Research Presentation

In my research presentation I started off by explaining the singularity, and then went on to talk about current AI and robots we have in the world today. I mentioned Sofia the robot and talked about how she’s not actually capable of emotions, despite popular belief, and that actually she is just programmed with responses and a ‘machine learning’ capability that allows her conversational capabilities and body language to develop the more she talks with humans. I then mentioned some of the negative aspects of AI - the military last year launched a programme where they use googles artificial intelligence program for their robot drones. 

I talked about the workshop we did the other day and the robot medication we designed and then showed another search task I did in response to that where I took pictures of appliances in my flat and labelled what mental disorders they would have:

• TV - multiple personality disorder
• Washing machine - OCD - cleans everything 
• Drinks Fridge - alcoholism 
• Fridge - stress and anxiety - just needs to chill

I then spoke about some design that applies to the theme well, firstly Ben Arfur’s design - he uses a lot of metallic figures, hands, faces etc. which are quite futuristic and robot esque. And also Paul Paetzel who’s an illustrator who did a series of bright colourful scenes of dystopian robotic futures. 

The feedback from my presentation was very positive, suggesting I had engaged with the research well, and that my topic was interesting to learn about. I talked about the direction that I would like to take my work in and got some good feedback on that; I said I liked exploring the topic with a lighter tone, similar to the robot medication project, where its speculative and entertaining, but still theres this underlying idea that it is informing people it could happen. One off the bits off research that I found most interesting was this idea that by 2045, robots will have the same rights as us and will be able to vote or marry etc. I would quite like to explore this idea, and maybe through doing this I can research current social issues which apply.