Here’s an interesting hypothesis that I came across recently, reading through an article in the latest edition of the IEEE Spectrum about digitally animated faces. It’s called the “Uncanny Valley” effect, formulated by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, and it basically says that, as a robot becomes more human-like in appearance, the more humans are likely to empathise with it. However, this effect reaches a point where empathy is reversed, and humans are likely to be repulsed instead. This, too, is then reversed and replaced with positive empathy once more as the appearance of the robot becomes even closer to that of a human being.

I’d be extremely interested if this hypothesis could work in reverse. For example, could individuals who believe in cyborgization i.e. integrating themselves with machines actually decrease the amount of empathy fellow humans feel for them?

The International Herald Tribune have a wonderful article up on why we laugh. Through a study conducted by neuroscientists Robert Provine and Jaak Panksepp, they produced some rather interesting evidence to suggest that we laugh not because something is funny, but because “It is a way to make friends and also make clear who belongs where in the status hierarchy.”

“Primal laughter evolved as a signaling device to highlight readiness for friendly interaction,” Panksepp says. “Sophisticated social animals such as mammals need an emotionally positive mechanism to help create social brains and to weave organisms effectively into the social fabric.”

This expands on previous research from Panskepp that showed animals laugh, too. There is also a fascinating paper available from the 1996 issue of American Scientist written by Provine, which gives further detail of his previous research into the subject.

I’m still curious why I laugh at a funny film or TV show when there’s no-one around. Surely that’s not a social function?

The Milgram Experiment remains one of the most interesting (and controversial) psychological experiments of the 20th Century. Conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1961, the experiment was designed to test whether or not ordinary people were willing to administer a series of increasingly severe electric shocks on the orders of a figure of authority to a test subject who, in reality, was an actor pretending to be electrocuted. Astonishingly, 65% of all participants were willing to do so. Some great footage here.

Update: the old object to the video I linked to was removed from You Tube, so I’ve added in the new one.

Today’s word is “Biopower” (also sometimes referred to as bio-techno-power), first used by French philosopher Michel Foucault to describe how a state controls its citizens, not through negative means (such as the threat of death or physical coercion), but through more positive means such as by promoting a better life, namely by emphasising the protection of life. As the word implies with “bio”, it has a specific biological aspect to it.

According to Foucault, biopower is how capitalist and democratic societies controlled their citizens, and it was “an indispensible element” for the “development of capitalism” because it helped adjust “the phenomena of population to economic processes”.

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Douglas Hofstadter speaks in the latest edition of Wired about his new book, I Am A Strange Loop. As he explains, he’s trying to figure out “What Am I?”

One good prototype [of a strange loop] is the Escher drawing of two hands sketching each other. A more abstract one is the sentence I am lying. Such loops are, I think anyone would agree, strange. They seem paradoxical and even strike some people as dangerous. I argue that such a strange loop, paradoxical or not, is at the core of each human being. It is an abstract pattern that gives each of us an �??I,�?� or, if you don�??t mind the term, a soul.

The “noosphere” (sometimes referred to as the neurosphere) can be described as “the sphere of human thought”. First used by geochemist Vladimir Verdansky, he believed that there were three stages in the development of the earth: the geosphere (inanimate matter), which was then transformed by the biosphere, (animate matter), which in turn would be transformed by the noosphere that arose from human cognition.

It’s interesting to note that Verdansky’s ideas helped contribute to a natural philosophy from the 19th and 20th Centuries called Russian Cosmism, which attempted to use empirical research combining elements of philosophy and religion to explore the origin and evolution of mankind and the universe, as well as to try and predict its future. Many of the ideas from this school helped contribute to transhumanism and is often seen as its natural precursor.

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One of my favourite books from last year was the superb “Spychips” by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre (they have a blog), examing the RFID industry and its threat to privacy. What I found to be of particular interest was the strategy developed by the Auto-ID Centre - the primary research group behind the Internet of Things concept, backed by some major corporations like Procter & Gamble and Gillette, and also the Department of Defense - to overcome the privacy concerns of consumers.

The Auto-ID Centre hired the pricey public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard and set out to “develop best messages to pacify” consumers. Yes, pacify. They came up with a plan to “identify potential consumer road blocks/fears, construct a proactive message framework to minimize negatives arising [and] assess consumer reaction if [the] press develop scare stories.”

[…]

The Auto-ID Centre’s advisers knew it would be tough [but] they hoped consumers would feel hopeless and too “apathetic” to react (their exact quote was “on balance they are negative by apathetic”). […] “The best communication strategy appears to be positioning the technology simply as an improved barcode,” the advised, noting that, ” … discussing any benefits or using rational argument is largely ineffective and is perceived as ’spin’. Once consumers are concerned, they remain concerned, no matter what we tell them.” (Spychips, pg 156-7)

So, next time you hear it’s an improved barcode, or someone refers to a “radio barcode” (Tesco), “intelligent label” (Marks & Spencer), an “electronic product code” (Wal-Mart), or “green tag” (Auto-ID Centre), remember that someone is trying to “pacify” you.

I wonder how long before we’ll be told that arphids enable and enhance who you really are?

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging technologies linked through to an interesting bit of research that looked at “Preferences for Psychological Enhancements”, and reluctance by test subjects to allow enhancements. Specifically, they point out that “Ad taglines that framed enhancements as enabling … the fundamental self increased people’s interest in a fundamental enhancement, and eliminated the preference for non-fundamental over fundamental enhancements.”

With that in mind, I came across an article in Wired discussing Darpa’s latest forays into human enhancement, and I couldn’t but help notice the wording of Tony Tether, head of Darpa, the US’s Advanced Research Projects Agency: “[The Defense Sciences Office] isn�??t trying to create posthuman troops, Tether says. �??You know the old Army saying, �??Be all that you can be�??? Well, that�??s really what we�??re doing.�?� In training, soldiers �??become extraordinary in strength and endurance. But it�??s not any better than their body can be. And what we try to do is come up with techniques that allow them to maintain that level.�?�

The Wired article also showed that, in order to avoid scrutiny and accusations “of funding a Frankenstein army”, the names of various programs “were changed to dull their mad-scientist edge”. For example, “Metabolic Dominance became Peak Soldier Performance”.

So there really is a lot in a name. Hey, it’s all in the branding.