Robodramatix Video Up!

The long-awaited (by me, anyway) edited video of the presentation Heather Knight and I gave at the TEDxCMU conference this year has been posted on YouTube. Thanks, James Pan and the rest of the TEDxCMU crew. Planning is already heavily underway for next year's conference.

When I was a kid, hearing yourself on tape was always embarrassing and off-putting. Now, seeing myself on digital video - jeez. Is my head really that big? Anyway, I know this presentation is a little bit awkward and maybe under-rehearsed, although both Heather and Data are so magnetic (literally, in Data's case) that it hardly seems to matter much, at least to that audience. But the point is that Data becomes more sophisticated each time he performs. I think you can perceive a lot of development since his debut with TED WOMEN in "Silicon-Based Comedy" a few years ago. Of course, he's been working with Matt Gray, a superb acting teacher of robots as well as humans. And I'll claim to have had a hand in this from the point of view of roboturgy - the "Hath Not a Robot Video Cameras?" speech from The Merchant of Virus by W(i)11-i/am Shakesbot, and perhaps the idea that Data may one day become the new prophet of Prometheus.

The point is that the development of Social Robotics is made of these building blocks - interactions between humans and robots that are analyzed by roboticists like Heather to make one further iteration forward towards increasing sophistication and compatibility. I am convinced now that performance theory is going to be of greater importance as the field develops, and weirdos like me are going to have a role to play, pardon the pun. Social intelligence is the reason why human cognition is so much more advanced over the other primates, and it is heavily imbricated with performance and mimesis. Machine intelligence will have to develop similarly; I'm proud and excited to be involved with this.

Anyway, enjoy!

TEDxCMU update

Fig. 1. Do you trust this man
with the future?

The intrepid, astonishing youngsters who staff TEDxCMU have honored me by asking me to become the event's faculty advisor. I guess they liked me! Maybe next year I will get a suit that actually fits [Fig. 1]. I am very excited to be part of this team in an ongoing way. Here is the video website, which they promise will be full of cool things [e.g.; Fig. 2] by next week:http://tedxcmu.com/videos.

The reason the jacket doesn't fit is because I lost about 20 pounds since I bought it. Just sayin'.

Fig. 2. Two cool performance artists.

TEDxCMU - Michaelene Risley (you-shoulda-been-there-last-night episode #2)

On Sunday, April 4, I was the Master of Ceremonies at TEDxCMU, an independent student-run initiative operating under the TED conference umbrella. This is the second year we have done this. For me it was very exciting and a lot of fun. I have to give serious props to James Pan and his team, and to Drama student Brian Rangell for their excellent organizational work. One of the speakers said "oh, I was so glad to see there was a grown-up behind all this," and I said "don't misunderstand. I'm not in charge of anything. I work for the kids."

I want to make several posts about this event. But this one is about Michaelene Risley. I sat next to her at the dinner beforehand and almost instantly I realized I was in the presence of an extraordinary person. Michaelene was living a pretty recognizable US middle-class lifestyle, an entrepreneur and soccer mom, who suddenly decided to drop everything and follow her dream - to become a documentary filmmaker in some of the most dangerous conflict areas in the world. She was investigating the sexual abuse of very young women in Zimbabwe, where there is apparently a cultural myth that indicates that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS. Michaelene discovered and documented the horrible truths about this state of affairs, which include women and girls being raped by fathers, brothers, cousins... and the youngest reported victims being less than two days old. Because of her work, she was detained by the Zimbabwe authorities and thrown into a Police Torture Center, along with her assistant (first job out of college!). She was not tortured, but she continued her work inside the prison, and escaped from Zimbabwe with a horrifying story to tell. Her presentation at TEDxCMU was powerful and deeply moving. Here we are together in McConomy Hall.

Read more about Michaelene and her film, Tapestries of Hope.