My latest is Psychology Today is titled “Westworld, Emotion and the Dilemma of Machine Consciousness“. It explores the future of AI and the feasibility of machine consciousness through the lens of HBO’s hit series “Westworld“. Drawing from the ideas set out in my book, “Heart of the Machine“, the article is a very condensed version of the evolutionary, neurological and philosophical evidence that may makes up part of the foundation of human consciousness. Westworld draws on this and a few less accepted theories about what it might take to give rise to consciousness in an AI. The article is in two parts. It’s also been cross-posted to Medium.com.
The new podcast Seeking Delphi only began a few months ago, but host Mark Sackler has already spoken to several excellent guest futurists. So I was really pleased when he asked me to speak with him about the focus of my book for Podcast #12: Artificial Emotional Intelligence. It was great fun and I hope we’ll have an opportunity for another conversation soon!
Wow, what a month March was! Heart of the Machine was officially released on March 7 and we marked the occasion with a one hour talk, signing and official book launch at Town Hall Seattle. 150 people attended, made up of friends, family and (hopefully) prospective readers.
Then it was off to Austin to speak at SXSW. I’d never been to either, the city or the festival, so this was a great treat to boot. I was genuinely surprised as I walked from the green room to the event room and had to pass 500 people who were waiting in line for a space that only held 250! Nevertheless, I got to speak with a few people at the book signing afterward who waited around despite not getting in.
Over the course of the next few days there were a number of television interviews (thank you SXSW, CNBC and XPrize/Popular Science). But the icing on the cake was waking up one morning to learn that my book had received a terrific review in the New York Times Book Review – from none other than Ray Kurzweil! I felt stunned and honored all at the same time!
Affective computing leader, Affectiva asked me to share some of my ideas about the developing emotion economy. Future Reflections on the Emotion Economy, explores how an ecosystem of emotionally aware devices and services could rapidly develop, creating an infrastucture on which still more sophisticated capabilities would be built.
This field could well be among the major drivers of the economy in years to come, both nationally and globally. Forecasts consistently show artificial intelligence-related revenues growing rapidly for the foreseeable future, with global revenues quintupling over the next five years. Forecasts for the subcategory of affective computing mirror this growth.
These are still very early days. We need only look at software like Visicalc and WordStar, the first personal computer spreadsheet and word processor developed in 1979, to catch a glimpse of how far a technology can mature in just a few decades.
The emotion economy is just one of the areas I explore in my new book, Heart of the Machine.
There’s something wonderfully satisfying about pouring yourself into a project for the better part of two years, then finally see the first piece of recognition at the national level. Time Magazine’s “Books in Brief” covers Heart of the Machine in their February 27, 2017 issue.
My latest at Fast Company/Co.Exist has the rather lengthy title “Welcome to the Emotion Economy Where AI Responds to–and Predicts–Your Feelings“. It’s been among my most widely shared articles, which my editor there confirmed. Hopefully this means there are a lot of readers out there who are ready to explore this subject in more depth?
