Keeper
Keeper is a tool that helps parents and teachers get to know children’s methods of learning and interests, with an added element of play for children.
Project Abstract.
In the beginning of the studio, we were asked: ‘Are we cyborgs?’ I felt it was important to first define the the term. A more physical explanation is that a cyborg is a combination of human and machine. The term ‘cyborg’ is short for cybernetic organism. Cybernetics is ‘the science of communication and control theory’. To break it down further, cybernetics comes from the Greek term for ‘to steer the ship’ which is a complex operation involving a constant feedback loop between the steerer and the ship, which then allows them both to find their way. Organisms are living beings, us, or multicellular organisms.
As we went deeper into the semester, we explored a more philosophical explanation for the term. In Laboria Cubonik’s Xenofeminist Manifesto and Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, the ‘cyborg’ is not just a thing, it is an ontology – a particular way of life or set of beliefs. For Haraway, the cyborg represents a breakdown of the boundaries between human, animal and machine, as well as the boundary between physical and nonphysical (Haraway 1984). This viewpoint is taken especially by self-imposed cyborgs who believe that this ‘way of life’ is to become transhuman. A transhumanist is described as a person who explores all available and future methods for self enhancement that eventually leads toward the radical change of posthuman — which is to ultimately become nearly unlimited in physical and psychological capability, or to go beyond human (Broderick 2013)
To go beyond human, to singularity, technology has to advance from artificial intelligence which serves us, to superhuman intelligence which are us, essentially transcending us from biology. And we are already slowly working our way towards it, driven by human evolution.
To continue evolving, we need to continue seeking new experiences and new information. We need to expand our knowledge, especially that of our own bodies and our own intelligence. As Ray Kurzweil states in his book, Singularity is Near (2005), ‘understanding the methods of the brain will help us to design similar biologically inspired machines’. We know so little about our brain – we are yet to understand how it functions as an information processing organ, what it all means, how information is stored, where it exists — and to ride the transhumanist wave, this is precisely what we need to achieve superhuman intelligence.ry online can make all the difference.