By Teresa Heffernan Alan Turing–the force behind theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and the Universal Turing Machine–was instrumental in cracking intercepted coded messages, which enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis. He was charged with “gross indecency” in 1952 and punished for homosexuality. He submitted to chemical castration in lieu of prison.
The Tyranny of Life Under Algorithms: A Short Meditation Read More »
— Video In a presentation on the ethical challenges emerging with the rapid expansion of AI and robotics, in which the humanities too have become a target of automation, Teresa Heffernan argues that it is only by maintaining the tensions between these domains that we can hope to have an informed debate about the limits
On Ethics, AI, and the Humanities Read More »
By Teresa Heffernan As science was emerging as a discrete and soon to be dominant way of knowing and as the industrial revolution was transforming the English country-side, Thomas Love Peacock in his “Four Ages of Poetry” (1820) argued that poetry was increasingly useless and retrograde in the age of scientific invention: “A poet in our
Why Technoscience Needs Fiction Read More »
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 »
