De bello robotico : an ethical assessment of military robotics

This article provides a detailed description of robotic weapons and unmanned systems currently used by the U.S. Military and its allies, and an ethical assessment of their actual or potential use on the battlefield. Firstly, trough a review of scientific literature, reports, and newspaper articles, a catalogue of ethical problems related to military robotics is compiled. Secondly, possible solutions for these problems are offered, by relying also on analytic tools provided by the new field of roboethics. Finally, the article explores possible future developments of military robotics and present six reasons why a war between humans and automata is unlikely to happen in the 21st century

Art as we don't know it

2018 marked the 10th anniversary of the Bioart Society and created the impetus for the publication of Art as We Don’t Know It. For this publication, the Bioart Society joined forces with the School of Arts, Design and Architecture of the Aalto University. The close history and ongoing collaborative relationship between the Bioart Society and Biofilia – Base for Biological Arts in the Aalto University lead to this mutual effort to celebrate together a diverse and nurturing environment to foster artistic practices on the intersection of art, science and society. Rather than stage a retrospective, we decided to invite writings that look forward and invite speculations about the potential directions of bioarts. The contributions range from peer-reviewed articles to personal accounts and inter-views, interspersed with artistic contributions and Bioart Society projects. The selection offers a purview of the rich variety, both in content and form, of the work currently being made within the field of bioart. The works and articles clearly trouble the porous and provisional definitions of what might be understood as bioart, and indeed definitions of bioart have been usefully and generativity critiqued since the inception of the term. Whilst far from being definitive, we consider the contributions of the book to be tantalising and valuable indicators of trends, visions and impulses. We also invite into the reading of this publication a consideration of potential obsolescences knowing that some of today’s writing will become archaic over time as technologies driven by contemporary excitement and hype are discarded. In so doing we also acknowledge and ponder upon our situatedness and the partialness of our purview in how we begin and find points of departure from which to anticipate the unanticipated. Whilst declining the view of retrospection this book does present art and research that has grown and flourished within the wider network of both the Bioart Society and Biofilia during the previous decade. The book is structured into four thematic sections Life As We Don’t Know It, Convergences, Learnings/Unlearnings, Redraw and Refigure and rounded off with a glossary

Apophatic science:How computational modeling can explain consciousness

This study introduces a novel methodology for consciousness science. Consciousness as we understand it pretheoretically is inherently subjective, yet the data available to science are irreducibly intersubjective. This poses a unique challenge for attempts to investigate consciousness empirically. We meet this challenge by combining two insights. First, we emphasize the role that computational models play in integrating results relevant to consciousness from across the cognitive sciences. This move echoes Alan Newell’s call that the language and concepts of computer science serve as a lingua franca for integrative cognitive science. Second, our central contribution is a new method for validating computational models that treats them as providing negative data on consciousness: data about what consciousness is not. This method is designed to support a quantitative science of consciousness while avoiding metaphysical commitments. We discuss how this methodology applies to current and future research and address questions that others have raised

The Internet of Bodies — alive, connected and collective: the virtual physical future of our bodies and our senses

This paper is going to discuss, what will be called, ‘The Internet of Bodies’. Our physical and virtual worlds are blending and shifting our understanding of three key areas: (1) our identities are diversifying, as they become hyper-enhanced and multi-sensory; (2) our collaborations are co-created, immersive and connected; (3) our innovations are diverse and inclusive. It is proposed that our bodies have finally become the interface. This gives rise to salient research questions that will be addressed in this paper: - How do virtual forms of the body, created and transmitted through digital tools, change our relationship to ourselves and to others? - How does virtual/physical distributed embodiment redefine identity in socio-political terms? - Can working and living in virtual space enable and encourage collective intelligence, collaboration and co-creation? The last and key question looks to future insights : - How and with what effect will these collective virtual interactions be re-physicalised into the "real" world? The Internet of Bodies is Boddington's 4 year real-time and practise-led research programme (2016-2020) exploring the body’s integration with digital technologies and its effect on human identity. Boddington disseminates this new knowledge to a diverse range of outlets (academic, creative industries, arts, educational, corporate) with a large audience reach in UK and internationally. This paper outlines insights gained from the outcomes this dissemination through her curatorial and practise-led research work, as well as post presentation debates from her presentations. It has been written in expansion and following keynotes presentations at University of Cambridge, UKRI Beyond Conference, Women in Games European Conference, Manchester Science Festival, Mobile World Congress and FutureFest amongst others. Boddington specialises in the future human, body responsive technologies and immersive experiences. She is Co-founder and Creative Director of body>data>space (fka shinaknsen), a pioneering interactive creative design collective who have advocated for the living body to be at the heart of the digital debate since the early 1990s. With a background in dance and performing arts and a long-term focus on the blending of our virtual and physical bodies, she engages in highly topical and future digital issues for our living bodies, including personal data usage, identity and representation of the self, connected body enhancements and collective connectivities of the future. One of the most exciting and yet also the most challenging debates of our times is that of the integration of automata, machine learning and AI into our daily existences. Boddington is a long term practise-led researcher and concept developer and well recognised for her pioneer work on virtual physical blending, body connectivity, virtual presence, redfinitions of liveness and the hyper-enhanced sensory self. Feeding from her practise Boddington presents and extends her original ideas into the public realm, for debate and evolution, to enable access by creative industries, education and cultural experts to the imperative questions about our identity, our self-hood and our agency in the future, as we move through considerable issues on data ethics and personal / bio-signal data which, in many cases, no longer belongs to us. ‘The Internet of Bodies’ has enabled Boddington research to become highly noticeable in a widening circuit, with challenging debates following her topical presentations, where industry and government are questioned on the owneership of our persoanl data. These have fed into Boddington's ever expanding research materials. This journal paper puts forward Boddington's ongoing reflections to these discussions. In 2017, Ghislaine was awarded the IX Immersion Experience Visionary Pioneer Award by Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) for her long-term innovative work in digital arts, and in particular her “passionate and inspirational engagement towards embodied intelligence”. Boddington has been invited to present to a wide range of audiences in academia, creative industries and corporate contexts in the UK and internrationally 2016-2019. These range from small expert groupsings of 60 to huge corporate keynotes for up to 2k attendees:- 2019 - Keynote – ‘The Internet of Bodies – body data and ethics’ at UK Research and Innovation’s Industrial Strategy conference ‘BEYOND – AI and Creativity’, Edinburgh, UK - Keynote – ‘The Internet of Bodies – alive, collective and connected’ at Women in Games European Conference, London, UK - Keynote Speaker – ‘Internet of Bodies: Exploring the Future Human and Collective Engagement Scenarios’ for ‘Tacit Engagement in the Digital Age’ Conference, University of Cambridge, UK - Keynote – ‘Internet of Bodies – alive, connected and collective’ for the House of Beautiful Business, Academy of Science, Lisbon, Portugal - Opening Keynote ‘The Internet of Bodies – alive, connected and collective’ and ‘Biohacking on Stage Live Human Chip Implant Show’ for Mobile World Congress / 4YFN (4 Years From Now), Barcelona, Spain 2018 - Keynote – ‘Internet of Bodies – alive, connected and collective’ for the House of Beautiful Business, Academy of Science, Lisbon, Portugal - Presentation and curation – ‘Future humans: Augmented selves’ and ‘AI and Creativity Futures’ for Nesta’s FutureFest, London, UK - Presentation – Live Human Chip Implant Show ‘You have been upgraded’ for Manchester Science Festival, UK - Keynote – ‘The Internet of Bodies’ for the Simulation Training for Resilience & Safety Symposium, London, UK 2017 - Opening Keynote – ‘The Internet on Bodies – alive, connected and collective’ for Internet Mobile World, Bucharest, Romania - Keynote – ‘Internet of Bodies – alive, connected and collective’ for Manchester Science Festival, UK - Opening Keynote – ‘Internet of Bodies’ for IX Immersion Experience Symposium for SAT Dome, Montreal, Quebec - Presentation – ‘Internet of Bodies – alive, connected and collective’ for Thinking Digital, Newcastle, UK 2016 - Keynote Speaker and curation – ‘Live Human Chip Implant Show’ for Nesta’s FutureFest, London, UK - Presentation – ‘Women in Tech’ for Telefonica Digital Futures, London, UK - Presentation – ‘The Internet of Bodies – connected and collective’ for Develop:Evolve VR conference, Brighton, UK - Keynote – ’The Internet of Bodies” for Market Research Council Conference, London, UK - Keynote - 'The Internet of Bodies' for HCC12 Conference, University of Salford Additonally Boddington has proposed and debated her insights on the Internet of Bodies into panels and in group discussions at Milano Digital Week, for Nesta Italia; Future Life, Utrecht; General Assembly London; V&A London; Imperial College London; London Tech Week; IX Immersion Experience SAT Montreal; King's College London; British Council; Toyota Europe; Market Research Society UK; Middlesex Univeristy, London; Convergence Festival London; Stylus London; Mapping Festival Geneva; FutureLab London; TEDx's Limassol and Vienna; Media Trendy Warsaw; BFI Sci-Fi​ Fest; ISEA; Crafts Council; Digital Catapult London Please see links below to a range of evidence for these presentations

Paradoxes of interactivity: perspectives for media theory, human-computer interaction, and artistic investigations

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. "Paradoxes of Interactivity" brings together reflections on "interactivity" from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

Paradoxes of Interactivity

Current findings from anthropology, genetics, prehistory, cognitive and neuroscience indicate that human nature is grounded in a co-evolution of tool use, symbolic communication, social interaction and cultural transmission. Digital information technology has recently entered as a new tool in this co-evolution, and will probably have the strongest impact on shaping the human mind in the near future. A common effort from the humanities, the sciences, art and technology is necessary to understand this ongoing co- evolutionary process. Interactivity is a key for understanding the new relationships formed by humans with social robots as well as interactive environments and wearables underlying this process. Of special importance for understanding interactivity are human-computer and human-robot interaction, as well as media theory and New Media Art. »Paradoxes of Interactivity« brings together reflections on »interactivity« from different theoretical perspectives, the interplay of science and art, and recent technological developments for artistic applications, especially in the realm of sound

Columbia Poetry Review

Literary journal produced annually. Student editors: Tara Boswell, Brian Miles, Patti Pangborn, Patrick Samuel, Joshua Young. Editorial Board: AmyJo Arehart, John Kenneth Bishop, Alyssa Davis, James Eidson, Tyler Cain Lacy, Joseph Meads, David A. Moran, Chris Neely, Daniel Scott Parker, Victoria A. Sanz, Matthew Sharos, Gabrielle Faith Williamms, Abigail Zimmer. Cover: Izziyana Suhaimi.https://digitalcommons.colum.edu/cpr/1025/thumbnail.jp

The Technological Myth of Space Expansionism: Billionaire Futures in the Contemporary Space Age

There is consensus among space advocates that we are entering a new era of the space age. The contemporary setting is characterized by the confluence of government space programs with tax-payer funds and commercial space ventures that are innovating emergent technologies. It is also heavily associated with the actions, dialogues, and envisioned futures of tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, billionaires who founded and own the private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin. Earth’s wealthiest individuals are determined to play a consequential role in exploring and exploiting other celestial bodies and extending human habitat into outer space. The multitude of ideologies, imaginaries, and discourses underpinning the project of space migration, from utopian to eschatological, can be condensed into one term: space expansionism. This thesis puts the burgeoning space economy and various theorized planetary futures into a historical context through conjunctural analysis. It finds that capitalism’s pursuit of infinite resources and growth in the solar system, as communicated in and promised by space expansionism, is not only a dubious technological myth, but a dangerous one