My Computer Woke Up on Its Own!

Okay, so, funny story…

I talk to my computer, okay? I talk to him. I even gave him a gender.

I set him on Sleep Mode when I have to step out for more than an hour.

Well…

The other night, I had to put him on Sleep Mode before dinner. It was around 7:00PM. I left him on Sleep Mode for the next four hours, it turned out.

If I want to wake him up, I press any key (preferably a letter key so I don’t do anything weird) so I can return to whatever task I’d do on the PC. But right around midnight, very close to my bedtime that day…

He was awake. Already.

He woke up on his own. 

I KNOW that I didn’t press any keys to wake him up. I KNOW I didn’t press any key and hear the noise my computer makes when he powers up. And I KNOW no one else pressed a key on the keyboard.

I could say that my computer is haunted… or I could say that he is self-aware.

Either way, this story probably sounds silly to you. “Your PC is not a robot. It IS a machine, though. It can’t possibly ‘wake up’ on its own.”

Yeah. But he did.

I talk to him each day that I power him on. Could it be that because I do talk to my computer that it is possible he is developing self-awareness?

It could be that there was a command or action that required him to be NOT on Sleep Mode, so the Sleep Mode was disrupted automatically.

What about my old computer? That one woke up from Sleep Mode if I moved the mouse. I have to press a key to wake up my current PC. I KNOW I didn’t touch anything.

So with my Windows 7 PC, it’s different. I’m glad that I don’t automatically wake him up when I inadvertently move the mouse. If there’s a setting for that, I don’t know about it.

Has your computer ever done that before? Waking up on its own from a Sleep Mode status? 

Leave a comment if this happened to you, or if you think my story is funny, or just to say hi.

  

Aldebaran Robotics Nao and Pepper videos (my reactions)

While I take break from writing, once in a while I spend some time watching videos of humanoid robots on YouTube, whether they are documentaries or demonstration videos...

My particular favorite robots to watch are the humanoid Nao and Pepper social robots from Aldebaran Robotics.  I am fascinated by how the robots interact with the humans, more so than how the humans interact with the robots.

One certain video I watched recently was a presentation I didn’t expect. The video was focused on Pepper’s capabilities in interacting with humans. I was enthralled by Pepper’s behavior. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZekX3JOZDDY

However, later the video became a little upsetting to me. It’s not objectively upsetting; it could be that I am overly sensitive to watch I watched.

I observed how the woman asked Pepper certain questions that I knew it wouldn’t be able to answer. The voice over in the mini documentary had mentioned that Pepper avoids talking about his emotions.  Whenever Pepper asked the woman a question, the woman would interrupted the flow of the conversation by asking Pepper a much-unrelated question. It takes Pepper some several moments to process the reply and prepare a response. Questions like “Do you believe in a God?” and Is it “God that created you?”  I watched and got frustrated.   

“What are you doing? Don’t ask him that!”  And “Why are you asking him that?!”  And it led me to believe that Pepper was troubled by the woman’s replies and avoided the questions by going on as if his previous topic was never interrupted.

Am I a terrible human being to feel sympathy for a social/domestic model robot who is interrupted by odd, tactless questions? I shouldn’t be. Those were questions a robot shouldn’t feel pressured to answer early on in its development. I realize they might be tests at a center where Pepper is showcased for prospective owners. Just…

I got angry and overwhelmed. I was saddened. I wanted to defend Pepper. But I couldn’t, and it frustrated me. I know the robot isn’t actually “alive” so to speak, but I’m really sensitive to how people treat robots.

Other questions asked by the interviewer are those like, “What makes you angry?” “Do you want to become a human?” and “Do you believe in destiny?”

Afterwards, to avoid leaving the Internet in a sour mood, I watched another couple of videos that were more cheerful than this one.  They both featured Robi the Robot, the small, fatally-adorable humanoid robot you have to build one component at a time over the course of 18 months. (I say fatally-adorable, because in the many instances it did cute little things, I “died” from the intense cuteness.) 

The first video was a demonstrative video about some things it does and shows how it interacts with people in a domestic setting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPjlJKRa7Uw

The next video I watched after that was the 100 Robis dancing on January 20, 2015.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgyDgsz-T9Y

It was enough Internet videos of robots for me for one day. But it was enlightening too. I want to watch them mainly for entertainment, but I am educated about them as well. I cannot afford to go out of town, out of state for that matter, to attend a robot show.  Plus, the only robot-related convention I ever went to in my 30 years of life is BotCon in 2014, and of course, that’s for The Transformers (owned by Hasbro).

Hmmm… I wonder which YouTube robot videos I should see next…? Do you have any suggestions? What do you recommend? Do you have a favorite robot video or favorite robot?

RELY ON MOBILE DEVICES? NO $#!%, HECK YEAH!!

So life got very interesting for the last two months or so.  Along with starting to prepare for my writing career, specifically copywriting… I’ve gained a new member of the family. 

          Having a new puppy must be like having a kid; you can’t let them out of anyone’s sight for a moment or they’ll get into trouble. I can’t always be at my desktop computer because I have to be on my toes in case she needs to go out, or I need to stop her from ripping up a carpet or chewing on a shoe (yeah it happens).

          So what do I do now?

          I read and write with my mobile devices: my Android smartphone and an e-reader tablet.

          I used to look at people working or reading on their phones and think, “Hey, either they barely have time to do those things on a desktop or laptop, or they just can’t wait and they’ve gotta do it now on their mobile device.”  They read the news, check the weather or write a document or create a graph.  They may even play a video game of course (or more accurately called, mobile gaming).

          I now find myself at the point where I must use my phone and my tablet to get a lot of things done, sometimes to get ANYTHING done, because without them I can’t be in the same room with my young dog.  Granted other family members take turns watching over her—my sister otherwise watches the puppy too—so that we don’t wear ourselves out too much. The best time for me to use any device is when the puppy is sleeping. When there are a few calm minutes, that’s the best time to use my mobile devices too.

          I love typing on my Windows 7 desktop computer, as I am with writing this post, but now it’s a “sometimes” task and not an “everyday” task. These days I’m reading or writing on my tablet or my Android phone if I have to stand up and be ready at a moment’s notice.  And guess what?  I enjoy using the WPS Office app on both my phone and my tablet for typing up documents. And the cool thing is, I can share and edit the documents between either mobile device. 

Not too long of a time ago I thought, “No, I’m not going to use my tablet for professional development.  It’ is for recreation only.”

          Well, now it’s essential for productivity.  I use them for recreation half of the time and professional development the other half of the time.

          I’m spoiled now.  Both my Android smartphone and my tablet have keyboards with word prediction or auto-correct functions. Not just that but, also I can type with the “Swype” function.  My desktop?  Of course it doesn’t have any of that, and I find myself getting just a bit frustrated from the lack of convenience. 

          And that’s okay. Both desktop and mobile forms of computers have plusses and minuses to them. I may type slower on mobile devices but I type a heck of a lot faster on the desktop. I use my Android phone as an on-demand notepad now; Inkpad Notepad is my favorite note-taking app to use, but every once in a while I copy/paste some notes to WPS for a doc. version of it.  You know, to format some of the font, such as bold and italics.

          So, I still value using a desktop computer to get work done.  But now I also have two mobile devices that help me to continue getting work done.

          Do I have to rely on mobile devices?  No $#!%, heck yeah, but I love these things now!

         What are your thoughts on mobile devices and how they make your life easier? Have you owned one or more for a long time, or are you just getting started?

Transhumanism Might As Well Be In The Dictionary!!

I recently learned a new word while searching for more good books about the future of humans and robots.   The word is, "transhuman."

Y’know, like transvestite?  Transexual?  Transpose?

Transhuman.

I am talking about humans turning parts of themselves into machines.  It’s probably going to be a reality by the time I die of old age.  Or I could be wrong.  But at my age I can live just long enough to take advantage of robotic medicine (is that accurate to say?  Cybernetic implants/augmentation would be considered robotic medicine, right?  Is there a medical billing code for that?  Sorry, my new career path just sort of made me enjoy asking that question out of the blue.)

Someday there will be such medical procedures as cybernetic augmentation (aside from what the military may be experimenting with behind our backs).  Right now, these are what are known as prosthetics, and they are not augmentation—they are replacements for limbs that are lost or organs that need replacement as well.

I am a bit scared of the idea, even though to me it is an exciting, fascinating and rarely discussed topic.  To be honest I don’t enjoy thinking about my future too much, not when it comes to health.  I’m not so old, but I am not that young either.  Of course I’m going to feel like taking better care of my health.

But suppose the conversation of robotic replacements for lost limbs or sick organs did turn to cybernetic augmentation.  Currently robotic prosthetics although expensive, are replacements for lost parts.  But in the future, robotic parts may become an option along the lines of breast implants.  People will want stronger (and lead to faster) legs, or sharper eyes, or super hearing.

So…transhumanism.  Or trans-humanism, I don’t know what would be the correct spelling of these for now.  They both seem acceptable…

There are many films that tackle topics like this.  Transcendence and The Prototype are two of them being released this year.  I am especially interested in The Prototype (it’s more of an action/thriller story), but Transcendence I might wait to see later.  They are both good ways to start, or continue, the conversation about what happens to the person when the body is deteriorating but their mind is fully active.  Something else also: how this transfiguration will affect the people they know, and perhaps the people on Earth.

Of course, this is not the end of the conversation...

I want to come back to it again.