This is the work done by Pat Pataranutaporn
Valdemar Danry and Professor
Pattie Maes at the MIT Media Lab.
The relationship between our body and
mind is an old
yet still incredibly puzzling phenomenon.
Recent research has shown that not only
can one mind adjust and inhabit multiple
bodies but one body can also be shared
between multiple minds.
This phenomenon is referred to as
polycephaly.
The concept of polycephaly occurs in the
cultural, biological and technological
realms
throughout human history. For example
The Hindu demon king Ravan has 10 heads
that each contain specific branch of
knowledge said to make him one of the
best scholars and strategists.
In the biological realm the conjoined twins
share sensations of vision
touch and taste and can even control one
another limbs
due to a thalamic bridge connecting them
in their brains.
Lastly multiple minds has also been
explored by artist Krzysztof Wodiczko’s
piece called Aegis where the wearer
engages in a dialogue with themselves
about their homeland and identity.
This kind of cognitive
externalization is not just something
mythical but an actual scientifically
studied phenomenon
also known as cognitive uploading
meaning cognitive tasks are externalized
to reduce mental load.
The notion of cognitive distribution
between multiple humans and computer
agents
is further supported by Thomas Malone's
concept of super minds.
According to Yuval Harari this is just the
beginning.
In his book Homo Deus he regards utilizing
the internet for cognitive externalization
as a first step toward a future human
machine symbiosis
where technology will not only assist
human externally
but eventually merge with us and make us
"Homo Deus" or human gods.
Inspired by the ideas of
human machine symbiosis and polycephaly,
we explore the idea of single "self" being
distributed across multiple minds
and temporal identity variations, past
present and future. As a manifestation
of this, we present Machinoia,
a symbiotic augmentation that extends
the user with two additional heads
each of which are unique variations of
the user's identity.
The augmentation consists of two
interactive screens with two necks
connecting to the shoulder of the wearer.
We use screen to act as a metaphorical
mirror that show the multiple faces of
the user reflecting the future,
past and potentially alternative versions
of oneself.
The lifelike generated faces of the
wearer can communicate and express
different facial expressions
based on their interaction with the
wearer turning the wearer into a
digitally augmented polycephalic being.
This is achieved by the combination of a
generative adversarial network, StyleGAN,
and the "first order model" for facial
animation. We developed a method to
construct a computational model of the
wearer's attitude on different topics
using longitudinal social media
information obtained with the consent of
the wearer.
In our implementation we extracted 10
years of one of the author of this
paper's social media data
from 2010 to 2020. These contain over
6000 posts.
We measured the change of the sentiment
on different topics at different age of
the wearer
to estimate the values of an older
version and a younger version of the
wearer.
The trajectory of the sentimental change
are then fitted to a graph which allow
us to extrapolate
and speculate about the person's
attitude in the future or past
by using a time series predictive model.
The resulting speculative attitude model
is then used to trigger different
responses upon usage
when the wearer talks to his or her
artificial persona.
Tor example, this is the response when
you ask what your future
present and past selves think about
technology, or school,
or research.
In conclusion, Machionia demonstrates a
new type of venture into the concept of
human machine symbiosis,
namely integrated polycephalic multiple
mind systems.
Through this temporal merging Machinoia
helps us discover knowledge internal to
ourself to give us
insight into changes of our different
personality traits
and enhancing our overall capability for
introspection.
Machinoia aims to raise awareness of
the gradual adoption of technology as an
integrated part of ourselves
encouraging discussion of its positive
and negative potential
impact on what it means to be human.
Thank you so much.