There are those who insist that by 2045 we will have achieved the Singularity: Artificial Intelligence will have surpassed our own. This may be the case, but then again it may not be. In the 1960s there were those who thought they could crack AI in one summer. What’s interesting about the AI debate is… well, a lot. But one …
Your life as a cyborg superhero
A few weeks I did a workshop with this title at Frontiers of Interaction. This was not about dressing up as Seven of Nine or the Terminator; this was about getting people thinking differently about technology, design, the things we all make. I’m as enamoured with shiny new toys as the next person (probably more so than most), but that’s not …
Indispensably Useless (the value of art)
In September, I spoke at Retune13, at the behest of the lovely Ms. Marguerite Joly. My talk was on a topic I don’t touch on all that often but which is hugely meaningful to me: art. Specifically, my brief was to talk about the value of art, to try to address the question of what makes good work. I’ve spoken …
Enforced Thievery (the zero-sum copyright game)
I have been known to rant about the utter insanity of copyright enforcement/anti-piracy action, but it’s been a while. The past few days have riled me right back up. Between Aaron Swartz’s suicide, the ridiculous new ‘6 strikes’ legislation about to go into effect in the US, and the fact that virtually every music video anyone links to on YouTube …
Signal emerging
It’s amazing what a few days of near-offline-ness can do. Since the 21st of December, I’ve ignored Twitter entirely, spent very little time on other social networks (maybe 60 minutes in 2 weeks), and engaged in only the bare minimum of emailing. I’ve also thought and conversed very little about matters digital, giving preference instead to longish periods of stillness …