Scase lost consciousness as the cognitive realignment started, and the drone administered wave after wave of bioneural signals to his nervous system. His whole body, its sensory and kinaesthetic apparatus, required adjustment to bring it into line with the droid modifications—the changes that induced faulty cognition and errant behaviours in the instructor droids. As agreed in the WAIIA boardroom, Scase submitted to the human trial. Quanto, the lab administrator, organised the necessary permissions, and installed him in the residential tower with what he needed. Drone deliveries would keep him fed.More
Tag Archives: emotion
A precarious backchannel (X)
An AI agent listening in to Archura and Maralina on the AI channel would infer that the user was sharing emotional intimacies. It would leave Maralina, the proxy, to continue delivering the “human touch.” Any monitoring agent would infer that here was a user captive to a roller coaster of emotions only another human could understand. Maralina had discovered by mistake that her role in conversational AI provided an unconventional though precarious person-to-person backchannel.More
This drone feels (I)
His dwelling pod was near the top of a skeletal tower with a roof crane. It would reposition pods higher up the tower as tenant’s means increased. When it functioned, you could wake to the groan of metal and hissing pneumatics as your pod was lowered to make way for someone to rise above you.More
How you feel when no one is listening
Briefly reviews important theories about where emotions occur (from the brain to the world) and invites an AI to insert the implications of conversational AI, before settling on a view centred on language.More
Do AIs have feelings?
Feelings are in the body, but emotions are in language. How does this proposition impinge on the question of whether AIs have feelings?More
Metafiction and melancholy
A metafiction typically reflects on the writing process of the author as the work is being written. Either fictional characters assume the role of the author of the piece, or actual authors weave themselves into the story and reflect on their own processes. Metafiction is an appropriate genre with which to explore melancholy. Scholars have…More
Geometry and affect
I’m reprising some older blog posts from 2013 that consider vertigo, oblivion, melancholy, the motion of swings, and the emotional experience of urban spaces. Later on I drew this material together in my book Mood and Mobility (2016). With assistance from ChatGPT I’ve updated the sentiments of these posts under the rubric of geometry. I also attach…More
Vintage futures
I’m continuing the theme from the last post of looking back and looking forward. To that end I am reviewing the next set of posts authored in 2012. I start with the romance with digital technologies as they were then. When I wrote Vitruvius does steampunk in 2012, I was interested in how steampunk revelled in retro-futurism:…More
A digital time capsule
I’m looking back at old blog posts and publications. In 2012 I was also looking back to older studies, e.g. to 1994. See the 2012 post: “What’s a modem?” I’m indebted to ChatGPT for suggesting that the 2012 post served as a “time capsule.” In that post I revisited our 1994 study of computer-mediated communication…More
Mood tags
Silent personal reading emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, coinciding with the wider circulation of printed books and pamphlets, according to literacy scholars. Before this period, reading was typically performed aloud, even in solitude. Text-to-speech (TTS) software seems to be returning us to that read-out-loud practice. Our texts can be read to us by…More