http://www.mediafire.com/?ttuymm2zctt

Bibliography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjpvYifDcTU&feature=related Rock band footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGYasf5rKc Alice AI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDpmSiMiscA Emotiv brain control games
http://tr.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxf7KY6efGA George AI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg Mit lab ted talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUR7lL3vlT0 60 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfbOyw3CT6A Kurzweil ted talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1_a_5MNYkM&NR=1 NASA future earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBMykG7Ow3k CBC internet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKw_Mp5YkaE Science Channel augmented reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIrLYdQu7tM&feature=PlayList&p=0035D51E18CB70C6&index=26 MSNBC emotiv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxOvy1zCsAg&feature=related TV3 news Ireland Catherine oleary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1LrAPPNsSg CBS sunday morning april 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWQzKVfgSdE Second life gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr_RgOTum3M Ted talk jeff han



First by formika on Jamendo songs: pre/post confusion and laughing v2.3

Transhumanism Final Cut

Jessica's 3rd draft coming soon...

My third draft is still not finished, but it will be later today.

Video Reflection

So, I am pretty proud of what I have so far...I am brainstorming what I'll need to do to improve it:

make sure the transitions are clean and smooth, add better text that makes a bigger impact on viewers, I;ll also need to focus more on what I have written so far and where my research is going. Focus on human identity, computer consciousness/formation of identity, and create more of a sense of the "media change everything" ideas.

First Draft of Video: Enjoy! :)

Will We Become Cyborgs? Hmmmm...I think we already are....

A.I Evolving 10 Million Times Faster Than Humans

Argument Outline

Argument Outline:

a.) Shifts in communication media change culture and self-understanding radically because the character of human interaction is a most basic influence on self-awareness and identity in relation to other "selves", like people.

b.) Extreme changes in communication media, such as the printing press, computer, and world wide web, radically transform the cultural content created by people, because those interacting on the "web" are changed by the media through which they interact.

c.)Technology is expanding in complexity and ubiquity. It is an exponential expansion: Brain-Computer Interface technologies, Artificial Intelligences, RFID's, and a plethora of technologies that shape personal interaction follow this pattern and have already revolutionized the way people identify themselves through these tools.

d.) Humans and computers are already being physically (e.g BrainGate) and figuratively (e.g Google) blended with computers, and artificial intelligences becoming more powerful and integrated into the physical and internet world.

e.) Integration of the web into the physical world is creating a super-consciousness among those people with access to the web and this will change the development of the "self" dramatically: non-human persons with A.I are expected to interact with humans so frequently that it becomes normal.

f.) Thus, the more communication media and brain-computer interface technologies expand, and the more the internet and physical world are integrated, the more complex and diverse personal self-identity becomes.

Research to Date

A technological singularity would be the most revolutionary, rapid growth of technology that has ever occurred. Ray Kurzweil, certainly one of the most influential authorities on the subject, explains this change with the Law of Accelerating Returns. (1) An extension of Moore's Law, which originally described the exponential acceleration in computer hardware developments, it explains that the evolution of all human technology has followed an exponential curve. Billions of years passed before the first single-celled organism emerged, and hundreds of millions more to unintentionally create such an intelligent being as Homo sapiens. Since the development of science quite recently, human technology has come to a point that is unmatched by all technology from our past, combined. (2) This is the most basic assumption of my research, because without an exponential curve, the effects of human culture and biology would not approach the urgency it causes right now.
Anthropology must recognize these rapid changes in the light of exponential expansion of technology, as they change our mental and physical capacities by melding the brain and the rest of the body with computers, they enhance our biology by allowing us to engineer genes and neurons to increase favorable traits, and give us access to all the world's knowledge. The implications go far beyond anthropology and will necessarily be explained by interdisciplinary study and collaboration with realms outside of academia, within the internet user community that generates useful new inventions and applications.
To get a sense of just how far technology has come and how rapidly our societies have changed, take for example the progression of the internet search engine. For those who can remember, less than 20 years ago the search engine was something utilized only among an elite few, certainly not part of public consciousness. After the rise of internet search engines during the 1990's, the unlimited availability of information has become a normal part of life, embedded in every aspect of cultures affected by the internet, and accepted and perpetuated by "Generation Z" faster than any generation has latched onto a technology. The parallel with human biological evolution helps materialize this idea in one's mind: once a simple mammal evolved certain beneficial features, it builds off of every new characteristic previously attained and eventually turns into something that exceeds the original until it is so different as to become another species or genus. Transition
The term "Cyborg" (Cybernetic Organism) describes a biological organism that has been mixed with machine technology to enhance its natural capabilities. Humans are already cyborgs because of the intimate nature of their relationship with the internet. Brain-Computer Interface Technologies (BCI's) are remarkably more advanced than just 10 years ago and it is now possible to control electronic material by translating brain waves into demands in a computer. Companies such as CyberKinetics, Neurosky, and OLogic have created BCI technologies that allow a human brain to control a computer by turning brain wave signals into mathematical algorithms that evolve to "learn" the correlation between certain wave patterns and the desired command. Transition
Advances in human-machine interface technology are progressing in more ways than just reading brain waves to influence a computer, although I cannot stress the importance of that enough. Many researchers are questioning the functionality of immobile plastic pieces like keyboards and non-interactive screens that limit the user's interaction with a computer. In 2006, Jeff Han of New York University introduced an intuitive, touch screen computer that nearly eliminates human-machine interface barriers by conforming to the user's hands instead of the user conforming to the computer. This type of computer intuitively reacts to a person's hands on the screen as if they were moving real, physical particles. (3) Going even further, Researchers at the MIT Wearable Computing Lab have created the most interactive computer system to date that can be projected on any surface by the user. The most remarkable characteristic is that a camera attached to the body can recognize simple hand gestures such as taking a picture by creating a square with fingers or drawing a watch on the wrist. It then takes the picture or connects to the internet to project the desired information onto the surface the user has chosen for the moment. This kind of revolution in computer technology should do away with the traditional computer that keeps users in one place and limits information retrieval from the web. Being able to connect every physical environment we confront with unlimited information about objects in that space will expand human capabilities beyond the imagination. Human biology is being fundamentally altered as well by manipulating preexisting organic material, and creating nano-scale robots, both used to augment the body.
Nanotechnology is accelerating faster than my research can keep up with, and the understanding of nanorobotics will usher in a new age of medicine, biotechnology, and computer technology by using nanoelectromechanical systems to assemble nanoparticles that will eventually be able to target certain biological structures (e.g damaged cells) and fix them inside the body. If we develop the ability to extend human life as long as we want by repairing damages on the cellular and molecular level, then human illness would theoretically diminish. This of course has enormous implications for human values regarding life and death, and what it means to be human in the first place. Our species certainly is something special, and the most incredible thing that makes us special is our unique intelligence that has far surpassed any other organism we've encountered. This brings me to my next point: scientists are coming closer to understanding our intelligence so much that artificial machine intelligence is something to be taken seriously.
Artificial intelligence has been developing for over half a century, starting with the most basic program such as the General Problem Solver in 1957, which could find mathematical proofs for theorems. (2) From the ideas put forth so far in this 50 year discussion, the question is not whether A.I will develop beyond human abilities, but when it will evolve to such complexity. The influence of A.I can be seen in the cars we drive, search engines, bots and spiders scanning through unfathomable amounts of data, powering search engines and personal computers. We are at a point where A.I is used by government agencies, companies, schools, and individuals only for recreation. Most of the data translation people are able to accomplish would be impossible without some sort of A.I program behind it. Take for example a spider bot. Its function is to scan data, analyze, and file certain information at speeds and with precision that humans could never accomplish alone. Without this type of computer program, the internet would not exist as it does now, giving anyone the ability to find almost any information on the web.
To put this information into perspective and appreciate the incredible implications for our future, consider this: The human brain evolved over millions of years to reach the state it is in now, the most intelligent organism on the planet. That brain then became conscious of itself and is now manipulating naturally occurring elements so far as to create entirely new non-biological intelligent beings. This is all a naturally occurring process just as a beaver dam occurs naturally through selection pressures to create the beaver. The questions for anthropologists are vast. My research focuses on the current state of BCI, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and RFID's, and their affects on human interaction while using these technologies. Internet use and availability of technology to the average consumer in industrialized areas has become not just a luxury or recreation, but so much a part of daily life that it is nearly impossible to avoid.
Developing technology that extends lives by making humans part non-biological and incapable of degeneration will transform our morals, values, and culture beyond recognition. Artificial intelligence is assumed to develop to a point where human and robot minds are indistinguishable, or to go beyond human minds in their ability to process qualitative information. For cultural anthropology, the most interesting aspect of the changes is in the shift of identity and the enormous changes in communication techniques. Suddenly, humanity will find itself in a society influenced by non-biological minds with their own opinions and their own cultures. A global consciousness will develop out of the countless communication technologies by connecting distant ideas. We already see this in the age of the internet. For me, many of the questions are unanswerable but somewhat predictable. I will describe the relevant technologies and incorporate them into the group's collaborative study.


1.) http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=1%23691
2.) http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
3.) http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/

Here are links to some very informative websites if you want to learn more about BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) Technological Developments

http://www.thinkartificial.org/ This is a blog site with tons of links to other sites and categories such as A.I and Machine Interfaces.

http://www.neurosky.com/
A company that produces incredible BCI technologies such as in the video below where a person controls a video game only by using his mind: Check out a video about them on YouTube as well:

http://www.ologicinc.com/
"OLogic is an embedded systems research and development company with a focus on robotic applications, and bringing robotic technologies to life in non-robotic product domains."

http://regen.eyetap.org/
This is eyeTap Labs, exploring "Existencial Technology", "Wearable Computing", and "Mediated Reality" to name a few endeavors. Must See! They produced the techology used below for the 2003 DECONism Gallery.

Electroencephalography: Want to know just HOW BCI technology is possible? It's called Electroencephalography, and it is a blossoming field that allows such inventions to flourish! Check out our beloved Wikipedia for more info and plenty of links.

http://eyetap.org/deconism/

A Musical Brainwave Performance at the DECONism Gallery in 2003. "REGEN3 will present the latest developments in EEG brainwave music research, by presenting an ensemble comprised of Toronto jazz musicians playing music which is driven and altered by the brainwaves of the audience. Audience members can become part of an advanced mass EEG system which uses audience brainwaves to control the music and lighting environment: a truly 'smart' building. Join us and see what happens when the mood of the environment is "regenerated" by the collective consciousness of the attendees."

Presentation: Transhumanism and the future of identity

Here is the presentation I gave in class on Tuesday 3/10:

Transhumanism is going beyond our biology by melding human and machine and eventually creating non-human conscious entities.

The brain evolved over millions of years to get to the state of self-awareness that it now has.

VERY few organisms have this biological characteristic.

What we see now is the process of natural selection creating a self-aware brain, understanding itself (our science/technology), creating a new biological form (genetic/neural engineering), and creating a new form of mind that is not a result of a brain evolved over millennia (Artificial Intelligence).

So what happens to natural selection?

•Neural Engineering/Cybernetic technology allows for further development in:

•Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Technologies:

–BrainGate, created by the company Cybernetics in 2003, allows brain to control computer with thoughts, not action from the rest of the body.

–Brain (Neural) Implants that allow for direct brain-computer interaction: Cochlear Implants (hearing), Pacemakers.

–Chronic Electrode Implants: Electronic devices implanted into the brain. They record electrical impulses or stimulate the neurons using an outside electrical source. Implications in simulating damaged senses or senses not natural to humans.

•Machine-Human evolution revolution. Machines evolving MUCH faster than we did…

•Neural Engineering: Already formed brain can be engineered/adapted to fit with computer pieces (eg Matthew Nagle-BrainGate) using electrode implants.

•Literal “Intelligence Supplements”: Already do this with internet-human/computer interface will become blurred line-already see this (MIT, 3D Computer Interface)

•Artificial Intelligence Developments:

•Recursive Formula-“Recognition-Based Pruning Algorithm” (Kurzweil) Ex. Draw with best chess player in the world in 2002.

•Not just replication of human thought processes. Rather, machine “thought”, with sometimes human model.

• Quantitative ability far surpasses human abilities, Qualitative abilities in humans mark the difference. (eg data analysis)

•What will happen to previous notions of human identity?

•EVERYTHING will be radically different including: the way we interact, language, sexuality, sexual reproduction, values, religious belief, recreation, dogmas, emotion, ethics, perception, biological evolution, biological “necessities”, etc…

•How will machines develop an identity within a world created by humans (including their own awareness)?

George the Chatterbot

Cyberkinetics: Controlling Machine with the Mind

Presentation Preview for Jessica's Research on Mind-Machine Identity and Interaction.

This week I will give a presentation on the research I have done so far on the topic of Transhumanism and the vast array of technologies we should see with it including, but not limited to: Cybernetics, Neural Engineering, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics, and Brain-Machine interface technologies such as Cyberkinetics (controlling machine with the mind). I will present the most relevant technologies and a few of Ray Kurzweil's ideas about exponential growth and the technological singularity, then bring these ideas back to my basic research questions with the following points:

1.) Technology is developing at an exponential rate. Those technologies that transform human-computer interface into a more intimate relationship, are expanding both human and computer capabilities.

2.) These capabilities include change in the intelligence of humans by connecting the physical brain to a computer and the internet to access information otherwise more difficult to attain, and a change in computer intelligence by developing stronger A.I technology.

3.) As in Eisenstein's ideas about the revolutionizing printing press, a human ability to access all of human knowledge using technology that melds the brain to the internet will cause a fundamental change in human identity, the product of self-awareness.

4.) If computers too become self-aware as is a human brain, then an entirely new concept of person will emerge, beyond what we could ever imagine in the past. Ray Kurzweil says that A.I will exceed natural human intelligence which has been unrivaled by everything else on Earth until now.

5.) What we see is the natural process of biological evolution developing a brain with consciousness, understanding itself (human science and technology), and creating a new form of itself by both manipulating biological evolution (genetic and neural engineering), and creating non-biological consciousness with computers.

I will mainly focus on machine and human consciousness when it is dramatically altered using technology, and the future of identity and personhood. Drawing on the idea of the singularity and transhumanism/posthumanism, I will describe current predictions of how human behavior will change. The acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, creation of new technologies to increase

Monkey Controls Machine with Brain: Miguel Nicolelis

Jeff Han demonstrates Incredible Touch Screen Human-Computer Interface: TED Talk : 2006

Bionic Eye Interfaced with the Visual Cortex of the Brain: From "The Human Body: Pushing the Limits", Discovery Channel

Jessica Ice's Methodology Proposal: Posthuman/Computer Identity

Given the nature of my research, I will not be doing ethnography like many of the other researchers in the KSU Digital Ethnography Anonymity Project. Instead, my research focuses on questions about the future.

I am asking questions about the future of identity: what is personal identity, when does a non-human machine possess a personal identity, and how do technological developments that blur the lines between non-human and human identity change the behavior of both entities. After all, nearly everything a self-reflecting entity does is dependent on how it understands it's existence. Therefore, there are huge implications that come with a shift in this understanding of oneself. A posthuman/bot revolution would transform the traditionally biological human and usher in a new kind of person, one that is not biological, yet still intelligent and possibly self-aware. Yet, humanity has thought of itself as the ultimate intelligence of the universe (that we know of), and this affects the ways we behave towards each other and other creatures. We have already created machines that mock our personal characteristics to some extent (e.g chatterbots), and this has quickly changed the way we understand ourselves. As technology progresses faster than we can keep up with, we must step back and ask ourselves, who am I as a human, and what is that/who are they as a machine? Let's explore the meaning of personal existence in light of computer technology... :)

As I said, my research will not be ethnographic, but instead will consist of mainly literature review and teaching myself the relevant technological concepts (which are many) in order to apply them to social theory about the future of identity. I will do an extensive literature review, looking mainly at the kinds of technologies that have been proposed in the past few years, when those technologies were theoretically feasible, and those that have actually been created. I will analyze these technological advances not with any claim of much practical knowledge in the computer and biochemical sciences etc., but instead rely on people in relevant disciplines that are regarded as experts within their field.

This methodology must be very interdisciplinary because it requires a certain understanding of computer science, biology, psychology, philosophy, nanotechnology, chemistry (e.g molecular nanobots), and of course anthropology.
So far, I have read many of the most prevalent thinkers in tranhumanist/posthuman theory such as Ray Kurtzweil, Hans Moravec, and Nick Bostrom. I will also be analyzing the ideas of those opposed to transhumanism and writers who believe rapid technological changes will bring about more bad than good or a change in culture that is detrimental.

However, although it is easy to get caught up in the philosophical aspects of technology, and I will cover this, I do not want to stray far from my current research question of how technology will change personal identity, human or non-human. Therefore, I will focus less on analyzing their good or bad nature, and instead I'll focus on their affect on identity, interaction, ideology, society, etc. I hypothesize that if the understanding of human and computer as persons is changed, then social nature will be radically changed. I believe it is also very important to analyze the existing cultural ideas we have about the future of technology and humanity. I'll note that different cultural traditions have very different ideas about robots, dystopias, A.I, and the future of other technologies that always affect our opinion on good/bad or predictions about the future.

In formulating my own ideas I will first read everything I can on the subjects of personhood, technology, (especially artificial intelligence), and computer-human interaction on the web and off, as well as the theories of mind from psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. This will certainly be a traditional research format of reading and forming my own hypothesis afterward. I also want to stress that, although I find transhumanism to have many desirable ideas, I will remain objective during my research by critically analyzing theories and hypothesis put forth by writers.

The Best Lit. Review You'll Ever Read. :) A History of Transhumanist Thinking and the Future of Machine/Human Consiousness.

The computer programs that humans use can be considered symbols in a complex alphabet, and the internet its language. This language is perpetuated by far over a billion people on Earth already, and an internet connection is all one needs to become a participating speaker. Humans are not the only speakers in this intricate language. Software applications known as web bots patrol the internet, performing tasks a human could never take on alone. Spimes will change the way we interact by applying information from the web into the physical world. Never in our past have humans created machines that function with such useful or destructive artificial intelligence, interacting with billions of people everyday. Web bots have revolutionized our commerce, politics, entertainment, theft, and online communication networks that compose the massive collection of different cultures exposed to the internet.

Everything we have ever associated with human behavior must be reconsidered and redefined within the context of bots. These bots analyze, create, collect, and distribute inconceivable amounts of data and respond to human or bot-produced stimuli, facilitating a vast array of desired outcomes by the people who use them. The untrained observer cannot distinguish between internet bots and other humans, and eventually the lines between human and computer program will become as inconspicuous as has the written word.

How will the new humans be defined in this interaction in cyberspace? My research focuses on the implications that cyberbots have on our concepts of individuality and anonymity of personhood stretch bring the imagination to a vision of transhumanism: a boundless accumulation of human creativity and knowledge that seems to assemble itself in the vast encyclopedia of the internet.

Nick Bostrom, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University, and director of The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, wrote a descriptive paper, A History of Transhumanist Thought, that outlines the philosophical traditions leading up to ideas of human enhancement.
Enhancing human biology through technology is not something new, and Bostrom points out that philosphers such as Nietzsche believed that humans would overcome their very-mortal biological state and become something beyond human, as they already had developed technology even in that time that could extend human life far beyond average natural death. This is an important component for a pro-tranhumanism argument: death has always been the ultimate source of suffering, and we have always searched for ways to alleviate it. An idea that has been in opposition to transhumanist thinking is that there is a natural order, a gift from God that should not be disturbed, Bostrom writes. This is one of many origins of anti-transhumanism including the anti-technology based Luddites, others who fear military domination through technology, and Marxist thinkers concerned that high-tech machines will be used for domination over the working class by Capitalists. Bostrom calls these thinkers the "bioconservatives", who believe that human enhancement would create far too many problems than it would alleviate.
I cannot summarize everything in this article, but the important concepts to know are that history is packed with attempts to live longer (thus the development of modern medicine) and in the 21st century, as we create new technologies very rapidly, essentially two different schools of thought have arisen in response: those who oppose the idea of extreme biological enhancement and combination of human and computer, and those who believe it should be avoided for a variety of reasons. Of course, let us not forget the majority of the world's population that is not apart of this discussion, let alone aware of it at all.

From a technologically "conservative" standpoint, such as that of Francis Fukuyama, biotechnology is a problem. In his book, Our Posthuman Future, Fukuyama says that "...the most significant threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will alter human behavior and thereby move us into a posthuman stage of history". (pg.7) Getting closer to my research questions, Fukuyama addresses that biotechnology is not a series of tech advances that exist only in medicine. Indeed, the brain is increasingly affected by these advances, and the mind does not exist without the brain. The most important aspect about biotechnological breakthroughs is that they revolutionize the understandings and capabilities of the human brain, and thus the human mind. This means that our understanding of a mind's identity and personhood will be radically different as the brain becomes mapped and computer parts impose on our brains in order to enhance its natural capabilities. The areas of anthropology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and neuropharmacology and plenty of others will become more sophisticated. "All of these areas of scientific advance have potential political implications, because they enhance our knowledge of, and hence our ability to manipulate the source of all human behavior, the brain." (pg.19), Fukuyama writes. This sentence is somehting that both tranhumanists and those opposed to it will agree on. However, it is the way they percieve it, to be either more beneficial or more harmful to our species, that separates them.
Fukuyama is not alone in this view, many other respected thinkers such as George Annas, Lori Andrews, and Rosario Isasi, all bioethisits, have proposed that inheritable genetic modification be considered a crime and ask that legislation be put into place to stop it. (Bostrom,2005)

One of the most famous people in tranhumanist thought is Ray Kurtzweil (http://www.kurzweilai.net/) . There are tons of articles on his website from a vast array of thinkers outlining the tranhumanist agenda. Kurzweil has consistently been apart of the discussion since as early as the 1960's. In an article posted on his website entitled, "Why We Can be Confident of a Turing Test Capability Within a Quarter Century", he describes the technologies that will bring machines closer to artificial intelligence and closer to human-like behavior. A computer's ability to understand, translate, and create language that passes a Turing Test (the proposed test to demonstrate computer intelligence) is one the the most hurdles to jump when it comes to creating artificial intelligence.

A.I then, will be the most revolutionary accomplishment that relates to my research. That is, the more sophisticated A.I gets, the more blurred the lines between human and computer consciousness become. Another key idea that Kurzweil discusses is that technology progresses exponentially instead of linearly. Elizabeth Eisenstein has described how different technological revolutions, such as the invention of the printing press, have completely shifted cultures into new realms of existence. Once a new technology is introduced, different frames of cultural consciousness are able to flourish. If technology is indeed increasing in its complexity, availability, and abundance at an exponential rate, then the future will consist of technological advances beyond our control , yet we would be completely integrated with it; we would become the machine and the machine would become us. In this article Kurzweil points out that computers can already in 1999 machines could guide missiles, play ping-pong, recognize faces, play chess, and a plethora of other things. That was ten years ago. In 2006, George the chatterbot was recognizing patterns in language and responding with remarkable accuracy. Computer software is marketed that can recognize human speech patterns and translate them into another language. Igor Aleksander, in his book World in my Mind, My Mind in the World, says that machines can be used to understand biological consciousness in an "uncluttered" way. He describes the virtual brain (which he claims will surely develop) as "a malleable vehicle with which to ask questions such as, under what conditions does it sustain being conscious and what is it to be unconscious but still functioning?" (Pg.1) This will have huge implications in the human brain, because it could reach the point of being unconsciousness technically, yet still "plugged-in" to a computer and thus still interacting in the web, the ultimate shift in a state of consciousness.

While researching the different approaches to my research, the future of the human identity and machine identity, every aspect of both, I have noticed that this is something that is extremely inter-disciplinary; in order to understand the implications that tech developments will have on human psychology, interaction, identity, and behavior, social scientists must have an understanding of new technologies, and those developing and programming transhuman-able technologies must understand the effects they will have on humanity. In my readings, there seems to be a gap between the social sciences studying this and the life and physical sciences developing new technology. One can find plenty of articles dealing with philosophy of this subject, however, there are few writers (that I have found) that discuss the implications of A.I, biotechnology, etc. and that are up-to-date with new inventions. I believe this is because new technologies develop so quickly.

In my research, I will focus on new tech developments as they happen, and use philosophical reasoning, and approaches from the social sciences as well as understanding how technologies function (to an extent :)) in organization and how that will affect human/machine identity concepts and abilities. I will not be doing ethnography, but rather, reading all of the relevant information, developing my own ideas, and integrating both into the digital ethnography research project. My research will probably be presented at the end of the project because it deals with questions about the future of humanity in regards to the technologies we present in the rest of the project, and other new technologies described by transhumanists and those opposed to transhumanism.

Cyber technology and the human identity: Warping human identity as the concepts of human and cyber robot begin to blur

There is no doubt that with the invention of the internet came a new way of predicting the future of human and machine. The idea of humans being mixed with technology (not a new concept) was not limited to the same tangible existence that humans have always had. I just recently read a ton of articles related to the topic of posthumanism, artificial intelligence, and cyber technology, and the effects on human/machine identity/consciousness/reality and I will have a concise literature review by tomorrow. One article, A History of Transhumanist Thought by Nick Bostrom, philosophy professor at Oxford University and director of the Future of Humanity Institute, summarizes much of the earliest ideas of human transcendence into a radically different species, the word first coined by Julian Huxley. Bostrom supports transhumanism and delivers the arguments of those opposed to the idea of a superhuman organism, mainly biological enhancement instead of merely treatment of certain ailments, although one should the difference between the two, if there are any reasonable ones.
Definitely explore Nick Bostrom's site, if you want to see some excellent philosophical arguments about the importance of transhumanist ideals.

The Journal of Evolution and Technology is a great source for this subject as well. I found a great article written by Kurmo Konsa, Tartu University, Estonia, entitled: Artificialisation Of Culture: Challenges to and from Posthumanism.

Konsa focused on something very important to my own research focus, that is, How do computer-simulated environments and the addition of computer programs that can mock human consciousness and intelligence affect the future of human identity? Just as important, how will the progression of computer "intellectual" ability affect machine identity in cyberspace and the physical world? There are no doubts that these realities are merging with each other more fully with every new tech development. Ray Kurzweil, along with plenty of other scientists, describes this situation as an exponential growth, non-linear technological progress. (See Below) Konsa went into detail in this article by discussing the concept of culture in a globalizing world in which all cultures are intruded upon by others. That is, if one can even describe culture as a "thing" to describe, which would require a kind of observable separation from "other" cultures. This is becoming extremely difficult to do with globalization and many social scientists propose that it is not in the ever-changing spirit of anthropology to stick with previous paradigms confined to the physical environment of culture.
Konsa states that: "Along with scientific development, it has become irrelevant to distinguish between metaphysical nature and culture" (pg.6) because both are understood as form of information processes. He goes through the "bottom-up" approach to "artificial culture": trying to recreate culture by using computer simulation and "top-down" approaches which fist focus on larger cultural situations and describe them using the environments in which they are enacted. For my questions, the most important point of this article was that cyber culture will become something infinitely more variable and complex than anything that can be created in the physical world because of the nature of the web.

Ray Kurzweil, famous for his career-long support of transhumanism (eventually posthumanism), has plenty of articles explaining the exponential growth of technological invention and which technologies he believes will come to expand and when. On his website, http://www.kurzweilai.net/ there was one of many articles addressing the issue of consciousness in machines and the effect on both human and computer perceptions of reality. One such article, "Will it be Consciousness"? talks about the future of consciousness in machines assuming that the technology will allow for interaction between subject and environment as indistinguishable from human and vice versa. Assuming it will happen, the existence of seemingly human machines will have enormous implications; the effects of such a blurring of consciousnesses will be enormous. I will continue this discussion in a literature review later today, so stay tuned.

PBS Special on the Cyborg Revolution: This is part of 1 of 9. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=beyond+human+part

No Sense of Place/Youtube and You: Effect of electronic media on the understanding of self.

Wesch's description of his research in 2007 in the YouTube community of Vloggers points to a collective feeling of humanity and personhood, yet at the same time the act of vlogging can be understood as a "loose" tie to those one is communicating to. I say "to" because much of the time, importantly in this research, it is not that people are communicating "with" others, which suggests a more mutual form of interaction. Instead, this media allows for a feeling of shared human experience much like the feeling one gets when watching a reality television show or delving into the personal lives of celebrities. The exciting range of emotions that come with sharing deeply personal and private thoughts are attainable without having to risk loosing one's public "face", the way others see them and their actions.

I read chapter 2 of Joshua Meyrowitz's book "No Sense of Place", in which he discusses what he refers to as "medium" theory in the context of media environments and social changes. This theory is "a more historical and cross-cultural approach to communication technologies" (pg.16)
and understands the importance of the characteristics of a particular media itself rather than only focusing of information conveyed via certain media. I love his analogy between the study of the industrial revolution and the new electronic media now so pervasive in our everyday lives. Meyrowitz says: "Few who have studied the effects of the industrial revolution, for example, would claim that the only important things to study are the specific goods that the new machines produced".

This analogy is great because it looks at electronic communications media today and relates it to something that we still study in the social sciences using more of the "medium" theory. Social scientists must apply an integrative approach to understanding cultural and societal changes related to new digital media, just as they have for every major technological revolution that has taken a new place in history. In both of these readings it is argued that as new media are applied in the world, they don't just simply replace other mediums of communication, but they create something entirely different, which must be studied on those new terms of interaction, yet still understanding how they got there in the first place (a holistic description).

Most importantly for my research is that by looking at the history of technological change, and thus media development, we can see that with each revolution comes drastic changes in communication and culture, and that the next media to come along is remarkably more complex than its predecessors, integrating them into a "database" of collective human knowledge (that was only for the the educated). Now, our media technology has so much surpassed everything we had before, that nearly anyone has access to all of our knowledge. This is not something that could about if we simply invented fresh new media tools and said "good day" the old ones. It IS something that comes from a collective, historical building of media technology that integrates what we knew before and morphs it all into something that fits our most recent developments.

"Ambient Intimacy" and Media as Interaction

I recently read an article by Clive Thomson in The Hareld Tribune with the headline "Web Ushers in Age of Ambient Intimacy". I thought it was a fantastic peek into the new cultures of online communication using new media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, both apart of a rapidly expanding universe of websites created almost solely for the purpose of documenting the things you want to share about yourself and those in your life, and sharing that information with the rest of that network, and not unreasonably the rest of the world. This kind of communication has created such a unique realm of emotions, that come with with sharing personal information and constantly enveloping oneself in the online lives of other users, that psychologists have given it (one aspect of these type of interactions) an appropriate term: Ambient Intimacy". I say it is appropriate, because it describes a feeling of closeness between people that may not ever meet in person and, as an interviewee says in his article, "It drags you out of your own head" when one feels the need to tell online friends how they are feeling at any moment, and this can conjure up emotions of intimacy with humanity in general, much like a person hallucinating on LSD can feel extremely insignificant, loved, understood, and intimate with the universe all at the same time.

Casey Man Kong Lum explains in "An Overview of Media Ecology" that this dynamic array of emotions that come with constantly saturating oneself with the personal thoughts of others comes from and is perpetuated by the environment of certain media and the media of a given environment. That is, the behavior of people in any environment is heavily influenced by the constraints of the media they are using, both in that there are technological boundaries and cultural boundaries that define our behavior and perceptions, and internet interaction is no exception to this rule. Internet media tools have been superimposed onto the web, created in the image of already existing social structures in the physical world, and they have also been created as an adaptation to their natural evolution after being integrated into the web. That is, it is obvious when looking at the kinds of media tools on the internet, such as Facebook, that they originally had some place in the pre-internet world, and functioned in that context, morphing into new forms and adapting to culture change as the years went by. It is also apparent that once these tools were put online, humanity naturally morphed to adapt to this new media and fulfill it's natural desires, and as always, changed these tools again to further their adaptation. And so, this is a way of understanding how media, which comes from a human need or desire and is made in some particular context/s, changes culture, which in turn changes the media again continuously. Something very important for us to understand is that an exponential growth of communication technology has occurred throughout human history, as Lum pointed out, and everything humans have developed in the past few decades has absolutely dwarfed every other media we have created in the thousands of years of human technological evolution.

Post Human Anthropology and the progression of cyber ethnography

Whitehead gives the details about an Ethnographic project he did, in which he and Jeff Fields created a MySpace project with visual art and music from a "band" they called Blood Jewel. This was the most unique account of ethnography that I have read and it was appropriate for introducing the Post Human anthropology that Whitehead writes about. Anthropology will certainly need to redefine the pre-internet ideas about culture, the "field", and ideas about the individual. Whitehead mentions on page 12 that the focus of their video, SpeedKilla, which portrays a mix of governmental violence from police, violence from Grand Theft Auto, and some from the individual shooter at Virginia Tech, was to convey a message about violence that is different from the frequent representation of individuals as the psychopaths. However, he wanted to show that these "fetish sexualities" laced with violence are not just "stemming solely from the psychopathy of individuals rather than the cultural milieu of the United Sates itself." Pg. 12

In my own ideas about the nature of ethnography, I had always assumed that the ethnography of today is something like Whitehead describes in his article, in which the ethnographer becomes the object of study as well, through their own experience, and understanding of a culture by sincerely becoming part of that culture. The "I am one of you" that Whitehead refers to is something very new to ethnography and it requires a sincere "becoming" of the people and interactions that the researcher studies. I think this is an approach that is necessary in order to look at the interactions between people online as well as offline because it forces the anthropologist to feel the motivations of others for themselves. Of course, this can only be true if the researcher actually is sincere about what they participate in and how they do it.

David Silver, in Looking Backwards, Looking Forward: 1990-2000, describes the progression from early cyber ethnography interest to the paradigm in the year 2000. Silver says that at the early stages of public internet, there were plenty of pessimists to criticize the web as the end of the real, in-the-flesh, meaningful human relationship. There were others that saw it as a tool for more rich discussion, which is what it has become. As the communication tools that are used on the web get more integrating and elaborate, the more our individual selves, and even our cultures, become more dynamic both offline and on, and more split into different realms, when before they was a physical realm, and everything was tied to that in a very bounded way.

Chapter 10 from The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler: My take on Benkler's ideas here.

http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-10.htm

Above is the chapter (10) I am reflecting on, from The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, Yale.

Benkler has a sound argument here. He provides plenty of evidence in response to claims (today and years ago) that the internet will have a mostly negative effect on human social behavior. I especially appreciate the many studies done in the earlier days of internet, when it was not so clear as to how it would affect us, that hypothesized a decrease in local social interaction (family, friends, etc.) with increase in internet use. These were found to be wrong in the end about most of what they hypothesized, and instead we now find that the web has broadened the possibility of becoming a much more dynamic personality without sacrificing certain face-to-face reputations. It is mind-blowing to understand that, if preexisting social connections are not disappearing altogether but are instead dynamically modified, then there is a cultural phenomenon taking place via the web that might call for a need to modify the idea of Culture as well. The social sciences have categorized material and non-material components in culture, but until the invention of global media technology, the most complex non-material culture that could exist distributed less information since it's invention, than the internet can produce in only a brief moment.

I think Benkler was also trying to make an important point that the internet is not the first technology or means of social change to be scrutinized by pessimists. Every other technological and cultural revolution has been criticized as devolution of humanity and loss of certain "innate" traits that make our species special, usually by those unaccustomed to the new development (previous generation) and of course those who fear change for whatever reason; I think it is commonly due to fear of losing a belief system that is difficult to adapt to the new circumstances.
In regards to my own research which includes web bots, artificial intelligence, and the shift from an easily identified human presence to something as complex as a computer program, I feel that adaptation to internet technology is not a choice. It will not disappear from the Earth, and therefore it is crucial that we harness the internet and technology to come for the entirety of the species, in excelling our understanding of each other and our potential to become intelligent and morally adept within a world community.

Some important questions in reference to this article is about Benkler's idea of "Human Community": To Be Announced

A reflection on the article Virtual Ethnography by Christine Hines

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9525221/Hine?secret_password=qpbbu5ew2t4j408ir93

This entry is referring to the article above on Virtual Ethnography by Christine Hines.

Hines presents some very pragmatic ideas on how to approach ethnography in such a recent, uncharted environment as the internet. Although it seemed that much of her writing on the historical aspects of ethnography were a bit redundant, it was important that she built up a context for her ideas on how digital ethnographies should be conducted. One of the most difficult hurdles is in reexamining this new media on its own terms instead of referring to mental schemas we have already formed (pre-internet or by tradition), on how people should interact and what technology is useful. It would be more fruitful to understand that never has humankind seen such communication, and therefore human identity, relationships, and ideas etc. will too be like almost nothing we have seen before. The renaissance was a cultural and intellectual revolution, the industrial age was technological progress, but none of the revolutions before now have had All components of cultural and technological change so easily attainable, rapidly progressing, until the internet.

In digital ethnography I think it is extremely important to evaluate the reasons for which certain media are adapted and some are discarded. This could shed some light on HOW the cultures connected are changing and if and how there is a "superculture" emerging within the web since it is not constricted by space or time (unfathomable until just recently) It is also crucial to focus on how this web of information will affect future generations' overall knowledge about the world.

Hines' most important acknowledgment is that anthropology and any other field studying the internet, and arguably almost any other social construct that has been affected by this technology, must adapt the ethnography or study to fit into this intangible sphere of reality. I agree with Hines that a virtual ethnography will necessarily have to be extremely dynamic and multi-disciplinary in order to be accurate.

Final Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVYU6UItthY

The computer programs that humans use can be considered symbols in a complex alphabet, and the internet its language. This language is perpetuated by far over a billion people on Earth already, and an internet connection is all one needs to become a participating speaker. Humans are not the only speakers in this intricate language. Software applications known as web bots patrol the internet, performing tasks a human could never take on alone. Spimes will change the way we interact by applying information from the web into the physical world. Never in our past have humans created machines that function with such useful or destructive artificial intelligence, interacting with billions of people everyday. Web bots have revolutionized our commerce, politics, entertainment, theft, and online communication networks that compose the massive collection of different cultures exposed to the internet.

Everything we have ever associated with human behavior must be reconsidered and redefined within the context of bots. These bots analyze, create, collect, and distribute inconceivable amounts of data and respond to human or bot-produced stimuli, facilitating a vast array of desired outcomes by the people who use them. The untrained observer cannot distinguish between internet bots and other humans, and eventually the lines between human and computer program will become as inconspicuous as has the written word.

How will the new humans be defined in this interaction in cyberspace? My research focuses on the implications that cyberbots have on our concepts of individuality and anonymity of personhood stretch bring the imagination to a vision of transhumanism: a boundless accumulation of human creativity and knowledge that seems to assemble itself in the vast encyclopedia of the internet.

First Ethnography Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNn-YZvjFLs

Research 2009!