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. […]
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By Teresa Heffernan In “The Real Science of Science Fiction,” Susan Stepney, Professor of Computer Science at the University of York, inspired by her contribution to a collection of stories called Beta-Life that puts science fiction writers and scientists in dialogue each with the other, discusses her experience of this fruitful relationship:
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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 »
