Firstly, our group focused on the idea of transferring human memories and soul to a robotic body through a technological hat. For this transmission to occur, the human must authorize the transferring of data to the robotic body where the human body will cease to respond after full transferring has been completed. The human will then be in the robotic body and exist in that body for the rest of their life. Our group derived this idea from building upon an existing idea that we collaboratively decided upon. When we first discussed the project, we all decided upon the concept of viewing the life cycle of the soul in relation to Newton’s Sleep. After our second meeting, we decided to amend this to a machine that allows our mind to experience activity during sleeping. From this we arrive at our final version of transferring human memories to another body.
The established form of interaction that we ended with was a remote body that could be controlled by oneself, essentially another body. Being able to physically move as a human would, it would simulate the human experience. In relation to the two projects I personally researched, it relates to 24h Sunrise/Sunset in the transmission state where one state follows the next state of interactivity. In 24h Sunrise/Sunset, cameras follow the sun all around the world for sunrise and sunset. Similarly, I took this concept of following the sun and related it to following the soul for the product. By this, I mean that the human memories and human soul continue to exist in another body much like how the camera follows the sunset and sunrise in a different area of earth.
This also relates to the second project in my research phase where the product was the Self-Choreographing Network. The Self-Choreographing Network was a project where material input translated into digital input. When doing so, it allowed the digital form to actively manipulate itself and amend the physical output. I was inspired by this concept of material translating into digital which can also be seen in our artifact idea where the material human body translates into a digital robotic body. The robotic body then becomes the physical form of the human where the human can move to amend the physical output.
We created a hat for transmission of memories and soul as memories are stored in our brain. This was the sole reason for a design as much. We didn’t want to complicate and add a part for the heart to represent the transmission of soul as it would be an unnecessary component. Thus, we assumed that the soul would be transmitted neurotically without needed to connect to the heart.
Having created this concept of transmission of human memories and human soul, successes included that it led to interaction in another body which was the purpose of the body. Failures include the lack of senses when experiencing life in the robotic body. There will be a lack of human experience in the robot body in ways such as but not limited to taste, pain, emotion, and etc. This was not overlooked design on our part. It was more so that we strived to also create a philosophical argument regarding the longing for eternal life, artificial life, and the replicability of humans. This was the main purpose of creating this artifact unrelated to the function of transmission of human memories and human soul.
When we created our product, we wanted to provide a philosophical answer to many topics of modern debate. For one, there was the topic of eternal life or prolonging life. Figures such as Elon Musk have expressed that they have so much that they cannot complete in their lifetime such as reaching mars. Many figures have expressed their desire to live again when there are cures to cancer. These figures then turn to modern day solutions of cryogenics to “stop” time from passing in hopes that cures can be discovered before they “hopefully” awaken in the future. This modern desire isn’t new. The seeking of eternal life was a historical topic that spans cross-culturally throughout the history of man. For example, during the times of Spanish exploration, a main goal was the discovery of the fountain of youth to allow the monarchy to live forever young. Likewise, the critique of this search for immortality is also ancient where the Greeks presented immortality as a burden and punishment through the example of Tartarus.
Aside from the debate of eternal life, this product and performance also aimed to answer the question of artificial life when human life is transferred to the robots to exist as life. Our performance expresses the lack of human experience for artificial life, especially through a robot, to denounce modern inclination of creating life. Artificial life is a modern topic that’s currently being explored by many scientists in the world. When there was transferred life to the robot in our performance, it was in a sense artificial life as the life of the human in the robot body was an artificial experience. There was a lack of life felt which is an argument we make regarding this topic.
For the final topic of replicability of humans, this was again presented as impossible through our performance where the robot could not experience human life. The lack of human senses and emotions depicts the irreplaceability of humans to create this argument. Through the performance as well as our purposeful design, we hope that our product was able to create such thoughts to the audience.
Photos and videos of our progress will be inserted at the end of the blog.
Now, I will critique another group’s artifact. The artifact that I observed and would like to critique is the robot that grows along with the child. The robot was at first a small digital being but it also grows up and protects the user. It provides companionship and interacts in that sense. I felt that this was really relevant to the reading as it was similar to The Lifecycle of Software Products. The similarity lies within the companionship of digital objects. I believe that this artifact meets the criteria as it provides a modern-day example of a product that is practical but also dynamic in nature in that it can grow and develop.
Overall, I think that the artifact is brilliant in the applicability to the universe that the people reside in and it is also brilliant in the fact that it provides a portrayal of modern-day companionship of digital devices. Nowadays, AI companionship is being developed at a high speed where AI is becoming personalized. I think that this artifact could actually be produced in the future and provide such functions. It also illustrates future companionship that might be seen in the future as the world develops where human companionship is lackluster. I think that the performance of the product was extremely successful in portraying this companionship throughout time, however, I think that it might have been better if there was a contrast to human companionship provided in the beginning to show that a benefit of AI companionship is that they do not abandon you like humans as the relationship between human and robot is generally master and servant. The last improvement that I might suggest would be that this product and performance should also introduce the dangers of AI companionship.
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