I don't have time for a full post right now, but I feel obliged to point out that, after a couple of theory chapters that are a touch uneven, Bonni Nardi has written a fantastic ethnography of World of Warcraft in her recently published book. I haven't finished, but her chapters on addiction and gender, for example, are balanced, articulate, and stimulating.
I'm enjoying this book a lot. Of course ... I would. :)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Religious Transhumanism
In a recent article, "Why Transhumanism Won't Work," New Atlantis author Mark Gubrud declares transhumanism problematic and seems distressed by its growing public acceptability. Gubrud believes that mind uploading is impossible (which it may be) and triumphantly points out the dualistic implications of Hans Moravec's pattern identity position. Of course, Moravec never denied being a dualist (though grounded in materialism) and Kurzweil calls himself a "patternist," which isn't a lot different (though it is tougher to say). A lot of the criticism of Moravec's position revolves around the fact that such a copied pattern (if technically feasible) would be a copy of me, not me...and would be little consolation for me personally as I reached the end of my life. This is probably why the so-called Moravec Operation involves the body and brain being dissected in order to produce the copy (it's now the only one and you don't have to worry about whether you will die in the future).
There's nothing new in the New Atlantis criticism (which the author admits), but it does point toward the increasingly mainstream nature of transhumanism (which is one of the things that this blog purports to document). That mainstreaming, Gubrud says, might come at the expense of more radical transhumanist ideas, like mind uploading, prompting Italian transhumanist Giulio Prisco to reiterate his agenda:
"YES! Let's form hard-core transhumanist splinter groups yearning for cyber-heaven. Let's put some vision, imagination and FUN back into transhumanism. Let's re-affirm the bold, fresh, uncompromising and energizing transhumanism of Hans Moravec and Max More. Let's not appease critics and PC idiots, but ignore them. Not kissing ass, but kicking ass."
(the entire blog post can be seen here)
Prisco has been one of the most open advocates of religious transhumanism over the past decade and I am very curious to see how the debates between religious transhumanism and philosophical transhumanism (which is still religious, it's just in the closet) will unfold. Two possible strategies for the religious group would involve taking the message to events like the "H+ Summit" and start seeking converts among the transhumanist faithful or else using the religious message to encourage non-transhumanists' conversion. Either of these would oppose the efforts of groups like Humanity+ to blend in with the mainstream as described by Gubrud.
There's nothing new in the New Atlantis criticism (which the author admits), but it does point toward the increasingly mainstream nature of transhumanism (which is one of the things that this blog purports to document). That mainstreaming, Gubrud says, might come at the expense of more radical transhumanist ideas, like mind uploading, prompting Italian transhumanist Giulio Prisco to reiterate his agenda:
"YES! Let's form hard-core transhumanist splinter groups yearning for cyber-heaven. Let's put some vision, imagination and FUN back into transhumanism. Let's re-affirm the bold, fresh, uncompromising and energizing transhumanism of Hans Moravec and Max More. Let's not appease critics and PC idiots, but ignore them. Not kissing ass, but kicking ass."
(the entire blog post can be seen here)
Prisco has been one of the most open advocates of religious transhumanism over the past decade and I am very curious to see how the debates between religious transhumanism and philosophical transhumanism (which is still religious, it's just in the closet) will unfold. Two possible strategies for the religious group would involve taking the message to events like the "H+ Summit" and start seeking converts among the transhumanist faithful or else using the religious message to encourage non-transhumanists' conversion. Either of these would oppose the efforts of groups like Humanity+ to blend in with the mainstream as described by Gubrud.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Apocalyptic Times: the Singularity makes it into the New York Times
Raising up a storm of commentary, the New York Times has just published an essay on the Singularity, marking yet another milestone in the public presence of Apocalyptic AI thinking. As Ray Kurzweil's son points out at the end of the article, Kurzweil has become mainstream.
The really amazing thing here is the success rate of Singularity thinking, which is fundamentally tied to Kurzweil's work. Hans Moravec, who really launched the synthesis of religion and digital technology in his books, Mind Children and Robot never moved into the mainstream with any comfort. Kurzweil, on the other hand, basks in the public spotlight that has embraced his work (which became apocalyptic with the publication of The Age of Spiritual Machines in 1999). The Times has been a bit slow to catch on, considering that Rolling Stone featured Kurzweil in 2009, but the recent essay is a good one, featuring some of Kurzweil's critics along with some of his supporters.
The really amazing thing here is the success rate of Singularity thinking, which is fundamentally tied to Kurzweil's work. Hans Moravec, who really launched the synthesis of religion and digital technology in his books, Mind Children and Robot never moved into the mainstream with any comfort. Kurzweil, on the other hand, basks in the public spotlight that has embraced his work (which became apocalyptic with the publication of The Age of Spiritual Machines in 1999). The Times has been a bit slow to catch on, considering that Rolling Stone featured Kurzweil in 2009, but the recent essay is a good one, featuring some of Kurzweil's critics along with some of his supporters.
Friday, June 11, 2010
first histories of Second Life: review of Wagner Au's The Making of Second Life and Thomas Malaby's Making Virtual Worlds
Since November, 2006, I've been very interested in Second Life and used it for fieldwork in writing my book Apocalyptic AI. One entire chapter is about transhumanist people and communities in SL. Influential commentators like Giulio Prisco, Extropia DaSilva and (then, but now retired) Sophrosyne Stenvaag advocate transhumanist technologies in SL and their efforts helped establish transhumanist groups in that world. What's more interesting is that the Apocalyptic AI worldview actually appears systemic to SL. That is, even folks who've never heard the word transhumanism still ascribe to a basic worldview in which virtual presence promotes a transcendence over finite human existence and many see SL as a heavenly environment. It would seem that this mentality has its roots in the origins of Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life. Two histories of SL have been written and they offer considerable guidance in understanding the development of SL and its possibilities for residents.
I didn't have a copy of Wagner Au's The Making of Second Life (Harper 2008) when I wrote Apocalyptic AI and I sincerely regret it. Nor did I have Thomas Malaby's Making Virtual Worlds (Cornell 2010), but it wasn't in print at any stage of my writing (obviously). Malaby's work is an ethnography of Linden Lab, where he hung out as a resident anthropologist on and off through the early years of SL's development. Au was hired as embedded journalist in SL and worked for Linden Lab for a time before branching out as a freelancer. His New World Notes is my go-to source for information about what's going on in SL and LL.
Au's book wavers between being a detailed narrative about the early years of SL and cheerleading for the business potential for the platform. Leaving aside the biz propaganda (which doesn't interest me personally), there's a treasure trove of insight into the development of the world and the things that make the community there so engaging. I was simultaneously thrilled and disappointed to see Au's claim that Phillip Rosedale (the founder of SL) suffers from alienation caused by his mortal body and contemplates visions of mind uploading (231-3). I was thrilled because, well, this is the stuff I study. I was mortified, however, that I did not have this at my disposal when writing Apocalyptic AI. Au gracefully discusses the ways in which the SL community came together and helps us understand what it means to make a virtual community. In this, his book is a landmark treatise; much like Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community, it provides a view of a virtual community's self-production. In short, Au believes three things characterize SL: Bebop Reality (the laws of reality can be manipulated), Impression Society (creativity and skill will impress others and are the basis of much social order), and Mirrored Flourishing (SL success translates to conventional life success). There are many great stories/histories in the book and it is well worth reading for anyone interested in SL or virtual worlds in general.
Malaby's thesis is that "in setting out to make a world that is supposed to make itself (through the content-generating actions of its users), Linden Lab evinced a remarkable and antibureaurcratic commitment to unintended consequences, and then found itself shaped by Second Life as the world and its effects grew" (16). Working through this eventually leads him to predict that in the future, bureaucracies will be increasingly open-ended (128). For this latter, I would have been interested to know which kinds of bureaucracy are most likely to benefit from an open-ended structure, as I don't know that I saw an argument universalizing it. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the book, though much of it is unfortunately obfuscated by irritatingly awkward and dense writing. Fortunately, Malaby's observations of the company are interesting additions to the anthropology of business and his analysis of the role of technology at SL is powerful. Our modern expectation that technology will solve all our problems is on perfect display in Malaby's work.
Reading Malaby's and Au's work together will give any reader the opportunity to see how SL developed. Both Malaby and Au were insiders to the development of both the company and the world and their books complement one another nicely.
These days, odd things are afoot. Based upon the recent reports at NWN and elsewhere, LL is laying of 30% of its workforce and trying to produce a web viewer for SL. What this will mean is rather beyond prediction; hopefully it will not spell the end of SL's more interesting community functions but will instead provide new ways for folks to engage with others in the virtual world.
I didn't have a copy of Wagner Au's The Making of Second Life (Harper 2008) when I wrote Apocalyptic AI and I sincerely regret it. Nor did I have Thomas Malaby's Making Virtual Worlds (Cornell 2010), but it wasn't in print at any stage of my writing (obviously). Malaby's work is an ethnography of Linden Lab, where he hung out as a resident anthropologist on and off through the early years of SL's development. Au was hired as embedded journalist in SL and worked for Linden Lab for a time before branching out as a freelancer. His New World Notes is my go-to source for information about what's going on in SL and LL.
Au's book wavers between being a detailed narrative about the early years of SL and cheerleading for the business potential for the platform. Leaving aside the biz propaganda (which doesn't interest me personally), there's a treasure trove of insight into the development of the world and the things that make the community there so engaging. I was simultaneously thrilled and disappointed to see Au's claim that Phillip Rosedale (the founder of SL) suffers from alienation caused by his mortal body and contemplates visions of mind uploading (231-3). I was thrilled because, well, this is the stuff I study. I was mortified, however, that I did not have this at my disposal when writing Apocalyptic AI. Au gracefully discusses the ways in which the SL community came together and helps us understand what it means to make a virtual community. In this, his book is a landmark treatise; much like Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community, it provides a view of a virtual community's self-production. In short, Au believes three things characterize SL: Bebop Reality (the laws of reality can be manipulated), Impression Society (creativity and skill will impress others and are the basis of much social order), and Mirrored Flourishing (SL success translates to conventional life success). There are many great stories/histories in the book and it is well worth reading for anyone interested in SL or virtual worlds in general.
Malaby's thesis is that "in setting out to make a world that is supposed to make itself (through the content-generating actions of its users), Linden Lab evinced a remarkable and antibureaurcratic commitment to unintended consequences, and then found itself shaped by Second Life as the world and its effects grew" (16). Working through this eventually leads him to predict that in the future, bureaucracies will be increasingly open-ended (128). For this latter, I would have been interested to know which kinds of bureaucracy are most likely to benefit from an open-ended structure, as I don't know that I saw an argument universalizing it. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the book, though much of it is unfortunately obfuscated by irritatingly awkward and dense writing. Fortunately, Malaby's observations of the company are interesting additions to the anthropology of business and his analysis of the role of technology at SL is powerful. Our modern expectation that technology will solve all our problems is on perfect display in Malaby's work.
Reading Malaby's and Au's work together will give any reader the opportunity to see how SL developed. Both Malaby and Au were insiders to the development of both the company and the world and their books complement one another nicely.
These days, odd things are afoot. Based upon the recent reports at NWN and elsewhere, LL is laying of 30% of its workforce and trying to produce a web viewer for SL. What this will mean is rather beyond prediction; hopefully it will not spell the end of SL's more interesting community functions but will instead provide new ways for folks to engage with others in the virtual world.
Monday, May 31, 2010
review: Jaron Lanier's _You Are Not a Gadget_
This being the first book review I've put on the blog, I've chosen a book that will get wide circulation in tech circles written by someone whose thinking I've followed for nearly a decade now. Jaron Lanier is one of the fathers of virtual reality research and commands enormous respect from researchers into VR and Internet technology more broadly. In 2010, he made Time magazine's list of top 100 folks who affect our world. He's also spent the last few years preaching against the beliefs advocated by Ray Kurzweil and others (whose ideas are documented in my book, which takes a position of agnosticism on the morality of or likelihood of the fulfillment of the Apocalyptic AI agenda).
In short, Lanier believes that supremely intelligent computers are a) highly unlikely and b) not worthy of empathy. Instead of worshiping at the altar of robotic progress, Lanier argues we should be using technology to advance human interpersonal relationships. His early ideas were distributed through the Edge listserv and can be read here and here.
Lanier's new book, You Are Not a Gadget, advances these basic themes and explores how choices made in technology design have serious moral and social consequences, some of which he would like to reverse.
The book is, for the most part, a clearly written exposition which will be comprehensible to the lay reader and technocrat alike. Lanier's lucid English is, quite frankly, a delight compared to the work of many present day intellectuals, who seem to think they should model their exposition upon the likes of Foucault, Bourdieu, Derrida, or Adorno (in short, whichever impossibly dense theorist they choose to represent their interests).
Lanier's fundamental premise is that many of our technological choices right now depersonalize human interaction (think of how an individual is reduced to a set of checked off preferences at a social networking site or the fact that people exist with thousands of alleged Facebook "friends"). Such technological designs are not self-determining, however, and Lanier feels that we can reinvigorate our technological and social lives by designing tech environments that emphasize what he calls the mystical aspects of human personhood and the development of and social capitalization upon personal creativity (a partial rejection of hive mind and group think mentalities, which are not universally useful). He offers constructive advice on how this might be accomplished and his vision is a valuable contribution to discussions about life in a digital culture. Lanier emphasizes how digital life can be cruel in a world of "drive by anonymity" and would see that world reconfigured to advance personal responsibility for ideas and words. Likewise, he pushes for an acceptance of human persons as semi-mystical (and thus not reducible to the level of a machine) and capable of postsymbolic communication through advanced technological interfaces. I appreciate that he seems to have acknowledged that his own position is semi-theological without the knee-jerk reaction some people have to religion.
The book is definitely excellent, though I found myself frustrated by one concern in particular. Given Lanier's repeated emphasis upon personal, individualized creativity, I find it disconcerting that he cites few sources for many of his claims and interpretations (and I confess to wondering whether a very brief e-mail interchange I had with him in 2007 about my Apocalyptic AI ideas led to his claim--for the first time that I'm aware of--that what he calls cybernetic totalism is a religious system ...see pages 18-25 or so of You Are Not a Gadget). While I recognize that a book written for a popular audience cannot be a rigorously documented as an academic work, I would have liked a bit more referencing throughout (which could have just taken the form of mentioning people and their work).
Fundamentally, I am in accord with Lanier. I do not believe that technological progress is self-determining. The accidents of history and personal choices of real individuals shape our future. We should advocate that individuals pay attention to the world in which they live, the world in which they wish they lived, and the ways in which technology plays out in that distinction. If we can attend to the design choices in our lives (and this is perhaps especially true for major content creators), we can work toward the betterment of society.
In short, Lanier believes that supremely intelligent computers are a) highly unlikely and b) not worthy of empathy. Instead of worshiping at the altar of robotic progress, Lanier argues we should be using technology to advance human interpersonal relationships. His early ideas were distributed through the Edge listserv and can be read here and here.
Lanier's new book, You Are Not a Gadget, advances these basic themes and explores how choices made in technology design have serious moral and social consequences, some of which he would like to reverse.
The book is, for the most part, a clearly written exposition which will be comprehensible to the lay reader and technocrat alike. Lanier's lucid English is, quite frankly, a delight compared to the work of many present day intellectuals, who seem to think they should model their exposition upon the likes of Foucault, Bourdieu, Derrida, or Adorno (in short, whichever impossibly dense theorist they choose to represent their interests).
Lanier's fundamental premise is that many of our technological choices right now depersonalize human interaction (think of how an individual is reduced to a set of checked off preferences at a social networking site or the fact that people exist with thousands of alleged Facebook "friends"). Such technological designs are not self-determining, however, and Lanier feels that we can reinvigorate our technological and social lives by designing tech environments that emphasize what he calls the mystical aspects of human personhood and the development of and social capitalization upon personal creativity (a partial rejection of hive mind and group think mentalities, which are not universally useful). He offers constructive advice on how this might be accomplished and his vision is a valuable contribution to discussions about life in a digital culture. Lanier emphasizes how digital life can be cruel in a world of "drive by anonymity" and would see that world reconfigured to advance personal responsibility for ideas and words. Likewise, he pushes for an acceptance of human persons as semi-mystical (and thus not reducible to the level of a machine) and capable of postsymbolic communication through advanced technological interfaces. I appreciate that he seems to have acknowledged that his own position is semi-theological without the knee-jerk reaction some people have to religion.
The book is definitely excellent, though I found myself frustrated by one concern in particular. Given Lanier's repeated emphasis upon personal, individualized creativity, I find it disconcerting that he cites few sources for many of his claims and interpretations (and I confess to wondering whether a very brief e-mail interchange I had with him in 2007 about my Apocalyptic AI ideas led to his claim--for the first time that I'm aware of--that what he calls cybernetic totalism is a religious system ...see pages 18-25 or so of You Are Not a Gadget). While I recognize that a book written for a popular audience cannot be a rigorously documented as an academic work, I would have liked a bit more referencing throughout (which could have just taken the form of mentioning people and their work).
Fundamentally, I am in accord with Lanier. I do not believe that technological progress is self-determining. The accidents of history and personal choices of real individuals shape our future. We should advocate that individuals pay attention to the world in which they live, the world in which they wish they lived, and the ways in which technology plays out in that distinction. If we can attend to the design choices in our lives (and this is perhaps especially true for major content creators), we can work toward the betterment of society.
Friday, May 21, 2010
games & learning
last night a friend of mine told me that her son is among the first group of students at the new quest to learn school here in new york city. i had not heard of the school before but am very impressed at the ways in which the folks putting the school together seem committed to taking advantage of our evolutionary predilections to offer a real learning opportunity.
my wife and i are home schooling our children precisely because we bemoan the ways that school steals the fun and excitement out of learning. should the q2l model take off, perhaps we can save education in this country after all. learning ought to be a game...challenges that demand of us a combination of data acquisition, pattern recognition, organized expression, and novelty are the ones that we engage enthusiastically and effectively. they are the ones that will receive our loyal efforts even when the problems are difficult. games can be excellent at this. the sheer amount of things i learned from my interest in professional baseball and football as a child continues to surprise my wife and i think my involvement in dungeons & dragons probably did much to encourage certain ways of thinking that continue to benefit me now as a researcher. that's just two kinds of gaming situations that promote long-term learning and manipulation of what is learned in new and sometimes very helpful ways.
the q2l school asks students to learn through games, helping them to understand complex, dynamic relationships in scientific and social systems. the school's approach immediately calls to mind jane mcgonigal's faith that video games can save humanity (as widely publicized in this video).
mcgonigal argues that in video games we are inspired to work hard and to collaborate with one another. they encourage us to feel like we have something to offer and the ability to do well. playing video games is training the youth in optimism, forming social bonds with fellow players, blissful productivity, and the development of a sense of meaning. all of these, she argues, are precisely what we need as a society. several of the games she's involved in actually change people's behavior. an oil shortage game, for example, has led to different usage patterns among the players. thus a conservationist game can provide a conservationist attitude more broadly. her thesis is, of course, a dramatic and debatable one. all good theses are.
in some sense, the q2l school should test some of mcgonigal's ideas as well as some more pedagogical issues about how people learn and what enables them to do so effectively. i don't know much about the school yet, but i look forward to reading more as it develops in the coming years.
my wife and i are home schooling our children precisely because we bemoan the ways that school steals the fun and excitement out of learning. should the q2l model take off, perhaps we can save education in this country after all. learning ought to be a game...challenges that demand of us a combination of data acquisition, pattern recognition, organized expression, and novelty are the ones that we engage enthusiastically and effectively. they are the ones that will receive our loyal efforts even when the problems are difficult. games can be excellent at this. the sheer amount of things i learned from my interest in professional baseball and football as a child continues to surprise my wife and i think my involvement in dungeons & dragons probably did much to encourage certain ways of thinking that continue to benefit me now as a researcher. that's just two kinds of gaming situations that promote long-term learning and manipulation of what is learned in new and sometimes very helpful ways.
the q2l school asks students to learn through games, helping them to understand complex, dynamic relationships in scientific and social systems. the school's approach immediately calls to mind jane mcgonigal's faith that video games can save humanity (as widely publicized in this video).
mcgonigal argues that in video games we are inspired to work hard and to collaborate with one another. they encourage us to feel like we have something to offer and the ability to do well. playing video games is training the youth in optimism, forming social bonds with fellow players, blissful productivity, and the development of a sense of meaning. all of these, she argues, are precisely what we need as a society. several of the games she's involved in actually change people's behavior. an oil shortage game, for example, has led to different usage patterns among the players. thus a conservationist game can provide a conservationist attitude more broadly. her thesis is, of course, a dramatic and debatable one. all good theses are.
in some sense, the q2l school should test some of mcgonigal's ideas as well as some more pedagogical issues about how people learn and what enables them to do so effectively. i don't know much about the school yet, but i look forward to reading more as it develops in the coming years.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
digital souls at the ARC
this past week, i joined a few other folks on a panel at this month's meeting of the society for the arts, religion and culture to talk about "digital soul: artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and the fate of religion and the arts" and, as on my first event with ARC (3 months ago) had a very good time.
the four of us on the panel were: anne foerst, a theologian who writes about the implications of robotics for thinking through human personhood and our religious obligations, siona van dijk, former director of the gaia community, and gina bria, an anthropologist interested in ritual and technology, particularly with respect to families, and me (officially there to talk about video games).
my friend anne (she's german, so it's pronounced much like "anna") started the conversation by discussing how sin is a condition of estrangement and that to feel estranged from machines (to automatically discount them as persons) would, therefore, be sinful (just as discounting the personhood of disabled persons (on the grounds of senility, disability, youth, etc. is sinful). while i confess to have disputed her position on whether or not the MIT robot leonardo is "self aware," i find her politico-theological goal reasonable enough. leonardo has passed the sally-anne test for self-awareness but i'm pretty sure that the only way that a person establishes his or her self-awareness by passing that test is when the rest of us make ourselves a little less aware and a little more stupid. measuring something as complex as self-awareness through one simple test indicates the foolishness of the tester, not the awareness of the tested. that said, she was provocative and fun.
i then spoke about video games, presenting my position that while there might be some losses associated with souls (whatever those happen to be...i'm agnostic on the subject) in a world with increasing identification with video gaming, there are definite possible gains too, in the kinds of companions (AI and human), communities, and self-identities made possible in video game cultures.
then siona spoke about the online world's lack of utopia and her belief that escapism fuels technology. i'm pretty much on record rejecting the idea that virtual technologies are simple escapism but there's no doubt that she made a thoughtful engagement with some of the possibilities inherent in technology and the uses to which many folks put it.
finally, gina discussed the nature of soul, and whether such a thing can be thought of as digital (katherine hayles's book on this subject, for all it's impossibly over-convoluted writing, remains the best text on the subject). she argued that technology is an extension of the human person into previously unreachable spaces and wondered whether it was even possible for technology to lack "soulfulness" given its origin in human creativity.
after we'd given our opening remarks, there was a 70 or 80 minute discussion of various ideas, most of which were woven out of the issues of machine intelligence and presence in virtual environments. problematically, the scope of the evening was wide enough that no idea got sufficient attention. the positive aspect of this, though, is that there were plenty of new ideas being tossed around. probably the best thought of the evening came from chuck henderson, editor of CrossCurrents, who argued that the worst thing about seeing intelligent machines as people might be that it would prevent us from understanding them for what they are and appreciating their needs, interests, etc. that will bear considerable reflection, i think, from folks interested in the subject.
all told, it was another fun get together, involving wine and loud argument. my kind of place. there are a lot of really intelligent folks in the ARC and i look forward to our next meeting in september or so.
the four of us on the panel were: anne foerst, a theologian who writes about the implications of robotics for thinking through human personhood and our religious obligations, siona van dijk, former director of the gaia community, and gina bria, an anthropologist interested in ritual and technology, particularly with respect to families, and me (officially there to talk about video games).
my friend anne (she's german, so it's pronounced much like "anna") started the conversation by discussing how sin is a condition of estrangement and that to feel estranged from machines (to automatically discount them as persons) would, therefore, be sinful (just as discounting the personhood of disabled persons (on the grounds of senility, disability, youth, etc. is sinful). while i confess to have disputed her position on whether or not the MIT robot leonardo is "self aware," i find her politico-theological goal reasonable enough. leonardo has passed the sally-anne test for self-awareness but i'm pretty sure that the only way that a person establishes his or her self-awareness by passing that test is when the rest of us make ourselves a little less aware and a little more stupid. measuring something as complex as self-awareness through one simple test indicates the foolishness of the tester, not the awareness of the tested. that said, she was provocative and fun.
i then spoke about video games, presenting my position that while there might be some losses associated with souls (whatever those happen to be...i'm agnostic on the subject) in a world with increasing identification with video gaming, there are definite possible gains too, in the kinds of companions (AI and human), communities, and self-identities made possible in video game cultures.
then siona spoke about the online world's lack of utopia and her belief that escapism fuels technology. i'm pretty much on record rejecting the idea that virtual technologies are simple escapism but there's no doubt that she made a thoughtful engagement with some of the possibilities inherent in technology and the uses to which many folks put it.
finally, gina discussed the nature of soul, and whether such a thing can be thought of as digital (katherine hayles's book on this subject, for all it's impossibly over-convoluted writing, remains the best text on the subject). she argued that technology is an extension of the human person into previously unreachable spaces and wondered whether it was even possible for technology to lack "soulfulness" given its origin in human creativity.
after we'd given our opening remarks, there was a 70 or 80 minute discussion of various ideas, most of which were woven out of the issues of machine intelligence and presence in virtual environments. problematically, the scope of the evening was wide enough that no idea got sufficient attention. the positive aspect of this, though, is that there were plenty of new ideas being tossed around. probably the best thought of the evening came from chuck henderson, editor of CrossCurrents, who argued that the worst thing about seeing intelligent machines as people might be that it would prevent us from understanding them for what they are and appreciating their needs, interests, etc. that will bear considerable reflection, i think, from folks interested in the subject.
all told, it was another fun get together, involving wine and loud argument. my kind of place. there are a lot of really intelligent folks in the ARC and i look forward to our next meeting in september or so.
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