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editorial
A CHALLENGE FOR MANKIND by Riccardo Luna Journalist, Italian Digital Champion
The world is facing a very big problem. In fact, a lethal threat. Will artificial intelligence destroy us? That’s just the way we are, progress fascinates and frightens us
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“Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all” John Fitzgerald Kennedy
If you have read a newspaper or watched TV in the last three months, you have probably realized that the world is facing a very big problem. In fact, a lethal threat. No, it is not the Islamic terrorism of the ISIS. It is not the economic crisis, which has led to double-digit unemployment rates in mature economies, nor the Ebola virus. And it is not even the global warming resulting from a climate gone haywire and which is causing thousands of deaths each year. No. The lethal threat is (or is alleged to be) artificial intelligence. It has become a catchphrase with the media by now. “Tom agrees with Dick’s concern too. Even Harry will sign the scientists’ appeal.” Computers that are becoming increasingly powerful and increasingly intelligent are under scrutiny. Will they destroy us? Will (artificial) intelligence destroy us? This question is obviously a very serious one, nevertheless it must be said that the alarm, or actually, the dynamics that are generating it, are not new at all. Without disturbing the Luddites of the nineteenth century, in 2000 an essay written by Bill Joy for Wired entitled Why the Future Does Not Need Us caused quite a stir. His argument was that increasingly rapid progress in the field of robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology would eventually endanger the very existence of the human species. Bill Joy is certainly not an enemy of technology, instead he is quite the opposite: co-founder of Sun Microsystems, he was the chief scientist of that Silicon Valley giant at the time. In short, to use a category dear to Umberto Eco, as someone who was integrated, at some point Bill Joy felt the need or rather, the intellectual honesty, to warn us about the technological positivism according to which ‘machines’ only do wonderful things. And it turned out to be apocalyptic. I said that this dynamic has actually always existed. And so I think it can be inferred that it originates directly from the way we are made. The train was considered “an instrument of the devil” even by a pope; in the UK, a car was a danger that had to be signaled with a red flag; and in the United States, even electricity was viewed with suspicion
two centuries ago (“Who really needs it anyway?” asked a local politician who eventually wound up in Washington). Remembering these positions today, so blatantly out of sync with the direction taken by history later, does not mean denying that there have been tragic railway accidents, that every day many people die on roads or that someone may be electrocuted. But the positive balance these inventions have brought to humanity as a whole is indisputable. Some say that with artificial intelligence, it is different. This time we really are in danger. If we can identify a time when this apocalyptic attitude became shared by the world, that time is December 2, 2014. An interview with the scientist Stephen Hawking was published in the Financial Times and some other newspapers. Hawking is an authority: a physicist, mathematician, and cosmologist, who for thirty years held the chair at Cambridge University that once belonged to Albert Einstein. Hawking is famous not only for his studies on black holes and the origin of the universe, but also for the terrible disease that reduced him to absolute immobility and the necessity of communicating through a speech synthesizer (and writing with a pioneering device that is based on artificial intelligence). In short, his image – suffering and smiling – is an icon of contemporary science. When Hawking speaks, the world listens with admiration. And so his cry of alarm – “AI can destroy the human race” – was written in large letters on the websites of newspapers around the world. And within a few weeks, an appeal signed by hundreds of scientists frightened by robots popped up; there was a contrite interview with a rampant and rumbling Elon Musk, who is one of the iconic figures of Silicon Valley; up to the global chat on the platform Reddit with Bill Gates, who began by talking about vaccines for children in poor countries and ended up pointing his finger at bad machines. But is that what really happened? Let’s start with Stephen Hawking. What exactly did he say? He said that genetic engineering allows us to improve our DNA and
When Hawking speaks, the world listens with admiration. And so his cry of alarm was written in large letters on the websites of newspapers around the world
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therefore the quality of the human race, but that it will take 18 years to see the first benefits of this transformation. Instead, as is known, according to Moore’s law, every 18 months the speed and computing power of computers double. 18 years vs. 18 months. The risk is that our slow biological evolution renders us unable to compete with rapid technological change. So are we done for? Don’t panic: “The probability of a catastrophic end of the planet Earth will become a certainty in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years.” A thousand or ten thousand? That certainly makes a difference, doesn’t it? Basically, it doesn’t: if the greatest scientist in the world says that we can be relatively unworried for at least a thousand years, we should rejoice. And above all, among the threats to our survival as a species, Hawking does not cite AI but “nuclear wars, global warming, and genetically modified viruses.” Not AI. So why are there all those headlines, such planetary alarm from tweet to tweet, and interviews cobbled together (“Like Hawking, do you too fear the intelligence of machines?” “Yes, of course, everyone should be a little afraid”). So I looked up the famous appeal concerning the risks of artificial intelligence signed by hundreds of scientists. It is linked to a new institution called the Future of Life. It begins with this sentence: “Technology has given us the opportunity to flourish like never before… or to self-destruct”. The 012
Future of Life people have no doubts about which of the two roads to take: “We catalyze and support initiatives and research for the preservation of life and the development of an optimistic view of the future.” So where is the catastrophe in the appeal? It is called Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence, and it is in the form of an Open Letter with a rather short text which refers to an attached document on the priorities of scientific research. I looked long and hard at the three paragraphs trying to find a sentence that would justify the headlines spread by the media, Hundreds of scientists make an appeal against artificial intelligence. And this is what I found: 1. Over the past 20 years, there have been considerable advances in the fields of speech recognition, systems of moving with artificial legs, and question-and-answer platforms. 2. There is a general consensus that research in this sector is making steady progress and that the effects on people’s lives will increase. 3. The potential benefits are immense. It is impossible to predict what we will be able to achieve once people’s intelligence is enhanced by the tools that artificial intelligence can offer; but, for example, the elimination of poverty and disease is not a mirage. 4. Given the great potential of artificial intelligence, it is critical to ensure that we gather its fruits while avoiding potential problems. 5. There is only one way to do it: finance research in an interdisciplinary way, from science to ethics and philosophy. Great. Where do we sign? I’d like to sign too. And above all: where is the alarm everyone is talking about? I see only an appeal that is legitimate, indeed, necessary in order to finance, with generosity and farsightedness, scientific research on these issues that are so important for our future. And, in fact, there in plain sight on their website is the news that Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, as well as creator of Tesla Motors and other companies, has donated ten million dollars to the institute. Mission accomplished, in short. Then there is the case of Bill Gates. For years, the founder (and majority shareholder) of Microsoft has only had the role of global benefactor through the projects of the foundation that bears his name and that of his wife Melinda. In late January he once again went on the Reddit platform (after having done so twice before) for a global chat with the AMA (Ask Me Anything) formula. The conversation lasted a long time and covered many topics. What was the result? This title: AI should be controlled. Or even: The crusade against AI continues.
But was that what really happened? Here is my summary of the chat. What is the biggest challenge we face today? From the scientific point of view, it is a cure for AIDS. But the hardest thing is helping teachers be able to learn from the best teachers. Does a career in computer science still make sense or will all coders be replaced by machines? That is a secure career for now. And it’s fun. Furthermore, coding helps develop logic. In the future, things will change for many professions, but knowing how to program will always be useful. What lesson have you learned in life? Not to stay up all night even if you are reading a great book because the next morning you’ll be sorry. What do you think of the projects to extend life and become immortal? Lengthening the lives of the rich while millions of people are dying from malaria and tuberculosis may sound very selfish. But I admit that they fascinate me. And finally, the big question. 2015 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Windows: What will happen in the next thirty years? What will the world be like in 2045? There will be more progress in the next thirty years than throughout the history of mankind. Already in the next ten years, there will be fundamental improvements in the fields of translation and in machines’ comprehension of texts and images. Practical tasks carried out by robotics, like picking a fruit or bringing a patient to the hospital, will be solved. As soon as computers/robots have a capacity to look and move easily, they will be used massively. I myself am working at Microsoft on a Personal Agent that helps you remember things and find them. And today if I could go back again, I would be a researcher in the field of artificial intelligence. At that point, faced with an even more insistent question, Bill Gates wrote: “I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though, the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.” There it is. A reasonable, acceptable, authoritative point of view that alerts us to what could happen in the next thirty years. Like that of the scientists of Future of Life or Stephen Hawking, who, however, procrastinates
the end of the world for at least a millennium. Does all this justify the alarm? The crusade against AI? It is justified because that’s just the way we are. Because progress fascinates and frightens us. We would like to be heading towards a better future but we regret a past that not only is no longer there, but in a sense, never existed. Notwithstanding all its faults and its – very serious and dramatic – problems, the world has never been better off if we look at the basic parameters: life span, infant mortality, poverty, and education. And this is due to our own intelligence, not some artificial kind; our ability as humans to invent incredible solutions, to find hidden sources of energy, to build machines that previously seemed like something out of science fiction. All these things, which for the sake of simplicity we’ll call progress, did not come without a price and without errors. Even tragic ones. However, the only real antidote is not to raise the barricades, not to flee to a cave, nor to burn books with the wealth of knowledge they represent. The only antidote to the dangers of artificial intelligence is not natural ignorance, but to invest in knowledge, and for us to become able to drive cars that are more and more sophisticated. And in doing so, to be guided by a single North Star: ethics, the profound sense that the wonders of technology have meaning only if they bring benefits to humanity.
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The advancement of technology is obviously inevitable, but it sets the conditions so that its contradictions can be remedied put their jobs at risk, rallying around the mythical figure of the Captain Ned Ludd, “the righter of wrongs”. A famous historian of the contemporary age, Eric J. Hobsbawm, demonstrated already more than half a century ago that things didn’t exactly happen like that: the Luddites did not sabotage the machines because they feared the consequences, but threatened to do so if there were to be no compensation for the jobs that were to be terminated. In a period when labor unions were still outlawed, these acts of rebellion hinted at embryonic attempts of collective bargaining. Then, in the long run, with trade unions legalized and the method of negotiation recognized, tensions were gradually absorbed, while the vision that has remained intact up to this crisis prevailed: that the advancement of technology is obviously inevitable, but it sets the conditions so that its contradictions can be remedied and so that the benefits of technological change greatly exceed the costs and frictions that it generates in the short term. However, it would be impossible to deny that in recent years this view has eroded to the point that even The Economist recently questioned it in one of its in-depth reports. As the British weekly stated, it is not true that the advancement of technology is beneficial or simply neutral with respect to its effects on the volume and quality of employment. Innovations are creating a worrisome polarization in the workforce: on the one hand, there are the highly skilled workers who possess knowledge that guarantees that they will be able to benefit from technological progress; on the other hand, there is the emerging risk of a large majority of low-skilled workers, who are in fact expelled from the more sophisticated production sites, and workers in flexible and fluctuating jobs of very low professional content. So a new model of a far less egalitarian society is looming on the horizon, one that is more segmented and stratified, and above all, unable to guarantee satisfactory levels of income for many people. Moreover, 018
this more unequal social order would deprive economic development of any breadth, relegating us to a perspective of long, continuing stagnation. Needless to add that, in this way, there would not even be the resources necessary for a welfare system able to mitigate the social adversity. How should we react to this scenario characterized by such a disturbing dichotomy? First of all, by noting that the innovation process is not and cannot be confined to a reality that affects only a part (and not the majority) of society. Innovation needs to have a vast social basis in order to progress, otherwise it is bound to stop or at least, lose momentum. In short, it is not something that concerns and involves only those who directly participate. All the great innovations in terms of information technology, communications, and energy production have needed broad consensus to expand and win over society. That is to say, they had to modulate the molecular behavior of many millions of people, without whose contribution they would never have met with the success they actually achieved. In the future, this condition will become even more constraining. In order to fully exploit the potential of innovative technologies, a very large audience is needed of informed users, who are not only the recipients, but the subjects that enable their activation. For this to happen, a general increase in levels of education and culture is essential. Ultimately, it will depend on the increase in people’s intellectual capacity and the degree of overall intelligence expressed by society in exploiting the growth potential of the technologies in order to stimulate new demands, needs, and services, such as to generate new quality jobs. This is a virtuous circle that is certainly possible, but one that cannot be delegated to any social automatism. It requires foresight, planning, and governance.
The innovation process is not and cannot be confined to a reality that affects only a small part of society
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nineteenth century and brought them to our streets today, they would be shocked at how everything revolves around private cars. This is a very inefficient way of organizing ourselves. And I am also referring to cities where local transport exists and works: where there are subways and buses, but which are being used in an inefficient manner. I truly believe that through a better predictive system, public cars, and a greater social conscience we will overcome the model of private cars. This is a change that needs to happen, otherwise we will not achieve independence from fossil fuel. And if we look at cities today, for example Beijing, it is apparent that it is not possible to continue in this fashion.” The situation in Beijing is really serious. There have been times when the levels of pollutants in the air were such that some detection systems signaled simply “beyond any index”. The AQI (Air Quality Index) value of 100 expresses a level of alert for people with special health problems,
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while the figure of 400 is considered a potential danger to everyone’s health. There was a time when it measured an unexpected 886 in Beijing. “Of course, we will not give up cars entirely, but we will use them in a very different way. And this is a social change. I’m thinking of car sharing, a model of the use of private cars that is very interesting, associated with the driverless car, concerning which there have already been numerous experiments.” There has been a recent spread of car sharing in Italy too. The Foundation for Sustainable Development has predicted that by 2020 it will affect 12 million users and generate a turnover of 6.2 billion euro globally. At the European level, there are over 500,000 subscribers to car sharing services with a total of 13,000 cars available. “In the next ten years, this sector will undergo an incredible, total transformation. Crowdfunding, or the system permitting financing in advance for real products, software, and shows, that thanks to some
THE VOICE OF THE FUTURE The images are taken from Her, the 2013 film by Spike Jonze that chronicles the relationship between a man and his operating system (of which we only hear the voice). Set in Los Angeles in the future, here technology is not just part of the daily lives of men and women, but also of their emotional sphere.
Internet platforms allows small businesses (although lately the model is also involving larger ones) to put them into production even in the absence of a large capital base, has become an important reality in the United States for many experiments. Just remember that in 2012, the Pebble, the first connected e-watch, exceeded all expectations by collecting pre-orders for more than a million dollars, when the request was for one hundred thousand.” Is it possible for this model to work outside of the United States as well, and if so, can it be achieved? “Well: first, it must be said that crowd-funding is a system that has had a greater effect on creativity than on the economy of innovation. Its impact has been greater on the creative industries, such as the performing arts, theater, and literature. The fundamental issue linked to the model is that the operation is still – incredibly – quite expensive. I too am particularly interested to see if it is a replicable or achievable model. We could use it to democratize the choices linked to technological innovation, to initiate popular decisions and to understand which technology is really important, outside of the interests of individuals or small groups. In conclusion, I want to mention the quagmire made up of technologies that have begun to spread with a certain intensity, but which for a thousand reasons, today seem to be little more than cute toys.” Drones, 3D printers, wearable objects: are these products that will change our existence or simply gadgets? “Each of them has a real chance to establish itself significantly in our daily lives. Let’s start with drones. These flying objects now represent a real challenge for our society: so far used for spying or implementing rules, I expect that they will become ‘democratized’ and be used extensively by private industries or individuals. The wearable technologies – from socks to watches and from t-shirts to necklaces – are still quite basic. I think it could become a lot more interesting if they managed to collect an amount – and quality – of superior data. So, to start with, I believe that more data should be collected and a way be found to interpret them more effectively for everyday life. And lastly, the 3D printer. This device is really fascinating for its potential for the democratization of many stages of traditional manufacturing and the process of creation. At this stage, given that it has proven its effectiveness with plastic processing, it can fit into industrial use in the phase of rapid prototyping. To be truly revolutionary for everyone, even for ordinary people, it would have to use materials of all kinds, suitable for any company,
and therefore work with materials such as metals, carbon, and even biological materials. All three of these technologies have incredible potential to transform the world, but at the same time, there are also significant issues that still need to be understood and resolved.” And speaking of potential, I can’t help but think of Jason’s words during his lecture at a TED conference. The question his whole monologue revolved around was whether technology can solve our big problems. Because the impression, in fact, is that of having, more than anything else, many gadgets, applications, and systems that have certainly enriched and facilitated our daily lives, without solving the ‘big issues’, such as hunger, disease, or wasting limited resources. We are approaching them, talking about them, and beginning to find some solutions, but that is not enough. Those who invest still prefer to dare very little in order to have results that can be seen in a relatively limited time. Because people think in terms of average commercial value. “Our problems are hard,” Jason admits. They are complicated and profound. But he assures us that it is not true that we cannot solve our big problems: we can and, above all, we must. But it is necessary that these elements are always present: the political leaders and the people must have the issues to be resolved at heart, the institutions must give their support, it is necessary to overcome technological obstacles that may exist, and, above all, we must understand what the Big Problems are.
Crowdfunding is a system that has had a greater effect on creativity than on the economy of innovation. I too am particularly interested to see if it is a replicable or achievable model
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Over the past one hundred years, the systems used for electricity have evolved as a result of changes always characterized by the same scheme: a technological evolution that makes a new mode of production more competitive. A period of what we can define as inertia/resistance/incomprehension toward the change is followed by a fast (and increasingly accelerated) diffusion of the new technologies that take their place alongside the existing ones, gradually replacing them as the latter become obsolete. In recent years, we have seen the latest of these cyclical evolutions, which introduced a radical transformation of the production park and (quite) surprised the European utility companies, which have lost a 36 billion euro margin over the last five years. The drastic drop in the demand for electricity, which Europe has been experiencing since the end of the first decade of the millennium, has affected both industrial and household consumption. This latest decline is the first since the Second World War and cannot be justified solely by the economic crisis, which effects electricity consumption most noticeably in the secondary sector. The decline in consumption by domestic customers is also due to an increasing rationalization, achieved thanks to the development of energy efficiency. For this reason, even though the picture will improve with the economic recovery, the electricity demand will not start up again with the same growth rates as before the crisis, and Europe will have to get used to a much more moderate pattern of energy consumption. Along with that, another phenomenon has also radically changed the energy sector. This is the planned distribution of renewables, which have doubled in installed capacity in Europe over the last six years. This capacity will continue to grow, even in the absence of incentives, doubling again by 2030. We are facing a new transformation of the primary energy mix: from the era of coal, in place since the first industrial revolution until the twentieth century, to that of oil, which lasted until the Eighties, by way of gas, add-
Over the last century, electricity production has followed the same scheme: a technological evolution that makes a new mode of production more competitive
ed in the twenty-first century, until reaching the present and future era of renewable energy. The drop in consumption and the development of renewables have therefore reversed the traditional paradigm that involved electricity generated in large power stations, transmitted through networks of high and extremely high voltage, and finally distributed in medium and low voltage to customers. The new model of distributed generation is the expression of a more efficient and interconnected system, centered on customers who are increasingly aware, demanding, and conscious of their new role as a consumer/producer, or a prosumer. In this context, ‘conventional’ generation will pay the price of this paradigm shift by having to increasingly play a reserve role, thus producing only in times of need. The older, less efficient thermoelectric plants, some of which have not been producing for a number of years, have been the most affected, forced into the new role of reserve capacity by the other more modern, reliable, and efficient thermal power plants. In some cases, the authorization period has expired for the older plants which therefore could not start producing again, even if the electricity demand resumed with the pre-crisis trends. These are power plants that have exhausted their life cycle and actual utility, and which cannot even be sold to third parties because, in any event, they are unprofitable. This situation, which has arisen over the years, should be addressed without losing further time, by involving local authorities and the population, with the objective of evaluating alternative and feasible solutions for safeguarding employment and converting plants. Enel has 23 plants in Italy with these characteristics, for a total capacity of 13 Gigawatts. The necessity of their closure is not a new fact, since it had already been known in the past. However, today we hope to find the solutions. I want to emphasize something that I consider very important. The closure of these Enel plants, in which about 700 people are currently employed, will have no negative impact in terms of employment, because their relocation within the Group and the enhancement of all the resources involved have already been planned. These power plants represent an industrial heritage for Italy which can potentially be further exploited. For this rea037
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ROBOTS by Riccardo Oldani Science journalist
Italy is no longer just a place of excellence in fashion and crafts, but it has flourishing activities in the field of automation. This is a technological frontier that promises big changes, not only in emergency situations, but also in daily life.
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Humanoid robots, robotic prostheses, cars that are ‘self-driven’ without needing any driver: you don’t have to fly across oceans and go to the United States or Japan to find the technology centers that are developing these. You need go no further than south of the Alps to get an idea of the type of research that is being conducted, for example, in Genoa, at the IIT, the Italian Institute of Technology, which is working on two extraordinary humanoids: ICub, the size of a five-year-old child, or COMAN, which although it has two legs and two arms just like us, never falls down, even if it is pushed, thanks to an absolutely unique balance system. Or else there is what is being worked on at the VisLab of Parma, the first research laboratory capable of making robotic vehicles that can travel more than 13,000 kilometers, from Italy to China, and the first on the world that enables self-driving cars to operate in city traffic. All this happened long before Google presented its driverless car, without any steering wheel or pedals, that made the headlines around the world in early 2014. And again, just ask about the activities conducted in Pontedera at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, where they created the first prosthetic hand and robotic arm ever to be implanted in a live patient. Thanks to Italian technology, a thirty-year-old Danish man, whose arm had been amputated below the elbow after an accident with New Year’s fireworks, (obviously not just an Italian tradition) now has a brand new sturdy metallic arm with which he has even found some sensation of touch, thanks to high-tech fingertips and connections that plug directly into his nervous system. Excellence from the north to the south But the list certainly does not end here. And so, while in Verona they are studying robotic systems for brain surgery, in Milan, at AIRLab, the Polytechnic University’s laboratory, they are developing robotic games and wheelchairs for disabled people that
move with the power of thought; whereas the ITIA-CNR (Institute of Industrial and Automation Technologies) has developed the first automated system in the world designed for demanufacturing, i.e. disassembly of any type of electronic device to recover the precious metals that their circuits are made of – such as gold, copper, and rare earth – and the correct disposal of the other parts. This is work that is being done today through illegal channels in Africa or Asia, where a large amount of electronic waste produced in the West is then disassembled by kids who use solvents and substances that inevitably poison them. In Naples, the PRISMA Lab directed by Bruno Siciliano, is working on a robot able to make pizza that will actually be the first example of a robot capable of manipulating not just stiff objects, but also those that are elastic, just like the dough of the world’s most famous food. The opportunities for their industrial use are very promising. And in Peccioli, a small town in the Pisa area, an automated home has become the laboratory in which the Institute of Bio-robotics of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa is developing entirely new robots that can assist with housework: taking out the garbage or doing the shopping, reminding you to take medication or bringing you a glass of water. And we could go on and on, talking about the robot explorers of the ENEA, the drones for rescue operations of the La Sapienza University in Rome, the University of Palermo’s robots that can create a relationship with autistic children or pick oranges, or the University of Catania’s monitoring of the vents of the volcano Mount Etna. From the Alps to the islands, Italy seems to be pervaded by a creative effort, led by a seasoned team of Italian researchers who are working to make the machines of the future. Robots are our future This could be a great opportunity for Italy’s industry and for its economy. Giorgio Met-
The culture of Italian know-how, manual adroitness, which has led to many firsts in the field of fashion, design, and the furniture industry, also emerges forcefully in robotics
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ta, the IIT’s project manager for the humanoid robot ICub, is convinced that the small white humanoid, developed in Italy for research purposes, could also become something that will be extremely useful in the future, “a personal robot or a personal assistant, which can help us to do so many things in the house, from the simple act of bringing us something to drink or an object, to carrying out orders such as turning on the lights or the washing machine. The technology is not so far-off, we could achieve it in a few years.” And the fact that all the skills to achieve the ICub have been developed in Italy puts it a significant step ahead of international competition. The IIT is looking for private investors to develop the project on a commercial level. Even if some foreign group gets there first, as is likely, there is a good chance that all the development will remain within Italy’s borders. However, let’s try not to miss this opportunity. Also because not everyone is like Alberto Broggi, the founder and soul of the VisLab in Parma and pioneer of robotic cars. Some time ago, he was contacted by officials of the Canadian government who would have done anything to take his entire laboratory, including the researchers, and move everything overseas. Broggi refused, because he wants everything to remain in Italy. But then he has had to slalom among the bureaucrats to obtain the necessary permits for his driverless cars to circulate. Yet the future of cars is in the direction that
his lab has been pursuing for some time: a large number of major automotive brands are taking an interest in his research. A legacy for future generations All these initiatives, which we have merely outlined, are the offspring of a tradition that sees Italy as a leader in the world of automation. Our industrial robots, not just those of Comau, but also those of many smaller companies, are sold all over the world. Olivetti, the Italian pioneer of computer science with a glorious past but which has now almost disappeared from the radar, was the first company worldwide to develop an industrial robot with two arms. Arturo Baroncelli, who leads the design sector of Comau, stated, “Our robot designers are unique for their ability to solve problems brilliantly and very quickly, and with limited means.” The culture of Italian know-how, manual adroitness, which has led to many firsts in the field of fashion, design, and the furniture industry, also emerges forcefully in robotics and is something that everyone envies us for, and which others do not have. This is a heritage that should not be lost, but passed down to the younger generations. Even just explaining to young people in schools that in Italy there are fine industries and research centers in the field of robotics, with huge prospects for development and well-being. Only the blindest stupidity could prevent Italy from seizing this opportunity.
In Parma, there is the first lab in the world that has operated a self-driving car in city traffic. All this happened long before Google presented its driverless car
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After the success of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, his book which became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011, the American writer Nicholas Carr has returned to addressing the effects of technology on our society. The object of his careful examination this time is automation, the macro-trend that, without exception, has us entrusting our tasks more and more often to software, machines, and robots, for them to do instead of us. His new literary work, The Glass Cage. Automation and Us, that will be published in Italy in May by Raffaello Cortina Publishers, deals with the impact this has – not without some dark shadows, as we shall see – on society and on the individual and on our individual lives. “The title of the book refers to the glass cockpit, the cockpit of the aircraft,” says the writer. “Surrounded by computer screens and buttons, pilots now interact with the outside world essentially through machines, almost entirely entrusting the flight to the autopilot, thus increasingly becoming simply ‘passengers’. Today we know that two of the major air disasters in recent years, the Airbus A330 of Air France and Flight 3407 of Colgan Air, which both took place in 2009 and claimed the lives of more than three hundred people, were attributable to human error caused by an excess of over-reliance on these machines. When the autopilot stopped working, the pilots of the two flights performed the wrong maneuvers: as if the very software created to enhance their ability to fly had, paradoxically, helped to have them unlearn it.” After years of blind trust in automation, the deleterious effects of over-reliance are by now visible in various fields. Carr goes on to quote an interesting British study devoted to the effects of software for the automatic detection of breast
cancer on the diagnostic skills of physicians. “The radiologists involved in the study proved to be very good at recognizing the most common forms of cancer, diagnosed correctly by the computer, but definitely did not measure up when they had to deal with less obvious, more subtle and rare tumors. Within a few years, the use of machinery had dangerously unaccustomed them to relying on their own eyes and their own intuition.” Carr’s warning is clear: when we become dependent on our ‘technological slaves’, paradoxically we become enslaved to them. “It’s as if we were putting the shackles on our hands and feet by ourselves, often with fatal results, as we have seen in the case of the Airbus.” Yet it would be wrong to dismiss the writer as a technophobe or one of the many prophets of doom, or consider him as subscribing to automation tout court. “I’m not a ‘Luddite’, i.e. I’m not urging my readers to destroy machines. I’m extending an invitation, which I think is reasonable, to look at all forms of automation with a critical spirit, renouncing any easy enthusiasm. Automation has undoubtedly brought huge benefits to society. What is not clear to everyone is that there are different ways to implement it in our lives.” In conversation, the writer explains that when you are developing automated systems, you can choose between two approaches that are very different from one another: technology-centered design and human-centered design. “The first, and currently prevailing, approach aims to delegate as many tasks as possible to machines, relegating humans to a role of mere passive observers, mere spectators of lights that are turned on and off. The second approach instead believes that a machine, thanks to its computing power and speed in providing information, should continuously interact with human beings,
After years of blind trust in automation, the deleterious effects of overreliance are by now visible in various fields
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What gives richness and depth to our culture, as well as to our individual life is, often and gladly, the wealth of experience that comes from years of practice, failures, and new attempts
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gies designed to increase the crop production, quality, and productivity of a farm. It is based on the ambition to “do the right thing, in the right place at the right time, with the right amount” while respecting the plants’ real needs. In traditional agriculture, the farmer must somehow assume or guess the needs of crops on the basis of his experience: just how much water, how much fertilizer, and which pests to control. Today the needs of the plants can be accurately and precisely measured and calculated, practically plant by plant. What technologies are used? For detection, we mainly use drones and geo-electric and radiometric sensors, but also aircraft, satellites, and GPS. After the monitoring and mapping, variable rate technology-based machinery takes over, managing the various portions of the same terrain in different ways on the basis of geo-referenced input. Upon receiving the data based on remote sensing by the drones, aircraft, and satellites, that is then processed by geographic information systems through geo-statistical analysis methodologies, these machines are able to understand which treatments to provide for different portions of the terrain, considerably assisting human intervention and putting the farmers in a position to make rational choices.
Do you need to be a computer expert to practice precision farming? More than a computer expert, those who practice precision farming must be able to ‘handle’ the technological tools. This is one of the areas in which research should make its greatest contribution: not only does the technology have to be transferred, but there also have to be methods of data processing that can be easily implemented by non-specialists. And that’s where the synergy between research and farming should yield more benefits, making it so that the farmers or decision-makers can do their job in the simplest way possible. Is it only suitable for large tracts of land? Precision farming appeared in the United States in the Nineties, used for the benefit of large tracts of cotton and corn crops. In recent years, however, it has been increasingly spreading to smaller realities. Rather than size, the variable to be taken into consideration is the uniformity of the treatment in the case of use for crops planted in different soils or with different problems, which, for example, may generate an excessive use of fertilizers or pesticides.
Mainly drones and geo-electric and radiometric sensors are used for detection, but also aircraft, satellites, and GPS.
Are these technologies very expensive? Monitoring technologies such as sensor networks and drones are having a rapid development also in terms of cost, whereas the variable rate machines are still quite expensive. However, enterprises can approach precision farming at different levels, even without directly purchasing these machines. For a minimal cost, you can get localized information on a certain agricultural plot, and therefore objectively orient your business decisions. On the other hand, the automatic application of farming practice choices results in higher costs. Small to medium-sized farms certainly cannot afford to buy these technologies, which, however, is something a consortium could do, and then make them available to its members. In other cases, service companies with these technologies working on behalf of third parties have been created.
What types of cultivation is it most suitable for? It is especially used for vineyards and orchards, which typically have a high local variability and reactivity to intensive management. But in recent years, it has been applied to any type of cultivation, even vegetables. Can it be useful in combating pests or plant diseases? If so, how? The control of pests and diseases is a major concern for both the farming community and consumers, because there are numerous cases of the indiscriminate use of crop protection chemicals that end up on our dinner tables. The maximum levels of pesticide residues and chemicals in crops are often much higher than those permitted in food, particularly in fruits and vegetables. The adoption of precision farming techniques can be a useful tool for evaluating the early onset of diseases and pests, and for acting only in cases in which they occur, thus reducing the cost of pesticides and above all, ensuring greater environmental sustainability. 057
The frontiers of robotics are investigating precisely new equipment for perception, for example, such as increasingly sophisticated sensors to be installed under the legs
ROBOETHICS The increasingly advanced machines mankind is producing raise not only technological, but also ethical and legal questions. Roboethics has arisen in order to seek answers to these problems and promote the development of robotics integrated into our society.
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INSPIRED by nature interview with Cecilia Laschi Professor of Bio-robotics by Michele Bellone Journalist
Biorobotics, neuro-robotics, bionics, biomimetics. Robotics that can reproduce the human form does not intend to create humanoids able to replace us, but to help us to study the human brain, observe the movements of an octopus or patterns of swarms of insects, and then to solve motor problems, make robots for assistance and create new skills. We look at nature so as to live up to its perfection.
The word robot inevitably conjures up the ranks of humanoid machines, in some cases indistinguishable from humans, that populate science fiction literature and films. However, when it comes to robotics, the reality is different, as Cecilia Laschi, professor of bio-robotics at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, explained to us. “The idea of humanoid robots is related to the approach used by the Japanese, who were the pioneers in this field. They started to build robots of this type more than thirty years ago, with the intention of developing machines that could perform various 064
Bio-robotics is a highly interdisciplinary field of study, which combines the engineering and creative aspects with expertise from many other disciplines, from biology to neuroscience to medicine and ethics tasks, even to the point of replacing humans in more strenuous, dangerous, or repetitive tasks.” Fifteen years ago, this strong interest in humanoid robots was not fully understood, let alone shared, by the West. “I remember that when I was writing research projects in the Nineties, the word ‘humanoid’ could never even be used.” The reasons for this difference were cultural. “In Europe there was a sort of moral disapproval of humanoid robots, probably also linked to the philosophical and religious spheres, because creating robots that looked like humans seemed almost an attempt to play at being God and imitate life. But for the Japanese, inanimate objects like rocks or waterfalls can have their own spirituality and also their perception of a robot, undoubtedly influenced by their popular culture, was different because they were often seen as friends of mankind; on the contrary, our literature is full of conflicts between machines and humans. These issues were widely discussed, I myself participated in a workshop in 2001, which also involved theologians and philosophers, to analyze the different approaches to robotics.” Now things have changed and the idea of a humanoid robot has also been accepted in the West, though in a different perspective. “For us, building a machine with a human form is primarily seen as a technological challenge. The humanoid robots we build are oriented towards scientific research, not for the development of machines that can perform certain tasks instead of humans.” A perfect example of this is neuro-robotics, a discipline that uses robots to test theoretical models of the human brain. “If I have to study a learning model based on the manipulation of objects, the use of a humanoid robot becomes
very useful. I will in fact need an arm capable of grasping and a head with eyes, in order to study the influence of perception on the course of action and, consequently, on learning it.” The meeting between the two different schools of robotics has enabled both to become enriched, through their combined skills. “The Japanese have surpassed us regarding the creation of robots, while we have made much more progress in the development of behavior models inspired by neuroscience.” Another discipline related to robotics is bionics. There are different interpretations of what is meant by this term. “Abroad, especially in Germany, it is often used as a synonym for biomimetics, while we conceive it more as an integration between natural and artificial. For example, for us, the robotic hand prosthesis, perhaps with neural interfaces that can read nerve signals, falls within the field of bionics, as does a cochlear implant.” The animal world provides a wide range of inspiration for experts in bio-robotics and bionics; just think of the so-called soft robotics, which Cecilia Laschi is working on through the Octopus project, which uses the octopus as an animal model for the 065
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realization of robots with soft parts. “The challenge is to imitate the principles by which a muscle contracts and stiffens, i.e. the mechanisms for basic functions such as locomotion and the manipulation of objects.” Movement, perception, and mimicry are not the only animal functions from which to draw inspiration. “Another interesting field is swarm robotics, which takes swarms or flocks as its model for studying how a series of simple interactions can give rise to more complex behaviors, or for research using robots that are able to adapt and compete for resources, and studying evolution.” All of these studies have helped broaden our understanding of many biological processes, but they can also have several practical applications in medicine: from hip replacements to soft probes that can be used in brain surgery, from wearable machines that facilitate rehabilitation following an accident to robot-caregivers that assist the elderly or people with physical disabilities. Octopus itself, created as a basic research project, then opened the door to possible applications in the bio-medical field. “We are currently participating in a project for the construction of a soft endoscope and we will take part in the development of a soft robot to assist the elderly in the bathroom made of silicone so it can get wet when it is used in the shower.” The picture that emerges is therefore of a highly interdisciplinary field of study, which combines the engineering aspects and creation of these sophisticated machines with expertise from many other disciplines, from biology to neuroscience to medicine, not to mention ethics. “Ethics is involved in many areas of robotics. Personally, I find that the most pressing ethical problem in this field is related to the possibility that the development of certain robots reduces employment opportunities, rather than expanding them. Robotics provides many jobs and robots that replace humans in hazardous work are welcome; in the final balance, though, the important thing is that the jobs generated in these fields exceeds the number of jobs that will disappear due to the use of robots.”
The animal world provides a wide range of inspiration for experts in bio-robotics and bionics; just think of swarm robotics, which takes swarms or flocks as its model
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For us, building a machine with a human form is primarily seen as a technological challenge: the humanoid robots we build are for scientific research
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There is a droning sound and a quadricopter passes over our heads. Today, drones are part of our common language, we hear them mentioned quite often, from their use in warfare to when we think about using one to deliver a pizza to us. But few know the story and the real potential of these flying objects, which have become so widespread as to require national laws to regulate their use. Thirty years after the debut of the famous movie Back to the Future on movie theatre screens, many newspapers have been grappling to verify which of Robert Zemeckis’s predictions have actually come true. The future recounted back then actually had a date, which was 2015. Some insights have come into being, and others have not. Among the latter, is the idea that we would live in cities where the traffic would be over our heads, a vision common to a lot of science fiction. No, there are no flying cars, but now one of the most common words when it comes to innovation and robotics
is ‘drone’, the slang name of a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). Perhaps this is the new variation of flight in a consumer key. There is not a technology exhibition today that is not overrun with quadricopters and various objects that can fly unmanned, thanks to instructions that come from a remote control or a smartphone. This year at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, the largest event dedicated to the future, several examples were presented, but all you had to do to see more was go to the Maker Faire in Rome in September where you could 069
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Technological development has reduced the size and lowered costs to the point that today the drone can be an object of trade. In Italy, there are now already 46 schools that can teach you how to fly drones
find dozens of Italian startups. The current process is typical of great innovations, like computers and the Internet: technologies that arise from niche applications, often military, are then able to capitalize on cost reduction and become affordable for everyone. The world of drones has not reached its end, but as far as the technology is concerned, almost. There are commercial models costing from 80 to 500 euro that can fly fast, at significant heights, and have the ability to film the territories that they are flying over. The most famous model is the Parrot AR.Drone. So far we are within recreational and hobby spheres, whereas its professional uses are more established. 070
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in-depth
HISTORY HAS FOUR W H E E L S by Roberto Rizzo Journalist
People were already talking about an electric car two hundred years ago. Ever since then, even with its wealth of qualities, it has not survived history and gasoline cars. Having always left their dream of an electric car on the back burner, many automobile companies have repeatedly taken up the project. Today, as we still use the same technology as 100 years ago, this idea which could drive the future of mobility is returning with newfound strength.
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Historically, the first vehicle, or “embryo of the car that will be”, was traced to the work of the French engineer Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, who installed a steam engine that used coal as fuel onto an artillery wagon in 1769. A wooden frame, three wheels, and a maximum speed of 4 km/h: these were the salient features of Cugnot’s wagon, with the same technology as that of a steam locomotive. A prototype that has been preserved can be seen today at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris. It is in excellent condition because, as it was not very functional, it was never used in battle: it took over half an hour to warm up and start the engine and it had a battery life of about fifty miles. For these reasons, around 1830-1840 engineers began to investigate the possibility of developing vehicles with electric motors and batteries that guaranteed immediate ignition (electromagnetic induction, the physical phenomenon at the base of electric motors, was discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831). The actual marketing of the first electric cars did not happen in Europe until 1880 and about ten years later in the United States. While remaining a very expensive product that could only be used in the city, due to its limited autonomy, the electric car proved to be a remarkable success and it would be hard to believe that in those years electric cars were favored over the cars with internal combustion engine fueled by gasoline. Who won the challenge? The first gasoline car was the Velociped made by the German engineer Karl Benz in 1885. He used the four-stroke Otto cycle (intake, compression, combustion-power, exhaust) invented by the German engineer Nikolaus August Otto in 1876. In the late nineteenth century, electric cars were preferred over gasoline cars because they were silent, easy to charge, and to drive, as well as non-polluting. Their fortunes were reversed by three factors. First, in 1911, there was the invention of the electric motor which rendered the crank, previously indispensable for starting the combustion engine despite being complex and risky, useless. Second, the development of roads in the United States to connect towns: the distances to
be covered required vehicles with a greater autonomy. Third, the high availability of oil in the United States at the time (we know that filling a tank with gas is much quicker than charging a battery). The assembly line and mechanization became standard procedures in the automotive plants (first and foremost, Ford in Detroit) and this enabled them to reduce the cost of production of the
gasoline car. In 1914, Henry Ford laid the foundations for the American middle class, by raising the workers’ daily salary to five dollars so that they could afford to buy the cars they produced.
The assembly line and mechanization became standard procedures: this enabled them to reduce the cost of production of the gasoline car The electric car tries to enter the scene Starting in the Twenties, the automotive industry saw the dominance of a technology whose basics have remained almost unchanged to this day: an internal combustion engine, powered by petroleum products, mechanically connected to the wheels. The electric car was put on the back burner, relegated to niche applications such as 081
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transport in closed spaces (airports, warehouses, etc.) – until 1987, when General Motors won the most important rally in the world of solar energy vehicles, the World Solar Challenge, which takes place every three years in Australia. The president of GM enthusiastically decided to build a commercially successful electric car. The result was the Impact, presented at the Los Angeles Auto Show in 1990. The car received great attention from the general public, the media, and government authorities in California, who then introduced a new legislation, the first case in the world, to force manufacturers to market increasing percentages of zero emission cars. This was the Zero Emission Mandate, the first formulation of which, in 2003, required that at least 10% of all new cars sold in California were to be non-polluting. After the Impact prototype, GM built the EV1, a model which could be rented at a price between 250 and 500 dollars a month. By 1996, there were hundreds of them traveling the roads in California, where thousands of public charging points had been installed. There were all the ingredients for an explosion, perhaps too disruptive, of the electric car market. And according to the conspiracy theories, it went up in smoke because of the oil lobby, which launched a fierce battle of counter-information in the media and among the Californian parliamentarians to amend the legislation in force. In 2003, GM decided to withdraw all the EV1 models from the market, as did Honda with its EV+ models. In order to see the resurrection of the electric car, we need to look on the other side of the Pacific Ocean: in Japan.
founder of the car company that bears his name, but this technology was in fact superseded by the internal combustion motor. The first modern hybrid car dates back to 1997: it was the Toyota Motor Company’s Prius. After suffering a serious crisis between 1992 and 1993, the management team understood how vital it was to launch their development of the car of the twenty-first century. And it successfully won the bet. Of the approximately nine million hybrid vehicles sold since 1997, more than seven million have been Toyota Motor models. As of December 31, 2013, about 15 billion gallons of gasoline had been saved thanks to their hybrid vehicles. The electric car The electric car market, however, is still at an initial level both due to the costs of the car (especially the batteries) and the lack of a widespread network of charging. However, the electric car will be a great example of innovation in mobility. Just as an example, the presence of a large amount of electrical energy stored in batteries allows creating the so-called chassisby-wire, frames, controlled and managed solely by electronic and electrical energy, without any mechanical component (thus drive-by-wire). The assembly of the vehicle is simpler and the driving performance is better: the stopping distance is reduced, while the electric steering system is more sensitive to commands, thereby facilitating parking. Another opportunity is that of being able to insert the motor between the wheels, thanks to miniaturized devices. In the case of medium and large-sized cars with a heavier wheel, the vehicle may be less stable, whereas there are no such problems with small city-cars. Due to the lack of a front engine and the mechanical parts of the typical gasoline car, new configurations can be created. For example, making the vehicle more compact and enabling getting in or out of it from the front, and not only laterally. This is a solution that could greatly enhance safety, whereas cars today still bring to mind old horse-drawn wagons.
The electric car was put on the back burner until 1987, when General Motors won the most important rally in the world of solar energy vehicles
The hybrid car For several decades, Japanese scientists have been seeking viable alternatives to oil, the source of which the country lacks. One of these is the hybrid car, a vehicle that mounts both an electric motor and a conventional internal combustion one. The very first hybrid car dates back to the late nineteenth century, and was thanks to the Austrian manufacturer Ferdinand Porsche, 082
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more hybridized with reality that comes out of the machines in order to be anchored to things, objects, and buildings. In this sense, the Internet 3.0, or the Internet of things, promises to be a truly ‘natural’ interface in the relationship between user and machine, and above all, between real objects and virtual information. Just watch the videos made by Keiichi Matsuda of smart cities where the ‘real’ is the result of a profound hybridization between real spaces and infographics of data and connected communication flows. Space that has increased and can be traversed by the body and the mind. But if the real itself is replacing the Internet and turning it into the network of digital data communication, and our traversing it becomes the easiest way of communication, then the next step is to take the exchange of communication even further, thus from mobile phones to wearable computing. From this point of view, Google Glasses promise to integrate all of those capabilities that we are describing: augmented reality at the base of the visual display, voice commands as a hyper-friendly interface, and the dematerialization of the device, which is worn so close to the body it almost becomes an integral part, just like any other pair of glasses. Google Glasses are the here and now and, despite a few postponements too many in the circulation of the product on the market, Google Glasses exist, we have seen them at work ... And the near future? In this case too, the trailblazer could be Google once again. In fact, the company headquartered in Mountain View has just shelled out two billion dollars for an even more futuristic system, albeit one veiled in a lot of mystery. The startup Magic Leap, already presented at various fairs, promises to generate three-dimensional figures that are interactive right in front of us without the need for screens or viewing apparatus. This would be the dream of holographic communication: totally immersive, interactive, and realistic, and which foresees people who are not only immersed, but fully integrated with communication.
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We are already living in a world that is created entirely by ourselves. Isn’t that what the Internet is? Isn’t it a completely artificial space that is enveloping our lives Hegel was convinced that man will know true freedom only by “surrounding himself with a world entirely created by himself.” Many of the scenarios imagined by science fiction hinge on the assumption that our own well-being goes hand in hand with the ability to shape the world, to bend it as much as possible to our needs and desires. Not infrequently, however, the guesswork of writers and filmmakers have proposed views that are anything but attractive, raising serious doubts about our ability to achieve ideal worlds. But these are doubts we can deal with without going into an imaginary future. We are already living in a world that is created entirely by ourselves. Isn’t that what the Internet is? Isn’t it a completely artificial space that is enveloping our lives? In opposition to those who have praised it as a kind of paradise where you can express yourself without reservation, there are those who view it with suspicion, considering it to be the exact opposite of freedom, or as a sophisticated instrument of control, a panoptic device where our every move is tracked and stored for more or less malevolent purposes. There is one aspect that everyone seems to agree on though: the Internet is a world, a virtual one of course, but still a world. And why should we define it differently, seeing as we are living in it just like one would live in any world? Thinking about it, however, more than being a world, the Internet is essentially the creation of a set of interconnected machines 087
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whose operation does not differ much from that of a brain. And that is probably what the Internet itself would call it, if it had a form of awareness. This implies that there is only one world in which everything is created entirely by us, or more precisely, by our minds. In fact, an outside world entirely created by humans could only be a world of machines. But if that is the case, in refuting Hegel’s assumption, we must ask ourselves what true freedom could ever be known in a world of machines. At about the same time that the German philosopher was making his reflections, a young English woman named Mary Shelley conceived a creature destined to have many heirs in the field of science fiction. While not a machine in the strict sense, the monster of Frankenstein can be considered the founder of the vast ilk of robots, cyborgs, and androids that populated the collective imagination of the twentieth century. It is an assemblage of inert limbs and organs which is brought to life by electricity in order to free mankind from its greatest and final condemnation, that of having to die. Unfortunately, the creature does not want to keep in its place and rebels against its creator, revealing itself as a monster. Instead of freeing us from death, it decides to dispense it prematurely. By killing. In the common world, the one of so-called reality, machines do not constitute an explicit threat. They appear to us in Hegel’s perspective. They free us from heavy work, from great distances, from 088
boredom, and sometimes even from some illnesses and physical impediments, whereas, science fiction has exalted the dark side. Since the appearance of Frankenstein’s monster, the possibility that the products of human ingenuity can escape control has been a recurring theme, if not the theme par excellence, of stories about machines. At the beginning of the 1940s, Isaac Asimov, the most scientific of science fiction writers, tackled the problem and established the famous laws of robotics. There are three rules of simple and compelling logic that each machine is obliged to respect and which prevents it from harming human beings. But an objection immediately come to mind: if the world is full of people who break the law, how come the machines created by people shouldn’t do the same? And, in fact, science fiction movies are full of sagas where robots go well beyond some occasional law-breaking. Films such as Terminator, Transformers, and Matrix show war
If the world is full of people who break the law, how come the machines created by people shouldn’t do the same?
Since the appearance of Frankenstein’s monster, the possibility that the products of human ingenuity can escape control has been the recurring theme par excellence of stories that are about machines
THREATS FROM BOLTS The images are taken from: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977), Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), and Matrix (Lana and Andy Wachowski, 1999). These are famous films that explore mankind’s sense of curiosity for technology as well as the feeling of being threatened by it.
scenarios, stories of machines equipped with their own social organization and willing to subjugate the human race. What was conceived for our liberation thus becomes the creator of a new slavery. It must be said that such apocalyptic predictions are the spawn of real and very ancient contrasts. Traces of them were already there in the England of the late eighteenth century, with the Luddites’ sabotage of industrial looms. But it is far from the hell of the factories and assembly lines that things get really disturbing. In fact, the suspicion that machines are taking over emerges in the most unexpected and shocking ways in the intimate comfort of home. In Deus Ex Machina, the famous story by Richard Matheson in 1963, a man makes a terrible discovery while he is in his bathroom standing in front of the mirror. He cuts himself while shaving, but what he sees dripping into the shaving cream is not blood, but oil. Oil gushing
from a mass of wires and metal parts. The man is a machine, just like all the things that surround him are machines. The food is gear grease, drinks are lubricants, the rain that falls from the sky is actually motor oil. Of all the authors who have investigated the matter, the central figure is still Philip K. Dick, whose indecisive worlds, hopelessly suspended between reality and fiction, nature and artifice, find their own recurring nightmare precisely in the fear that machines can impersonate human beings. What scared Dick was not so much the actual machines, but rather, the fact that a person can hide the same gelid feelings, the same indifference, and total lack of empathy typical of a machine. That is to say, he feared that the man-made inorganic creatures might challenge the ancient admonition of John Donne. No man is an island, but he can always become a machine. After all, if God created us in his image and likeness, it is logical to think that our creations have been designed based on a similar approach. And who knows if that is not really so. Perhaps we resemble machines more than we are willing to believe.
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Testata registrata presso il tribunale di Torino Autorizzazione n. 76 del 16 luglio 2007 Iscrizione al Roc n. 16116 Printed in March 2015 presso Tipografia Facciotti, Roma