Schlagwort: Technology Ethics

Diskussionen, Projekte

A Living Tamagotchi

Jasmine Lu and Pedro Lopes of the University of Chicago published a paper in late 2022 describing the integration of an organism – the single-celled slime mold Physarum Polycephalum – into a wearable. From the abstract: „Researchers have been exploring how incorporating care-based interactions can change the user’s attitude & relationship towards an interactive device. This is typically achieved through virtual care where users care for digital entities. In this paper, we explore this concept further by investigating how physical care for a living organism, embedded as a functional component of an interactive device, also changes user-device relationships. Living organisms differ as they require an environment conducive to life, which in our concept, the user is responsible for providing by caring for the organism (e.g., feeding it). We instantiated our concept by engineering a smartwatch that includes a slime mold that physically conducts power to a heart rate sensor inside the device, acting as a living wire. In this smartwatch, the availability of heart-rate sensing depends on the health of the slime mold – with the user’s care, the slime mold becomes conductive and enables the sensor; conversely, without care, the slime mold dries and disables the sensor (resuming care resuscitates the slime mold).“ (Lu and Lopes 2022) The paper „Integrating Living Organisms in Devices to Implement Care-based Interactions“ can be downloaded here.

Fig.: A normal Tamagotchi

Ausschreibungen, Empfehlungen

Professorship for Ethics of Digital Technologies

In 2019, the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Research at Ruhr-Universität Bochum will be awarding a W1 (W2) tenure-track professorship for Ethics of digital methods and technologies at the Institute of Philosophy I. „The future tenure-track professor will be representing the field of ethics in union with philosophy of current technology excellently in education and research. She/he has performed in different areas of digital ethics by pertinent publications and features excellent knowledge of digital methods and technologies. Ethical problems of digitisation are treated in close relation with epistemological and methodological analysis of current IT-developments. Close cooperation with nearby professorships in the humanities and social sciences and the emerging ‚Center for Computer Science‘ at RUB is expected.“ (Job advertisement) Applications and all relevant documents are to be submitted by e-mail by 31 January, 2019 to the Dean at the Faculty of Philosophy and Educational Research at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Prof. Dr. Norbert Ricken. More information is available here.

Fig.: Building in Bochum

Projekte, Publikationen

Electric Smell Machine

Adrian David Cheok is director of the Mixed Reality Lab which „aims to push the boundaries of research into interactive new media technologies through the combination of technology, art, and creativity“ (Website Mixed Reality Lab). He is editor of several academic journals and of the book „Love and Sex with Robots“ (together with Kate Devlin and David Levy) which was published in 2017. In a current press release, he presents an electric smell machine for internet and virtual smell. „Here we are excited to introduce the world’s first computer controlled digital device developed to stimulate olfactory receptor neurons with the aim of producing smell sensations purely using electrical pulses. Using this device, now we can easily stimulate the various areas of nasal cavity with different kinds of electric pulses. During the initial user experiments, some participants experienced smell sensations including floral, fruity, chemical, and woody. In addition, we have observed a difference in the ability of smelling odorants before and after the electrical stimulation. These results suggest that this technology could be enhanced to artificially create and modify smell sensations. By conducting more experiments with human subjects, we are expecting to uncover the patterns of electrical stimulations, that can effectively generate, modify, and recall smell sensations. This invention can lead to internet and virtual reality digital smell.“ (Press Release, 10 August 2017) More via imagineeringinstitute.org/press-release-electric-smell-machine-for-internet-virtual-smell/.

Fig.: Towards the digital smell