If you think items you read like AI-this or AI-that, or cyborg robots, or even Elon Musk’s plan to implant computer chips in people are actually news, let me introduce Kevin Warwick, whose 70th birthday is today.
Warwick was born in Coventry, England, and earned a PhD at Imperial College, where he stayed on as a researcher. He’s been a professor at numerous colleges and universities, and is now Vice-Chancellor of research at Coventry University. His areas of study are AI, robots, and direct interfaces between computers and humans, and he’s delivered compelling demonstrations of all of those. He built a set of robots controlled by the electrical activity of cultured neural networks (the kind made of actual neurons), resulting, in effect, in robots with biological “brains.” He also created an algorithm that was able to generate original music — and he called that one Gershwin. Throughout his career he’s had a knack for giving his creations clever names.
One “robot head” he created that had five senses (although not the same as human senses) was named Morgui. Another robot — this one had a whole body of a cat — was named Hissing Sid, because air powered its legs (and probably tail). That one appeared on several TV shows, and tried to buy an airplane ticket but was turned away by British Airways because they “did not allow animals in the cabin.” All this was at least 20 years ago, by the way. He also designed a series of do-it-yourself robot kits (in 2001) called the “Seven Dwarves.”
Warwick developed an AI that learned from the Internet. In 1999. That AI then taught another AI that was not connected to the Internet, and the two were able to respond the same way.
If you’re fascinated (or possibly horrified) by plans to implant chips in humans in order to control computers, well, Warwick’s already been there. He had a device implanted in his arm in 1998. It was interfaced with the median nerve in his wrist, and enabled him to control various nearby devices, as well as a robot arm. Then his wife had the same thing done, and they were able to directly communicate — wordlessly — nervous system to nervous system, from England to the US.
One of Warwick’s AI chatbots passed (he claimed) the Turing Test. That was ten years ago, and the AI was named Eugene Goostman. If nothing else, that’s a much better name than “ChatGPT.” Eugene Goostman was not a general-purpose assistant; it was designed to have the personality of a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy. Critics at the time argued, though, that it was much easier to emulate a young person because mistakes could be attributed simply to being young.
Warwick is something of a public intellectual, and has written several books for general audiences, including the 2013 Artificial Intelligence: The Basics. He’s also appeared in various documentaries, radio and television shows, magazines, and gives public lectures around the world. He’s still working on using technology to enhance physical and mental abilities, and has said “There is no way I want to stay a mere human.”
