iHuman

 

Finally got around to watching iHuman. Feel like watching again to plot on my AI Landscape model all the different ways it uses "AI". It also conflates AGI with Superhuman AI, and the idea that AGI will be able to replace almost all human workers despite a) it noting that it might take the energy of a small city to power one and b) lots of jobs need physical skills which we haven't cracked for robots yet. It doesn't stay into "sentient AI" at all, and a good 50% of it is about "basic" neural net style pattern recognition for marketing/intelligence/surveillance/military purposes. Nice visuals though.

Book review from Nicola Strong

Another great review of the book in, this time from Nicola Strong who runs Strong Enterprises.

"Intelligent, pragmatic and insightful, Virtual Humans is an essential guide for those who want to understand the complex landscape of today’s technology when thinking about designing and building a virtual human. Helpfully, it clearly deploys a wealth of supporting analysis, case studies, research, ethical questions, and moral dilemmas and adds a refreshing dose of healthy common sense along the way."

Nicola creates and researches on-line and blended learning programmes for distributed or virtual groups, with  a particular interest in serious games, data analytics, experientials with Augmented Reality (AR) and the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). She is also developing a framework for designers of conversational chatbots working with those with impairments or disabilities. Nicola is also involved with the AI&Robotics series of events in London. Nicola is Thalia Poliatevska in Second Life.

Book review from Professor Richard Gilbert

Another great review, this time from Professor Richard Gilbert, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psychology and New Technology Research Lab, at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. Professor Gilbert staged one of the first covert Turing Tests in a virtual world which achieved a 78% deception rate.

David Burden and Maggi Savin-Baden’s Virtual Humans offers a thorough, research-based treatment of how digital entities with human-like features and capabilities have left the domain of science fiction and are rapidly becoming a major aspect of human culture. In their clearly-written and well-organized work, they describe the current forms and abilities of virtual humans (including smart speakers and virtual assistant systems like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana and various types of Internet-based chatbots); examine how the creation of virtual bodies, senses, and minds can be combined to create virtual humans; and consider potential developments in the nature and functionality of virtual agents across a range of timeframes from the end of the next decade to the end of the century. Significantly, the authors recognize and discuss the great ethical, moral and social implications of these technological developments which makes their work relevant and important for the social sciences and humanities as well as the domains of computing and information sciences. I certainly intend to use Virtual Humans as an assigned reading in the interdisciplinary courses I teach on the personal and social impact of leading-edge digital technologies.

Book endorsement from Prof. Kevin Warwick

We've had a great endorsement of the book from Prof. Kevin Warwick who has done a lot of work  around AI and cybernetics (he was for a time known as the human cyborg as he had chips implanted to hook his nervous system up to computer and robotics systems!):

“This book presents an overview of the present state of play with virtual humans. Appearance, attributes, communication and intelligence are all investigated, and the architectures involved are covered in detail. If you have little knowledge of what a virtual human is, but want to find out, then this is the book for you. For researchers in the virtual human field this is a definite must.”

It arrived in time to make it onto the book cover! Many thanks to Prof. Warwick for his kind words.