Liveblogging the Singularity Summit Humanistic Intelligence Augmentation and Mediation

Humanistic Intelligence Augmentation and Mediation by Steve Mann

Humanistic Intelligence (HI) is intelligence that arises by having the human being in the feedback loop of the computational process. I will describe recent work in HI and social networking in cyborgspace in our small community of approximately 80,000 cyborgs on http://glogger.mobi as well as approximately 30 years of living in cyborgspace and computer-mediated reality. Whereas Augmented Reality (AR) adds overlays, Mediated Reality is a more general (and earlier) concept that includes adding, subtracting, modulating, or more generally mediating one’s space both individually and collectively in the cyborg community. I will present the concept of experiential bandwidth and explain why AR has not worked (and can not work) effectively, and why it is that cyborgspace has evolved into a mediated rather than merely augmented form of interaction. I will also present some recent developments in CyborGLOGGING. CyborGLOGS (”glogs” for short) pre-date WeBLOGS (“blogs” for short). Whereas blogs are usually digital, cyborglogs are typically “undigital”, i.e. represent continuous, rather than discrete data. Glogs capture a stream of perceptual data without conscious thought or effort. This data often includes electrovisuogram (EVG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), and the like.

The cyborglogging tradition brings with it fluid media (FLUID=Flexible Limitless User Interface Design). I will present some examples of fluid media as generalized undigital user interfaces that extend beyond the cyborg realm to include aspects of everyday life.

I will conclude by looking at post-cyborgism, and the coming post-cyborg era, with a sampling of post-cyborg technology such as the hydraulophone and WaterHammer Piano


Steve Mann at wikipedia.

Mann, together with Professor Ian Kerr at the University of Ottawa, have written extensively on surveillance, sousveillance, and equiveillance. “Sousveillance”, a term coined by Mann, along with the concepts that he and Kerr have developed around these ideas, have created a new dialog for cyborg technologies, as well as related personal information gathering technologies like camera phones. He has created the related concept of Humanistic Intelligence.

Humanistic Intelligence (HI) is intelligence that arises because of the human being in the feedback loop of a computational process, where the human and computer are inextricably intertwined. It is common in the field of human-computer interaction to think of the human and computer as separate entities. The term “HCI” emphasizes this separateness by treating the human and computer as different entities that interact. However, HI theory thinks of the wearer and the computer with its associated input and output facilities not as separate entities, but regards the computer as a second brain and its sensory modalities as additional senses, in which synthetic synesthesia merges with the wearer’s senses. When a wearable computer functions in a successful embodiment of HI, the computer uses the human’s mind and body as one of its peripherals, just as the human uses the computer as a peripheral. This reciprocal relationship is at the heart of HI

Eyetap
Formerly known as the Humanistic Intelligence Lab, the EyeTap Personal Imaging Lab specializes in the areas of personal imaging, mediated reality and wearable computing. The lab name change clearly emphasizes our strength in personal imaging through powerful technologies among which EyeTap technology plays a major role.

EyeTap is a device which allows, in a sense, the eye itself to function as both a display and a camera. EyeTap is at once the eye piece that displays computer information to the user and a device which allows the computer to process and possibly alter what the user sees. That which the user looks at is processed by the EyeTap. This allows the EyeTap to, under computer control, augment, diminish, or otherwise alter a user’s visual perception of their environment, which creates a Computer Mediated Reality. Furthermore, ideally, EyeTap displays computer-generated information at the appropriate focal distance, and tonal range. The figure below depicts and describes the basic functional principle of EyeTap. Note from the diagram that the rays of light from the environment are collinear with the rays of light entering the eye (denoted by the dotted lines) which are generated by a device known as the aremac. “aremac” is the word camera spelled backwards and is the device which generates a synthetic ray of light which is collinear with an incoming ray of light. Ideally, the aremac will generate rays of light to form an image which appears to be spatially aligned, and appears at with the same focus as the real world scene.

Formed Interaxon company, InteraXon has years of experience creating and implementing brainwave-controlled computing technology and applications as well as an ongoing awareness of state-of-the-art advances in the field; and we’ll take all this knowledge and know-how and share it with your team

Hydraulophone
hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water (sometimes other fluids) where sound is generated or affected hydraulically.

Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player’s fingers. The term also refers to an acoustic sound-producing mechanism used as an interface or input device involving the monitoring of fluid flow. Examples include hydraulophones for fluid-flow monitoring and measurement applications, such as building automation, equipment monitoring, and the like (for example, determining which faucet or toilet in a building is operating and how much water it is consuming). The hydraulophone in the first sense was invented and named by Steve Mann.