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Lecture 7: Remote Communications. Professor Victoria Meng. What is the nature of media interactivity?. Disclaimer: Interactivity is HUGE and always changing!. Learning Tasks. Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.”
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Lecture 7:Remote Communications Professor Victoria Meng What is the nature of media interactivity?
Learning Tasks • Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” • David Rokeby, “Transforming Mirrors: Subjectivity and Control in Interactive Media.” • Ken Hillis, “A Critical History of Virtual Reality.” • Tron, Animotion, Neave Games
Lev Manovich: Automation • “Low-level:” performs specific tasks. • “High-level:” aka “artificial intelligence.” • “Media access:” search and retrieval from databases.
Alan Turing • British mathematician, cryptographer (1912-1954) • Pioneered computer science with the “Turing machine” • Tragic death
Alan Turing Diagram of a Turing Machine, which can be adapted into a “Universal Machine.”
Post-War Context Atomic bomb Enigma Machine
Can Machines Think? Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster
How Can We Know If Machines Think? • How do we ascertain that people think? • We “just know.” • Brain imaging technology. • IQ tests and other tests that evaluate performance. • How can we find the right test(s) to measure “machine thought?”
How Can We Know If Machines Think? • Some “skill” operations are not comparable (computer: PWN!). Left: Gary Kasparov Right: Deep Blue Match date: May 11, 1997
How Can We Know If Machines Think? • We equate “thinking” with “consciousness” – processes and sensations that are not yet quantifiable.
How Can We Know If Machines Think? • We equate “thinking” with “consciousness” – processes and sensations that are not yet quantifiable. • The stakes are high: thinking makes us “special.”
The Turing Test “The Thinker,” Auguste Rodin, 1902
The Turing Test A provocative and influential way to “measure” artificial intelligence.
The Turing Test Makes users bear the “burden of proof” – it’s true if you believe it. Sets human-computer transcoding as the programming problem.
The Turing Test Tangent: What are the strengths and limitations of tests, papers, and other assessment tools? How well do they predict behavior?
The Turing Test Makes users bear the “burden of proof” – it’s true if you believe it. Sets human-computer transcoding as the programming problem. Posits that “humanity” is a performance and can be “decoded.”
The Turing Test Memory v. Memory?
The Turing Test “Hello, Hal: will we ever get a computer we can really talk to?” John Seabrook, The New Yorker, June 23 2008
Media Interactivity “Hello, Hal: will we ever get a computer we can really talk to?” John Seabrook, The New Yorker, June 23 2008
The Turing Test Makes users bear the “burden of proof” – it’s true if you believe it. Sets human-computer transcoding as the programming problem. Posits that “humanity” is a performance. Underestimates complexities of human cognition.
Interactivity/Immersion Lecture Title: Remote Communications: What is the nature of media interactivity?
Interactivity/Immersion What do authors like Hillis and Rokeby assert about digital media? Do they agree?
Interactivity/Immersion What is interactivity?
Interactivity/Immersion What is interactivity? - mutual v. uni-directional effects?
Interactivity/Immersion What is interactivity? - mutual v. uni-directional effects? - communication v. command and/or control?
Interactivity/Immersion What is interactivity? - mutual v. uni-directional effects? - communication v. command and/or control? - What/Who is interacting with what/whom? How does this change the way we think about interactivity?
Interactivity/Immersion Me Alexey Pajitnov
Interactivity/Immersion Me Alexey Pajitnov Paul Neave
Interactivity/Immersion Me Alexey Pajitnov Paul Neave Tetris
Interactivity/Immersion Me, again! Alexey Pajitnov Paul Neave Tetris
David Rokeby: “Transforming Mirrors” Left: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Laurence Sterne, 1759-69) Right: “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even” (Marcel Duchamp, 1915-23)
David Rokeby: “Transforming Mirrors” “A technology is interactive to the degree that it reflects the consequences of our actions or decisions back to us.” (133)
David Rokeby: “Transforming Mirrors” • Read last paragraphs of 154, 155. • Navigable structure/space. • Medium specificity. • Transforming mirror. • Automaton.
Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of Virtual Reality” • Historical account – antidote for technological determinism. Link Trainer (hydraulic flight simulator, 1930s-50s)
Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of Virtual Reality” • Role of stories in history: why science fiction is important. Tron (Lisberger, 1982)
Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of Virtual Reality” Tron (Lisberger, 1982)
Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of Virtual Reality” • Minds, bodies, transcendence and connection… Animotion, Manuel Fallmann, 2004. Tip: Don’t change the library before you’re done – you’ll lose all your work.
End of Lecture 7 Next Lecture: Everything is Exchangeable: How do the whole and its parts relate in digital media?