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And oh, about BLOODY time we have a Roland Piquepaille section

oh, come on alt least its not Kevin "Bloody "Warwick so he's not all bad.

More information on Kevin Warwick, a.k.a. Captain Cyborg here: here, here, and here
The folks over at El Reg are bigs fans of him ;-)

There's an infrequently updated page about Warwick here.

Which brings me to my question: Do you do any scientifically valuable research? I ask because you seem like just another shamelessly self-publicising cyber-pundit, much like the UK's Kevin Warwick (who, famously claimed to be the world's first cyborg after implanting a dog-tracking chip in his arm).

If not, how do you justify the damage people like you your supposed fields of research when your wild and glorious predictions fail to materialise? Aren't you just further widening the credibility gap between the promises and realities of artificial intelligence?

Unfortunately, the reality is increasingly that many in the scientific profession achieve success by attracting public attention, the public often being a poor judge of true innovation. Why? Because if you aren't making wild claims, CNN just doesn't care, and how does a Professor that has made a genuine contribution to their field compete with an idiot that is on CNN every second day?

There are those that have made a career out of telling the media what they want to hear. People who gladly accept publicity even when their self-aggrandization hurts serious research in their field.

For the perfect example, learn a little about the career of Kevin Warwick, the UK's foremost pseudo-scientist.

Science and academia are increasingly a joke. For some time now, it has been more about public image than genuine contribution to the human understanding of the world around them.

..just trying out my new key mappings actually, I got fed up typing alt-156 and alt-0128 for currency symbols when I'm using Windows (but not so fed up I'd go back to qwerty). [the dll-based keymaps that win2k uses really do suck for non-USian Dvorak users without a program like that].

Anyway, unless we get a government that has a fscking clue (which going on the last 30-odd years seems pretty unlikely to happen here), I don't think we'd really be all that much worse off by joining, and there are some advantages that would make life a lot less hassle for some people.

Anyway, dragging it back nearly on-topic, I wonder if the ban will extend to cybernetic organisms too. Let's see if we can start it while he's out of the country :)

He's been a media doll for years. He's no damn cyborg, and even if he is, Steve Mann got him beat as the first.

Steve Mann is the man, or part-man I should say. Hope he recovers from his airline experience.

"Put forward in fiction, these ideas can be quite interesting, but to see these ideas put forward by someone who's supposed to be a serious theorist...."

Despite the fact that some of you feel The Reg. to be unnecessarily sarcastic or (tongue and cheek) sensationalistic, I think they've hit it spot on with their take on Prof. Warwick. He seems to be pretty much into it for the 'look-at-me-I'm-original' factor, but he doesn't seem to have much scientific credibility when it comes right down to it. Here is a good Reg. analysis from 2000, after his the big story in Wired came out about him: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/29/9250.html.

His attempts to become a cyborg from what I understand consisted of little more than putting a chip in his body which would open a door as he walked towards it. How is this that different from: having the chip in your pocket, sticking it to your arm with some sort of patch, etc. My roommate's cat has a chip implanted in her to find her in the case of her running away. Is she a cyborg kitty??

As far as this new venture is concerned, Warwick seems to have the idea that using this kind of technology to help paralyzed is his idea, or has never been done. Think again, Professor Warwick (I really this is somewhat different but seems to be essentially the same idea, stimulating nerves to create movement in people struggling with paralysis...my point is merely that Warwick is not the brilliant loner on the revolutionary fronts of scientific acheivement that he makes himself out to be...there are people doing real science all over who don't need the gratification of being in the media--this is a non-story).

Check out this link for further information: http://www.kevinwarwick.org.uk/.

> Speaking of which, where's that joke page for him
> that displayed articles from him, where he
> (Warwick, I mean) was a time traveller who went
> back in time to figure out "what went wrong"?
> That was classic.

Ah, you mean Kevin Reading of Warwick University?

That would be Kevin Warwick Watch

Try the (ahem) Kevin Warwick Watch: www.kevinwarwick.org.uk if you want something more interesting than www.kevinwarwick.org.

FEAR KEVIN

Try the (ahem) Kevin Warwick Watch: www.kevinwarwick.org.uk if you want something more interesting than www.kevinwarwick.org.

FEAR KEVIN

World renowned? Oh please. Within the UK community the man is a joke.

I hardly feel sticking a chip in your arm makes you a cyborg, otherwise we have a lot of cybernetic dogs out there.

World-Renowned my ass.

His next experiment was similar but involved attaching the transponder to the epineurium (sheath) of one of the nerves of the arm- the idea was that the transponder would pick up signals (eg the axonal activity caused by touch sensation, or pain) and then that these signals could be sent to a computer and encoded as "patterns" (eg one pattern for holding a pen, one pattern for being pricked by a pin). These patterns could then be analysed and even sent back to the transponder, where it could now act as an output device, and cause the sensation that was encoded! There was even talk of implanting Prof. Warwick's wife with an identical transplant and putting them in continual communcation, so that for example, when Warwick stroked a kitten, his wife would hae the sensation of kitten-stroking.

Not surprisingly for those of us that have neurological/neuroscientific training, the results from this study have never seen the light of day. The ideas are flawed from top to bottom. Warwick's main mistake is that his second experiment has no relation to the first. The first (having a transponder that identifies individuals) is marginally interesting, if overblown (the transponder doesn't have to be surgically implanted to work) - his idea is "The chip implant technology has the capability to impact our lives in ways that have been previously thought possible in only sci-fi movies. The implant could carry all sorts of information about a person, from Access and Visa details to your National Insurance number, blood type, medical records etc., with the data being updated where necessary."

Im sure fellow /. readers find that scary rather than necessary!

Anyway, that "experiment" (more like a beta test) doesnt logically lead to the second nerve implant. His lack of elementary neuroscience is evident here- peripheral nerve trunks are not good places to encode data- and if he did manage to "record" patterns for himself - how could he "play" them back on his nerves? A simple magnetic transponder? It would be like trying to email a GIF to someone by holding an industrial elctromagnet next to a bundle of phone-wires! And the thought that recorded patterns could be played back on another person's CNS using such crude technology is simply unbelievable.

Professor Warwick is regarded as something of a quack in the UK high-tech/neuro community, as this site, Kevin Warwick Watch, testifies. His research, however, does raise one or two interesting questions. His techniques and methods, though, are nopthing more than circus sideshows, compared to the excellent work with the mollusc neurons.

Progress in computer hardware has followed an amazingly steady curve in the last few decades [17]. Based largely on this trend, I believe that the creation of greater than human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years.

Progress in computer hardware has followed this curve and continues to do so. Progress in computer intelligence however, hasn't. Computers are still stupid. They can now be stupid more quickly. This isn't going to produce super-human intelligence any time soon.

Dr Vinge reminds me somewhat of that most mocked of AI doomsayers, Kevin Warwick.

As long as it's not being run by Kevin Warwick...

Of course, the same thing could be done with a bunch of hydrometers

But you have to go there to read the hygrometer -- all you have to do with the faintly glowing green plants is look out the window (well, at night...).

Better yet: you need a plant that will radio you when it wants water. Oh, where is Kevin Warwick when you need him?

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I'm surprised there was no mention of cyber-guru Kevin Warwick. The man's a genius.

Hehe. Actually Kevin is a buffoon with enough letters after his name to fool clueless media types (and even, shockingly, the Royal Institution) into believing his drivel. The only thing he's a genius at is self-promotion ... he's quite well known in the UK tech community now. Visit the site above for an update on his activities.

Oh yes. Kevin Warwick. He's usually just a nutter, but in this case he did raise some concerns about privacy and civil liberties issues.

However, check out Kevin Warwick Watch as a guide to just how seriously you want to take what he says.

My Cat is more wired than Kevin Warwick.

At least he can automatically open catflaps.