PostHuman: An Intro to Transhumanism, Using Technology to Evolve (Video)

PostHuman: An Intro to Transhumanism, Using Technology to Evolve (Video) | Third Monk

The British Institute of Posthuman Studies provides a visual explanation of the three dominant areas of transhumanism: super longevity, super intelligence and super wellbeing,

The revolutionary ideas of thinkers Aubrey de Grey, Ray Kurzweil and David Pearce are briefly covered in the clip.

Transhumanism is an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. 

– Nick Bostrom,  A history of transhumanist thought –  Journal of Evolution and Technology.

PostHuman

The Rules and Ethics of a Society with Robots (Video)

The Rules and Ethics of a Society with Robots (Video) | Third Monk

As technology speeds forward, humans are beginning to imagine a day when robots will fill roles in our society, like those explored in science fiction.

But what should we be thinking about today, as robots like military and delivery drones become a part of our society?

How should robots be programmed to interact with us?

How should we treat robots?

And who is responsible for a robot’s actions?

As we look at the unexpected impact of new technologies, we are obligated to consider the moral and ethical implications of robotics.

Featured Speakers:
Peter Asaro, PhD Assistant Professor, The New School

Wendell Wallach, Ethicist & Scholar, Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics

Kate Darling, Robot Ethics Researcher, MIT Media Lab

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Two Robots Create Their Own Language, BBC’s Hunt for Artificial Intelligence (Video)

Two Robots Create Their Own Language, BBC's Hunt for Artificial Intelligence (Video) | Third Monk

In a clip from the BBC Horizon documentary, “The Hunt for AI”, two robots learn how to move their own bodies by themselves, and go on to teaching each other their own language. Scientists at the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory believe that true artificial intelligence can only be achieved by allowing machines to develop and evolve like young children do. The focus of the research project is to explore how “complex grammatical systems and behaviors can emerge in populations of robotic agents.”

Teaching Robots to Learn

Experiments play out like a game where a teacher and observer interact to build a shared vocabulary from the ground up.

Dr. Luc Steels of the NRL explains how one of the robots is attempting to communicate its chosen word for a specific gesture. The “words” they invent begin as random sounds given to a specific action, object, or event. That coupling must then be successfully conveyed to a partner, which involves the observer guessing what the teacher meant. Whenever the observer correctly guesses the word’s definition, it enters into a shared vocabulary that can be used to study further complexities like grammar and tense (do this, then that).

If the project is a success, not only will robots be able to teach one another new words, but it will be possible for people to teach robots words in the same way we do infants.  And the grammatical problems that often stump computers in Turing tests may be solved.