Man and/or machine

The BBC recently broadcasted ‘James May’s Big Ideas’. In this sequence of documentaries May, probably best known as anti superhero in ‘Top Gear’, explores in the episode ‘Man-machine‘ some projects on cyborgs, avatars, artificial intelligence and robots. Unfortunately, the episode isn’t available online (yet), but there are some parts of it on Youtube.

Explaining the Asimo robot:

The computerization of our own brain, or mediation of it, with a thinking intrument using EEG data from our brain:

Creating an avatar by distracting movements into computer data:

Something that comes ‘as near as possible’ to Robocop:

‘Life logging’:

Almost praising the technologies and lacking critique on it, May is promoting computering and robots as a what Langdon Winner might call ‘computer romanticism‘. No wonder, notice the last sentence on the website: ‘Inspired? Why not consider studying science’. Still, it’s interesting to see how these machines work. Also notice the reactions, wherein a discussion started on what is artificial life, a cyborg, etcetera.