8,946 research outputs found
Experiments in artificial culture: from noisy imitation to storytelling robots
This paper presents a series of experiments in collective social robotics, spanning more than 10 years, with the long-term aim of building embodied models of (aspects) of cultural evolution. Initial experiments demonstrated the emergence of behavioural traditions in a group of social robots programmed to imitate each other's behaviours (we call these Copybots). These experiments show that the noisy (i.e. less than perfect fidelity) imitation that comes for free with real physical robots gives rise naturally to variation in social learning. More recent experimental work extends the robots' cognitive capabilities with simulation-based internal models, equipping them with a simple artificial theory of mind. With this extended capability we explore, in our current work, social learning not via imitation but robot-robot storytelling, in an effort to model this very human mode of cultural transmission. In this paper we give an account of the methods and inspiration for these experiments,the experiments and their results, and an outline of possible directions for this programme of research. It is our hope that this paper stimulates not only discussion but suggestions for hypotheses to test with the Storybots
Engineering Moral Agents -- from Human Morality to Artificial Morality (Dagstuhl Seminar 16222)
This report documents the programme of, and outcomes from, the Dagstuhl Seminar 16222 on "Engineering Moral Agents -- from Human Morality to Artificial Morality". Artificial morality is an emerging area of research within artificial intelligence (AI), concerned with the problem of designing artificial agents that behave as moral agents, i.e. adhere to moral, legal, and social norms. Context-aware, autonomous, and intelligent systems are becoming a presence in our society and are increasingly involved in making decisions that affect our lives. While humanity has developed formal legal and informal moral and social norms to govern its own social interactions, there are no similar regulatory structures that apply to non-human agents. The seminar focused on questions of how to formalise, "quantify", qualify, validate, verify, and modify the ``ethics" of moral machines. Key issues
included the following: How to build regulatory structures that address (un)ethical machine behaviour? What are the wider societal, legal, and economic implications of introducing AI machines into our society? How to develop "computational" ethics and what are the difficult challenges that need to be addressed? When organising this workshop, we aimed to bring together communities of researchers from moral philosophy and from artificial intelligence most concerned with this topic. This is a long-term endeavour, but the seminar was successful in laying the foundations and connections for accomplishing it
Alan Moore Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel
Eclectic British author Alan Moore (b. 1953) is one of the most acclaimed and controversial comics writers to emerge since the late 1970s. He has produced a large number of well-regarded comic books and graphic novels while also making occasional forays into music, poetry, performance, and prose. In Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel , Annalisa Di Liddo argues that Moore employs the comics form to dissect the literary canon, the tradition of comics, contemporary society, and our understanding of history. The book considers Moore's narrative strategies and pinpoints the main thematic threads in his works: the subversion of genre and pulp fiction, the interrogation of superhero tropes, the manipulation of space and time, the uses of magic and mythology, the instability of gender and ethnic identity, and the accumulation of imagery to create satire that comments on politics and art history. Examining Moore's use of comics to scrutinize contemporary culture, Di Liddo analyzes his best-known works-- Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, From Hell, Promethea , and Lost Girls . The study also highlights Moore?s lesser-known output, such as Halo Jones, Skizz , and Big Numbers , and his prose novel Voice of the Fire. Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel reveals Moore to be one of the most significant and distinctly postmodern comics creators of the last quarter-century.Intro -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1. Formal Considerations on Alan Moore's Writing -- CHAPTER 2. Chronotopes: Outer Space, the Cityscape, and the Space of Comics -- CHAPTER 3. Moore and the Crisis of English Identity -- CHAPTER 4. Finding a Way into Lost Girls -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- ZEclectic British author Alan Moore (b. 1953) is one of the most acclaimed and controversial comics writers to emerge since the late 1970s. He has produced a large number of well-regarded comic books and graphic novels while also making occasional forays into music, poetry, performance, and prose. In Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel , Annalisa Di Liddo argues that Moore employs the comics form to dissect the literary canon, the tradition of comics, contemporary society, and our understanding of history. The book considers Moore's narrative strategies and pinpoints the main thematic threads in his works: the subversion of genre and pulp fiction, the interrogation of superhero tropes, the manipulation of space and time, the uses of magic and mythology, the instability of gender and ethnic identity, and the accumulation of imagery to create satire that comments on politics and art history. Examining Moore's use of comics to scrutinize contemporary culture, Di Liddo analyzes his best-known works-- Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, From Hell, Promethea , and Lost Girls . The study also highlights Moore?s lesser-known output, such as Halo Jones, Skizz , and Big Numbers , and his prose novel Voice of the Fire. Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel reveals Moore to be one of the most significant and distinctly postmodern comics creators of the last quarter-century.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
In Alan Turing’s Name: Pardoning the Dead, Forgetting the Living
This special panel discussion brought together authorities on Alan Turing and the statutory pardon legislation intended to honour him. Leading academics, in conversation with those who have unsuccessfully petitioned to have offences disregarded, were joined by the Turing Bill’s author
Bernard Williams
An edited multi-author volume assessing the moral philosophy of the late British philosopher Bernard Williams. Contributors: Adrian Moore, John Skorupski, Alan Thomas, Robert B Louden, Michael Stocker, A. A. Long, Edward Crai
Post-war British working-class fiction with special reference to the novels of John Braine, Alan Sillitoe, Stan Barstow, David Storey and Barry Hines
This study is about British working-class fiction in the post-war period.
It covers various authors such as Robert Tressell, George Orwell, Walter Greenwood, Lewis Grassic Gibbon and DH Lawrence from the early twentieth century; writers traditionally classified as 'Angry Young Men' like John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Shelagh Delaney, John Wain and
Kingsley Amis; and working-class novelists like John Braine, Stan Barstow, David Storey, Alan Sillitoe and Barry Hines from the 1950s and 1960s.
Some of the main issues dealt with in the course of this study are language, form, community, self/identity/autobiography, sexuality and relationship with bourgeois art. The major argument centres on two questions: representation of working-class life, and the
relationship between working-class literary tradition and dominant ideologies.
We will be arguing that while working-class fiction succeeded in challenging and rupturing bourgeois literary tradition, on the level of language and linguistic medium of expression for example, it utterly failed to break away from dominant, bourgeois modes of literary production in relation to form, for instance.
Our argument is situated within Marxist approaches to literature, a political and aesthetic position from which we attempt an analysis and an evaluation of this working-class literary tradition. These critical approaches provide us also with the theoretical tool to define the political perspective of this tradition, and to judge whether it was confined to a descriptive mode of representation or
located in a radical, political outlook
Elements of Abstraction: Space, Line and Interval in Modern British Art
The book is the catalogue of the exhibition Elements of Abstraction: Space, Line and Interval in Modern British Art, which the author curated from the collections of the Tate Gallery, London, the Arts Council, London, Southampton City Art Gallery and private collections. The author provided three essays, 'The Geometry of Modern British Art', 'West Country Constructivism', and 'Abstract Art and the Decline of Modernism' to advance critical histories of three distinct moments of importance in the development of British abstract art. A fourth, edited by him, was by a research student under his supervision (Alan Fowler) and covered Systems Art and Constructionism
Observations on the music and life of pianist/composer Herbie Hancock
An analysis of Hancock's musical style, pianism and biographyM.A.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Alan SimonIncludes discograph
Interview with Alan Pisarski, January 2015
This document contains the content of an oral history interview and is part of a series of interviews conducted by the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center (VTC). These interviews are personal, experiential, and interpretative, reflecting the memories and associations of individuals. All reasonable attempts are made to ensure accuracy, but statements should not be interpreted as facts endorsed by Rutgers University, the Edward J. Bloustein School, or VTC. The associated website also contains links to other resources, but does not endorse or guarantee their content
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