The development of increasingly sophisticated and powerful computers in the last few decades has frequently stimulated comparisons between them and the human brain. Such comparisons will become more earnest as computers are applied more and more to tasks formerly associated with essentially human activities and capabilities. The expectation of a coming generation of intelligent computers and robots with sensory, motor and even intellectual skills comparable in quality to our own is becoming more widespread and is leading to a new and potentially productive analytical science of information processing. In no field has this new approach been so precisely formulated and so thoroughly exemplified as in the field of vision. As the dominant sensory modality of man, vision is one of the major keys to our mastery of the environment, to our understanding and control of the objects wich surroud us. If we wish to create robots capable of performing complex manipulative tasks in a changing environment, we must surely endow them with (among other things) adequate visual powers. How can we set about designing such flexible and adaptive robots? In designing them, can we make use of our rapidly growing knowledge of the human brain, and if so, how at the same time, can our experience in designing artificial vision systems help us to understand how the brain analyzes visual information?

Leading scientists describe how advances in computer vision can change how we interact with computers.

The following are the proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Perception held in Pavia, Italy, on September 27-30, 1993, under the auspices of four institutions: the Group of Cybernetic and Biophysics (GNCB)s of the National Research Council (CNR), the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI * IA), the Italian Association of Psychology (AlP), and the Italian Chapter of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR). The theme of this third workshop was: "Human and Machine Vision: Analogies and Divergencies." A wide spectrum of topics was covered, ranging from neurophysiology, to computer architecture, to psychology, to image understanding, etc. For this reason the structure of this workshop was quite different from those of the first two held in Parma (1991), and Trieste (1992). This time the workshop was composed of just eight modules, each one consisting of two invited lectures (dealing with vision in nature and machines, respectively) and a common panel discussion (including the two lecturers and three invited panellists).

Human and Machine Vision provides information pertinent to an interdisciplinary program of research in visual perception. This book presents a psychophysical study of the human visual system, which provides insights on how to model the flexibility required by a general-purpose visual system. Organized into 17 chapters, this book begins with an overview of how a visual display is segmented into components on the basis of textual differences. This text then proposes three criteria for judging representations of shape. Other chapters consider an increased use of machine vision programs as models of human vision and of data from human vision in developing programs for machine vision. This book discusses as well the diversity and flexibility of systems for representing visual information. The final chapter deals with dot patterns and discusses the process of interring orientation information from collections of them. This book is a valuable resource for psychologists, neurophysiologists, and computer scientists.

“This gonzo-journalistic exploration of the Silicon Valley techno-utopians’ pursuit of escaping mortality is a breezy romp full of colorful characters.” —New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice) Transhumanism is a movement pushing the limits of our bodies—our capabilities, intelligence, and lifespans—in the hopes that, through technology, we can become something better than ourselves. It has found support among Silicon Valley billionaires and some of the world’s biggest businesses. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell explores the staggering possibilities and moral quandaries that present themselves when you of think of your body as a device. He visits the world's foremost cryonics facility to witness how some have chosen to forestall death. He discovers an underground collective of biohackers, implanting electronics under their skin to enhance their senses. He meets a team of scientists urgently investigating how to protect mankind from artificial superintelligence. Where is our obsession with technology leading us? What does the rise of AI mean not just for our offices and homes, but for our humanity? Could the technologies we create to help us eventually bring us to harm? Addressing these questions, O'Connell presents a profound, provocative, often laugh-out-loud-funny look at an influential movement. In investigating what it means to be a machine, he offers a surprising meditation on what it means to be human.