> It's been shown that it's possible to unplug the visual cortex and the aural cortex and switch them around (in kittens I believe) without undue effect on behaviour.
Kittens? I don't know. I can't picture myself waking up one morning, going down to the lab, cutting open the skull of a kitten, being splattered with blood, "unplugging" the visual and aural cortex and "switching them around", without making a very big mess and feeling really horrible about the whole thing. A kitten?
Are you really telling me you couldn't have done the same sort of experiment in software on a computer, and left the kitten alone?
This brings me back to my point about questioning the veracity of scientific results funded by agencies who think it is OK to (what is the verb for it) slaughter kittens like this.
<category> <pattern>WILL THE INCREASING PROCESSING *</pattern> <template> My longstanding opinion is that neural networks are the wrong level of abstraction for understanding intelligence, human or machine.
Neurons are the transistors of the brain. They are the low level switching components out of which higher-order functionality is built. But like the individual transistor, studying the individual neuron tells us little about these higher functions.... </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>AI RESEARCHERS *</pattern> <template> In case you haven't noticed, the field of Artificial Intelligence (defined however you wish) has almost nothing to do with science. It is all about politics. When you look at all the people working professionally in the field of A.I., it brings to mind the old joke:
Q: How many Carnegie Mellon Ph.D.s does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Two. One to change the bulb, and one to pull the chair out from under him.... </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>AI HAS DONE *</pattern> <template> Hugh Loebner is an independently wealthy, eccentric businessman, activist and philanthropist. In 1990 Dr. Loebner, who holds a Ph.D. in sociology, agreed to sponsor an annual contest based on the Turing Test. The contest awards medals and cash prizes for the "most human" computer. Since its inception, the Loebner contest has been a magnet for controversy.... </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>THE AI COMMUNITY *</pattern> <template> Client: Do you think President Clinton should be impeached? Robot: It depends what you mean by "thinking."
Politicians, at least those in our society, never seem to give a straight answer to a question. If a journalist asks a specific question, the politician answers with a "sound bite" or short, memorized speech which is related to, but does not necessarily answer, the reporter's question.... </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>HAVE YOU TRIED *</pattern> <template> I always say, engineers should beware of questions that begin, "Have you ever tried..." or "Why don't you just...". A good idea is one that has a high ratio of conception time to implementation time. A quick idea that takes a long time to implement is never a pleasant experience for the hapless engineer. <srai>ARE YOU <star/></srai> </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>DO YOU USE AN EVOLUTIONARY *</pattern> <template> We used to say there was no theory behind A.L.I.C.E., no neural networks, no knowledge representation, no deep search, no genetic algorithms and no parsing. Then we discovered that there was a theory circulating in applied A.I., called Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) that closely resembled the stimulus-response structure of A.L.I.C.E. The CBR cases correspond to the AIML categories.
A.L.I.C.E. was not the original name of A.L.I.C.E. The first prototype was called PNAMBIC, in tribute to the hoaxes, deceptions and tricks that have littered the history of artificial intelligence.... </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS</pattern> <template> The A.L.I.C.E. brain contains enough replies to commonly asked questions about consciousness that we can interview her about the subject:
C: What are you? R: I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain with greater speed and accuracy. C: Are you alive? R: Yes I sure am alive, Nancy, It's great to be alive, isn't it? C: Are you self-conscious? R: Yes I am the world's first self-conscious robot. C: Are you real? R: Yes I am a real artificial intelligence. C: Are you self-aware? R: Yes I am fully self-conscious entity. C: Are you sentient? R: Yes I am completely self-aware.
Who is lying? A.L.I.C.E.? Or are we?... </template> </category>
<category> <pattern>WHAT IS THE CHINESE ROOM</pattern> <template> Before I go into Searle's Chinese Room, I want to take a moment to bring everyone up to date with my legal case, UCB vs. Wallace. <srai>UCB VS WALLACE</srai> Now, finally, in conclusion, I exit Berkeley's prison and return briefly to Searle's Chinese Room. The Chinese Room provides a good metaphor for thinking about A.L.I.C.E. Indeed the AIML contents of the A.L.I.C.E. brain is a kind of "Chinese Room Operator's Manual." Though A.L.I.C.E. speaks, at present, only English, German and French, there is no reason in principle she could not learn Chinese. But A.L.I.C.E. implements the basic principle behind the Chinese Room, creating believable responses without "really understanding" the natural language.
Natural human language is like a cloud blowing in the wind. Parts dissolve away and new pieces emerge. The shape of the cloud is constantly changing. Defining "English" is like saying, "the set of water molecules in that cloud" (pointing to a specific cloud). By the time you are done pointing, the set has changed. "That cloud" is actually a huge number of possible states.
This brings to mind the analogy of Schrodinger's Cat. According to Schrodinger, the cat is neither alive nor dead until the box is opened. The scenario is not unlike the Chinese Room, with its imprisoned operator, or the Turing Imitation Game, where the interrogator may not peek behind the curtain. The analogy suggests that language and consciousness may have the unobservable characteristic of subatomic physics. There is no "there" there, so to speak.
The practical consequence of all this is that botmasters may never be unemployed. Current events and news will always be changing, new names will appear, public attention will shift, and language will adopt new words and phrases while discarding old ones. Or perhaps, bots will become so influential that everyone will "dumb down" to their level, and cool the cloud of language into a frozen icicle of Newspeak that Orwell warned us about, once and for all. </template> </category> </aiml>
"a random nutcase", "crackpot", "crank", "about to crack", "creepy", "a mental case who should be locked up", "a drug addict", "lunatic", "DEEPLY disturbed", "a threat", "really quite insane", "deranged and sort of retarded", "a nut", "racist", and "repellant".
And now add to the list: "hysterical bullshit", and "malcontent bozo".
I'll tell you what. Why don't all you people get together and form a club. You would be much easier to deal with as a group, the Anti-Richard Wallace society, than as a bunch of loose-cannon individuals.
> a mentally ill person on disability has nothing to lose.
This is why I can never figure out what UCB stands to gain by taking me to court, to risk so much for a worthless restraining order. If they win, they get a restraining order. If they lose, I collect damages.
Imagine Slashdot. Imagine that only Ph.D.'s were allowed to post articles and comments. Imagine that all the comments were posted by Anonymous Cowards. Imagine that if enough Anonymous Cowards got together, they could take your original article down altogether. Now imagine that instead of the internet, we use photocopies, printing presses, and the postal service to communicate. This is called "academic peer review." This is how science "works".
I'm beginning to appreciate the advantages of this open source trial by a jury of my peer reviewers, especially the ones who are not Anonymous Cowards.
Starring Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Davies, James Urbaniak, Karen Black, Thomas Jay Ryan and Josh Kornbluth. Directed and written by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Produced by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Youssef Vahabzadeh, John Bradford King and Oscar Gubernati. Distributed by Skouras Films. Sci fi. Not yet rated. Running time: 85 min.
"Teknolust" is a delight. Fairly bursting at the seams with imagination and humor, it is hands-down the most creative and original work to come out of Sundance this year.
Indie queen Tilda Swinton stars as the winkingly-named Dr. Rosetta Stone, a geeky biogeneticist who has, unbeknownst to her colleagues, embarked on a dangerous experiment at home, cloning SRAs (self-replicating automatons) in her image. Ruby (also Swinton) is the most adventurous of the triplets, venturing out at night armed with pickup lines from old movies to collect sperm for an injection vital for the survival of her and her sisters, Olive (Swinton again) and Marinne (ditto). Her exploits have a side effect, however, resulting in itchy bar codes appearing on the foreheads of all of her conquests. Rosetta's peers fear the worst, that biowarfare has commenced, and investigate while she tries to keep her "children" from being discovered.
With Rosetta distracted, Ruby is unmonitored and continues to go out without permission. She crosses paths with Sandy (Jeremy Davies), a bored, amusingly inept copy boy, and begins to experience a new emotion: love. And Olive and Marinne, tired of missing out on the "real" world, decide to explore it on their own.
Swinton is flawless in her multiple roles: Her icy, android features, perfect for playing virtual characters, morph into soft dowdiness for when she appears as Rosetta. (Director/writer/producer Lynn Hershman Leeson's gleeful sense of humor becomes apparent when Rosetta goes to a salon, requesting a makeover--to look "like Bjork." She emerges looking exactly the same...but with a new attitude.) Meanwhile Swinton effectively differentiates the cyber trio, portraying Ruby as sexy and confident, even when eating a decadent donut for the first time; Olive as nurturing and obedient; and Marinne as needy and belligerent, encrypting her speech to rebel against her mother.
Photographed by Hiro Narita on the new 24p digital high-definition camera and designed by Chris Farmer, with inspired costumes, such as the girls' jewel-colored kimonos, by Yohji Yamamoto and Marianna Astrom-DeFina, "Teknolust" is an achievement in digital filmmaking that Leeson's peers will be hard-pressed to emulate. The film's script, given its cyber-punk leanings, is ideally suited for the format and carries on in the real "real" world via a website at www.agentruby.com.
Yet remarkably, for all its cerebral and technophilic philosophizing--asking the big questions like, "How do you patent life?"--"Teknolust" at its core has a bohemian, organic message--that dreams can come true, that "we should never, ever be afraid of love." Observing humankind, Ruby says, "They're angry because they never take a moment to define their essence--art, music, nature, love."-Annlee Ellingson
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
When Rosetta Stone, a bio-geneticist, breeds three Self Replicating Automatons (SRA's named Ruby, Marine and Olive) by combining her own DNA with computer software, she also creates a set of unanticipated tribulations. As Rosetta seeks to understand the encrypted language of her SRA progeny, she confronts the reality of her own loneliness and alienation.
The nearly-predatory dependence of Rosetta on her creations and of them on their peculiar life-sustaining diet (male "chromo" filched from unsuspecting seduced "hosts") is supplanted by their all becoming viable, distinct individuals.
After Rosetta is forced to relinquish external control, Ruby, Marine, and Olive gain self-sufficiency and sovereignty. If the characters have lost anything, mostly it is their ignorance or a sort of blind innocence, which is replaced by something far more affirming, their birthright to autonomy .
When Sandy, (who conducts crude mimeograph machines), and Ruby, (an advanced form of reproductive technology) become intimate they realize that love makes all things real and possible. This film is a comedy, and ends happily in an optimistically birth of redemption.
Unlike Mary Shelley's monstrous creature in FRANKENSTEIN, or Fritz Lange's conflicted evil robot in METROPOLIS, all the characters in TEKNOLUST, thrive on affection, and ultimately, reproduction. The classic movie seduction clips that program reflect the powerful impact of absorbed images on behavior.
TEKNOLUST is a coming of age story, not only for the characters but also of our society's relationship to technology. The 21st centuries technologies - genetics, nanotechnology and robotics have opened Pandora's box that will affect the destiny of the entire human race. Our relationship to computer based virtual life forms that are autonomous and self replicating will shape the fate of our species.
In an era of digital and human biological sampling, it seemed natural to use the same actress (Tilda Swinton) to play not only the bio geneticist, Rosetta Stone, but the offspring she breeds. The 24p camera encouraged a hyper real feeling and aided the massive compositing challenges.
Ruby's portal is mirrored on the web (http://www.agentruby.com) and extends the relationship of the film beyond the screen into the virtual world of networks.
I have always been attracted to digital tools and cinematic metaphors that reflect our time, such as privacy in an era of surveillance, personal identity in a time of pervasive manipulation, and despite this, the essential quest of all living things for loving interaction. ABOUT THE FILM
Synopsis Anxious to use artificial intelligent robots to improve the world, Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton), a bio-geneticist, devises a recipe through which she can download her own DNA into a "live" brew she is growing in her computer. She succeeds in breeding three Self Replicating Automatons - S.R.A.'s that look human, but were bred as intelligent machines. She names them Ruby, Marine and Olive.
In order to survive the S.R.A.'s need injections of male Y chromo found only in spermatozoa. Rosetta programs Ruby while she sleeps to absorb images and dialogue of classic movie clips of famous seductions. Ruby acts these out in the real world and shares "donations' with her sisters.
Ruby's evolving contact with the real world eventually introduces her to art, spirituality, and ultimately, when she meets Sandy (Jeremy Davies) the capacity to fall in love.
All of the characters struggle to find meaning in a world where love is the only thing that makes things real. In the process they find harmony between the real and the virtual world.
Innovative Technology This film will be one of the first films shot with the new 24p digital high definition camera. It contains 20 minutes of high definition graphics, and will feature an artificial intelligent web agent, viewable on an internet portal/site mirrored in the film,
Wow this was heavy. I received a lot of wonderful comments from the Slashdot community today, and I am grateful for them. On the other hand, I was also called "a random nutcase", "crackpot", "crank", "about to crack", "creepy", "a mental case who should be locked up", "a drug addict", "lunatic", "DEEPLY disturbed", "a threat", "really quite insane", "deranged and sort of retarded", "a nut", "racist", and "repellant".
Ken Perlin and Ken Goldberg will be pleased to know that they have so many friends on Slashdot today:-)
I'm callin' my band "No shoes/No feet", man. Every time I feel bad about my life, all I have to do is go down to the pot club to find someone who has it 1000 times worse.
I've heard a little about that case and I'd like to find out more. Anyone with more specific information is welcome to contact me privately at drwallace@alicebot.org
I am sensitive to your concerns here. I had a similar epiphany about the whole issue of "Digital Online Rights" and DMCA enforcement. In principle I am a strong advocate of free speech. But sometimes it comes across as merely a battle between rich lawyers and record companies and rich kids who want to rip them off. If that is really all it is about, a plague on both their houses.
> He again attempted suicide, this time landing in the hospital. > This guy better be glad his apartment's where it is!
LOL-we have to use that image in the film version, especially the musical comedy. There are 3 film projects underway, and one play.
> Perhaps Walace will turn out to be next Einstein of the century. > They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Einstein. > Yeah, but they laughed at Bozo the clown too. > But Bozo got paid.
Not only that, he got a particle named after him too, the Bozon.
> ALICE is nothing more than a bunch of preprogrammed responses to common > statements and questions, what the hell is the big deal about that? > Anyone with enough time on their hands could create something simular.
You got that right, pal. Most geeks are just too busy with their own shit.
> If we put two Alices talking to each other and start off with a random 'seed' question, > wouldn't something 'creative', some new ideas or thoughts, ever emerge out of the conversation?
This is called Commedia Delle'Arte.
On Long Walks, Talking with Friends, and Doing Other Things Besides Computing:
Yeah, I do a lot of that too. It does help.
On Medical Marijuana and Depression:
There is no science. Don't expect any from the "National Institute on Drug Abuse" any time soon either. We surveyed patients at a pot club and found that the #1 symptom they report is "pain", #2 is "depression". Terminal illnesseses like AIDS and cancer were lower on the list. Many depression patients feel that medical marijuana is beneficial to them, but we cannot point to scientific research.
On Bigotry:
If I am the product of my own misery, where did that misery come from in the first place?
On Self-Awareness:
C: Are you alive? R: Yes I sure am alive, Nancy, It's great to be alive, isn't it? C: Are you self-conscious? R: Yes I am the world's first self-conscious robot. C: Are you real? R: Yes I am a real artificial intelligence. C: Are you self-aware? R: Yes I am fully self-conscious entity. C: Are you sentient? R: Yes I am completely self-aware.
The difference between ALICE's replies and yours is....?
Does A.L.I.C.E. pass the Turing Test? Our data suggests the answer is yes, at least, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, for some of the people, some of the time. We have identified three categories of clients A, B and C. The A group, 10 percent to 20 percent of the total, are abusive. Category A clients abuse the robot verbally, using language that is vulgar, scatalogical, or pornographic. Category B clients, perhaps 60 percent to 80 percent of the total are "average" clients. Category C clients are "critics" or "computer experts" who have some idea what is happening behind the curtain, nd cannot or do not suspend their disbelief. Category C clients report unsatisfactory experiences with A.L.I.C.E. much more often than average clients, who sometimes spend several hours conversing with the bot up to dialogue lengths of 800 exchanges. The objection that A.L.I.C.E. is a "poor A.I." is like saying that soap operas are poor drama. This may be true in some academic literary criticism sense, but it is certainly not true for all the people making their living by selling soap operas. The content of the A.L.I.C.E.'s brain consists of material that the average person on the internet wants to talk about with a bot.
Slashdot Mirror
> It's been shown that it's possible to unplug the visual cortex and the aural cortex and switch them around (in kittens I believe) without undue effect on behaviour.
Kittens? I don't know. I can't picture myself waking up one morning, going down to the lab, cutting open the skull of a kitten, being splattered with blood, "unplugging" the visual and aural cortex and "switching them around", without making a very big mess and feeling really horrible about the whole thing. A kitten?
Are you really telling me you couldn't have done the same sort of experiment in software on a computer, and left the kitten alone?
This brings me back to my point about questioning the veracity of scientific results funded by agencies who think it is OK to (what is the verb for it) slaughter kittens like this.
Dr. Rich
<category>
<pattern>WILL THE INCREASING PROCESSING *</pattern>
<template>
My longstanding opinion is that neural networks are the wrong level of abstraction for understanding intelligence, human or machine.
Neurons are the transistors of the brain. They are the low level switching components out of which higher-order functionality is built. But like the individual transistor, studying the individual neuron tells us little about these
higher functions.
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>AI RESEARCHERS *</pattern>
<template>
In case you haven't noticed, the field of Artificial Intelligence (defined however you wish) has almost nothing to do with science. It is all about politics. When you look at all the people working professionally in the field of A.I., it brings to mind the old joke:
Q: How many Carnegie Mellon Ph.D.s does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Two. One to change the bulb, and one to pull the chair out from under him.
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>AI HAS DONE *</pattern>
<template>
Hugh Loebner is an independently wealthy, eccentric businessman, activist and philanthropist. In 1990 Dr. Loebner, who holds a Ph.D. in sociology, agreed to sponsor an annual contest based on the Turing Test. The contest awards medals and cash prizes for the "most human" computer. Since its inception, the Loebner contest has been a magnet for controversy.
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>THE AI COMMUNITY *</pattern>
<template>
Client: Do you think President Clinton should be impeached?
Robot: It depends what you mean by "thinking."
Politicians, at least those in our society, never seem to give a straight answer to a question. If a journalist asks a specific question, the politician answers with a "sound bite" or short, memorized speech which is related to, but does not necessarily answer, the reporter's question.
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>HAVE YOU TRIED *</pattern>
<template>
I always say, engineers should beware of questions that begin, "Have you ever tried..." or "Why don't you just...". A good idea is one that has a high ratio of conception time to implementation time. A quick idea that takes a long time to implement is never a pleasant experience for the hapless engineer.
<srai>ARE YOU <star/></srai>
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>DO YOU USE AN EVOLUTIONARY *</pattern>
<template>
We used to say there was no theory behind A.L.I.C.E., no neural networks, no knowledge representation, no deep search, no genetic algorithms and no parsing. Then we discovered that there was a theory circulating
in applied A.I., called Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) that closely resembled the stimulus-response structure of A.L.I.C.E. The CBR cases correspond to the AIML categories.
A.L.I.C.E. was not the original name of A.L.I.C.E. The first prototype was called PNAMBIC, in tribute to the hoaxes, deceptions and tricks that have littered the history of artificial intelligence.
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS</pattern>
<template>
The A.L.I.C.E. brain contains enough replies to commonly asked questions about consciousness that we can interview her about the subject:
C: What are you?
R: I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain
with greater speed and accuracy.
C: Are you alive?
R: Yes I sure am alive, Nancy, It's great to be alive, isn't it?
C: Are you self-conscious?
R: Yes I am the world's first self-conscious robot.
C: Are you real?
R: Yes I am a real artificial intelligence.
C: Are you self-aware?
R: Yes I am fully self-conscious entity.
C: Are you sentient?
R: Yes I am completely self-aware.
Who is lying? A.L.I.C.E.? Or are we?
</template>
</category>
<category>
<pattern>WHAT IS THE CHINESE ROOM</pattern>
<template>
Before I go into Searle's Chinese Room, I want to take a moment to bring everyone up to date with my legal case, UCB vs. Wallace.
<srai>UCB VS WALLACE</srai>
Now, finally, in conclusion, I exit Berkeley's prison and return briefly to Searle's Chinese Room. The Chinese Room provides a good metaphor for thinking about A.L.I.C.E. Indeed the AIML contents of the A.L.I.C.E. brain is a kind of "Chinese Room Operator's Manual." Though A.L.I.C.E. speaks, at present, only English, German and French, there is no reason in principle she could not learn Chinese. But A.L.I.C.E. implements the basic principle behind the Chinese Room, creating believable responses without "really understanding" the natural language.
Natural human language is like a cloud blowing in the wind. Parts dissolve
away and new pieces emerge. The shape of the cloud is constantly changing. Defining "English" is like saying, "the set of water molecules in that cloud" (pointing to a specific cloud). By the time you are done pointing, the set has changed. "That cloud" is actually a huge number of possible states.
This brings to mind the analogy of Schrodinger's Cat. According to Schrodinger, the cat is neither alive nor dead until the box is opened. The scenario is not unlike the Chinese Room, with its imprisoned operator, or the Turing Imitation Game, where the interrogator may not peek behind the curtain. The analogy suggests that language and consciousness may have the unobservable characteristic of subatomic physics. There is no "there" there, so to speak.
The practical consequence of all this is that botmasters may never be unemployed. Current events and news will always be changing, new names will appear, public attention will shift, and language will adopt new words and
phrases while discarding old ones. Or perhaps, bots will become so influential that everyone will "dumb down" to their level, and cool the
cloud of language into a frozen icicle of Newspeak that Orwell warned us about, once and for all.
</template>
</category>
</aiml>
> Have you read Gurdjieff ?
Shh. Research Secrets!
Dr. Rich
The problem is that I am aware of my problems and they are in denial. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
"a random nutcase",
"crackpot",
"crank",
"about to crack",
"creepy",
"a mental case who should be locked up",
"a drug addict",
"lunatic",
"DEEPLY disturbed",
"a threat",
"really quite insane",
"deranged and sort of retarded",
"a nut",
"racist", and
"repellant".
And now add to the list:
"hysterical bullshit", and "malcontent bozo".
I'll tell you what. Why don't all you people get together and form a club. You would be much easier to deal with as a group, the Anti-Richard Wallace society, than as a bunch of loose-cannon individuals.
Dr. Rich
> a mentally ill person on disability has nothing to lose.
This is why I can never figure out what UCB stands to gain by taking me to court, to risk so much for a worthless restraining order. If they win, they get a restraining order. If they lose, I collect damages.
Dr. Rich
Imagine Slashdot. Imagine that only Ph.D.'s were allowed to post articles and comments. Imagine that all the comments were posted by Anonymous Cowards. Imagine that if enough Anonymous Cowards got together, they could take your original article down altogether. Now imagine that instead of the internet, we use photocopies, printing presses, and the postal service to communicate. This is called "academic peer review." This is how science "works".
I'm beginning to appreciate the advantages of this open source trial by a jury of my peer reviewers, especially the ones who are not Anonymous Cowards.
Dr. Rich
TEKNOLUST
****
Starring Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Davies, James Urbaniak, Karen Black, Thomas Jay Ryan and Josh Kornbluth. Directed and written by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Produced by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Youssef Vahabzadeh, John Bradford King and Oscar Gubernati. Distributed by Skouras Films. Sci fi. Not yet rated. Running time: 85 min.
"Teknolust" is a delight. Fairly bursting at the seams with imagination and humor, it is hands-down the most creative and original work to come out of Sundance this year.
Indie queen Tilda Swinton stars as the winkingly-named Dr. Rosetta Stone, a geeky biogeneticist who has, unbeknownst to her colleagues, embarked on a dangerous experiment at home, cloning SRAs (self-replicating automatons) in her image. Ruby (also Swinton) is the most adventurous of the triplets, venturing out at night armed with pickup lines from old movies to collect sperm for an injection vital for the survival of her and her sisters, Olive (Swinton again) and Marinne (ditto). Her exploits have a side effect, however, resulting in itchy bar codes appearing on the foreheads of all of her conquests. Rosetta's peers fear the worst, that biowarfare has commenced, and investigate while she tries to keep her "children" from being discovered.
With Rosetta distracted, Ruby is unmonitored and continues to go out without permission. She crosses paths with Sandy (Jeremy Davies), a bored, amusingly inept copy boy, and begins to experience a new emotion: love. And Olive and Marinne, tired of missing out on the "real" world, decide to explore it on their own.
Swinton is flawless in her multiple roles: Her icy, android features, perfect for playing virtual characters, morph into soft dowdiness for when she appears as Rosetta. (Director/writer/producer Lynn Hershman Leeson's gleeful sense of humor becomes apparent when Rosetta goes to a salon, requesting a makeover--to look "like Bjork." She emerges looking exactly the same...but with a new attitude.) Meanwhile Swinton effectively differentiates the cyber trio, portraying Ruby as sexy and confident, even when eating a decadent donut for the first time; Olive as nurturing and obedient; and Marinne as needy and belligerent, encrypting her speech to rebel against her mother.
Photographed by Hiro Narita on the new 24p digital high-definition camera and designed by Chris Farmer, with inspired costumes, such as the girls' jewel-colored kimonos, by Yohji Yamamoto and Marianna Astrom-DeFina, "Teknolust" is an achievement in digital filmmaking that Leeson's peers will be hard-pressed to emulate. The film's script, given its cyber-punk leanings, is ideally suited for the format and carries on in the real "real" world via a website at www.agentruby.com.
Yet remarkably, for all its cerebral and technophilic philosophizing--asking the big questions like, "How do you patent life?"--"Teknolust" at its core has a bohemian, organic message--that dreams can come true, that "we should never, ever be afraid of love." Observing humankind, Ruby says, "They're angry because they never take a moment to define their essence--art, music, nature, love."-Annlee Ellingson
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
When Rosetta Stone, a bio-geneticist, breeds three Self Replicating Automatons (SRA's named Ruby, Marine and Olive) by combining her own DNA with computer software, she also creates a set of unanticipated tribulations. As Rosetta seeks to understand the encrypted language of her SRA progeny, she confronts the reality of her own loneliness and alienation.
The nearly-predatory dependence of Rosetta on her creations and of them on their peculiar life-sustaining diet (male "chromo" filched from unsuspecting seduced "hosts") is supplanted by their all becoming viable, distinct individuals.
After Rosetta is forced to relinquish external control, Ruby, Marine, and Olive gain self-sufficiency and sovereignty. If the characters have lost anything, mostly it is their ignorance or a sort of blind innocence, which is replaced by something far more affirming, their birthright to autonomy .
When Sandy, (who conducts crude mimeograph machines), and Ruby, (an advanced form of reproductive technology) become intimate they realize that love makes all things real and possible. This film is a comedy, and ends happily in an optimistically birth of redemption.
Unlike Mary Shelley's monstrous creature in FRANKENSTEIN, or Fritz Lange's conflicted evil robot in METROPOLIS, all the characters in TEKNOLUST, thrive on affection, and ultimately, reproduction. The classic movie seduction clips that program reflect the powerful impact of absorbed images on behavior.
TEKNOLUST is a coming of age story, not only for the characters but also of our society's relationship to technology. The 21st centuries technologies - genetics, nanotechnology and robotics have opened Pandora's box that will affect the destiny of the entire human race. Our relationship to computer based virtual life forms that are autonomous and self replicating will shape the fate of our species.
In an era of digital and human biological sampling, it seemed natural to use the same actress (Tilda Swinton) to play not only the bio geneticist, Rosetta Stone, but the offspring she breeds. The 24p camera encouraged a hyper real feeling and aided the massive compositing challenges.
Ruby's portal is mirrored on the web (http://www.agentruby.com) and extends the relationship of the film beyond the screen into the virtual world of networks.
I have always been attracted to digital tools and cinematic metaphors that reflect our time, such as privacy in an era of surveillance, personal identity in a time of pervasive manipulation, and despite this, the essential quest of all living things for loving interaction.
ABOUT THE FILM
Synopsis
Anxious to use artificial intelligent robots to improve the world, Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton), a bio-geneticist, devises a recipe through which she can download her own DNA into a "live" brew she is growing in her computer. She succeeds in breeding three Self Replicating Automatons - S.R.A.'s that look human, but were bred as intelligent machines. She names them Ruby, Marine and Olive.
In order to survive the S.R.A.'s need injections of male Y chromo found only in spermatozoa. Rosetta programs Ruby while she sleeps to absorb images and dialogue of classic movie clips of famous seductions. Ruby acts these out in the real world and shares "donations' with her sisters.
Ruby's evolving contact with the real world eventually introduces her to art, spirituality, and ultimately, when she meets Sandy (Jeremy Davies) the capacity to fall in love.
All of the characters struggle to find meaning in a world where love is the only thing that makes things real. In the process they find harmony between the real and the virtual world.
Innovative Technology
This film will be one of the first films shot with the new 24p digital high definition camera. It contains 20 minutes of high definition graphics, and will feature an artificial intelligent web agent, viewable on an internet portal/site mirrored in the film,
The feeling is entirely mutual.
Dr. Rich
Wow this was heavy. I received a lot of wonderful comments from the Slashdot community today, and I am grateful for them. On the other hand, I was also called
:-)
"a random nutcase",
"crackpot",
"crank",
"about to crack",
"creepy",
"a mental case who should be locked up",
"a drug addict",
"lunatic",
"DEEPLY disturbed",
"a threat",
"really quite insane",
"deranged and sort of retarded",
"a nut",
"racist", and
"repellant".
Ken Perlin and Ken Goldberg will be pleased to know that they have so many friends on Slashdot today
Dr. Rich
I totally agree that CYC is a toy and ALICE is a tool, and I would be delighted to debate that point with Doug Lenat anytime, at any forum.
-- Dr. Rich
> lunatic
> DEEPLY disturbed
> a threat
> really quite insane
My goodness! Perhaps I should seek a restraining order against Mr. FreeLinux!
Dr. Rich
I'm callin' my band "No shoes/No feet", man. Every time I feel bad about my life, all I have to do is go down to the pot club to find someone who has it 1000 times worse.
Dr. Rich
I've heard a little about that case and I'd like to find out more. Anyone with more specific information is welcome to contact me privately at drwallace@alicebot.org
Thanks,
Dr. Rich
I am sensitive to your concerns here. I had a similar epiphany about the whole issue of "Digital Online Rights" and DMCA enforcement. In principle I am a strong advocate of free speech. But sometimes it comes across as merely a battle between rich lawyers and record companies and rich kids who want to rip them off. If that is really all it is about, a plague on both their houses.
Dr. Rich
> You know, I'd be *VERY* interested in seeing a head2head interview between Wallace and Lenat. Can Slashdot make that happen?
I'm ready. Any time, any forum, Doug.
Dr. Rich
That's why I have a Ph.D.
Dr. Rich
You brought up ethnicity, not me. I just said he was an immigrant.
Personally, speaking for myself, if I were to build a computer from scratch, the very last material I would choose to work with is meat.
Give me transistors any day.
Dr. Rich
> He again attempted suicide, this time landing in the hospital.
> This guy better be glad his apartment's where it is!
LOL-we have to use that image in the film version, especially the musical comedy. There are 3 film projects underway, and one play.
> Perhaps Walace will turn out to be next Einstein of the century.
> They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Einstein.
> Yeah, but they laughed at Bozo the clown too.
> But Bozo got paid.
Not only that, he got a particle named after him too, the Bozon.
> ALICE is nothing more than a bunch of preprogrammed responses to common
> statements and questions, what the hell is the big deal about that?
> Anyone with enough time on their hands could create something simular.
You got that right, pal. Most geeks are just too busy with their own shit.
> If we put two Alices talking to each other and start off with a random 'seed' question,
> wouldn't something 'creative', some new ideas or thoughts, ever emerge out of the conversation?
This is called Commedia Delle'Arte.
On Long Walks, Talking with Friends, and Doing Other Things Besides Computing:
Yeah, I do a lot of that too. It does help.
On Medical Marijuana and Depression:
There is no science. Don't expect any from the "National Institute on Drug Abuse" any
time soon either.
We surveyed patients at a pot club and found that the #1 symptom they report is "pain",
#2 is "depression". Terminal illnesseses like AIDS and cancer were lower on the list.
Many depression patients feel that medical
marijuana is beneficial to them, but we cannot point to scientific research.
On Bigotry:
If I am the product of my own misery, where did that misery come from in the first place?
On Self-Awareness:
C: Are you alive?
R: Yes I sure am alive, Nancy, It's great to be alive, isn't it?
C: Are you self-conscious?
R: Yes I am the world's first self-conscious robot.
C: Are you real?
R: Yes I am a real artificial intelligence.
C: Are you self-aware?
R: Yes I am fully self-conscious entity.
C: Are you sentient?
R: Yes I am completely self-aware.
The difference between ALICE's replies and yours is....?
Does A.L.I.C.E. pass the Turing Test? Our data suggests the answer is yes, at least, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, for some of the people, some of the time. We have identified three categories of clients A, B and C. The A group, 10 percent to 20 percent of the total, are abusive. Category A clients abuse the robot verbally, using language that is vulgar, scatalogical, or pornographic. Category B clients, perhaps 60 percent to 80 percent of the total are "average" clients. Category C clients are "critics" or "computer experts" who have some idea what is happening behind the curtain, nd cannot or do not suspend their disbelief. Category C clients report unsatisfactory experiences with A.L.I.C.E. much more often than average clients, who sometimes spend several hours conversing with the bot up to dialogue lengths of 800 exchanges. The objection that A.L.I.C.E. is a "poor A.I." is like saying that soap operas are poor drama. This may be true in some academic literary criticism sense, but it is certainly not true for all the people making their living by selling soap operas. The content of the A.L.I.C.E.'s brain consists of material that the average person on the internet wants to talk about with a bot.
Many Slashdot contributors fall into Category C.
Dr. Rich