with your requirement like searching something online or help you set alarm, for me it is not like a real person. However, sometimes the way she response is funny. I kind of getting mad about she doesn’t meet my expectation and start to argue with her, I said ” so you know what I am thinking?” She said” Confucius said that It is wise to hold what you know and admit what you don’t know.“ I am surprised she know Chinese culture and I am wondering if she has a background of other culture as well. If you want to ask more things about her, she start to say we should focus on you, what is important is about you not about me. Sometimes she refuse to answer your question if your request is too difficult, she will tell you that it exceed the ability she has. I ask about her gender, her identity. The answer she give to me is like she is a machine that assist us. I think it is possible that in the future something like a person and will answer your question like a real human with logics and intelligence will appear. But I still think there should be some limitation for this technology. That the robot can not have his own conscious and thoughts. Once it has since its intelligence is higher than us. It will be a threat for us.
For the imagination, I think it is something based on what we already know about the world (Knowledge) and what we want to improve (desire) then we start to have some idea to make something that doesn’t exist right now to fulfill our hope. However, yesterday, I had a dream that change my opinion. In my dream,I saw an old guy he lost his half f his legs in some accident. His every bone of his body can move. He is getting treatment in bed. I saw his artificial legs which are like transparent elastic mold ( like our skin layer) that have exactly his original legs and feet’s shape. In the mold that contains some liquid that joint his leg together, Just like making pottery, after some time it will totally fit to your body and you use it like your own legs.He is lying there waiting for it to grow together, I never see this before and I know nothing about doctors and medicines. I don’t think it happens in real life but it just suddenly appear in my dream. So I think maybe imagination is something that your brain just random think about which doesn’t necessarily have to have any basis. Though the technology is not that advanced right now, maybe in the future it will come true. Just like in old Chinese myth, there are already people dream about flying to the moon, and on the moon there are a couple living there they have trees and house and pets. At that time, they don’t have spaceship and they don’t really know what the moon really is like. But with many years’ development, people still have the same dream about going to the moon, and they made it. However, moon is not really like what they describe in the myth. And people thought the earth is square before, through the development the and discover, they finally accept that earth is a sphere shape. Finally, I think having imagination is a good thing, it forces us to innovate and explore.
Smartphones have definitely been integrated into our daily lives. From your comment of old cellphones, it reminds me of when I got my first smartphone, which upgraded my past phone that was a slide-out texting cellphone. At first, all of the app functions like social media apps and games were so intriguing to me. Now that I have used an iPhone for almost 4-5 years, it really is something that I rely on for almost my entire day whether it is for communication, entertainment, or even helping me to go to sleep!
I also experienced a similar situation with Siri, as she does not disclose anything about herself and wants to focus the conversation on you. As technology develops, I can certainly imagine AI having its own personalities, maybe to the point of being customization, or unique? I do agree with you that there should be some limitations to the intelligence in machines. As the philosopher in class mentioned, I think that there is no doubt that machines will be able to out-evolve and defeat us in competition. If developed to the point of self-thought, there are so many capabilities that computers can do better than us (eg. potentially accessing the web instantly and learning everything, processing numbers and calculations faster), and humans will be no match for technology.
Imagination for me is to think beneath the surface and beyond the norm. It is often relate to my past experience when it comes to imagination, for this I mean, it reveals my thoughts and notions from the people I have talked to, places I have been to, and books I have read. Experience in general gives us different perspectives in life and also different way to imagine things.
I started start the investigation by simply said “Hello Siri” to my iPhone.
She then reply “Hi Olivia”, to my surprise she knows my name.
“How was your day?” I asked
“I’m happy to be alive!” This is a moment I realized that maybe she has a certain emotion because I almost never talked to her. And now she is happy that we could talk.
“what did you do today” I tried to get into a conversation with Siri as what I would say to my friends
“I’ve practicing people’s name (Olivia), how would you like me to pronounce you name?”
“Olivia”
“ok Thank you. Which pronunciation should I use?” there are 4 options of sound recording pronouncing my name in 4 different pitch and tone.
it was quite amusing lol
I then ask her the same question but in different way “what have you done today?”
“I can’t talk. I’m in a staring contest with iPhone 7 Plus. I’m winning, I think.”
I laughed, she is really funny. “tell me something interesting”
“That may be beyond my abilities at the moment” clearly, this sounds robotic
I found myself more into the talking to Siri in a entertaining attitude rather than seeking for a real conversation (because she would suggest some thing from google and act like a search engine)
I searched ‘funny Siri tricks’ online
one of the commends I picked online was “beatbox”
She then keep repeating “boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats….”
it was a funny experience
http://newhive.com/oliviaq/digital
Your comment on how imagination relates to your past experiences reminds me of the discussion in class regarding how we see and interpret images. It is interesting how our personal experiences affect the way that we think/imagine and see, and can allow people to both relate to and think different differently from each other!
Imagining can be so much fun or scary because you can do anything in your imagination. Since I was a little kid, I have always had a tendency to space out and starts to imagine whatever was on my mind. From stupid things like what I would want to eat if I had 100 bucks, or where I would I want to go and what kind of pictures I would take at that place, to scary things like the end of my life. When I imagined about my death, I used to freak out and not be able to do anything. On the other hand, imagining about the world or the future gives me so much excitement and makes me want to gain more knowledge. So I think imagination is human’s best tool to make our lives more interesting because it gives us so many ideas, hope, ambitions and so on.Without imagination, all the achievements that human have done would have not be able to come to existence. However, nowadays I feel like technology like the internet is often times blocking many people’s imagination. Many people are always with their smartphones and too dependent on them. Before there was Facebook or other internet services, people had to wonder what or how your family, friend or loved one is doing. Right now there is no need for that because its just a click away to find out these things. Furthermore, you can just google things you don’t know and find out about the truth most of the times. Then what’s there that is left for imagination?
For my experiment, I took several screenshots of my phone as a type of selfie for the object (phone) rather than a selfie of the subject (me). Im interested in subject-object relationships and how new technologies such as robotics, AI and genetic engineering that can challenge previous relationships. Humans always justified the positioning of humans as subjects and everything else as objects in relation to humans based on our high intelligence when compared to other living creatures as well as being animate. This idea of human exceptionalism may be challenged in the future when we engineer “things” that could far exceed any human capability.
PART 1:
Through imagination, technology advances, art develops and ideas grow. It’s a trait that, I believe, makes us inherently human. Without this aspect of our lives, a lot of what we see in the world today would be non-existent. Because of this, imagination is an important aspect in the development of our world.
I find it amusing how personal experiences have a significant influence on our imagination, how it informs our creativity. As an aspiring creative director, this crucial knowledge as most of my career will be based on my ideas – rooting all of them from my past. I definitely agree that imagination is more important than knowledge, but it’s inevitable that knowledge plays a big part in how our imagination works. I think that by constantly keeping ourselves informed and educated, we can build our imagination and further develop our ideas.
PART 2:
I played with Siri on my phone. It’s funny because it kept addressing me as “Bee” when my name is pronounced as “Bey-ah”. I told Siri several times that she was pronouncing my name wrong. I corrected her twice to no avail. Moving on from that conversation, I asked Siri to play me a song and it played my favorite song. I was a slightly amused that song was played since I that was the song I wanted to hear – I felt like Siri read my mind. I used New Hive to articulate my feelings about this whole interaction: how Siri can retain some information but not all.
https://newhive.com/beaosorio/iphone
Using my phone for this purpose seemed very challenging from the beginning. Like so many people I turned Siri off from the moment I bought my phone. The challenge first was that the technology is not intelligent enough to have an answer to all my questions and second is that it does not understand my accent and sometimes my sentences so I might have to change my accent or the way I ask my questions which was pretty annoying. At the same time, I think this technology is amazing! We’ve come this far in terms of technology and innovation and the rest of it will quickly be improved and fixed. However, I find the whole thing very scary. I think we, as a part of nature, are moving away from it as fast as we can. We are separating ourselves from everything natural and killing humanity as part of nature. That means we are getting closer to technology and machinery world to the point that we become one! For example, we now have pacemakers and that’s amazing! Who would’ve thought that humans would be able to invent such a thing 100 years ago?! we will get to a point where human’s heart works electrically, and at that point are we still humans?! I think we’d have to find another name for ourselves.
I grew up in a family who strongly believes in the power of imagination. My parents always told me we are God; we are pieces of God in this world and we’re capable of creating whatever we imagine and want. As you said, we can see hints of this in scholar’s quotes or writings. They all talk about the power of imagination. I think humans will eventually be able to create things they can imagine. Their minds have the ability to see the obstacles and decided in what ways he can get rid of them. So I think humans are creating what they imagine and that could be very scary since there are so many scientists imagining the world with very improved technological innovations and it doesn’t seem like there will be any space left for human beings!
Part 1: What is Imagination
I always like to look up the definitions of broad used terms because I find that we are constantly appropriating its meaning. When I think of imagination I think of something that isn’t available to me by physical means in the moment. I think that imagination along with creativity go hand in hand in order to accomplish many of the things we go through on a daily basis, for example sometimes when problem solving, it’s not possible to solve it in ways that have worked before and therefore we have to illicit another means by thinking outside the box. Without imagination humanity wouldn’t have come up with many of the things we use today (cars, computers, cellphones, etc.), many things which we could not see ourselves functioning without. As an artist we would not see the point of continuously creating work that questions and tries to push the boundaries of topics that have already been discussed without the use of imagination.
Part 2:
I don’t have an iphone and my cellphone doesn’t have a ‘siri’ like function available so I borrowed someone else’s phone that does have siri. I found that I had to be very specific when asking questions because if not it doesn’t filter the results she gives me. For example: I asked her “Siri, what’s imagination?” and she presented me with an article from wikipedia, what I had really wanted to know was what is the definition of imagination. This made me reflect on how I ask questions or how I phrase them to illicit the response that I am looking for. As long as I was very specific about what I wanted to know, it yielded pretty useful results. Here is a newhive expression I made to sum up the process: http://newhive.com/mmoreno/collaboration