Comp 380 Computers and Society

1
Comp 380Computers and Society

• Social Issues Gaming, Culture, Robotics, and
  Medicine
• June 7, 2007
• Russell Gayle
• Summer Session I - 2007

2
Announcements

• Short Paper 3
• If you have not done so, please turn in your soft
  copy
• Hard copy due TODAY at 115959pm
• Presentations
• Reminders
• A reading list is due 2 days before your
  presentation
• A plan is due 24 hours before your presentation

3
The sunrise in Second Life
4
How real is Second Life (SL)?

• A motivating video
• Consumer of Goods and Services
• Culture of simulation
• http//www.idealworldmovie.com/short/

5
Exercise Experience Second Life

• Start SecondLife
• Or find someone who has it setup
• Get a sheet of paper and put your names on it
  (choose a scribe)

Virtual Forest Theatre
6
Exercise rules

• Please follow all of the following rules
• Do NOT tell anyone in SL your real name, or
  information that they may be able to use to guess
  who you are
• Once we start, NO TALKING to people outside of
  your group

7
Step One UNC CH in SL

• Follow these directions to find the UNC island
• Start and login to SecondLife
• Go to the Map (ctrlm)
• Search for UNC CH
• Wait for me (Bevo) by the Old Well
• Take a seat while youre at it

8
Exploring UNC CH in SL

• Spend a few minutes to orient yourself
• Find 2 interesting things on the UNC SL campus
• Not including South Building and Old Well
• Write these down
• How difficult was it to find? To navigate? Did
  they have real life equivalents?
• Once youre done
• Meet me in South Building discussion area (first
  room on the right)

9
Identity in SL

• Your goal
• Determine the identity of everyone else in the
  room
• For each virtual person, write down who you think
  they are in real life
• Remember Try not to give away your identity.
  Better yet, try to maintain a false persona if
  youd like.

10
Socializing and Collaboration

• Did anyone grab scripts from Help Island?
• Try to dance with others
• Try out gestures
• Create objects for others
• Can you read the virtual whiteboard?

11
In SL Discussion

• Briefly
• Your rights as SL citizens
• Acting ethically in SL

12
Wrapping up SL

• Identity
• Was it easy to determine who others were?
• To disguise who you are?
• Communication
• Was it easy to chat?
• What if a lot of people are chatting at once?
• Collaboration
• Was it easy to interact with others?
• To personalize your interactions?

13
Wrapping up SL

• Are you intrigued?
• Would it be easy to get addicted?
• Why?
• What did you learn about SL?
• Do you feel safe in SL?
• Where did you feel you didnt have control?
• Did you feel lost?
• Can you learn any real world skills from SL?

14
Wrapping up SL

• What determines peoples behavior in SL?
• Do the same ethics of the real world apply?

15
Robots and AI

• Robots
• What are they?
• What do you think of?
• Examples?
• A virtual, mechanical, or otherwise artificial
  agent
• Are they intelligent?

16
AI Artificial Intelligence

• John McCarthy (1955)
• making a machine behave in ways that would be
  called intelligent if a human were so behaving

17
Strong vs. Weak AI

• Strong AI
• The ability to truly reason and solve problems
• Will be it be human-like?
• Weak AI
• Appearance of intelligence, but cannot truly
  reason
• Examples?
• How can we distinguish between the two?
• How can we recognize an AI then?

18
The Turing Test

• Alan Turing Father of Modern Computing
  (1912-1954)
• The Turing Test
• Test the capability
• of a machine
• to demonstrate
• thought

19
The Turing Test

• General form
• A human judge has a conservation with two others
• A human
• A computer
• If the judge cannot reliably tell which is which,
  then the machine passes the test
• Can you think of any limitations to this?
• If a machine passes the test, is it a strong AI?

20
Chatterbots

• Some attempts to pass the test
• ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer
  Entity)
• Jabberwacky
• What happens if they chat with each other?

21
Towards a Sentient AI

• How far away are we?
• Technological Singularity
• A Smarter than human creation
• Rapid technology acceleration
• Beyond that which we are capable of understanding
• If this is a reality, what does it infer about
  humanity?

22
Technological Singularity
23
Creating a Sentient AI?

• Pros
• Automation of tasks
• More time for other activities
• Cons
• Too intelligent
• Replace our jobs
• Dangerous

24
Creating a Sentient AI?

• Should we pursue building an AI?
• Is it ethical to do this?
• If so, what rights should they have?
• Are they just property?
• Can they be just turned off?
• What should be the governments involvement?

25
Robo-ethics

• What ethics should a robot have?
• Isaac Asimov I, Robot
• A robot may not injure a human being or, through
  inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey orders given to it by human
  beings except where such orders would conflict
  with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as
  such protection does not conflict with the First
  or Second Law.

26
Faults of the laws

• Are these laws sufficient?
• Robots unknowingly break one?
• No single robot breaks a rule, but together they
  do
• Understanding of the laws?
• How would you change the laws?

27
For next time

• Social Issues
• Medicine and Access to Medical Information
• In government E-voting and Public Information
  Online (if time allows)
• Readings 34-35