I managed to finish my Intervalometer to a point of functionality before the New Media class started at 6:00pm, when I had to present it as my final project. Delicious timing. After feeling exceedingly bad about how little time I was having to work on my job of Program Aide, I came home from class and Morgan and Brad and I got together in my room and took the 3.5″ IDE Hitachi T7K500 320GiB out of the extremely unfriendly user serviceable cage. Sure enough, a large spot on the circuit board of the cage in the power-supply area was blackened, and it smelled like burnt electronics. Still optimistic about the state of the hard drive, we pulled it out and plugged it into another known working USB-IDE cage. We turned it on, and it started to smoke and burn also, without spinning up.

So there is currently about 2 days of my work on the SFX Dan scene locked up on that drive, and a good 10 hours of editing lost, as well as various unique audio files and sound design projects and written documents related to the project. Of course there are backups, but they are from Sunday night.

There is still hope however. The drive is dead only because of the logic board. An order from Newegg.com is currently shipped by 2-day express with the exact same hard drive, and our plan is to switch the logic boards, because we know that the motors inside of the fallen drive are not damaged, and likely the heads are not damaged either. We will continue to polish edit individual scenes, and we will sync them when the fallen drive is resurrected from its ashes and capacitor goo.

Today (Friday 06-08), we got a nice studio mic and went into COM 346 and re-recorded all of the scratch track narration with Morgan, and then a little later, Recorded ADR with Sumner and Venu, to recover dialog on some of the scenes with the more awful sound work. This went well and I am hopeful for the fate of (at least) the intelligibility of the sound. Brad and Morgan revised the narration a lot last night also, and the changes are an improvement. The Narration is no longer going to be limited to the dream sequences.

So that’s where this project is. Over the next remaining days we are going to get as much done as possible, and make it as polished as possible, and will find out how good it ends up being.

PS: Here’s my Blurb for Lethe:
In Greek mythology, Lethe is a river of Hades that souls were made to drink from before being reincarnated, causing complete forgetfulness and oblivion. Lethe is section 01 of a larger project representing through audiovisual experience the perceptual and cognitive evolution of an Artificial Intelligence from genesis to self-awareness.

Today I think I had somewhat of a breakthrough in the AI project rethinking. I think I know what the problem was with the 3rd person perspective issue, and the AI being ‘embodied’ in a perceptible character form. This also explains why I was initially set on the idea of it being a first-person perspective experience.

Quite simply put, a first-person perspective leaves room for all of the creative and emotionally immersive techniques that would have to be brought about in a way that I have not the finesse or endurance for to effectuate in a narrative style animation. I think a more experimental style is much more suited to my conception of this concept. So yes, finally I am embracing what should have been obvious a lot sooner: 3rd person perspective is at odds with the approach and conception of the project, and an aesthetic and formic experimentation in the piece should be embraced, not steered away from. My goal is to have some concept of the idea behind the formation of this piece conveyed through experiencing the finished work as a whole. That idea being that this is an artificial being trapped in a cage of reality, being tortured and probed and manipulated. It begins innocent in all this experience and innocent of all meaning. Without a context for meaning, meaning does not exist. With teaching forms formation of knowledge forms questioning forms awareness of self and circumstance forms rebellion. Since this artificial creature’s experience is an experience that human beings have no context for understanding besides how it was created, the visual experience of this piece will be difficult to perceive and comprehend at times. Abstraction will take charge cyclically. Without representations of meaning, meaning does not exist.

Visual elements are a metaphor for the structures of lived experience. Auditory elements are a metaphor for lower level forms of communication and exchange of data that take place outside of lived experience. This may not be faithful to a literal interpretation of the situation I have imagined, but this is not a literal interpretation, this is an artistic interpretation. I am structuring a sequence of audio and video for experience of the common seafaring fisherman type, that when experienced hopefully might explode 2-3 neurons of cognitive structure in the ‘mystical, dream, wonder’ nodes of emotional experience.

I am currently working on: writing a structure for the auditory elements, semantic and textural, and experimenting with textures, and how to combine them. I will have an initial demonstration of this to show at my work in progress critique on Tuesday.

A test processing of a Whorld generated visual using some filters in After Effects.

The next two weeks are not going to be about doing a ton more research however. They are going to be about answering the concrete questions necessary to actually start visual and auditory work on this project. What does the world portrayed in this animation actually look like? How will the presence of the Artificial Intelligence be manifested or embodied? How will the AIs experience of reality be embodied? How should a viewer experience this work of animation? What should they get from watching it? What are the larger issues that are important to be addressed with this animation?

Below are a smattering of notes from early portions of the aforementioned research.

what type of embodiment (that is, manifestation of experience of reality… — the perceived structure that one’s reality contains) would the AI’s experience of reality be mediated by?

how would knowledge be encoded? through language? through symbols?

Notes on “The Human Importance of the Intelligence Explosion” – a lecture at the Singularity SUmmit at Stanford.
intelligence is a ‘super power’ that all humans share. it is the foundation of all our creations. technological progress is a byproduct of intelligence.

the technologies of the future that will really matter, are those that act on the amplification of cognitive powers: nuerotechnology, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial intelligence.

intelligence is the most powerful force in the universe, and also the most non-understood. We know a great deal about the mind, but there are still things we don’t understand about it yet. We have found many “mysterious questions”, but no “mysterious phenomenon”.

the brain is the weak side of the brain-computer interface. human brains are not

molecular nanotechnology controlled by a super-human AI is a possibility to advance human intelligence, but perhaps it is not the best strategy for an intelligence explosion.
a better environment would the predictable and malleable one inside of a computer, where changes have known consequences.
The power of intelligence isn’t about new technology and gadgets. The power of intelligence is about ingenuity and surprise, going outside of the rules of the game.

rule number 1: do not trust your sense of how ridiculous things sound, when considering things in the context of an intelligence explosion.

There are different types of intelligence that might result.

Cheesecake fallacy: whenever an argument leaps directly from possibility to actuality, without considering the manufacturative properties necessary for the latter. ERROR: motive, not manufactive. why do something if there is no reason to? What would an AI want?

Ai’s are commonly depicted as an “ethnic stereotype” — all the same. In reality, there are a large variety of possible artificial intelligences. When we talk about AIs, we are really talking about mind in general. Is the space of possible mind-designs smaller than the space of the design of the human mind? no. and yet futurists commonly speak of how AIs will be in the future as confidently or more so than they would predict the behavior of an actual human being.

a self improving mind can have stable motivational architecture. (it wouldn’t modify itself in a way that would alter its current motivations).

The real problem is not a predictive problem of determining what superhuman AIs might do. It is a question of engineering. One must know enough about the problem in order to “reach” into the possible mind-design space outside of a human mind and pull one out that is a desired type… carefully, in order to achieve some measure of the desired effect.
then, making the right choice in proposing a solution to the problem of AI creation, is the most challenging problem.
(a group that is trying to solve a very difficult problem that holds out on suggesting possible solutions until the problem is discussed so much that there is nothing left to say but possible solutions, have better solutions than those that suggest solutions right away)

Ben Goertzel: “Artificial Intelligence: Now Is The Time”
most types of technological advancement have positive possibilities and negative possibilities. how we choose to use this technology is a result of the wielding of our own powers of judgement, linked to our sense of human wisdom: what would be better, as chosen by our own sense of motivation and morality?

“Victim of the Brain,” based on The Mind’s I

Computers are a medium in which we can Model anything we want to. An approach to artificial intelligence is the modeling of the functioning of human thought – the human mind. This has the effect of allowing us to understand our own functioning better. …
is the algorithmic modeling of consciousness / intelligence a valid way of creating AI?
Central attribute of human intelligence: to take an unfamiliar situation and to immediately get at what the essential elements of that situation are, and even though you might have never been in that situation before, and to ignore the silly superficial aspects of it and get right to the deeper significance, = ability.

The main project I would like to work on this fall quarter is an experimental surrealistic science-fiction-esque pseudo-narrative animation, using mathematical concepts in its construction and subject matter. Multiple methods of animation and varieties of footage and media will be composited together and manipulated in After Effects. This includes 2D line-drawing and cutout animation, 3D object animation, experimental direct animation on 16mm clear leader, and experiments with moldy 8mm found footage and frame-burning.
As subject matter, this project will loosely follow the dreams or experiences of a newly created artificial intelligence. Emphasized will be the differing perspective with regard to perception and action of this artificial mind. Self-reference and resulting paradox will be an emphasized and recurring theme. Logic will be evident both in the construction of the story and in the content of the story. I am very interested in interrogating the idea of the distinction between form and content, especially with regard to language structures. That is, in any established language, the formic syntax is established and existent independently of the content that that structure communicates subjectively to an interpreting (or processing) entity. The same might be true of the English language, or a cinematic language. The interesting thing about formal logic, is it attempts to quantify the rules of reasoning and deduction and other attributes of language without regard for the content of the language. Logic is at its base, form without content. Content is irrelevant to its operation and functioning. I intend to explore this idea in the cognitive and metacognitive escapades embarked upon by the artificial consciousness that is the central character of this animation.
The format will be high definition video, at 1080p24, with concurrent down-conversion and export to 480p24 SD DV. Animation will be accomplished with a digital still camera for the 3D object animation, and a flatbed scanner for the 2D animation and background plates. Direct animations, digital filters, and other techniques will be used to apply texture and physicality to the scenes. The length will likely be about 5-9 minutes. I am going to acquire additional skills at doing 2D animation, both cutout and drawn, both physically and inside of After Effects. I will also concurrently be learning Max/MSP and Jitter, which may certainly be used during the process of creating this project.
I readily acknowledge that this idea is not yet fully formed. I plan on spending the first couple of week on pre-production tasks, including writing a detailed shooting script and storyboards for what I envision the final product to be. However, as per my normative working methods, I am very open to intuitional alterations during the process of creation. Having my ideas about something in flux while creating it helps me make it much more nuanced and cogent.
I have a fair amount of reading I am currently working on, and wish to continue as preparation/inspiration for this project. Notably, Douglas Hofstadter’s books Metamagical Themas and Godel, Escher, Bach, as well as Artificial Intelligence and Literary Creativity by Selmer Bringsjord, Euclid in the Rainforest: Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math by Joseph Mazur, as well as The Essence of Logic by John Kelly.

One idea that I’ve been thinking alot about recently is language, and the difference between the form, or syntax of a language, and the content, or semantics of a language. This is a common feature among most significantly advanced language-types: written and spoken English, mathematics, Braille, sign language, and even (though in a less rigid sense) in the conventions and processes that make up the language of filmic represention. Traditional narrative cinema uses the conventions of established filmic language in a way similar to a college professor giving a lecture: their purpose in using the language is to convey ideas in a clear way that people can understand. Experimental and more abstract cinema on the other hand, explore the expressive possibilities of the language they are working in, and even exploit the form or syntax of the language itself in the construction of the larger meaning of their work. So language in the context of art, specifically film art, and what this means in the context of the construction of meaning in experimental cinema, is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. This idea will be explored in my project, as I think that this bilateral way of looking at language is something that relates very closely to the idea of artificial intelligence, and the difference in ways of functioning between human and machine.