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Lecture 7:
Remote Communications
What is the
nature of media interactivity?
Professor Victoria Meng
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Disclaimer: Interactivity is
HUGE and always changing!
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Learning Tasks
• Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery
and Intelligence.”
• David Rokeby, “Transforming Mirrors:
Subjectivity and Control in Interactive
Media.”
• Ken Hillis, “A Critical History of Virtual
Reality.”
• Tron, Animotion, Neave Games
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Lev Manovich: Automation
• “Low-level:” performs specific
tasks.
• “High-level:” aka “artificial
intelligence.”
• “Media access:” search and
retrieval from databases.
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Alan Turing
• British mathematician,
cryptographer (19121954)
• Pioneered computer
science with the
“Turing machine”
• Tragic death
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Alan Turing
Diagram of a Turing Machine, which can
be adapted into a “Universal Machine.”
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Post-War Context
Atomic bomb
Enigma Machine
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Can Machines Think?
Boris Karloff as
Frankenstein’s Monster
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How Can We Know
If Machines Think?
• How do we ascertain that people
think?
- We “just know.”
- Brain imaging technology.
- IQ tests and other tests that
evaluate performance.
• How can we find the right test(s)
to measure “machine thought?”
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How Can We Know
If Machines Think?
• Some “skill” operations are not
comparable (computer: PWN!).
Left:
Gary Kasparov
Right:
Deep Blue
Match date:
May 11, 1997
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How Can We Know
If Machines Think?
• We equate “thinking”
with “consciousness” –
processes and
sensations that are not
yet quantifiable.
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How Can We Know
If Machines Think?
• We equate “thinking”
with “consciousness” –
processes and
sensations that are not
yet quantifiable.
• The stakes are high:
thinking makes us
“special.”
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The Turing Test
“The Thinker,” Auguste Rodin, 1902
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The Turing Test
A provocative and influential way to
“measure” artificial intelligence.
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The Turing Test
1. Makes users bear the “burden of
proof” – it’s true if you believe it.
2. Sets human-computer transcoding
as the programming problem.
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The Turing Test
Tangent:
What are the
strengths and
limitations of tests,
papers, and other
assessment tools?
How well do they
predict behavior?
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The Turing Test
1. Makes users bear the “burden of
proof” – it’s true if you believe it.
2. Sets human-computer transcoding
as the programming problem.
3. Posits that “humanity” is a
performance and can be “decoded.”
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The Turing Test
Memory v. Memory?
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The Turing Test
“Hello, Hal: will we ever get a computer
we can really talk to?”
John Seabrook, The New Yorker, June 23 2008
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Media Interactivity
“Hello, Hal: will we ever get a computer
we can really talk to?”
John Seabrook, The New Yorker, June 23 2008
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The Turing Test
1. Makes users bear the “burden of
proof” – it’s true if you believe it.
2. Sets human-computer transcoding
as the programming problem.
3. Posits that “humanity” is a
performance.
4. Underestimates complexities of
human cognition.
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Interactivity/Immersion
Lecture Title:
Remote Communications: What is
the nature of media interactivity?
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Interactivity/Immersion
What do authors like Hillis and
Rokeby assert about digital media?
Do they agree?
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Interactivity/Immersion
What is interactivity?
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Interactivity/Immersion
What is interactivity?
- mutual v. uni-directional effects?
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Interactivity/Immersion
What is interactivity?
- mutual v. uni-directional effects?
- communication v. command
and/or control?
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Interactivity/Immersion
What is interactivity?
- mutual v. uni-directional effects?
- communication v. command
and/or control?
- What/Who is interacting with
what/whom? How does this
change the way we think about
interactivity?
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Interactivity/Immersion
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Interactivity/Immersion
Me
Alexey Pajitnov
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Interactivity/Immersion
Me
Alexey Pajitnov
Paul
Neave
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Interactivity/Immersion
Me
Alexey Pajitnov
Tetris
Paul
Neave
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Interactivity/Immersion
Me, again!
Alexey Pajitnov
Tetris
Paul
Neave
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David Rokeby:
“Transforming Mirrors”
Left: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Laurence Sterne, 1759-69)
Right: “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even” (Marcel Duchamp, 1915-23)
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David Rokeby:
“Transforming Mirrors”
“A technology is interactive to the
degree that it reflects the
consequences of our actions or
decisions back to us.” (133)
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David Rokeby:
“Transforming Mirrors”
• Read last paragraphs of 154,
155.
• Navigable structure/space.
• Medium specificity.
•Transforming mirror.
•Automaton.
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Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of
Virtual Reality”
• Historical account – antidote
for technological determinism.
Link Trainer
(hydraulic flight
simulator,
1930s-50s)
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Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of
Virtual Reality”
• Role of stories in history: why
science fiction is important.
Tron
(Lisberger,
1982)
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Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of
Virtual Reality”
Tron (Lisberger, 1982)
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Ken Hillis: “A Critical History of
Virtual Reality”
• Minds, bodies, transcendence
and connection…
Animotion,
Manuel Fallmann, 2004.
Tip: Don’t change the
library before you’re
done – you’ll lose all
your work.
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Interactivity/Immersion
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End of Lecture 7
Next Lecture: Everything is
Exchangeable: How do the whole and its
parts relate in digital media?
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