"JOHN FLOWERS BACKSTAGE AT THE PALM CASINO REVUE" PETER HUJAR // 1974 [gelatin silver print | U/D]
seen from United States
seen from Canada

seen from United States
seen from Türkiye

seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Singapore
seen from United States

seen from Mexico
seen from Brazil

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from United Kingdom

seen from Canada

seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United States
"JOHN FLOWERS BACKSTAGE AT THE PALM CASINO REVUE" PETER HUJAR // 1974 [gelatin silver print | U/D]
Pieces on Machine Consciousness
by Damien
Late last month, I was at Theorizing the Web, in NYC, to moderate Panel B3, “Bot Phenomenology,” in which I was very grateful to moderate a panel of people I was very lucky to be able to bring together. Johnathan Flowers, Emma Stamm, and Robin Zebrowski were my interlocutors in a discussion about the potential nature of nonbiological phenomenology. Machine consciousness. What robots might feel.
I led them through with questions like “What do you take phenomenology to mean?” and “what do you think of the possibility of a machine having a phenomenology of its own?” We discussed different definitions of “language” and “communication” and “body,” and unfortunately didn’t have a conversation about how certain definitions of those terms mean that what would be considered language between cats would be a cat communicating via signalling to humans.
It was a really great conversation and the Live Stream video for this is here, and linked below (for now, but it may go away at some point, to be replaced by a static youtube link; when I know that that’s happened, I will update links and embeds, here).
Read the rest of Nonhuman and Nonbiological Phenomenology at A Future Worth Thinking About
Additionally, I have another quote about the philosophical and sociopolitical implications of machine intelligence in this extremely well-written piece by K.G. Orphanides at WIRED UK. From the Article:
Williams, a specialist in the ethics and philosophy of nonhuman consciousness, argues that such systems need to be built differently to avoid a a corporate race for the best threat analysis and response algorithms which [will be] likely to [see the world as] a “zero-sum game” where only one side wins. “This is not a perspective suited to devise, for instance, a thriving flourishing life for everything on this planet, or a minimisation of violence and warfare,” he adds.
Much more about this, from many others, at the link.
Until Next Time.
Pieces on Machine Consciousness originally posted at Technoccult
Nonhuman and Nonbiological Phenomenology
Late last month, I was at Theorizing the Web, in NYC, to moderate Panel B3, "Bot Phenomenology," in which I was very grateful to moderate a panel of people I was very lucky to be able to bring together. Johnathan Flowers, Emma Stamm, and Robin Zebrowski were my interlocutors in a discussion about the potential nature of nonbiological phenomenology. Machine consciousness. What robots might feel.
I led them through with questions like "What do you take phenomenology to mean?" and "what do you think of the possibility of a machine having a phenomenology of its own?" We discussed different definitions of "language" and "communication" and "body," and unfortunately didn't have a conversation about how certain definitions of those terms mean that what would be considered language between cats would be a cat communicating via signalling to humans.
It was a really great conversation and the Live Stream video for this is here, and linked below (for now, but it may go away at some point, to be replaced by a static youtube link; when I know that that's happened, I will update links and embeds, here).
Read the rest of Nonhuman and Nonbiological Phenomenology at A Future Worth Thinking About
On Public-Facing Scholarship
So by now you’re likely to have encountered something about the NYT Op-Ed Piece calling for a field of study that focuses on the impact of AI and algorithmic systems, a stance that elides the existence of not only communications and media studies people who focus on this work, but the whole entire disciplines of…
On Public-Facing Scholarship was originally published on A Future Worth Thinking About
Life
Season 2, Episode 18 | 3 Women [2009]
Life
Season 2, Episode 18 | 3 Women [2009]
Kaisik Wong (photo by Steven Arnold)
Sweet Pam (photo by Peter Hujar)
John Flowers (photo by Scott Runyan)
John Flowers and HeadBand: The Real Story (by wvillustrated)