NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware

Evolvable Hardware Conference
Evolvable Hardware is an emerging field that applies evolution to automate design and adaptation of physical reconfigurable and morphable structures such as electronic systems, antennas, MEMS and robots. The purpose of this conference is to bring together leading researchers from the evolvable hardware community, representatives of the automated design and programmable/reconfigurable hardware communities, technology developers and end-users from the aerospace, military and commercial sectors.

Kevin Warwick says I Robot scenario is a possible future

Australian Broadcasing Corporation Lateline - 20/07/2004: AI will threaten human supremacy: Warwick
ABC reporter Tony Jones interviewed Captain Cyborg in London.

"TONY JONES: This new film I Robot raises once again the wonderful science-fiction idea of robots becoming sentient and thinking they're actually better than the humans that built them.

You think this could actually happen, though, don't you?

PROFESSOR KEVIN WARWICK: Oh, most definitely."

Interesting stuff: of course, there is the possibility that machines can "sense" things, and come to conclusions based upon a selction of choices humans have given them. In a military scenario as Warwick describes it this possibility is more than a little chilliing. Machine intelligences "do have an initial program and they are built-in in a certain way, but then they start learning and adapting and experiencing and it really depends on what they've learnt," Warwick says. "As with a human child, you can't be overly sure what exactly it is they've learnt and what conclusions they can come up to as far as based on their experience. So it can be extremely dangerous."

Warwick goes on to briefly describe the project that earned him the moniker Captain Cyborg, an experiment in "upgrading" the human brain. "I was able to have literally an extra sense, an ultrasonic sense, which, with a blindfold on, it gave me the ability to detect objects and to move around," he said.

Cyborg migration patterns and communication behaviours

We name new Dr Who intergalactic übervillain | The Register
Captain Cyborg travels to New Zealand to "subjugate the population to his will with the usual outpouring of cybernetic hocus-pocus," says cyborgologist Lester Haines.

Haines refers to original research by the New Zealand Herald, an article on cyborg zap-communication behaviours exhibited by Captain Cyborg and his wife Irena: Couples' nervous system linked by implants in limbs.