Growth EP and the bonus track!

Ijumaa_is

Contextual Essay:

Concept

Growth (Deluxe) is a musical project that mostly explores spiritual aspects of love, peace and happiness, while briefly, in a bonus song, touching on our material and philosophical relationship with technology. I want to invite the listener to grow as an individual, and inspire them to progress with meaning and be happy. By impacting one person, in consequence a ripple effect could occur for 10, 15 or 20 years. Imagine the inspiration of one human to change themselves, inspiring someone else!

Methodology

The project is F.I.S.T, (fast, inexpensive, simple and tiny). It was put together by using free recording software and a relatively cheap Blue Yeti microphone. I recorded the Whole project at home so there was no paid for studio time. I did all the editing and mastering on each track. To post my songs, I used Sound cloud, a free platform for artists.

Research

The…

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The Social Robots – Digital Artefact Pitch — Nicola Carnevale

The idea behind my BCM325 Digital Artefact was to incorporate the idea of robots and artificial intelligence having the ability to replace humans in jobs such as a ‘social media influencers’. The way I plan to incorporate this idea into my Digital Artefact is by creating an Instagram page with my own created ‘Digital Influencer’, posting relatable and interactive content to engage the audience. Trying to replicate what may take graphic designers and artists days or weeks to create with my skill level and accessibility would be interesting to portray how accessible this project could be for any other everyday person with a laptop or computer, which could therefore determine how far off this prediction is. In the scheme of things, I’m imagining between the short to medium timescale.

See the video below for further details on my Digital Artefact:

\via The Social Robots – Digital Artefact Pitch — Nicola Carnevale

Naive and Dangerous: A New Podcast on Emergent Media

This is Episode One of Naive and Dangerous, a podcast about emergent media brought to you by two media researchers, Ted Mitew (on Twitter as @tedmitew and Chris Moore (on Twitter as @cl_moore).

The episode is titled: “I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Why Humans Fear A.I.

The intro/outro music is ‘No BPM’ by Loveshadow: dig.ccmixter.org/files/Loveshadow/58707

Robotics the future of mental health care?

Mental illness is one of the most prevalent health issues affecting the Australian population. According to the Black Dog Institute and Dementia Australia around 20% of the population will suffer a mental illness in any given year, with 45% of Australians suffering a mental illness at one point in their life, and an estimated 91,000 people, and rising, will be diagnosed with a form of dementia per year. Australia’s health system currently struggles to cope with the demand for mental health services for those affected by mental illness with many sufferers, especially in regional areas, struggling to access the essential health services they require.  

Could social or therapeutic robotics play a part in aiding and relieving some of the strain on mental health services? How viable is it? What would that look like? What are the benefits? How soon could this become a reality? Are robots currently being used in this way? Is it ethical? Could there be a social cost to using robots in a therapeutic manner? I would like to find…

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A Digital Network: Brand and Consumer

elysium design utopia

After a semester of research into online identities and branding, I finally  have a finished product!  Definitely the most interesting research based assignment I’ve undertaken at university which is both brilliant and terrifying because the research hasn’t just stopped because I finished the subject.  Anywho, the image below is linked, and the PDF is interactive (aka the contents gives you a quick jump to the right page), hope you enjoy!

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.  To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

That means you can SHARE and ADAPT this work, as long as it is for NON COMMERCIAL purposes and you give ATTRIBUTION.

A Digital Network: Brand and Consumer

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Digital Life After Death

Do you have a digital plan for when you die? An idea of what you want to do with your online presence after death? “Nine out of 10 Australians have a social media account of some description, yet the vast majority have not even had a conversation – let alone written anything down – about what should happen to these accounts when they die,” (Brad Hazzard, 2014)

What if you could live on after death?  What if, when you died, your social networks took the information you had provided it with, and then integrated it with software which analysed the way you interacted with the medium, and was able to continue your interaction for you?

Although the above video is intended as a parody of sorts, this sort of thinking isn’t too far off, with research underway, and programs already existing that play this sort of role.

Currently, Facebook opts to memorialise accounts when people pass away, unless family members request for it to be deleted, but what if we didn’t have to stop at the idea of posting tributes, and tagging our loved ones in the statuses.  What if we could just message them, tell them how much we loved and/or missed them and get a response?

Two years ago, I had a friend my age pass away from cancer, and I had sent her messages in the days leading up to this.  I had dyed my hair purple as it was her favourite colour, and wanted to show my love and support for her through this difficult time.  While I’m sure she did not see the post, it makes me wonder what would have happened if this technology was available.  What would she have said? Would it have reflected the girl I knew, and if it did, would she really be dead?  And if the AI which responded evolved over time based on conversations, would she still be the same person as when she physically died?

Artificial and Sentient

Sentient artificial intelligence has been an ongoing preoccupation in science fiction movies, TV shows, books and other media. It’s not limited to science fiction, it’s slowly making its way into popular culture as seen with Marvel’s Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, a film focused on a sentient artificial intelligence (Ultron, voiced by James Spader) becoming cognisant of the needlessness of the human race. The same can be seen with I, Robot and Ex Machina, and is explored in Humans and Almost Human.

George Dvorsky has listed a number of myths about artificial intelligence in the wake of AlphaGo winning two out of three games in the Go tournament against grandmaster Lee Sedol. So it seems like AI is becoming a closer and closer reality but continues to be depicted as something that will replace humanity rather than work with us.

For my project, I’d like to play with this idea and test how people feel about AI walking among us by developing a simple game of deception. The concept of the Turing Test, a test designed to determine if AI is indistinguishable from humanity, underlies this idea.

Things to research from here:

• Origins of artificial intelligence (definition would be good)
  • R.U.R (Rossum)
• Golem, automaton, ?
• Gendered Robots
  • Metropolis
• Why are people pursuing this?
• At what point does a human become a robot from cybernetics?
• With sentience would artificial intelligence be a replacement/challenger or an aid?
• Ethics
• Charles Babbage – calculating engine – hand-cranked computational
• Genie?

Other related texts:

• Skinners trilogy – brain scans are taken from a terminal car crash victim and imprinted on a cyborg
• Mr Robot
• Chappie
• Her
• Bicentennial Man
• Ghost in the Shell
• Terminator franchise

Building from Cyberpunk

>GOALS

My immediate research goal for DIGC335 is to unpack ‘cyberpunk’ as a term, as an aesthetic, and as a theory, and nail down the history and themes involved. This will allow me to begin building a digital artefact. For that, I have two trains of thought:

The first, a Lovecraft comic. Synthesizing Lovecraftian and cyberpunk settings and themes, I will either transpose an existing H. P. Lovecraft short story into a comic – or I will create a smaller series of comics as part of a larger worldbuilding exercise.

The second, a dramatic podcast on the observations of an AI testing facility. From the perspective of a worker at the facility who is present but not entirely part of its inner goings on, this podcast would consist of both thoughtful and off-hand observations of the various behaviours of the AI being tested, exploring a range.

Both branches would require additional research, unique to itself, beyond the theme of cyberpunk. My plan is to continue my research into cyberpunk and work on both branches until one of two things happens: a) one overrides the other in relevance and quality of research and content, or b) I have a sufficient sample of both, which will contribute to a larger world and story.

>THE GIFT

And, as a relevant interest piece, take a look at this short film:

Original post: Building from Cyberpunk // data eater

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence has always been a fascinating aspect of cyber culture, particularly for someone like me, who grew up on thought-provoking science-fiction films such as ‘Her’ and ‘Ex-Machina’. In fact, ‘Ex-Machina’ was one of the reasons for which I chose to explore the idea of Artificial Intelligence for my digital artifact. My intention is to create a 4-part podcast exploring the historical, moral, philosophical and ethical aspects  of Artificial Intelligence.

Source: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03092/SHOT_11_029__3092453b.jpg

The origins of Artificial Intelligence are commonly traced backed to the revolutionary mathematician Alan Turing, who first questioned whether machines can think. His adaptation of a the imitation game, which eventually became famous as ‘the Turing test’ , and according to prof. Noel Sharkey is “a useful way to chart the progress of AI” (Sharkey, 2012). Turing’s revolutionary research into Artificial Intelligence set the way for authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, whose three laws of robotics have evolved from just a literature device into sort-of rules which are upheld by robotic scientists and researchers.

Another interesting aspect of artificial intelligence that I intend on researching, is the way that artificial intelligence has been represented in science-fiction films, from ‘Blade Runner’ to ‘Ex-Machina’. In presenting this idea, I will review the 2015 film ‘Ex-Machina’ and examine how the film deals with the fore-mentioned aspects of Artificial Intelligence. I have already begun extensive research into each individual aspect and look forward to presenting my progress through each blog post.

References

Sharkey, N 2012, ‘Alan Turing: The experiment that shaped artificial intelligence’, BBC NEWS, 21st November, viewed 10th March 2016,  <http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18475646&gt;

Would you turn off life support?

Shenae's Paige

When we consider our relationship with technology, it is us that holds the ability to have emotional attachments and feelings. We see technology as a tool. But how would we feel if technology had feelings?

You could say technology is a slave to us: it has no say, no feelings, no emotions, and does as we want at our perusal. But what if it could react to us? Say, when we yell at our devices for not working, when we lose something, how would it make us feel if we thought our technologies react to us?

I would be interested in creating a study of human reactions to artificially-created emotional relationships between human and technology. If robots could react to us, would we start treating them as valuable life? What if we did whatever it takes to keep our devices alive? For example, you have a phone, you’ve had it for years, it starts mucking up…

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