Category:
AI, Robots and Other Automatons

The First Woman to Marry a Hologram

Back in 2018 we posted about Akihiko Kondo, a Japanese man who married a hologram. His holographic wife floated inside a desktop device.

Now Spanish artist Alicia Framis has announced she'll also be marrying a hologram. Her holographic partner is a life-size, three-dimensional projection powered by AI. His name is AILex.



Whereas Akihiko Kondo married a hologram because, by his own admission, he had trouble forming relationships with flesh-and-blood women, Framis is marrying a hologram as a piece of performance art which she's titled "The First Woman to Marry a Hologram."

She previously lived with a mannequin named Pierre.

More info: ElPais.com, AliciaFramis.com

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 07, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Performance Art, Marriage

AI-created soda

Companies are scrambling to get on the AI bandwagon. The latest example of this is Coca-Cola, which recently released Y3000, a soda "co-created with artificial intelligence." The packaging describes it as "futuristic flavored." One reviewer said it tasted like "melted gummy bears with orange." I think I'll pass.

More info: CNN Business



Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 19, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages

AI and the ruler

I've seen this cautionary tale about putting too much faith in AI referred to in several places. It involves an AI program that had seemed to have "reached a level of accuracy comparable to human dermatologists at diagnosing malignant skin lesions." Venturebeat.com tells the rest:

However, a closer examination of the model’s saliency methods revealed that the single most influential thing this model was looking for in a picture of someone’s skin was the presence of a ruler. Because medical images of cancerous lesions include a ruler for scale, the model learned to identify the presence of a ruler as a marker of malignancy, because that’s much easier than telling the difference between different kinds of lesions.

I tracked down the original source of this story to an Oct 2018 article in the
Journal of Investigative Dermatology: "Automated Classification of Skin Lesions: From Pixels to Practice":

Dermatology images are the easiest to capture of all medical images, but also the least standardized. Standardization of images is difficult, even with dermoscopic images, as shown in Figure 1. Variability must be incorporated into training algorithms to create capacity to handle noisy data. This includes multiple camera angles, different orientations, blurry photos, multiple skin backgrounds, pen markings or rulers included in the photo, or variations in lighting. Otherwise, the algorithm will use features of nonstandardized photos to guide decision making. For instance, in our work, we noted that the algorithm appeared more likely to interpret images with rulers as malignant. Why? In our dataset, images with rulers were more likely to be malignant; thus the algorithm inadvertently “learned” that rulers are malignant. These biases in AI models are inherent unless specific attention is paid to address inputs with variability.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 17, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Medicine, AI, Robots and Other Automatons

Jizai Arms

"Doc Ock" becomes a reality. Although it's unclear to me how one would control these arms or if they're functional at all. Brief explanation from the creator's website:

JIZAI ARMS is a supernumerary robotic limb system consisting of a wearable base unit with six terminals and detachable robot arms. The system was designed to enable social interaction between multiple wearers, such as an exchange of arm(s), and explore possible interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society.

Posted By: Alex - Thu May 25, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons

Robot Man

Early endorsement of cyborg sex.

The singer's Wikipedia page.



Posted By: Paul - Thu May 11, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Music, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Fetishes, 1960s, Sex

The AI doctor is always in

Consider this question: "Can an artificial intelligence chatbot assistant provide responses to patient questions that are of comparable quality and empathy to those written by physicians?"

According to a study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the answer is that not only can AI give answers that are as good as those of physicians, in the majority of cases the answers are better. Judge for yourself with the sample below.

Click to enlarge


Looks like it might not be too long before your primary care doctor will be a robot. Actually, I already rely heavily on "Doctor Google" to diagnose any medical issues I might have.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 29, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Medicine, Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons

The Senster

Explanatory text from Are Computers Alive? Evolution and New Life Forms, by Geoff Simons (1983).

A cybernetic sculpture, 'The Senster', was constructed by Edward Ihnatowicz in 1970 for the Philips Evoluon in Eindhoven. The device is a large electrohydraulic structure in the form of a lobster's claw: six hinged joints allow great freedom of movement. It is interesting that the device's unpredictable behaviour makes the observer feel that the sculpture is alive. Reichardt (1978) commented: 'It is as if behaviour were more important than appearance in making us feel that something is alive.' 'The Senster' has senses—sound channels (effective ears) and radar—to allow it to monitor its environment: it will, for example, react to the movement of people in the immediate vicinity. Electrical signals are fed from a control unit to activate mechanisms which cause movement in the device. The brain (a computer) has learning abilities and can modify the machine's behaviour in the light of past experience. Confronted by this artificial device, it is clear that people have no difficulty in organizing their psychological responses as if 'The Senster' were alive—an animal or another human being.

Watch it in action below. The people desperately trying to get its attention clearly hadn't watched enough horror movies to know what usually happens next in situations with sentient machines.





More info: senster.com

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 25, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Art, Technology, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, 1970s

Bio-Control

At the 1956 National Electronics Conference in Chicago, engineer Curtiss R. Schafer predicted a future in which people would be enslaved via "bio-control."

"This enslavement could be imposed upon the vanquished as a condition of peace, or through the threat of hydrogen bombing. Bio-control could make this enslavement complete and final, for the controlled subjects would never be permitted to think as individuals."

How is this possible? Schafer said that a few months after birth a surgeon would equip each child with a socket mounted under the scalp and electrodes reaching selected areas of brain tissue. A year or two later, he said, a miniature radio receiver and antenna would be plugged into the socket.

"From that time on," the speaker declared, "the child's sensory preceptions and muscular activity could be either modified or completely controlled by bio-electric signals radiated from state-controlled transmitters."


More details from the conference press release:







Time - Oct 15, 1956

Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 12, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Conspiracy Theories and Theorists, 1950s, Brain

The Synthetic Party

Over in Denmark, an AI chatbot called Leader Lars is a candidate in the country's November general election. It's the representative of The Synthetic Party. Apparently this is the first time a form of artificial intelligence has run for political office. (It would be too easy to make a joke about whether any form of genuine intelligence has ever run for office, so I won't do it).

You can chat with Leader Lars and ask it questions in English. However, it responds in Danish.

More info: vice.com

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 17, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Politics, Strange Candidates, AI, Robots and Other Automatons

WABOT-2, the Organ-Playing Robot

WABOT-2 was created in the early 1980s, but I can't find any info on what's become of him since then. Whoever now owns him should be renting him out to play at weddings and funerals — recoup some of that $1.2 million it cost to build him.

More info: Waseda University

Belleville News-Democrat - Sep 13, 1984





Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 08, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Music, Robots, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, 1980s

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