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plaidsicle's reviews
108 reviews
The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet Stored with all manner of rare receipts for preserving, candying and cookery. Very pleasant and beneficial to all ingenious persons of the female sex by Hannah Woolley
this old recipe book is the subject of my textual history project for English 5340. so far, pretty awesome project.
Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age by Kenneth Goldsmith
this book was full of typos and subject-verb disagreements. but other than those distractions, the book was fascinating.
What a Piece of Work is Man by David F. Clark
this is a book worth puzzling over. I liked its world and its questions.
Year Zero by Rob Reid
quite weird... but somewhat amusing and pretty interesting, even captivating, near the end.
Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton
thought-provoking, mostly beautiful, and sort of sad.
The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans
what awful, shallow stuff. dear bookclub, will you choose a more engaging, better thought-out book for next time?
Affect and Artificial Intelligence by Elizabeth a. Wilson
[excerpts from my class reading response]
The most striking message this text left me with centers around Wilson’s reference to D.W. Winnicott’s phrase “There is no such thing as a baby.” Wilson explains: “A baby does not exist as a self-sufficient creature, it is always part of a system of reciprocation” (loc1402) This reference appears during Wilson’s analysis of the MIT Kismet project and is used to describe how Kismet’s programming only functions when others are around to feed it stimuli, but the sentiment also applies to everything else discussed throughout the book. We all exist within systems of reciprocation, even after we’ve grown up and become somewhat independent human beings. To go on functioning, infants, just like Kismet, must establish circuits/relationships with the world. Neither human nor robot is a closed system. If we can say “There is no such thing as a baby," it may also make sense to say "There is no such thing as an utterly autonomous robot.” I’m tempted to take this further and wonder whether there is such a thing as autonomy. Is there such a thing as independent thought? Is there such a thing as a self? Wilson herself does not explicitly delve so deep, but she does hint at how complex and layered our humanity is. Juxtaposed with artificial intelligence, our own internal workings start to look similar.
Even more fascinating than the quandary of what makes me human is the question of what makes other people human. In Chapter 1, Wilson references the idea that other human beings’ assumptions about our capacity for thought actually teach us to think and how. Others assign meaning to our actions, and over time we come to mean those things by what we do. This is a kind of introjection--part of the way we seem to create humanity within each other. Is there anyway the same thing could happen between humans and artificial intelligences? Could the "extensive emotional entrainment of machine by man and man by machine" Wilson describes in chapters 3 and 4 result in the same phenomenon? Is the Turing test all we will need to know when or if it happens?
This framework of open, inseparable systems of reciprocation returns when Wilson describes the different responses surrounding ELIZA and Kenneth Colby’s similar program,. ELIZA was adored and viewed as a valuable confidant. Colby’s version was more often frustrating for and criticized by its users. Sensing a multitude of untraceable differences between the two programs’ contexts, Wilson recognizes that “the networked, interpersonal, affectively collaborative community into which ELIZA was released was a crucial component of the programs therapeutic viability” (loc1852). Much earlier in the book we are told that “the mind is not confined to the brain, the skull, or even the boundaries of the biological body: it takes up tools and technologies out in the world in order to expand cognitive space” (loc549). This brings to mind our modern (or not so modern) habits of filling notebooks and ledgers with important but hard-to-remember data, letting our cellphones keep track of everyone’s phone number, and turning to google for whatever trivia might come up in our daily conversation. Our intelligence is already wrapped up in the capacities of machines and artificial systems. Echoing and expanding Winnicott’s phrase, we might say “There is no such thing as any thing. There are only communities of things."
The most striking message this text left me with centers around Wilson’s reference to D.W. Winnicott’s phrase “There is no such thing as a baby.” Wilson explains: “A baby does not exist as a self-sufficient creature, it is always part of a system of reciprocation” (loc1402) This reference appears during Wilson’s analysis of the MIT Kismet project and is used to describe how Kismet’s programming only functions when others are around to feed it stimuli, but the sentiment also applies to everything else discussed throughout the book. We all exist within systems of reciprocation, even after we’ve grown up and become somewhat independent human beings. To go on functioning, infants, just like Kismet, must establish circuits/relationships with the world. Neither human nor robot is a closed system. If we can say “There is no such thing as a baby," it may also make sense to say "There is no such thing as an utterly autonomous robot.” I’m tempted to take this further and wonder whether there is such a thing as autonomy. Is there such a thing as independent thought? Is there such a thing as a self? Wilson herself does not explicitly delve so deep, but she does hint at how complex and layered our humanity is. Juxtaposed with artificial intelligence, our own internal workings start to look similar.
Even more fascinating than the quandary of what makes me human is the question of what makes other people human. In Chapter 1, Wilson references the idea that other human beings’ assumptions about our capacity for thought actually teach us to think and how. Others assign meaning to our actions, and over time we come to mean those things by what we do. This is a kind of introjection--part of the way we seem to create humanity within each other. Is there anyway the same thing could happen between humans and artificial intelligences? Could the "extensive emotional entrainment of machine by man and man by machine" Wilson describes in chapters 3 and 4 result in the same phenomenon? Is the Turing test all we will need to know when or if it happens?
This framework of open, inseparable systems of reciprocation returns when Wilson describes the different responses surrounding ELIZA and Kenneth Colby’s similar program,. ELIZA was adored and viewed as a valuable confidant. Colby’s version was more often frustrating for and criticized by its users. Sensing a multitude of untraceable differences between the two programs’ contexts, Wilson recognizes that “the networked, interpersonal, affectively collaborative community into which ELIZA was released was a crucial component of the programs therapeutic viability” (loc1852). Much earlier in the book we are told that “the mind is not confined to the brain, the skull, or even the boundaries of the biological body: it takes up tools and technologies out in the world in order to expand cognitive space” (loc549). This brings to mind our modern (or not so modern) habits of filling notebooks and ledgers with important but hard-to-remember data, letting our cellphones keep track of everyone’s phone number, and turning to google for whatever trivia might come up in our daily conversation. Our intelligence is already wrapped up in the capacities of machines and artificial systems. Echoing and expanding Winnicott’s phrase, we might say “There is no such thing as any thing. There are only communities of things."
The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry
part one for class -- fascinating.