An autonomous satellite architecture integrating deliberative reasoning and behavioural intelligence

This paper describes a method for the design of autonomous spacecraft, based upon behavioral approaches to intelligent robotics. First, a number of previous spacecraft automation projects are reviewed. A methodology for the design of autonomous spacecraft is then presented, drawing upon both the European Space Agency technological center (ESTEC) automation and robotics methodology and the subsumption architecture for autonomous robots. A layered competency model for autonomous orbital spacecraft is proposed. A simple example of low level competencies and their interaction is presented in order to illustrate the methodology. Finally, the general principles adopted for the control hardware design of the AUSTRALIS-1 spacecraft are described. This system will provide an orbital experimental platform for spacecraft autonomy studies, supporting the exploration of different logical control models, different computational metaphors within the behavioral control framework, and different mappings from the logical control model to its physical implementation

Loading World: (re)Creating Life, Nature and Cosmos in Evolutionary Computer Games

As a generalised field of study, artificial life has produced specific meanings and narratives about what it means to be alive: structured around the concepts of code, information, evolution, connectionism, emergence and cybernetics that connect silicon and carbon life together. Evolutionary computer games and popular programs have introduced the general player and user to advanced artificial life creations, with games based on the nurturing and breeding of silicon creatures placed within new digital natures conceived as computational regimes. Considered is the question of how it has become possible to talk of silicon entities as being alive, and to explore their relationship with carbon life as presented within evolutionary computer games. Similarities between digital and material proposed within computational regimes are also investigated. Playing computer games is developed as a productive practice that constructs meanings, stories and narratives within play. Tracing spiritual and scientific myths and narratives of construction, creation and change, reveals how common stories about life, nature and cosmos are employed in the building of bonds between silicon and carbon. Evolutionary computer games are presented as actively promoting themselves as artificial life products creating links with the life and biological sciences. Meaning produced within play is shown to naturalise and normalise specific definitions of life steeped in neo·Darwinian evolutionism and cybernetics, and how our digital creations have become perfected examples of the essence of this life. Whether this conceptualisation of life, nature and cosmos works within computational regimes is questioned and discussed. Reflecting similar arguments contesting the neo·Darwinian evolutionary perspective within biology, the assumptions employed within this framework are investigated and challenged. Utilising Bruno Latour's program of political ecology and his concepts of proposition and habit. An alternative framework is suggested to examine artificial life, utilising Bruno Latour's program of political ecology, his concepts of proposition and habit, and our relation with these entities

Wearable performance

This is the post-print version of the article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & FrancisWearable computing devices worn on the body provide the potential for digital interaction in the world. A new stage of computing technology at the beginning of the 21st Century links the personal and the pervasive through mobile wearables. The convergence between the miniaturisation of microchips (nanotechnology), intelligent textile or interfacial materials production, advances in biotechnology and the growth of wireless, ubiquitous computing emphasises not only mobility but integration into clothing or the human body. In artistic contexts one expects such integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. 'Wearable performance' briefly surveys the context for wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes display and performative/interfacial garments. It then focuses on the authors' experiments with 'design in motion' and digital performance, examining prototyping at the DAP-Lab which involves transdisciplinary convergences between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies and digital animation. The concept of an 'evolving' garment design that is materialised (mobilised) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's work with telepresence and distributed media addressing the 'connective tissues' and 'wearabilities' of projected bodies through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing). Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment. Wearable computing devices worn on the body provide the potential for digital interaction in the world. A new stage of computing technology at the beginning of the 21st Century links the personal and the pervasive through mobile wearables. The convergence between the miniaturisation of microchips (nanotechnology), intelligent textile or interfacial materials production, advances in biotechnology and the growth of wireless, ubiquitous computing emphasises not only mobility but integration into clothing or the human body. In artistic contexts one expects such integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. 'Wearable performance' briefly surveys the context for wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes display and performative/interfacial garments. It then focuses on the authors' experiments with 'design in motion' and digital performance, examining prototyping at the DAP-Lab which involves transdisciplinary convergences between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies and digital animation. The concept of an 'evolving' garment design that is materialised (mobilised) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's work with telepresence and distributed media addressing the 'connective tissues' and 'wearabilities' of projected bodies through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing). Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment

Emerging Linguistic Functions in Early Infancy

This paper presents results from experimental studies on early language acquisition in infants and attempts to interpret the experimental results within the framework of the Ecological Theory of Language Acquisition (ETLA) recently proposed by (Lacerda et al., 2004a). From this perspective, the infant’s first steps in the acquisition of the ambient language are seen as a consequence of the infant’s general capacity to represent sensory input and the infant’s interaction with other actors in its immediate ecological environment. On the basis of available experimental evidence, it will be argued that ETLA offers a productive alternative to traditional descriptive views of the language acquisition process by presenting an operative model of how early linguistic function may emerge through interaction

Domination in the Anthropocene

The critique of human domination is a tenet of environmental thinking. Now, the rise of the Anthropocene has increased the risk that survivalism obscures nonhuman emancipation as a public and private goal: if the conversation about the Anthropocene keeps focusing on the dangerous disruption of planetary systems, fear of extinction can relegate nonhuman emancipation indefinitely. Furthermore, the language of the Anthropocene privileges terms such as «transformation» or «hybridization», overshadowing how nature has been, and continues to be, colonized by human beings. Unsurprisingly, the name of the new epoch puts humanity at the center of Earth's history, turning the «anthropos» into the main character of the planetary drama. It would thus seem that the Anthropocene's irruption hinders the critique and removal of domination. However, as this paper will argue, that is not necessarily the case. The Anthropocene can provide a more realistic account of socionatural relations and thus put past and present domination into a wider context. In turn, this opens up new possibilities for the critique of domination -possibilities that do not rely on traditional arguments regarding capitalism's rapaciousness or human's lack of empathy. While the complete absence of domination will remain an ideal goal for the time being, an enlightened or managed domination can meaningfully reduce the harm done to nature in a non-ideal world and prepare us for a future where humanity self-consciously overcomes the acquired habit of domination

Better, Nicer, Clearer, Fairer: A Critical Assessment of the Movement for Ethical Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

This paper uses frame analysis to examine recent high-profile values statements endorsing ethical design for artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Guided by insights from values in design and the sociology of business ethics, we uncover the grounding assumptions and terms of debate that make some conversations about ethical design possible while forestalling alternative visions. Vision statements for ethical AI/ML co-opt the language of some critics, folding them into a limited, technologically deterministic, expert-driven view of what ethical AI/ML means and how it might work