Presented at CS'14, Shanghai, China, 1 st July 2014 1/7/14 Micro ro-Fut utures ures Vic Callaghan http://victor.callaghan.info vic@essex.ac.uk Presented at Creative Science 2014, Essex University 1 h July 2014, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China Professor of Computer Science at Essex University Member of Intelligent Environments Group and Digital Lifestyles Centre Worked in avionics (aircraft) before joining university system Specialist in robotics and artificial intelligence ( founded Robotics at Essex in late 80’s, IE in late 90’s ) Current research focused on Embedded- Agents, End-User Programming, Affective Computing & Mixed Reality. Part of organizational team for numerous conferences, workshops, journals http://victor.callaghan.info • Parkland of 200 acres • Royal Charter in 1965 • 12,240 students • 27% post graduates • 40% overseas (130 countries) • Ranked 9 th in UK for research • Ranked 2 nd for student satisfaction Essex University 2 (c) CSf 2014 1
Presented at CS'14, Shanghai, China, 1 st July 2014 1/7/14 “ The motivation of this paper is to introduce micro-fiction as a methodology for capturing and communicating visions for scientific, business and societal innovations ” . To those end, The Technological Singularity is described and used as a means to illustrate the workings of Micro-SFPs Section 1 - about Micro-SFPs Section 2 - about ‘The Singularity’ Section 3 - about the stories Section 4 – reflections Essex University 3 Science-fiction Prototyping ( SFP ) is a product- innovation methodology that uses science- fiction imagery and narratives as a tool to communicate and explore ideas for new research, business models or product opportunities. Works by extrapolating forward in time, directions for R&D (and potential product outcomes) and testing the viability (or attractiveness) of the ideas by couching them in a social context provided by the narrative or imagery. SFP devised by Brian David Johnson Essex University 4 (c) CSf 2014 2
Presented at CS'14, Shanghai, China, 1 st July 2014 1/7/14 Pros ◦ Stories are size of a paper thereby enabling prototypes to be well developed and tested. From this SFP concept Cons ◦ Take considerable time to write, To this produc uct obstructing creative activities with limited time. Conse nsequences ences ◦ Gave rise to shorthand genre – micro-SFPs http://dces.essex.ac.uk/Research/iieg/papers/TalesFromAPod(Paper).pdf http://www.immersivedisplay.co.uk/pdf/immersavu.pdf 5 Essex University No agreed specification; Range from 6 to 1000 words; Popular size 25-30, words. Similarities to fables, parables, anecdotes, sayings, proverbs and maxims 6 Word English speaking world called micro-fiction, nano-fiction, “For sale: baby shoes, never flash-fiction, sudden-fiction or postcard-fiction worn “ - Ernest Hemingway (who, according to science Around the world called microrrelato or ficcione (Latin- fiction writer Arthur C. America); nouvelles (France); minute-long or smoke-long Clarke, bet he could write a complete story in just 6 (China); Haibun (Japan) words starting this genre!). Technology based - Mobile-phone (Ketai) fiction ( 160 - - - - - - - - - - - - - “Lie detector eyeglasses characters ~30 words );’ Twitter Lit ’ ( 140 characters ~25 words ) perfected: Civilization n collapses .” - Richard Powers This is the style Examples can be found at “TIME MACHINE NE REACHES ES Micro-SFPs FPs adopt FUTURE!! E!!! - nobody y there “ ◦ Wired (6-word) - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html - Harry Harrison ◦ Espresso Stories (25 words) - http://espressostories.com ◦ Micro-SFPs (Twitter-size ) - http://www.creative-science.org/activities/microsfp / ◦ . Essex University 6 ◦ (c) CSf 2014 3
Presented at CS'14, Shanghai, China, 1 st July 2014 1/7/14 Purge (81 words) "Objects are more than physical, you know? They take up 1. mental space too." He stopped to wipe his eyes. 2. "Tania was more than physical to me. Even when she’s 3. gone I close our bedroom door lightly as if she sleeps…" "I walk down the sidewalk with room for two." 4. A technician nodded slightly, and placed the device, cold 5. and metallic, across his reddened forehead. "You can’t live your whole life with an empty room in your 6. head, you know? Do it." Reflection (185 words) The door opened to reveal a giant, circular room. Floors black, walls black. In the centre there was a pulsing 1. light that illuminated the tiles of the floor. He stepped inside the threshold. "Chris Arlen." He calmly directed his voice at the floor. 2. The tiles on the floor flickered until their glow was consistent and growing. In front of him the three- 3. dimensional image of a young man materialized. He was all there, digitally. As he stared at the hologram of Chris, slowly turning with animated chest movements, he saw that the re- 4. creation hadn’t missed a thing. His brown hair slightly too long for his face, the sneakers he should have thrown out, the hole in his neck below the ear that put him here. He paused a moment, looking at that hole, and suddenly felt the weight of the gun in his holster. Guilt and 5. shame rushed from his finger tips to his temples. It smouldered there. “I’m done in here,” he shouted to the attendant outside the room. "You have another thirty minutes before this reflection period is over, officer," a synthesized voice returned. 6. http://scifiinsix.tumblr.com/ Essex University 7 The Singularity …. the moment machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence ( around 2050 according to Kurzweil ) ... Might be brought to fruition as outcome of whole brain emulation , transhumanism or an intelligence explosion ! Essex University 8 (c) CSf 2014 4
Presented at CS'14, Shanghai, China, 1 st July 2014 1/7/14 Arrival of singularity would have profound consequences for humankind ◦ From a positive viewpoint, people would have powerful analytical tools ◦ From a negative perspective, human existence would have competing greater intelligence! Generally, there are three main ways that people imagine a singularity might be brought to fruition ◦ Whole brain emulation - refers to building an artificial version of the brain (eg a software simulation) ◦ Transhumanism - refers to augmenting (massively) human intellectual and physical capacities by the use of add-on or replacement parts. ◦ I ntelligence explosion - based on acceleration theories where one could imagine ever smarter tools making even smarter tools resulting intelligence explosion To distinguish singularity AI from current application-specific AI, is referred to as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) . Essex University 9 Micro-SFPs (25 word) ◦ Uses Twitter / Mobile Phone sized fiction (140 /160 characters) ◦ Should focus on some technology (eg machine, gadget, etc) ◦ Need to include an action to illustrate its use , ◦ Include a person (indirect references are ok) ◦ All framed in a simple (if partial) narrative , as in any story. ◦ Start by identifying the technology, then the plot. Start big, then reduce it to <140 characters ◦ Simple writing procedure Start by identifying the technology, process or service, Then create at plot. Start big, then reduce it to <140 characters Johnsons 5-step SFP Process 1. Selecting the product (or service) and building an imaginative world, 2. Identifying a product (or service) inflection point, 3. Analysing the ramifications of the product (or service) on people, 4. Identifying a human inflection point, and 5. Reflecting on what was learnt. Essex University 10 (c) CSf 2014 5
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