Life on the screen: identity in the age of the Internet'Life on the Screen' is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, 'bots,' virtual reality, and 'the on-line way of life.' Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's 'Society of Mind') and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. |
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A-Life able aesthetic agents alive artificial intelligence Barry says become behavior biology Blind Watchmaker brain bricolage called character cognitive complex computational objects computer culture computer program computer psychotherapy computer's connectionism connectionist conversation create creatures culture of simulation cyberspace DEPRESSION 2.0 described electronic ELIZA emergent emotional example experience feel gender human idea identity images information processing interactive interface Internet Julia says kind LambdaMOO language lives look machine Macintosh mind Minsky models modernist MUDs multiple notion personal computers physical play players postmodern psychoanalytic psychological psychotherapy puter question relationship response robots Rodney Brooks role rules screen sense sexual Seymour Papert Sherry Sherry Turkle SimLife social StarLogo Stewart story student style talk theory therapist therapy things thought tion traditional Turing Turing test Turkle understand users video games virtual communities virtual reality Weizenbaum Windows Winterlight woman writing York