Thursday, June 2, 2005

Philip K. Dick, Android Wired reports that robotics wizard David Hanson has developed an interactive Philip Dick robotic bust for NextFest 2005 (Wired's World Fair, June 24-6, Chicago): Do androids really dream of electric sheep? Now you can ask P. K. Dick himself. This bust relies on 36 servomotors to mimic the sci-fi legend's facial expressions, and features a polymer called Frubber that looks and moves like human skin. The bot uses motion-tracking machine vision to make eye contact with passersby, and best of all, artificial intelligence and speech software enable it to carry on complex conversations. "It invents new ideas using a mathematical model of Philip K. Dick's mind extracted from his vast body of writing," says David Hanson, founder of Hanson Robotics. The PKD bust is remarkably lifelike, except for its lack of hair. It looks like an ultramodern PKD or a PKD after surviving cancer treatments. For more, see Book of Joe. [Thanks to reader CN] 12:53:53 PM    comment [] Ethics To get some impartial analysis on the "Deep Throat" revelation last Tuesday evening, Joe Scarborough turned to G. Gordon Liddy: SCARBOROUGH:  Any final thoughts?  LIDDY:  This, that if Mark Felt was Deep Throat, he is no hero.  He is someone who behaved unethically, in that he did not take his evidence to the grand jury and seek an indictment.  That's what he should have done, instead of selectively leak to one news outlet some of the information that he had. For someone sick and tired of the liberal media's moral relativism, it's nice to see someone finally exercise moral judgment on television. 12:34:08 PM    comment []

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