The world is a mask that hides the real world.
Thatâs what everybody suspects, though the world we see wonât let us dwell on it long.
The world has ways - more masks - of getting our attention.
The suspicion sneaks in now and again, between the cracks of everyday existenceâ¦the bird song dips, rises, dips, trails off into blue sky silence before the note that would reveal the shape of a melody that, somehow, would tie everything together, on the verge of unmasking the hidden armature that frames this sky, this tree, this bird, this quivering green leaf, jewels in a crown.â¦
As the song dies, the secret withdraws.
The tree is a mask.
The sky is a mask.
The quivering green leaf is a mask.
The song is a mask.
The singing bird is a mask.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
robo-therapists, robotic pets
Pets of the future may be lifelike, but not real by Linton Weeks, 8 May 2005
WASHINGTON - There is something just so tomorrow about the Russian robo-therapists with their mechanical cats.
Alexander Libin softly strokes the orange-cream fur of NeCoRo — a semirealistic cat-robot packed with visual, auditory and movement-sensitive sensors and weighing 3.5 pounds — while his wife, Elena, serves tea and cookies.
"She's like a real pet," Alex says. He's petting a tabby nicknamed Cleo and, by gosh, it does look like a cat, or some come-alive stuffed animal from a high-end horror movie. It is much more lifelike than Sony's Erector-Set-like robo-dog, Aibo.
Cleo lounges on the dining table, stretches its paws, arches its back, twitches its tail, opens and shuts its eyes. When it turns its neck you can hear a creepy mechanical whirring sound.
Self-described robo-therapists and affiliated faculty members at Georgetown University, the Libins believe in the restorative value of animal companions. The catbot, they explain, is easier for many people — the elderly, the allergy-stricken, the autistic and disabled children and adults — to deal with than a real cat. Developed by Omron Corp. of Japan, the mecho-pets are not yet available in the United States, Libin says.
They don't have to be fed or cleaned up after. Other variations — a teddy bear and a baby seal — are in development at other labs, and some people believe robotic pets will be omnipresent in the near future.
Cleo meows obnoxiously and occasionally hisses unless you touch it a certain way, tripping special sensors, and then it closes its eyes, relaxes and purrs or mews contentedly.
"Cleo the robo-cat closes its eyes and purrs when rubbed." [Susan Biddle/Washington Post]
The whole scene makes you a little nervous. As you delve into the future of pets on this planet, you discover at least three possibilities: robotic, cloned and biologically reprogrammed. It's a foggy, uncharted world of cuddly robots, copycat puppies, nonallergenic cats, glowing fish, gargantuan guinea pigs, miniature hippos and the re-establishment of endangered or extinct species that could put us all in danger.
Because pets are not human but are endowed with personality, intelligence and emotion, they're the perfect foils — in-between beings — for our scientific curiosity. Think about it. Of course scientists are going to tamper with their genetic structures! You bet they'll tinker with their bloodlines! Breeders have been doing that for years. But now pet researchers can implant software, readjust the genome and conduct experiments in interspecies embryo transfer in ways that have never been done before.
"I'm not scared of the robots," says Alex as he pets Cleo. "I'm scared of the people."
Sherry Turkle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and author of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, believes there is a huge future for robotic pets. Like the Libins, she has been studying the effects of robotic pets on people. She's convinced that people are responding to the new generation of robo-pets because people are basically lonely and vulnerable. And though they may not want to feed and clean up after the mechanical animals, they do want more and more expressions of affection from the machines. "We are being asked to take care of these computers," she says. "And that is one of the most seductive things."
Of course, this puts us back into willing servitude.
Irony alert: As we build more-needy machines that act more like animals, we are also developing less-needy animals that act more like machines.
With pets, as with just about everything else, there is never just one future. There are many — varied and diverse. The futures of pets are less certain than our own. We will grow old, our memories will melt away, we will continue our quest for novelty, and community and love. Ultimately, the kind of pet we will choose in our own future says as much about us as it does about our options. Are we comfortable with machines or do we like the woodsy smell of a hunting dog's coat? Would we rather speak to our Internet-informed parrot or dangle yarn between a kitten's little paws?
"Robotic pets in some ways have advantages," says the Human Society's Martha Armstrong. But there's true joy "in seeing a person respond to a kitten or cat that purrs, sits in their lap, or a dog that licks its face. It's that heartbeat. It's that living thing. I hardly think a robotic pet makes somebody feel needed."
Or possibly robotic pets will create a whole new variety of relationships.
Back in the Libins' home office, Cleo the robot cat meows and meows. It's a cool day and the windows are open. Real birds twitter in the real trees as the real sun sets.
Alex Libin says living with robotic pets has given him an even greater appreciation for real-life animals. But he also appreciates the robot's gifts: Though Cleo is animatronically correct, it's strictly confined in its movements, and there's no chance it will accidentally walk across the table, knock over the plate of cookies, bump into cups of hot tea or interfere in any way with the couple's lifestyle.
As the Libins move around the room, Cleo's mechanical mewing becomes more pronounced. It's agitated and doesn't want to settle down. "She needs a lot of attention," Elena Libin explains.
Alex laughs and says his wife is now performing therapy on the robot. "The main idea behind these robots," says Alex, "was to create a model of a living creature."
The more lifelike the robot, the more people respond.
WASHINGTON - There is something just so tomorrow about the Russian robo-therapists with their mechanical cats.
Alexander Libin softly strokes the orange-cream fur of NeCoRo — a semirealistic cat-robot packed with visual, auditory and movement-sensitive sensors and weighing 3.5 pounds — while his wife, Elena, serves tea and cookies.
"She's like a real pet," Alex says. He's petting a tabby nicknamed Cleo and, by gosh, it does look like a cat, or some come-alive stuffed animal from a high-end horror movie. It is much more lifelike than Sony's Erector-Set-like robo-dog, Aibo.
Cleo lounges on the dining table, stretches its paws, arches its back, twitches its tail, opens and shuts its eyes. When it turns its neck you can hear a creepy mechanical whirring sound.
Self-described robo-therapists and affiliated faculty members at Georgetown University, the Libins believe in the restorative value of animal companions. The catbot, they explain, is easier for many people — the elderly, the allergy-stricken, the autistic and disabled children and adults — to deal with than a real cat. Developed by Omron Corp. of Japan, the mecho-pets are not yet available in the United States, Libin says.
They don't have to be fed or cleaned up after. Other variations — a teddy bear and a baby seal — are in development at other labs, and some people believe robotic pets will be omnipresent in the near future.
Cleo meows obnoxiously and occasionally hisses unless you touch it a certain way, tripping special sensors, and then it closes its eyes, relaxes and purrs or mews contentedly.
"Cleo the robo-cat closes its eyes and purrs when rubbed." [Susan Biddle/Washington Post]
The whole scene makes you a little nervous. As you delve into the future of pets on this planet, you discover at least three possibilities: robotic, cloned and biologically reprogrammed. It's a foggy, uncharted world of cuddly robots, copycat puppies, nonallergenic cats, glowing fish, gargantuan guinea pigs, miniature hippos and the re-establishment of endangered or extinct species that could put us all in danger.
Because pets are not human but are endowed with personality, intelligence and emotion, they're the perfect foils — in-between beings — for our scientific curiosity. Think about it. Of course scientists are going to tamper with their genetic structures! You bet they'll tinker with their bloodlines! Breeders have been doing that for years. But now pet researchers can implant software, readjust the genome and conduct experiments in interspecies embryo transfer in ways that have never been done before.
"I'm not scared of the robots," says Alex as he pets Cleo. "I'm scared of the people."
Sherry Turkle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and author of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, believes there is a huge future for robotic pets. Like the Libins, she has been studying the effects of robotic pets on people. She's convinced that people are responding to the new generation of robo-pets because people are basically lonely and vulnerable. And though they may not want to feed and clean up after the mechanical animals, they do want more and more expressions of affection from the machines. "We are being asked to take care of these computers," she says. "And that is one of the most seductive things."
Of course, this puts us back into willing servitude.
Irony alert: As we build more-needy machines that act more like animals, we are also developing less-needy animals that act more like machines.
With pets, as with just about everything else, there is never just one future. There are many — varied and diverse. The futures of pets are less certain than our own. We will grow old, our memories will melt away, we will continue our quest for novelty, and community and love. Ultimately, the kind of pet we will choose in our own future says as much about us as it does about our options. Are we comfortable with machines or do we like the woodsy smell of a hunting dog's coat? Would we rather speak to our Internet-informed parrot or dangle yarn between a kitten's little paws?
"Robotic pets in some ways have advantages," says the Human Society's Martha Armstrong. But there's true joy "in seeing a person respond to a kitten or cat that purrs, sits in their lap, or a dog that licks its face. It's that heartbeat. It's that living thing. I hardly think a robotic pet makes somebody feel needed."
Or possibly robotic pets will create a whole new variety of relationships.
Back in the Libins' home office, Cleo the robot cat meows and meows. It's a cool day and the windows are open. Real birds twitter in the real trees as the real sun sets.
Alex Libin says living with robotic pets has given him an even greater appreciation for real-life animals. But he also appreciates the robot's gifts: Though Cleo is animatronically correct, it's strictly confined in its movements, and there's no chance it will accidentally walk across the table, knock over the plate of cookies, bump into cups of hot tea or interfere in any way with the couple's lifestyle.
As the Libins move around the room, Cleo's mechanical mewing becomes more pronounced. It's agitated and doesn't want to settle down. "She needs a lot of attention," Elena Libin explains.
Alex laughs and says his wife is now performing therapy on the robot. "The main idea behind these robots," says Alex, "was to create a model of a living creature."
The more lifelike the robot, the more people respond.
