And the Robot Asked "What do you say I am?" Can Artificial Intelligence Help Theologians and Scientists Understand Free Moral Agency?

Concepts of human beings as free and morally responsible agents are shared culturally by scientists and Christian theologians. Accomiplishments of the "artificial intelligence" (AI) branch of computer science now suggest the possibility of an advanced robot mimicking behaviors associated with free and morally responsible agency. The author analyzes some specific features theology has expected of such agency, inquiring whether appropriate AI resources are available for incorporating the features in robots. Waiving questions of whether such extraordinary robots will be constructed, the analysis indicates that they could be, furnishing useful new scientific resources for understanding moral agency

The Quantified Relationship

The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article, we build upon this work to provide a detailed ethical analysis of the Quantified Relationship. We identify eight core objections to the QR and subject them to critical scrutiny. We argue that although critics raise legitimate concerns, there are ways in which tracking technologies can be used to support and facilitate good relationships. We thus adopt a stance of cautious openness toward this technology and advocate the development of a research agenda for the positive use of QR technologies

On the Solvability of the Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem is analyzed in a physicalist perspective. By combining the concepts of emergence and algorithmic information theory in a thought experiment employing a basic nonlinear process, it is shown that epistemically strongly emergent properties may develop in a physical system. Turning to the significantly more complex neural network of the brain it is subsequently argued that consciousness is epistemically emergent. Thus reductionist understanding of consciousness appears not possible; the mind-body problem does not have a reductionist solution. The ontologically emergent character of consciousness is then identified from a combinatorial analysis relating to universal limits set by quantum mechanics, implying that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to low-level phenomena

The unsolvability of the mind-body problem liberates the will

The mind-body problem is analyzed in a physicalist perspective. By combining the concepts of emergence and algorithmic information theory in a thought experiment employing a basic nonlinear process, it is argued that epistemically strongly emergent properties may develop in a physical system. A comparison with the significantly more complex neural network of the brain shows that also consciousness is epistemically emergent in a strong sense. Thus reductionist understanding of consciousness appears not possible; the mind-body problem does not have a reductionist solution. The ontologically emergent character of consciousness is then identified from a combinatorial analysis relating to system limits set by quantum mechanics, implying that consciousness is fundamentally irreducible to low-level phenomena. In the perspective of a modified definition of free will, the character of the physical interactions of the brain's neural system is subsequently studied. As an ontologically open system, it is asserted that its future states are undeterminable in principle. We argue that this leads to freedom of the will

Intergenerationality in a Digital World: Proposals of Activities:Bilingual (EN and PT)

A educação para os media tem ganho um grande fôlego nos últimos anos, porém ainda precisa de passos de gigante, muito em especial ao nível da forma como é tratada e enraizada junto dos cidadãos. Este e-book surge com essa preocupação. As fichas de atividades tão diversificadas, todas elas com uma componente digital, embora não esquecendo em alguns casos a ligação a outros dispositivos não digitais e formas de estar na vida no dia a dia. Estas 20 propostas do e-book Intergeracionalidade e o mundo digital: Propostas de atividades/Intergenerationality in a Digital World: Proposals of activities tentam dar forma a uma necessidade que encontramos de fazer com que as pessoas, além das crianças e dos jovens em espaço escolar e no contexto mais formal, questionem, pensem e ajam sobre as interpelações do mundo mediático e da informação.Media Education has gained momentum in recent years, but this area still needs to be improved, especially in terms of how it is perceived and implemented among citizens. This e-book is the result of this concern. The activities are diverse and include a digital component, without forgetting the connection to other non-digital devices in daily life. These 20 proposals of the e-book Intergeracionalidade e o mundo digital: Propostas de atividades/Intergenerationality in a Digital World: Proposals of activities intend to respond to the need that people, besides children in education, question, think and act on the interpellations of a mediatised world full of information available.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Proceedings of the 1st Standardized Knowledge Representation and Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Workshop

Welcome to IEEE-ORA (Ontologies for Robotics and Automation) IROS workshop. This is the 1st edition of the workshop on! Standardized Knowledge Representation and Ontologies for Robotics and Automation. The IEEE-ORA 2014 workshop was held on the 18th September, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. In!the IEEE-ORA IROS workshop, 10 contributions were presented from 7 countries in North and South America, Asia and Europe. The presentations took place in the afternoon, from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM. The first session was dedicated to “Standards for Knowledge Representation in Robotics”, where presentations were made from the IEEE working group standards for robotics and automation, and also from the ISO TC 184/SC2/WH7. The second session was dedicated to “Core and Application Ontologies”, where presentations were made for core robotics ontologies, and also for industrial and robot assisted surgery ontologies. Three posters were presented in emergent applications of ontologies in robotics. We would like to express our thanks to all participants. First of all to the authors, whose quality work is the essence of this workshop. Next, to all the members of the international program committee, who helped us with their expertise and valuable time. We would also like to deeply thank the IEEE-IROS 2014 organizers for hosting this workshop. Our deep gratitude goes to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, that sponsors! the IEEE-ORA group activities, and also to the scientific organizations that kindly agreed to sponsor all the workshop authors work