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Un cervello in corpo d'avatar È questa l'immortalità digitale

Where once knowledge of the ancestors was through busts or pictures in dusty black and white, today there are those who are working to make this relationship as direct as possible. From Japan to the United States, the dream of immortality - at least digitally - no longer seems so impossible. Multiply it plans to build twin digitized able to transmit the teachings of a lifetime for the children of the grandchildren of their grandchildren. The idea is to create avatars - for now, only computer in the future who knows - as do a back up of its own memory, so as to entrust the task of extending the self after death.

Strain by the magazine New Scientist, the network there are already several companies that offer this type of service, known as the "creating mind" file ". Use them is simple: just have a little 'free time, a good dose of patience and the desire to transform bytes in the key moments of our lives. The result is not always guaranteed, it's an alter ego who, while living in the computer, learn to speak, move and behave like us. There are also companies that go further, anticipating scenarios in mind which files and file bio you can join to create something very similar to a clone biologico.

Il back up della memoria. La creazione (gratuita) del mind file è pratica corrente su siti come Lifenaut 1e CyBeRev 2. Si tratta di compagnie americane la cui "mission" è esplorare le possibilità di immagazzinamento della vita in rappresentazioni computerizzate realistiche, vale a dire avatar. Lifenaut, ad esempio, consente di caricare in un archivio digitale foto, video e documenti personali che verranno conservati per generazioni. Partendo da una foto preferibilmente inespressiva, il software la anima in modo da farla parlare, ammiccare e sbattere le ciglia. Agli utenti spetta il compito di raccontarsi attraverso test psicologici, autodescrizioni e resoconti vari, il tutto "taggando" a mo' di Facebook luoghi, date and people.

"In this way - explain the leaders - you help the avatar to organize his / our memories." It 'also provides for the inclusion of pieces of correspondence, diary entries and contributions of friends and relatives, to ensure that the digital alter ego is not only a reflection of what would be wanted. CyBeRev, however, bring its clients to thousands of questions inspired by the work of American sociologist William Sims Bainbridge. The aim is to capture hopes, values \u200b\u200band attitudes by asking people to imagine the world in a hundred years. "This is a time consuming process," warns Lori Rhodes, founder of CyBeRev. "Dedicating an hour a day every day, it takes cinque anni per completare tutte le domande. Sapendo che più si va a fondo nelle risposte, più il mind file sarà una copia fedele della nostra mente".

"Mind file" in presa diretta. Sulla scia di LifeLogger (sistema multimediale di blog e social networking creato da Orientations Network S. B. nel 2004) alcuni programmi si propongono di catturare in presa diretta il fluire di esperienze e ricordi. Un esempio è MyLifeBits 3, il progetto con cui Gordon Bell, ricercatore Microsoft, sta cercando di fermare nel tempo tutto ciò che lo riguarda, dalle telefonate di lavoro alle immagini riprese da una videocamera-ombra che lo accompagna nella sua giornata. Un team della University of Southampton (Regno Unito) si sta ingegnando per raffinare ancora di più questo principio, facendo corrispondere alle istantanee informazioni ricavate dal proprio diario, dai social network e dalle coordinate GPS in il soggetto si è mosso. In prospettiva, i ricercatori vorrebbero riuscire a integrare questi dati con misure fisiologiche, come ad esempio il ritmo del battito cardiaco, così da associare le emozioni ai fatti.

Lavorando sulle facce. Uno degli ostacoli più grandi per arrivare ad avatar "credibili" è la questione dei volti. Come fare a creare un modello in grado di rendere anche solo l'idea delle infinite sfaccettature che compongono un sorriso? A complicare la faccenda è il fenomeno noto come "uncanny valley" (letteralmente "valle perturbante"), termine utilizzato by robotics pioneer Masahiro Mori of Japan to describe the feelings of revulsion and anxiety that are generated in the presence of mind automata very similar, but not quite equal to humans.

As New Scientist points out in this area has the highest results they achieved the 4 Image Metrics, California-based company specializes in making faces for digital film and video games. Starting from a series of high-resolution photographs of the face of a person (each characterized by different emotional nuances), engineers were able to extrapolate the numerical differences between an expression and another, and then reproduce them in digital format. They did, for example, the avatar of the American Emily O'Brien (video). In 2008, his digital alter ego was presented at the ACM Siggraph conference in Los Angeles, earning the praise of fans of animation and more.

life in society. With regard to social interaction, the pilot study is 5 Lifelike Project, a collaboration between University of Central Florida (Orlando) and University of Illinois (Chicago). Since 2007 a group of researchers is working to build a realistic avatar of Alexander Schwarzkopf, former director of the U.S. National Science Foundation. The data collected showed that this in which human beings pay more attention to evaluating the credibility of an avatar is not so much the physical details, but rather idiosyncratic movements that make each person unique. This is why the priority is the small gestures, the arch of the eyebrows, the tip of the head with one hand as a sign of empathy, the subtle flexing of muscles at the corners of the nose.
A good avatar, of course, must also be able to speak with knowledge of the facts: this involved the chatbot software, programs that simulate conversations between human beings basic analysis of the context. Lifenaut, for example, uses Jabberwacky, a type of particularly advanced chatbot program that suits the individual user. Born from the study of conversations between millions of people since 1997, the software has twice won the award thanks to realism LOEBNERI of his dialogues.

Avatar organic. The jump from a digital I remember, speaks and tells a physical avatar in the flesh still belongs to science fiction, but some have already started thinking about it. Generate a human being by putting together the "bio file" and "mind file": this is, ultimately, the long-term goal of programs like Lifenaut. These include the back up of the brain into a clone generated with its own cells. The more motivated they can start the process right now: after filling out a format, the company sends the customer's home a bottle of mouthwash, and these, after use, returned to the sender with a sample of his saliva, whose cells are cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -197 ° C. Being a successful business in doubt - and ethics laws could continue to exist in the future - the company is asking for a small daily contribution protection (1 dollar a day) or a one-time payment of about $ 9,000. Trifles for those who are willing to do even madness to escape death. Giulia
Belardelli
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Il "popolo della Rete" è più aperto

If the ideological fragmentation and segregation are increasingly prominent in the real world, this phenomenon does not correspond to the virtual world. Internet users are "vagabonds ideological, far more curious than you think, the constant search the confrontation of ideas, want to know what happens on the other side of the fence politically and not afraid to explore sites that contain opposing views. And the Internet is far from being closed and segregated as often tends to believe.

I'm not sure that I agree, but say it is an interesting research by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, professors of the Chicago School of Business Booth *, which investigates how the use of information over the Internet is marked by a sort of ideological segregation "and compares the results with the segregation of traditional media and interpersonal interactions.

This study sheds new light on the effect "case resonance "in which our beliefs are strengthened hearing or read similar ideas. If you like to find confirmation of our preconceived ideas, the Internet, which allows you to customize the selection of online media and therefore select only the stories we're interested, could isolate us behind our beliefs and, ultimately, produce a kind of "bias" of society into distinct groups.

In the publication "ideological segregation on and offline" Gentzkow and Shapiro demonstrate the opposite. According to the two researchers, there is no convincing evidence that the Internet progressively accentuate the ideological segregation. In contrast, the study shows that segregation of ideological Internet users is lower than the readership of national newspapers. In addition, that trade on the Internet are much more ideologically diverse than other traditional forms of association, as the discussions in the workplace or in church. It 'much more likely to encounter people with opposing ideas on the Internet that walking in their neighborhood.

But the most important finding is that the majority of internet users regularly visit sites generalist (or non-politically oriented) such as AOL or Yahoo News and also visit those sites that do not necessarily reflect their ideologies. Even when they go to other sites, have a habit of visiting those where they meet very different people from them.

Research Gentzkow and Shapiro, which incorporates the analysis tools used to measure racial segregation in the United States, focuses primarily on the behavior of individuals on the Internet. Starting from a sample of newspapers and websites, the researchers measured the size of every conservative online journal, ie, the proportion of readers who say they are cool "conservative." As a result, have given a conservative value to the proportion of each media source of information visited. For example, if the site is the only online newspaper nytimes.com consulted by the reader, its exposure is defined by the conservative size of the site. If the reader consults in addition to also nytimes.com foxnews.com, its exposure will be equal to the average size of the conservative of the two sites.

Anna Masera
www.lastampa.it

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Ancora su Internet e privacy

Privacy and social networks: two seemingly irreconcilable concepts. The explosion of Web 2.0, with all services related to information sharing, content and products, has created new possibilities for the user, but it has also led to having to choose more carefully what to say of himself online.

authorities and Google. The authorities that protect the privacy have long focused their attention on sites and services of the social web. E 'news a few days ago the shared document among the guarantors of the Privacy of ten countries (including Italy) have "called" Google to comply with rules on the processing of personal data, especially in light of what we saw with the social network Buzz. "We were deeply disturbed - reads the paper - by the recent introduction of the application of social networking Buzz, which unfortunately has highlighted a serious lack of regard for rules and basic standards of privacy. Also, this is not the first time that Google does not take adequate account of privacy when launching new services. "

Buzz, appeared to all users of Gmail, it's just one example and are le stesse autorità a specificare quanto il problema sia globale: “Le Autorità riconoscono che Google non è l'unica società ad avere introdotto servizi online senza prevedere tutele adeguate per gli utenti. Tuttavia, sollecitano Google a dare l'esempio, "in quanto leader nel mondo online", incorporando meccanismi a garanzia della privacy direttamente in fase di progettazione di nuovi servizi online”.

La privacy. Come difendere la propria privacy online? Per iniziare può essere utile scaricare dal sito del garante italiano una breve guida con i comportamenti da tenere in rete. Le informazioni qui contenute sono in gran parte dettate dal buon senso e sono abbastanza facili da mettere in atto. Qualche dubbio sorge solo across the board to read the contracts you sign with services such as Facebook and shareholders: the right to say, impossible (only the privacy policy of Facebook is 16 pages long, with the addition of the terms of service). The number one rule remains the self-defense: do not give too much personal information, do not share embarrassing photos, do not trust someone just because you asked the friendship.

To facilitate understanding of the long contracts offered by online services, we made cards that highlight some of the more significant, especially in order to understand the level of control that you can have on personal data and their possible removal. The comparison sites are Facebook, FriendFeed, Buzz, Twitter and YouTube. Web 2.0 is not the same.

Unsubscribe from these services is not as easy as people think or permanent. Facebook has two levels of cancellation (one of which is almost impossible to find), Buzz does not like and delete the comments left on other people's profiles, YouTube videos and does not delete the channel (it must be done manually). More definitive are Twitter and FriendFeed.

Very different is the ability to affect the distribution of content through the control panels: extremely full to Facebook (which also allows you to manage the results of search engines), while all other services only provide the opportunity to make their updates only available from authorized friends.

The availability of Italian in terms of service is tied to the success of the various platforms. Ok Google, YouTube and Facebook, FriendFeed in English only, while Twitter has a translated version in our language, but with different errors and parts still in English. All services are analyzed in reference to the laws of states other than Italian. In the event of litigation reserve the right words to solve them by following the laws of California (Facebook and Twitter), the State of New York (FriendFeed) or of the English courts (Google and YouTube).

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