Machines Pensantes

The technological singularity requires the creation of an artificial superintelligence (ASI). But does that ASI need to be modelled on the human brain, or is it even necessary to be able to fully replicate the human brain and consciousness digitally in order to design an ASI ?

Soon we'll be buying more tablets than we do PCs. Why are we all deserting our laptops for iPads? And who are the big industry names facing possible disaster?

Computers could take some tough decisions out of our hands, if we let them. Is there still a place for human judgement?

 Visions of the future are not so distant...

I think it’s fair to say that technology has been taking huge steps in the last decade to the point where now, in 2014, it seems like the world is on the cusp of becoming the realisation of some futuristic premonition.
This is made even more apparent given the advances made by the Google glass and the Microsoft headband, pioneering attempts to minimise technology literally whilst increasing how easily we can interact with it. In fact Google has even managed to go beyond this with the Google lenses, which have been designed to
monitor body functions such as blood sugar levels and even improve vision. With such advances it appears that images of a future immersed in technology are not so distant as they once were.

Social, political, cultural and economic challenges raised by digital technologies are often studied from the perspective of the educated urban populations who live in North America and Western Europe. Hence, these tools are attributed great powers. Their capacity to accelerate interactions and to reduce space-time distance is believed to impact deeply the ways we think and live. The kind of relations and simultaneous presence they foster have led us to reconsider communities, institutions and spaces using other models than those of discrete groups structured by territoriality. Moreover, it is generally considered that these technologies have reshaped the political economy of public speech in our societies, since they offer individuals or groups condemned to a form of social invisibility means to express themselves in the public space.

This call for papers asks for a shift of perspective by questioning the challenges raised by digital technologies from the “margins”. Contributors will be asked to focus on the ways they impact people’s lives outside of Western Europe and North America, as well as in spaces constructed as marginal. What shapes does the digital economy take within these spaces, through formal and informal channels? How do individuals appropriate the many existing technological devices generated by digital technologies? What are the new hierarchies and inequalities created by the (lack of) dissemination of these new tools?

Contributors will also focus on the ways minoritized groups are using digital tools for social, political, cultural or economic intervention. They should adopt a critical perspective by paying attention both to the limits and the ambiguities of the ways marginalized actors use these tools. While, digital tools have been used to promote emancipation, they can also lead to new forms of domination and enslavement.

Finally, this call for papers aims to promote a theoretical discussion about the notion of margins itself. How can we construct a robust notion of margins (be they spatial, political, cultural, or economic) in a world shaped by codes, algorithms, flux and networks, where the notions of distance, proximity, subject and object have to be re-examined?

Conducted by an interdisciplinary team, this call for papers is aimed at social scientists as well as digital practitioners (artists, programmers, hackers, etc…). This deliberately open call should allow for robust discussion with other research methodologies, social or artistic points of view.

Elle s’implante aujourd’hui dans presque tous les secteurs : de la santé au design en passant par la sécurité, l’alimentaire ou encore l’architecture. Mais quel potentiel cette technologie offre-t-elle aux entreprises locales ? Le point avec quelques pionniers de ce marché que certains présentent comme la troisième révolution industrielle.

This article is part of ReadWrite Future Tech, an annual series where we explore how technologies that will shape our lives in the years and decades to come are grounded in the innovation and research of today.

In 1991, the United States Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the research arm of the Pentagon, reorganized its priorities. Part of that reorganization meant much of the funding the agency had provided for projects like artificial intelligence and deep neural networks was pulled.

It may have been the best and worst thing to ever happen to the field of artificial intelligence.