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In addition, sometimes robot operators insert a very clear extension of themselves into the robot, much like we see people invest in game avatars

I’d also categorize extending a sense of oneself into a robot as a form of attachment.

In ten or twenty years, when humanlike and animal-like robots are employed in a more drone-like way from a greater distance, will a similar user self-extension or new human-robot social phenomenon cause any hesitation during human-directed tasks and effect mission outcomes?

As AI and robots become more involved in our models of everyday life, I believe there will be a spectrum of emotional responses toward robots depending on their roles (for instance, caregiver, educator, industrial, companion, etc.) and individual user tendencies.

A consequence of purposeful design for attachment is that objects of attachment trigger the owner’s emotions in situations like decision making, and so can be agents of persuasion or otherwise effect someone’s actions

The bottom line is that these human-AI/robot interactions are transactions and not reciprocal, and therefore probably not healthy for most people to rely on as a long-term means for substituting organic two-way affectionate bonds, or as a surrogate for a human-human shared relationship

Is attachment to a robot problematic ethically?

But does it all help you to be a better father, or mother, or is it all a massive distraction from the serious business of parenting?

While tracking proved useful as a reminder of feedings, and gave an objective insight into longer term sleep patterns, there wasn’t much she could do with the info.

It's the same problem quantified self devotees have: what to do with all that data. Unless you're a math or data viz wizard and prepared to take it all incredibly seriously, the numbers that consumer gadgets and apps spew out can be pretty meaningless — even more so when you're dealing with an unpredictable baby.

The Mimo and the Owlet are just the tip of the emerging infant tracking iceberg.

even in the absence of information about the character’s past.

The age of 8 has been identified as a watershed at which children become measurably more likely to act out aggressions after watching violent behavior on television

. The children recognize that in the real world it’s impossible to fly without a plane or to be born with skin that deflects bullets. 

By age 10 or 11, children will make fairly complex judgments about characters’ motivations and they regularly distinguish between justified and unjustified violence

One study also found that if you ask children between the ages of eight and ten who they most want to be like, they are far more likely to cite superhero type characters than everyday folks like their parents.

but conflict play continues to provide a unique transitional space for children to explore and express their own tensions

We also aim to develop conflict play scenarios where children can experience the benefits of cooperation. With the fate of the world (or even the entire universe) hanging in the balance, children must learn how to build teams, trust in others and work together towards common goals. In those pretend situations, developing social skills may be the only way to overcome the lords of evil!

physiological arousal: eliciting moviegoers’ “fight or flight” responses. This is the same adrenaline rush we crave whenever we watch horror films to give ourselves a good scare.

Optimistically speaking, 4D films should have much more potential within and opportunities to exploit since they have the other four senses to pick and augment on

Both sides agreed on seemingly only one thing: That a discussion and regulation of short-term rentals in New York City is overdue.

a lack of social media activity or presence is the greatest offense

no credit is bad credit

Social media profiles should be seen like a credit score

Candidates should change the way they handle their accounts

excess of photos may give the impression of an inflated ego and off-put hiring managers

Always remember to untag yourself from any photos that may raise eyebrows

We’re happiest when our ties with others are deep and strong. And the research tells us that the ebb and flow of happiness in America is clearly linked to the quality and character of our social ties—including our friendships, community ties, and marriage. It’s also linked, specifically, to the frequency with which we have sex.

So we investigated four indicators of sociability among today’s young adults—marriage, friendship, religious attendance, and sex—in an effort to explain

married young adults are about 75 percent more likely to report that they are very happy, compared with their peers who are not married

As it turns out, the share of young adults who are married has fallen from 59 percent in 1972 to 28 percent in 2018. The decline has been similar for men and women, although from 2016 to 2018 the share of married men fell, while the share of married women rose.

Faith was the second factor. Young adults who attend religious services more than once a month are about 40 percent more likely to report that they are very happy, compared with their peers who are not religious at all

The share of young adults who attend religious services more than monthly has fallen from 38 percent in 1972 to 27 percent in 2018, even as the share who never attend has risen rapidly.

The third factor was friendship. The effect of seeing friends frequently is less clear than that of marriage or religion, but young adults who see their friends regularly do seem to be about 10 percent more likely to report being very happy than their less-sociable peers.

Indeed, it may be that rising social time spent with friends in recent years could be buffering young adults from the declines in institutions such as marriage or religion, as friends stand in place of other relationships or forms of community.*

And, finally, we looked at sex. Young adults who have sex at least once a week are about 35 percent more likely to report that they are very happy, compared with their peers who have no sex.

This trend in rising sexlessness is broadly confirmed in other surveys of sexual behavior,

Less sex, we speculate, could help account for declining happiness for many young adults.

What’s more, as the #MeToo era has taught us, there has been too much unwanted or nonconsensual sex out there, which is obviously bad for the (more often female) target of such advances. From this perspective, the so-called sex recession might just amount to a sexual recalibration, with a lot of bad sex being eliminated from our social lives—and this would be a good thing. For all these reasons, the feminist family historian Stephanie Coontz is “suspicious of any hand-wringing” about the sex recession.

We actually were, I think, one of the first customers who actually requested this API

Imperson provides technology that knows how to automate this conversation in a realistic way, so the user believes he is speaking with a character or even the actor doing the character

I think there are a few different reasons why today it's more relevant and more attractive. We are taking familiar figures like celebrities; it's not just a chat bot that you speak with for the sake of your artificial intelligence curiosity. This is an entertainment experience. People chatting with Miss Piggy enjoy the experience as if they were chatting with the real Miss Piggy. In order to create the interaction, we were working with Disney people and Disney writers who actually write for Miss Piggy and make sure it's a completely authentic conversation.

And if they don’t want to work with you because you’re ‘too old,’ perhaps you don’t want to work with them either,” she said.

Fewer cars may also mean shorter travel times, less congestion, and a smaller environmental impact.

Real-time data planning and smart routing are already a reality, and more advances are coming in the wake of "intelligent city" initiatives around the world,

Imagine a world without traffic lights, where vehicular flows "magically" pass through one another and avoid collision

Traffic accidents, though rarer, would still be a possibility; in fact, they might be one of the main impediments to implementation of autonomous systems, demanding a restructuring of insurance and liability that could sustain armies of lawyers for years to com

We are all familiar with viruses crashing our computers, but what if a virus crashes our cars? Resolving these issues is crucial, but none is insurmountable.

describes the rules and restrictions we put on screen time. Some of these restrictions limit time, other restrictions filter content.

Restrictive Mediation

Unlimited access to media becomes one of the markers of adulthood.

Instructive Mediation describes what happens when we talk to our kids while watching a movie or playing a video game with them. Make it a teaching opportunity

Instructive mediation is key for raising kids that are critical thinkers and intelligent adults in a media saturated world–kids who know how to THINK about the media they consume.

Social Coviewing is when you watch something with your kids but don’t necessarily talk about it. This is what happens in a movie theater.

This is what happens when I watch Phineas and Ferb with my kids.

Parallel play is kind of like multitasking. I can be typing on my Chromebook next to my son while he’s playing minecraft. We engage in peripheral conversations, some tangential, and some directly related to the game he is playing.

Asymmetrical joint media engagement

While interacting with me online, I hope they learn good web etiquette. I’m teaching them lessons about propriety and social media. They see the kinds of things I write in emails and chats.

Big Brother government is replaced by Big Business.

the perils of aggregating vast amounts of personal data in huge centralized repositories of purportedly trusted third-parties.

ou simply put on the glove and bracelet and open the Remidi app. Through the app, you can program what sound you want to play when you make a specific movement.

You can also play music using Remidi over a background track or mix to make songs more engaging.