I remember when I saw The Matrix. It blew me away. Not only because it’s a great film, but the movie excited me because all through the 90s, I knew that computer generated special effects were going to allow for new kinds of storytelling, a hyper-imaginative level of stories that could never be done in film before. The Matrix was, to me, the first to really go totally wild with this new technology—not for its own sake, but in the[…]
Chatbots being chatbots
Apparently, some people are still confusing chatbot output with sentience. Granted, this software is a little stronger of an A.I. than Cleverbot. But it still reads like a chatbot just doing what it’s programmed to do. io9: No, an AI Did Not Just “Lash Out” at Its Human Programmer Sorry I haven’t been very active here of late. But work on the first two books is proceeding. I’m now in the home stretch. Tomorrow I’m off to Indianapolis for some[…]
Practice Personalities: What an Avatar Can Teach You
(Wall Street Journal, Jan. 19, 2015) Your avatar may be the window to your psyche. Psychologists are discovering that the digital identities we create for play online, known as avatars, reveal more aspects of our personalities than we may intend to disclose and can change how we behave in the real world. As digital experiments in identity, our personal avatars mingle real and virtual worlds in ways that scientists are only beginning to analyze. While data is scarce, emerging technology[…]
Humans and Robots May Have the Same EQ Sooner Than You Think
The ability to understand, process, and express true emotion is what has traditionally separated man from machine — but that line is continuously blurring with the rapid advancements in technology and artificial intelligence (AI). As machines become more human, and vice versa, we find ourselves facing a fascinating and perhaps terrifying future — one that might eventually make us question how we define humanity. Full article at io9 I’m aware this is propaganda masking as journalism, to raise awareness for[…]
Jackpot
Tonight I was doing some research on book 3, Soldier. I found a treasure trove. I won’t say what I discovered or what I’m researching yet, but it was an immense and magnificent resource of information. Not only that, but the source of this information is in the United States, in Florida of all places (a state I’ve driven to a number of times now). I foresee another Florida road trip within the next 12 months. I’m already excited for[…]
Refinements
It’s amazing how much time escapes from me when I’m occupied by something challengingly creative. Like this Web site, for example. I spent the first part of my evening hanging out with my good friend Chris B. from my former place of work, the MU Office of Research. Always a good time at Bee-Dubs. I meant to ask how things were going there, but we never quite got around to it. Too much fun stuff to catch up on. Since[…]
What is “Cortanis”?
A reasonable question… The planet Cortanis is the name of a fictional planet in a fictional video game game in an upcoming novel I’m working on. The planet is the center of the game universe, and all exploration fans out from there. Most of the players starting out in this game spend most of their time on planet Cortanis. The game Cortanis’ sun, Aten, sends out mysterious pulses every so often through the game universe. These pulses affect the players[…]