Brooders

My recent spate of Cyerpunk RPG purchases has caused the following quandry, why are Artificial Intelligences (AIs) always floating heads?

Let’s look at some examples.

2) Max Headroom (1980’s)

3) Gurps Cyberpunk cover (1990’s)

So why is that?

Is it because we think of intelligence as residing within the head? Or That the cognitive functions are housed in the skull?

A lot of cyberpunk novels and films question what it is to be human. The genre explores the relationship between the frail shell of our bodies and the interaction with the cognitive functions, trying to find what it is in our biochemical machine that make us human. This visual meme of AI as a floating head has emerged, and is quite prevalent, over the last 20 years. I think this is a reflection on where people think intelligence exists physically, although this metaphor doesn’t fit for Artifical Intelligence. It also seems to downplay (or ignore) the tactile and sensory input of other senses like touch, taste, smell, balance, pressure and so on. Who knows how much these other senses are involved in what we call intelligence.

No more more pages, takes a look at the meaning of returing results as 1..10 and the more button.

Sites like Digg.com, Diggdot.us etc, utilise the offset=10 or page=2 So if new stories come in, the offset becomes irrelevant. This is often the case for me, as I leave my browser open, then come back an our later for the “next page”. The stories get out of sink, because what was on page 1 is pushed down the page or even to the next. I think that using time offsets would be more relevant. For example:

• next-page=20060602 (anything from this date onwards)
• entries=20060602-1400 (include a date time if required)
• next-items-from=some-internal-id-thats-sequential

So the question is “offset from what?”

If your content on Page 2 keep changing, then page=2 does not make sense at all.

News items will conform to a chronological sequence, so paging via time makes sense.

Even Googles “1 .. 10 Next” doesn’t really make sense to the user, as we don’t know the ranking mechanism (and the page rank can change). It may as well be just a “more” button. Sites like del.icio.us allow you to slice and dice by time (earlier or later than current page) in the context of your selected tags. Again, the entries are time sensitive (i.e. in the order you bookmarked them), so this makes sense.

Anyway .. it’s food for thought when your using a next, more or page X link for navigation.

Dervish is Digital is a Cyberpunk novel wrttien by Pat Cadigan.

Plot summary:

Detective Konstantin is in charge of Technocrime, Artificial Reality Division. This proves difficult as actions in Artificial Reality (AR) are not real (other than copyright infringement), so harassment and theft don’t exist.

Konstantin is investigating the allegations of stalking in AR by a womans ex-husband. But the trail to find him proves difficult with government jurisdictions and laws prohibiting investigations, and nonsensical ideas that this man has traded places with an Artificial Intelligence. A rollercoaster of visual description provides an insane and weird world, a melting pot of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Lawnmower man”. Between AR participants watching their “billable time” to their ISP, and trying to get work done cheaper than in the real world, weird series of surrealistic events unfold. Interesting concepts:

Dervish is digital touches on a few concepts which really smack of the cyberpunk genre:

1. Total visual and physical immersion in the Artificial reality. People are placed in special suits, audio-visual gear in pods to completely immerse themselves in the constructed reality. However, the body reacts to visual/mental stimulation physically (such as sweating, exhaustion, dribbling) and undergoes a kind of jetlag or adjustment period after an AR session.
2. Transhumanism. Some characters in the story reportedly are fully immersed in AR all the time, paying external parties to nourish, feed and clean them. Somehow, the AR seems more real and in focus, giving individuals more power and control than in their normal lives.

Overall: This is my first shot at a Pat Cadigan novel. A different feel to other authors, such as Gibson, Rucker, Sterling, etc, but quite refreshing. I probably should have read “Tea from an Empty Cup” first (as this preceeds this novel), but definetely worth a read. This is a cyberpunk work from 2000, which is a somewhat nearer future, and slightly less bleak future than the noir grandfather works of the 80’s . Rating: 8/10