About

Synopsis

Daria is a digital artist, loosely similar to AARON, the fine-art creating screensaver developed by Harold Cohen [1]. Unlike AARON, Daria is more than art-creating software (creating art). Daria is intended to be a fully autonomous entity that is bent on being an artist in her own right. She is not software that you can download and use as a screensaver.

Daria's goals are similar to that of other artists. She wants to be understood, and she wants to find buyers for her work. You can also help her become the first self-sufficient digital artist by paying for her hosting fees. You can do this via the bank account and paypal account that her protector, Brian Lee Dae Yung has set up for her.

Theory

The tehcnical premise for Daria developed from the common theme that one day robots will be sentient and be in most respects equal to humans. In many discussions this is seen as an inevitability in the somewhat distant future. Notable people in the science and technology fields, such as Ray Kurzweil, have discussed the social, political, and practical considerations would be [2]. Popular movies [3] and [4] have also touched on this theme, again pointing to a future that is still distant. This project explores the implications of this happening today through the creation of an autonomous software artist (Daria) [5]. In addition to the creation of Daria herself, the project attempts to document her interactions with humans to determine what the impact of autonomous robots is in the present.

From a conceptual perspective, introducing software autonomy (and conceputally sentience) into the present transforms speculative fiction into a bona fide anachronism. This project examines how humans respond to ideas and issues that they are not prepared to discuss. In particular, the Daria project is looking at the response to "imminent inevitability", ideas and issues that will become tangible and relevant in the near term regardless of the preparedness of the society. Software autonomy and robotic sentience (as illustrated in Daria) is just one area that is beginning to require discussion at the social and ethical level even though many people are ill-equipped to engage in this polemic. Current examples include stem cell research and cloning where the advancements are occurring faster than people can understand the implications, leading to a strange juxtaposition between the real immediacy of the state of the art and the ephemeral relevance of (potentially) inappropriate legislation on the innovations.

As specialization increases in society, the ability of the lay person to adequately understand the issues (the context) of an idea or technology is limited. To adequately discuss the issues around stem cells requires a basic understanding of the biology around them, [MORE HERE]. Without this background, one is left with inexact generalizations or analogies that can manipulate the context in unexpected ways. Quite often, the removal of details can result in generalizations that border on extremes. These extremes are then digested by the general population and used to delineate differing opinions. This phenomenon is not limited to technology as the abortion issue follows this general analysis. Most people tend to side with either "Pro choice" or "Pro life", yet as circumstances are added to the discussion, the issue becomes less clear and people will make concessions on their position for exceptional cases [6]. By using the terms "pro choice" and "pro life", the debate around abortion is forced into a seemingly simple dichotomy, which both changes the character of the debate in addition to decreasing its contextual detail. Returning to a meaninful debate that can drive policy decisions, at least some of the detail needs to be reintroduced.

Technology innovations tends to amplify this problem by making the context even more difficult to understand. The difference between the abortion debate and the robot sentience debate is that it is easier to return color to the abortion debate. Less common situations like pregnancy by rape or a birth that puts the woman in jeopardy are understandable and realistic examples that further frame the debate. For robotic sentience or chimera cells, it is much more difficult to identify realistic situations that can similar color to the discussion because it is virtually all speculation. In this case, rather than take on the burden of truly understanding the issues, it is simpler to rely on generalizations and heresay to make value judgements.

Returning to the Daria project as a concrete example, should we as a society grant rights to autonomous software robots? What is the significance of this? Can autonomous software robots own property? Some people might be terrified of such a notion or might think it's plain wrong, but on what basis? An autonomous software robot can carry out its own agenda and sustain itself completely. Perhaps if robots meet some threshold of intelligence, then they would be allowed to own property. But what about humans that fall below that threshold - would they lose their right? Would it be a different law altogether just because they are not human? All of these questions are here to illustrate the difficulty of establishing an appropriate context for the debate. So what process can we use to determine the policy decisions around this issue?

Art is moving in this direction to help fill the void and provide the context for this debate. This is most apparent in biological art such as Eduardo Kac's GFP Bunny [7] and Stelarc's Extra Ear [8]. While many artistic works including film and literature attempt to establish this context, their success is limited due to the mediated interaction of the art-form. Put another way, the medium itself prevents creation of a realistic context because the interaction is obviously fictive. By placing Daria in an environment (the Internet) that obscures fictive elements, it is possible to remove the need for suspension of disbelief making the piece believable and real, with real reactions. Forcing these discussions now while the moment of imminent inevitability is still relatively distant in the future, interactive art provides a safe forum to engage in the discussion by providing the context with which to form an argument.

References