PRiME on #posthumanism and the ethics of resilience by David Roden #future

PRiME on posthumanism and the ethics of resilience by David Roden. The talk has two aims: views on posthumanism (situating his own position), and explore concepts on where resilience fits in with posthumanism. Wrote a book on posthuman life published in 2014. 

Critical posthumansim and speculative posthumanism

Critical posthumanism rejects the anthropocentrism of modern philosophy and intellectual life
Speculative posthumanism opposes human-centric thinking about the long-run implications of modern technology

Sampling the diversity of posthumanism: Derida (the subject of human – writing – is part of the world). Every subject is connected or related to the system, never simple source of agency, it involves other agencies.

Human as it stands in our subjective or real world. According to Harmon the big aberration of modern western philosophy is to be focusing on the relation of the human being in the world. So our idea of the world is the world as seen by a human subject, as such it is reduced to a single object.

So where are we if we think of the world as not a human given world?

Refers to How we became post-human: the impact of modern cybernetics and post-war sci-Fi and our conception of the human (Katherine Hayles). The human subject is never autonomous of the rest of the environment, and very politically narrow view of the human subject.

James Ladyman and John Ross: philosophical naturalism if we want to find out about the world, we need to investigate the world empirically. Questioning the centrality of the human subject.

David is interested in what comes after the human, the post-human? Wide descendants of current humans could cease to be human by virtue of a history of technological alteration. Speculative posthumanism.

With wide descendants of humans, David means that we cannot make a simplistic distinction between biological humans and non-biological humans. All of these are part of the total environment, so in a sense one could say that a socio-technical network can also be seen as human (e.g. a ship, for it is build and used in a wider sense by humans).  Post-human succession would be more than human, the wide human is an assemblage of both narrowly and widely human. This means that the disconnection thesis something becomes human when it has ceased to belong to the wide human as a result of a technical alteration. Or if it is a wide human descendant of a posthuman. So as soon as a robot can act autonomously from a human, it becomes a disconnect from the wide human.

To take home: how does this relate to resilience. The ecological resilience is being able to adapt to changes in the environment. Adapt to contingencies as they arise. Anything that is a posthuman has got to be an agent of some kind. Our moral concern is that something that we make can discover their own morals, their own values. Ecological resilience is a form of autonomous adaptation, sometimes in cooperation with other entities.  From an ethics points of view, it can be that resilience leads to hypermodernity that is continues functionally augmented, changing. This means we need to qualify the concept of resilience, otherwise we do not know what we are committing ourselves to from a posthuman perspective. This means there is something problematic to resilience and posthuman… but no answer yet.

Question: relationship between ethics and resilience: you could say tuberculosis is resilient as it adapts, similar computer virus that sustains itself could be resilience. In what circumstances is resilience good or bad, and how can we link this to a human point of view? Answer: at a theoretical level it is not possible to do this. The only way to see what is bad or good, would be to actually make it… which also means that responsibility and accountability comes into the equation. This also applies to other resilient options we are making.

Question: educational and psychological resilience can be varied, but there is a similarity to the term (resilience) is used, I am wondering if looking at other definitions of perspectives can be helpful. But how can we look from a non-human perspective, as we are humans? Answer: yes, resilience is a posthuman notion in which no entity is privileged, and we need to take all of these into consideration. ( no answer to second part of question)

Question: focus on technology and environment, but can contemporary concerns can also be linked to the past, the spiritual dimension and the supernatural dimension. That seems to me as non-human. Is this different, or are we in a different phase? Answer: one of the follow-up of melomancer, uses voodoo, so maybe there is a cross-over between posthuman discourse and the spiritual realm. We are surrounded by software entities that are making decisions autonomously from us, so in a way it is happening, and we do not know what the effect is on our environment. 

Question: consciousness an element of being human, that is something that can make the distinction. Answer: there is an important factor to consciousness, but do we know what that is? If not than it is not an option to use. Apart from animals having consciousness. Having consciousness does not tell us what consciousness is. compare it to swarm intelligence versus consciousness. 

Other ideas: systems thinking in all these cases, triage affecting reactions in terms of emergencies. A system that keeps itself in a working condition, these systems can only be maintained of all elements are kept active. 

PRiME workshop on PostHumanism and Resilience thinking robots @OUUK @robotics

Today I have the pleasure of attending the Posthuman Resilience in Major Emergencies (PRiME) networking event organised by the OU, UK. This is definitely a timely event as it launches a constructive idea exchange with regard to what we need to think about to enable societies to be resilient in case of major emergencies (natural and human disasters affecting small to big regions). The main aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers and stakeholders from a variety of fields within the future technologies area.

The workshop focuses on emergency situations, particularly in major events and disasters, which in today’s connected world require sophisticated responses involving extraordinarily close collaboration between humans and technologies. The concept of resilience has been identified as encapsulating a highly desirable characteristic of both humans and technologies in these settings. Although resilience has been the subject of extensive research in various academic and technical domains, it needs to be thoroughly re-examined in relation to the prospect of a post-human future, e.g. in 50 to 100 years, in which human capacities may be manipulated and radically enhanced. If you are interested in this challenge and have relevant ideas or expertise, you are invited to join us in our upcoming workshop where the concept of resilience will be a core aspect.

A posthuman approach to resilience might analyse networks of which humans are only a part, or assemblages composed entirely of non-humans. It may involve applying abstract concepts of resilience to humans and nonhumans alike; or "pluralizing" the concept to acknowledge different ways in which things or subjects can exhibit resilience. It may explore the contribution of nonhuman actors to forms of stability traditionally viewed in human terms, or seek greater recognition of diverse interests in being resilient.

The day is filled mostly by 30 min keynotes on posthumanism, resilience, human-machine interaction, communication, and robot technology.

Some first thoughts picked up while liveblogging:

Resilience some info (came in a bit after start of first keynote, train travel).

From Mars exploration, space technologies, self-riding rovers and cars. No external location info.

Use AL mapping area and computer vision & cameras. Mapping the world in 3D, mapping where the rover is, and than plan.

Energy is limited: solar power in combination with battery. Autonomous sensors will use battery power, the more watt’s used, the less energy for moving around. Sometimes cheap sensors can be used, but sometimes (e.g. challenges met) more expensive sensors need to be used. So what I tried is modeling the terrain and looking at which type of sensors can be used. Where the software is going to calculate which sensors can be used in terms of energy investment. Anyway mapping the way as it is explored. In a GPS void environment some mapping and exploration can be one, with additional energy saved. But mapping has it limits as the exact photograph taken will provide detailed information, but as soon as the video angle is different, different information will be given. So, how can different pictures ensure accurate information, build from different sensors. The mars technology is now used in tunnels, surveying tunnels and mapping them. VR, AR tech coming from the 3D models sent out from the tunnels, decreasing the risk for humans. But a major challenge is the data coming out of these 3D models. Too much information to calculate. Deep learning is an option, fueled by theoretical information, and lots of gaming industry feedback. Steep and rapid change, every 6 months giant leaps forward. Using AI to augment, improve and replace human actors. Current state of the art is changing so rapidly, that it exceeds information coming out (papers, tech…). Up to 2010 error rates were high, with deep learning, the errors have come down, and very complex images the machines are classifying better than human beings are doing; this can be used for any visual analysis at the moment and be used to looking for information of interest.

Autonomous robotic for surveillance, that way minimize risk for humans and visualise or provide detailed information, plus dealing with problem of lots of data. 

Another big problem is the human-machine interaction, as the technology (now) does not understand the human communication. The interface to communicate with human/machine. 

(inge: makes me think off a lot of internet of things problems revolving on energy versus tech action. )

Natalie Panek on Learning without Boundaries #devlearn

This keynote by Natalie Panek (she is a real rocket scientist, NASA Mission Systems Engineer, MDA Robotics and Automation Learning) will only be available for one week through the ELearning Guild's archive. Natalie gave the closing keynote at the DevLearn conference in 2015. She describes her journey on how she came to work for NASA (perseverance, keep on knocking on that door). The nice thing is that she focuses on getting more girls, women into engineering and science (if they are interested) by being a role model, mentor, active professional out there. 

The video is available here (in the archive of the eLearning Guild). 

It is definitely worth half an hour, for all of us dreamers and actors in learning technology. 
"She sees everything in life as an opportunity to demand the most of yourself: To commit to a goal and develop intellectual fortitude. Natalie Panek is passionate about lifelong learning through experiences removed from your comfort zones. As learning professionals, we have the challenge of igniting this passion in others. In this inspiring session, Ms. Panek explores how the ongoing pursuit of knowledge should take place throughout life and across an array of experiences. You will leave this session able to encourage yourself and others to be drawn to the rewards of challenge and learning, because the incentive is the fulfilment of our dreams, and our dreams are what will transform the world."

You do need to register for the eLearning Guild, but you can do it as an associate member (free). Once you are registered, you get access to the video (this week). 

#OEB15 liveblogging robots in education

Presentations of 3 robotics builders and developers. nice conversation with some informative links. 

iCUBE is first project introduced by Giorgio Metta .

1 robot 250000 euro, built in 6 months and the robot is open source, so you can do it (if you have the financial means)

http://www.icub.org/

Balancing, recognizing objects, can point to the objects when asked, manipulation (using the object) which depends on feedback.

Challenges: materials (very fragile), AI, energy, cloud,

Manfed Hild: neurorobotics reseach laboratory (NRL)

http://www.neurorobotik.de/index_en.php

little 15 EUR robotset + 2 to 3 hours you can make a walking spider robot. This allows students to get an idea of a robot.

Step by step robot learning is explained by Manfred: first simulations limited to two or a limited amount of parameters, after that e-robot simulation is stated (all the circuits within the network).

Cognitive robotics: with a really difficult platform (dense one), you can only allow a couple of students on the platform, but if you use a less expensive platform, it allows you to add more students to the platform.

Question: which robot would you buy: mindstorms from lego is really good, but as an entrance to robots any robot (cheap) will do to allow learning the necessary elements that come along with the idea of robots.

Seed Robotics http://www.seedrobotics.com/

Robotics in education: right now only in universities students get opportunities to work with robots. Some initiatives within high school, but there is a big gap related to robotics in education.

Robotics is a very differentiated field: maths, design, physics… which gives it diverse practical fields of study. There can be multiple real world tasks that can be investigated across fields.

But it does (mostly) use a top down approach

With using the visual programming language Python it is possible to visualy build a pogram you have in mind, and then get a coded result.