Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Telepresence, the Missing Discussion of Ethics and some Robots (just for fun)

It's almost hard for me to admit the rapid pace at which it seems our world is becoming a virtual(ly friendly) environment. As some of you have already posted, online educational games, courses, robots controlled by the monkeys' thoughts in addition to the the virtual organization,"virtual teleconferencing, manipulation of graphically rendered objects, telepresence surgery, architectural design and vehicle movement" mentioned in by Terri Toles Patkin in "Constructing the Virtual Organization: Using a Virtual Multimedia Simulation for Communication Education" are really beginning to make me think.

Architectural design and graphically rendered objects do not offend me. However, the although convenient, cars that park themselves, and telepresence surgery are two examples of what I believe are really going to foreshadow the next decade as such conveniences begin to integrate themselves into our lives.

This video is a great summary for the examples of telepresence given by Terri Toles Patkin, in additional to a new telepresence system Pebbles which is used for educational purposes.
Telepresence Robotics - Haptics, Pebbles, Virtual Surgery:


On thing, that is important to me but however remains largely unexplored are the ethics behind virtual realities, telepresence systems, embedded chips etc. I believe that our technology is advancing so rapidly people are not able to agree on a code of ethics, or rules. We are going to create Alife before we even understand how it should be appropriately used. Look at our online practices as of now. The internet has been a household item for more than a decade and still there is very little understanding of online practices such "flaming" and furthermore there is no agreement for the types of regulations that there should be when there are real world consequences for online actions. People think that "If it's happening virtually, then it must not *really* be happening right?" Well, an email may not be as formal as a written letter however you've contacted that person, they are informed of your message, decode that message and then either file or "discard" that message. Even the "codes" of email (as discussed in Ch.19)are still being understood however communications and interaction via email are definitely a large part of what dictates our real lives. Therefore codes of conduct and a better understanding of our online/ virtual-to-be nation is definitely a necessity. We are behind the ball on this one.

My last complaint (or flame) is that Philip A. Thompsen considers flaming to be a "social phenomenon"?? All I can say is PUHHHLEEZ!!

this is just absurd>>> Captured by Robots:

1 comment:

Lance Strate said...

On flaming as a social phenomenon, what that means is that flaming involves a social interaction between two people, as opposed to being an individual behavior. That second video is great--really enjoyed it.