Seminar details:
26 November 2013
Event time: 6:00 – 7:20pm
Drinks reception: 7:20pm – 8:00pm
Daiwa Foundation Japan House, 13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle, London NW1 4QP
Organised by The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
Booking Form
Seminar
Multisensory Internet Communication and Virtual Love
The era of hyperconnected internet allows for new embodied interaction between humans, animals and computers, leading to new forms of social and physical expression. The technologies being developed will in the future augment or mix the real world together with the virtual world. Humans will be able to experience new types of communication environments using all of the senses, where we can see virtual objects in the real environment, virtually touch someone from a distance away, and smell and taste virtual food. Our physical world will be augmented with sensors connected to the internet, buildings and physical spaces, cars, clothes and even our bodies. During the seminar, we will discuss some different research prototype systems for interactive communication, culture, and play. This merging of computing with the physical world may lead to us developing personal feelings for computers, machines and robots, which we will discuss in the second part of the seminar. In the second part, we will be inviting the audience to join us in an exploration of the limits of artificial intelligence. What will it mean for society when artificial intelligence researchers succeed in creating sophisticated artificial personalities, artificial emotions and artificial consciousness? When robots are also endowed with the ability to recognize what we say and what we mean, will they be able to carry on interesting, amusing, intelligent and friendly, even loving conversations with us? How will humans react to this new breed of “person” that can say “I love you” and mean it? These are some of the questions that will touch on the possibility of love, sex and marriage with robots.
About the contributors
Professor Adrian David Cheok Professor Adrian David Cheok is Professor of Pervasive Computing at City University London and Founder and Director of the Mixed Reality Lab. His background is in Engineering, and he gained his PhD at the University of Adelaide in 1999. After working at the National University of Singapore and Mitsubishi Electric in Japan, he became Professor at Keio University in the Graduate School of Media Design. His research is concerned with mixed reality, human-computer interfaces, wearable computers, pervasive and ubiquitous computing. He is a recipient of many awards and prizes, including the Hitachi Fellowship, the Microsoft Research Award in Gaming and Graphics and the SIP Distinguished Fellow Award, and was designated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008. Professor Cheok often discusses his work on media outlets such as the BBC, CNN and the Discovery Channel, and also works as Editor in Chief of three academic journals, one of which is Lovotics: Academic Studies of Love and Friendship with Robots.
Dr David Levy Dr David Levy is President of the International Computer Games Association, and CEO of the London based company Intelligent Toys Ltd. He graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 1967, and moved into the world of business, professional chess playing and writing. He has written more than thirty books on chess, and was awarded the International Master title by FIDE, the World Chess Federation in 1969. In 1968, David started a bet with four Artificial Intelligence professors that he would not lose a chess match against a computer program within ten years. He won that bet. Since 1977 David has been involved in the development of many chess playing and other programs for consumer electronic products. David’s interest in Artificial Intelligence has expanded beyond computer games into other areas of AI, including human-computer conversation, and in 1997 he led the team that won the Loebner Prize competition in New York, which he won again in 2009. His fiftieth book, Love and Sex with Robots, was published in November 2007, shortly after he was awarded a PhD by the University of Maastricht for his thesis entitled Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners.
Sir Peter Williams CBE (chair)
Sir Peter Williams CBE is the Chairman of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, and has a PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. He has previously served as Honorary Treasurer and Vice President of the Royal Society, Chairman of the National Physical Laboratory, Chancellor of the University of Leicester, Chairman and Chief Executive of Oxford Instruments plc, Deputy Chief Executive of VG Instruments Ltd., Master of St. Catherine’s College Oxford, Chairman of Trustees of the Science Museum and Chairman of the Engineering & Technology Board. He has advised Government on issues of science and education, including the ‘Williams Review’ of primary mathematics in 2008 and in 2010 was a member of an international review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the UN Secretary General. He was knighted in 1998 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
