Joseph Weizenbaum died at the ripe old age of 85 last month (NYTime Obituary). Weizenbaum was best known for ELIZA, a program designed in 1966 to establish natural language conversation with a computer by emulating a Rogerian therapist (Online Version of ELIZA). Weizenbaum was the first to note that the ELIZA conversations weren’t an example of computer “thinking,” but really consisted of some clever programming techniques. His argument that computers were merely tools to assist humans in their everyday lives put him in opposition to many of the leading researchers in the emerging field of artificial intelligence.
A few years after he wrote ELIZA, the idea of the thinking computer gained popular credence. A famous article in Life magazine in 1970 entitled “Meet Shakey, the First Electronic Person” was testament to this. Shakey was a Stanford University robot and one of Weizenbaum’s colleagues at MIT was quoted in the Life article as saying: “In from three to eight years we will have a machine with general intelligence of an average human being.”
Shakey the Robot was the first mobile robot to be able to reason to some degree about its own actions.
Soon, the popular media was trumpeting the impending arrival of thinking machines and it was left largely to Weizenbaum to put the issue in perspective and to note that computers as thinking machines weren’t right around the corner. He drew more fire from the AI community from his book, “Computer Power and Human Reason” that argued in part that man from the view of information processing is looked at as a means and not as an end. He worried that many computer scientists were following paths that were dehumanizing. Weizenbaum argued, essentially, that computers impose a mechanistic point of view on their users on us and that that perspective can all too easily crowd out other, possibly more human, perspectives.
Weizenbaum considered himself a gadfly and even heretic of the artificial intelligence community, which has had soaring flights and deep drops in acceptance and interest since he wrote ELIZA in the mid-1960s. AI currently is in a down draft as the firms that were built around it in the 1980s have largely faded from view. In 2007, Il Mare Film created an 80-minute documentary entitled “Weizenbaum. Rebel At Work.” Trailer The film is a personal portrait of the man and his life, with him telling mainly stories. Originally produced in German, an American version is available with subtitles and voice-over. The site also has a photo gallery of Weizenbaum’s life supported by audio clips from the film.
In December William J. Mitchell presented The Zaragoza ‘Digital Mile’ (detailed info) to the students at the Bartlett. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance up till now to write about it so here’s some of the most exciting aspects of this project developed at MIT. The Zaragoza ‘Digital Mile’ will incorporate digital media into everyday aspects of the public realm to make places that respond to their users; accommodate multiple activities; and provide stories, information and services to the people of the city. It will question how can technology enhance public use and enjoyment? Can it make space more productive, or meaningful? What types of urban forms best accommodate digital media? Can it create a public realm that is more flexible and adaptable to different users, activities, or moods? How do you develop content for the media and who should manage it?
All of the spaces, parks and buildings on the Digital Mile include free, public wireless connectivity as well as open access to the digital systems and responsive media elements located along the Mile. Digital systems are programmable according to users’ wishes and thus facilitate experiences on the Digital Mile.
These are concentrated along the pedestrian path called the Paseo del Agua. The WATER WALL is an interactive fountain where people can digitally control the streams of water. With a command – by jumping into the water or sending a message through an electronic device – the water can start and stop or change in pressure. This is a monumental urban element like a canal running through
the city, but twisted into a vertical plane so that people can experience it from a distance as a landmark or interact with it directly. The intelligent streetlight system creates a distinctive atmosphere along the Mile by changing color or intensity in response to the time of day, demands for use, or artistic desires. In tandem, digital street furniture - - like café tables, bus stops, and signage — display information about such practical matters as menus, bus arrivals, or the location of available parking spaces. These digital systems are intended to make moving through the Digital Mile a seamless, entertaining, and instinctive experience. Two event places, Portillo and Almozara, anchor the Digital Mile and feature responsive digital elements to support different activities and enhance users’ perceptions of the urban environment.
Affixed to the facades of buildings, URBAN PIXELS delineate the edges of the Zaragoza Digital Mile from the rest of the city. When viewed from the air or from the ground by pedestrians, drivers, and train passengers, this ‘light’ footprint intervention works synchronously or asynchronously to emphasize different moods or zones along the Digital Mile. Each pixel unit includes a solar charging unit and can be programmed wirelessly.
The MEMORY WALK walk makes visible the way people travel through the city by recording pedestrians’ steps across a space. Every time a footstep falls on a digital paver, the paver emits an additional increment of light. As people cross the pavement, paths of light are illuminated where people tread the most; untread areas emit no light. Thus, people become aware of the traces their movements leave upon the surfaces of the Digital Mile.
DIGITAL AWNINGS are screens that can rotate in four directions: up, down, left, and right. The movement of the awnings is controlled by either pre-programming, a command by mobile phone, in response to people’s physical movements, or in the service of a collective special event. This system enhances the experience of the Digital Mile by displaying abstract, impressionistic, provocative, personalized, or integrative content, including information and images related to Zaragoza’s history or people’s real-time activities in other areas of the Digital Mile.
Another project from the very clever fellows at MITs Tangible Media group. Senspectra is a computationally augmented physical modeling toolkit designed for sensing and visualization of structural strain. The system functions as a distributed sensor network consisting of nodes, embedded with computational capabilities and a full spectrum LED, which communicate to neighbor nodes to determine a network topology through a system of flexible joints. While the Senspectra infrastructure provides a flexible modular sensor network platform, its primary application derives from the need to couple physical modeling techniques utilized in the architecture and industrial design disciplines with systems for structural engineering analysis, offering an intuitive approach for physical real-time finite element analysis. Utilizing direct manipulation augmented with visual feedback, the system gives users valuable insights on the global behavior of a constructed system defined as a network of discrete elements.
Each actuator is a felt-tipped rod with a magnet at it’s base. The rods are anchored to a silicone membrane with two plastic nuts. These actuators oscillate in response to a magnetic force below the surface of Super Cilia Skin. This force alters the angle of the actuators on the upper surface. The prototype of Super Cilia Skin was designed to be operated by the Actuated Workbench which uses a computer to control an array of 128 electromagnets, smoothly moving magnetic objects on its surface.
Applied on an architectural scale, Super Cilia Skin would act as a display surface reflecting changes in local or global conditions. On a smaller scale, an object surrounded by Super Cilia Skin might propel itself across the floor or be able to propel objects across its surface. via Karen at Mr. Watson
As you may have seen there’s a tutorials page attached to the blog which I’ve had online as long as the blog has been running. I’ve been meaning to build up a tutorials section of links to other websites and books about physical computing, hacking appropriated technology etc but just haven’t got around to doing so. Its mainly aimed at students interested in interactive installations and devices of any kind for the time being. I get quite a few emails from architecture, design and art students asking about learning how to use basic electronics and programming etc so I’ve added a few essential links in the last couple of days but would really like to make it a more comprehensive resource. Have you got any suggestions? I will of course credit those who pass on their suggestions so please leave your name and website if you’ve got one.
So whats the interactive architecture in this? Well its the slowest form of interaction I’ve posted so far but the process of pleaching gives the patient house builder the ability to share with the tree the role of architect rather than the architect taking entire control of the final outcome of the building.
Growing a home from living trees instead of building a home from felled timber is the goal of an architect from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mitchell Joachim, part of the MIT Media Lab’s Smart Cities Group, along with ecological engineer Lara Greden and architect Javier Arbona, propose a home that is actually an ecosystem.
The Fab Tree Hab goes beyond sustainable housing and so-called green design — building with materials that have a low impact on the environment and human health.
“Not only does it do zero damage, but it will hopefully clean the air,” said Joachim.
The habitat is based on an ancient gardening method known as pleaching, which weaves together tree branches to form living archways, lattices or screens.
