In preparation for my presentation on Friday, I will briefly introduce the topic. This presentation asks the question: What is the computer? In general, we know that the computer requires software, hardware, and in many circumstances, a human (wetware) to operate. However, when we scrutinize these terms (software, hardware, wetware), which seem to be distinct at first glance, the boundaries seem to erode. The perspectives under which these boundaries erode will be explored throughout the presentation. There are three key themes which will be discussed throughout the presentation:

Wearable / Mobile Technology

This type of technology blurs the boundaries between what is human and what is computer. As we have discussed previously in the class, talking about the post-human phenomenon. The video below is one example of this type of technology. Researchers at Georgia Tech created an attachable arm that learns the behavior of your actual limbs and imitates this behavior. As a result, it is able to play drums along with a human.

The Consequences of Abstraction

The layers of abstraction which characterize a computer, simultaneously allow a great amount of flexibility, but also obscure the inner functions of the computer alienating the user. This presentation will explore this theme and the consequences of this architecture.

Computational Creativity

This final theme, a research area which has progressively grown in popularity in recent years, blurs the lines between software and hardware, and the human. Designing programs and computational systems which imitate human creativity is a difficult task. In some respects, it seems ridiculous to even suggest that computers could be capable of any form of creativity. However, creativity involves exploration, experimentation, and recombination, which are tasks that the computer excels at due to powerful processing capabilities.

For example, when first learning to improvise on the piano, a human may try adding notes at random to a generic melody. Although this may sound horrible at first, with time the human will develop highly nuanced strategies to selecting notes without any forethought. The computer is capable of exploring many possible note combinations very quickly, however, it is incapable of listening and evaluating the aesthetic value of a melody without some sort of aesthetic evaluation function. It is unknown how humans developed an aesthetic sense of what notes sound good together, but most people can quite easily distinguish a good melody from a bad melody. This is undoubtedly shaped by the music which we are exposed too.

So although a computer has some advantages in creative tasks over the human, it also has some deficiencies, which current research is trying to address. Of particular interest are the questions surrounding the ability of computers to be creative. Is it possible for an agent to be creative without any awareness of the implications of its actions?