By Cate May Burton Janelle Monáe is an American singer and songwriter whose concept album series, The Metropolis Suite, portrays androids as sentient beings enslaved by industrial masters. Monáe’s android avatar, Cindi Mayweather, is the mediator between hands and mind, between human and robot. This time-traveling android holds out a spiritual promise of love and triumph. […]
Janelle Monáe’s Spiritual Android Read More »
By Karen Asp What is the K5 “autonomous data robot”? This seems to be the underlying question in various news reports covering the recent commercial launch of Silicon Valley-based Knightscope’s new security technology. And it is quickly followed by more questions that in essence ask, what does it mean for us? Does it mean that
R2-D2 on Patrol? Using Fiction to Define the K5 Security Robot Read More »
By Karen Asp As the video that accompanied the July 2014 launch of the Jibo crowdsourcing campaign shows, Jibo is a personal robot designed to convincingly interact in conversations, as well as perform organizational, cognitive and educational tasks such as conducting internet searches on command and telling children’s stories. From the various interviews that Jibo’s
Companion Species Manifesto 2.0: Jibo the Family Robot Read More »
— Documentary video, with summary by Karen Asp CPG Grey recently uploaded “Humans Need Not Apply,” a compelling documentary video on the breadth, depth and implications of contemporary workplace automation through developments in AI and robotics. The narrator makes the point that if the history of automation primarily concerned the transformation of physical labour through
Humans Need Not Apply: Will Better Tech Make More, Better Jobs? Read More »
